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Soho

Bakery rises to challenge of feeding fleet 20,000

Great Harvest, which handed out "race rolls" to marathoners last year, is cooking up a marathon in the kitchen this year.

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published January 28, 2005

The 10-person staff at Great Harvest Bread Co. is used to mixing, kneading, baking and slicing en masse.

In any given week, they make hundreds of loaves of sourdough, cinnamon swirl, apricot almond and other kinds.

But their latest culinary task is grander than anything they've tackled since Great Harvest opened a year and a half ago on S Howard Avenue.

Great Harvest's two owners and eight employees are baking their signature high-fiber, high-protein bread for 20,000 people expected to run in next weekend's Bank of America Gasparilla Distance Classic, including the 5K, 15K and marathon.

Great Harvest employees, friends and devoted customers will stand at the finish lines to hand the honey whole wheat and cinnamon raisin "race rolls" to weary runners.

"I'm just tickled that they want to come do this," said Susan Harmeling, executive director of the Gasparilla Distance Classic. "They really stepped up."

Many businesses are sponsoring the races, but Great Harvest stands out because it is a small business volunteering a huge, labor-intensive service.

Great Harvest gave out bread at last year's Distance Classic - but only to the few thousand who ran the full marathon. The difference between that and feeding every runner is like the difference between, well, running a couple of miles and running 26.2.

"Sometimes we do get a little ahead of ourselves," said Keri Eisenbeis, who owns Great Harvest with her husband, Michael Matthews. "But being a community bakery and active runners, it was a no-brainer that we would support this."

"Gasparilla? I mean, how could we not be part of that?"

The Great Harvest crew baked the first 15,000 rolls earlier this month, during an hourslong marathon that had them mixing yeast, stone-ground whole wheat and honey. Normally, it would have been their day off.

Matthews came in well before dawn to grind 1,000 pounds of high-protein wheat berries into whole wheat flour. Employees then mixed the flour in 140-quart bowls with 650 pounds of Florida honey, 100 pounds of fresh yeast and 500 pounds of raisins.

The dough was divided into 600 rounds of rolls that can be pulled apart for individual servings.

They couldn't have baked all the bread the week of the race, so officials at the Publix on S Dale Mabry Highway are storing the prebaked rolls in the grocery's freezers.

"It freezes great, and our customers do it at home," Eisenbeis said. "So I'm not worried about the quality."

Great Harvest's breads are made with filtered water and simple ingredients, such as honey and nuts. Most slices have 3 to 4 grams each of fiber and protein.

"When you grind the wheat fresh, you keep all the good stuff in there," said Eisenbeis, who ran a marathon in Scotland last year. "And that's what gives it all that flavor."

"We live off this stuff."

Eisenbeis hasn't been running much lately, given that she and her husband are expecting their first child. She bought a jogging stroller to use after the baby is born but doubts she'll do the Gasparilla marathon any time soon.

"We'll probably be baking all these rolls every year," she said.

Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 27, 2005, 09:34:05]