Faces of the Valley: Anne Lindsay frequents farmers markets with a business baked from scratch

Like many people, Anne Lindsay took up a new hobby in the early days of the covid pandemic, looking to kill time after a day of virtual classes as a Freeport Area High School student.

The difference is, she stuck with it, turning a hankering for sourdough bread into a baking business that’s still rising four years later.

At first, she baked loaves for friends and family, but eventually word spread beyond that circle and orders began rolling in.

“I didn’t have a great business plan,” Lindsay said. “I would just drop everything when I got an order.”

Slowly but surely, she developed a better strategy. Now, at 19, she has made the venture profitable and efficient without losing the fun.

For instance, she stopped buying small bags of flour from the grocery store and started ordering 50-pound bags from an online wholesaler.

Once taking over the kitchen of her family’s South Buffalo home became unfeasible, she posted a GoFundMe that raised $2,500 and allowed her get a commercial oven for the garage. The Butler County Sportsmen Club donated a commercial mixer around the same time, bringing her daily capacity to 16 loaves.

Baking on that scale requires about a day’s worth of labor. On a baking day, she’ll wake up at 5 a.m. and get to work mixing, kneading and, of course, baking.

After getting used to the new equipment, she pivoted from individual orders and set her sights on farmers markets.

“I kind of hit a plateau with the people I was reaching,” Lindsay said. “I wanted to find a bigger customer base.”

She tried a host of markets before finding her groove at the Monday Market in Plum and multiple markets in Oakmont. When other events, such as the Tarentum Farmers Market, didn’t work out, she took her lumps and moved on.

These days, Lindsay tends to sell out whatever she brings, whether it’s sourdough, focaccia, cookies or all three. A loaf of sourdough, her staple product, costs $9.

She donates 20% of the profits to a different charity each month, usually related to animal rights or environmental causes. In June, she passed a chunk of the earnings to the Human Rights Campaign, a foundation focused on advancing LGBTQ+ equality.

Lindsay plans to attend Georgetown University in the fall as a pre-law student. That’ll turn baking into more of a summertime hobby.

“I’m not going to bring it to my dorm,” she joked.

Her goal is to become a human rights attorney.

It’s plain to see how Lindsay got her work ethic and business acumen. Her mother, Virginia, owns 1833 Coffee and Tea Co. in Freeport and Grant Avenue Coffee Co. in Vandergrift. Her father, Travis, manages Birdsfoot Golf Club in South Buffalo.

“Seeing her parents in small business has been a motivation,” Virginia Lindsay said.

There’s only one problem with that.

“Lately, we don’t get any of it because she always sells out,” she said.