Twelve months in a bakery

The first morning she baked forty loaves and sold nineteen. The rest went to the neighbors, who came back the next day with their friends. Hanna still has the receipt book from that week, every sale written by hand.

The oven was second hand and took two hours to heat. She learned to start it at three and to use the first heat for the dark rye, which likes it fierce.

Easter brought three times the usual customers and a supplier who could not deliver. Hanna drove to a mill two hours away and came back with 200 kilos in the back of a borrowed van.

That was when I understood that a bakery is mostly logistics, with some baking in between.

She has kept two suppliers ever since, and a week of flour in reserve.

By summer the shelves were empty before lunch every day. Everyone told her to bake more. She decided to bake the same and close earlier, and to spend the afternoons on the dough for tomorrow.

It cost her some walk-in customers and won her a reputation. People now order the day before, and the bakery throws away almost nothing.

In December, 140 households had a standing order. A second oven arrived in the spring, and with it the first employee, a trained baker who wanted to work mornings only.

Hanna still bakes the dark rye herself. She says it is the only loaf that tells her how the day will go.