Sunday, June 07, 2009 | Food, Q&A
Rise and shine

Getting to know local bakery owner Ted Beveridge

Spark St. Jude
Ted Beveridge, Great Harvest Bread Company

After earning an MBA in finance and accounting at Vanderbilt University, Ted Beveridge worked as a financial analyst in the deregulated energy industry. But he decided to trade spreadsheets and corporate meetings for tie-dye and chocolate chips, and in March 2006, opened a Great Harvest Bread Company franchise. Great Harvest, which has its “breadquarters” in Montana, is a nationwide network of locally owned bakeries that use freshly ground premium whole grains from family owned farms in Montana. While milling some of that wheat, Beveridge chatted about his bakery with The Sunday Paper.

Why a bakery?

When I decided to step away from corporate life, I was looking for something that I would enjoy doing. I did a lot of research, looked at franchises and independent small businesses. I wanted something that I would have fun being involved in—maybe I was naïve or a little foolish, but that was more important to me than money or other considerations. I knew about Great Harvest Bread Company from being a customer, and I thought it would be fun to do.

Has it been as fun as you’d hoped?

It’s been more enjoyable, but also much harder than I thought it would be. It’s been physically more demanding. I started this when I was 36 and went from sitting behind a desk to lifting 50-pound bags of flour and being on my feet all day. But it has been enjoyable overall. I underestimated the connection I’d have with employees and customers—I didn’t expect we’d be friends to this extent. It’s been more difficult and more fun; a richer, bigger experience than I thought it was going to be.

Are all recipes company standards?

Great Harvest is really unusual, it’s the "freedom franchise"—all the owners get to do almost entirely what they want with very few rules. One rule is that when we mill flour, we don’t let it stand around for more than 48 hours. We all stick to the standard recipe for honey whole wheat bread, but all the other recipes I could do whatever I want.

One hundred percent whole grain bread is what makes us different. We have a stone mill right here and mill wheat into flour every day. It’s really fresh and truly made from scratch. We get here at 4 a.m. and do everything completely from scratch every day. We have wholesome, simple recipes: Our honey whole wheat is flour, water, honey, yeast and salt. No preservatives.

What are your best sellers?

We specialize in freshly ground whole wheat products. Our best sellers are honey whole wheat, “high five” fiber and Dakota, but we also sell a lot of challah on Fridays. Our customers requested a whole wheat version of the challah; 100 percent whole wheat was too much, but now we make a 50 percent version called “hippie challah.” Our most popular muffin is pumpkin chocolate chip, but we introduced cheddar chive recently that is becoming our second most popular. Our best selling savory bread is “Popeye,” spinach and feta.

We almost always have something seasonal. Cherry apple berry bread is good for summer. Later in the summer, we’ll have peach cobbler swirl.

Is community involvement important to you?

Our bakery does not market the fact that we do kids’ tours at all, but word of mouth and repeat visitors have made them frequent and one of the notable characteristics of our store. They’re free, and we do them for elementary schools, moms’ groups, Girl Scout troops and so on. We try to give kids a farm-to-table education on how bread is made.

    We do a lot of charitable donations. Our bread keeps for seven to 10 days generally and if it doesn’t sell the first day, then the second day we donate it. We donate more than 1,000 loaves of bread a year to help the homeless and near homeless. We’ll also donate gift baskets to local churches and schools for fundraising. We’ve supported more than 50 local organizations. SP

 
Great Harvest Bread Company is located at 2173 Briarcliff Road. For more information call 404-633-0769 or visit www.greatharvestatlanta.com. Other Georgia locations include Duluth, Marietta, Rome and Smyrna.