Acme Bread Company

PEOPLE: Steve and Suzie Sullivan along with more than 150 full-time workers (all are offered full medical benefits, 401k plan, and profit sharing)

ABOUT: In the late seventies, Steve began baking bread in his dorm room at UC Berkeley. He was working as a busboy in the then fledgling Chez Panisse when chef Alice Waters tasted and enjoyed his well-crafted bread and gave him a job as a baker. Sullivan left Chez Panisse a few years later, and with his wife opened Acme Bread Company in 1983.

At their commercial facility in Berkeley, Acme’s bakers use modern German-made deck ovens as well as a 1930s Spanish brick oven in three production shifts, baking their hand formed loaves and pastries throughout the day and night.

SOURCING: The organic flour used to make Acme’s bread is grown in Washington, Colorado, Utah and Canada, and milled in Utah. Butter and milk are purchased from Challenge Dairy, which uses hormone-free milk from California farms.