A business on a (cinnamon) roll

Gig Harbor’s loss is Port Orchard’s gain. At least in bakery terms.

When Andrew Mumford brought his family’s bakery, A Taste of Eden, to the Westbay Shopping Center last March, the company’s following came with him. And now, Mumford is making his product more available to the general public.

“We’re trying to find our niche,” Mumford said. “The goal here is to provide all that we have to people. We want people to come here to get their breads.”

A Taste Of Eden has built up quite a following since first opening in 1994 in Gig Harbor by specializing in unique, old-fashioned baked goods distributed to local coffee shops and restaurants. As the popularity of its breads grew, Mumford began taking his product to farmer’s markets and holiday shows to showcase his family’s breads, pastries, jams, jellies, syrups and the like.

And now Mumford is expanding on his wholesale business and has begun selling some of his products to individual customers.

While his parents own the business, Mumford runs the bakery along with his three brothers, who all bake the breads.

“Our sweet breads and our fritter breads are our most popular thing. That’s what we sell the most of,” Mumford said. “That is most of what we will have in here all the time.”

And all of it is made from scratch each day at the bakery.

Mumford and his family are in the process of remodeling the store and have set up a temporary counter and sales area. But that will grow over the course of the year to accommodate what Mumford hopes will be a full-blown, full-service bakery geared toward an ever-growing customer base.

While the bakery will feature its signature sweet bread line, of which it has 60 different varieties, Mumford will expand out to include pastries, cinnamon rolls, scones, muffins, croissants and Old-World rustic breads.

The store already has some types of jams and jellies available along with fritter bread and a wide variety of “cornfections” from an old family recipe of carmel corn.

And Mumford hopes to even take a turn toward becoming a deli, serving lunch-style, to-go items like pizzas and pretzels and possible ice cream along with coffee and espressos.

“A number of niche things, a lot of the basics,” Mumford said. “That’s kind of a next-stage thing.”

A Taste of Eden will also continue its line of specialty cakes including wedding cakes as well as hitting the local farmer’s markets and the holiday shows.

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