We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dan Scheibner. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dan below.

Dan, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?

Corporate America chases the quick dollar, leaving behind the trusted, old ways of making healthy bread. When the industry shifted to “how quickly and cheaply can we make bread”, we lost what bread has been for centuries – a healthy, gut boosting staple of the human diet. Revolutions were started over bread, because it was a mandatory item to sustain populations of people.

DanDough was started from a place of wanting to feed my family the healthiest, most nutritious bread possible and it has grown from there. I’m less interested in how easily I can make bread, and much more interested in how healthy and delicious I can make bread.

Dan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started making sourdough during the pandemic, like so many millions of others around the world. First, out of boredom and wanting to do something to keep connected with my sisters back in Washington State. After beginning to dive deep into the culture of sourdough (all puns intended), my eyes were opened to the vast health benefits of real, organic sourdough. I immediately set off to learn all I could about sourdough – how to make it the healthiest, what steps mattered the most, how sourdough culture truly works, what impact is has on gluten, etc.

At first, it was just a handful of loaves a week to feed my family, which consists of my wife and 4 boys, but quickly grew once I started giving extra loaves to neighbors. I did a few small markets in my neighborhood and had great success, so when I was unexpectedly laid off from my long time corporate job – I just doubled down with DanDough and started doing markets as often as I could to try and build clientele.

I only use organic flours in everything I do, and focus on making the best sourdough bread possible. The most important part to a truly healthy, nourishing bread is the long, cold fermentation cycle – minimum of 12 hours – and I do my best to never sacrifice that, as it is integral to the perfect sourdough at the end of the process. Though it is extremely time consuming, the end result is well worth it and hearing from customers about how good it tastes and how good they feel during and after eating it makes it all worth it.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

DanDough was just a side hustle for a long time, until I was laid off and sort of forced into dedicating more time to it. At that point I knew I had a great product, but needed an opportunity to get in front of people to sell it – so I went to work trying to get into as many farmer’s markets as possible. I landed a few local markets which led to solid sales and growth each time I set up my DanDough tent.

I made great relationships with market managers and patrons and was able to secure semi-permanent spots in busy markets – a key milestone in building returning customers.

As my market exposure grew, so did sales, and they have been continuing to do so ever since. The next big moment was getting into weekly markets, so customers could know exactly where to find me every week for their weekly loaf. To have customers return every week to get their preferred bread is so invigorating!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think staying true to why I started DanDough has been paramount to continuing the growth and success of my small business. Health is so important, and bread has been considered vital to our diets for hundreds of years (maybe thousands) and after the commercialization of wheat and yeast the bread on store shelves has continuously gotten worse for us. Enter DanDough – specifically made a much more arduous way primarily because it provides a healthy, gut boosting, immune system supportive, DELICIOUS end product.

I love getting to be at markets to talk with customers about my sourdough obsession. I deeply appreciate all that this little pandemic hobby has brought me – and who knows, maybe some day soon you’ll be able to come into a local DanDough Bakery store to get your delicious, healthy sourdough fix. :-)

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.DanDoughBakery.com
• Instagram: _dandough_
• Facebook: DanDough Bakery

Image Credits
Just good ol me!!