CAIRO, NY — Over the years, See & Be Kitchen has earned a reputation for its long-fermented sourdough and from-scratch pastries. With a strong track record and earned business acumen, the artisan bakery — led by co-founders Chrissy and Ben Traore — is poised to enter its next phase of growth beyond the Catskill region.
See & Be announced the launch of the First Rise Challenge, an eight-week competition to help the bakery identify its founding franchisee in the Northeast US. Each phase is designed to help identify and narrow the scope for prospective leaders to carry the bakery’s name into a new region.
“We’re not just searching for a business owner — we’re searching for a partner who believes in people, craft and community as fiercely as we do,” Chrissy said. “This first franchise will shape the future of our brand. We want someone who rises to the challenge.”
The First Rise Challenge
At its core, First Rise is a nod to the foundational values of the artisan bakery: integrity, community, craftsmanship, joy at work and commitment to employee wellbeing. To identify the right individual to champion the first franchise, Chrissy developed a detailed program over the past six months.
The challenge is broken down into eight phases, outlined below:
Week One – Call to Rise: To kick off their candidacy, participants will submit a 90-second video sharing their “why,” which should include detailing the territory they would like to operate in and why they want to bring See & Be Kitchen to their community.
Weeks Two and Three – Gathering Ingredients: This portion of the challenge is centered on culture and character fit, offering candidates a space to showcase their community mindset, leadership and decision-making skills, and more through video content and interactive Zoom sessions.
“We’re spending those first three weeks trying to figure out who these people are as humans,” Chrissy said, noting that this early part of the process helps her and the See & Be Kitchen team learn about the applicants.
Week Four – Rise Under Pressure: At the halfway point of the First Rise, the See & Be Kitchen staff evaluates and narrows the field of candidates through system-following challenges. Participants will be evaluated on their ability to follow exact-replication tasks, guided branding exercises and a mystery bake task.
Week Five – Firing Up the Ovens: During this stage, candidates, regardless of their background or baking experience, will get a rundown on baking theory, hands-on execution, teaching ability and instincts.
“They don’t have to be a baker, we’ll train them,” Chrissy said. “They do have to have some sort of passion, and to us, that’s a level set.”
Week Six – Setting the Table: Participants are tasked with hosting a live event in their community, proving their ability to rile up enthusiasm and build the brand’s presence in their territory. This includes everything from product tastings to interactive elements.
“We want to make sure that they can activate their community because if they’re not into their current community, it’s going to be hard for them to get wholesale accounts off the bat,” she shared.
Week Seven – Making That Bread: From here, candidates will participate in live workshops and quizzes that will assess their business acumen, including knowledge of KPIs, cash flow and funding pathway.
Week Eight – The Final Bake-Off: To round out the experience, the remaining three to five participants will pitch a 90-day launch plan to a panel of industry experts, including Richard Snow, board member of the International Franchise Association and CEO of Amplify Franchise Funding; Karen Bornarth, executive director of the Bread Bakers Guild of America; Mariyam Shamshidova, chief growth officer of Wefranch, and the Traores.
The winning franchisee will receive exclusive incentives, including a 50% fee reduction, a year of waived royalties and their first packaging order at no cost, valued at up to $100,000.
About the franchise program
Chrissy and her team have been developing the See & Be Kitchen franchise model for more than two years. The program itself, operating under Bakery Franchise Corp. DBA See & Be Kitchen, provides budding entrepreneurs with ample resources to bring the bakery’s artisan treats to more communities.
This includes:
- A fully developed operational playbook and standardized recipes
- A high-end product line that blends artisan quality with scalable systems
- Employee-centric leadership philosophy, hiring, training and HR frameworks
- A strong wholesale backbone complemented by additional revenue streams of flexible retail and catering options
- Local sourcing values and community-focused brand identity
- Hands-on franchisor support, including done-for-you tech stack, communications, marketing, CRM, operations, daily account maintenance, and training
Becoming the first See & Be Kitchen franchisee is not about spinning off the original business; it’s about carrying on the mission and quality the bakery has earned over its years in the industry.
“They’re going to do exactly what we do,” Chrissy shared. “They’re going to bake bread from scratch, and they’re going to self-distribute in their territory. They get about 100 miles, depending on where they are, to distribute to businesses within that territory.”
Applications for the First Rise Challenge are now open. Learn more about the campaign and program on the See & Be Kitchen franchising website.
