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“BMW” of Breads Debuts

by Allan Appel | Feb 7, 2011 12:38 pm

(13) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Business/Labor/ Economic Development, Food, Wooster Square

Allan Appel Photo When one of this winter’s monster storms hit New Haven, the postal service wasn’t able to fulfill many of its daily rounds. But neither snow nor sleet stopped New Haven’s newest bakery from delivering muesli loaves and stollen to local stores.

The fresh bread came from Whole G or Whole German Breads, LLC, which recently made its flour-y, aromatic debut on Hamilton Street.

“Bread is a service to the community, it’s not just a business,” says Andrea Corazzini. Corazzini and his wife Kiara Matos officially began selling their artisanal muesli bread, feigenbrot, or fig bread, and a range of multigrain fitness loaves, and more than a dozen other products back this fall. An official factory opening is being planned soon.

Whole G already has four employees and bakes 150 loaves daily. The owners hope to grow to 20 employees and 2,000 loaves a day.

They also want to have schoolkids come and learn that beyond Wonder there exists a world where bread contains hazelnuts, oats, and the healthful seeds of flax, sesame, poppy, sunflower, and pumpkin.

Or as Corazzini says, basically “a box of granola in a loaf.”

They rise (the Whole G people, not the bread) at 3 a.m., go the gleaming bakery at 105 Hamilton St. fitted out with the latest digital German ovens, mixers and other equipment, and finish baking by 6 or 7 a.m..

Then they deliver by ten daily to a half dozen markets in New Haven, Hamden, and Fairfield. That included the Xmas blizzard and last week’s storm—even though it turned out not all their customers were open for business..

“We’re novices [about who would be open], but we’re very responsible,” said Corazzini.

A native of Abruzzi in Italy, Corazzini met his wife and partner in the business Kiara Matos in Caraccas, Venezuela, where he had been involved in the textile business.

Seven years ago he switched careers to what he described as the more “human dimension” of baking healthy and tasty staffs of life for very local consumption.

When it was clear to them that Venezuela was too politically unstable to raise a family, they had to decide where to emigrate.

Matos remembered attending Albertus Magnus College here 20 years ago, when she was 17. She had a good New Haven experience.

Her “second parents,” Elizabeth and Jerry Coffey, with whom she lived during that period, turned out to be good friends with Charles Negaro of the community-minded Chabaso Bakery. (Click here to read a story on Chabaso’s work with the Fair Haven Health Center.

When it came time to emigrate from Venezuela, Matos told her husband “I will go only to New Haven.”

Negaro offered at first to partner with Corazzini and Matos. “He offered unconditional help. He really gave me the final push,” Corazzini said.

Negaro was looking for another storage site and took two-thirds of the Hamilton Street building.

Corazzini and Matos took the other. After an expensive build-out early in 2010 and importation of the latest equipment, the breads began to rise.

The company does some baking for Chabaso and Atticus to help with the cash flow, but Corazzini is increasingly staking out a separate territory, he said.

That would be breads made with organic ingredients, with the wide range of techniques and range of German breads, and delivered daily.

“If you want fresh every day, you have to limit yourself in radius” in terms of customers, he said. Currently that radius is six miles, which includes the Whitneyville Market in Hamden, and several markets along Orange Street, and Edge of the Woods.

Corrazini said he hopes to expand the radius to 30 miles to include, for example, Bishop’s Orchard in Guilford.

With both fine baking and spiffy marketing and packaging, Whole G aims to counter the stereotype of the German as heavy and dense.

These shnitt brotchen, rolls akin to Kaiser rolls, are dense but nearly weightless, he explained. Americans don’t know about them but soon will, as they’re a new Whole G product.

As to the packaging, Corrazini said, he hopes aims to counter what he called the stereotyped image of the German as “a fat lady with beer in both hands. We’re imagining the BMW of breads.”

He said the company has also taken a page from the marketing of blue jeans. In epochs gone by you used to have to try them on to see if they fit, but now there are wide-legged jeans, narrow, and so forth. Tailored, designed’ no trying on.

Corazzini said he has done the same with a multi-grain “fitness” bread, each loaf presented each in its own jauntily colored bag. One is for the person who wants the whole grains and whole seeds, the most healthful creation with rye, wheat, sourdough, and maize

Another version is what Corazzini called “more hedonistic,” that is with whiter, creamier flour. And then there’s a third designed for those who “want to stay lean without compromising taste.”

With so many loaves to choose from, potential customers were confused, so Whole G simplified.

The muesli goes for $5.99, the feigenbrot for a dollar more.

Many of the ingredients are organic; raisins are of the dark black variety specially purchased so as not to be coated with sulfur dioxide. The operation is certified kosher.

Corazziini said that for every 1,000 pounds of bread sent to the large stores, 300 pounds are cleared from the shelf every day into the garbage.

Whole G’s goal in addition to selling enough loaves to be viable is to bake just enough for each community to have minimal “returns.”

He recently introduced an orange cake created out of the returned muesli breads. Such a process is common in Germany, he said.

This year he also hopes to bring kids from the New Haven Public Schools in to see the German tradition and perhaps offer some training.

There are limits to public service. “During the next blizzard,” Corazzini said, “I hope to remain in bed.”

Comments

posted by: ASL on February 7, 2011 2:15pm

Love this addition to New Haven’s artisan bread scene. This bread is delicious. Even our 1 year old loves the Fit bread and it’s wonderful to have another delicious local bread option for our family.

posted by: L on February 7, 2011 4:30pm

Great news! Do they take walk-ins? I mean, can one walk in and buy a loaf, or only at area stores?

posted by: Truth Avenger on February 7, 2011 4:51pm

MMM-MMM…Great! Can’t wait to get my hands on a couple of loaves…I hope Whole G brings their loaves to the Farmer’s Market (Westville). It would be great to buy local and support this tasty, healthful alternative. We are glad the company has started the business here-in the Elm City and New Haven folk should make it their business to support this business. Welcome, and thank you NHI for highlighting this great source of baked goodness.

posted by: streever on February 7, 2011 5:21pm

This is exceptional bread.

I’d love to see it for sale at farmer’s markets and at every market in the city—the Elm City Coop should buy stock.

posted by: East Rockette on February 7, 2011 8:54pm

This bread is unbelievably good—it’s what real bread tastes like everywhere else in the world—and I love that our local markets are stocking it.

Two questions: will there be a ‘factory shop’ where we can come and buy loaves bulk and wholesale?

And how can we get this phenomenal bread on the menu in the public schools?

posted by: gaby on February 7, 2011 10:03pm

Whoah! 300 pounds in the garbage? Isn’t there some way to get this day-old bread to some of New Haven’s homeless shelters or soup kitchens?

posted by: anne on February 7, 2011 10:56pm

i second gaby’s question. that is unconscionable! day-old bread can be sold at a discount or donated to any number of places in town.

posted by: nate on February 8, 2011 10:37am

The bread sounds fantastic! Could someone list the places it is on sale? I’ve missed good German bread.

I have to agree with the last two posters though—-tossing our 300 pounds of bread a day is wasteful and frankly quite troubling. Donate it! Leave out in front of the shop until morning! Find a shelter that would send someone to pick it up! So many options besides wasting it.

posted by: Andrea Corazzini on February 8, 2011 11:28am

Hello.
The returns rate fresh artisan bread sold to supermarkets can reach up to 30%. Supermarkets want to have their stores looking full all the time , and consumers want to pick a product out of a full shelve and not ” the last one ” We sometime get 30 returned loafs out of 100 “sold” loaf and it is heartbreaking to see such a nice product going to waste . We will put an end to this before the end of the month. Check our Facebook page in a couple of weeks and find out how .
Local stores that carry our breads :
Whitneyville Food Center
Romeo and Cesare ( Orange st.)
P&M (Orange St )
Edge of the Woods Natural Market
Liuzzi Gourmet
Village Market ( Wilton )
Peter’s Market ( Wilton )

Hopefully we will soon be at local farmers markets.
Thanks
Andrea

posted by: epstign on February 8, 2011 3:52pm

Warning…the fig loaf is absolutely addictive!

posted by: Rebecca Kline on February 8, 2011 6:12pm

I love this bread and these bakers. Thank you for choosing New Haven.

posted by: Edward Magenheimer on February 9, 2011 1:14pm

I was given a Whole G “Stollen” loaf as an Xmas present by my now “favorite” nephew. It was incredible! The best I ever tasted and I am no dummkopf when it concerns stollen! I should have saved a piece for my wife, sorry Norma, maybe next time. By the way, Owen, my birthday is in August, hope to see you….and something Whole G.

posted by: Henry Berliner on February 9, 2011 2:24pm

This bread is divine. And the croissants are to die for.

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