Welcome to Season 13 of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking, is spending this season with Markey Culver, CEO of The Women’s Bakery, a social enterprise bakery in East Africa. They’re discovering the challenges and rewards that come with creating change through baking. Sponsored by Middleby Bakery Group.

In our fifth and final episode, Markey explores the exciting developments that are on the horizon for The Women’s Bakery.

Learn more about this season here, and tune into Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple or Spotify.

Joanie Spencer: Markey, it’s our last week together. I could talk to you about The Women’s Bakery forever. First of all, thank you for spending this time with me. It’s been really cool to take it piece by piece and talk about the entire journey, what you have built and how your vision is coming to fruition. I just want to start out by saying thank you for all that you’ve done, and thank you for spending these five weeks with me.

Markey Culver: Gosh, Joanie, well, thank you. It’s really nice to be with you, and I’m flattered that people want to hear something like this. So, thank you.

Spencer: Absolutely. Okay, so the first thing I want to do … we’re going to talk about the future of The Women’s Bakery. But I want to just start by sort of recapping the business model. You went into it very deeply in the second week, but just as a kicking off point, let’s talk about from that first failed bakery to what the business model is today.

Culver: Okay, so the business model today … and this is the social enterprise component; this is where the social meets the enterprise. The enterprise is a bakery, and the bakery is mission centric. The social part, which is to socially and economically empower women, and then the bread products that we make are high quality, and most are fortified, so nutritious, and most are affordable. We’re making them accessible to communities in East Africa, because accessibility is synonymous with affordability in East Africa. The way we drive our social mission — which is women’s empowerment and also the major and the minor key, major key being the women’s empowerment, minor key being feeding babies, essentially — is through the bakery. The enterprise component being the bakery.

Spencer: Okay, remind me how many bakeries you have now.

Culver: We have three in Rwanda right now, and one on the horizon.

Spencer: All right. The next thing I want to talk about is the One Bread program. This is a big part of your present, I think. Remind me what percentage of the business is the One Bread Program.

Culver: We’re still factoring that out. Essentially, right now, I think 36% of our total revenue comes from the One Bread Project. What we’re actually doing right now, currently, physically in Rwanda, we just had a meeting about it today, is actually having the One Bread Project be the social component, and having school feeding be just retail, essentially. So, that’s what’s driving business.

We see that as having big market potential, not just in Rwanda, but in the greater region, as evidenced by school feeding. We’re up to 25,000 kids now. If listeners are paying attention to the numbers, last week it was 24,000. This week, it’s 25,000 and that’s how fast it’s growing. We’re serving 72 or 73 schools in Rwanda, and 50% of those schools are paying something. It’s on a sliding scale. So, if the school can pay 100% of the price of bread, they will. If they cannot, then we work with them to figure out what they actually can pay, and then hopefully work them up to where they get to fully pay over a period of time, and that period of time is negotiable,

Spencer: And the children pay nothing for the bread, correct?

Culver: Yeah, you asked this last time, and I actually checked on this. That’s correct. So, the school is the one who has the transaction with The Women’s Bakery, so we’re receiving payment from the school. Now, how the school is raising that money is up to them. Some schools, maybe they have a budget that they’re getting from their county or their government or whatever, and they’re attributing some of that budget to getting the One Bread Project. Other schools, I do think, are actually going to parents, and so they’re raising money from parents, and the parents are able to see the benefit of this school feeding or school snack program, and so they’re contributing to that.

But yes, it’s The Women’s Bakery working directly with the schools, and the schools directly paying us.

Spencer: Okay, so these are schools who believe in the benefit of this project. We talked a lot last week about the return for the children, keeping them in school, improving their performance in school and what that does to benefit their communities overall. When you have more educated humans in a community, it’s going to benefit.

Culver: Exactly, and that’s what I was going to say. I think it’s schools and principals, not just believing in this, but also it’s quantifiable. They’re seeing it in the numbers, not just in attendance, but in performance, how kids are performing in school because of bread.

Spencer: I’m not familiar with the governmental processes in Rwanda. Do they receive funding based on performance? Does performance impact what kinds of resources they’re able to get?

Culver: You know, that’s a good question. I’m certainly not an authority on this, and I think my initial reaction to that is probably not, but I imagine there’s something; there’s some kind of system where the better kids perform … I don’t know if the government would single them out and they would get special treatment for that. The same is true in the US. If in a school the students are performing better, perhaps they’re matriculating into a better school beyond.

We’re working with elementary school students, which here is called primary, so they’re matriculating into a better secondary school. Parents will notice. Parents will shift their kids. When that happens, then, yeah, the government notices. But Joanie, honestly speaking, I actually don’t know how the money is distributed here.

Spencer: Okay, I was just sort of imagining out loud: Circular benefit. All right, so then I want to also understand how you are able to, from a business perspective, serve bread to schools on this sliding scale, while you still work toward your profitability.

Culver: Yeah, well, I think that this is where the social enterprise aspect comes in. The definition of social enterprise, which the way Pauline would define it, is filling the gap. The business can cover so much, and then if you were looking at this from a strict business standpoint, the net loss would be the social impact standpoint. So, that’s where the donations would come in. I think that’s how Pauline would see something like this. Pauline being our COO, who’s running everything here in East Africa.

For me, I think that this is where you have to balance the people and profit. If you’re mission centric, and we are, it’s women’s empowerment and then feeding babies, it pushes out your horizon for profitability, right? If you are not yet profitable, and that is still the goal, which it is for us, what is the horizon? And then how do we fund appropriately to be able to keep the bakery sustained, so that they could eventually reach that horizon? And that’s it. What The Women’s Bakery raises annually, from a donation standpoint, from a charitable standpoint, all of that money goes to supporting the operations to keep us on that path to the profitability horizon. It’s just much longer than it typically takes a for-profit that we’re used to in the West.

Spencer: Okay, and that’s what I was going to ask is, if that’s where the donations come in. The donations and the funding that you get from that avenue helps keep you afloat, so that you can charge those schools who can’t afford the bread the lower cost, or have a sliding scale so then they can provide that bread free of cost to the children who really need it. Right? Am I understanding that correctly?

Culver: Yes, you are. I think that’s one component, and then the other component … if you were to look at it as if donations are an investment, and your return on that investment, for us, is a social return. For example, we’ve grown the number of students served daily to 1,000 more kids just in the last week, and the donations make that possible. If you’re investing in so much, your return on that investment would be — from our standpoint — a social impact investment. So, it’s kids fed or women who have stable income, etc. But there will eventually be a financial return. It’s just not yet.

If you were to look for a financial return, which we’re not looking for that right now, we’re a charity. So, if you were to invest, there’s no financial return. But, if we were to speak in those terms, the horizon would be pushed out farther, because we are prioritizing the social impact over the profit right now.

Spencer: Okay, that totally makes sense. Let’s talk about that horizon, because this episode is focusing on the future. So, what does the horizon look like for One Bread, and how do you achieve it?

Culver: Yep, so again, the One Bread Project happened very organically in Rwanda. It was a group of bakers who decided that they wanted to serve a school where their kids were attending and they had no food, and then it ballooned into what it is now, serving 25,000 kids a day.

I think that what we’re seeing is, if we can convert … if it’s 50-50, 50% of the schools are paying, 50% of the schools aren’t … those are hypothetical numbers, but if we could convert the schools that aren’t paying into real market value, that gives us that horizon to profitability. So, keeping that in mind, and also having our social mission being the core of who we are, we have an exciting opportunity.

We were actually invited by a local county in Kenya … Kenya has 47 counties, which are like the US’ 50 states. So, a county is similar to a state in Kenya. Each state in the US has a governor; each county has a governor in Kenya. A county in Kenya found The Women’s Bakery and they’re attracted by our mission and our model. They have many youth in their county that they are interested in serving. So, they’re interested in the women’s empowerment, but then also being able to feed kids. We were invited by this county in Kenya to come and pilot a bakery.

This is exactly where I see the future of sustainability being for The Women’s Bakery because, unlike what we’re doing in Rwanda, which is … we started this, and it’s on a paying scale, we’re working with some schools that get free bread, we’re working with other schools that can pay half, some schools are paying full. If we partner, or when we partner with this county in Kenya, the county would be responsible for paying for the bread, which would then mean that the pilot bakery that we’re starting in Kenya would begin basically … if we have a two-year horizon, that two-year horizon is in the black because we don’t have the sliding scale. So, that is the future that I see for The Women’s Bakery and being able to adopt the One Bread Project.

Spencer: What do you think that timeline looks like? Like you said, with a social enterprise, the horizon … you have to be realistic about how far the horizon is. And when you think about the horizon in terms of art, sometimes it’s an illusion.

Culver: If we are successful with the contract that we have proposed to this Kenyan county, the horizon for our breaking even would be three to four years, which is just light years with where we are in Rwanda.

Spencer: Okay. So, like I said, sometimes the horizon is an illusion, but maybe, when you look at the journey as a timeline with each bakery and each opportunity and lesson that you learn from it, you’re chipping away at the distance.

Culver: Yeah, and that’s totally correct. We’ve been open with … and they know, our proof of concept, essentially, is Rwanda. Because it’s a proof of concept, we’ve been able to say to this county in Kenya, “We’re learning from the mistakes we made in Rwanda, and we’re not going to repeat those in Kenya. Therefore, this is what we need to be successful in Kenya. So, to enter into this contract with you, this is what we need.” We have a minimum number of kids served per day. We’re starting from — and I can say this from my perspective — a much stronger standpoint, than I began in Rwanda. Because when I began in Rwanda, I was like, “I think this could work!” And I had no numbers behind it, and now we have real numbers behind what could work in Kenya.

Spencer: It’s kind of cool to think … this has gone from, “We can do this!” to an actual viable business in multiple areas of East Africa. That’s pretty cool. And to actually have those numbers behind it to see how far you’ve come from, “We can do this. Let’s just do it.”

Culver: I agree. I think I get so jazzed by that because at least … we’re in the early stages, so things could change, but at least in the initial conversations I’ve had with this county in Kenya, is that if it works here, if The Women’s Bakery pilot works in this county, it could be replicated. And that really excites me because it’s replication, not just for the sake of free bread or for whatever, it’s because the model actually works. And the model being a profitable bakery, and the bakery is profiting from serving local communities, in this case, children, and it’s being powered by women, and that’s pretty cool. If we can replicate something like that, and it works, I think that’s the start of really being able to take off.

Spencer: So, what are the business implications for that?

Culver: From a monetary standpoint?

Spencer: How is it going to affect the business plan and, yeah, from a financial standpoint, what does it take to get that repeatability?

Culver: I’m so glad you asked that. That’s what Pauline and I are currently working on right now, which is … Our budget is going to grow. So, what is dedicated to Rwanda to ensure that we can … I used to use the word, and maybe I even said this on this podcast, ‘stabilize,’ but I think that’s actually a misnomer. We’re not stabilizing operations in Rwanda; we’re growing them. I’ve seen that in abundance now from my last week being here. There’s real opportunity here in what Pauline has been able to do and grow the bakeries. We have that growth opportunity. The time horizon is different than what we’re used to in the West, but it’s here.

So, how do we set The Women’s Bakery up for growth opportunity in Rwanda and be able to set ourselves up for a hefty investment in Kenya, where we do think we’ll have immediate working capital, whereas we did not in Rwanda. Our budget will double, which is something we have not seen in the immediate past. So, it just means we hit the ground running, and I have to go out and make a lot of pitches.

Spencer: Yeah, you’ve got your work cut out for you, for sure.

You mentioned just the operation, and that was sort of the next little bucket that I wanted to talk about. From that first operational bakery to the three and then the fourth on the horizon today, how far have you come, when you think about it, as far as how the bread’s made.

Culver: Joanie, this is well timed, because I’ve been visiting all three of our bakeries this week in Rwanda, and this is how I opened my comments to them. One of the examples that I used, and all of these women, most of them in Rwanda, have been working with us since about 2018, 2019, some earlier, 2015.

Most of these bakeries in Rwanda are now producing 300 to 500 kilograms of dough per day, which for those commercial bakeries, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but for us, it’s tremendous. The reason it’s tremendous is because, when we started, sometime between 2015 and 2017, we started by producing two kilograms of dough/bread a day. Two by hand, with crudely constructed ovens that we also built by hand that had a triple deck, but really narrow, so maybe two feet in width. It was all wood burning. We used wood — fire — to power the ovens. The back of the oven was always hotter. We would burn all of the buns then.

In 2015, we used crudely constructed metal ovens, and we baked 60 bread rolls. So, we make, basically, dinner rolls, 70-gram rolls that we serve to kids. We baked 60 bread rolls in 20 minutes. Now, thanks to our remarkable community, which is our bakers, but also our wider community, our managers, our donors, etc., each bakery has a rotary oven that bakes 800+ rolls every 20 minutes. This literally got a standing ovation today. In 2015, our total bread units distributed — and please notice the word distributed, not sold — was 200,000. I remember going to iba in Germany, standing up on stage saying, “We sold over 200,000 bread units last year.” And people are like, “Wait, did she say year or hour?”

So anyway, right now, in 2024, we’re projected to sell over 4.5 million units.

Spencer: Oh, my God, absolutely that deserves a standing ovation. Bravo, bravo.

Culver: It’s them. They’ve done an amazing job.

Spencer: What you’ve accomplished, how much female empowerment that has provided, and how many children that feeds, and how many families it feeds, because it’s not just One Bread in the schools … You’re selling these to African consumers who wouldn’t otherwise have access to this bread.

Culver: That’s right, or if they do … I think this is interesting for me to see, because right now I’m in the capital city of Rwanda, I’m in Kigali, where there are bakeries. But we’re uniquely positioned because we fortify our bread. We meet the World Food Programme fortification standards for nutrition, and nobody else is doing that. I think that really does matter. This is true in the US, too. I don’t know exactly the number, but the majority, the primary consumer for the family, the person who makes the decisions for purchasing, is often the female, whether she’s the mother or whoever, and the same is true here, right? If you have the ability to sell, “Hey, this bread is actually better than competitors because it’s good for you and it’s good for your kids,” it creates a different market opportunity that, at least so far, I’ve not yet seen.

Spencer: That’s so amazing. And you’re not working in an environment, like here in the US where it’s, “Consumers will be more likely to spend a little bit more on bread that’s healthier.” This is a consumer demographic that wants healthier bread but doesn’t have the means to pay a premium for it.

Culver: Right, exactly. And I think that that can be a double-edged sword for us. I think in more rural parts of Rwanda, that works in our favor, right? Because, again, accessibility is synonymous with affordability. But in Kigali, it can sometimes be counter intuitive. A consumer might say, “Well, if this is so good for me, then why is it so inexpensive? I don’t trust it. What’s inside of it?”

So, we’ve taken great pains to try and have a lot of education out there and be very transparent. We don’t have the same regulations in Rwanda for the ingredients that are in in the bread, but we do voluntarily tell people what’s inside the bread, so that they have an opportunity to educate themselves and why we’re saying this bread is better, and to know that there’s a mission behind this and that the affordability is intentional. We’re not trying to trick anybody.

Spencer: That kind of brings up a thought that I hadn’t really considered before: You also have to have good marketing then, just like any business. How do you do that? How do you market that? Do you have someone on staff? Is it grassroots? How does that work?

Culver: Yes, to the latter. We have been … “lean” would be a kind way of putting this. We have been anemic with our marketing and sales department. We haven’t had one. So now, under Pauline’s leadership, we’re building one and trying to figure out how we market this, because we’ve got a lot of different market segments. Joanie, you just pointed one out, which is if it’s affordable, that’s one market segment, and then the story would be another market segment. But then can we bring it all together?

That’s what we’re navigating right now because I think the capital city would be a completely different market segment than where our two other bakeries are, which are in more rural communities. The story would still resonate with everybody, but what is important to people? And that also relates to the quantity. In the capital city, we can sell loaves of bread, whereas in the rural communities we can’t. It’s too expensive. So we would sell rolls, essentially. Single servings.

Spencer: Does the story resonate in urban areas … when you buy a loaf of this bread, it is supporting an operation that can provide bread to children and to families in rural areas. Does that sort of humanitarian message … Does that resonate with people who are of better means in the cities?

Culver: I think that’s what we’re about to test, actually. If you were to talk to our team here, I think the immediate reaction would be yes, but we’re about to test that, and we’ll see. I mean, the jury is out. I’m eternally optimistic, so I think my gut instinct would be yes, but we’ll see.

I think that if you incentivize it where, if you were to say … especially if it’s you’re doing a fair market price … so, if this loaf of bread, which you can find at a supermarket, anyone else’s is this price, and then you have The Women’s Bakery, which is comparably priced, but then there’s a social mission behind it that can be easily and quickly explained, I think that people would gravitate toward the social mission, especially if it were comparably priced. And that’s what we’re about to test

Spencer: This is kind of a naive question. Could you, for those lows, charge a premium price in order to help fund the social mission?

Culver: Yeah, that’s not a naive question. I think yes, and again, that’s what we’re testing. I think what our team sees here … they see it more as being CSR, so Corporate Social Responsibility, carrying that burden more than the individual consumer. Maybe there is a small subset of affluent Rwandese where that would work, but that’s not enough that could sustain a whole school. And the school maybe has 1,000 or more kids, so one affluent family buying one loaf of bread … that couldn’t support a whole school. So that’s what our team is looking at … can we sell it to … the big business here in the capital city, are banks. So, can we sell it to a bank and say, “Hey, if you do this, you get to market this. And then if you buy X, we can serve a school of 1,000 kids for a year.”

Spencer: Okay, all right, that makes sense.

Culver: Yeah, I think this, I don’t know if it’s unique, but this gives me a lot of hope for the longevity of The Women’s Bakery, because that’s not my idea. That’s our team’s idea. And our team is Rwandese, Pauline is Kenyan. She is East African and running this, but all of our team members and our managers here in Rwanda are Rwandese, so they know the market, they understand it, and they’re the ones driving this.

Spencer: Okay, my next question, you’re probably going to be like, “Well, that’s a question for Pauline,” but again, we’re looking at the future, and this one, it might require a crystal ball or Pauline, or both. But what do you see operationally? What do you see for the future operationally? Do you ever see creating an operation that looks very commercial, where you could grow it into one large operation? Or are you thinking about opening more small bakeries that serve individual communities?

Culver: I think that this has been the strategic question for The Women’s Bakery for at least the last five years, and right now I see it being the former. I think it would be more to have a central production facility that acts as a hub, and then you have spokes, whether they’re retail outlets or your spokes are just simply distribution vehicles that can canvas … Rwanda is small. Rwanda is a very small country. It’s hilly and the roads … I mean it’s developed so much, but the roads are few, so it can be more difficult to get into more rural areas, but not impossible.

We’ve proven that through our two more rural entities, where we have commercial bakeries in rural areas that services rural areas. But what we’re seeing, as we grow, and especially growing because of demand, is that we need to be in a place that has reliable water, that has more reliable electricity. And if that’s true, then that would mean that a central production facility makes more sense. The farthest away place for us to get is, and I don’t think this is true, but it’s six hours. That’s easier to actually get a vehicle there than to try and build a bakery and sustain a bakery there.

Spencer: Yeah, that makes sense. If we think about … a couple weeks ago, we talked about when you first got off the ground, there was no electricity, and you were working off of generators. So having a bunch of generators, or one facility that can go all day long without stopping, that makes sense that that would be more viable.

Culver: Yeah and then Pauline’s idea — I think this is a really brilliant one that’s maybe not unique, but could be singularly successful in this region in East Africa — is if you have a central production facility, and then that’s your hub, and your spokes are the distribution, we could also have the retail … she’s calling them kiosks. Those could be what we call micro franchises. So those could be women owned, and they could sell The Women’s Bakery bread for wholesale. It opens up more opportunity for women. If we were to combine multiple bakeries into one large bakery, I think some people perhaps would worry, “Well, are you replacing jobs?” No, because then the retail outlets could still be women owned or women run. It opens up a lot more possibility for how to not only reach more communities with bread, but also empower more women.

Spencer: All right, that’s a big goal, but I think it’s doable.

Culver: I do, too, and that’s something we’ll pilot in Kenya as well. This isn’t to exclude Rwanda, it’s something that we want to try in Rwanda. But franchising is new to Rwanda, whereas franchising in Kenya is known. So, I think it would be an easier adoption rate in Kenya.

Spencer: Okay, I know that you are such an idea machine, like you are a non-stop idea machine. I’ve had so many conversations with you where you’re like, “Oh my god, maybe we could do that.” So that’s really big picture, and I have no doubt that you have thought about this many times over. But is there any thought given to what happens after Kenya? So, geographically, where do you go?

Culver: Yeah, East Africa is a large region, depending on who you speak to. It’s between seven and nine countries. So that’s a lot of the opportunity. And again, because we were invited into Kenya through a local government entity, I think government adoption just adds to the viability of expansion. Growth in the region is very much there. And then the other idea … this is not mine, this is Pauline’s and I think this is brilliant. I think this shows the lifespan of The Women’s Bakery where we can come full circle. We start by recruiting women and training them, right? Vocational training. They earn an accredited certificate; they earn gainful employment; they run this bakery.

But then Pauline’s idea is that we build Africa’s — whether it’s East Africa — premier training center, a bakery training center, where people can go through professional and technical baking and come out with that certificate, and then we help. Whether it’s working at The Women’s Bakery, it’s a pipeline for our bakeries, or whether it’s a pipeline for other companies within the baking industry, be it hotels, restaurants, what have you, it could be a hub for, certainly East Africa, but perhaps beyond East Africa, to set people up for success. People being individuals, women in particular, but then also companies. I think that’s a really nice idea that, to me, feels like we’re coming full circle.

Spencer: Yeah, and then you’re creating a labor force for other companies

Culver: And creating access to opportunity for women, right? Because this is something that many women may not have access to, and so if we could create access to that, that would be wonderful.

Spencer: That’s what I was just thinking. It takes women’s empowerment to another level altogether that then they have so many opportunities. I’m envisioning a woman who gets professional experience and education working for The Women’s Bakery so that she has an income to put her children through school. Well, then she has an opportunity to maybe work in the cafeteria at her child’s school so that she can be available to take her child to school and bring her child home, and so then she has a work life balance and educating her child. That idea creates endless possibilities and the circular benefit that I was talking about is exponential that one circle creates another. It overlaps into another, until it’s just an entire web of possibilities.

Culver: Yeah, that’s exactly how we see it, where you’re just creating a myriad of opportunities along a lot of different spectrums. Not just for women and the individual woman, but also companies and the baking industry as a whole on the continent. I think that that could be pretty darn powerful.

Spencer: Yes, ma’am, it can. This leads me to … we’re getting to the end of our time together, and I have kind of a big question that I want to ask you. The purpose of this podcast is to really look at innovation through the eyes of an individual who does it in a unique way and you’ve really built something here.

I want you to take a second and just reflect on this journey and what you built, starting at that first little Dutch oven over the fire, and what the possibilities are, and what this could become and how far reaching the benefits are. Can you believe it?

Culver: No. I was just talking about that tonight, actually. No, this has exceeded my wildest dreams, and so I do get excited about the future possibilities, because if we have survived this long through so much, dare I say, chaos, and all the obstacles that we’ve had to overcome, I do think that there is success for us in the future.

And when I say success, the way I define that is people. How many women have access to opportunities that they would otherwise not have access to? Because here at The Women’s Bakery, we believe that all women have inherent power. I think that when we say we empower women, it’s actually a misnomer. We don’t have a better word for that in English, but what I think is a more correct way of describing what we do at The Women’s Bakery is we actually create access for women to tap into their own inherent power, and then they build up their confidence, and therefore their agency to change their own lives and to change the lives of those around them, be it their families or their communities.

So, I think that alone, that ripple effect is worth everything. Then if you zoom out and you see the possibility, not just with the bakeries and feeding all the kids, but then if you go bigger than that, whether it’s bakeries all over East Africa, whether it’s a training center, that ripple effect could, I mean, it could be global. Africa could become the premier baking epicenter, right? And that’s pretty neat. I just think it’s amazing.

Spencer: I know that you don’t like taking credit for that, and that I do understand now, after having these conversations, that you are not a baker. However, you are a visionary. When the time comes that you are not directly involved with The Women’s Bakery, and you have passed on the reins to maybe Pauline, or whomever it might be … But when you are no longer directly part of it, what do you want the story about you to be? What do you want them to say about you?

Culver: Oh, boy.

Spencer: I’m going to end on a really uncomfortable question. And I know you don’t want to talk about yourself, and I know you don’t like taking credit. I love the smile on your face right now. But why I’m asking is it’s for the people who are listening to be able to think about what they want their story to be and what they contribute to their businesses or their communities. It’s important that we talk about this, and we recognize this, so that we inspire the next generation of our industry to do these types of things.

So, what do you want people to say about you?

Culver: Oh, I think off the top of my head … because I don’t want it to be about me, that’s not why I did this. So, I think that off the top of my head, I think the word that comes to mind is “possibility.” For people to see what can be possible, and if I could, in a small way, represent what could be possible, that is what I would hope for.

Spencer: Okay, and you know what I might say, “It wasn’t about why Markey did it, just about what she did, and she never stopped.” I think that that is one big thing that I’m taking away from these five weeks together is, when you feel the good happening, you have to just hold on to that good as tight as you can to bring it to fruition and never give up.

Culver: Yeah, exactly. Never give up. I was going to say indefatigable. Isn’t that a word — indefatigable? And yeah, actually, one of my mantras is to never give up. So personally, that’s true for me, and I think that there are certainly times when it’s appropriate to let go, and so we need to recognize when that is. But for me, personally, never giving up is important, and that’s why I … and I don’t always do this. This isn’t to suggest that I do this always, but this is why I try to frame failure as: If you fail, at least you’re falling forward, because when you get back up, you’re one step closer. So, for me, never giving up is important, especially if you believe in it. If you don’t, then maybe it’s time to let it go or to step away. But if you believe in it, never giving up is important.

Spencer: I think that that really sums this journey up and I think it’s really great advice for anyone, whether they’re trying to change the world or they’re just trying to start a business and trying to, you know, get their grandmother’s scones onto tables for people to enjoy and feel good and to have a little moment of happiness. And that’s really what bakers do. That’s what we do. And I know that you choose not to consider yourself a baker because you do that out of reverence, but I will say you have the heart of a baker.

Culver: Oh, thanks, Joanie, I appreciate it. That means a lot.

Spencer: That brings us to the end of this season of Troubleshooting Innovation and Markey, I just want to say thank you for taking five weeks with me and sharing your story on a deeper level than I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve known you for years. My hope is that everyone really got something out of this. And I just want to say thank you for your love of bread and for wanting to make that on your own and just that one little act of loving bread and wanting to have some bread to put the mayonnaise on was the match that lit a fuse that is changing lives, and maybe even, you know, on some level, saving lives. I just want to say thank you for that, and thank you for never giving up, and thank you for all that you’re doing for women and for communities in East Africa and for the industry, and thank you for sharing with the US baking industry what is possible when you don’t give up. Thank you.

Culver: Thank you, Joanie. That’s high praise. It’s been an honor. I’m grateful that you all find this a worthy story to cover, and so thank you for highlighting The Women’s Bakery and our work.