We caught up with Rian Finnegan and Colleen Orlando, the co-owners of Little Loaf Bakeshop, a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, you two thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

For us, countless business decisions could be considered “taking a risk” – and we wouldn’t be surprised to hear a similar sentiment from other business owners or entrepreneurs as well.

In a business’s infancy (and in the infancy of anything, really), even the smallest decision can have a huge impact.

One risk that really stands out is our decision to take on a few select wholesale accounts.

We had only been in operation for about four months when a well known and beloved chocolatier in the Hudson Valley—Lagusta’s Luscious—approached us about stocking our vegan pastries in their cafe.

We spent a few weeks thinking about it, and in that time two more local businesses reached out about something similar. Taking on wholesale would require investing in more equipment, employees, and significantly increase the number of hours we’d need to rent at the kitchen space we operated out of.

Ultimately, we decided to take this next big step. The opportunity to partner with and learn from key local businesses that we admired—not to mention the marketing/exposure that would come with being connected to them—was one we couldn’t pass up. And from there, our business started growing more quickly than could have ever imagined!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Sure think! We’re a Hudson-Valley based queer and trans owned vegan bakery that focuses on creating seasonally-inspired breakfast pastries using as many local ingredients as possible..

How we got our start feels a bit like fate. We met in 2019 and instantly knew we were each other’s Person. We quickly discovered that each of us dreamt of opening our own space someday—for Colleen, a bakery, and for Rian, a cafe. It seemed like a “Castle in the Sky” or something we would maybe approach much further in the future, but the unexpected, life-rupturing pandemic also forced us to slow down, take stock, and think about what was important to us in this lifetime. For both of us, we were ready to work on bringing our own dreams to life—not just helping others realize theirs.

And, coincidentally we each had skills and experience that complemented each other almost perfectly. Colleen had been in the world of baking for a decade and had helped scale a prominent Oakland bakery from 3 people to close to 80, and Rian had worked in cafes, concert venues, and eventually in marketing for large corporations.

When we moved to the Hudson Valley, we realized that this was the right time and place to take the leap. In 2021, we created a business plan, identified an incubator kitchen that aligned with our values, took out a small business loan with a not-for-profit lender that also aligned with our values, and began product testing. That spring we started selling our products at farmers markets, in the late summer we took on wholesale and staffed up to become a team of 10 (3 full time including us and 6 part time), and in the fall we opened up a retail pop-up three days a week at the Underwear Factory, the incubator kitchen where we work. The goal of that space is to provide a safe, comfortable space for all—and with a special focus on the queer community. This is hugely important to us as we live in a purple area and we want LGBTQ+ youth to have a space to go and for queer folks running businesses (working in cafes provided this experience to Rian when they were younger and it meant the world).

Earlier this year, we shifted our business to become all-vegan for a number of reasons, but especially to ensure we have as minimal of an impact on the earth as possible and that we aren’t causing harm with our products (we both also made the switch to being vegan, after being vegetarian for some years).

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

For us, it is all about our partners. We are very particular about the wholesale partners we take on, the farmers markets and events we vend at, the events that we host within the Underwear Factory (like Queer Soup Night), the organizations we work with on hiring, and of course where we source our ingredients. We also are also focused on consistency with regards to having high product quality, building meaningful relationships with customers, and community-centric programming. As mentioned, we focus a lot on the LGBTQ+ community, especially youth.

Donating percentages of our sales to local organizations where the funds will have a big impact is also baked (pun intended) into our business model.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

We think it’s important to have a balanced team, where different people have different strengths and experiences. This makes it so everyone can learn from one another and everyone has something they can feel like an expert in. Lots of positive and constructive feedback, clear channels of communication, and clear expectations are key. From there, our goal is to build the confidence of our team so that they feel solid when it comes to their crafts, making decisions, and even experimenting with new recipes or ways of doing things.

Contact Info:

• Website: littleloafbakeshop.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littleloafbakeshop/
• Linkedin: https://www.littleloafbakeshop.com/
• Other: https://goo.gl/maps/ScbiTQMfvbKf4hTy8

Image Credits
Jenny Owens (pretzel class, photo of Rian and Colleen). Jen is one of our bakers!