We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mara Audibert a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mara, thanks for taking the time to share your stories 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?

When it comes to baking, you want to make sure your product is perfectly replicated, consistent and delicious each and every time you sell a product. One bad bite or experience could cost you a customer and sale. Using the same clean ingredients for each batch is key and with costs rising for ingredients, it can make it challenging for bakers to maintain the same high quality product with less and less profit. Every loaf of bread, batch of scones, and dozen of muffins takes precious time and quality ingredients to create.

Mara, 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?

I have been baking for a little less than a year now! I was a full-time teacher that moved into full time children’s ministry that was taught by a precious volunteer how to bake a loaf of sourdough. I quickly realized that I loved it! I loved creating new flavors, trying out new ingredients, and baking loaves of bread to gift to loved ones and friends. The more I baked, the more friends and family started to request new flavors and offered to pay for their orders. What started as a blessing turned into a business. I now offer over a dozen flavors of sourdough bread and specialize in sourdough bagels, which can be found being sold in a few local coffee shops and churches in our area. My favorite creation to date would have to be our delicious blueberry sourdough bagels. Creating the perfect ratio of clean ingredients including my home-grown sourdough starter, fresh blueberries and cinnamon was such a fun experience! The love of creating the perfect recipe has become my favorite challenge.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What I feel has truly helped build our reputation within this market is consistency. We consistently accept, bake to perfection, and deliver quality baked products each and every order. Word of mouth and social media have helped us grow within our local community. When a costumer posts a review, tags us in a share on socials or tells a friend about how delicious an item they ordered was, it helps us grow, as well as learn what products costumers are loving! Keeping up with consistent ingredients, quality product and social media marketing have helped keep business consistent.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The strategy that has helped grow our clientele is being willing to give a sample product for free to gain a client or multiple clients in return. I have spent countless hours crafting the most delicious bagel boxes to personally drop off at local coffee shops and businesses in our area in hopes that they will fall in love with our sourdough and want to share it with others by partnering with us to supply them with our baked goods to sell. Encouraging other locals to support local is key to helping all local businesses grow!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://oliveandoaks.shop
• Instagram: @olive_and_oaks

Image Credits

Social Media Manager: Chris Audibert
Photographer: Nathan Rocky