Search Tools
Franchise Research
Franchise Categories
- Favorite Franchises
- Automotive Franchises
- Business Franchises
- Children's Franchises
- Cleaning Franchises & Maintenance Franchises
- Education Franchises
- Food Franchises & Restaurant Franchises
- Green Franchises
- Health, Beauty, & Fitness Franchises
- Home Services Franchises
- Home-Based Franchises
- Kiosk-Based Franchises
- Low-Cost Franchises
- Mobile-Based Franchises
- Pet Franchises
- Real Estate Franchises
- Recreation Franchises
- Remodeling, Construction, & Repair Franchises
- Retail Franchises
- Seniors Franchises
- Technology Franchises
- Travel Franchises
- Vending Franchises
- Veteran Franchises
 | Great Harvest Bread CompanyThe Original Family of Whole Grain Bakeries Since 1976 |
Business Type
FranchiseMin Liquid Capital
$65,000 to $75,000Total Investment
$107,608 to $352,322Required Net Worth
$250,000Number of Units
207In Business Since
1976* For Current Info See:
Franchise Disclosure Document
Overview
Do you want the freedom to make your own decisions and truly run your own business?
Would you enjoy standing back at the end of the day and seeing the tangible fruits (or bread!) of your labors?
Do you wish you could smell the hot bread, fresh from the oven, right now?
Are you looking for a way to give back to your community and do something that actually makes a difference in your town?
Would you like to see your hard work impact your own bottom line instead of your employers?
Do you want to choose the people you work side by side with every day?
Would you like to have the flexibility to set your own schedule and sleep in your own bed every night?
Do you want to be excited about going into work each day... and not have to sit in front of a computer for eight hours at a time?
Can you imagine wearing shorts to work every day?
A Great Harvest Bread Company can help you achieve many of your personal goals. We give you the freedom to run your own business, but with a supportive community of people doing the same thing, a proven business model and a national brand. We often hear from candidates that they are attracted to Great Harvest because they can be in business for themselves, but not by themselves.
A Great Harvest Bread Company can help you achieve many of your personal goals. We give you the freedom to run your own business, but with a supportive community of people doing the same thing, a proven business model and a national brand. We often hear from candidates that they are attracted to Great Harvest because they can be in business for themselves, but not by themselves.
Products & Services
Our goal is to recruit the nicest, most generous, most honest and
authentic people we can find-who love learning for the plain fun of it,
who see business as an excuse to play, and love all of life for the
sheer thrill of a bumpy ride—and bring them together in a caring
community which supports these entrepreneurial types to TRULY run their
own thing, make their own mistakes, have their own successes, and be
100% themselves.
We love whole-wheat bread. We'll always be a whole-wheat products company. That's because we think whole-wheat bread tastes better than almost anything else, especially when it's made with fresh ground flour and combined with other simple ingredients. It's our first reason for loving this business. There's just something about the way that nutty, rich taste of wheat combines with honey, yeast and salt that keeps us coming back every time.
We live an age when fast growth is king. Everyone wants to become the world's next gazillionaire. That's not our goal. Don't get us wrong, we love to grow. When bakeries grow, it means more people are eating great bread. But we don't love growth so much that we let it blind us to what we want from life or endanger the thing we've already built. To us, there is a balance lying somewhere between stagnation and chaos called sustainable growth and that's what we're after.
We love whole-wheat bread. We'll always be a whole-wheat products company. That's because we think whole-wheat bread tastes better than almost anything else, especially when it's made with fresh ground flour and combined with other simple ingredients. It's our first reason for loving this business. There's just something about the way that nutty, rich taste of wheat combines with honey, yeast and salt that keeps us coming back every time.
We live an age when fast growth is king. Everyone wants to become the world's next gazillionaire. That's not our goal. Don't get us wrong, we love to grow. When bakeries grow, it means more people are eating great bread. But we don't love growth so much that we let it blind us to what we want from life or endanger the thing we've already built. To us, there is a balance lying somewhere between stagnation and chaos called sustainable growth and that's what we're after.
Training & Support
After you have signed your franchise agreement, you will begin working
closely with a tracker from the Start-Up department. The tracker's role
is to help you step-by-step with all the aspects of opening a strong
and exciting bakery. You will spend a great deal of time with him or
her on the telephone going through checklist after checklist to make
sure you have everything in place before opening day. At a few points
in the start-up process, your tracker will send you sections of the
Start-Up Kit.We want you to benefit from our knowledge of opening bakeries for over thirty years, so he or she will help you with the do's and don'ts of running a retail operation. Some of the things may not make sense at first. This is where we ask you to trust us. We've seen what works and what doesn't. You are paying for the benefit of learning from other people's mistakes, so please take advantage of this.
You will attend Dillon Training Week at the headquarters in Dillon, Montana, where you will be joined with a group of new franchisees just like yourself. The purpose of this week is to provide you with an operations overview for running your bakery. Many long-term friendships are developed by the end of the week. Topics include accounting, wheat, the group buying program, what is available in the marketing area, and how to hire great people in your bakery. At the end of the week you will help the Dillon staff with a bake day fundraiser to help a non-profit organization in the community.
The next portion of training includes two weeks (each week consisting of five consecutive days) of training in two different host training bakeries of our choice. We have a list of about thirty host training bakeries around the country. During these trainings, you will get a glimpse of what it is like to live the life of a Great Harvest bakery owner.
At your host bakery training, you will get up early in the morning to bake the bread, serve customers, and see the overall operations of the bakery. These trainings should also be the most fun part of your start-up experience. You will form relationships and friendships you can draw on later as you become more active in the Learning Community. You will naturally copy the very best of each of the bakeries when designing your own.
One of the most important things we hope you learn during your bakery trainings is that Great Harvest bakeries don't have to be clones of one another to be good. Many people find this a big surprise at first. New owners always want to know, "Who is right?" We'll make strong recommendations on the best way for you to build your business. That said, you will be exposed to many different business models. You can choose to implement the ideas you like best. The way we see it, diversity is a strength, not a weakness. And thanks to the freedom that Great Harvest bakery owners enjoy, the new ideas of today often lead to the innovations of tomorrow.
Why Great Harvest Franchising?
If you look at most franchises, they began when some smart person
figured out a way to make some money in a business and then wrote that
recipe down and began to invite others to copy what she or he had done.
The great thing about these sorts of franchises is that they aren't
very risky for the person joining the franchise. The business is, after
all, proven.
Most franchises of this variety require their owners to do things the headquarters way. That's because HQ knows it works and also because the franchisor is trying to build a national brand, the foundation of which is consistency. The problem with this sort of franchise, if you're an entrepreneur-type, is that they aren't very much fun. All the good stuff about opening your own business—figuring out what you want to offer and what color the walls will be—aren't your decisions to make. They've already been made.
At the other end of things is starting up and running your own Mom and Pop shop. There you have all the freedom in the world to create this thing just the way you want, but you're flying solo, with no one else to lean on. That's why so many start-ups fail.
We try to find that middle ground between the advantages of a traditional franchise and the fun of a let's-do-it-all-ourselves start-up. Our philosophy is simple. Let's create Mom and Pop whole grain bakeries where Mom and Pop know what the heck they're doing! We call it a freedom-based franchise.
Most franchises of this variety require their owners to do things the headquarters way. That's because HQ knows it works and also because the franchisor is trying to build a national brand, the foundation of which is consistency. The problem with this sort of franchise, if you're an entrepreneur-type, is that they aren't very much fun. All the good stuff about opening your own business—figuring out what you want to offer and what color the walls will be—aren't your decisions to make. They've already been made.
At the other end of things is starting up and running your own Mom and Pop shop. There you have all the freedom in the world to create this thing just the way you want, but you're flying solo, with no one else to lean on. That's why so many start-ups fail.
We try to find that middle ground between the advantages of a traditional franchise and the fun of a let's-do-it-all-ourselves start-up. Our philosophy is simple. Let's create Mom and Pop whole grain bakeries where Mom and Pop know what the heck they're doing! We call it a freedom-based franchise.
