Welcome to Season 7 of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking, speaks with Richard Charpentier, CMB, and CEO of consulting company Baking Innovation. Their conversation explores the technical aspects of creating high-quality, premium baked goods on a commercial scale. Sponsored by Puratos’ Sunset Glaze.

In the first episode, Spencer and Charpentier give bakers a roadmap to understand the product development of premium baked goods, the risks behind it, and the difference between artisan vs. premium.

Learn more about this season here, and listen to Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple, Spotify, Google and Stitcher.

Joanie Spencer: Hi, Richard. Thank you so much for joining me this season.

Richard Charpentier: Hey! How are you, Joanie? Thank you for having me on the podcast. I’m happy to be here.

Spencer: I’m excited to tap into your years and years of expertise in bakery across a broad spectrum. For this season, we are going to talk about premium product development. And the first thing, I think, before we can even go anywhere, is we have to sort of define the parameters. So, premium can be a subjective term. In your opinion, when someone says a product is premium, what exactly does that mean?

Charpentier: Excellent question. For me, as a master baker and bakery scientist, premium comes with a variety of factors. It’s going to be higher quality ingredients, premium flour, whether or not you are making a pizza and bringing your flour from Italy or bringing water from Jersey to have better water to make a pizza. The artisanal production methods how to the format, are they taking the time for, say, long fermentation? Are they paying attention to details? What type of unique flavors do the products offer? Are they really fermenting to create optimal flavors? And of course, what type of packaging will convey a sense of luxury?

Premium to me is every category that we deal with, as a level of premium, whether you buy watches, cars, socks, shoes … there’s always a price for everybody, and there’s always a premium of what is considered better luxury. And one perfect example …  a lot of people I know love the French macaron retailer Laduree that was started in 1862 in Paris. Those macarons are considered premium luxury, top-notch quality. Generally, a premium product is something that offers a superior experience compared to its regular standard counterpart. It is important to think of the experience that it brings, because it’s often associated with a higher price point, and targets consumers that are willing to pay more for quality and exclusivity.

Spencer: Absolutely. And I like that you use Laduree as an example, because I’ve always seen that brand as a little bit mystical in the macaron space. You also talked about fermentation, and the level of time that goes into product development. And when we think about products like bread — a fermented product — that often refers to an artisan product. And some people tend to use the words artisan and premium interchangeably, but those are really two different things. So, what are the differences between artisan and premium? Where do they intersect, and why do they get confused so often?

Charpentier: Excellent question. Based on my experience, I did start as a bakery apprentice, back in France, and when I started I worked for an artisan baker. Everything we made was basically done and crafted with methods of attention to detail. Each product was made from scratch in a smaller batch to keep the unique flavor and texture. Because we had bakeries all over every street corner, we had to set ourselves apart from others and any mass-produced goods, because we wanted to drive the premium price.

In contrast, I think premium products are defined by superior quality and the ability to offer a higher level of experience for the customers purchasing it. This can involve just higher quality ingredients, unique flavors or even keto bread. And often the confusion between those two terms, artisan and premium, may come from the fact that many artisan products are also considered premium. This comes from going into a bakery and seeing premium products with high quality ingredients and attention to detail.

People will line up at beautiful retail bakeries because they know it’s an artisan product as well as a premium product. However, not to be confused, not all premium products are artisanal in nature, because they’re made somewhere else. As some may use a modern production method and rely on branding and marketing to convey the sense of exclusivity, they’re different from the artisan. And in the word artisan, there is the word art. So that means a lot of handmade work, in my opinion. Some people can argue with that, but that’s the way I look at it.

Spencer: I think it is important to articulate that a product doesn’t have to be artisan to be premium. You can create a premium product on a commercial scale. It doesn’t have to be handmade or artisan to be a high-quality premium product. So, Richard, there’s a lot of talk in our industry about premiumization. You and I were both at the American Bakers Association convention back in March. A lot of the research that was presented there talked about premium items and talked about the fact that consumers will spend money on premium baked goods despite inflationary pressure.

So, I kind of want to unpack that from a product development perspective because there’s a space for premium baked goods on store shelves. In terms of product development, I’m going to just sort of throw three different scenarios out there. There’s a bakery that could upscale its current product or add a premium item or a premium version of the existing product lineup or create an entirely new premium product to take into a different category. In your experience, what are the considerations that a bakery operation should make in each of these scenarios?

Charpentier: That is a very good question. When bakers are trying to upscale a current product to a premium version, they should really think of how to add either unique flavors or assets that will, again, go back and give the premium experience to their end customers. Are they changing the fermentation process? Are they going to improve the current packaging? From experience, I’ve seen a lot of commercial bakeries trying to say we’re going to upscale it, and all they have changed is the packaging, and that doesn’t work. Before upscaling a current product to a premium, I think bakers should really assess the overall competition and see what similar products are available in the market because being premium is being unique also. And if you’re trying to be like everybody else, you lose that premium-ness. So, that’s the first thing when upscaling.

The second part of your question was how can they add sort of a premium item to an existing product line where you have your current product line and now you say, “We’re going to a premium item on the same line? To me, the first thing I’m thinking is, let’s make sure that the new premium product you’re trying to bring aligns with the overall brand image and values of the company. Because if you have a cookie at Costco, a bulk, and people see it as a good quality product, but a value product, and now you’re trying to say, “We’re going to be premium,” does it meet the overall brand image and values? Also, when adding an premium item to an existing product line, I think the baker should consider their production process, their pricing strategy and their packaging and make sure that their new premium product stands out in the premium offering and think about it from a supply chain standpoint.

The last part of the question was, if you create an entirely new premium product to take into a new category, what is the most challenging thing to do? To bakers at that point, I’d say, “Hey, go conduct good market research to truly identify the potential gaps or opportunities in the market.” Also, same thing with considering the production process because you need to be able to make the product well and consistently every day. Also, as you go into premium, which is difficult for bakers, is the culture shock of the cost of the ingredients in premium products. Not necessarily always, but either the cost of the ingredients or the cost of the new process because the product, in order to be unique and give the experience, has to have  flavors that will set you apart from other premium offerings in the market and bakers, additionally, should really evaluate the potential customer base for the new product and develop a pricing and marketing strategy that will align with their needs and preferences.

Spencer: I know the third scenario is probably the least likely of the three. And it is not that likely that a high-speed bun producer is going to suddenly want to become a premium croissant producer, because that is a complete shift that requires a totally different operation. But I do think that it’s possible for a bakery operation to break into a new category and do so by creating a premium product. Perhaps it’s a baker who was already making premium products and wants to expand into a different category.

As I’m hearing these considerations, I’m thinking about a conversation that you and I had previously and that was around workforce and training. How do you train a staff that is most likely lean? Because in bakery manufacturing today, we’re all sort of operating lean and mean when it comes to our workforce. How do you train and, especially from your perspective as a master baker, how do you teach today’s workforce to sort of flex their creative muscle and expand their thinking to get into a premium production mindset?

Charpentier: To take what you’ve been doing for years … people are very talented with the day-to-day operation … And then you’re thinking of getting more into the premium and training, you need to invest in good education and good training for your people. Baking is not a simple thing of just putting all the ingredients together, and voila. You need to have people watching the process, and training is essential.

Coming from Europe, baking is a trade, and you must go to school for two years before you can call yourself a baker. In France, if you want to be a waiter, you must go to school for two years. In the US, we have trades for hairdressers, carpenters, electricians and things like that are considered trades. But for baker’s, we tend to ignore that and think we don’t need that. So, if they’re trying to expand, I recommend training. I would love to see a master baker in all bakeries like it used to be back in the days, to have at least one person, like in the brewing industry, to have a brew master that says when it is ready and not ready. To do that, reaching out to the supplier’s consultant and finding people who can truly teach is critical. We have lots of great talents, and I’ve lots of friends who are either retired or semi-retired, and I’m sure they could be convinced to come for a week and talk knowledge. Because the knowledge in baking for training is the people.

You can have all the textbooks, but it’s the people who can show and the touch and feel that I think we’re missing. Once you bring someone, for an example, who was an expert of working croissants, I will collaborate with that person and say, “Teach us, based on your recommendation, how can we get the best croissant with the current equipment?” And then collaborate to achieve that. But as we said, it’ll take time and investment from both parties to be willing to do that.

Spencer: And you make a good point that you have to sort of look outside of the bakery to find those experts, whether it’s consultants or the supplier network, suppliers of equipment and suppliers of ingredients. Both bring a lot to the table in terms of training, and there are master bakers, who are consultants, like yourself. And then also suppliers have master bakers who are available to not only train but help ideate for product development, for creating these new products. If we go back to those scenarios, and we think about a baker wanting to develop a premium product and any of those scenarios, let’s take it back one step further. What’s the first question that the team needs to ask themselves before they even take the first step?

Charpentier: I would say as a group, the bakers should say, “Do we have the internal knowledge to do that?” I have lots of great friends who are amazing bakers, but they’ve been making bread for the last 40 years. Are they comfortable making croissants? I’m sure they could, but I think at that point it’s we are trained and do we have the equipment and the production setup there? Are they willing to invest in equipment and then education, to first determine the visibility of what it would take for creating a premium product? And what steps would they need to ensure its success? Because that’s a key. Because if you go for premium, it’s not just a limited time offer. Premium ensures the quality and the consistency of your product to stay competitive. That’s why it’s essential for bakers to consider what are the current trends within the premium field and how would they sell it? At what price? I’ve worked on lots of projects where we tried to do premium, and suddenly because of the price point, we won’t’ be able to  sell it because it’s way beyond what we do.

Spencer: As you said, a premium product is unique by its nature. You can’t copycat a premium product; you must make it all your own. I also like what you said, that you can’t just make the premium item an LTO. You can’t say, “We’re going to be an everyday item except for Easter, then we’re going to have something that’s super upscale, and then it’s going to go away. I think it does have to be sort of part of the brand and part of a bakery’s identity. But there’s some risk involved in that, don’t you think?

Charpentier: I see risk everywhere. There’s risk of making every day low-cost cookies and low-cost breads. There’s the risk because it’s about consistency and the throughput. Premium doesn’t change. It’s just the steps involved around making premium. It’s going to be more attention to details. It’s not just about how many pounds per hour and what’s the throughput. How many good sellable quality units do we have every day? And it goes back to the premium restaurants. When they plate the desserts, they’re making sure that every dessert is the same and the experience is going to be the same. Going back to the theme, is premium going to give an experience to the customer where they’re saying, “I’m buying it because I’m connected with the product?”

Spencer: And just like you said earlier, when we talked about the difference between artisan and premium, and I think this is really what this entire season boils down to, is that there is great opportunity to produce premium products at scale. You can manufacture a great high-quality baked good if you’re asking yourself the right questions, you have the right team in place, you are partnering with the right supplier network, and you’re imparting the correct knowledge and doing it for the right reasons. Would you agree with that?

Charpentier: One hundred percent. I like what you said earlier. You know, it’s a commitment. And it goes beyond the commitment to say, “We must fulfill an order.” Now, our commitment is to ensure that every product we make is an experience. And it’s doable, but it’s really changing the thought process behind it. That’s going to be the challenge, the obstacles, to overcome.

Spencer: For sure. So, I think that’s a great note to end this episode on. Richard, thank you so much for joining me for this five-week journey as we talk about what it takes to create high quality premium baked goods.

And just to give sort of an idea of what we’re going to dive into next week, we’ll look at sort of the market conditions and what the demand looks like for premium baked goods. Then we’ll journey through choosing the right ingredients and looking at product development for the right taste and texture. We’re going to close out the season by looking at what it takes to create a great finished product that is highly marketable. That’s just sort of a preview for what we have coming up over the next four weeks. And I’m just so excited to dive into this with you, Richard.

Charpentier: Thank you, Joanie, for having me. I had a great time answering the questions and can’t wait for next time!

Welcome to the sixth season of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking, visits with various members of the team at New Haven, CT-based Chabaso Bakery. Hear about their journey to becoming a Certified B Corporation and building a business as a force for good. Sponsored by JLS Automation.

In this final episode, you’ll hear from Reed Immer, Chabaso’s director of sales and marketing, about some of the secondary benefits that come with achieving B Corp certification. 

Learn more about this season here, and listen to Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple, Spotify, Google and Stitcher.

Joanie Spencer: Hi, Reed, thanks for joining me this week.

Reed Immer: Hey, thanks for having me.

Spencer: I know you had a huge role in achieving this certification. You know better than anybody what the primary and secondary benefits of being a B Corp are. The first thing I want to do is revisit that definition that I brought up in the very first episode. A B Corp is a for-profit business that has met the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. I also want to revisit a question I asked in the second episode, and that question is, “Why?” You don’t wake up one day and decide to become a B Corp, and you certainly cannot do this for self-serving reasons. That’s the “why” question I want to start this conversation with. Why can’t you become a B Corp for self-serving reasons?

Immer: I think if you’re just trying to use this certification as a way to increase the profitability or sales of the company, this might not be the shortest route to achieve that if you’re willing to sacrifice other morals likely. I think for us, as we’ve touched on in previous episodes, it was in the DNA of what the company has been up to throughout our whole trajectory. A lot of these community-based projects from us, our founder Charles Negaro wanted to build a business that reflects some of these values. I think we found that when we discovered what the B Corp certification was all about, it already aligned with many things we were already were doing. We saw it to take us to a higher level on this path that we already were very interested in going down.

One thing I would say is, even though you can’t do it for exclusively self-serving reasons, I think we’ve found fortune when you can align all these points together in an enlightened self-interest in terms of you’re still trying to do this good for the world but doing that still selfishly brings you some benefits. I feel like we’ve realized that a lot of these community projects we were already doing, if we could find a way to align them with the other operations of  the company and how we’re communicating ourselves as this leader in our region of the northeast, of food companies that are really trying to do good for the world, there were a lot of benefits in terms of differentiating ourselves in the marketplace, in terms of people starting to see us for being more than just a bread brand.

I think that’s the big challenge. How can all this good stuff you’re doing for the world not just be a side flourish of the company, but also really work into your operations and what your core capabilities are? We’ve been learning more how to align and synergize all these aspects, because it already aligned with the DNA of the company. It just made a lot of sense for us to take this on and make that commitment.

Spencer: I’m a Gen Xer, and I was really into the show “Friends.” There was an episode where Joey Tribbiani claimed that there’s no such thing as a good deed that doesn’t serve the person doing the deed, and Phoebe spent the whole episode just trying fruitlessly to do a good deed that didn’t have some benefit that came back to her. I think that’s where we are with this, that you can’t do it for selfish reasons, but you can’t not have good come back to you in some way, shape or form.

Immer: Exactly. I think the more that it aligns with the other aspects of how people understand what your company is about, there’s certain things you can be doing that align with the B Corp good things that don’t necessarily gel nicely with your current identity. But then there are certain things, like we found when we started to support emerging food entrepreneurs and focused on our hiring practices and environmental footprint, a lot of that stuff really complemented the existing idea that folks already had about Chabaso and built upon that.

It’s figuring out, from this large framework of B Corp metrics and goals, what are the handful of them that makes sense for your organization, and the ones you can adopt as strategic projects bring a lot of great stuff into the world, but also, like you said, come back to help your own organization’s needs, financial health and everything else.

Spencer: One thing I’m assuming came back to you as an immediate payoff was the moment when you got the news that you had achieved your certification. You guys hit the mark. You needed a score of 80 and you got an 85.4. Can you tell me how did you get that news? And then what was the reaction from you, who spearheaded this entire thing with Charlie and also throughout the company?

Immer: Well, personally, it was a major sigh of relief in terms of us being a small company. It took the better part of two years to get this done. I think it was a bit of a weight off my shoulders in terms of weekly duties. But of course, receiving the certification just opens up all these other tough, but great projects for us coming up in 2023. So, it was a short-lived sigh of relief. But after we submitted our impact assessment for B Corp, it then moves to a deeper verification stage with the B Lab team. They really comb through all the answers, request some updated documentation, a few other calls and video chats to really dive deep into some of our answers and make sure they understood where we were coming from. We got the heads up that, “Hey, it looks like you’re going to make it. We’ll let you know in a week or two if you’re there.” Then that email came through from the lab just a few months ago for us. That felt so awesome.

I think a portion of the Chabaso team, especially those who have been around the past few years and were there for previous iterations of B Corp attempts, they really understood what this is about and how much work we’d put into it. I think for them, it was an awesome little internal celebration as well. Then the other side of things, there’s still a lot of folks who work at Chabaso who don’t have a lot of knowledge on what this whole B Corp thing is about.

After we received the certification, B Corp has a lot of resources in terms of “Okay, now what do you do?” One of the biggest things that they recommend prioritizing, and have a ton of these resources to help you do, is communicating this internally and helping all the people in the organization understand: “What is this? Why is this important? How is this going to help us further down our path?” We’ve done a few of those internal communications. Charlie, our CEO, has sent out some blurbs, and we’re working to clarify how this translates into the day-to-day operations for everybody.

But that’s still a big challenge we’re working on. Because it’s not just you send one email internally and everybody completely gets it. It’s a continuous conversation, figuring out through your different internal communication channels and external, to help educate why this is important, how this will play into your role as an individual, why this is helping steer the bulky ship that is a manufacturing organization and the direction we’re trying to go. Like I said, it was a great feeling of relief after we got it. But it just opens us up to a whole new set of challenges and projects. But ones that we’re very excited to be getting into in 2023.

Spencer: You mentioned that B Lab communicates, okay, now you are a part of a global network that’s almost 3,000 companies strong and they’re all focused on balancing profit and purpose. From your perspective and your role, what’s it like having access to some of the world’s most ethically focused businesses? And how does it change your view now that you’re in that upper echelon? How does it change your view of what it means to be a purpose driven company?

Immer: I think one of the benefits was we got access to these online forums and this whole directory of other B Corps. There’s a lot of honest, collaborative conversations that are happening in these forums and other companies, not just food, all industries, that are really mission driven and are also looking for assistance and insights from other organization of asking what they are trying to do. How have you guys approached it? What worked for you in this scenario, given limited resources and all that?

I think being able to connect with other folks that are on a similar wavelength as us even if they’re not making bread, even if they’re not making food is just an amazing resource. There is a lot of content on there, so I’ve been reading through and lurking a little bit to try and learn. I’m really excited to be diving into more of those in-depth conversations with these folks.

There also is a large, well-regarded annual meetup of all the B Corp organizations in the country. I think it happened in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. We had just received this and then there’s all this other stuff happening, so we decided to postpone attending that. But we’re really looking forward to these in-person events as well, learning from other organizations and how we can apply things we learn from them to our own scenario. Even though it’s a fraction of all the organizations out there that are B Corps, it’s still reached a critical mass. There’s a lot of good resources that are currently existing, that we hope to take on and folks that we can reach out to for assistance. We’re really looking forward to all that.

Spencer: That’s one thing I think as an industry do a little bit more of, is looking outside of our own industry for best practices in many areas. I think it’s really cool that you have access to this network to really look at best practices that you can apply to your manufacturing. Rich and I talked about that in the previous episodes, about how you look at your best practices on the plant floor and even how it changes the view of what you expect from your supplier network. I think it’s awesome that you’re able to sort of expand your view of what your resources are and what you can apply to your business.

Immer: Absolutely. I think also, as you mentioned earlier in the episode, of the currently existing B Corp bakeries that are out there, we are really excited to be increasing our relationships with those folks and figure out within those scenarios, how they’ve been working together. We’d love to put in that work to help gather more of a community. As we said, we’d love to have more bakeries in the industry hop on the similar path and the other B Corps bakeries out there. Please feel free to reach out to us and we’d love to make something happen.

Spencer: That would be awesome. I think I can even probably make a couple of introductions for you.Another thing I want to talk about, as far as the benefits to being a B Corp, is the workforce. This is a topic that has really permeated through almost every episode. We have addressed Chabaso’s workforce in one way or another. And Charlie, of course, really emphasizes the importance of the people in this company. What does the future of Chabaso’s workforce look like as a B Corp?

Immer: Like I mentioned with the B Corp resources, another one that’s within that B Corp network is a job posting platform. We’re going to be working to take advantage of that as another way to get our openings to a batch of folks that are well aligned with Chabaso. Another thing that we’ve always been very interested in is being in New Haven, CT. It’s a big college town. Obviously, there’s Yale, but there’s a handful of other universities, state colleges and private universities.

One of the big challenges with our region is there’s a lot of folks that come in for a few years to finish their studies and then they skip town to go to Boston or New York to be closer to places where they think they can build their careers. We would love to be building more awareness of, “Hey, if you’re trying to work for a business that’s mission driven, you don’t have to go north or south, you can stay right here. There’s cool stuff happening here.”

We’d love for more young graduates of these universities to see Chabaso, and ideally other like-minded businesses in our area, as worthy of their first steps into their career. Hopefully, there are further steps into their career after that. Another thing we’re trying to think through, and my initial hunch is that the B Corp aspect of the employer brand probably resonates a little bit more with the office folks than the production floor folks, but I would love to be proven wrong on that. I think one of our challenges is exploring to what level that currently resonates with the folks that we’re trying to hire on the production manufacturing side of things.

And again, throughout all these different department contexts, how can we be boiling down this abstract thing that is B Corp into something that makes sense and makes them feel good about what their responsibilities are and how that contributes to this larger mission that the organization is up to? By increasing our access to this job posting platform, hopefully we retain more talent coming out of the universities in our region and then explore how we translate this onto the manufacturing side of things and how it can make sense be simple and contribute to the overall quality of things.

Spencer: That does make a lot of sense. What you’re saying about the actual jobs on the plant floor, they don’t always think about “How is what I’m doing becoming something meaningful for the world?” Not that they don’t care, it just doesn’t get communicated all the time down to that level on the plant floor. I think it’s not necessarily having the B Corp certification, but being able to communicate what that means and how it can directly apply to a person who is standing on the line and maybe a second shift.

Immer: Exactly. It’s not that they can’t understand that at all. A lot of these folks are really bright. But it’s the challenge of the leadership throughout the organization and the folks that are really connected to the B Corp certification, including myself and Charlie, to figure out, “How do we translate this and how does it make sense?” That will be a longer-term challenge that we’re hoping to make progress on.

Spencer: I feel like, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like it’s an opportunity to really enhance the sense of pride that comes with working at Chabaso in any capacity, whether it’s on the line or in an office.

Immer: Oh absolutely. It feels good to be working on something that’s high quality that you believe in. Whether you’re behind a computer or behind a large mixer, that doesn’t really change. Maybe some of the vocabulary and the messaging does, but everybody still wants to be proud of what they’re putting their hours into, and we hope this kind of factors into that.

Spencer: I want to circle back to something we talked about in a previous episode, and that is the CT Food Launchpad. How will your B Corp Certification benefit the work that you’re doing through the CT Food Launchpad? Then on top of that, how does being a B Corp help you benefit other companies and brands in your community?

Immer: The quick intro of the CT Food Launchpad is it’s a side program we started at Chabaso and our sister business, Atticus, to help these emerging food brands in our region basically graduate from the farmers market to the grocery aisle and navigate all the conversations, pricing strategy and all that stuff that is necessary to succeed in a retail environment like that, and it’s something we’re really excited about. And this is a longer-term vision, but how Chabaso has been engaging to help these emerging food brands, we don’t think that this is something only a company like Chabaso could do.

We think there’s a lot of mission driven, mid-size food manufacturers similar to us that have really strong relationships in their region, that are used to navigating all of this. That could be of tremendous value to other emerging food brands in their region. If they’re able to communicate those learnings and insights, we would love to be working with other Chabaso-like brands.

Again, maybe they’re not bakeries, maybe they make cheese or beverages, but manufacturers that are interested in playing a closer role in economic development in their region by uplifting emerging brands, especially those led by folks from underserved groups. We think there’s potential, probably by giving us access to this network of B Corps across the country, to be almost boiling down what we’ve done at CT Food Launchpad into a toolkit that makes it easier for other mid-sized manufacturers to play a similar role in their own environments. I think that’s a longer-term goal, but I think that’s something that would be really cool and that we’re excited about and other ways that specifically helps CT Food Launchpad.

It all kind of gels together in terms of building more trust of the folks that are behind the CT Food Launchpad program: They’re an established manufacturer, they’ve already received these rigorous third-party certifications from B Corp showing that they are taking the steps and caring about all these things. It builds up our credibility from policymakers and potential partners from media that this is all part of a very strong and credible system.

We hope it greases the wheels for us to be doing bigger and better events and collaborations in this whole food entrepreneurship scene around us. That was a very long-winded answer to what you asked. But CT Food Launchpad is still so relatively early in its trajectory that we know there’s a lot of potential in this general space we’re swimming in.

We know food entrepreneurship, economic development and the values that B Corp align with are a lot of times very complementary aspects. We think that by combining these parts together, it can help to make the program overall more credible and can open up partnerships with other folks in like-minded organizations and partners that can help us continue down this path.

Spencer: I love that long-winded answer. I’m just listening to you, and I’m soaking it all in. There’s so much potential for this to be something huge. Did you realize that entirely when you started CT Food Launchpad? Or was it just more of an immediate, “We want to help these little emerging brands?” Did you know it had this kind of potential?

Immer: We didn’t know at first. I think we’ve been realizing it more and more. Part of it is that’s how Charlie and I got to know each other. We were working for two different food organizations in town. He was still Chabaso and Atticus; I was with a new fast casual concept. We were both very involved in this local food scene of pop-up events featuring local chefs or little markets featuring emerging food products. It was just something that was so fun to us. That’s how we got to know each other. We’ve held on to that desire stubbornly to be participating in that local food scene, just because it’s been so fun to us.

I think as we’ve kept doing that, because we liked it being part of our days, we’ve started to realize how that complements the capabilities of Chabaso and how that can complement our networks, and again, this enlightened self-interest thing we touched on earlier, in terms of helping these emerging brands build themselves up, but also to be differentiating Chabaso in the eyes of some of our customers and partners, just as B Corp has, in terms of this is a brand that really cares about our region, this is somebody we can turn to even if we’re not trying to figure out our problem with bread procurement, but in another category as well. We trust that they know the quality of stuff that’s bubbling up from the local scene that has the potential to really make a difference at a larger scale.

Spencer: That triggers my next question, which is an oversimplified way of asking about what you’re talking about. But before I get to that, I must tell you that in hearing you talk about how you and Charlie have come together and how your professional relationship and dare I say friendship has grown?

Immer: Yep!

Spencer: I just had the biggest smile on my face, because it reminded me of back in 2019, when I got to sit with Charlie’s dad, Charles Sr., and have lunch with him at Atticus. He told me the story of how Chabaso came to be and how he fell in love with the breadmaking, and the bakers he developed those relationships with. Your relationship with Charlie sounds a lot like what Charles described to me. I think that is something so special and something that this industry really needs for its survival, to have these tight relationships and stubbornness that you’re talking about. Because that’s how we’re going to pass all of this knowledge and this passion on from generation to generation. I just had to say that I think that’s really cool.

Immer: Totally. It takes a lot of work to do anything, so you might as well have it be something that you care about and that is really fun. I think to us, we can work it in and have it be something we enjoy doing day in and day out, then it just increases the likelihood of us staying committed and putting in 100%.

Spencer: I want to go back to the concept of the enlightened self-interest. One thing, as you were talking about with what this means for the Chabaso brand, this question really comes down to people can’t do it for this reason, but it is a second benefit and that is the sort of marketing benefit. What does B Corp certification do for your brand? What does having that unmistakable B Corp logo on your package say about the food that’s inside of it?

Immer: I think there’s still a lot of learning to do on how that translates on the individual shopper and consumer level. We know there’s an increasing number of shoppers out there that really care about that. And they are also the ones who are most vocal and likely to be strong promoters of our brands. We know there’s a lot of value there. It’s hard to quantify that at this moment, in terms of the tools we have and how scrappy and tiny we are.

There definitely is a lot more awareness on the wholesale purchasing side of things. Obviously, those are the folks we work with in terms of helping to get our products into stores and build our business. There is a ton of interest at the top executive level and a lot of these grocers and organizations we work with want to be furthering their sustainability goals for their own retailer brands and be chipping away at being seen as a better for the world brand for their shoppers, which also often is one of the ways they can justify a premium in their stores and not have it be seen as just a commodity experience.

The past few years, we’ve seen a lot of shifting in major grocers setting these top level sustainability goals, whether it’s for diversity of ownership, environmental footprint of products or local sourcing. Having us achieve the B Corp certification, just a lot of stuff that’s required to get that, you end up furthering your environmental score and caring about your workers score just in that same process.

But then also, there’s a lot of interest in,”Are you a Certified B Corp?” We’re seeing that more in these supplier surveys that we see coming out annually from our customers. It’s even in the short-term conversations we’ve been having over the past few weeks with our customers. It’s a very easy way to communicate, what, in the past, was a million different messy projects that Chabaso was doing that were good but weren’t super bite-sized and snackable in terms of being able to communicate to some of our customers.

The B Corp thing is just kind of a shortcut to get all that stuff communicated in a simple way to our wholesale customers and for them to communicate internally. We’re seeing a big shift in the tone of the conversations we’re having with folks and them starting to see us as more than just a provider of commodity artisan breads. Then, for new product opportunities, whether it’s in the Chabaso brand, or prospective owned brands for grocers, that’s also a big concern that they want to also be able to communicate in their annual sustainability reports.

A lot of them have already set these goals that by 2030, we want to shift more to suppliers that have third-party certifications are based in our region. This is the trend that’s happening, and we see it as it is better to get ahead of that and reap some of those benefits as being seen as a relative leader in our space than having to catch up because everyone’s going to be ending up there anyway, if you’re trying to be seen as a specialty premium brand.

Spencer: Those specialty premium items are usually the first to come with an expectation of better-for-you means better for everybody. You sparked this thought for me, your customer demands, the retailer demands that they come from the consumer demands, because obviously they’re trying to meet what their customers are asking for. Consumers are always driving everything. They are driving these sustainability related expectations.

But it almost feels like what you’re saying is that actual certifications like B Corp that feels like it’s more recognizable on a B2B level than on a consumer level, that it might have more meaning for your customers right now than it does from the consumer side, because consumers are just more like overarching.

Immer: That’s been our latest thinking. We’re scrappy and busy, and we rely on hunches maybe a little too much now and then. I think the actual B Corp logo and program, that seems specifically to have more awareness within the B2B. But then all the stuff that’s required for you to become a B Corp, basically making progress in any of those in itself is a story that your shoppers and consumers are interested in hearing about in terms of … one of our big things that helped us get over the line for being able to receive the B Corp Certification in terms of the minimum points was our program of partnering with resettlement agencies to hire displaced peoples and refugees from Afghanistan.

Even though our shoppers don’t know everything about B Corp, that initiative we did that helped us get those points that in itself was a really strong story that local media outlets and our community was really interested in hearing and sharing. Even if it’s not the B Corp-specific logo, all the stuff that contributes to it is still all very much of interest to your everyday shopper.

Spencer: That totally makes sense. Okay, Reed, I have one last question for you to close out this conversation and close out these five weeks that I have enjoyed spending time with the team at Chabaso. We are going bring it full circle. It was the first question today, and it was one of the first questions that I asked. And that’s why? We’ve talked about why Chabaso sought to become a B Corp. You get to speak to the baking industry, why should any company, but specifically, baking companies in our industry seek to have that B on their package and in their logo?

Immer: That is a tough question. We’ve touched on there’s these benefits in terms of differentiating yourself in the marketplace that just come naturally from pursuing this. I think also, in terms of us realizing this was already part of our DNA and a way to formalize and amplify that. By figuring out the value of these more rigorous third-party certifications to help you work in some of these aspirations into your day-to-day operations, and then also make it easier to communicate. That’s a benefit to the industry.

Whether it’s specifically the B Corp thing or a different third-party certification, I think just that practice of, “What do we really stand for? What are we trying to do?” and then seeing the value of a third-party external certification to increase your credibility in terms of your commitment to that. It doesn’t have to be B Corp. There’s some other stuff out there that maybe goes in a slightly different direction, but it’s a similar way of increasing your credibility and communicating that.

I think that process is very valuable to helping organizations really double down on what they’re trying to do and establish measurable goals for that. In terms of the B Corp, there’s more interest from shoppers on, like we said, better-for-you, good-for-theworld foods. It seems like a lot of these other categories, like healthy snacks and other food items, are usually a little ahead of the curve in terms of jumping on those.

I said in a previous episode, the baking industry is a little old school, which is great, but that also is the opportunity for bakeries to be still seen as that leading part of the industry. Because overall, there’s this interest in good-for-the-world food. Because the baking industry is a little bit behind in that, we’d said that on the B Corp directory, there’s only like 30 total certified companies in the industry, that’s a big opportunity to be seen as the leader of your respective pack in your category, but still in line with the certification and values. That is proving itself every single day to be resonating with individual shoppers and contribute to differentiating your company in the marketplace, but also energizing your team and helping them to understand what the heck are we doing and why are we doing this.

Spencer: I think it is a wonderful and meaningful and very important call to action for our industry. Thank you for that. It’s a great note to close on.

Immer: Oh, awesome. I did it.

Spencer: Reed, thank you so much, not only to you, but also to Rich and to Charlie for spending these five weeks with me and just taking me and our listeners on this journey with you into understanding what it means to be a B Corp certified baking company. This has been incredible. I think it’s just good education for our industry. So, thank you so much to all of you for taking time and sharing your story.

Immer: Thank you guys so much for having us. I mean, we love sharing our story. Like we said, it feels like to us we’re just getting started, even though we’ve been around for a little bit. But it’s a really exciting new chapter in the company. And like I’d said, we’re always happy to be sharing our both learnings struggles and stumbles. We’re happy to continue the conversation with any folks that that are interested. So, thank you so much for having us.

Spencer: I can’t wait to see what’s next for Chabaso. Thank you for listening to the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast.

Welcome to the sixth season of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking, visits with various members of the team at New Haven, CT-based Chabaso Bakery. Hear about their journey to becoming a Certified B Corporation and building a business as a force for good. Sponsored by JLS Automation.

This episode focuses on continuous improvement. B Corps must re-certify every 3 years and meet a constantly evolving standard for social and environmental performance. So this week, Rich Jamesley, Chabaso’s VP of operations and supply chain, and Charlie Negaro, president, talk about how they approach innovation on a 3-year cycle.

Learn more about this season here, and listen to Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple, Spotify, Google and Stitcher.

Joanie Spencer: Hi, Charlie and Rich, thanks for joining me.

Rich Jamesley: Hi, Joanie.

Charles Negaro Jr.: Hey, Joanie.

Spencer: We have spent a few weeks really talking in depth about what it took to get this B Corp certification. It’s a long and labor-intensive process. Last week, Rich and I had this incredible conversation about what this certification looks like in the operation. In so many ways, achieving this was just the first step because in three years, you’re going to have to get recertified and kind of do it all over again. Can you explain to me what exactly a recertification entails.

Jamesley: With, the B Corp assessment, you have to go through quite a few questions. Then you have to demonstrate your results against those that then get certified by the B Lab group. They go through and confirm you’re meeting the criteria and then provide the score. The criteria gets more challenging each recertification. We will need to be better than we were in this past certification. Over the next three years, we’ll continue to evolve how we do business in order to attain that recertification.

Spencer: Yes, it’s not a one and done. It really sets your bar higher and higher every time, right?

Jamesley: I think when you become a company, you become a company. But when you’re a B Corp, every three years, you have to validate that you are meeting all those criteria that they have for being a B Corp. Knowing that the criteria changes and gets more challenging each time, means you have to get better, and you have to have a continuous improvement process within your organization to evolve and to attain that recertification every three years.

Spencer: Rich, we closed out last week by saying three years goes by really fast. So happy 2023, you’ve got two years left. Have you already started planning for your recertification? What does that look like?

Jamesley: What we’re looking at is various platforms and we have some exciting things that we’re working on from a people standpoint, which really is how we’re going to invest in our people to make them better. This will obviously make Chabaso a stronger organization.

Negaro: I’ll just add to that. Having someone like Rich, who has been a part of a B Corp before is just invaluable, to be overly honest. After we got certified, there’s an extent of, “Okay, now what?” Having someone on the team with the experience in manufacturing that Rich has and experience with B Corp is a number of things, but very comforting. As we mentioned last week, it’s this constant struggle and process to improve. This is almost a whole new challenge to continue, improve and evolve. Everyone needs to play a role now. Part of what we’re going to be doing is setting up these cross-department committees and establishing clear goals. I think one of the aspects of the B Corp certification that is really a helpful tool for us or the compass, like we talked about, was my dad has always tried to treat everybody like family in the company. But to some degree, it has always lacked focus. To be measured means you have to be focused. We think these buckets of improvement we’re going to have moving forward will just continue to be our hiring strategies, improving our environmental footprint and what impact can we have on our regional supply chain.

Spencer: It really takes you from a mindset of, “Here’s what we want to be,” to “This is what we are.”

Negaro: Yes, even before that it requires you to get shaken out of the day-to-day firefighting. As Rich mentioned, it’s not big steps, it’s tiny steps and those tiny steps upward every single day. If you can just get your head above water a little bit so you can be intentional about how you’re reacting to those tiny steps, they can build into something big over a long period of time. That process of collaborating and building something is what really gets me excited about going to work. Even on our toughest days, it keeps us all in the game.

Spencer: Okay, I want to take a , Charlie, and sort of talk about Rich like he’s not here. Sorry, Rich. But you mentioned what a key team member he is, and I just want to again point out what incredible find. To be able to bring someone on your team with not only 40 years of experience in the industry, but also someone who came from, and I mentioned this last week, Rich didn’t just come from another B Corp. He came from the standard bearer B Corp in the baking industry, in my opinion. How does having Rich on this team really help that mindset of like you said, “Woohoo, let’s celebrate for a minute. We did it and high five. Now back to work, because the work’s just starting.” How is having Rich a game changer for you?

Negaro: Rich started with us in January of 2022, but I’ve known about Rich for probably two or three years through some of our advisors and consultants that work for us. The baking industry is relatively tiny. Everybody knows everybody. Our last few years that come into ourcapex meetings and our engineering consultant, this guy named Tom Course, who was also consulting down with Rich, would come and say, “Hey, there’s this guy Rich, and he’s doing all this stuff.” The stories build into without you realizing, where you know you have to meet this guy. I thought to myself, “How do I find Rich?” Tom called me one day and said there was an opportunity to meet Rich, and there was an opportunity to possibly hire Rich. Tom called me at six o’clock in the morning, on his way to another meeting, and even just the process of getting to know Rich was, I would say, unique to meeting other people. I think when you kind of meet someone, whether it be a friend, employee or a coworker, you kind of go, “We’re in cahoots here.” The process of getting to know Rich and being introduced to him was great. Then the value of having someone who has been there and done that, but who is also open. There is zero of, “This is the way it has to be done. Let’s do it this way.” or “This is the way I did it here.” He has a very open mind. There’s things that I get to learn from him on a daily basis that open my eyes to all those small things that we can just be improving on culturally. This was probably the most challenging three years for any industry, but the most challenging year with dealing with sudden and abrupt inflation. And labor constraint that’s somewhat related to that, but somewhat not. Having someone like Richard around … I don’t how I could have done it without him. That’s all down to his experience in manufacturing and B Corp, but also just his personality and cultural outlook.

Spencer: My next question is based on all of that, and it is for both of you. As you’re going through the application process, and I think you both have very different perspectives on this, but did the idea that you’re going to have to be recertified in three years impact your initial improvements that you made for the application process?

Jamesley: I would say that the recertification from a professional standpoint really gives you focus. Every organization sets their long-term goals and their roadmap of the future. But knowing you must get recertified makes you focus on that you’re going to have to get better and you’re going to have to have the goals to do that. Sometimes goals are on a piece of paper and you share it, but knowing that an external group is going to look at what you’ve done and demonstrate those results and progression over the three years is healthy. It gives you that determination of, “What do we have to do differently to get better?” And again, I think it’s all under the lens of continuous improvement and how and where you are driving those results?

Negaro: Yes, I totally agree. I’ve been a part of various ways of setting strategy and setting goals. For me, and I think a lot of people in our organization, it’s finding what are the right tools that work? It’s not your job to go off alone in a room and figure out what to do and then come back and sell it to people. It’s your job to get everybody together and collaborate, to figure out, “What’s the problem? What are some possible ways? What’s the opportunity? Or some possible ways to get through together? What are some possible ways to capitalize on it?” I think that lends more to an organic uprising of strategies and tactics. The goals that we set or the focuses that we set to get certified just kind of came out of what we were already doing.

Spencer: Charlie, that kind of reminds me of something that you said in the very first episode. It was that it is so much easier to fix something that was wrong than it is to figure out what went right. Understanding what went right and how to improve on that really does require that team collaboration.

Negaro: Yes, exactly. Sometimes our best days are most frustrating because it’s a combination of 100 things that went perfectly rather than just like one thing that went catastrophically wrong. It’s great to have those days occur back-to-back. To be successful day in and day out, you have to somehow permeate in everybody’s mind the same goal with that we’re here to make a quality product, and it’s something to be proud of.

Spencer: Yes. Now that you are an official Certified B Corporation, how does it change your definition of innovation in terms of your product development but also as a manufacturer?

Jamesley: I think that one of the pieces that many organizations as we’ve gone through the tight labor availability, have gone to automation. I think that in particular, in the artisan bread, the use of our people to make that bread special, which is also part of the innovation process, products that we are making available both new as well as our existing, is the key to our success. That’s why investing in our people is a key piece that we are going after. We believe in investing in our people.

Negaro: I’ll just add from the manufacturer side, there are daily reminders of what the benefits of having a collaborative working environment are. Last week, Rich mentioned that, through this challenging year, we’ve been able to improve our throughput. Another piece that has come out of 2022 is that we’ve always had very good throughput. But our team came together this year and came up with new ways of asking for longer lead times from our customers. Rich has been working with scheduling. When we sit down with a customer this past year, all the conversations are around price, but to be able to sit down and then tick through their checkboxes and get to the end and go, “Well, your fulfillment rate is 99.9%. Great.” I think that’s been an enormous help for us. It might not sound like a huge thing, but it’s something that has come out of this culture. When someone from the outside looks at, “Why should I invest in culture?” Or, “Why should I invest in B Corp? It’s, “How does that improve? What are my tangible assets that come out of that? What’s my ROI?” There’s a lot of soft gains that actually help you out tremendously.

Spencer: I would say that 99.9% fulfillment rate is pretty big deal. That’s pretty tangible.

Negaro: Yes. A lot of it is just communication and everybody working together and knowing that we have to figure out a way to make this happen and do it continuously. That we can do it every week, not just this week.

Spencer: Let’s unpack this a little bit more, because Rich has mentioned it, you have mentioned it, everybody knows that 2022, despite being generally considered post-pandemic, was a really hard year. How did you both see supply chain disruption and this record inflation, really impacting your ability to innovate at the level and pace that you need to stay on a three-year cycle? Because again, we have said it several times, three years goes by really fast.

Jamesley: I think from a customer consumer need, we must continue to innovate and come up with the products that meet the new demands of our consumers. I think we have to partner with our vendors and figure out how we can achieve that with all the challenges from the supply chain, and find the partners that will work with us in order to do that in order for us to come up with new innovations. Again, being in the artisan bread industry, you can’t stand still, you need to come up with new products that people are going to want to try and continue being a supporter of the Chabaso, which ultimately leads to the support of our people and community.

Negaro: I think the one of the plus sides of a restricted supply chain was I gave everybody kind of the excuse to just kind of focus on the basics. A lot of customers just came out and said, “Well, here’s what I actually just really need.” I think there is some carryover from that in acceptability within the industry, and maybe in all industries and folk’s ability to say, “No” gently to things. In the past, like Rich was saying, people are looking for innovation, we’ve all gone to IBIE and IDDBA and seeing innovation that’s very far afield. Those things very rarely stick, but they’re flashy and they’re new and exciting. They create ripple effects and disruption. What we’ve been able to do is be smarter about the lanes that we want to be driving in and set ourselves up ahead of time, whether we’re talking to customers, brokers or our own team, just to say, “Here’s what we are really good at, here’s what providing a solution looks like, here’s what it doesn’t look like, here’s how we focus. Let’s stay focused.” There’s always these opportunities to still be creative. But it’s just very important that it’s a very intentional, focused effort.

Spencer: Everybody’s dealing with supply chain and inflation. No one’s immune to it. But then Chabaso is in a relatively unique position because you’ve got those challenges, you’re an artisan bread manufacturer sp that comes with its own unique set of challenges, and now you’re a B Corp and that has its own set of unique circumstances. When you put all those things together, how does that impact what you’re looking for in your supplier partners, and how does it impact — especially as a B Corp and looking through that lens —how does it impact who you’re choosing to work with and what those requirements are? And I’m thinking from an equipment standpoint as well as an ingredient standpoint.

Jamesley: I think one of the things that fascinated me was Reed and Charlie were looking at regional grains. Quite frankly, I didn’t realize how many regional grains were available here. But as we went through the 22 challenges of supply chain, it could not be an initiative that we could take on at that point. But I think that as we go forward, from a three-year lens, we will further pursue and find partners within the regional grains, which will be a great innovation for an artisan bread that will show our B Corp as well as our company beliefs in utilizing partners who are from the area, which really gets into the planet initiative of B Corp.

Negaro: I think that our experience over the last year or two is has affected how we look at that. When we first started to think about putting regional grains into what we do, there’s a lot of challenges there. But, coming out of the last year we thought, “Oh, we think this could work in these specific ways where it creates meaningful impact.” It’s also something that’s accepted by a consumer, customer or retailer. As we look at these smart partnerships, whether they be between us and retail or us and a vendor, everybody’s still looking for the same thing. I interact mostly with our retailers, and they’re looking for the best possible product at the best possible price. They are looking for a great service, someone that’s going to pick up the phone and help them walk through and solve their problems. We try to stick with partners, whether it is retailers or vendors, that you can see eye to eye on challenges when they come up, because they are going to come up. You can’t expect everything to go perfectly. You get to know people really quickly.

Spencer: It goes along with your theory that it’s easier to understand what goes wrong, then understand what went right. That’s when the work gets done.

Negaro: You usually create the best bonds with people through conflict.

Spencer: That’s true. Okay, we’re talking about the recertification for your B Corp certification, and it’s a three-year cycle. I’ve said that phrase three-year cycle several times, and you can’t say those words without thinking about IBIE. Your certification happened in 2022. Your recertification is going to happen in 2025. That’s the IBIE three-show cycle. What does that intersection look like for Chabaso from a strategic standpoint? How does your certification cycle impact how you approach IBIE?

Negaro: [Last year], 2022, is the first year I got to go back to IBIE in entirely too long. It was great seeing everybody and connecting with everybody. Maybe it was this mid post pandemic feeling that everybody had, but just being in the same place with everyone.

Spencer: It was a joyous, wasn’t it?

Negaro: Yeah. It is probably the one of the best places for us to be looking for partners to improve our cultural efforts going forward. I think if we can find ways to infect the IBIE world with the B Corp world, it’ll benefit everybody.

Spencer: I think you’re onto something there. There must be some way to infuse B Lab as an organization or B Corp, in terms of its standards into IBIE. We did that a little bit. Our creative director Jordan Winter, who produces this podcast,  has done a lot of work with B Lab in her professional life. She did a presentation at IBIE that she titled “Are you a B Corp and Just Don’t Know It?” and identified all these values for bakeries to look at and  think, “Hey, wait a minute, I’m already doing that. Maybe I should explore this certification.” Hopefully, we have companies like Chabaso that can help infuse this culture into the industry through IBIE.

Negaro: Yeah, totally. Hopefully three years from now, or two and a half years from now really, we’ll have tangible improvements that we can point directly to our B Corp assessment process or certification process, and be able to say, “Hey, this is why we did it. This was the outcome. This is how it helped us improve.” Maybe it’ll just influence a few other people to take that step into the unknown and go through the same process.

Spencer: Definitely. Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but I would assume it’s probably more common for your retail customers to say, “Hey, we want to purchase product from a B Corp; that has a lot of value to us.” Reed and I are going to talk about that next week. But is that a safe assumption to think that is a more common mindset, then baking companies saying, “I want to choose vendors who are B Corps.” Or should the equipment vendors and the ingredient suppliers really start looking at the B Corp certification because their customers are going to start requiring it?

Jamesley: The strength of the B Corp community is the interdependency of working together. Of course, you would want everybody to be a Certified B Corp. But as you mentioned, not everybody can be up to that criterion. But if they believe in it, and they want to partner with people who do business that way, that’s just as powerful. I think that as this continues to evolve, you’ll see more and more companies who are either a Certified B Corp or choose to do business with B Corp companies. I think that’s where the power will come from, in changing how the baking industry does business.

Spencer: I have this visual in my mind, if you think of it as a as a ripple effect. You throw a rock in a pond and that rock is probably the consumer. The consumer is the one who’s going to make that change in the center of the pond;  it’s going to ripple out. And the suppliers to the allieds in the industry, the equipment suppliers, the service providers and the ingredient suppliers, they’re going to be on the outside and they’re the ones, when the water comes up to the shore, eventually, it’s going to impact them. They’re going to start really needing to have more values in what they do and how their companies are run at some point. I think it’s going to be a slow change, like with any ripple effect.

Jamesley: I think it’s going to have to start from the consumer and the vendors. Whether it be from the ingredient, packaging or equipment, they’re going to see the companies that are driving those results and getting the business and they’re going to want a partner in order to grow their business. People are looking for companies that are doing good. I think the certification on your package that you are a B Corp says that more people are understanding the badges that are on packages now, which are a variety. But I think those badges really mean something as far as how the company does business.

Negaro: I agree with Rich that it’s consumer driven. The people with the dollars are the ones making choices. At the same time, when you sit down with a retailer and they say, “What are you guys doing?,” and you tell them earnestly what you’ve been doing in the last year, not because you were expected to be asked the question, but just what you’ve been doing. And B Corp comes up, and what we’ve been doing to get that certification and their eyes light up because they connect with it. Yes, they get to communicate to their customers and that helps, but they’re engaged. I think there’s this groundswell that is just coming from a societal movement towards what people are much more connected to and what they’re spending their money on. That’s both just the consumers that are going into the stores, and it’s the people who are making the decisions in the stores, then with our buying power on equipments and vendors. I think it’s very rare that any of them are going to be doing a stellar job if they’re not focused on their culture going forward, because it’s going to be tough to retain fabulous employees and to fulfill the increasingly difficult demands in this economy.

Spencer: Right. I know there are equipment suppliers and ingredient suppliers who are putting a heavy focus on their workforce and how they treat their employees and the values with which they’re running their companies. Not because it’s a good selling tool, but because that is what they believe in. And again, I think the change is slow, but I think it’s happening. I think those ripples in the pond are happening, and it’s reaching all the way to the shore.

Negaro: Exactly. As you mentioned earlier, any change worth doing usually is pretty hard. It’s good to see everybody pushing the pedal a little bit so that we can all be working on it together.

Spencer: I have one last question for you in this episode. With everything that we’ve talked about today, I’m going to ask for a little bit of self-reflection. What would you say comes first, the need to innovate or the B Corp standards? In other words, would you consider Chabaso to be primarily an innovator that uses B Corp as a North Star? Or do you see yourself as a B Corp first, and use innovation to do good in the world?

Jamesley: I’ll go first. I think we’re an innovator and a manufacturer who is making products that our consumers are looking for. By having the B Corp compass, we’re a force for good. That is how it helps me do my day to day and how I work with my team. We are innovating and delivering for our consumers. Every minute, we’re out there making bread, and at the same time, we have a compass that is keeping us going in the right direction and looking to get better and better from a people, planet and purpose standpoint.

Negaro: I agree. I think that is a tough one. Because it depends on what day you asked me, I might change my answer. But what made B Corp certification possible for us is that we had that compass and that foundational culture. There’s some degree of, “We’ve always felt this way. We’ve always been innovators looking for this creative collaborative, and what is the next experience for ourselves and our consumers?” I think I probably would agree with Rich today, we are innovators first. My first experience with learning about the B Corp 15 years ago was, “This feels like us. This feels like a tool or this feels like a group that I want to be a part of. How do we go do that?”

Spencer: Honestly, that’s how I thought you would answer, Charlie. Knowing that this has been on your radar for 15 years, I thought you would say, “I’m a B Corp first.”I’ll ask you again tomorrow. Okay, well that was the last question for this episode. I really loved this one. This was a great conversation. And again, just like last week, it’s looking at what it’s like to be a B Corp through a different lens. I appreciate both of you bringing your perspective in sharing what it’s like, knowing that achieving a B Corp certification isn’t the end, but really the beginning.

Negaro: Thanks for having us, Joanie, and thanks for the opportunity to talk about our journey.

Spencer: Next week, I’m going to circle back  with Reed Immer. We are going after everything that we’ve collected on this journey. We’re going to look at some of the secondary benefits that come along with being a Certified B Corp. I’m excited for that one. For today, just thank you again for your thoughts and your perspective in sharing this journey.

Jamesley: Joanie, I just wanted to share one thing. The B Corp Certification process is extremely challenging. When I came here and found out we were going down the path and had the opportunity to speak with Reed, who was leading it, I was like, “Wow, I’m glad he’s leading it and not me.” But the interesting thing is, and it goes back to a comment you made earlier, is that he is really taking this and bringing it to our partners in retail and consumer and making it about, “This is who we are.” A lot of times it comes from a call at the back end of the supply chain, but he’s the tip of the spear telling what Chabaso is all about and him being  the leader of the certification process. Just says how much he’s committed to it. It’s been my pleasure coming and working with him and shouldering a big chunk of the process of getting it done. So, thanks Reed.

Spencer: Oh my gosh. I don’t know that there is a better endorsement. And let’s just call it what it is Reed is the B Corp certification rockstar.

Jamesley: He’s my rockstar.

Spencer: Thank you for adding that postscript. I think it’s perfect setup to tease the conversation that he and I are going to have next week. Because while you can’t go into it thinking about what the secondary benefits are, you must be pure in your intention. There are some great things and sometimes unexpected things that come out of it that help make your company even better. I’m looking forward to that. Just again, can’t thank you both enough for this incredible conversation today.

Negaro: Thanks again, Joanie.

Welcome to the sixth season of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking, visits with various members of the team at New Haven, CT-based Chabaso Bakery. Hear about their journey to becoming a Certified B Corporation and building a business as a force for good. Sponsored by JLS Automation.

This week’s episode features Rich Jamesley, Chabaso’s VP of operations and supply chain. He explores the ways this bakery operationalizes its values on the plant floor, from repurposing waste to hiring Afghan refugees.

Learn more about this season here, and listen to Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple, Spotify, Google and Stitcher.

Joanie Spencer: Hi, Rich. Thanks for joining me.

Rich Jamesley: Hi, Joanie.

Spencer: I am really excited for this episode because there can often be this assumption that being a B Corp and doing good in the world is separate from manufacturing and operations. And that’s not necessarily the case. Right?

Jamesley: Correct. I think it makes a difference on how you do business every day. And being part of the B Corp world empowers the people in the company to be a force for good.

Spencer: The first thing I want to do is lay the groundwork and talk about what makes Chabaso special from a production standpoint. This bakery is known for making good bread that’s good for you. From a manufacturing perspective, what would you say is the key to that?

Jamesley: I think when it comes to artisan bread, you have special steps that are taken in order to make the bread good for you. And the people who are doing it make the difference as far as how they handle all the steps and ensure the bread is made up to the expectation of our artisan criteria.

Spencer: What does that require from your workforce in the plant?

Jamesley: One of the big pieces of our artisan is long fermentation. It allows the flavor of the bread to evolve into what is special and why people love our bread. I think the people who are doing our manufacturing know that and ensure all the quality steps are taken along the way.

Spencer: What would you say are the primary equipment implications for staying true to an artisan product while producing it at scale? I also just want to put things into perspective and set some context as far as the size of your bakery. I think you’re still considered midsize. When I was there in 2019, your output was about 100,000 pounds of dough a day. Is that still where you are?

Jamesley: We’re around 100,000. We do about 10 million pounds for the year. We’re a seven-day operation, three shifts and have roughly about 100 people who are working in the organization on the production floor.

Spencer: How does that impact those equipment needs to produce an artisan product at scale?

Jamesley: I think with COVID many people started making bread at home. And the one thing that you find is it takes a long time if you want to get the flavor characteristics and the formation of the bread. When you’re doing that on a large scale, there are many pauses, meaning we hold the dough so that the fermentation can develop, and then we have to monitor where it is from a development standpoint so it can progress through the various steps of mixing, shaping, proofing, baking and then, ultimately, packaging.

Spencer: I’m going to take a little sidebar here for a second because you mentioned the consumer trend of making your own sourdough during the pandemic. A lot of bakers I talked to who make artisan bread, that gave them a scare when they thought it was going to impact their business. But a lot of them discovered as the pandemic went on, consumers were like, “Wait, this is a lot harder than I thought it was. I think I just need to leave it to the pros and go to the store and buy some sourdough.” Is that sort of what happened for you guys?

Jamesley: I think as you just said, the time element to do it on a regular basis is very difficult. Even if you are home and have the opportunity to progress it, I think people have a newfound sense of what bread is. Having that artisan, high quality bread on a regular basis and being able to just go to the store and pick it up fits with many people, even if they would like to do it at home.

Spencer: I feel like what that trend really did was bring this heightened awareness to what good bread really means. It created a new love affair for consumers with bread.

Jamesley: I do believe that the indulgence people would like to have, that experience if they are at home as opposed to going to a restaurant of having that high quality bread at their fingertips without having to go through all the efforts of making it is a great experience for people.

Spencer: For sure. Chabaso makes good bread that’s good for you. That is really at the heart of everything you guys do, which leads us to Chabaso’s B Corp certification. This is where I want to really dive into this through an operational lens. Walk me through what are the aspects on the plant floor that already aligned with those values that made Chabaso a good candidate to be a Certified B Corporation?

Jamesley: From a B Corp standpoint, it’s all about people, planet, purpose and profit. Obviously, being part of a B Corp, you’re a for-profit organization. Most people or most companies can wrap their heads around, we have to make money to continue operations. But then how you do it, and centering it around the people, the planet and the purpose is what differentiates a B Corp from just a regular corporation. From a people standpoint, it’s looking at how you support the people within our bakery, as well as the community that we reside in, and then how do we handle the various environmental platform of what do we do with waste and how do we handle that? From a purpose standpoint, it’s the partners we pick and look to have them understand what B Corp is, what we’re trying to do and how we can partner with them. On the people standpoint, as we went through the pandemic and the challenges of finding people to work in our bakery, we ran through a lot of the challenges that many manufacturers did. We had a local community organization who was handling refugees from Afghanistan. We took that opportunity to partner with them. Their name is Iris. We were able to bring in over 20 Afghan refugees and have them be part of our team, and then learn how we can help the community, because they were now part of our community, and then have them come into the fabric of what Chabaso is and have them understand what we’re all about and then also learn what they’re about, because there are many different ways they do or handle their life that we had to learn and then figure out how we were going to support that within our operation. That’s an example of the people.

Spencer: You bring up a really good point that I don’t think we think about often enough, and that is when companies take in refugees as employees, people often think about how it’s helping the refugees. But I like what you said about how it caused you guys to change your thinking and learn about them. How was having the Afghan refugees as part of your workforce? How did that make Chabaso better?

Jamesley: I think it really showed how we are a welcoming organization and that we had different demographics within the facility. Many of them do not speak English or have limited English. You must figure out ways to communicate because manufacturing is all about teamwork. If you can’t communicate properly, you have challenges. That was probably our first barrier and thank God for translate on our phones. It was a way for us to communicate with them properly, and help the organization evolve with the new demographics.

Spencer: That’s amazing. I sidetracked you a little bit. I think the next one that you were going to touch on was the planet. Is that right?

Jamesley: Yeah. I think one of the things that is typical in baking is you have waste. There’s bread that is not up to the expectation from a finished standpoint. There’s also doughs that are made that cannot go into the finished product, and you have to put them to waste. A year ago, we came up with a system that would handle all our waste from a product standpoint, that would then go to an animal feed that then gets reprocessed and repurposed.

Spencer: That’s awesome. What did that do from a business perspective?

Jamesley: Obviously, if you have to put waste into a traditional garbage waste stream, you have a significant cost. Here, we’re able to repurpose it for use in another area that limits the impact on the environment.

Spencer: Okay, now: people, planet, …

Jamesley: Purpose. I think the purpose is really just how we do business inside the facility as well as how we do business with our partners and vendors who are supporting us, and them understanding we have these initiatives from a B Corp standpoint that we want to work with them on. I think the real benefit of B Corp — and we need to continue to foster this — is really the interdependencies across different B Corps. We can have mutual goals as far as what we’re trying to do with people and planet, as well as profit and progress. I think our purpose … as we talk to people, we want them to understand who we are, how we want to do business and how we can both benefit from having this partnership.

Spencer: For sure. Last week, Reed and I talked about how it’s a little bit of a tricky proposition for a food manufacturer to gain B Corp certification, as opposed to other “white collar” types of companies. It can be a little bit harder for a food manufacturer, and I think that’s evident in the proportion of food manufacturers and baking companies in particular who are part of the B Corp network. But sometimes when things are harder, that means they’re more worth doing. I have a 12-year-old son, and I have to tell him that all the time. The most worthwhile things in life are the ones that require the work. From your perspective working in operations, why do you think it’s important to have more food manufacturers certifying as B Corps despite those challenges?

Jamesley: I think from an impact on the community as well as the impact on the environment, we as manufacturers of food have a significant potential negative, and if we can be a force for good and you have more organizations and manufacturers interested in doing this, then you can have a better world for your 12-year-old, as well as my children going forward. I think being in manufacturing for 40 plus years and seeing what a B Corp is all about, really aligning an organization to be a force for good is important. I think people want to work for that. I had worked at another B Corp. What interested me most about Chabaso was that they were in the process of certification for B Corp. I think there are people who are interested in being this force for good, and I’m very proud that Chabaso has made that certification and will continue to evolve. The one benefit about a B Corp, or being within their certification processes, is you can’t stay at the same criteria, you have to keep getting better. It’s all about your newest improvement. Just because you had things for the last certification, you have to get better. It makes it more and more challenging each time. But I think it makes you better. You know, as you gave those words of wisdom to your son, I think it makes all the difference that you keep working harder to get better, because there’s always more opportunities. I think that’s what manufacturing is all about: How do you get better day to day? There’s always something you can do better, no matter how good you are.

Spencer: Right. I’m so happy you mentioned you have been in this industry for 40 years. That’s really important. You also used the term, “continuous improvement.” Do you think it’s fair to say that the term continuous improvement means something totally different when you’re a Certified B Corp, rather than just your average food manufacturer?

Jamesley: Yes. I think it’s the lens you’re looking at. What are going to go after and how does it fit from people and planet, and then ultimately, a profit standpoint? I think it’s really the lens. It’s not about giant steps. It’s about little steps and keep taking them and really having the organization fully wrapped around what we’re trying to accomplish as far as being a force for good.

Spencer: Yeah. I think that’s where a lot of the misconception comes in. Especially in such a cut and dry industry, like bakery and food manufacturing, where it’s very process oriented. It’s always been just a separate mindset. Doing good was something totally different from efficient manufacturing. But we’re coming into an era where companies like Chabaso, and other Certified B Corp bakeries are bringing those two concepts together and showing that when you put purpose behind what you’re doing, you can do good for the world while at the same time creating an efficient operation, right?

Jamesley: Yes, I think that’s what it’s all about as far as being a B Corp and wanting to continue to strive to get better. The other piece where I think some companies run into some challenges is under the governance and the commitment from the ownership of the company to support these initiatives. The criteria for that as you go through the certification process is challenging, and that group of owners have to support those initiatives.

Spencer: For sure. Chabaso was really lucky to have you on this team because you mentioned you came from a notable B Corp manufacturer in the baking industry, right?

Jamesley: Yes. I think that in my time being involved with B Corp both here and previously, it has given me a broader view of what you try to accomplish in manufacturing on a day-to-day, month-to-month basis. How do you look at the people within your organization and how you can support them better, as well as support the community? I wouldn’t call all the concepts new kinds of concepts, but stringing them all together and having that focus from the top down is powerful within the company.

Spencer: When you joined Chabaso, they were in the certification process. You came from a place that was very foundational as a B Corp. Then you join a team that is in the midst of the journey. That’s a really good lens to be looking at this through. During the application, what specific types of improvements did you see being made? Because that’s something that Reed, Charlie and I have talked about quite a bit this season, is that they were already aligned with B Corp in their hearts and with what they wanted to be. But in the process of that application, they obviously had to make some improvements. They were like, “Yeah, we see places where we can be better, and we can do better.” What did that look like for you on the plant floor?

Jamesley: The big step as we were going through the certification process was really figuring out how we could do more for our people. How do we add to the power of our organization from within the community? That turned out to be the refugee program. But knowing that we supported it, it was challenging. It was hard. From a quality management standpoint, it was hard for the people on the floor to figure out how do you do this, but I think it really showed what Chabaso saw was all about and that it is about a family. I think it really showed how strong the organization is, to have a different population come in, but now be part of our family.

Spencer: That’s such an interesting way to look at it. I love it. You’re right, families do evolve, but the bond doesn’t break. When new people come in, it actually strengthens the bond.

Jamesley: I think it also gives people the appreciation for other aspects that different people have. The community that we’re in has changed and has evolved. I think that the company, as being a partner within the community also has to evolve and change with the demographics and the needs of the people. For me, a key piece as I started my journey here at Chabaso was seeing that and seeing how the organization, from the bottom up, supported that. At the same time, it was supporting our core group who have been with Chabaso for 20 plus years, because we do have a strong core group. It was just figuring out and working on how we put this all together. I think that was a strength of the organization and showed our journey as far as being a B Corp.

Spencer: I think that’s one of several things that really makes Chabaso so very special. I remember when I was there in 2019, learning that one of those core employees in manufacturing was someone who had a fine arts degree from Yale. You don’t really hear that very often — someone who studied fine arts getting into manufacturing and getting their hands in dough and running machines. Just that one little example, for me, really illustrates the workforce culture this company has … that you’re able to attract workers and keep them. That’s something that is plaguing our industry. Do you feel like these are values that make Chabaso a B Corp? Is it one of the keys to unlocking a little bit of that crisis?

Jamesley: Yes. We are a family-owned business, but we are a family. Being a family and being a B Corp, to me, goes hand-in-hand because that means what you’re trying to do for your people and your community is your core belief. That’s what Chabaso is about. I think following the path of B Corp gives us a roadmap of how we stay true to that and how we get even better than we are for the 20 years that we’ve been doing this business.

Spencer: From an operational standpoint, how has becoming a Certified B Corp made Chabaso a better manufacturer?

Jamesley: It makes us better because people understand what the company is about and what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s not just about profit. Any for-profit organization is trying to make money. I think many manufacturers are geared towards that because of who’s invested in them and who are the owners of it. When you’re in the B Corp world and you have those beliefs, it’s not just about profit. It’s about what are you doing for your people and community, as well as how you’re impacting the environment. I think that’s the key that some manufacturers who have the criteria of profit as being the No. 1 goal. For us, profit will come as long as we are doing the proper things with people, planet and purpose.

Spencer: I love that. How can other commercial bakeries get over that hump? It is hard for a food manufacturer or a commercial bakery — it’s hard for any company — to get B Corp certification, but it’s especially challenging for a commercial bakery. What’s your advice for getting over that hump that might be holding a bakery back from exploring this? Especially smaller operations, like midsize companies like yourselves, that don’t have a ton of resources.

Jamesley: Once an organization does the research on what is B Corp, what’s driving it and how they can evolve from their current path, I think it really makes a ton of sense. Then all of a sudden, you start looking at, “What are your core values? What goals are you trying to achieve?” I think that if you take the force for good of a B Corp, you can then start building those. It really helps with the operational performance that any manufacturer needs to achieve. I mean, we’ve gone through this past year, which had its ups and downs and challenges. But we were able to increase our operational efficiencies by over 15%.

Spencer: Wow.

Jamesley: Manufacturing for an established organization is fantastic. My belief is, it’s all done through teamwork. The teamwork really centers around what the company is all about. Being that we are following the beliefs of a B Corp, we are certifying what we’re doing. I think it’s helped drive the operational performance. For companies who are looking to do this, it gives a focus for the organization about what you’re all about and how you’re going to drive results.

Spencer: I love that. That’s such great advice. It’s a great way to close this episode. The only thing I can follow that up with is that it’s really just the beginning, right?

Jamesley: Yeah. It’s a journey. We’re in the early stages of the journey. As we go down this path, new things will come about and we’ll then have to figure out how to incorporate that into our plans with the lens of being a B Corp. I think that’s our guiding light as we go forward and look to be more and more successful.

Spencer: Next week, you and I are going to continue this conversation, but we’re also going to have Charlie Negaro, Chabaso’s president, join us, and we are going to talk about what it takes to get recertified every three years because anybody who’s been to IBIE knows that three years goes by really fast. We’re going to look at your plans for improvement with a three-year horizon next week with Charlie. I’m looking forward to that. But for now, Rich, thank you so much for sharing your perspective with me.

Jamesley: Thanks, Joanie. It’s been a pleasure.

Welcome to the sixth season of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking, visits with various members of the team at New Haven, CT-based Chabaso Bakery. Hear about their journey to becoming a Certified B Corporation and building a business as a force for good. Sponsored by JLS Automation.

This week, we’re chatting with Charlie Negaro, CEO, and Reed Immer, director of sales and marketing. They unpack the challenges and rewards of pursuing B Corp certification, and why the long, arduous process was worth it.

Learn more about this season here, and listen to Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple, Spotify, Google and Stitcher.

Joanie Spencer: Hi, Charlie. Hi, Reed.

Charlie Negaro: Hey, Joanie.

Reed Immer: Hi, Joanie!

Spencer: I am really excited to dive into this. I know there’s a lot to unpack in the discussion that Charlie and I had last week. It’s very clear that Chabaso was already living many B Corp values in its daily practice. But you all still put in the effort to seek certification, which is a long, and I’m assuming somewhat arduous process. So in this episode, we’re going to explore this journey with the two of you and sort of uncover the reasons behind the process and what it took to gain that certification. And I want to start the conversation with a straightforward question. And that is, why?

Negaro: Yeah, so why? Why try to obtain a certification for something that you feel like you’re already doing? I think for us being an extremely entrepreneurial company, it really spoke to us to have something that helps you to refine what you’re already doing.

Spencer: Yeah.

Negaro: We’ve never been the best at putting words succinctly, for what we do. Kind of like my answer to your question. Just like manufacturers have quality programs, to have a tool that helps you put words to it and that helps you get better. When you go through the process of answering the questions for B Corp, it also challenges you to think about things in ways that you never may have approached it. And then also, once you get into the world of B Corp, you realize that there’s this cohort of like-minded people that can support you in your day-to-day journey of trying to be a business that does good in this world. And also just the standard day-to-day challenges of running and operating a business in the world today.

Spencer: You know, I really liked what you said last week, Charlie, about just like mission and vision statements. Sometimes it’s hard to sort of formulate those words, and they can change. But your actions sort of represent you with more continuity. It truly is actions speak louder than words. But I liked what you said that the B Corp certification helped put words to your actions.

Negaro: Exactly.

Immer: And I would just add to Charlie’s statement that a lot of the stuff that is part of B Corp has been part of Chabaso’s DNA for the history of the company. And there’s always been this interest in using this as a force for good, and all these amazing programs have popped up. But sometimes when you’re in your own world of doing those things, it’s easy just to focus on the highlights and not necessarily look at it from a higher level view of all these different stakeholder groups that we interact with. Are we holding ourselves up to the same level of standards that we’re doing in these little silos of the organization? So it’s helped us to have this more 360 view, and actually start to walk the talk of, are we actually as good of a company in terms of goodness as we like to think we are? And I think often when you really go through this rigorous assessment, you realize there’s some great stuff we’ve been doing. But there’s also a lot more work we can be doing to live up to this level that that we’d like to be doing. And I think like Charlie said, in terms of it functioning as a tool for us, the specific tool that I see it as it’s almost a compass, in terms of if you have this larger vision of force for good. Sometimes it’s easy to get a little lost in the sauce and do a million things at once. But this is a way that kind of helps structure it into a manageable framework that can be delegated throughout the organization, that kind of different departments and folks can learn how they fit into more focused responsibilities, and how that contributes to the overall force for goodness of the organization. It’s a way that you can bring it out of the CEO’s head and have it be something that affects the day-to-day operations of everybody across the whole organization.

Spencer: So here’s something that I found to be really fascinating from my particular perspective, as a B2B journalist in the baking industry, the network of Certified B Corps is more than 3,000 companies [in the US and Canada]. And when I went on the website and went to the database, you can search by keywords and I typed in “food manufacturing,” and a little less than 400 names came up. And when I typed in a search for “bakery,” 34 names came up. So you are really breaking ground in our industry, and sort of paving the way I think, for doing good through baking. What do you guys think are some of the barriers? Why is it that there aren’t that many food manufacturing companies, relatively speaking, and there aren’t very many at all that classify as bakery? What do you think the barriers are for bakeries to gain this certification?

Immer: I think one of the challenges is that the B Corp Impact Assessment that you need to go through to get the initial certification doesn’t change that much depending on the type of business you are. I think just from a manufacturing organization, where you’re making physical goods, it’s sometimes harder to live up to those same environmental waste standards than an ad agency or some other white collar business. It’s easier for them to do that. So even though there might be a lot of other folks in the manufacturing and food industries that see this as a good thing to do, and something they’d like to have be part of their business, there are just some hurdles from being a manufacturer of physical goods that makes it a little harder to live up to the requirements. So I think that’s one thing. I think, also, the baking industry is a little bit old school, which is really cool in some ways. But I think in some other ways, there’s some businesses that are family owned that have been around for a while, and to some of them they have a great product and a good thing going. And there’s not necessarily always a critical motivation to kind of jump to this next higher level, especially when there aren’t that many businesses that have done that in your sector. One of the things we’re hoping to do is to prove and be an example of all the benefits that can come to a manufacturing organization from receiving the certification. And hopefully inspire some other folks to tread forward on that path as well.

Spencer: I agree. I think you guys have an opportunity to be a beacon for our industry and how to do things differently. Why do you think it’s important for baking companies to seek and achieve B Corp certification? How can having these tools change our industry?

Immer: A few of the big benefits that we’re seeing early on, but we’re still pursuing is, first off, attracting high quality talent for a manufacturing organization. It has always been a challenge and is increasingly more and more of a challenge. And so there’s this aspect of your organization’s employer brand. Why do I want to work for you? Why do I spend my day in day out, years of my life kind of being part of this organization? And so we found a lot of other organizations that have made progress with this B Corp and all the other related aspects of goodness for your stakeholders. You start to attract the type of person that wants to work really hard, that wants to make a difference in the world, that wants to build something and that aligns with a lot of what Chabaso has been up to over the years. So we see this as reinforcing the pitch for folks to kind of come join the organization and make an impact in the world. So we see that helping with building that team internally. And then also, bread is a commodity product. One of Charlie’s big things is “How do we de-commoditize bread?” And we found that having these trustworthy third-party certifications, that’s not everything, but that’s one aspect of helping to stand apart from other products in the bakery category or in a grocer and other food sales operations and help build our business to have more of a meaning for the shopper. Have them see this as, “Okay, this is worth spending a buck more on this loaf of bread because I know it’s part of a good organization that’s making a difference and a little bit of voting with your dollar.”

Spencer: For sure. I think just especially in the past decade, food manufacturing has gotten a really bad rap. And it’s frustrating for me when I hear people talk about big food and food manufacturing, when I see through a different lens. Because I’m sort of on the inside, and it’s not what people assume, and I feel like the more baking companies and food manufacturing companies that can gain B Corp certification, the sooner that curtain is going to come down and the general public is going to see that it’s not this dark, we’re trying to just profit off of people. There’s more to it.

Immer: Absolutely.

Negaro: Yeah, everything we do as food manufacturers affects so many core things of life. Going back to what we talked about last week, we’re using this thing that a lot of people, specifically in the baking world, take for granted, which is flour, specifically commodity flour. I think in the last couple of years consumers have gotten a new awareness of grocery stores, what they mean for us, how we access food when we can’t leave the house, and what people are doing for you that have to leave the house when you’re stuck inside for whatever reason. That has created a lot of challenge that we’re still grappling with as a society and as a world. And I think for us, it’s helped us double down our effort on making sure that we’re connected with our staff and our customers and consumers in a way that feels sustainable and genuine and helps us think about how we do better.

Spencer: I want to take a look at your specific journey to gaining this certification. And like you said, you spent 15 years trying to get here. Not necessarily doing the certification process, but doing what it takes to get there and how you’re forming your mission as a company. But when you sat down to do that B Impact Assessment and fill out that form, what was that initial impression? What kind of self-reflection did that trigger for you?

Negaro: I don’t want to scare anybody away by being like, “Wait, it took you guys 15 years? What have you been doing?” So I think with most things that I get interested in, you see a group of people or person doing something and think, “Okay, I want to go to there. I want to be like that person. I look up to this, or that’s a challenge that I have no idea what this is, but I want to understand it.” And I’m just like, “Okay, I’m gonna cannonball into the deep end.” One of the beautiful things about B Lab and what they’ve done with this is you can just go and take the Impact Assessment. I mean, it takes you forever. When we first started this, and I think it’s still the case, anybody can just go on and do the Impact Assessment. And I did that like a bajillion years ago. I probably made it halfway through, probably at the expense of not doing my day job for a week. And you have that experience of, “Okay, yeah, we’re doing a lot of stuff. This is cool. But we’re really not doing a bunch of this. And there’s questions in here that I’ve never thought of.” And like you said, there’s a period of self-reflection, which is always hard to hear that you’re not quite there yet. Sometimes part of that is stepping into that unknown and going, “Okay, I don’t really know what I’m doing, or I’m not quite there yet. Or we’re not quite there yet. Let’s let’s go for it. Let’s do this.” Having people on our team like Reed who will sustain that effort and spend more than a week on it, and still do their day job is the key to chipping away at it. I could see how somebody might get discouraged at it. But it’s about being up for the challenge of wanting to evolve or change how you do things for the better.

Spencer: We talked a little bit about how the process is about taking that self-reflection and knowing how you want to do better, and then turning that into something that’s quantifiable. How hard is that? And I’m guessing that this is going to be a question for Reed. Can you talk to me about what it’s like to turn something that’s so qualitative into hard numbers? How long does something like that take and still do your day job?

Immer: Exactly. So for this most recent run of us attempting to do the Impact Assessment, it took the better part of two years to collect all the data from all these different departments and input that into the assessment. We have a lot of great internal reporting at Chabaso, usually more on the typical manufacturing stuff, such as how many ingredients we use to make this batch and what our sales are, but there’s all these other areas that are a part of the B Corp assessment that we didn’t really have reporting setup for already. Part of it was having these conversations with the team and figuring it out while still balancing the day to day. How can we be chipping away at getting this report on our environmental footprint or difference in pay between different levels of the organization and all this other stuff? It’s not like any single question was insanely complex or difficult to gather, but just the combination of them all combined together can be a little bit of a daunting process and required a little bit of just blind stubbornness on my part of just keep pushing forward. And I think also part of that is, it’s such a large project that it’s so important that the top level of the organization really sees the value of this just in terms of it being a force for good. Because otherwise, it’s really easy to lose steam.

I’ve been at Chabaso for about five years now. When I first joined, we had done another attempt at doing this and probably got like a quarter of the way through. And then just there’s so much other stuff going on that we decided we got to put this on pause. That kind of made me realize, if we really want to do this again, it’s going to require X amount more energy, but still having that top level interest in it. That makes a difference in whether you feel that support to keep moving forward with it or if it becomes something that’s just kind of nice to have, but we don’t really need to be focusing on it. And when you go through these hundreds of questions for the Impact Assessment, Charlie and I have found things that would be a good for us to be doing. Or things we haven’t really thought about. If you already had that reaction of, “Oh, yeah, that is good. We should be doing that,” I think that’s a really good sign that there’s some alignment. If you read through the questions, and you think “Why the heck do I care about this? That’s not part of our DNA at all,” then I think that’s a sign that maybe the values aren’t initially aligned.

Spencer: Right.

Immer: And that’s a big difference maker.

Spencer: I have this vision in my head of someone looking at it and going, “Oh, that’s a really great idea,” or “Oh, there’s more to do.”

Negaro: Exactly right. There was a conversation, around two years ago, where Reed turned to me and was like, “Okay, is this something you actually want to do or not? If you want to do it, we have to actually do this.” And some of that has come through Reed and I knowing each other for a long time. And knowing when you have to level set and check in. And we got very fortunate because as I mentioned in the last episode, New Haven Farms was somebody that incubated out of Chabaso, and the former director of that is Rebecca Kline Coffey. She went on to work for a company that helps aspiring B Corp companies get their certification. And Rebecca is someone I’ve known my whole life and having that additional person that can hold you accountable, and that you don’t want to let down … there were definitely times that if it wasn’t for her, and if it wasn’t for Reed, I would have punted on this. Having people who believe in this is essential. It’s not a one-person job.

Spencer: Did you build a team? And how big was that team?

Immer: Rebecca and I worked really closely together. We’d focus it with a respective department of Chabaso and all the questions that were relevant to that department. And I tried to schedule a few meetings or video calls with respect to folks at Chabaso that were the experts in these questions and could help me answer them. But the core group was me and Rebecca working weekly, with Charlie being part of the scene and maybe doing some check ins every other week or monthly. A lot of the coordination work fell on my shoulders, which was a really amazing process and tough and educational in a way to learn a lot more about the whole organization than kind of just from the sales and marketing side. But definitely having some sort of internal champion is very important. Having that support from the top from Charlie and folks was really important. And I think from here, one of the things that we’re starting to clarify is some sort of official internal committee that is more efficiently looping in folks from across the organization to have this be part of their monthly projects or whatever. There’s different ways to tackle it. Because we’re a small company, we just didn’t have the resources to hire somebody just be the internal B Corp person, full time, day to day. In larger organizations, you have your sustainability or your impact team and all their work incentives are revolving around bringing this to the finish line and keeping this moving forward. I think in the small organization, the challenge is how do you still do the day-to-day stuff, which is still a huge challenge with limited resources, and how do you find a way to kind of work that in without overburdening yourself. It was definitely a complex dance over those two years to figure that out.

Spencer: I feel like when you’re a small company, that you have to just pull from those internal resources, as opposed to a huge company that, like you said, has a team of people who are dedicated solely to sustainability and impact those small teams. It says so much about who you are as a company, because you have to be really passionate about it in order to take that on, and wear that hat in addition to all the other hats you’re wearing.

Immer: Absolutely. And I think Charlie and I share a lot of these same interests with using this business as a force for good. And for me, it was like, how do I want to live my life day to day? And having this feeling that you’re contributing to some sort of smidgen of goodness in the world, that’s just how I’d rather be living my life. And if it takes all of us working a little harder to be making that happen, I’d still rather all of our collective days be involving that stuff. And Charlie and his dad and the whole DNA of Chabaso, were already on that path so much. And there are already so many folks in the organization that just kind of naturally saw the value of this. So it wasn’t really that hard of a sell of why this is important. Of course, managing it and having it be a not too burdensome day-to-day thing, that was the bigger challenge. But already having that internal interest and the direction we want to be moving in, that was essential for a small business like us to really make this work.

Spencer: The assessment revolves around this idea of measure, compare and improve. You had Rebecca as kind of a North Star, but how was it to measure what you’re doing against other B Corps and see your benchmarking and tangible ways? Did you look at other companies? And who were those companies you used for specific benchmarks during the process?

Immer: Our biggest goal for this was to get over that 80 minimum point score you need to achieve it. I think beyond that, we know there’s a lot more we can be doing. We were worried it would become a little too burdensome, again, to use that word. If we’re trying to go too much farther than that. For years, Charlie, and I’ve been saying that we want to be the Patagonia of bread, which is relevant in some ways and not relevant in a lot of ways. But just an organization that, within their own industry, is pushing the edge and seeing all the benefits that come from being part of leading the pack. And a few other organizations as well. But that was a really inspiring thing, and we thought, “There’s something about that, and we want to be applying to this.” And then of course, from working with Rebecca and the Impact Growth Partners organization. They were really helpful in sharing references with us of both manufacturers or folks in other industries that were both small businesses and large businesses. We were able to check out their websites, hop on some calls with some of those folks that were facilitated by Rebecca and her team. I think that whole combination of having a few organizations that Charlie and myself others at Chabaso really were inspired by, and then being able to have these connections with other emerging B Corps across the country, all formed as a really valuable reference to help us see kind of how we could fit into that whole ecosystem.

Spencer: It’s funny that you mentioned Patagonia because very early on in this conversation, I was thinking about Patagonia. And when I mentioned that, I think if more baking companies could become B Corp certified, it could change the general public’s perception of what food manufacturing really means. And I was thinking you’re off to such a great start because you are in company with companies like Patagonia and that says so much about you as a bakery.

Immer: I think it’s really exciting to be given some access to the same room as all these folks. It always feels good to be the dumbest person in the room. That’s what I tell myself.

Spencer: I love that.

Immer: But we’re in the room. So we have a lot to learn.

Spencer: I love that. Let’s talk about that overall impact score. You had to get an 80, and it looks like you landed at 85.4. So that’s pretty great. You nailed it. But how many tries did it take? Two? Three?

Negaro: This is our only actual formal try of submitting a score. Every other attempt was still the internal challenge of making it totally through the Impact Assessment. And that assessment is the bulk of the work. You get to question 140. And you’re like, “Oh. This is hugely challenging to either extract the data to answer the question,” and we stalled out three or four times.

Spencer: These aren’t like multiple choice questions or yes/no questions. These are hundreds of really hard questions that require a lot of information, right?

Negaro: Yeah. And some of them actually are kind of multiple choice and depending on how you answer them, you get varying degrees of points. There’s an opportunity in all of them to think about how you do things. To get to the point of actually submitting what you think your score is to B Lab, to get vetted, is a huge effort.

Immer: I think one of the few differences between this most recent effort and past efforts at Chabaso was … there are a few initiatives / internal projects that started at Chabaso that really aligned with the B Corp questions and helped us to push ourselves over that finish line, which we weren’t necessarily doing to that same level in the past. There are certain questions that you can get point five points if you do this thing. And there’s other questions that you can get 10 points out of the 80 to do this thing. And two quick examples of that, we’ve really formalized some of our bread donation processes over the past year. Donating bread has always been a huge part of Chabaso’s DNA, but I think we got to a point where we had established a lot stronger relationships with these food banks and food donation agencies in the area that made it so much easier for them to be picking up product that we were hoping to be donating.

And then also kind of a big thing for this time around was we had changed some of our hiring processes and partnered with a resettlement agency called IRIS that helps refugees and displaced peoples from different countries around the world that are arriving in New Haven. They help them get housing, learn English, figure out their healthcare situation and get them job opportunities. And we’ve already had a relationship with IRIS for years. But we started to really make that a part of our hiring process. And that really gave us a lot of points. It’s an amazing thing that we’re doing, and we do it just for the sake of doing it, and it also helps a lot with our hiring struggles at Chabaso in terms of finding folks that really want to take on this really tough job of working in a manufacturing facility. But connecting those dots with that area was a major difference between this time around for the assessment in terms of getting us over that 80-point minimum and previous iterations.

Negaro: It’s things like someone listening to this could be like “That’s not a big deal. We donate stuff or anybody can donate stuff, or anybody can hire people from different groups.” But it’s the actually formalizing it in shifting the organization towards being able to know how to do this in the most impactful way that makes you realize how actually important these things are. Like Reed was saying, we’ve always donated bread. We’ve always had this relationship with IRIS. Some of these things is also just the luck of the timing. It’s because there’s this huge number of Afghan refugees coming into this country right now that need a stepping stone into a new life. And it’s not a temporary thing. And IRIS sets them up, and we were happy to help them with that first stepping stone of getting a job. And at one point in January, we had more than 20% of our hourly workforce was Afghan refugees. And 2022 would not have been possible without them, for us. Some of them have gone off and started their own businesses or they’ve gone and got other jobs. A lot of them are still with us. Manufacturing has been the first step for a lot of people. Like Reed was saying, it’s a hard job. But it gives a lot of people a first start. I guess the secret sauce in all of this is like we were talking about before, it’s the formalization of it that makes it work even better.

Spencer: That’s a good lead-in to the last question for this episode, and that’s circling back on that self-reflection. Do you think that this process took you from feeling like, this is the kind of company that we want to be or that we believe we are, to this is who we are?

Negaro: Yeah.

Spencer: Did it change how you see yourself as a company at the end?

Negaro: At beginning of this, Reed said that we’re always trying to basically de-commoditize a commodity product. And I think it’s important to say that it’s not like we’re doing anything different with bread. We make artisan bread, and it’s the highest quality we can make. The bread is not changing. It’s how we do things and with whom we do it is what becomes the most instrumental thing that we do. People use the word culture with some reckless abandon sometimes. But when you’re in a culture — or lucky enough to be leading or responsible for a culture — that’s clicking, you really start to feel pretty protective of it, and you start to feel very fortunate to be a part of it. It’s a daily reminder that this took a lot of work, so let’s make sure we keep this thing going. I have this probably terrible metaphor, where to get a speedboat out of the water it takes a lot of effort. But once you get it up on the plane, you can throttle back and keep it there. But if you take your foot off the gas too much, it’s back down on the water. And you’ve got to put all that effort back into it to get it back up there. It’s really important that we have this compass, like Reed called it, to help us navigate how we do things.

Immer: Joanie had asked if we’re more confident now that this is who we are. I think, definitely, we are a B Corp now. And that’s in writing; we got that proof, but not necessarily in terms of we’ve reached the end point of what it means to be a force for good in the world and a good business. I think the importance is in seeing this as a starting point and who we are. We’re somebody who, day to day is working to chip away and push forward in these areas to more and more be developing this and bringing these ideals into reality. Because there’s still a lot of work of us communicating the value of this throughout the organization and seeing how this relates to folks’ day-to-day responsibilities, and how this can help us do a better job, and have everyone be more proud of what we’re spending our time doing. So I think seeing this as a starting point and who we are as somebody who’s willing to keep that hard work day to day and more and more trying to chip away and bring goodness, however we’re defining it, into the world. I think that is who we are. But we’re not trying to be like, “We did it, we’re perfect, we’re all good now time to go home, guys.” And I think that’s an important attitude to have.

Spencer: That’s such a good note to end on. And a great way to plug the next couple of episodes because we are going to get into that. So today, we really dug into what it took to get here. But now that you’re here, you’re right, it’s not the end. So we’re going to look at what’s next and how you use this. Next week, we are going to look at how Chabaso operationalizes these values on the bakery floor. And Reed, like you said, being a B Corp in a manufacturing space is very different than in a white-collar environment. I’m very interested to uncover the ways that Chabaso’s values as a Certified B Corp is shining through for the workers and in the process on the plant floor. We are going to visit with Rich Jamesley, the VP of operations and supply chain, to get his perspective on what it’s like from the operations perspective as a Certified B Corp. So I’m really looking forward to next week. But for today, Reed and Charlie, thank you so much for your time and sharing your perspective on the hard work that you put into gaining this incredible certification.

Immer: Thanks for having us.

Negaro: Thanks, Joanie.