The Sustainable Bakery: Four World Bakery

Source: CityPaper – July 9, 2008

What would a sustainable bakery look like?

• It would use renewable energy to bake breads and cakes
• Minimize waste by backing “on demand”.
• Use imagination to stick to its sustainability principles.

Philadelphia has a young baker blazing a trail in the bakery world by creating Four Worlds Bakery, a local sustainable bakery.

Former Le Bec-Fin baker Michael “Challahman” Dolich, who’s developed an intense local “breadie” following with his Four Worlds Bakery, is moved into new digs: In a few weeks, you’ll be able to get his bagels, rolls and, of course, challah loaves at Kaffa Crossing. Up until this point, Dolich’s stuff has been available exclusively via the Web — the baker sends out weekly e-mails, then customers place orders and scoop them up at various sites in and around Philly.

Four World Bakery products will only be available via pre-order at established pick-ups until the new incarnation of the bakery is born. Right now, they’re in the midst of finishing up some aesthetic stuff and waiting on the go-ahead from the Health Department.

Dolich is working with the West Philadelphia Pedal Co-Op (see our post on the Pedal Coop) to move from 4WB’s current Walton Avenue HQ to the Ethiopian café (4423 Chestnut St.) this weekend — four large bike carts will haul the remainder of Dolich’s equipment. It goes along with the bakery’s mission to exist as a low-waste, carbon-emission-neutral business. Dolich plans on running the bakery on wind power, and to prevent waste produced by unsold product, will publish a baking schedule on his blog to let people know what’ll be in stock retail-wise on any given day. Web pre-orders will still be accepted, and will feature the incentive of discounted pricing, Dolich adds.