Chef Chatter

Chef Chatter: 4 ways to make your food stand out

Janet Tatarka, director of bakery logistics and training at Great Harvest Bread Co, discusses the importance of brands adhering to their values in order to deliver best-of-the-best quality and customer experience.

October 11, 2019

By Janet Tatarka, Director of Bakery-Cafe Training, Great Harvest Bread Company

Editor's note: Chef Chatter is a series featuring chef-authored blogs. If you'd like to write a Chef Chatter blog, send your idea to editor@fastcasual.com.

Despite the competitive landscape, fast casual dining should always begin and end with a phenomenal product. The key to avoid being just any ordinary player is to find what makes you stand out as a brand. At Great Harvest Bread Company, we differentiate ourselves by baking phenomenal bread and letting the slices speak for themselves. There are multitudes of sandwich options out there, but most places serve mass-produced breads, not making fresh baked, hand-made bread from scratch daily or curating different breads to different insides to create an extraordinary sandwich experience. Every brand can make a name for itself if they focus on providing a quality product first, and ours is based on creating sandwiches where finally the outside is as good as the inside.

Great Harvest has been baking bread the way it ought to be since 1976. With nearly 200 locations of independently owned and operated whole grain bread bakery cafes — the franchise centers everything they do on providing the freshest, made from scratch products.

Hand-made artisan is defined as a form of art done by the people, for the people. From exceptional ingredients to hiring dedicated craftsmen, brands must adhere to their values in order to successfully deliver best of the best quality and customer experience.

Bakery cafe concepts are centered on the communities they serve and are strengthened by their commitment to doing artisan right to deliver a great product. As dedicated bakers, we wholeheartedly believe in the fresh smell and mouthwatering taste that continues to draw “bread addicts” through our doors. In fact, many of our franchisees began as loyal customers first. The exceptional wholesome product and commitment to the process is what drew them in to inquiring how they can bring this into other communities. Here are four ways other fast casual concepts can infuse their product with integrity:

1. Start with an exceptional product
The key to making a phenomenal product from scratch begins with the task of finding fresh ingredients to source from trusted providers and developing a genuine relationship with them. Great Harvest has been purchasing wheat berries from family-owned farms in the infamous Golden Triangle of Montana for the past 40 years. The Golden Triangle is to wheat, what Napa Valley is to wine. This legendary region is known for growing the best wheat in the world.
The farmers who grow our wheat know Great Harvest is a tough client. Every year, we conduct stringent testing on the crops to measure protein content, moisture level, baking qualities and, of course, taste. We also conduct wheat testing for chemical residue and GMOs to be sure our wheat is clean. The high-quality wheat we ultimately purchase allows us to bake without using artificial dough conditioners to boost loaf size. Our growers know that the slightest variation in the wheat crop can completely change the flavor, size and shape of a loaf. Consistency is always the key.

With a phenomenal base product — there is an endless assortment of delicious creations that can be crafted from breakfast to dinner. A common site at Great Harvest Bread is customers standing in long lines for breads, muffins and cinnamon rolls in the morning, as well as lunch items such as freshly made deli sandwiches including chicken or tuna salad, roast beef, plus vegetarian varieties all made on their choice of bread made that morning.

2. Avoid shortcuts in production
Most brands utilize the commissary model in warehouses to mass produce their foods in order to speed up the production process — quick and easy for perceived customer satisfaction and a quick ROI. However, in the long run, it's worth taking the high road to deliver the best of the best. Artisanry work requires you to take the diligence of completely handmaking everything from start to finish. Great Harvest takes part in every step of the process from sourcing the wheat to grinding it in a stone mill to baking that perfect loaf of bread. First, our growers send their wheat harvest samples to suppliers for preliminary testing. Only the test lots that meet the specified criteria are sent on to our research & development bakery in Dillon, Montana where they undergo further testing.

The elite class of wheat berries that are purchased are sent to our 200 locations nationwide, where our bakeries mill them into flour each morning. This is a pretty uncommon practice. Most bakeries simply purchase bags of flour that were milled months prior by another company. It's not just going the extra mile for our customers. It's a game changer that makes our bread more flavorful. Fresh milled flour has better texture and a more complex depth of flavor. We don't add anything. No preservatives. No conditioners. Nothing. Just five simple ingredients: fresh-ground whole wheat flour, water, fresh yeast, salt and usually local honey. This is why our bread is the furthest thing from processed. Whatever your local Great Harvest serves, you know you'll be getting real food that tastes great. We make our food the right way, with wholesome ingredients and from scratch, so you can feel good about eating our treats.

There are no short cuts to making an exceptional product. A company will profit much higher by taking the time to keep the ingredients honest and by using the best baking methods rather than the fastest or cheapest way.

3. Hire craftsmen to create art
The individuals you bring on your team — especially for back-end production — need to be true artisans. The word says it all! It is crucial that your employees consider themselves artists among their craft, no matter what it may be. They must truly be passionate about taking the time to work their magic and willing to engage in efforts to make the product special. Although there are recipes and systems to utilize, the right employee won't simply press a few buttons or open a can of pre-made ingredients. It may sound cliché but with bread baking you really have to pay attention to each individual loaf of bread. It's not something you can just throw in the oven, set a timer and walk away from. You really have to listen for it, feel it, and look after it. You're not making widgets; you're crafting beautiful individually handmade loaves. Bread is an art form and consumers want their slices to be held to the same high-quality standards as what's in between the sandwich. The key to standing out among other concepts is to hire “artists” who embrace their technique and ensure each customer is satisfied at every bite.

4. Add to the atmosphere
Any restaurant should emulate the vision it has for its customer experience and allow it to flow throughout the space. Great Harvest prides itself on being a purely artisan environment, where the daily baking promotes a home-kitchen feel inside the bakery cafe. Any customer that walks through the door is immediately met with our secret weapon — the delicious aroma of freshly, handmade bread, making them melt before they even take their first bite. They can also comfortably enjoy the warm and welcoming setting as they sit down to enjoy their order. Although, the product is ultimately the most important asset of a restaurant — the atmosphere adds to the overall dining experience.

For any fast casual artisan brand to find success, it's imperative that they instill the proper mindset that each aspect of the concept needs to be thoroughly thought-out and truly crafted like a piece of fine art. In order to give the consumer an experience that encompasses artistry, it has to be rooted in passion and attention to detail. This is not an ambience that can be fabricated or easily achieved, but, nonetheless, it is appreciated by the recurring guest that indulges in something as timeless as a loaf of bread.

Janet Tatarka, director of bakery logistics and training at Great Harvest Bread Co, has been cooking/baking since she was 10 years old, when she and her sister were in charge of meals while their mother ran a 19-unit motel attached to their home. What started off as a necessity to help out her mom, became a life-long passion. Even with her mother now gone, she had passed down a family tradition that brings her husband and two kids together — every year starting as early as October, Janet and her family bake handfuls of fully stocked trays of cookies and holiday treats for anyone that has made an impact in their life that year. Her joy for baking led her to her career with Great Harvest where she has been for 28 years. She helps train bakers and new business owners to be the best bakers and business owners they can be. She has a whole overview of the complete process, the tracking guide, layout support & Sandwich School and Bread Week through Great Harvest University, Bakery School.

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