We were lucky to catch up with Camila Velez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Camila thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

I think the biggest challenge is the concept that Corporate America (in the restaurant industry) has created. While yes, bread (specifically) has. a low product cost, the intense labor, that goes into making good, quality, healthy bread goes above what the consumer has gotten accustomed to paying for, because of the commercialization of bread in the US. Specifically since the sliced bread concept became a retail product in grocery stores. Mass produced bread is barely real bread, its composed of many additives, fillers and dough conditioners giving the consumer an entire loaf of soft ‘bread’ for less than $3, or a dozen burger buns for less than $5. Making it so hard for independent bakeries to successfully charge appropriately and sell our product to the consumer, to the degree we can make a profit or a living off of it. – A product we strive to make with high quality ingredients, no fillers, no additives, no dough conditioners, no cutting corners. For example, there are over 30thousand bakeries in Paris alone, compared to 23thousand bakeries in the entire US.

Camila, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

After ten years working in the restaurant/hotel industry as a Pastry Chef, I knew I had the passion and capacity in me to do something for myself. Months after drafting the concept, testing recipes, and registering as a business, I was furloughed due to Covid. I saw this time as my window of opportunity. I launched dõ in June ’20 and never looked back. ​
With dõ I want to create a bakery that brings the community together. I hope to open a bakery in a neighborhood and become one with it; where neighbors walk over to get their daily bread, where families gather on Sundays, where the elders come in early in the morning for their coffee and pastry. I want to greet by name every person that walks through those doors. I want dõ, not only to be a business, but to be part of a community, part of the daily lives of those around me.
As well as a safe, comfortable, fun and challenging work place to those in the industry.
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After a year and half running as a cottage bakery from home, I’m finally able to grow and expand, operating from a commercial kitchen, and opening a small retail shop where the community can come by and shop at ‘dõ’s Tiny Bread Shed’. Hoping this is only a tiny step towards the big dream of a full neighborhood bakery.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

For a couple of years I lived with roommates, or a partner, which allowed me to save money, this was the capital I used to start my business. Although I must say, not unless you have a minimum of like 200k can you really start a full bakery. The cost of equipment, labor, overhead is just too much.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I make bread. I studied baking and pastry arts, and have 10 years of experience in the restaurant/hotel industry. How ever I hadn’t focused solely on breads. I started making breads because it sparked like a new found love for my industry and my profession. But I must admit, I certainly did not know what I was about to get myself into. Bread making (at least sourdough based bread) is so labor intensive, for a one person show, every shift is minimum 10-12 hours, and cn go up to 15hrs. Which in the restaurant industry is not rare to have shifts this long, but those aren’t usually an every day thing; in bread making, it is. I have no life

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dobakery.com
• Instagram: @do.cvg
• Facebook: dobycamilavg
• Yelp: dõ bakery
• Other: Retail Shop: dõ’s Tiny Bread Shed located on 2903 E 12th St, Austin Tx 78702

Image Credits
all are my images