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Beach Pea Bakery
(207) 439-3555
53 State Road (Route 1), Kittery
Open Monday through Saturday 7:30–6
Fougasse—made from rosemary dough, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, and formed like a fat pretzel-shaped leaf—is the bakery’s most popular bread. "We sell more baguettes, but fougasse is more notorious -- infamous, perhaps," said Tom Roberts, who owns and runs the bakery with his business and life partner, Mariah Roberts. All fresh breads are hand-formed, European-style breads. Open since January 2002, this place is hopping, with cakes, croissants, coffee cakes, and cookies, all made with high-quality natural ingredients. Sandwiches are made with meats roasted on the premises; soups are made with homemeade stocks and offered in the fall, winter, and spring; and salads of all kinds are one the menu. Nitrite-free meats are now all that are offered, Tom Roberts said. "Supply is very limited; it's about a 20 percent price increase depending on the product." But that is the direction the bakery wants to take, and he is proud it accomplished that.
Another project, underway in the end of 2007, is the commercial composting of every single thing the bakery and cafe uses. Straws, plates, soup-to-go containers, to-go utensils (made with corn starch) and coffee cups made without petroleum are all grist for the mill -- or rather, the commercial composting underway at Winter Wood Farm in Lyman, Maine. Only plastic wrap and potato chip bags are not composted.
"We make two yards of trash a week; it's almost incredible for a business like this," Roberts said. In 2007 his business generated 52,000 pounds of trash, but today 80 to 85 percent of it is composted. "The biggrest impact of this industry, the food industry, is on the ennvironment," Roberts said. He is proud to have made the leap into compostable supplies, although for the moment the change is costing him more in removal fees. He is also looking forward to a tour of the composting facilities in Lyman this spring.
March 2008