Coast Life: Lucedale neighborhood sourdough lady builds community with bread

LUCEDALE, Miss. (WLOX) - A mother cooking from scratch for her family of six has now turned into making bread for her whole community.

“I’m Whitney Ivey, I’m your neighborhood sourdough lady.”

Ivey’s home is where her bread rises.

“This is more than just baking bread, it’s building community, and bread brings people together,” Ivey said. “I love it, the kids love it, and you know how picky kids can be. If they say they love the sourdough, it must not be too sour.”

The journey towards creating the Southern Bread Company started when Whitney and her husband were facing financial trouble while expecting their fourth child.

“I saw how much we were paying on groceries every month, and I was like, ‘There’s got to be a way to cut that in half.’ So, that’s where I started to learn to cook from scratch.”

Ivey stuck to her plan, and her family pretty much eliminated processed food from their diets.

“It cut our grocery bill in half, we got on our budget, and every penny for the next three years went to debt.”

While cooking from scratch, Whitney got good at making bread. Later, a health concern opened her eyes to sourdough bread.

“I’ve heard that it is healthier for digestion, the process and fermentation break down the gluten.”

It was her children’s lemonade stand at the Lucedale Farmer’s Market that actually opened the door for Whitney’s bread to be introduced to the community just over a year ago.

“If we’re going to go to the farmer’s market and sell lemonade, I’ll bake a few extra loaves of bread this week and make it worthwhile, and the crowd there loved it.”

She kept taking the bread to the farmer’s market, but cooking four loaves at a time in her oven just wasn’t enough to keep up with the demand. Now, Whitney can make 12 loaves at a time in the industrial bread oven in her kitchen.

Along with making bread, she’s figuring out how social media can boost her customer base. She’s also offering bread-making classes and connecting with other bread makers across the Coast.

“I think it’s great that we all have our own communities that we serve. I’ve reached out to some of them, they’ve reached out to me, we’ve bounced ideas off each other and troubleshooted some things with bread making. It’s been awesome.”

As much as she enjoys baking the bread and seeing the reactions of people enjoying it, the most rewarding part for Whitney is the example she’s setting for her children.

“I just want to instill in my kids that if there’s something they’re passionate about, they can pursue it, they can see that my hard work and creativity is paying off. I want that to stick with them throughout their lives.”

You can find ‘your neighborhood sourdough lady’ every Saturday morning at the Lucedale Farmer’s Market.

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