La Brea Bakery is partnering with founder Nancy Silverton to celebrate the brand’s 30th anniversary.
Silverton, who founded the bakery on South La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles in 1989 and is credited with bringing the artisan bread movement to the U.S., is working with the bakery to develop special edition breads to commemorate the milestone. The La Brea Bakery Founders line is set to launch later this year and will include items featuring ingredients like sprouted grains, alternative flours and, as always, Silverton’s original sourdough starter.
“I originally opened La Brea Bakery because I wanted to create authentic artisan breads—the artisan bread movement hadn’t yet arrived in the United States,” Silverton said. “Within a few weeks of opening, we were selling out of our baguettes and loaves before the end of the day. I didn’t anticipate the bakery would get such a strong fan following so quickly—it was such an amazing opportunity to be in the kitchen with people I loved making great bread, and I’m very much looking forward to revisiting my roots and partnering with La Brea Bakery for the 30th anniversary.”
In the early 1990s, La Brea opened a larger bakery in central Los Angeles to serve growing demand from stores and restaurants in Southern California. The bakery’s best-known breads—including the French Baguette, Rosemary Olive Oil, Country White Sourdough and Whole Grain—quickly grew to include more varieties and new flavors.
In the late 1990s, La Brea Bakery opened its second café at Downtown Disney in Anaheim and, shortly thereafter, the breads became available on a nationwide scale. However, the original artisan baking process Silverton started still is used the create the breads.
“We’ve grown tremendously over the last 30 years—not only in distribution, but also in our bread selection,” said Jonathan Davis, SVP of research and development at La Brea Bakery, who has been with the company since its opening. “While our core breads remain our biggest sellers, we’ve expanded the bread program in recent years to include gluten-free breads, take-and-bake varieties and our Reserve program, which is our farm-to-table portfolio. It’s been a remarkable experience to have witnessed the bakery evolve into what it is today.”
La Brea Bakery now is owned by Aryzta, a manufacturer and distributor of bread, buns, cookies, pizza and other baked goods.
Cookie line extension at Minnesota bakery
In other Aryzta news, the company has extended its frozen cookie dough line at its bakery in Chaska, Minnesota, which produces Otis Spunkmeyer branded cookies and custom cookies for retail, convenience and foodservice customers.
Scheduled to open in March, the new state-of-the-art line will add a third line to the bakery’s current two-line footprint, expanding its production capacity and throughput by more than 40 percent.
“We are responding to increased demand of our popular Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, as well as custom cookies produced for our customers,” said Dave Johnson, CEO of Aryzta North America. “Chaska’s third line will enable us to meet our customers’ frozen cookie dough needs across foodservice, convenience and retail channels. We are investing to further strengthen our supply chain to better support our customers.”
Through the line extension, Aryzta also increases its support of the local Chaska community with the addition of 30 new jobs.
