The Bread Winner Podcast
Welcome to The Bread Winner Podcast, the show for microbakery owners who want to create a successful microbakery without spending every waking minute in the kitchen. I'm Caroline Bower, and I bake over 100 loaves a week from my home while still getting 8 hours of sleep and having time to be fully present in the important moments with my family. If you're looking to build a thriving sourdough business from your home, you're in the right place. Every Thursday, I'll be sharing new episodes packed with practical advice on everything from marketing and sales to process optimization and real-life strategies to...
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138. 9 Things I'm Doing in August to Prep for the Holidays
<p>There is a two-gallon jar in my bakery right now full of vanilla beans and cheap vodka, with a piece of masking tape on the lid that just says December. It is not going to be ready to sell until the holidays, and that is exactly the point.</p><p>This week I am walking you through the nine real things I am doing in my own bakery this August to set up a smoother November and December. That includes auditing my menu and my prices in the same sitting, scheduling a recipe testing day before the holidays get...
137. What Every Home Baker Needs to Know About Cottage Food Laws Right Now
<p>Did you know that up until the fall of 2021, selling a loaf of bread you baked in your own kitchen was completely illegal in New Jersey? Not just restricted — illegal. They were the last of all 50 states to change that, and it only happened because a group of home bakers decided to go and ask. That story is the backdrop for this entire episode, and I think it is going to encourage you more than you are expecting.</p><p>This is a topic I have touched on before but never gone this deep on — and after spending a coup...
136. What I Wish I Knew Before I Started Selling Sourdough Bread
<p>Two years of the Bread Winner Podcast, and the episode you keep coming back to is the one where I looked back at my very first year in business. So I am bringing it back for our two-year birthday month.</p><p>I am wrapping up year three now, baking out of a brick and mortar with a bread oven and a commercial fridge, and I have been out of the house for over six months. All of it was built on what year one taught me. This replay of Episode 82 walks through the processes, the systems and the...
135. Seven Steps to Owning the Value of Your Microbakery Business
<p>If you have ever answered the question "so what do you do?" with "I just have a little sourdough business" — this episode is for you. This is one of my most personal and most passionate episodes, and I am so glad to be bringing it back for our two-year birthday month because I believe it deserves to be heard by every single baker who has ever minimized what she is building. This is not a tactical episode. It is a heart-level conversation. And it might be exactly what you needed to hear today.</p><p>In this episode I am...
134. How to Use Text Marketing to Grow Your Sourdough Microbakery
<p>I have been talking about Project Broadcast on this podcast for years — and in this episode, I finally got to sit down with the CEO himself, Jake Dempsey, for a conversation I have been looking forward to for months. If you have ever wondered why texting works so well for microbakery businesses, how to set it up, or how to use it in a smarter way, this episode is going to be a game changer for you.</p><p>Jake has been building Project Broadcast for nearly a decade, his platform has sent over a billion text messages on be...
133. The 4 Things to Do Before Selling Your Sourdough Bread (A Listener Favorite, Revisited)
<p>It's the two-year birthday month of the Bread Winner Podcast — and I am celebrating from the road! My family and I are on an epic three-week road trip this July, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to bring back some of the most loved episodes in the show's history.</p><p>We kicked off the month with Episode 132, where I turned the mic on my kids and let them share what it's really like to grow up watching me build this sourdough microbakery business. If you haven't listened yet, I really encourage you to — especially if you're a mo...
132. Handing the Mic to My Kids: What It's Really Like to Have a Baker for a Mom
<p>This episode is one of my favorites I've ever recorded — and I think you're going to love it too. I handed the mic to my two kids, Jamey and Lila, and we had the most honest, sweet, and surprisingly insightful conversation about what it's actually like to grow up with a mom who owns a sourdough microbakery. From the early market mornings to the ribbon cutting at the brick and mortar, they share their real experience — the good, the hard, and everything in between — and I think their perspective will encourage you more than you're expecting.</p><p>We talk a...
131. How to Get Moving Again After a Big Push in Your Sourdough Microbakery
<p>The Bread Winner Summit was incredible — and then I crashed. In this episode, I'm getting really honest about what happens after we give everything to something big: the pre-orders that don't pause, the follow-up emails that get delayed, and that nagging feeling of having overpromised and underdelivered. I'm walking you through why this happens (hint: it's not a planning failure, it's a best-case-scenario problem), and why building in a buffer — for prep days, for big launches, for life in general — might be the single most useful shift you can make this year.</p><p>This is also a permission-slip episod...
130. Your Questions, My Answers: Live Q&A from the Bread Winner Summit
<p>If you've ever wished you could sit in on a real, unfiltered business conversation with me, this episode is exactly that. I'm pulling back the curtain and sharing the live Q&A session from this year's Bread Winner Summit — our annual sourdough business conference — and it is a rapid-fire, honest conversation covering so many of the questions I know are on your mind. From time blocking and work-life balance to building a loyal customer base and navigating cottage food laws, we dig into the real stuff that doesn't always make it into a polished podcast episode.</p><p>In this...
129. Why the Bread Winner Summit Matters So Much
<p>In this short episode, I’m sharing why I believe the Bread Winner Summit is so much more than just another online business event for bakers. As I’ve been recording sessions and sitting in conversations with some of the most thoughtful voices in the sourdough world, I’ve found myself deeply inspired—not just by the practical strategies being shared, but by the reminder that we are part of something so much bigger than ourselves. Building a sourdough micro bakery can feel isolating sometimes, but this summit is designed to help you feel connected, encouraged, and equipped to build a...
