Krumville Bakeshop
I first heard about Krumville, a 100% gluten-free bakeshop in Brooklyn, from my fiance. Being the gluten-tolerant ying to my yang, I'd never seen him so excited about gluten-free bread as the night he came home from work, dropped his bag on the kitchen table and exclaimed, "Babe! You've GOT to try this!" and told me all about this new "Krumville foccaccia bread" that was on the Eatsy menu. For those that aren't familiar, Eatsy is Etsy's twice-weekly office lunch where they serve food from local vendors, caterers and restaurants that use local sustainable produce. Etsy also encourages a low-waste philosophy encouraging employees to use reusable or recycled plates and utensils, and by holding re-heat lunch days with any leftovers they may have. To my dismay, my fiance hadn't snuck a piece of the bread home that day for me to try, but I could tell this was something special I had to get my hands on.
Based out of a remote section of the city called the Brooklyn Triangle where city meets suburbs, you'll find a mix of bodegas, town houses and Hasidic Jewish schools. There sits the old Pfizer factory, a massive white building encroaching an entire city block. Once a chemical plant, first opening in 1849, where household medications like Lipitor and Viagra and, more early-on, the mass production of penicillin and a new fermented process to create citric acid were discovered by what other than a food chemist. This mammoth urban space- 6,600 square feet to be exact- is now home to dozens of local food manufacturers and entrepreneurs. Evidence of the original Pfizer labs where chemicals were once compounding now receive new life.
"This stainless steel table here, I kept. It's great for baking," Antonella, founder and baker of Krumville, mentions as we stand around chatting. From the moment I opened the door to Antonella's kitchen, I was hit with the most delicious scent. Imagine the smell of baking a delicious batch of cookies at home, and times that by ten.
Antonella is a friendly and warm person. The entire time I was there, I felt like I was spending time in an old friend's kitchen. I stepped into her mini office in the corner of her baking hub, and we instantly got to sharing our stories with the big, bad G word.
UMGF: Tell me about your experience with Celiac, who you are and, what you do?
A: My name is Antonella Zangheri. I was born in Rimini, Italy, and I came to America when I was about 20, and I pursued a career in photography and fashion. So I went to college in Santa Barbara, lived in LA for a while, came to NY for a while for work until 2009. I'm doing photoshoots and I also had a side production company, so that's what I did before Krumville.
Everything totally changed black to white when I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. In a weird way it was a really good time because at the same time I was kind of getting bored at my old job. I did it, I'd done it. I wasn't seeing anything exciting any more and this [Celiacs] came along, and when you start to physically feel better, you get more energy and you discover new things. I got really excited about my new health, you know, all this energy I had that I didn't know about, and I just wanted to put it to good use. And I literally thought, 'Why not?' Why not do something that I really loved doing since I was little? There's a need for it. I did some market research. It was really hard to find GF foods everywhere 5 years ago, so it was something extremely needed, and I just got really into it.
It was also a very personal discovery trying to learn new things so I started very organically, like selling cookies. I started with 'Oh, what can I sell?' Let me try to make some cookies, and I'll sell them to a neighborhood coffee shop. So I started with literally 12 cookies a week, and the demand was so great that in a year I was doing over 12,000.
So in a year, I realized, oh, this actually could be a valuable business. It could be a good platform, so I started with a shared commercial kitchen in Queens, and I would go door-to-door to coffee shops with samples and be like this is what I do, do you want to sell cookies as GF options and people responded really well. The times were also good.
UMGF: Everything seemed to be aligning with it.
A: Everything was aligning so it was 100% easier to start a business. It wasn't like you have to have a marketing plan or know what you were doing. I was just following the demand. And then the following year I thought, ok, I should venture out and do markets. So it was the time when Brooklyn Flea became very popular, so I applied to that. I was so happy to get in, and then we were doing markets for about a year. And that really helped to get bigger clients and start growing.
UMGF: So how did you get started with Krumville in this location here in the old Pfizer building?
A: Since it was a shared space I was working at in Queens, I had to go use shared ovens and clean the ovens, cover my baked goods every night...it was a lot of work, so the first year I had enough clients to support my own brand, I opened up the shop here.
UMGF: Very cool! So what are some of the products that you're offering right now?
A: Oh! So from cookies we expanded to muffins, and I was focused to do as much wholesale as I could doing cookies, muffins, focaccia bread. And then 2 years ago I started venturing out into cakes. The reason why was because I wanted to appeal to more of a direct customer because I wanted to switch from wholesale to online sales. You really need a product you can have and sell for a gift, a special occasion, so I started making cakes and suddenly they took off. We had one of them featured in the O List in Oprah Magazine. We partnered with Dean + Deluca online so we send cakes to them, so slowly I started putting a lot of effort on my website so we could get more direct sales.
UMGF: Your website is so beautiful, by the way!
A: Oh, thank you! It's a work in progress. Every day you just do something. You have to learn a little coding. Every day you have to learn something.
UMGF: All of your photography is gorgeous.
A: Thank you! Some of it, well, luckily I used to be a photographer, so that helps. But this is actually a friend of mine, she did it. Tara Donne is a pro. Doing food photography is not as easy as you think. I do people better than stills. I'm slowly learning how to do that actually- it's interesting. So Tara does the images for the home page, and the product images are mine.
I got a prop stylist also to help with the main image because they were really so good. It was like ok, this is all the stuff we need to bake, the direction of the props and in a few minutes, we were like beautiful! Done!
UMGF: What are your thoughts on the GF community, and what are your favorite GF spots in the city to go to?
A: Have you heard of GFF Magazine? I've worked with the editor Erika Lenkert. She's really nice. It's a quarterly magazine that comes out. She's based out in San Francisco. It's really nice, high-end, pretty and with good recipes....There's a new-ish Italian restaurant I go to called Senza Gluten.
UMGF: I love Senza Gluten!
A: I also really like Bistango. It's on 3rd Ave. in the 30's and we used to work with him. We did a program where we did lunches and sandwiches. So we did GF foccaccia for him.
I personally don't eat out that much. I moved away from that entire scene- it's just too hard and too complicated. I just don't need it. I like to cook. I have no problem, you know- and also when you work long hours, you don't feel like sitting in a restaurant.
UMGF: Yeah, you want your down time.
A: I go to a restaurant when I need to meet friends and be social- then I'll go to any restaurant. I'll just eat the least possible things that could get contaminated. But if you want a really fancy GF experience, Del Posto is really yummy. It's very expensive- it's more expensive that Nobu- that would be the second one. I went there for my birthday, and it's definitely delicious. It's really, really good.
UMGF: Mm, what did you get there?
A: They do an entire stuffed pasta- you can get any of the courses they have as GF. So I think my husband had gnocchi and I had tortellini- real Italian that's usually gluten-based stuff. That was nice.
You know, also now if you want to go have, like, lunch there's tons of places that are GF friendly or those salad places- Mexican food- these options are hard to get contaminated.
UMGF: That's why I think it's cool with what you're doing because you're going around to these coffee shops and cafes to grow your business, but it's also a nice sense of community when everyone starts selling each other's products. Things start to feel a little smaller and you feel a nice sense of community.
A: It's definitely nice-you know, ultimately I envisioned Krumville as a little center where everything is GF. You don't have to worry about cross-contamination. It's easy to get. It's for special occasions, more than every day food, but it's so cool that it's the past few years that you see all the neighborhoods has their own little GF place. It's really nice and so helpful.
UMGF: Yeah, when I went to Senza Gluten for the first time, I really had an emotional reaction. I wasn't able to have a biscotti or certain types of meals where I could walk into a restaurant and not have to worry about anything. It really shows you what a deep connection we have with food.
A: No, definitely. I get tons of emails of people that are little notes and thank you notes- I love the thank you notes! The handwritten, that's so classic. A lot of people are very thankful that you spend your day baking for them. Some people really appreciate it like- oh wow, you changed my life. I was able to have a sandwich again, things like that that make life easier again. It's part of what keeps you going. It's so nice to get that connection and feedback from the other side.
UMGF: It's super rewarding. So, it smells so delicious in here!
A: Yeah, she [Courtney] is out there doing bread. We should go out there and make you olive loaf since you're dairy-free, too.
And out into the kitchen we went!
Chatting in the Kitchen
While Antonella and her head production baker, Courtney Schadt, baked focaccia loaves and blueberry muffins, we chatted about things like experimenting with baking, the culture of waiting on lines in NYC, food crazes like the Kronut and weekend getaways in upstate NY. Antonella shared some secrets of how to ensure GF bread has a long shelf life and remains nice and moist. She also says that she typically leaves her cake batter in the fridge overnight before using it.
"You just acquire all these little instances. There's no right or wrong. You make mistakes and you learn."
It was very clear that Antonella really enjoys running a small team so that she can remain hands-on in the kitchen, and rather than becoming a huge brand with products on every grocery store shelf, she finds joy in selling directly to her customers.
Tip from the baker: To preserve fresh herbs like rosemary, parsley and thyme, freeze them in olive oil, a tradition she learned from her mother and grandmother in Italy. That way you can defrost and put it right in your dish!
And no conversation about Italy is complete without discussing pasta! Antonella told me her favorite GF pasta brands are Schar's Tagliatelle, Jovial and even the less expensive brands like Barilla. I also found it very interesting to learn that Italy gives vouchers to diagnosed Celiacs so they can buy GF food up to a certain amount of Euros per month.
I had such a great time at Krumville. I highly urge you to taste some of Antonella's delicious baked goods by ordering online or if you want to visit in person, simply get off the G train and let your nose lead the way to the delicious smelling trail that leads to the Pfizer building. I think Antonella should figure out how to bottle and sell the scents of her breads alone. Maybe there's still some abandoned equipment in the building she can use to conjur this up.
...........Until next time, friends!
