Chef Aditi Handa believes that baking has a charm like no other and it can calm the most ruffled souls. Especially in these times of uncertainty, it is baking that has motivated and helped bring back perspective for the Head Baker and Co-Founder at The Baker’s Dozen. “I think my love for baking comes from my Chefs who trained me. They not only taught me the art and science of baking but they taught me how to speak to my dough, how to care for it and above all how to do justice to it,” she says. The Sourdough Protagonist spoke to TMM about her love for baking and more…
How did your journey in baking begin?
I always knew I was going to start my own business but I wanted to gain some relevant knowledge before starting on my own so with this purpose, I joined the International Culinary Centre (ICC) in New York to learn baking. I had pursued psychology and HR but I couldn’t find my ikigai in these fields. However, on my 5th day at ICC, while I was baking my first Sourdough and when I was touching my dough to check whether it had correctly proved and if it was ready to be shaped, I felt a love and passion for baking like never before. I knew at that juncture; I had found my purpose in life and I was born to be a baker. I didn’t care about being an entrepreneur, a manager or running a business. I only wanted to bake, and since one has to earn a living, I thought why not sell the bread I am baking too.
What got you interested in sourdough?
My love for sourdough is because of its simplicity and versatility. Sourdough is simply made with 4 ingredients – flour, water, yeast and salt but every technique of baking it plays a vital role. This is because every right step would naturally enhance the flavour and add texture to the bread. In fact, sourdough effortlessly brings oomph to the loaf and increases its shelf life by further keeping it fresh for a longer time.
During my training, I realised how bread is an integral part of Indian meals but many of our needs around it were overlooked. We all want our bread to be a healthy treat for us and want it to stay fresh for a longer period of time. Hence, knowing that sourdough fits the bill perfectly by bringing in its nutritional value and better shelf life, I decided to make Indians fall for it so that their daily meals no longer leave them in guilt.
How difficult has it been to get the average Indian consumer to opt for sourdough over other regular varieties like white bread and brown bread?
When we launched the bread at The Baker’s Dozen in 2013, our biggest challenge was that most consumers were not aware of this technique and hence, these hand-shaped crusty loaves seemed quite daunting. Thus, educating them took a lot of time and effort. The most important characteristic of sourdough bread are once you start consuming it, your taste palate, as well as digestion, won’t let you shift back to regular bread and as mentioned before, it’s gut-friendly feature and versatility sing for themselves. I knew that one day we would make our country fall in love with this bread and it did happen – we had sold a million sourdough loaves across India by 2020!
How much has the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown made consumers get more interested in sourdough?
There are 2 primary reasons behind the rise of sourdough in the pandemic. One being that pandemic has got us closer to ourselves making us realise the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The second being its baking technique, as prophylactic life has confined us to our homes, we all have engaged ourselves in baking, as it brings different kinds of comfort and calmness which was most desired in the pandemic.
Tell us about some of the products you started your journey with and what new products have you included in recent times?
We started our journey with 7 products that included our Signature sourdough Four Grain, Pain Aux Cereals, Multigrain, Focaccia and currently we have a product line of 75 products. We often receive requests from our customers to include a few products in our menu and we aim to fulfil their demands. Hence, our way from bread to cake-mixes is the increasing demands and requests of our customers.
There are pre-mixes for cakes and recently, a pancake mix as well. Can you tell us about delving inside the pre-mix space?
We are receiving a great response for our cake premixes but our Pancake mix is a special product because the idea was birthed in our very kitchen when my husband and co-founder Sneh Jain felt the need to have an innovative way to make ‘Dad’ the perfect Sunday breakfast protagonist. And, as he loves making pancakes for our twins, we decided why not we create something that helps fellow non-bakers earn a memorable seat in the Sunday kitchen too. So, we began our research and experiments and 1327 pancake mixes later, we finally created the ultimate Sunday brunch pancake mix. It’s been a month since we launched this product and we are extremely happy with all the feedback received for it.
For an artisan bakery, what has been the main aim of The Baker’s Dozen?
We have successfully grown as a national name, so our aim is to be a major brand across all major cities and towns in India by 2024, providing our sourdough bread to every Indian household. We will also look to expand internationally as we feel a definite need for artisan bakery products across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East region.
What are some of your expansion plans?
Our aim in the coming years is to build India’s largest D2C bakery brand by expanding to more than 100 own stores and 1000 retail touchpoints across 25 cities in India (metros, tier-1 and tier-2). Using our stores as the foundation with a revamped website/app to enhance the user ordering experience, we want to develop a loyal customer clientele preferring our sourdough bread as their daily bread.
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