All hands on deck: Boston Baking’s team-centric culture

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All hands on deck: Boston Baking’s team-centric culture

31 Jul 2026

Mari Rydings

Mari Rydings is a versatile content creator, editor and marketer with experience developing dynamic, results-driven materials for B2B and B2C audiences. As the editorial director for Avant Food Media, she leads the day-to-day editorial operations for the company’s print and digital magazines, newsletters and social media platforms. Outside of work, she loves reading, hiking, putting together jigsaw puzzles and spending time with her husband and their twin daughters.

KANSAS CITY — “Call and response” epitomizes Boston Baking’s culture and reflects a business model that’s been in place since the bakery opened its doors more than 48 years ago. Recently, the Boston-based company hired consultants to help the team identify ways to take the business to the next level.

“They referred to Boston Baking as an ‘oversized mom and pop,’” said Bob Boschetto, CEO and founder of Boston Baking. “This motivated us to move toward more automation and innovation while still maintaining the right balance and staying true to our roots.”

Part of that process involved transitioning from an organizational chart into a functional accountability chart that shows all 108 team members and their roles. The bakery is also working toward automating and streamlining its production inventory control to better align with where the company is today and where it needs to be in the next few years.

“With the reorg and restructure, the way we work together now is so different,” said Kristen Boschetto, owner and GM of Boston Baking. “It’s truly a cross-functional team. Bob is the visionary, giving us more structure, more direction, but also empowering each team.”

With the recent expansion, the bakery expects to add more automation, which will bring opportunities for team members. Discussions are ongoing about how the space will be utilized. One possibility is to move production of items such as cookie dough and pie shells, which are unbaked or frozen, to the climate-controlled space.

“This would allow us to expand capacity in the current space, where the ovens are, for bakeable products,” said Carla DePina, director of operations. “You have to see what’s in the pipeline, what’s coming and what will come. You can’t just plan for today. You have to keep that window open and integrate everything into the forecast.”

Any operational changes and forecasting must take into account current and anticipated new product development initiatives. Currently, John Fisher, Boston Baking’s R&D pastry chef and the lead for identifying areas in need of automated solutions, is tinkering with Latin-inspired flavors and a line of better-for-you baked goods.

“We focus on items we can go to market with that support current trends. R&D collaborates with sales and marketing to identify bestsellers and items with the highest profitability.” — Kristen Boschetto | owner and GM | Boston Baking

“New product development is a part of our ideation sessions,” Kristen said. “We focus on items we can go to market with that support current trends. R&D collaborates with sales and marketing to identify bestsellers and items with the highest profitability for our partners and the Boston Baking brand.”

The Boschettos are quick to credit everyone responsible for bringing ideas to life and revenue to the bakery.

“We are nothing without our team,” Bob said. “Profits will come if you take care of people. For many of our team members, this is their first job in the United States. They may not know how to open a bank account, borrow money or buy a car. We want to make our team members’ lives better outside of work, too.”

That’s the goal of the BB Community, an initiative led by Samantha Schermerhorn, continuous improvement and training project manager. In her role, she creates interactive training and professional development opportunities around communication and leadership, as well as the skills people need in their personal lives.

“I not only train team members on what they need to do their jobs, but also on the skills they need to grow as individuals,” Schermerhorn said. “We all learn from each other through team building and bonding.”

The internal program expands upon Boston Baking’s community-based philanthropic efforts, which include participating in the local ALS walk and partnering with the Greg Hill Foundation and Community Servings, the latter for which the company bakes 15,000 pies in three days around the winter holidays.

“Just being nice and humble and good to people goes a long way,” Kristen said.

Call and response. It’s how Boston Baking got to where it is today, and it’s how it will manage the growth headed its way.

This story has been adapted from the 2026 New Products Annual of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.

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