The owner of a Harrisonburg bakery is selling her business, citing difficulties with staffing and costs.
Amy Wild, owner of Staff of Life Bread Company, said she plans to sell the business by January. She explained that difficulty maintaining enough staff to meet demand, combined with rising expenses, led her to decide to sell the company.
“Every business is having that problem,” Wild explained. “There’s a huge problem with skilled and semi-skilled labor in the Valley, in all fields — particularly culinary food service. To stay current with our workload, having a full-time person to bake and two part-time production people, in addition to myself as, currently, always full-time baking, would be optimal, and that doesn’t include all the folks that would go to farmers markets. Right now, I have one very dedicated part-time person and two more seasonal, supplemental part-time people.”
Wild said she has owned the bakery for the past five years, filling the void left by founder Abby Bowman, who created Staff of Life 18 years ago. The bakery regularly sells sweet buns and breads based on European “old-world” recipes using wholesome ingredients like unbromated flour, non-GMO ingredients, and fresh produce from around the valley. Wild said Bowman started at farmers markets in Harrisonburg and Leesburg before expanding to markets in Massanutten and selling loaves of bread through the Friendly City Food Co-op.
Although these avenues have proven lucrative, and Wild thinks their success could be an indicator that expansion could be just as lucrative, she said logistical challenges have prevented her from doing so.
“We were able to try a few other markets this Summer,” Wild said. “We went to Massanutten and considered doing Elkton for the future. Again, it’s just, like, having enough people to go to all the markets because, of course, they all happen at the same time. The Staunton market is definitely an interest. We’re very fortunate to have all those markets so close to us. It’s pretty frustrating not to be able to do them all.”
Wild added that while the bakery did have periods with more substantial staff, these rarely lasted.
“We’ve had periods of really great employees, just like everyone else in a food-related industry setting,” Wild explained. “It’s just hard when you’re small and can’t offer any benefits. It’s a place where a lot of small businesses are right now, where you want to expand and offer those things, but you need to have enough people to make it work, and enough business to make it work. It’s a much harder balance than I had ever imagined when I was in culinary school and imagining my grand life as a business owner,” Wild joked.
Wild explained that she would be willing to discuss a variety of options to sell the business, including simply selling the equipment or selling the business’s “soft assets” like its branding and recipe book. She said anyone interested should reach out to her at [email protected].
“Our landlord is open to taking on a person who wants to continue the business at that location,” Wild said of the bakery’s kitchen on South High Street. “It’s very hard to find that small of a functional space in Harrisonburg proper right now, and it has a lot to offer. So, if anyone’s interested, get to me before Thanksgiving.”
Until then, Staff of Life will continue to offer baked goods at farmers markets and the food co-op, according to Wild, including for Thanksgiving and the winter holidays.
Wild, who has more than 30 years of experience as a professional chef, said she hoped to take her career in a different direction after leaving Staff of Life. She said she planned to return to her passion for community outreach and education on nutrition, as well as exploring a baking business operating out of her home. However, she said this won’t happen until permissions from regulatory agencies can be secured. Until then, however, she said she has other plans.
“Just rebuilding some balance in my life,” Wild said of her next priority. “I’ve been doing the things with food that I enjoy, which is experimenting, exploring, just taking all the things that I’ve learned from bread baking and applying them to things like gluten-free bread development because there’s a huge need for that.”
For more information about Staff of Life, visit the bakery’s website.
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