As Longtime Bakeries Shutter, New Bread Rises in NYC
Posted on 01. Nov, 2010 by Lisa Riordan Seville in Uncategorized
First it was Stella D’Oro’s cookies, then Old London’s Melba toast—and now, Wonder Bread. Over the past 12 months, three longtime New York City baking manufacturers have announced they are leaving town, and putting more than 600 union employees out of work.
Despite exodus of longtime companies, baking remains one bright spot in the rather bleak story of manufacturing in New York City.
As Melba toast and sliced white have left the city for the greener, and less unionized, pastures of Ohio and North Carolina, the new companies catering to a growing taste for artisan and ethic baked goods have helped temper job loss.
Baking manufacturing employs just under 8,500, a modest rise from about 7,440 in 2002, according to the New York State Department of Labor. Those jobs accounted for about 60 percent of all the food manufacturing positions in the five boroughs.
Whereas Stella D’Oro, the Old London and Wonder Bread produced self-stable products aimed for consumers often far outside the five boroughs, many of the newer operations depend upon proximity to the local market. To Adam Friedman, the executive director of the Pratt Center and a longtime advocate for industry, high-quality pastries provide the ultimate example.
Flaky pain au chocolat and buttery muffins must be made close in order to get into the hands of Manhattanites by the 7 a.m. rush.
In a city that survives on its morning coffee, “all those croissants are very important,” says Friedman.
Friedman and others have targeted food production as a potential growth market in a city where manufacturing remains anemic. Food manufacturing itself has fared well in recent years, keeping a fairly steady 14,000 jobs in the city even as larger manufacturing sector has dwindled from 178,800 in 2000 to just 80,000 in September of this year, the most recent data available.
Because bakers are subject to the same price pressures that drove many out of town and over seas, the most successful making manufacturers use location to their advantage. At Amy’s Bread, an artisan bakery with locations throughout Manhattan, that means cultivating a presence in the community to attract both retail and wholesale customers.
“We are such a part of our neighborhood,” says owner Amy Scherber. “We really feel that’s part of our identity.”
To Scherber, being in the city is essential. The bread “has to be eaten right away,” she says. “It’s not bagged. It’s not going to be shipped hundreds of miles.”
Amy’s Bread does both wholesale and retail, a hybrid Sherber says allows her to better weather shift in the market. In the recent downturn, restaurants scaled down their orders, but more people in suits and heels came in for a $6.50 sandwich.
The flexibility has helped the company grow from five employees in 1992 to around 180 today. About 70 of them are bakers, many of whom proof dough and stack hot loaves at the Chelsea Market, a former Nabisco factory. The bread made there goes on the racks at the retail store in Chelsea, and gets trucked to 200 wholesale customers around the city.
With a push from advocates like freedom and a swelling sense of awareness about food and health, investors have begun to recognize local food manufacturers business as worthy ventures. In 2008, a pair of investment groups acquired Tom Cat Bakery, a multi-million dollar artisan bakery in Long Island City.
Last month, the New York City Industrial Development Agency, an arm of the quasi-public Economic Development Corporation, put together incentives for the expansion of a local pita bread manufacturer in Queens. The $2.4 million package will help Mediterranean Gyros Products, Inc. add 5,400 sq. ft. and five new employees to its Long Island City factory.
“New York’s food manufacturing businesses are an important segment of the city’s industrial sector,” said EDC spokesman Kyle Sklerov. “We are constantly seeking out opportunities to support the food industry.”
The EDC has also helped set up La Marqueta, a food incubator in East Harlem slated to open by the end of the year. Hot Bread Kitchen, a Queens non-profit that helps train low-income women in the food industry, will move west to become the anchor tenant.
Stella D’Oro cookies may have exhausted their shelf life in the city, but the new operations popping up indicate New York City still has room for people looking to cook up a new venture.
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