Many people adopted projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, frequently to stave off boredom. Amanda Rogers of Santa Ynez was one of those people. Starting in early 2020, she baked one sourdough loaf daily.
As the mother of son Mason, at the time just a toddler, she worked remotely for a Santa Barbara-based law firm.
In August 2023, Rogers left the corporate world to focus on her growing family; she and her husband, Matt, had a second child, Harper, now 3.
Gradually increasing her baking, Rogers focused on baking “holiday-themed” loaves. However, there are only so many holidays, she said, and “after Easter 2024 and another holiday loaf, I thought, ‘Now what?’”
Santa Ynez Sourdough was born.
“I jumped right in, and within two days, I had a logo, a website and country permits,” Rogers said.
Within months and via word of mouth, demand accelerated, “but I didn’t have the right equipment” to keep up with orders.
“I was exhausted from all the hand mixing, so my parents suggested buying ‘real equipment,’” she recalled with a laugh.
Today, several thousand loaves later, Rogers makes 200 organic sourdough loaves each week, along with about 150 bagels and 30 focaccia, for her home-based company.
Santa Ynez Sourdough is fully certified with a Santa Barbara County Cottage Food Permit as Rogers has a California Food Handler’s Certificate.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are baking days: Rogers arises and turns on the oven at 4:15 a.m. After mixing the ingredients with her Hobart mixer, she then hand-shapes loaves, focaccia and bagels before letting them rise.
Rogers’ “Simply Bread” specialty oven holds 16 loaves at a time and utilizes racks with stone hearths, she noted.
Most remarkable from her one-woman show is that all items are baked and delivered the same day. Santa Ynez Sourdough’s customers pre-order via her website and can pick up loaves from a box outside the Rogers’ home on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
Rogers also is licensed to sell indirectly, which she does at Buellton’s Motley Crew and the SYV Pantry.
The Pantry, she said, routinely sells out of her orders before she can deliver them. Furthermore, “everything” she bakes “sells out daily.”
Matt Rogers, a native of the Santa Ynez Valley, is a project manager for a Santa Barbara-based construction firm. The two met “on the ambulance” when both worked as emergency medical technicians, Amanda Rogers said. In 2016, they relocated to the Santa Ynez Valley.
Rogers said her primary goal is to make “high-quality but affordable” baked goods. She buys wholesale ingredients, including organic flour, jalapenos from Finley Farms, Maldon salt for the bagels and dye-free sprinkles from the SYV Pantry.
As a stay-at-home mother, “my kids come first,” and Rogers’ company affords her the time to bake and still be home for her two children. For the time being, she can manage the workload herself, she said.
Will she ever utilize a storefront for Santa Ynez Sourdough? Probably not, because “my bread company helps support two other businesses.”
What does she like most about running a home-based business?
“It’s the community connection and bringing the community together,” she said. “I’ve made so many friends.”
