By Aki Soga
Free Press Staff Writer

Specialty bakeries in the Burlington area will meet a national competitor with the arrival next month of the Great Harvest Bread Co.

The Montana-based chain doesn't build cookie-cutter stores selling identical products every place it lands, according to Sara Brown, one of the owners of the store planned for Burlington's Pine Street.

"It's kind of different from a lot of franchises in that there's a very strong freedom culture and there's very few things that the franchise is required to do," said Brown, who will operate the business with her husband, Ethan.

"Owners are encouraged to build a unique, individualized bakery that's sort of a reflection of who they are and the community that they are in."

Great Harvest franchises can choose from about 70 bread recipes provided by the company, or can develop their own, Brown said. The hallmark of the bakery is that the whole-wheat flour is ground on the premises, she said.

"Our signature bread would be our honey whole wheat," Brown said.

Another trademark of Great Harvest shops is that every visitor receives a slice of fresh-baked bread, Brown said.

The Browns are executing a $150,000 renovation of a 2,400-square-foot space in the building at the corner of Pine Streetand Marble Avenue, joining neighborhood food businesses such as Cheese Outlet/Fresh Market and Speeder & Earl's Coffee.

The start-up cost for the bakery totals about $250,000, slightly more than the average Great Harvest because of the renovations, Brown said.

"We really wanted to be right in the heart of a neighborhood where people are living," she said. "We pretty quickly identified Pine Street, and our little stretch of Pine Street, as where we wanted to be."

The arrival of Great Harvest means another bakery in an already crowded field, said Stewart Ruth, owner of Stewart's Bakery in Williston.

"I do see them as competition," Ruth said. "There's at least nine specialty bakers here in northeastern Vermont."

In September the Browns moved to Burlington from Montana, where Sara, 28, taught high school and Ethan, 35, was the head baker for a Great Harvest shop in Missoula.

The couple had looked for a town in the Northwest to open their franchise but found all the good towns were taken. The chain has about 190 stores throughout the country, Brown said. The Burlington shop will be the first in Vermont.

Then the couple looked East, where as a child Sara visited her grandparents, who had a house on a lake south of Rutland. She also attended Dartmouth College.

"We were here for all of five minutes and it felt good," she said of Burlington. "I loved the town, the lake, the university. It felt like home."

The store will open with six to nine employees, selling only bread and other baked goods, Brown said. Later, the shop likely will offer sandwiches.

"We want to get our crew trained and master the fundamentals before we branch out," she said.

The shop will not do wholesale business, she said.

The Cheese Outlet, just a short walk from where Great Harvest will be, carries Stewart's bread. "Very locally, they might have an effect on business," Ruth said.

Still, Ruth sees his business as serving a larger market than Great Harvest that includes area supermarkets. "My bread gets sold in a larger area on a daily basis," he said.
Contact Aki Soga at 660-1866 or asoga@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com

Great Harvest
Bread Co.

OWNERS: Sara and Ethan Brown
WHERE: 382 Pine St.
WHAT: Specialty bakery featuring bread baked with whole-wheat flour milled on the premises, muffins, cinnamon rolls, scones and cookies
PRICES: $3.50 for 2.2 lb. basic loaf; $4.25 to $4.75 for specialty breads
OPENING: Scheduled for July 11
CHAIN: Great Harvest Franchising Inc., Dillon, Mont.
ON THE WEB: www.greatharvest.com