How Bridge Bread is Navigating the Pandemic

Bridge Bread Bakery had a diversified distribution and sales strategy:

  • We sold our products on consignment at four dozen area churches.
  • Our food truck sold at up to five events a week. (Some events in bad weather were ‘pop-ups’ inside.)
  • We were very popular at the Tower Grover Farmers’ Market. (The Winter Market was inside.)
  • The Chase Park-Plaza Hotel bought our dinner rolls for banquets and other events.
  • Our shop on Cherokee offered dine-in and take-out service.
  • Several restaurants and coffee shops bought our products to sell to their customers.

The pandemic ended every single sales channel. We closed our retail bake shop on Cherokee.

We re-invented ourselves with two strategies and a lot of help from our supporters:

  • We already had a Free Bread Program where generous donors provide the funding for us to make fresh sliced sandwich bread that we give to local food pantries. With the increased needs at the pantries, we asked for donations to dramatically ramp up this program and our supporters provided generous funding. We are making over 1,000 loaves a week for this program.
  • Our customers still wanted their Bridge Bread, but needed to stay safe, so we started Bridge Bread delivery with an online store and convenient, safe home delivery with no minimum purchase.

Thank you to our donors that make the Free Bread Program possible and thank you to the customers that continue to order for delivery or pick-up.