In the early 1960s, Ridgewood, in the borough of Queens, N.Y., had nearly 50 bakeries. Today, only four bakeries are operating. In 2009, family-owned and -operated Grimaldi Baking will celebrate its 100th anniversary. And the fourth-generation company still has its three business legs and 36,000 sq. ft. planted firmly in its New York neighborhood.

Recently, the Grimaldi family, who estimate that company sales have been growing between 7 percent and 10 percent per year, re-confirmed their commitment to Ridgewood. They recently rebuilt their entire bakery facility from the ground up to improve production efficiencies and conserve energy. Bread production never stopped, and though the retail store was officially “closed” for 12 days to allow for renovations, the company still sold its loaves and rolls through a window.

This was the fifth build-out of the facility since the Grimaldis bought it in 1979. Originally, the space was 27,000 sq. ft.

Founded in 1909 by Sicilian-born Vito Grimaldi, the bakery began as a tiny wholesale-only hearth operation in Brooklyn. Son Joseph joined the business, and the two worked 14-hour days turning out breads and delivering them by horse-drawn wagon.

Following in the family tradition, Joseph's son Vito learned the trade from his father and, in 1969, moved into a 2,000-sq.-ft. building with a retail store. Ten years later, Grimaldi's Baking relocated to its present site.

Today, Vito remains C.E.O. of the company, while the next generation handles its operations and continued growth. His son Joseph is president, daughters Angela Cammarano and Margherita Anobile are vice president and secretary, respectively, and Joseph's wife Lucy is treasurer. Margherita's husband Joseph Anobile is C.O.O.

Vital three legs

Retail, wholesale direct store delivery (DSD) and out-of-town (OOT) delivery are the three legs that keep the $15 million operation in production seven days a week, 365 days a year, says Joseph Grimaldi. Grimaldi's Home of Bread (HOB), the full-line retail store, accounts for less than 10 percent of the company's total revenues.

The bread-only DSD and OOT divisions account for the balance of sales. The company does not break out sales for each of these divisions individually. Instead, both are simply categorized as “wholesale.”

Grimaldi's DSD division serves about 2,000 customers on 49 routes (each averages 80 miles a night) within the metropolitan New York area. The company owns two trucks; the rest are independently owned and carry signage provided by Grimaldi's. Hearthland Baking, Grimaldi's OOT component, began in the mid-1990s and produces par-baked and thaw-and-serve breads and rolls for customers nationwide.

Of the facility's total 36,000 sq. ft., 34,325 are dedicated to bread baking, 1,000 to pastry production and 675 to the retail store. Five production lines, one high-speed, one low-speed, one dedicated to bagels and two to hand-crafted loaves turn out more than 200 varieties of breads and rolls, with at least 100 kinds produced each day.

To keep its two silos filled, 150,000 lbs. of custom-milled, high-gluten flour are delivered every two days. All of the bread items undergo a 12-hour fermentation on peels covered with corn cones instead of cornmeal to facilitate better airflow to the bottoms of the loaves during the retarding process.

Bread products are slow-baked under steam in custom-fabricated hearth ovens. Two continuous spiral cooling towers carry rolls to the packing area.

Two products for which Grimaldi's is particularly well known are its Kaiser rolls and hero sandwich loaves, both of which are made on the high-speed line. The automated line, which has a six-pocket divider/rounder, was installed at the bakery about two years ago, and upgraded after a year to increase throughput by 20 percent.

Grimaldi's proofs its Kaiser rolls facedown in the traditional manner to “hold the five cuts, protect them from blanking out and protect the face from skinning,” says John Quinterno, the company's OOT director. The rolls are automatically flipped as they enter the oven.

Hero loaves are the hero

Hero loaves, from 8 ins. to 16 ins., make up about 40 percent of DSD sales and are produced at a rate of 7,500 to 14,000 per hour, depending on size, Quinterno says. The best seller is the 10-in., which many New York delis use to make submarine sandwiches. Most days, the bakery runs hero breads for two to three hours.

Like all of Grimaldi's breads, the heroes are hand-docked. “We dock them at an angle for better bloom,” Quinterno explains.

SuperHero loaves, offered in 3-ft. and 6-ft. sizes and weighing 1 lb. per foot; and SuperHero rings, 18 ins. and 3.5 lbs., are ideal for catering sandwiches and tailgate party applications. The bakery makes a mile of the SuperHero loaves and rings every day, which it then ships to customers in 34 states. “We're the nation's largest manufacturer of SuperHero sandwich loaves and rings,” he notes.

One value-point innovation is the “two-fer,” two 7-oz. French loaves that are stuck together during shaping to produce two attached breads, creating two breads for the price of one. The poly-bagged product is generally sold to DSD grocery stores.

Sixteen varieties of crusty New York-style bagels are available to wholesale customers. Six are offered in the retail store.