// PASTRY CHEF OF THE MONTH
PRESENTED BY
Thom Capizzi Co-Owner of Thom's Bread You might not think bread and t-shirts have much in common, but if you’re Thom Capizzi, you’re not too far off.
"M
y background is actually clothing,” says the owner of Thom’s Bread, specialty Italian bread that is crispy, yet chewy. “I grew up in a family business, knit-wear specifically, selling to accounts like Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, the Gap. My dad started the company in the early ‘80s and we grossed $150,000,000 every year.” The Capizzi family business was Skip’s Cutting, a privately held apparel company that was bought out, like many U.S. businesses, by a Chinese company in the early part of the century. Capizzi continued to work for the company through 2011, when he felt it was time to move on and start something new. “With four kids, you don’t mess around,” he says. “Even though this bread is not a t-shirt, it's very similar for me because it's something that I'm proud of and have a lot of control over. Building a brand is what I'm doing. I’m building my own product. “ Capizzi’s entrée into the business was very simple. “My dad bought me a bread book about three years ago. I was looking at different items, low-tech stuff. And bread became it. You know, bread became that thing that I could do well. I started making it at home. A lot of people liked it,” he says. Capizzi incorporated in 2012 and developed a relationship with a local bak-
Jordan Capizzi, left, and Thom Capizzi are shown at their Central Market stand.
ery, where he currently shares a space. “I have the bakery from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. But now I'm looking to get my own space,” he says. Right now he sells his bread “on a weekend from a 6-foot stand,” Capizzi says. “Our whole business structure is very simple. But our bakery will be, max, 1500 square feet. Traditional French bakers, in 900 to 1,000 square feet, produce 1,000 baguettes a day. What we're doing -- focusing on simple breads – doesn't take a lot of space, and the margins on the breads are very good. But it's all relative. You have to sell a lot of bread.” Thom’s Bread currently sells to small specialty shops. “Farm stands, farmers’
42 • January 2014 • Total Food Service • www.totalfood.com
markets, and those kinds of places. Our main location is at the Lancaster Central Market in Lancaster, PA, which is actually the oldest, continuously running farmers’ market in the country -since the late 1700s. We have our main stand there and we're a local, familyowned market.” Capizzi says this is not a hobby for him. “Some people say, why don't you have 10 different types of rye? It's because I can't. But it's okay when people want your product.” Right now, the business doesn’t go out of a 40-mile radius. “But we're doing a little over 1,000 loaves a week,” he points out. Full maturity for this business would be 2 to 3,000 loaves a week, he notes. “But we plan to branch out to new products like pizza. We want to start getting more income and growing. We plan to offer more products, not squeezing the growth, but moving on in a measured way.” In order for us to accomplish that growth we are looking at the technology that companies like Irinox offer,” Capizzi continued. Capizzi feels his ingredients are what set him apart. “We're using fresh rosemary that we pick and grind and put in our bread, along with olive oil, cranberries, pecans, a small amount of kalamata olives in our olive breads. We also have a very buttery focaccia with some Italian seasoning. Our bread has a clean flavor. It’s simple food, not a
mish-mash of things.” Capizzi also likes to experiment. “We have chocolate bread where we use semi-sweet and milk chocolate – it’s a little more mainstream, it's our rustic Italian with chocolate in it. And it does very well, it's great. Toast it with butter, peanut butter and bananas. It’s like French toast. It's really nice.” One of the things Thom’s Bread hopes to do is get a location in the Philadelphia area. “Then we would have a foot in that area. The Reading Terminal, for instance, in Philly, is the one place that would be great. We don't necessarily want to be a part of a farmer's market bakery that carries 10 different types of products for their customers. For the customers, it’s great, for me, not so much. Because, even if I do get in there, they're going to take maybe 20 or 30 loaves. My goal is to go into one of those big markets and sell 300 loaves a day.” Capizzi likes that his product is taken home “and shared over meals with people talking about good things and bad things and social times, holiday times, with family and friends, things that, I believe are really important and what, hopefully, we can all move towards. “I'm just looking at doing something that can take care of me and my family, and be a good service to the community. And have some nice products that we can be proud of. And have control. It's easier to be proud when you can control it.” Capizzi says when his family’s business moved to China, “My design development was happening almost 8,000 miles away. When I used to be right here in Lancaster, selling the shirts myself, if the ink didn't look right on the shirt, I could change it in 20 minutes. This bread, if it's not right, it's mine. I have more of a say in what happens with my future and my family's future and that's what matters to me.”