We were lucky to catch up with Samantha Kindred recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Samantha , thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
My business partner Kaleigh and I have worked together since 2013 and wanted to start something of our own. Originally we were shooting for a coffee shop because that’s what we were both doing at the time and we LOVE coffee, but there are quite a few local shops already and the start up costs were too much for us at the time.
While we were brainstorming ideas for our next venture we were both making sourdough at home and realized no business in Las Cruces were making/selling sourdough bread. So, we decided to pivot our idea to sourdough bread! We thought this idea would work because there was no one else in LC doing it at the time and we wanted to focus on and educate the community on the health benefits of eating sourdough bread compared to commercially processed bread.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Kind Bread Company is an all naturally leavened bakery. Meaning we DO NOT use any commercial yeast. Everything made in the bakery is leavened with one of our three sourdough starters. Kaleigh and I have both been bakers for a lot of our professional careers and wanted to give our own venture a go.
Because all of our products are naturally leavened (sourdough) we have a lot of customers who are gluten intolerant (not celiac) that are able to consume our products because the fermentation process breaks down a lot of the gluten, which makes it possible for people to eat our product without feeling bad afterwards. Even for customers that do not have gluten intolerance the fermentation process just makes the product easier for the body to digest in general compared to commercially processed bread/pastry.
We are very proud of the products we offer and being able to feed our community “Real Bread”!
Have you ever had to pivot?
When KBC was first getting started our plan was to strictly be a wholesale bakery and just offer product to local grocery stores and restaurants, but about two weeks after we began baking the pandemic lockdown happened and we had to completely change our game plan.
Because the lockdown effected all the local restaurants and grocery stores we weren’t able to go that route. So, instead we began taking online orders through social media (instagram & facebook) from local Las Crucens. We would bake overnight at the kitchen we were renting while they were closed and would then spend most of the next day driving around town delivering bread to everyone’s front door.
We moved from wanting to be a completely wholesale oriented bakery to retail in a matter of weeks.
We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.
Kaleigh and I first met when we both worked at The Bean Cafe of Mesilla in 2013. I was working as a barista at the time and Kaleigh was going to start in the kitchen. It was not best friend at first sight, but we quickly became friends and haven’t looked back since.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kindbreadco.com
- Instagram: kindbreadco
- Facebook: kindbreadco