Woodman’s Artisan Bakery takes its farmers market success to its own shop
By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com
Bill Woodman makes bread — a lot of bread.
“We rotate the breads every day,” he said, “probably a good 12 to 14 potential varieties of breads that we can offer from types of sourdough, German rye, baguettes, Italian semolina with sesame seeds — that’s a nice one — a German flaxseed rye called leinsamenbrot. That’s a hearty, hearty bread. Leinsamenbrot means flaxseed bread. So with rye flour, it’s a much denser bread.”
But what Woodman, the owner of Woodman’s Artisan Bakery in Nashua, really dreams about is panettone, a tall, round loaf of enriched Italian bread.
“Right now,” he said, “the unicorn, so to speak, is probably the Italian panettone. There’s a baker in Italy — we follow him on social media — I’ve dabbled a little bit in trying to make a panettone, but I’m too busy to actually focus on it the way it needs properly. But to be able to get a nice, proper Italian panettone like he makes, with a nice open, airy crumb from the sourdough, to be able to use the exact sourdough culture, you know, it’s a pasta madre, I believe they call it in Italian. It’s like a drier starter dough and it’s like wrapped up in a towel, so it partially dries out on the outside of the actual starter dough. And it’s supposed to impart these different finer nuances into the bread. But to be able to get that, it’s something that would be very unique and very special. You just don’t see around here very often or at all. You get the stuff in the grocery stores around Christmastime, but it’s definitely not the same thing.”
Woodman started his business by selling bread at area farmers markets.
“We started at Salem [the Salem Farmers Market] on Sundays,” he said. “We started there, trying to figure out if there is a demand for breads. We make European-style artisan breads and pastries — croissants, Danishes and German pretzels. After about a season, we had picked up business, so we decided to do the winter season. At that point we picked up a couple more farmers markets for the winter season. Business picked up a little bit. You started to see your regulars coming more and more. And then the following year came and we just decided to go all in. We picked up six markets a week, so there was no sleep for me whatsoever. And it kept going from there.”
Woodman recently opened a storefront bakery in Nashua. The bakery offers sandwiches and coffees, but the main focus is on bread.
“We tell people our breads are real bread,” he said. “The pastries are real pastries, and what we mean by that is that our sourdough for instance is flour, water and salt. So it’s real ingredients, real breads. We have a lot of people who are gluten-sensitive who can eat a lot of our sourdoughs and not get sick not have a reaction. They can eat our croissants and Danishes because the flour that we use in those products comes from France and it has a lower protein content, so they can eat those and have no reaction as well.”
Woodman was approached by an importer who introduced him to French flour.
“The sales rep came in and introduced himself,” Woodman said, “and started telling us a little bit about what the product was. He had explained the company is out of France, and they sell through his company here. If we were interested, a sales rep as well as a baker would come for a couple days, work with us and teach us about the products. I thought it was a great opportunity for my staff and myself to learn about something new. And so we said, sure, let’s give it a try, so they came in and we started working with it.” It was a game-changer, Woodman said.
Woodman’s Artisan Bakery
Where: 4 Sunapee St., Nashua,
Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
More: 718-1694, woodmansartisanbakery.com
During the summer, Woodman also sells his bread at the Concord Farmers Market on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to noon, at the Bedford Farmers Market on Tuesdays from 3 to 6 p.m., and at the Salem Farmers Market on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Featured photo: Woodman’s Artisan Bakery makes traditional European style breads. Photo courtesy Bill Woodman.