In-store bakery operators typically select production methods to reduce labor expense, using their existing product lines. At Roche Bros., based in Wellesley Hills., Mass., bakery management, supported by company executives, first selects which bakery foods to offer and then chooses how to produce them.

The most significant benefit: The procedure enables Roche Bros. to select products that customers want, not items that the company wants to sell. It also allows bakery management to identify equipment and allocate labor to yield optimum production efficiencies.

Taking this tack has resulted in a bakery program that provides Roche Bros. customers scratch-made artisan bread products, frozen dough and par-baked crusty and variety bread items, and a diverse selection of high-quality pastries and sweetgoods prepared on premise and purchased fully finished. By filling customers' needs, and doing so efficiently, the bakeries are returning profits, company officials note.

On top of trends

Roche Bros.'s commitment to hot baking dates to 1970, when brothers Pat and Bud Roche introduced in-store baking with the opening of their fourth supermarket. They continued to open stores, all with bakeries, until they retired in 1998, and sons, Jay, Rick and Ed, assumed top management roles. They opened the eighteenth supermarket in 2007.

For the last 20 years, under the leadership of Peter Dumas, bakery director, the company has been on top of bakery foods trends in New England. For example, the bakeries introduced scratch-made fresh fruit tarts 15 years ago and added authentic artisan breads in 1999, after a four-person team participated in an artisan bread course at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kan.

Roche Bros. chose scratch production for artisan breads because “our customers expect us to be different from the other supermarkets,” says Rob DiMarino, bakery merchandiser. “Our artisan breads are part of our goal to provide high quality of service and goods.”

Debbie Pitts decorates strawberry cakes–three 6-in. layers of sponge cake iced with whipped topping and topped with whole strawberries.

The bakeries use a combination of production methods to achieve that goal, according to David Hay, bakery merchandiser/trainer. “The combination allows us to have everyday product as well as higher end items for special occasions or for customers who want the next higher tier.”

In pursuing this, the bakeries assign the bulk of production and sales labor to products with the greatest return, such as artisan breads, scones and muffins, he says.

Modern Baking recently visited the Wellesley, Mass., store, a 44,000-sq.-ft. replacement unit, which Roche Bros. opened in January 2008. As with the entire store, the bakery features up-to-date service and self-service displays, product-friendly lighting and wide 7-ft. to 10-ft. aisles between displays, which collectively afford customers excellent product visibility.

Success with scratch artisan breads, currently produced by five stores, spurred officials to design the Wellesley bakery to accommodate artisan bread production and sales for maximum results, Hay explains. Artisan breads offer a good example of how Roche Bros. weaves production methods into a supermarket environment.

“We designed and located the bakery sales and production areas with artisan bread production in mind,” he says. It required more space than was available on the sales floor, so the company placed it and other bakery production on the building's upper level next to the store's prepared foods kitchen. A four-deck hearth oven was installed in the main floor bakery to bake artisan breads in customer view.