Acme Bread Company facts for kids
 |
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Food production |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Founder | Steve Sullivan |
| Headquarters |
,
USA
|
|
Area served
|
California |
|
Key people
|
Steve Sullivan, Founder and President |
| Products | Bread |
| Revenue | $14.5 million |
|
Number of employees
|
168 |
The Acme Bread Company, often called Acme Bread, is a famous bakery located in Berkeley, California. It helped start the "Bread Revolution" in the San Francisco Bay Area, which led to the popular "artisan bread" movement we see today. Acme Bread is still known for making some of the best handmade bread.
Contents
How Acme Bread Started
Steve Sullivan, the founder of Acme Bread, grew up in Los Gatos, California. He went to the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. To earn money, he worked as a busboy at a famous restaurant called Chez Panisse.
During a summer trip to Europe, Steve bought a book about making bread. He was excited by the book and wanted to make bread like the delicious bread he tasted in Paris. So, he started trying out different recipes himself.
In 1979, Chez Panisse needed more bread than their usual supplier could make. Steve then became the restaurant's own breadmaker. But his breadmaking took up a lot of space, which the restaurant also needed for cooking.
In 1983, with encouragement from the restaurant, Steve decided to open his own company, Acme. He and his wife, Susan, started Acme with about $180,000. Part of this money came from Patrick Simmons, a guitarist from the band The Doobie Brothers.
The Special Starter
Before starting their business, Steve and Susan went on their honeymoon to France. While visiting a winery, the owner's son suggested they make their bread starter from the natural yeast found on wine grapes.
When they returned home, Steve collected special grapes from his father's vineyard. He used these grapes to make the "mother starter" that Acme still uses today. This starter is a mix of flour, water, and natural yeast from the grapes. It's what gives Acme's bread its unique flavor.
What Acme Bread Makes
Acme Bread sells many delicious baked goods. These include different kinds of bread like baguettes and batards, as well as rolls, pastries, and croissants (both chocolate and plain). They also make croutons.
Their main breads are made with either sourdough or "sweet" white bread dough. They also offer other types, like multi-grain and walnut levain. Acme sells whole loaves of bread, not sliced ones.
In 1999, after two years of careful study, the company started using only organic wheat flour for their products.
How Acme Bread Operates
Acme Bread has four bakeries. They opened a bakery in Berkeley in 1989 that only sells to other businesses. In 1996, they opened another bakery in Mountain View, which later moved to South San Francisco in 2016.
In 2004, Acme opened a bakery and retail shop in San Francisco as part of the Ferry Building's renovation. You can also find Acme's baked goods at farmers' markets in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View.
The main bakery in Berkeley works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with three different shifts of bakers. The San Francisco location bakes only during the daytime. The larger bakeries can produce 60,000 or more loaves of bread each week!
Making Sourdough Bread
Making Acme's sourdough loaves is a long process that takes 35 hours before they are even baked. First, yeast from the special "mother starter" is mixed with more flour and water to create a large "sponge." This sponge is kept cold for 12 hours.
After that, the sponge is mixed with a lot more flour, water, and salt. Then, bakers carefully shape the dough by hand into loaves. The bread is baked in a big brick oven that has a spinning floor and steam to keep the perfect humidity. This helps create the bread's famous crust.
Selling the Bread
Acme Bread does very little marketing or advertising. They don't have salespeople or a marketing team. They sell directly to customers at their San Francisco and Berkeley bakeries.
However, more than 80% of their sales are to other businesses, mostly local restaurants and markets. Some fancy restaurants, like Boulevard and Farallon, spend a lot of money on Acme bread each year. Even though the Ferry Building shop is very popular with tourists, it's a smaller part of Acme's overall business.
Acme breads are also delivered to about 40 restaurants and stores in Sacramento by a special agent. This person picks up the bread in Berkeley every morning and also sells loaves to individual customers in Roseville who pick them up from his home.
See also
