I'm thrilled to welcome today's guest, a fellow New Yorker, founder of Amy's Bread, a New York institution, an author and a winner of numerous awards in the culinary and business fields - Amy Scherber.Her New York artisan bread empire is the focus of our conversation as she takes the listeners through her journey of starting with a corner bread shop 30 years ago with just 5 employees to being recognized now as one of the best bread bakeries in the U.S. She survived the pandemics with the help of the community she so carefully built over the years with her high quality products and, most of all, her devotion to the city she calls home now and with her continues support for the environment and local producers. They choose to use only “green” cleaning products, buy local and organic ingredients, when possible, using natural and compostable packaging, recycling all paper, metal and plastic and composting all of our food waste.

Amy grew up in Minneapolis and graduated from St. Olaf College with degrees in Economics and Psychology. After college she moved to NYC and spent three years in a marketing firm, until she realized her heart was in cooking and baking. She attended the New York Restaurant School, then worked as a cook and pastry cook at Bouley restaurant where she became passionate about bread. She continued her training in France in three bakeries before returning to New York to pursue bread baking. She baked bread and pastries at Mondrian restaurant before starting her own business. She launched Amy’s Bread in 1992 in Hell’s Kitchen with 5 employees. The bakery was an immediate hit. Building its loyal customer base over the years, Amy’s Bread has become a New York institution. Today the staff has grown to 100 (hand-shaping dough requires a large staff!) and the bakery delivers to over 200 wholesale customers daily. Amy’s husband Troy Rohne joined the company full time in 2002, and now runs the business with Amy. Amy’s Bread continues to be recognized as one of the best bread bakeries in the U.S. The bakery has been featured in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, Gourmet, Food & Wine, and Bon Appetit. The bakery celebrated its 30th anniversary in the summer of 2022!

Scherber has co-authored The Sweeter Side of Amy’s Bread and her bread cookbook, Amy's Bread, with Toy Dupree, one of five original Amy's Bread bakers and our executive pastry chef until 2012. Amy is an active member of The Bread Bakers Guild of America.

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