‘Making dough’: How one SA baker is rising to the top
Meet the 40 Under 40 award winner behind the bakery whose popular almond croissants line cabinets across the city. CityMag goes behind the counter and tries a “life-changing” new pastry. See bakers at work in the video.
After six years in SA’s pastry world, Prove Patisserie co-founder Megan Bowditch has grown the small business enough that she can start sleeping in – until 5am.
She is now able to leave the 2am baking starts to her team, which has grown to more than 20 people based at the popular artisan shop on Magill Road.
“I’m pretty lucky now my earliest start, unless I’m filling in for somebody, is like 5am, otherwise we’ve got our pastry baker and bread baker doing the two am or the midnight starts…they’re the MVPs (most valuable players) of the bakery,” Megan says.
Unlike her hallmark almond croissants, Megan’s business acumen is anything but flaky.
From humble beginnings as a small wholesale supplier in a Port Adelaide warehouse in 2020, Megan and her co-owner Anna Rogers have increased revenue by almost 50 per cent in five years and now wholesales to more than 55 cafes and restaurants within the city and its fringe.
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At the beginning, pastry was the backbone of the business and when they started baking bread, Megan says there “wasn’t quite the same willingness to spend on bread yet”.
But now, she says their bread and pastry sales are “about 50-50” – an art that sees them use about 100 kilos of butter each week, and about 180 eggs per day.
For eggs, Megan says Rohde Egg Co. is one of their many local suppliers, and in a week they use about six catering sized boxes of eggs. Megan says using local suppliers wherever they can is a key priority for Prove, and has helped alleviate any anxiety as the poultry industry faces the threat of bird flu.
“Last time there was an egg shortage, some other companies were then sending their eggs to the other states to help alleviate their egg shortage,” she says.
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“I know Rohde were making a very conscious effort to make sure that the main people they supply, people like us who don’t have a lot of options in finding eggs, were high on their priority list.”
Megan also points to being a female-owned bakery as a key strength, and that family lives have informed new products, such as their square loaves of bread being popular among parents with fussy children. Apparently, kids are not so keen on round, crusty bread.
She says a plain sourdough loaf in a tin shape – rather than a round loaf – has become a bestseller.
“My business partner Anna has two kids, and I think kids will eat square bread, but they won’t eat the round bread… and because the crust is a bit thicker,” Megan says.
“So then she was like ‘we should put it into a tin, and then they would eat it’ …we’ve had heaps of parents come in and say the same thing, and say their kids love this.”
Megan says when it comes to her business ethos she is “all about basics, keeping things simple but really delicious”.
The latest creation that is exactly that is a Korean salt-bread, which has a stick of butter rolled into a dough with a hole in the middle.
“The butter melts and becomes crispy and yummy with a little bit of salt on top; it’s life-changing,” Megan says.
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