This specialty wholesale bakery is planning a third expansion, and sales have more than tripled in two years. Growth is fueled by its focus on retaining traditional artisan techniques while relying on new technology to keep up with demand.

Make great-tasting, authentic artisan bread on a large scale in Arizona's Sonoran Desert? What about its hostile environment: the low humidity, high temperatures and alkaline water? “Next to impossible,” naysayers told Harold Back.

That was four years ago. Today, Back's Simply Bread, a specialty wholesale bakery in Phoenix, generates as much as 5,500 lbs. of dough daily for nearly 100 different bread and roll products. Accounts include destination resorts and hotels in metropolitan Phoenix and some 30 upscale food stores and supermarkets in Phoenix and Tucson.

After the bakery opened in February 2006, customer acceptance of Simply Bread's offerings was immediate. “We went into the first day having made a significant investment in our facilities. We knew we could make good bread. Nevertheless, we were apprehensive,” Back says. “We did not fully comprehend the consumers' embracing really good bread. The second day, we realized our bakery was too small.”

Sales grew at a rapid clip from $800,000 in 2006 to $3 million in 2007 and are expected to reach $6 million this year. To cope with the growth, Simply Bread currently is expanding its 14,000-sq.-ft. bakery to increase oven capacity and improve efficiency. Concurrently, Back, president, and co-founder Jeffrey Yankellow, executive vice president and executive chef, are constructing a $5 million, 100,000-sq.-ft. bakery.

Avocation to vocation

Creating Simply Bread was Back's vision to turn an avocation into a vocation. In 1976, he arrived penniless in Chicago from South Africa and pursued a successful career in real estate development and financing. Back moved to Scottsdale, Ariz. in 1998, and began dabbling in culinary interests.

His longing for good bread and a week-long seminar at the Culinary Institute of America, near Hyde Park, N.Y., (a gift from his wife) spurred Back to craft sour starters and make bread in the couple's kitchen. Back's tests convinced him that good — he eschews the word artisan because he says it has been abused — bread could be made in large volume in Phoenix.

In 2005, he attended the International Fancy Food Show in San Francisco and enrolled in classes at the San Francisco Baking Institute (SFBI).

His instructor at SFBI was Yankellow, a member of Team USA 2005, which captured first place at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie (World Baking Cup). Yankellow's specialty was the baguette and specialty breads category.

Prior to joining the SFBI, he had been an instructor at the former National Baking Center, Minneapolis and had worked in high-end restaurants and bakeries in Chicago and Baltimore after graduating from Johnson & Wales University, Providence, R.I.

Yankellow learned that his student had more than a pedestrian curiosity about the bread business, and Back, who had identified Phoenix as a market for world-class bread, recognized his instructor's champion-level skills. The two decided to pool their talents and resources to open a bakery.

In spring 2005, Back purchased equipment, formed his team — including Yankellow — and hired architects, but had yet to secure a building. Meanwhile, Yankellow began test baking in Back's home. “We weren't sure of exactly which products we would produce, but we knew what we would do in terms of product quality and integrity,” Back recalls.

He inspected more than 200 facilities before learning of a vacant 14,000-sq.-ft. building in June. Contractors began installation the day after Thanksgiving, and the bakery opened in February 2006.