There’s no shortage of bakeries in Paris – Johanna Hartzheim, co-founder of a bakery subscription service Wild grainsays Entrepreneur“It’s a cultural thing to have a fresh baguette. You buy a baguette every day, fresh croissants on every corner. It’s always warm because they whip so much bread that [every time] you come in, [it] just taken out of the oven.”
Image Source: Courtesy of Wildgrain. Johanna Hartzheim.
So when Hartzheim and her husband and co-founder Ismail Salhi moved from the French capital to Boston in 2015 to work at music equipment company Qleek, the local power supply fell wanting their expectations.
Unlike Europe, the U.S. didn’t offer freshly baked bread and pastries block by block. Products sat on bakery shelves longer, and those in supermarkets often had long lists of unfamiliar ingredients, including fillers and shelf stabilizers. “That’s not right,” Hartzheim says. “Bread should be flour, water and salt. And that’s it.”
Hartzheim had at all times loved baking but was “a little afraid” of bread, which presented its own set of challenges. But motivated by a lack of selection and a desire to eat in addition to possible while pregnant with her and Salhi’s first child, she turned to a friend’s father, who had been making sourdough for years, for mentoring.
Soon she began spending every weekend learning the secrets of baking bread and was soon baking greater than she and her family could eat.
“With sourdough, if you make one loaf, or 20, or 50, it’s the same amount of work because that’s the time you put into it,” Hartzheim explains. “The night before, you have to freshen up the start, and the next day, you have to mix the dough, let it sit, and then fold it every hour. So if you just increase the total volume, it doesn’t change the amount of time it takes.”
Hartzheim shared her loaves with friends and neighbors and then began experimenting with the prebaking method, which involves partially baking the bread and then freezing it before ending it.
“People still want to eat better” [and are] more aware of what they feed their body.”
In 2020, the pandemic hit Hartzheim and Salhi’s early business hard, as live events were one of her biggest customer acquisition channels. But Hartzheim saw an opportunity: There was a gap in the market—the same one that initially inspired her to bake her own bread.
“It’s so difficult” [when] “the closest thing you have is a Walmart or something like that, where you may get Wonder Bread, not likely nice artisan bread,” Hartzheim says, “and I think Americans are becoming more health conscious. It was trendy, but people still wish to eat higher [and are] more aware of what they feed their bodies and what they provide to their children. Now that I’m a mother, what I give to my children is essential to me.”
The solution? Hartzheim envisioned shipping artisanal, slowly fermented bread and other baked goods straight to people’s doors.
In 2020, Wildgrain was founded. The company received a $750,000 seed round from investment firm Bolt, which also invested in Hartzheim and Salhi’s previous startup, Qleek, before it launched. “It took off really quickly, which was unexpected but great,” Hartzheim says. “We started the company the same week my son was born, so it was kind of crazy.”
Image Source: Courtesy of Wildgrain
Despite the chaos, Hartzheim was well-prepared to tackle her latest enterprise. At this point, she had been baking bread for greater than a year, and her friends at ButcherBox, a Boston-based meat subscription service, gave her helpful advice on the subscription model. The scalability of sourdough starter, which she discovered, also proved to be a big advantage.
“Most bakers didn’t like the idea of pre-baking or freezing bread.”
However, like most latest businesses, Wildgrain has encountered some challenges along the way.
The initial idea was to send customers raw dough. That way, people could bake bread from scratch and enjoy maximum freshness, Hartzheim explains. Unfortunately, many people struggled to bake raw, often lacking the obligatory equipment, resembling a Dutch oven, which mimics a skilled bakery oven by retaining moisture and creating the correct quantity of puffiness.
“If you don’t have it [equipment] and just throw the dough on the pan, it will rise weirdly and look awful. It’s mostly about the look, because we sell our bread online,” Hartzheim says. “People like to post it on Instagram and [we] we work a lot with influencers. That’s how we reach our audience. So if something looks bad and is just an ugly piece of cake, nobody says, “Oh, this is delicious. Let me buy it.”
In addition, Hartzheim needed more hands in the kitchen if the business was to succeed. She and Salhi found a shared kitchen to serve that purpose, but the pandemic presented one other obstacle: Only two people could work in the kitchen at a time.
Image Source: Courtesy of Wildgrain
Ironically, Hartzheim’s original bread-making method, the parbaking method, offered a dual solution to a difficult product problem. AND limited production capability. This process would ensure that customers would bake a perfect loaf every time, and local bakeries could use it to extend Wildgrain production.
The next natural step was to seek out bakeries that were open to freezing bread before baking it—a task that turned out to be no easy feat. “Most bakers weren’t crazy about the idea of prebaking, freezing bread,” Hartzheim recalls. “It’s kind of at odds with the way artisan bread is made.” But with the pandemic-induced economic crisis upon us, Hartzheim won them over. That was “a big turning point,” she says.
“As long as you are motivated and passionate, I think you can do anything.”
Wilgrain’s dynamic approach and willingness to alter direction have helped the company grow over the years. The company now ships products in every single place in the continental United States, offering no-strings-attached memberships and customizable boxes stuffed with frozen products that bake in 25 minutes or less, with no thawing required. A six-item box costs $99, while a 12-item box costs $159, each also available in plant-based versions.
While the price per unit is significantly higher than what you’d typically find on supermarket shelves, Hartzheim says customers are willing to pay more for better-for-you baked goods — in part because the pandemic has shown people how difficult the process may be. The brand, which is only 4 years old, is raking in eight figures.
Hartzheim says the key for aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to break into the food industry and beyond is to be fearless and take motion that will set them up for success.
“Just do it, because it’s something you learn as you go,” Hartzheim says. “It sounds a little cliché, but if you’re motivated and passionate, you can do anything. I didn’t know anything about tracking, importing, all that stuff, but it’s not quantum physics. You can learn anything or find the right people who know these things.”
This Women Entrepreneurs® This article is a part of our series in which we describe the stories, challenges and successes of ladies running a business.