Today we’d like to introduce you to Nic Sawa.
Hi Nic, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve been in the Culinary Industry since I was 14, when I got my first job flipping burgers at a small family-owned Ice Cream Shop. My curiosity about the world and all the amazingly different foods in it, lead me to do the one thing I thought would allow me to experience different cultures and foods. At 18 I joined the navy to see the world. As luck would have it, I did not get to see the cultures of other countries but I did get to see many new places and all sorts of new foods right here in the U.S, that were vastly different than my beautiful little Midwest farm town.
After the Navy, I went back to Illinois to go to college. While in school I worked in every part of the Food and Beverage Industry that I could. Cook, Server, Bartender, Doorman anything that would allow me to learn more about the industry. After College, at the age of 30, I attended my first culinary school. It was a Master’s program at the Italian Culinary Institute in Southern Italy. This was an Amazing experience! The three-month program itself was amazing for all that it covered. We learned how to make everything from fresh pasta to some of Italy’s most famous dishes. We learned to bake Italian bread and pastries, how they Can and Preserve all the amazing local produce. We got to work with an abundance of fresh seafood, along with learning how to butcher and make the curried meats and salami that Italy is known for. And to top it all off we also got in-depth lessons on Italian Cheese and Cheesemaking along with learning how to make Gelato.
As I said, the school was an amazing experience in itself. But what truly sent me down my culinary venture was being asked to stay on as an instructor. I got to spend 3 amazing years there. I learned from Italian masters and was given the opportunity to spread my joy of Cooking and Baking by teaching others. I have always enjoyed baking and knew it was going to be a big part of what I wanted to do when I came back to the states.
So before coming back stateside, I felt I needed one last bit of experience so I went to Ireland to work in a Bakery. We worked every night baking a variety of bread and pastries. It’s one thing to bake a few breads or even a few varieties of bread as I was doing with the students at the school. It is quite a different pace being on a production team baking very large amounts of bread and pastries every night seven days a week.
Fast forward to today where you’ll find me at Farmers’ markets selling our breads made from our own freshly milled flour. Explaining to our customers how and why our bread is different. Why Whole Wheat bread is more nutritional. Why Milling Freshly matters. How Sour Dough is more digestible than Non-Sour Dough to people with sensitivities. How many varieties of wheat can have different nutrients. How the different varieties can be more digestible. Why Organic and knowing where the wheat comes from matters.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
One of the biggest obstacles that we have is educating people past all the myths and opinions that everyone has about bread and wheat. A simple example of this is how many people who have gotten breads direct from Bakers and Bakeries in the past believe that bread is only good for one day. This is only partially true and totally dependent on the ingredients of the bread. If I open a bag of flour and make a white flour bread loaf that is not sourdough then yes it will dry out and start to get stale after a day or so on your counter. If I make white flour sourdough, maybe it’ll be good on the counter for 2-3 days. Large scale industrial companies add all sorts of things to their loaves for both the soft texture and longevity of their loaves. These 2 styles of baking are, unfortunately, what most people have become accustomed to. Either fresh bread that doesn’t last or bread made with chemicals so that it is shelf stable.
We do not add any chemicals or preservatives to our breads. What we do actually add is freshly sprouted wheat. Every week we sprout and dry fresh whole wheat berries to add to our breads. Adding the spouted wheat flour along with using such freshly milled flour helps to preserve our breads so they last a lot longer than traditional white flour breads. Definitely different than your typical bread in the Charleston area.
The other true Difficulty is pricing to sell a labor-intensive product in an area that never had a bread culture till all of us transplants moved in. Our Sourdough loaves, of which we have many varieties, are priced so that people can afford them. We even offer Half loaves so people can try things and not spend a lot. The point is to try to get nutritional food out to the people who are looking for it. Many people are looking for tasty, healthy food but can’t afford the prices of the health stores.
Everything we bake has our sprouted grain in it. This process actually starts the week before as our process for sprouting and then re-drying for grinding takes eight days. Then it takes another two and a half days of grinding and three long nights of baking to produce everything we do every week. Again a lot different from opening up a bag of flour and mixing some white bread that only lasts for a day or two.
Some people might believe we are priced high at $10 a loaf. But for Bread, that actually starts 10-12 days before it gets baked and then lasts 4-5 days on your counter or 2 weeks in your fridge. Is packed full of nutrients, has no chemicals in it. Tastes awesome and is more digestible for more people with sensitivities. We think its a steal!!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about SmartEats?
SmartEats is partially meant to be an educational business, with an emphasis on education through food. And partially as a production company for myself and eventually a team that just enjoys cooking and baking. We started with bread production as so many people seem to have allergies here in the United States but not, interestingly enough, back in Europe. At the markets, I get to interact with many different people and have had the wonderful opportunity of helping several customers re-introduce wheat back into their lives.
Our process is simple. We only use organic wheat that is free of all pesticides and herbicides. We mill (grind) the wholewheat berries ourselves the same day we use them. This amazingly fragrant wholewheat flour gives us a beautifully fresh and nutrient-loaded product that people have been enjoying.
As a passionate student who continues to learn more every day about every aspect of my business, I joyfully pass it on to others so that they can make better informed decisions.
What does success mean to you?
I define success in two ways. One as a job well done and the other is did you help someone. A job well done is important because if I don’t attend to all the little details of cooking and baking and of owning a business, then I cannot put out a good product. Now, if I do a good job, then I have a good product and a good frame of mind. And with those, I can help people.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: smart_eats_LLC Summerville
- Facebook: Smart Eats LLC Summerville
Image Credits
Nic Sawa
