What an LA Bakery Says About the Economy Right Now

Andy Kadin (0:02)

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Tracy Alloway (0:18)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:22)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

Joe, I have a very personal question to ask you.

Joe Weisenthal (0:27)

Well, we've known each other for a very long time, so there's not much left that we don't know, but go for it.

Tracy Alloway (0:32)

Well, I actually don't know the answer to this question. Have you ever baked anything?

Joe Weisenthal (0:38)

Ah, not that much. I went through this, I'm just gonna, the answer is basically no.

Tracy Alloway (0:43)

Okay.

Joe Weisenthal (0:43)

I'm just gonna, no.

Tracy Alloway (0:44)

Wait, you were gonna say something. You went through a phase?

Joe Weisenthal (0:47)

Long time in high school, I got in this weird, like experimental baking obsession with a friend of mine where we just sort of tried to relearn baking by first principles and see what worked.

Tracy Alloway (0:57)

Oh my God. What does that mean?

Joe Weisenthal (0:58)

Just like not reading any recipe. I don't think so. Not reading any recipes and just start experimenting.

Tracy Alloway (1:03)

Just figuring it out yourself.

Joe Weisenthal (1:04)

And then seeing like what caused things to rise and what tasted good without any starting principles or anything. We knew a few basic ingredients. It was fun. I should get back into baking.

Tracy Alloway (1:13)

You should. It's really fun.

Joe Weisenthal (1:14)

What do you, Tracy, we know this is just a setup because you want to talk about your baking. So why don't you just tell us what you like to bake?

Tracy Alloway (1:21)

Hey, look, I don't bake that much, actually. In my household, my husband bakes everything. So he does a really good Basque cheesecake, really good chocolate chip cookies, things like that. But if you were doing first principle baking, I imagine you know how difficult it is and all the things that are involved in just making like a simple loaf of bread.

Joe Weisenthal (1:43)

I am aware. And the other thing is not only I understand that it's very complex, but beyond that, I'm always flabbergasted at the idea of doing it at industrial scale or semi-industrial scale and how that even works. I have no idea, to be honest. Honestly, industrial scale food preparation at all seems crazy to me, like steaks and everything. Like how do you do it over and over and over again and get a repeatable process? It's like a fascinating question to me.

Tracy Alloway (2:09)

Right. So that's really interesting in and of itself. But the other interesting thing about the baking business at industrial scale, as you just pointed out, is it's kind of a microcosm for the economy. You have all these commodity inputs, which obviously move around along with inflation. You have labor issues. You have to get bakers who want to get into work really, really early in the morning. And obviously, you also have consumer demand. So it's really an interesting lens to kind of look through.

Joe Weisenthal (2:38)

Well, one of our one of our favorite episodes that we've ever done, which I think was 2022 or maybe 2021

Tracy Alloway (2:44)

Long time ago.

Joe Weisenthal (2:46)

We talked to a commercial baker in Chicago, and I've always wanted to do more. That was such a pivotal episode for us. And I was like, well, you know, we learned a lot about what was going on with commodity costs. We learned a lot what was going on with pricing power, et cetera. Well, it's 2025 now. I would like to learn more about what's going on.

Tracy Alloway (3:04)

All right. So we're going to dive back into baking, possibly not on a first principle basis, but we have the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with Andy Kadin.

Joe Weisenthal (3:13)

What did baking from first principles be a really good? That would be like a good name for a cookbook. All right. Sorry.

Tracy Alloway (3:19)

Keep going. Good name for a baking podcast, perhaps. Okay. We're going to be speaking with Andy Kadin. He is the owner of a bakery in LA that's called Bub & Grandma's. They do wholesale orders for a bunch of different LA restaurants. So industrial scale, as you mentioned, Joe, but they also have a retail restaurant that does sandwiches and they're in the process of opening a pizzeria.

Joe Weisenthal (3:42)

Amazing.

Tracy Alloway (3:43)

So all the baked goods. Andy, welcome to the show.

Andy Kadin (3:48)

Really good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Tracy Alloway (3:50)