Gluten-Free Bakery Reopens in Colorado Springs, Colo.

By Sarah Colwell, The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.

Apr. 5–The low hum of mixers and the sweet smell of ginger fill the air as Linda Kvapil and her husband, Sunny, rush through the swinging door to embrace the co-owner of Outside The Breadbox bakery, Pam Hasty.

The two women had never met.

Linda Kvapil begins to tell Hasty how her son was recently diagnosed with celiac disease and they had been waiting for weeks for Hasty to reopen their expanded bakery so her son could eat bread and pizza again. He has suffered for 15 years, being treated for acid-reflux disease, before being diagnosed as having celiac disease two months ago.

“I get that a lot,” Hasty said.

Outside The Breadbox is a gluten-free bakery, meaning the shop bakes a wide variety of breads, cookies, crackers, bagels, croutons and pizza crust without wheat, rye, barley and other grains that have gluten. The bakery recently relocated to 2027 W. Colorado Ave., opening the doors a few weeks ago to its new, 3,500 square-foot bakery.

Gluten is a protein found in most common grains that acts as a glue to hold dough together while it’s being kneaded, allowing it to be leavened. In addition, it creates the chewiness of baked products likesuch as bagels.

Celiac disease is a genetic, digestive disease caused by gluten intolerance. When people with celiac disease eat foods containing gluten, their immune system responds by damaging the small intestine, and itthat interferes with the absorption of nutrients from food. If celiac disease is not treated, possible complications include lymphoma, osteoporosis, short stature and seizures.

Baking gluten-free is difficult because without the so-called “glue,” the dough often falls apart, Hasty said. Baked goods at Outside The Breadbox are made with flours from brown rice, white rice, potatoes, tapioca, millet, teff, quinoa and amaranth. The secret is to use a variety of flours to make the baked goods taste good and stick together.

Customer Carrie Crawford said she cried when she walked through the doors of Outside The Breadbox two-and-a-half2 1/2 years ago.

“It was like I’d died and gone to heaven,” said the 4-foot-11-inch woman who hadn’t eaten a bagel in more than 20 years until Outside the Breadbox added them to its product list recently.

“I had just gone without all that time, not being able to have a hamburger bun. It was the little things in life. There are other things worse to have to live with, but some days it’s a little depressing knowing you can’t have the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving or the sugar cookies at Christmas.”

The Hastys were introduced to gluten-free baking in 1984 when their then 2-year-old daughter, Becca, was diagnosed with celiac disease.

The Hastys started buying gluten-free baked goods in health-food stores or and they modified family recipes, but the family found both to be unpalatable.

Through a lot of trial and error, the Hastys found ways to make jalapeñno-cheddar crackers, whole-grain sandwich bread and ginger cookies.

The family’s baking secrets remained in their kitchen at home until another tragedy struck, and Pam Hasty and her husband, Rick, lost their jobs during the dot-com bust.

They wondered if their love of baking and their success with gluten-free baking could be a business. An estimated one1-in-133 people in the United States have Cceliac disease, according to research by the University of Chicago. In 2003, the couple decided to try to make a go of it with a two-man operation.

“What we didn’t realize was the need was a whole lot bigger than we imagined. Really quickly we outgrew Rick and me being able to do it ourselves,” Hasty said.

A little more than a year later, the staff grew to 10 and the bakery was making 200 loaves of bread, 60 dozen cookies and 100 bags of crackers a day while shipping to several health food stores in Colorado Springs, Denver and throughout the country. Before the company closed to relocate, it experienced double the growth every six months, Hasty said.

To compensate for the growing demand, the Hastys moved from their 700-square-foot bakery to the 3,500-square-foot shop opened a few weeks ago. With the increased square footage and equipment, they expect to employ 15 to 20 people by the end of the year and increase productivity four-fold. The bakery soon will increase its product selection to include pies, cakes and muffins in addition to the specialty breads, cookies and crackers it makes.

“There is usually one thing that makes you feel right in the world; and for us, this is it,” said Rick Hasty, co-owner of the bakery. “And we get to help people at the same time.”

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.

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