Bread Alone expands Lake Katrine bakery to boost sourdough output 50 percent

Bread Alone is scaling up its Lake Katrine bakery in a way that says as much about sourdough demand as it does about one company’s growth. The Hudson Valley bakery has broken ground on an approximately 15,000-square-foot expansion that is designed to raise production capacity for its long fermentation sourdough bread by 50 percent while preserving the process that built its reputation.

Empire State Development said the $4.38 million project is backed by an $800,000 Regional Council Capital Fund award. The buildout will add production, packaging and distribution space at the Lake Katrine site, create 52 new full-time jobs and retain 195 existing positions. Construction is expected to be completed in December 2026.

That capacity matters in practical terms because the Lake Katrine bakery is already a heavy hitter. State officials said the facility currently produces more than 200,000 loaves per week and supplies major retailers across the Northeast, including Whole Foods and FreshDirect. Bread Alone says the point of the project is not to speed up sourdough at the expense of quality, but to improve output without compromising the bread-making method that defines the brand.

Bread Alone, founded in 1983 in the Catskills, has built its identity around organic sourdough, worker ownership and sustainability. The company says it is partially employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, and its public materials highlight an approach it calls approachable sustainability. The company also says it rebuilt its Boiceville bakery as a net-zero facility in 2022, powered by a 400kW solar array, and that its main production bakery in Kingston is solar powered. Bread Alone has described itself as Climate Neutral Certified since 2020.

The Lake Katrine expansion also extends a local footprint that has been growing for more than a decade. Bread Alone moved into the site after a 2012 USDA-backed loan helped finance a 26,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2013. Town of Ulster Supervisor Jim Quigley said the town has supported Bread Alone’s growth since then, underscoring how closely the bakery’s fortunes are tied to regional food manufacturing in Ulster County.

CEO Nels Leader said the company has been committed to organic sourdough since 1983 and that it feels “just getting started” more than 40 years later. With this expansion, Bread Alone is betting that real sourdough still has room to grow at scale, and that customers from the Hudson Valley to the Northeast are not done asking for more of it.