Artisan Naan Bakery expands to wholesale

by Cori Hilsgen

news@thenewsleaders.com

Owners of the Artisan Naan Bakery, Tahir Sandhu and his wife, Gwen Williams, are busy bakers, and as word spreads about their tasty fresh naan, they are becoming even busier.

They opened their 400-square-foot bakery business located in the Minnesota Street Market in St. Joseph in November 2014. They make loaves of fresh naan, which is a leavened, oven-baked flat bread originally made in southern Asia. They sell the breads at retail sales, grocery stores, restaurants and right at their business.

Sandhu and Williams estimate they make between 2,000 and 3,000 naan loaves each week.

Recently, they began selling their fresh naan bread wholesale to the St. Cloud Lunds and Byerly’s store, the Wedge Community Co-op located in Minneapolis and the Linden Hills Co-op in Minneapolis.

Williams said they were contacted by the Wedge in July 2015, after some customers mentioned to people at the Wedge there was a fresh naan bakery located in St. Joseph that sold very good, fresh naan. They started selling their bakery products at the Wedge in August 2015.

Williams said she believes the Wedge was possibly the first food co-op in Minnesota, and it’s the largest in the state. The Wedge often sets trends for other food co-ops. They have their own bakery and deli where they make products and ship to other state co-ops.

“We are very excited to get in there,” Williams said.

She said many businesses often connect with smaller co-ops and then want to be able to sell their products at the Wedge.

St. Cloud Lunds and Byerly’s store manager Keith Gruber, who lives in St. Joseph and enjoys eating Artisan Naan Bakery naan, brought samples of their naan bread to the corporate director of the deli department and helped set up sales at the corporate level. Williams and Sandhu started selling wholesale to that Lunds and Byerly’s last November.

Since they already have a group of loyal customers at the Maple Grove Summer Farmers’ Market, Williams hopes they can also sell wholesale to the other Lunds and Byerly’s store in that area.

The bakery also works with three local restaurants that serve naan on their menus. These include the Local Blend in St. Joseph and the White Horse and the Pickled Loon in St. Cloud. The Good Earth Co-op in St. Cloud also sells their naan in its grocery store and uses it in their deli department as well as when catering events.

The White Horse started working with the bakery about a year ago and was the first of these four wholesale customers.

“Our bread is a relatively unfamiliar bread with many people,” Williams said. “I think we are the only freshly baked naan bakery in Minnesota. We are pretty proud of our bread and think it’s delicious. We knew people’s reception of it would be good because it’s a fresh baked, flat bread.”

Other grocery stores sell naan, but their product is mass-produced in bread factories. As Sandhu and Williams learned more about the bread industry, they discovered unless the store has a bakery, there is a pretty good chance the bread being sold in the store was purchased frozen, then thawed and set on the shelf to be sold. Other mass-produced naan is frozen and shipped all around the country.

“Their product is quite different,” Williams said. “The naan we sell is made in small batches, is hand-tossed and has never been frozen. Part of why people find our bread so delicious is because we bake it and ship it out – we don’t freeze it.”

She said they have been methodical about how they plan to expand and want their business to grow and succeed. Future plans include possibly starting a home-delivery service in the next couple of months.

Sandhu and Williams met in Illinois. She is originally from Coon Rapids, and he is originally from Pakistan. They began selling naan at local farmers’ markets in the area in the summer of 2014, developing many different varieties of their naan and establishing a connection with the Minnesota Street Market before opening their bakery.

Sandhu said when he first told people they were opening a naan bakery in St. Joseph, they said if it’s not a bakery, than what is it?

At their bakery, they make a variety of flavors including spices, herbs, whole grains and dried fruits. They have a spelt naan which is very soft, a whole-grain naan, naan wraps, and non-dairy and non-egg naans. Some of their best sellers include their No-Nonsense Naan, Savory Garlic and Cranberry Delight. They also bake cookies, brownies and fresh-baked hand pies.

Once the dough has been made, the naan bread can be baked quickly in about four to five minutes, but pies take a few hours to cook and cool.

Sandhu and Williams currently employ three permanent part-time employees. All employees help with everything, including baking, packing, dishwashing and cleaning the shop.

Amy Hansen started working at the bakery about a month ago. Sandhu said through a chain of events, when a former employee locked his keys in his car, he met Gary Lauer from JR’s Auto Repair and they became friends. When he mentioned to Lauer he was looking for someone to work at their bakery, Lauer told Hansen, who is his neighbor, about the job opening.

Sandhu said that kind of personal friendship is how connections in St. Joseph work.

Hansen said lots of naan jokes go back and forth at the bakery, and her son is making a list of naan jokes to share with Sandhu.

The Artisan Naan Bakery is located at 27 W. Minnesota St. in the Minnesota Street Market. They are open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Orders can be placed by calling 320-557-0053.