Family-founded, future forward.
Our family has been baking organic bread since our first loaf in 1983, long before organic was a certification. We began selling wood-fired loaves at our humble Catskills bakery, and through farmers markets from the trunk of the family station wagon. We have grown in the decades since, and are proud to now serve as an example of sustainable, slow food production in the Hudson Valley. We are humble but ambitious and 40 years in, we believe that we are just getting started.
Our Certified Organic production bakery.
We bake the majority of our breads in our Certified Organic production bakery outside of Kingston, NY completed in 2014. The facility embraces the best in artisan baking equipment from around the world, combined with one of the most experienced baking teams in the United States. The bakery is designed without compromise to produce some of the world’s finest organic breads. Since 2018, the bakery has been powered in part by a 196kW solar array.
Our carbon-neutral bakery and cafe.
The breads, pastries, and foods served at our Hudson Valley cafes are produced from our carbon-neutral bakery in Boiceville. In 2022, we reimagined and rebuilt our original location as a net-zero facility running on 100% renewable energy, powered by a 400kW solar array. No fossil fuels are used in the building, and we hope to serve as an example of how industry can use electrification.
Our original wood-fired brick ovens.
Though we’ve embraced evolution throughout our history, we’ve preserved some of the most important parts of our past. Visit our Boiceville bakery and you can watch our bakers produce breads from the wood-fired brick ovens that we built in the 1980s, and that we continue to use today. We believe that these ovens have produced more wood-fired bread than any others in the country.
Our history
Daniel Leader and his family made the move from NYC to the Catskill Mountains to bake organic breads on the hearth of a wood-fired brick oven. A chef by training, Dan learned to bake naturally-fermented, artisan breads touring bakeries in Paris.
1983
We began to out-grow the original oven that launched the business. While in Paris, Dan met a 4th generation Parisian oven mason, Andre Lefort. Andre agreed to travel to the US and build two proper brick ovens outside of the original bakery. We believe that these ovens have produced more wood-fired, organic bread than any other ovens in America, if not the world!
1987
Around the time that Andre constructed Bread Alone's new wood-fired ovens, Sharon Burns-Leader joined Dan as Bread Alone's co-owner and baker. Sharon and Dan have now worked together for over 25 years, driven by a shared passion for creating simple, honest breads and foods.
1988
In 2012 Dan and Sharon welcomed Dan’s eldest son, Nels Leader, into the bakery. Dan, Sharon, and Nels worked together to design and construct Bread Alone’s new artisan facility in Kingston, New York. The new bakery embraces the best in artisan baking thinking from around the world, run by one of the most experienced baking teams in the United States.
2012
Bread Alone's main bakery in Kingston was under construction from Winter 2013 to Fall 2014. The bakery is designed without compromise to produce what we hope are some of the world’s finest organic breads.
2014
To celebrate our 35th year, we renewed our commitment to tread lightly on the planet. We kicked-off this milestone with the launch of our 196 KW solar array on the roof of our Kingston HQ. Today, part of the energy used to bake our core breads comes from the sun.
2018
We re-built our Boiceville bakery as a net-zero facility, running on 100% renewable energy. Our energy comes from a 366kW on-site solar array. We bake using electricity for our modern Heuft ovens, and scrap wood for our wood-fired ovens. There are no fossil fuels used in the building. We believe we are the first commercial bakery in the US to operate entirely without fossil fuels.
2022
We aspire to inspire a movement of companies with conscience, using business as a force for good. We’re here as a resource for any food companies hoping to build net-zero facilities, and intend to continue to innovate and reinforce our commitments to people & planet.
