We recently connected with Kara Bleignier and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kara thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I, like most everyone else during the pandemic, decided to try my hand at sourdough. As a stay-at-home mom with three kids 5 and under (at the time) sourdough was my outlet.

I made my own starter, and I was hooked.

I’d love to say it was unicorns and rainbows from the beginning, but the first few months *read half a year* was so much trial and error. So many flat loaves and over-proofed bagels.

But I was determined.

I researched and tested and researched and tested. And finally, was getting consistent bread and bagels. By this time, I had given so much bread away to neighbors, it’s a miracle they’re not sick of it! And quite the opposite, actually. It was neighbors and friends and family that kept telling me “We have to get these bagels out to the people! They’re just so good!”

I would not be where I am today without that encouragement. So finally in July 2021 I started an Instagram page and Saltwater and Sourdough was official.

I started the page to test the waters, thinking no one would be interested, but was completely overwhelmed by the response. The support has absolutely blown me away.

Now fast forward 18 months later, and I still can’t we’ve grown this much and are planning for how to expand even more.

Kara, 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?

My name is Kara and I am the owner of Saltwater and Sourdough, a home-based bakery in Mount Pleasant, SC specializing in small-batch artisan sourdough bread, bagels and cookies.

I started Saltwater and Sourdough in July 2021 after getting sucked into the sourdough process and realizing there were no bakeries near me to get true sourdough. Through Instagram and Facebook the word started spreading about fresh sourdough with minimal ingredients in our area and I quickly realized that other people were struggling to find quality bread as well.

The growth of the business has been fairly organic over the past year and a half which has allowed me to learn how to scale to accommodate more business. I remember my first market I made 8 dozen bagels and it took me ALL DAY, it felt like so much. Now I take almost double that and bread and cookies. It’s so fun to look back on things like that to see how far we’ve come.

I primarily sell out of my home right now but I also attend markets occasionally as well. I love doing markets because I get to chat with everyone buying my sourdough. Social media is an amazing tool, but meeting customers in person is the best.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

After 8 months of being in business I finally upgraded to a double oven in March 2022. I was SO excited. Since it was brand new it was nowhere on my radar that by April 2022 during peak busy season and days before a large catering order my oven would be completely dead. And even better, they couldn’t get a repair person out to me for a WEEK (this ended up being two weeks, but that’s another story!)

Panic!

I spent most of that day baking out of a very gracious friend’s house and on the phone to move orders around and find another oven asap. But this was all post-covid when inventories were down so no one had anything in stock. Luckily the appliance store was able to get me a loaner oven at the last minute that I used until mine was able to be fixed.

I still to this day hold my breath a little bit every time I start my oven in the mornings.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think as a mom life is all about pivoting. From the little things to the big. I am so thankful I’ve been able to be home with my kids while they’re growing up, but adjusting from working full time before kids to staying home full time and now navigating a small business is all about learning as you go and figuring out what works best for you. I think the most important thing is an open mind to be able to see when your business (or life) needs to make a change and then maintain the flexibility to do it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.saltwaterandsourdough.com
• Instagram: @saltwaterandsourdough
• Facebook: @saltwaterandsourdough