School District Teams Up With Local Bakery

Beginning November 1, more than 11,000 students in the Las Virgenes Unified School District will literally have something new to chew on.

The Las Virgenes Unified School District is partnering with Wildflour Bakery to serve up 10 bread varieties and breakfast items in 21 schools.

Local businessman and Wildflour owner Gregory Yulish shared his enthusiasm about the new collaboration with Patch.

“Some of the district staff have lunch here and that’s what started the ball rolling. They liked what they saw and brought it to the attention of the child nutrition department,” said Yulish.

LVUSD director of child nutrition Waleska Cannon agreed that the collaboration was perfect for the district. “A staff member told us about Wildflour and we immediately fell in love with their breads and pastries," she said. "They’re fresh, tasty and Kosher. Who can ask for more?”

Included in the bread line-up are whole grain pretzels, mini-baguettes, whole wheat dinner rolls, bagel muffins and nine-grain, whole wheat bread sticks.

The mostly whole grain selection is in partial compliance of the government’s whole grain initiative, said Cannon.

“By next year, it will have to be 100 percent whole grain compliance,” she said. “We will eventually take advantage of their entire bread line, but we’re starting with those for now. We will see how the kids react and which items are popular,” she added.

The collaboration is not new to both LVUSD and Wildflour which both try to forge as many local partnerships as possible.

The bakery, which was taken over and re-christened by Yulish and his wife Lisa in February, also supplies bakery items to the Oak Park Unified School District.

“We’re in a very organic situation right now,” said Yulish, an Oak Park resident for the past 10 years.

Aside from the two local school districts, Wildflour also supplies bread to the Four Seasons in Westlake, Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara and the Hook Burger chain, said Yulish.

The baking team is new, since the couple took over what used to be Stoneground Bakery. While everything is still 100 percent Kosher, the selections have been trimmed down to about 10 core top-selling items, including the cocoa macaroons, of which 10,000 pieces are sold daily, and the hamburger buns which move at a rate of 2,000 to 3,000 pieces a day.

“We want consistency–same taste, same experience for our customers all the time,” said Yulish, who has an established career in the entertainment industry building brands.

“If we’re just going to carry 10 different kinds of bread, we want to do those really well,” he said.