NEWS ABOUT LOIS BREADS
Brainerd Dispatch, May 6. 2020
This article can be seen with photos at: https://www.brainerddispatch.com/community/local-bread-baker-not-in-it-for-the-dough. There's a video, as well. Lois Mass of Brainerd began baking in earnest in 1976 when she lived in Littleton, Colorado, and started milling her own flour. She now has two grain mills in her kitchen for the 50-pound bags of wheat grain she buys. She takes a break from baking bread Thursday, April 30, at her home at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Beaver Dam Road near Brainerd. Mass and her husband "Skee" are familiar faces at the local farmers markets, with Lois' 100% Whole Wheat Bread. With farmers markets future uncertain, Mass was worried about her customers receiving her bread so she started selling her whole wheat baked goods from a stand at her home. She has been making bread for almost half a century and wasn’t going to let a pandemic stop her now. “How long will I keep doing it? As long as there’s energy in my body,” Mass said. “I feel that these breads are so important, and especially now with this virus concern. People need to be the healthiest they can and eat things that’s going to boost their immunity.” When the Westgate Mall closed due to coronavirus concerns, the 76-year-old Brainerd resident rose to the challenge of finding somewhere else to sell her tasty carbs. She did — from home.. Lois and "Skee" Mass team up on slicing loves of fresh bread Thursday, April 30. For Lois, the texture and firmness of the bread is very important. “People will pass me in the store somewhere and say, ‘You’re the bread lady! Hi, bread lady!’” Mass said of her newfound fame after renting retail space at the mall. “Everybody that has had my bread knows the flavors are like nothing you’ll have anywhere else.” Lois cooked at Edgewood Vista for almost a decade and worked at Costco where a chance encounter with a Little Falls bakery owner gave her the idea to sell her homemade goods. I told him about how I make bread — grinding the grain and all-natural and chemical-free — and he just said "you’ve got to market this because there’s nothing out there like it,” Mass said. She began selling her non-genetically modified bread at farmers markets in the summer of 2018 based on his advice. She started with one market a week and expanded to four in 2019. “We were pleased with the outcome of it … had a lot of repeat customers who wanted to be able to get the breads in the wintertime. And so we were selling one day a week in Westgate Mall — we just set up tables in there — and then the virus hit,” she said. “Westgate closed.” She could have folded up shop with the coronavirus shuttering businesses far and wide, but the budding entrepreneur had flour in her blood or at least baking on her mind. Lois Mass labels her baked goods, Friday, May 1, at her stand at the corner of Riverside Drive and Beaver Dam Road. With the pandemic shutting down most public events, she decided to sell from home until the farmers' markets open again. “When the snow was disappearing, we just thought, ‘I wonder if we could sell it right here in our yard?’ so that’s what we’ve done. We put the signs up. People that knew us knew this was Lois’ bread, and so that’s kind of how we got to where we’re at today,” she said.
Lois began baking in earnest in 1976 when she lived in Littleton, Colorado, and started milling her own flour. She now has two grain mills in her kitchen for the 50-pound bags of wheat grain she buys. “Some neighbors ground their grains and made their breads with that fresh flour, and that’s what influenced me to get started, so this is not something I just all of a sudden decided to do,” she said. Lois said those with a sensitivity to gluten have even tried her bread without digestive problems. There are 27 vitamins and minerals in a little kernel of wheat. Our store-bought bread? All of that has been taken out, and then they replace it with synthetic vitamins and enrichments and lots of chemicals, lots of fillers,” Mass said. “My breads are free from all those unhealthy ingredients. Lois Mass displays some kernels of organic hard Red Spring Wheat in her hand before milling Thursday, April 30, in her kitchen. The grain comes from Montana where she said the climate and altitude creates a flavorful taste and texture to her baked goods, as well as extra protiein. Mass also makes caramel rolls, cookies, granola, carrot cake and angel food cake with her own flour. She has several flavorsof bread that she makes on a regular basis., such as oatmeal, cranberry walnut, herb cheese, rye and onion dill breads, and the most popular, whole wheat. Most of the breads are $5. Mass began selling her homemade bread from her front yard with a table and a tent Tuesdays and Fridays after the mall closed because of her devoted following of customers, she said. “We have a looped driveway that is convenient for people pick up what they want and drive through either to Beaver Dam Rd. or Riverside Dr.