Rudi's Organic Bakery
For over 40 years, Rudi’s Organic Bakery, based in Boulder, CO, has resonated with a growing group of consumers seeking natural, authentic, organic baked goods. Rudi’s has grown from a storefront retail bakery into one of the nation’s leading certified-organic bread brands, even expanding into gluten-free production. Recent developments include working with local grain farmers for its Community Grains breads, with full traceability back to the farm. For the full story, see “Rudi’s Organic Bakery continues its pioneering path of success.”
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When Sheldon Romer opened his small bakery in Boulder, CO in 1976, he sought to offer nutritious, preservative-free breads and other baked goods. He later started using organic ingredients, well before the birth of the National Organic Program.
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Today, Rudi’s Organic Bakery is still based in Boulder, and the brand still resonates with consumers seeking natural, authentic baked goods. But now the national consciousness has caught up with the ideals that grounded Rudi’s in the 1970s. Today, Rudi’s has evolved into a highly sophisticated operation, and the brand’s reach extends from coast to coast as one of the nation’s leading certified-organic bread brands.
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Since 2014, Rudi’s Organic Bakery has been part of The Hain Celestial Group—a relationship that helps the bakery reach a much-wider audience, providing distribution, capital and operational efficiencies other bakeries of a similar size cannot match.
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While the size and scope of Rudi’s Organic Bakery has grown significantly over the years, many aspects of the business have remained the same. “We’ve remained very consistent in terms of the high-quality products that we deliver,” says Leah Dunmore, vice president of marketing, better-for-you pantry at The Hain Celestial Group. Rudi’s still holds true to its natural, organic, non-GMO heritage.
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Organic bread is an expanding market, and Rudi’s Organic Bakery released a new line specifically designed for the youth market in 2015, available in Soft White and Soft Wheat. The products feature small, thin slices suited to easy handling by children. It was the first nationally available organic bread made specifically for kids.
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Organic and gluten-free production is segregated into distinct sanitary zones within the bakery. While the organic side of the bakery is highly automated, gluten-free production still requires a few key points of hand touch.
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Some of the most-popular Rudi’s Organic Bakery products are the Honey Sweet Whole Wheat, 100% Whole Wheat and Country Morning White organic breads. On the gluten-free side of the business, the Original and Multigrain breads hit the top of the list.
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Most of the gluten-free lineup is sold frozen, but Rudi’s recently expanded into offering shelf-stable gluten-free breads.
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Rudi’s Organic Bakery also recently launched two Community Grains “seed to table” breads—Hungry Hollow and Sacramento Valley. Community Grains seeks to improve supply-chain traceability through partnerships with local grain farmers, and consumers can trace the grain used in each loaf back to the farm where it was grown.
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The Community Grains breads use wheat grown by sixth-generation California farmer Fritz Durst, a pioneer in agricultural conservation. “It’s very important for us to know where our ingredients are coming from, and to know that we’re using high-quality ingredients,” says Dunmore. “Then we want to be able to share that story with our consumers.”