Source: The Whole Grain Hearth Bakery
“Your opportunities aren’t necessarily limited to where you immediately are.”
What started as a hobby turned into a passion driven career for Richard Placzek. The former real estate agent would set his career path in a whole new direction, just from baking loaves of bread.
“I would give one away to friends and family because I can’t eat two loaves a week obviously,” says Placzek. “Eventually I started an email menu for them and after about a year, the list was at 120 people.”
“I thought then it would probably be a good idea to make a career out of it.”
Placzek’s family has been in the real estate business for what he describes as his whole life. So Placzek, and his brother, marched down the same path for about 12 years. That is until Placzek realized how that line of work wasn’t necessarily right for him.
After earning a master’s degree in politics and another in political theory, Placzek was unsure about returning to his academics and going back to complete his PhD. His mother then encouraged him to give the culinary arts a try, advising him to follow his passions.
Grain Mill/The Whole Grain Hearth Bakery
That advice led Placzek back to London where he landed at Fanshawe College, studying culinary management. After graduating from the program, he looked towards finding a space for his own bakery. Becoming what Londoner’s know today as The Whole Grain Hearth Bakery.
But how does this bakery stand apart from others? By milling their own gains.
“One of the coolest bakeries I saw was where they were milling their own grains,” says Placezek. “So I got myself a little grain mill and I started incorporating into my own baking for my weekly menus.”
“It’s just like making the bread itself; once you start doing it, it’s hard to go back to using store bought flour.”
Even before his bakery had launched, Placzek knew that demand could be high for his products. He just needed help with production.
Sammy Wardrop is the pastry chef for The Whole Grain Hearth Bakery and has been for about four years. But before that, she worked at a salad bar in The Covet Garden Market in downtown London. That’s where she met Richard who recognized her from the baking program at Fanshawe.
“Honestly, London doesn’t have a lot of opportunities for baking positions, and specifically what I was interested in,” says Wardrop. “He [Richard] had come up to the store I was working at and asked me if I was interested in a position and I said yes because I wanted to get back into the industry.”
Richard Placzek (Left) and Sammy Wardrop (Right)
After the previous pastry chef moved on to their next opportunity, Wardrop decided to expand the menu from cookies and spinach buttons to now seasonal danishes and other laminated pastries. All including their own grains milled right on location.
Sourced Images: The Whole Grain Hearth Bakery
“I think that’s definitely what sets us apart,” says Wardrop. “It’s been a really long and challenging journey, but I’m super proud of what our team is able to offer.”
The Whole Grain Hearth Bakery is open to the public on Friday’s and Saturdays at either their location at 958 Leathorne Street or at various farmers markets around the city.
“It’s been a pretty cool process to be able to still evolve during the pandemic and keeping our business afloat,” says Wardrop.
With their new online ordering and in person delivery system, this London bakery has compiled a long list of frequent customers and hasn’t shined away from their roots, continuing to find more ingredients to add towards their success.
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And for all those post-secondary graduates, Richard and Sammy have some advice as you enter the working world!
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