For the SME Interview Assignment, I interviewed Business Manager of La Farm Bakery in Cary, NC Gary Canfield. La Farm Bakery was founded in 1999 by a distinguished French baker Lionel Vatinet.
Do you know how this business started?
Yes. Lionel was in a guild in France, and he spent seven years in the guild, studying how to be a baker. It’s more than just being a baker in the guild. It’s how to live and how to become a man. He spent seven years traveling around France. He honed his skill to become a baker. When he finished at the guild, he came to the United States and started consulting. And did some consulting in different parts of the country helping people get some bakeries open. He helped open a bakery school in San Francisco, as well. That was his life-long calling, to be a baker.
What were the difficulties in the way of establishing the business?
The business started 17 years ago, here, in Cary. I might not know the specific difficulties that they ran into in trying to open the business. I know one of the difficulties for Lionel, that he’s told me about, was when he and his wife Missy first opened the bakery here. Everything that they made, she would cut up samples, and put them all out here. And, coming from France, he was not used to that. It was very uncomfortable for him that we were giving away so much free product.
Missy understood that the people in the area needed to try the items to understand how good they were, and that by trying them they would become customers. Lionel has learned that, over time. But, it was difficult for him to adapt initially that they’d make all the bread and they’d give it away all day, just to get people to understand what it was like here. That was a cultural difficulty for him opening the business here in the United States.
How much time did it take for the bakery to become profitable?
I don’t think it took very long to become profitable because the people of Cary, early on, really appreciated the bakery. Like I said, at first Lionel and Missy were giving away a lot of food. One day it snowed, and they had already made all the bread. Missy and Lionel loaded all the bread onto a sled and went from door to door and gave away the bread to all the people in the neighborhood around here. The bakery was making money. It was profitable early on. Seven years ago they bought this building, which was a dry cleaner and they opened a café. It became extremely popular when we started making sandwiches on our bread. Now, every day, people line up out the door.
What do you do to keep your customers and attract new ones?
Some bakeries will only make six or seven different special breads. And then that’s what everyone has to buy. They make what the bakers like. Lionel and Missy don’t do it that way. They decided that even though he’s from France, and they have their own way of doing things, they wanted the bakery to be for THIS community. We know our customers and honor all traditions, and holidays. We have bunny breads for Easter, and we have items for Passover and Irish Soda Bread. We honor all religions. We honor all different types of people. This bakery reflects what the community wants.
They’re constantly coming up with new items. That’s the answer. It’s giving the community what they’re asking for and constantly coming up with new breads. Every month, having new café items. We’re steeped in tradition, but we’re always trying to find new ways to excite the people that come in here. The people that come in trust us that the new things that we’re doing are going to be very high quality, based on knowing us, and based on our relationship that we have with our guests.
What role does creativity play in the business?
Bakers are like artists. When they come up with a Chocolate Babka, which is a dough, and they spread chocolate and hazelnut all over it, then they roll it, and they knead, and they braid it. The creative things that they come up with are what excite and delight the community. We try to come up with some creative marketing and post it on Facebook. We try to market creatively, but I think the truth is creativeness comes from the bakers who are creating the bread.
What is the usual daily routine at La Farm?
Bakeries are all about routine. Routine is the only way that we’re able to make the massive amounts of breads every day. It starts at midnight. Bakers bake all night while we’re sleeping, all year, every night. Then, every day at 6 am, our retail personnel start to show up. They’re taking the breads. We open at 7 am and then we close at 8 pm every single day.
All the breads that are not sold at the end of the day we put in the big flour bags and we donate them to charities around here and people in need. We never use any bread the next day. There’re no leftovers. We donate the bread, we count the money, we lock the door and then at midnight the bakers come in again, and we do it all again.
Along with running the bakery Lionel Vatinet also gives baking classes. How is it popular and did introducing the classes bring more customers?
Lionel loves teaching. At the end of the day, he is a teacher.
I think just having access to the owners gives a connection with the community. If they just heard about this guy who ran the bakery and you never saw him, then you would just be someone you heard about. But he’s doing the classes; he’s out here. He’s talking to people every day. He’s making jokes, and he’s signing this book, he has a book out there. He signs his book for everybody. He’s very available and involved with what’s going on here. His personality is part of what I think entices people who want to come here. The fact that they don’t just hear about him. They see him, and they talk to him, and they learn from him. He’s a real person who’s involved with the business, not just a face on the wall.
The business includes the bakery, café, online shop, baking classes, catering. It looks like lots of responsibilities. Is it difficult to make it work all at the same time?
I describe it as a beehive in here. I feel like it’s humming from so many different directions. All of our wholefoods-needs customers need to be happy and our other wholesale customers and the classes that we’re scheduling. We just went to the Food and Wine Festival and participated in the Toast of the Triangle, and we’re in festivals all the time. We have a food truck. That’s another business that’s out. It’s a lot to keep all of that. It’s amazing that it’s under one roof. Sometimes I feel like we have six different businesses that we’re trying to run at the same time. It requires a lot of communication and a lot of hard work because it’s open every day. It never stops.
What are the goals for the company for the next five years?
The goals for the company are to continue to grow the business, to open one or more bakeries in our surrounding community, and to continue to come up with excellent products. Besides growth, though, the goals are right now, we’re trying to strengthen relationships with local millers and local farmers and continue to get more and more of our product from our community. That’s a big reach right now.
What do you enjoy the most about the working process?
I think all the people that work here, and definitely all the managers, like to be a little bit crazy. Maybe not too crazy, but we like to be moved around and be challenged and to have to think quickly on our feet and make fast decisions and to handle 5 or 6 things all at the same time. It’s exciting. It’s a little stressful sometimes, but it’s never boring. And that’s good for me.
What do you think is the best way to achieve long-term success?
To achieve long-term success is to create trust with your client and your customers. As you’re starting a new business, if you’re authentic and if you do what you say you’re going to do, you’ll get the trust of your community. You’re always going to make mistakes along the way, but as long as they are honest mistakes, you’re not lying to people, you’re not trying to say one thing and do another thing. If you are genuinely authentic, your customers will trust you. Even if they come in and have one bad experience or you make a new item, and they don’t like it, as long as that trust is there, you can overcome that and grow past it. As soon as someone looks at you and thinks that you’re saying one thing, but you’re not genuine, then they don’t trust you. I think that’s the end of business. I believe in building trust with your clients, with your community or whoever your customer happens to be.
In your opinion, what are the main entrepreneurial traits one should have to run a business successfully?
You have to have a strong spirit, and you have to want something so badly. There will be times that you’re tested. It would be easy to give up, and maybe you’d make a mistake and fall flat on your face, but you have to be able to have a short memory, and you have to learn from your mistakes, but forgive yourself and get over them. And a lot of times you’ve got to brush the dust off and get back in the game because it’s not always easy and the chart doesn’t always go straight up. You take your lumps along the way. You have to be able to fight through them and get up.
