Earlier this this week, Meaders Ozarow, owner of Empire Baking Company, got some good news: King Arthur Flour wanted to give her another check, this time for $1,000, so Empire could bake bread and donate it to a local charity in need.
It was the second time the flour company had called in two weeks. The first time King Arthur called, she and her team made 1,000 dinner rolls and delivered them to Furlough Kitchen, the nonprofit that’s providing free meals to furloughed restaurant and hospitality workers in Dallas.
King Arthur Flour’s new program, called For Goodness Bakes, was created as a way for them to lend a hand to the nations’ bakeries that are their clients and the communities that they serve.
“Our bakery partners are struggling, and we wanted to help them in some way,” says Carey Underwood, director of mission-driven partnerships with King Arthur Flour. “So we said, ‘How can we help? What can we do?’ And we thought a great way to help would be to pay them to bake and keep their employees on, and give the baked goods to the people who need it in their neighborhood. We’re not only giving them funds to keep them baking, but we wanted to give them an opportunity to help in their community.”
With a starting budget of $32,000, King Arthur Flour, an employee-owned B corporation headquartered in Vermont, has already paid about a dozen bakeries around the country to bake and donate. Along with Empire Bakery, two others in Texas have also received funding: Fluff Bake Bar and Angela’s Oven, both in Houston.
“We know bakers, and bakers want to be baking, and we want to keep them baking, and we want to make an impact by helping these smaller businesses,” Underwood says. “And we want to make an impact in a way that’s well-suited to our mission, which is to build community through baking. What better way to do that than partner with bakeries so they can build communities in their area? It’s just part of who we are.”
Like nearly all of Dallas’ food retailers, and bakeries, too, Empire is struggling to stay afloat.
“Right now, we’re in a position where every dollar counts,” Ozarow says. “Sales have dropped 80 percent, and we’re trying to figure out how to make it work. I was thrilled that they wanted to pay for the product and put it out into the community. I’m just over the moon. It reinforced my belief in King Arthur. We’ve been working with them for 27 years.”
Ozarow has also been fortunate to receive federal funding in the form of a Paycheck Protection Program loan, which Empire is using to pay all 65 of their employees.
Ozarow is now researching charitable organizations to try and determine which one to work with on this round. Two weeks ago, she chose Furlough Kitchen because she felt like those who were newly furloughed in the restaurant and hospitality industry needed help the most, because they might not yet know which government programs are available to them or have access to them yet.
“I’m a pragmatist and I want to put the King Arthur money where it would do the most good, and you don’t have a lot of time to evaluate in great detail,” she says. “The most challenging part for me is to assess where the need is. There were 2,000 cars lined up the other day at the North Texas Food Bank [food distribution at Fair Park]. Or maybe I need to do something with the schools and the school lunches. I’m going to check with DISD. It may be back to what we were doing before.”
Because there is so much food insecurity right now, it’s not an easy choice. “It’s not so much the need,” she says, “as much as it is trying to help the people who may fall through the cracks.”