020 Sharing Cultures with Community, with Loretta Beiler, Baker and Instructor

In this episode, Loretta Beiler recounts her history of home-based bread and roasted coffee business, how a surprise trip to Italy inspired her to create sourdough bread classes in her home, and how these and her family’s coffee business complement each other in bringing healthy, clean products and services to the Lancaster, PA community. She also discusses how she organizes her business to ensure she can be at her best not only for her business but also for her family life.

Loretta and her husband, Sam, have always been entrepreneurial in their professional lives. They juggle a successful social media company as well as a variety of home-based products and services. The Beilers have roasted coffee, and Loretta has baked bread to sell locally long before so many of us started trying to make these and other delicacies at home. Loretta’s early motivation was to make a healthier bread for her family with wild yeast and less processed ingredients. She was frustrated by some failed attempts along the way until she perfected her craft and started making a limited number of loaves available locally each week. With huge opportunities for growth, it was important to Loretta to keep this business a reasonable size so she could continue to prioritize her family and friends. She has created what seems to be a clear mindset and healthy balance in her life.

It was then during a surprise trip to Italy four years ago that Loretta had a life-changing Airbnb cooking experience. It was an incredible way to learn about a new culture, share a meal with new friends, and take some new memories and skills home with her. In thinking about recreating that experience for others, she recalled her personal trials in perfecting sourdough, how she could have benefited from hands-on experience, and she decided to organize her own Airbnb experience around baking bread. The result has been a nice combination of complementary bread classes and sales. And while she has the potential to grow these business streams greatly, she is content in keeping her activities relatively small and local for the moment.

You can learn more about Loretta’s coffee, bread, classes at https://www.instagram.com/retbeiler/, https://www.facebook.com/loretta.beiler, and https://courses.retbakes.com/.

For more information about the movement behind the podcast, visit our Facebook Group, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/350301745982098; follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/cotcup/, check out examples of our guests’ creations on Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/cotcup/boards/, and subscribe to our email list (https://cotcup.com/lp) and receive our living document, the Eightfold Path Plus One Guide to Success for Home-based Producers, and future updates.