We are a local, family-owned bakery and we are passionate about quality. Every single piece of bread is hand-made and hand-shaped in true artisan style using only the finest natural and organic ingredients such as 100% locally milled, American-grown, non-GMO  flour; fresh honey from a local beekeeper; fresh milk, eggs and butter from a local dairy.

Bread dough is alive and needs to be nurtured from start to finish - the process can't be artificially rushed, and many of our breads take up to 3 days to make. We give every dough the time it needs to ferment properly as nature intended and the time to rise naturally in order to extract the full flavor from the grains, giving our bread its distinctive crust, crumb, depth and character.

We don't use any yeast accelerants, dough conditioners, preservatives, artificial flavors or colors, stabilizers, enhancers, or any other additives which many bakeries use in order to cut corners. In fact, many large bakeries use chemicals to create bases which are essentially box mixes that speed the breadmaking process, hide mistakes, and allow untrained bakers to make their bread.

Since it can take up to a year to train a baker to consistently produce bread which meets our quality standards, we are always on the lookout for good bakers. Our skilled artisan bakers have a passion for baking and take pride in producing authentic old-world style loaves by hand.

Our primary focus is on quality, freshness, and consistency, and our bread is baked fresh every single day, 365 days a year. In fact, our bread is delivered to some restaurants when it's still hot from the oven.

We write all of our own formulas and develop all of our own starters, and are maintaining as many as 10 different starters on any given day. Each starter is made specifically for a certain type of dough, and that gives each bread its own unique and complex flavor. We are constantly working to produce the optimal environment for the yeast through temperature and humidity control, and we use different mixing processes and autolyses for each type of bread.

Bread is often the first impression a customer receives in a restaurant. We provide bread for many of the best restaurants and hotels in Denver, clients who appreciate the effort that goes into producing a consistently high-quality product from scratch, by hand, every day, with no shortcuts.

We are fortunate to work with chefs who are as committed to quality as we are, and we create breads which complement their individual cuisines, support the concepts of their restaurants, and convey their commitment to using only the very best ingredients.

Below is a link to the Denver Magazine Chef of the Year awards where Jeff was honored as a finalist for Baker of the Year:

Denver Magazine Baker of the Year 2010

And below are links to Westword "Chef and Tell" interviews with Denver chefs who have specifically mentioned Jeff and his baking techniques:

Table 6 Scott Parker Interview in Westword

Elway's Robert Bogart Interview in Westword

Contact Info:

Grateful Bread Company

429 Violet Street

Golden, CO 80401

303-681-5406

e-mail: gratefulbread@att.net