The Bakery That Rescues Day-Old Loaves, Not Profits
A family shop now gives away 200 loaves a week and says the real business is "the people who come back."
By Priya Raman · Contributing writer
At six each evening, the Okafor family bakery puts what is left on a table by the door and turns off the till. No sign-up, no questions, no proof of anything.
It began as arithmetic. They were throwing away thirty loaves a night. "Bread that nobody eats is just a very slow way of burning flour," says Ada Okafor, who runs the counter.
Two hundred loaves a week now leave the shop for free. What the family did not anticipate is how many people came back the next morning and paid for something.
The bakery's revenue is up eighteen percent since the table appeared. Ada is unsentimental about why. "We're not a charity and we're not clever. People just like being somewhere that trusts them."
