Wisconsin native cuts carbs, creates bread business
On the advice of her personal trainer, Amanda Orso decided to give up bread. She found she felt better, but still missed bagels, baguettes and bread. She started playing around with almond, sweet potato and coconut flours and created gluten-free, grain-free breads even her 100% Italian husband loved.
Little did she know that would lead to a whole new career.
Orso founded Barely Bread in 2013, and the breads, bagels and baguettes hit shelves nationwide in 2016. Priced at $9.99 and up, products are now available in the freezer section at Metcalfe’s and Woodman’s in the Milwaukee and Madison areas, and at barelybread.com. Look for additional snack products, like bagel chips, coming to stores in May.
A native of Sun Prairie, Orso grew up on a dairy farm. She moved to New York after college, and the 39-year-old now lives in Manhattan with her husband, Anthony, and their daughter, Ivy, 3.
Bye bye bread
I left for college and ended up in New York for a job that had nothing to do with what I do now. … I’ve always been passionate about health and wellness, and I’d started working out with a trainer. I wanted to get into great shape and wanted to feel good. I’d spent years not sleeping well. One of the things my trainer suggested was I give up bread.
Everybody loves bread and it is in every home, but you’re not going to find a doctor or nutritionist that will ever say “Eat more bread.” So I gave up bread, but my husband is 100% Italian. Having bread in the house is a big deal.
Finding her fix
If you think about the average bread in the supermarket, the ingredient list is often 30 ingredients long, even if you can pronounce the ingredients. … I thought there has to be some bread that fits the nutritional parameters that are important to me: something that wasn’t all carbs and going to spike your blood sugar. I started researching every bread on the market, low carb, gluten free. At some point, no exaggeration, I had probably 100 loaves of bread in my apartment. I wasn’t looking to eat cardboard. I wanted something that was still going to taste good, that you could actually put in the toaster without it falling part.
Becoming a baker
I decided to research alternative flours like almond flour, coconut flour and sweet potato flour. I just started experimenting. I was not a baker.
My dad actually hates when I say this, but I actually have a dairy allergy and I grew up on a dairy farm. So I’d become very used to tweaking recipes and playing around. I started applying the same tactics to bread. I can figure this out and make bread that is healthful for me. I wasn’t trying to create a glutenfree bread. There wasn’t some specific diet that I was trying to focus on.
Barely bread
In the process of looking at nutrient dense flours, I made a bread and left it on the stove. We lived near a farm market, and my husband came home and was excited to have this fresh bread, thinking it came from the market. I came home and was shocked to see he’d eaten half the loaf. If he thinks it is good, it must be good. I mentioned it to my trainer, started bringing bread to him and some of his clients. My circle started getting wider and wider. My husband said “This is getting out of control. Are you going into business or what?”
Dream bigger
I thought, “Oh, I’ll sell bread at the farm market.” My husband is in commercial real estate and runs a company. He is the one who really encouraged me to think bigger. Make sure that whatever you’re planning, you’re envisioning the biggest it can be.
Learning curve
I realized why this product didn’t exist in the market. It is so incredibly hard to make. There were so many flops in my kitchen I can’t even remember. Even after I had my recipe, I went to the head bakers at the New York Institute of Culinary Education, and I wanted them to help me take the recipe I created and take it to the next level. It was important to work with bakers, not health nuts. I wanted that taste and palate, but I didn’t want any grains, any yeast.
Dollars and dough
The approach to food for millennials is so different. I’m going to be 39, and when I was in college if I could find a slice of pizza for $1 that was great. It was whatever I could do to spend the least amount of money on food. There seems to be such a shift, people care about what they’re putting into their bodies. Food is medicine.
Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email nstohs@journalsentinel.com.