From builder to specialty bread baker

Event venue and speaker at SBN / 3R Business Connector event in June.

Hundreds of years ago bread was a central part of everyday life, from the process of making it, to the staple food of western diets.

Scott Wynands has brought that tradition back to life with the artisan breads he and his bakers create at Oh My Goodness Specialty Breads in Hastings. The recipe for his gluten, dairy, sugar and grain-free breads is something which has been 10 years in the making and saw him go from working as a builder and environmental resource manager to donning a baker’s apron.

The change has allowed him to follow a dream of having a space where he can not only create his nutritious breads but have the social interaction he loves.

“I knew it (the bread) would take off, but I didn’t know it would free me up to have my dream of creating social change,” Scott says.

The bakery, in Queen Street, has a space for people to relax, do some work, enjoy a meal and interact with each other. “I love the social element, the interaction,” he says.

The Space is offered for free or a subsidised price to events that have a beneficial environmental or social emphasis.

The bakery was used as a venue for a Sustainable Business Network Business Connector event on June 1 where Scott was also one of the speakers. The event was centred on “minimising food waste”, something Scott is passionate about.

The bakery carefully adjusts its volumes to only supply enough to the shops which sell the bread. The bread will keep for at least a week refrigerated and also freezes well, Scott says.

Any bread left over at the bakery is sold at a discount the next day or sliced and used in house, he says. “If we have a build-up of crusts or if something goes wrong in the oven we keep it, toast it and make it into crumbs.”

Waste is something he cannot abide, plus the bread is simply too good not to use, Scott says.

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