Baking & Snack - May 2024 - 24

ANTHONY & SONS BAKERY
have for customer visits. It's a place where customers can
see how they can use our bread. "
In 2014, Anthony & Sons started reaching retail and
foodservice customers around the country with frozen
baked goods. Demand had grown enough throughout
the country that Baldo Dattolo said frozen was the only
way to fulfill it. The brand recognition that Anthony &
Sons has enjoyed in the Northeast has only expanded
as customers and consumers have migrated to different
parts of the country.
" We have a Northeast-style of product, and as
(From left) Crystal Kanz,
Able Mendez, Anthony
Dattolo, Ben Rizzitello,
Baldo Dattolo, Nicholas
Sorresse, Phillip Dattolo,
Vinny Di Bella, Nancy
Keeler, Michael O'Mara
and Lauren Martin keep
things running at Anthony
& Sons Bakery.
led to significant success.
Year over year,
Anthony & Sons experienced
double-digit growth
as they initially served foodservice
customers, mostly small sandwich shops. As they grew,
the family expanded their products to include rolls, hoagies
and rye breads to meet customer demand.
In 2008, Baldo Dattolo and his brother opened the
first Anthony & Sons Little Italy Bakery-Market-Café attached
to the Denville baking facility, which opened in
2000 after much demand from the company's consumer
base in the Northeast. At the store, shoppers could not
only purchase Anthony & Sons' bread but also Italian
goods and a sandwich or salad from the café. Today,
there are two retail locations, the original and another
in Succasunna, NJ.
" We've been in the area for 40 years, and people always
asked for a store, " Baldo Dattolo said. " It's since
become something of a landmark, and it's been good to
people have relocated around the country, they
ask for our bread because they miss it, so we get
requests from the South, Midwest and even the
West Coast, " Rizzitello said.
Anthony & Sons developed its EZ Freezer to
Oven and EZ Ready to Use Thaw & Sell lines to
make it simple for in-store bakery customers to have
fresh, high-quality bread without having to rely on
skilled labor to proof and bake.
" With the labor issues the retail segment is up against,
they look for that ease of use at the store level, " Rizzitello
explained. " Frozen dough can limit sales because what
you bake in the morning is what you have to sell.
Freezer-to-oven also lets you feed the racks throughout
the day, and the end user can control the waste. "
Rizzitello was brought on four years ago with the directive
to grow the frozen side of the business. In that
time, Baldo Dattolo pointed out that frozen has exploded
from being 10% to 15% of the company's business to
60% and growing.
" It's the fastest-growing segment for us, " he said.
It's from this place of seeing the marketplace turn
that Rizzitello and Baldo Dattolo developed both The
Avocado Bread Co. and the Italian Classic products.
ANTICIPATING THEIR CAPITAL
INVESTMENT NEEDS
Knowing when it's time to pull
the trigger on a $1 million-plus
expenditure can be tricky. It's part
cold hard data and part instinct, but
it's always about anticipating the
demand.
" You can see and feel what's
coming, " said Baldo Dattolo,
president and chief executive
officer of Anthony & Sons Bakery.
" Equipment investment is all about
foresight. "
24 Baking & Snack May 2024 / www.bakingbusiness.com
The Avocado Bread Co. has
accelerated the need for more
equipment and even more urgently,
more space. Anthony & Sons is
ready to invest in building an offsite
freezer space to warehouse
more than 1,000 pallets of finished
product. Dattolo noted that with
the company's current on-site
warehousing and distribution
system, 15 trucks can arrive in one
day, and loading them can become
a bottleneck with drivers waiting for
an hour.
" This will improve shipping and
distribution, and that will catapult
us to the next level, " he said.
In about a year, Dattolo anticipates
that demand for the avocado
bread products will justify a new
oven, cooling and freezer system.
" We'll have 1,000 additional
stores taking the avocado bread, so
we know we're going to have the
capacity to support an investment, "
he said. " We're so close to buying
an additional oven, cooling and
freezer system to accommodate the
new business, but we're not quite
there yet. "
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Baking & Snack - May 2024

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