|
Family
and the Future Bakery. Future Bakery is a family-run business. We
have been baking for three generations. It all started with my Polish
grandfather, Felix Wrzesnewskyj, in tzarist Russia. In 1905 after
numerous years of apprenticeship, he was granted a master baker's
diploma from the court of Tsar Nicholas Il, where he baked until
1915.
On
his way home from St. Petersburg he met my Ukrainian grandmother.
My grandparents married and set up a bakery in Ternopil, Western
Ukraine. Soon they set up a second bakery in Kolomyja in the Carpathian
Mountains.
Their
breads became well known throughout the region and the business
prospered. With the outbreak of World War Two and the second arrival
of the Red Army in 1944 the family fled to the West. After the war
they arrived in Canada, as political refugees. In Toronto they started
all over again.
In
typical immigrant fashion, all family members held down several
jobs and saved as much money as possible. Within two years they
had saved up enough to open their first bakery on Markham and Dundas
streets in Toronto in 1952.
They
named it Future because they wished to leave behind the past and
were looking to the future in their new country. The daily routine
for my father and grandfather was to mix the doughs, make the bread,
bake it, load it on a truck, go out and sell it. Four hours later
the routine would begin again. In two years all the bakery loans
were paid and it was time to expand.
top
|
The
bakery was moved to its present location at 739 Queen Street West.
Unfortunately the hectic pace proved too much for my grandfather
who was by that time in his seventies.
In
1962, my grandfather passed away, and my grandmother, Anna, was
left in charge. A few years ago, grandmother Anna died at the age
of eighty-three, having worked to her last day. On her final day
she did the payroll, worked in the bakery and then lay down to rest.
Today
the bakery is run by my father, Roman Wrzesnewskyj, and myself.
We still use my grandparents recipes for our breads. The thirty-six
year-old rye culture that grandfather brought to Canada from war
torn Europe is still the starter for three-quarters of our seventy
different products.
This
family secret lies in an ancient "coffin-like" pine box and must
be fed every six hours to keep it alive. Future Bakery occupies
670 square metres of space, uses 360,000 kilograms of flour and
produces 50,000 loaves of bread each week. The bakery employs 30
full-time and 10 part-time employees. Eleven truck drivers deliver
baked goods as far as Hamilton and Oshawa.
This
year a new combination cafe/retail outlet has been added to the
east end of the bakery. To attract the adventuresome Toronto public,
a huge mural depicting four larger-than-life bakers making breads
was installed.
|
