KANSAS CITY, MO — Baking and good works often go hand-in-hand. It’s the mark of a baker: Someone who creates food for equal parts nourishment and joy will inherently feel called to do good. And those who do good — even if they don’t necessarily know the craft — can often turn to baking for partnership.
That’s the foundation of Dog Tag Bakery in the historic Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. Founded in 2014 by Father Rick Curry and Constance Milstein, Dog Tag is the result of a partnership between two people who loved baking and advocating for military veterans and their families.
“Specifically, they wanted to provide a space for entrepreneurial-minded veterans with service-connected disabilities — and their spouses and caregivers — to transition from military service to civilian life,” said DeAngelo Gamble, director of bakery operations for Dog Tag. “Father Curry was an avid baker. He looked at the baking process as therapeutic and a way to connect and heal. He also saw it as a way to form community, which was one of the purposes in starting the bakery: to be a safe space for veterans and the community where it’s located.”
In a 1,200-square-foot space for on-site baking, retail and seating, Dog Tag is not only a 20-person staffed bakery but also a “living business school.” As an organization, it is classified as non-profit, while the bakery operates as a for-profit business with all revenue feeding into the Fellowship Program.
The program consists of about 15-20 fellows per five-month cohort, focusing on five pillars: learning labs, wellness education, hands-on baking, small-business management skills and networking. These come together to instill an entrepreneurial mindset through the craft of baking and the tenets of running a successful bakery business.
The beginning, middle and end take place in person, operating on a hybrid structure in between. During rotations — the curriculum-based instructional time — fellows participate in hands-on baking classes, working with bakery staff including Shanel Adams, Dog Tag’s general manager, and Taylor McCullough, pastry chef.
In that first phase, the fellows are taught the basics of baking and assigned a case study for which they develop a specialty product with guidance from Shanel and Taylor. Each product has potential to land on Dog Tag’s permanent menu, which always has at least one fellow-created item along with about five seasonal items created by the bakery staff.
“Fellows are responsible for their recipe creation, sourcing ingredients and building out the marketing strategy,” DeAngelo said. “They create the entire presentation of their product.”
Meanwhile, the bakery staff guides the cohorts through the business side of the baking process. They learn how to identify problems that arise whenever ingredient costs impact profitability and how to appropriately price a product so that it offers value to the customer without impacting the bakery’s bottom line.
“We help them identify challenges, such as, for a certain product, we might not be able to use fresh strawberries,” DeAngelo said. “We show them alternatives like dried strawberries or a puree. Our job is to help them navigate a challenging path and direct them toward a solution.”
It creates real-life business scenarios where participants learn to pivot based on price increases or the availability of resources.
Dog Tag is also a certified nut-free bakery — one of only two in the DC and Maryland areas — which not only creates inclusivity for the customer base but also presents additional challenges for the fellows to learn about.
At the end of the bakery instructional phase, fellows pitch their product to the Dog Tag executive team, which considers menu placement based on price, execution and scalability. Through the product development process — even if a fellow doesn’t fall in love with baking — they gain experience with accounting, marketing, pricing and sales, in addition to the art and science behind the craft.
While baking is at the heart of the Dog Tag concept, fellows don’t need to have baking experience — or even necessarily aspire to be a baker at all — to be accepted into the program. It’s more about the core competencies that come with taking part in the baking process.
“The program is more about learning the soft skills that are so important when you go into corporate or small business environments,” DeAngelo explained. “Fellows work in small groups, and they learn communication and presentation skills, as well as identifying their strengths and weaknesses and the skills needed to navigate them. They’re essentially taught problem-solving, and we use baking as the vehicle.”
Just as baking itself, the Dog Tag program is transformative … even — or, perhaps, especially — for veterans who don’t want to bake. By gaining that business mindset, fellows in turn support the bakery as much as the bakery supports them.
“When they’re assigned a case study, veterans are able to inform Dog Tag of operational needs or necessary changes,” DeAngelo said. “That’s not just for the bakery; it’s also for Dog Tag as an organization. It provides feedback that helps us make business decisions moving forward and understand how we can grow and evolve.”
This story has been adapted from the December | Q4 2024 Craft to Crumb mini-mag. Read the full story in the digital issue here.
