12/08/2026
We love Boat Ramp Bakehouse!
“I’m exhausted.”
“I’m burnt out.”
“I’m working 80–90 hours a week.”
“I can’t seem to find any balance.”
These were some of the most common things I heard recently when I travelled to Arizona for the Proof Bread Bakers Intensive.
We went around the room introducing ourselves, talking about our bakeries, where we were at and what we hoped to get out of the weekend.
Different bakeries. Different parts of the world. Different stages of business.
But one theme kept coming up.
Everyone was tired.
And I think it’s something we need to talk about a little more.
There is a very romanticised version of the micro bakery being presented online at the moment. Beautiful sourdough. Pretty kitchens. Market mornings. Linen dresses. Baskets overflowing with bread. Someone seemingly effortlessly mixing a few tubs of dough between school drop-off and dinner.
And don’t get me wrong — I love this job. I wouldn’t still be doing it if I didn’t.
But I also think this romanticised version of micro-bakery life can do a lot of people a disservice.
It’s a far cry from the reality of working in 40-plus-degree conditions with ovens running at 240°C plus. The physical exhaustion. The stress. The pressure. The endless bagging and cleaning. The sheer number of hours it takes to turn that beautiful loaf you see on Instagram into something you can actually sell.
Producing sourdough commercially, consistently and at enough volume to create a genuine income is hard work.
Sourdough is almost this entire other creature that has come into your life.
It needs constant monitoring, care, feeding, support and guidance. You don’t really get a break from it.
It doesn’t care that you’d like to go to bed. It doesn’t care that you have school pickup at three, an appointment tomorrow morning or that you’ve made dinner plans.
Sourdough has no respect for your calendar.
And just when you think you’ve finally got it figured out, the weather changes.
Suddenly it’s hotter. Or colder. Or more humid. Your flour behaves differently. Fermentation speeds up. Fermentation slows down. Something that took five hours last month has apparently reviewed its working conditions and decided it will now be ready in three.
You don’t really tell sourdough when it’s going to be ready.
You ask politely and hope its plans vaguely align with yours.
Then there’s the physical reality.
I read in a book once that before industrialisation, the life expectancy of a baker was around 35 years.
Obviously we have mixers now. We have machinery and equipment those bakers could never have dreamed of.
And yet somehow, with artisan sourdough, we’ve managed to land ourselves somewhere back in the middle.
I know bakers who mix everything by hand and bakers with enormous commercial mixers. I’m fortunate enough to have equipment that takes some of that load off me.
But when you’re producing genuinely hand-shaped artisan sourdough, there’s only so much you can mechanise before you start changing what it is you’re making.
The tubs of dough. The stretch and folds. The dividing. The pre-shaping. The shaping. The loading and unloading. The racks. The flour bags. The trays. The hours on your feet.
We sling a phenomenal amount of dough around.
When you’re producing hundreds of loaves, those seemingly small movements are repeated hundreds and hundreds of times.
A mixer can mix the dough for me.
It can’t turn what comes out of that mixer into 200 individually hand-shaped artisan loaves.
That’s where the baker comes in.
And when you’re a micro bakery, very often you are the system.
You’re the baker, the cleaner, the packer, the salesperson, the bookkeeper, the social media person, the person ordering ingredients, the person answering messages and the person lying in bed remembering you forgot to order butter.
Equipment is expensive. Ingredients are expensive. Refrigeration and storage take up space. Every time you grow, you seem to discover another piece of equipment you didn’t realise you needed.
I think there’s a misconception developing online that starting a micro bakery is relatively easy and something almost anyone can slot into their existing life.
Starting one might be. Building one that is sustainable is another matter entirely.
Particularly for those raising a family, running a household or working another job. Creating enough volume to earn a worthwhile income while still protecting your health, your family life and some semblance of time for yourself is incredibly difficult.
That’s actually one of the biggest things I took away from my time at Proof.
Growth isn’t just about figuring out how to make more bread.
It’s about figuring out how to build a bakery that doesn’t require you to sacrifice yourself for it to succeed.
And that’s something I’m working on myself right now.
Better systems. Better equipment. Learning what I can hand over to other people. Training help. Working out where my time is actually valuable and where I’ve simply become accustomed to doing absolutely everything myself.
Because I love my bakery.
But I don’t think exhaustion should be the measure of its success.
Would I encourage someone to start a micro bakery? Absolutely.
Is it rewarding? Incredibly.
Is it easy? No.
Are there weeks where it is absolutely exhausting? Yes.
Can it become something wonderful? Absolutely.
But if you’re dreaming about starting one, go into it with your eyes open.
Don’t just look at the beautiful loaf on Instagram.
Look at the baker behind it too.
