From the Bench to the Business: Matt D’Agostino on Building a Bakery That Lasts

For many bakery owners, the business begins with the product. They learn to make exceptional bread, pastry, cakes, and desserts, earn the trust of their customers, and gradually build a reputation within their community. However, the skills required to establish a bakery are not always the same skills required to grow, manage, or eventually transfer that business.

Matt D’Agostino, Certified Master Baker, former president of the Retail Bakers of America, and former owner of La Bonbonniere Bake Shoppes in central New Jersey, understands that distinction firsthand. During more than 45 years in retail baking, he worked his way from dishwasher and apprentice to baker, decorator, general manager, CEO, and board chairman. At its height, the family business operated 10 locations and employed approximately 130 people.

In a recent conversation on The Perfect Rise podcast, D’Agostino shared the lessons behind that growth, including the importance of management systems, company culture, financial knowledge, professional certification, industry involvement, and building a bakery that can operate beyond the founder.

A Family Legacy Built Through Work

D’Agostino’s family baking history began with his grandfather, Matteo, who studied baking in Switzerland, France, and Italy before immigrating to New York during the 1920s. He worked for several well-known food companies before purchasing a bakery in Troy, New York, in 1940.

After his grandfather’s death, the family eventually established a new bakery in Edison, New Jersey. The shop offered an assortment of French and Italian pastries, but the surrounding community had different expectations. Customers admired the products and then asked whether the bakery sold doughnuts.

That early experience taught the family a lesson that remained relevant throughout D’Agostino’s career: bakery owners must understand what their customers want, even when that requires changing the product mix.

D’Agostino began helping in the business as a child. Some of his earliest memories include peeling potatoes with his grandmother and packaging doughnuts for a vending machine during the morning rush. Every summer brought another opportunity to work, learn, and understand the operation.

His father reinforced a simple standard: regardless of the task, even if it was sweeping the floor, do it to the best of your ability. That work ethic helped D’Agostino earn the respect of longtime employees well before he became the company’s leader.

Growth Exposes the Need for Systems

Running one bakery came naturally to the family. Opening the second location revealed that experience and informal communication were no longer enough.

Employees would approach different family members privately, ask how a task should be completed, and then follow whichever answer was easiest. Without one clear decision-maker, instructions became inconsistent and accountability weakened.

The family hired an outside company to evaluate the operation. One of its most important recommendations was to establish defined levels of management and appoint one person to lead the organization. D’Agostino’s father selected him for that role.

The experience taught D’Agostino that adding another location does not simply create more of the same business. It introduces new communication challenges, leadership demands, and operational risks. As the company continued to expand, it needed production department managers, store managers, an overall production manager, and an overall sales manager.

That additional management increased payroll, but it also protected quality, profitability, and D’Agostino’s ability to maintain a personal life. He viewed his role as looking over the horizon and determining where the company needed to go, while his managers kept daily operations moving with consistency.

Protecting Quality Across Multiple Locations

As La Bonbonniere expanded, D’Agostino made the decision to centralize production at the main bakery and distribute products to the company’s retail outlets. Each storefront still looked and operated like a full-line bakery, but the centralized production model allowed the company to maintain greater control over product quality.

Systems supported consistency, but maintaining company culture required continued contact with employees and managers. D’Agostino found that locations positioned too far from the production facility became harder to monitor. Over time, some stores began developing cultures that no longer reflected the family’s values.

Rather than protecting growth simply for the sake of being larger, he sold several locations and retained the four stores that were most profitable and closest to the company’s manufacturing facility.

The decision reflects an important distinction for bakery owners: expansion is not always the same as progress. A location that weakens profitability, consistency, culture, or quality of life may no longer support the company’s larger purpose.

Traditions Remain, but Practices Must Evolve

D’Agostino believes traditions can remain central to a family bakery while business practices continue changing. He carried the company’s values forward, but he also remained open to new production methods, technology, compensation structures, and management practices.

After participating in an artisan bread course led by a French master baker, he returned to his business with an entirely new understanding of bread quality and production. The experience also helped inspire RBA and the Bread Bakers Guild of America to support the development of a national baking center at Dunwoody in Minneapolis. More than 2,000 bakers received training during the center’s operation.

Technology also became an important part of the company’s evolution. D’Agostino learned to code and developed bakery programs for purchasing, production planning, holiday preparation, and point-of-sale operations. He used QuickBooks for payroll and introduced individual sales tracking for front-of-house employees.

After seeing the differences in employee sales performance, he implemented a commission-based compensation model that paid employees either a percentage of their sales or minimum wage, whichever was greater. The change helped identify employees who excelled in customer service and sales while rewarding their contributions to the business.

D’Agostino also held monthly meetings for sales managers at rotating store locations. Before each meeting, managers evaluated the host store and recorded what was working well and what needed improvement. The process encouraged peer accountability, exposed problems early, and ensured that every manager viewed the business beyond the walls of their own location.

The Baker and the Businessperson

After selling the company in 2010, D’Agostino continued mentoring entrepreneurs through SCORE. One recurring problem stood out: many bakery owners developed the technical side of the business without giving equal attention to the financial and managerial side.

A bakery owner must first produce a product customers want to buy. Once the business gains traction, however, the owner must understand accounts receivable, accounts payable, banking, rent, insurance, payroll, ingredient costs, profit margins, and key performance indicators.

As D’Agostino’s father often told him, “You can make a lot more money behind a desk than you can behind a bench in the bakery.”

The statement does not diminish the importance of baking skill. It recognizes that the owner’s responsibility changes as the company grows. The bench creates the product, but informed decisions about people, systems, cash flow, and performance protect the business.

Building a Bakery That Can Continue Without You

D’Agostino’s advice to the next generation is to build a bakery that can be operated by someone with a strong business background, even if that person is not personally a baker.

When every essential function depends on the owner’s technical skill or daily presence, the pool of potential successors or buyers becomes extremely limited. A strong management structure makes the bakery more sustainable during the owner’s tenure and more valuable when the owner is ready to step away.

The person who purchased D’Agostino’s company came from corporate consumer product management rather than bakery production. The bakery already had skilled bakers. What the new owner needed was the ability to lead people and manage the organization. Sixteen years after the sale, the business remains successful.

That outcome represents more than a successful transaction. It demonstrates that D’Agostino built an organization rather than creating a job that only he could perform.

Certification, Service, and the Future of the Industry

D’Agostino earned his Certified Master Baker designation in 1992 and later served on RBA’s certification board and as a certification judge. During the program’s development, committee members worked to define what the credential should represent. Their conclusion was that a Certified Master Baker should be the best baker in the shop while also possessing the ability to manage and develop other bakers.

The certification process evolved to better align candidates and judges, establish clearer expectations, and protect the credibility of the designation. For D’Agostino, certification was not merely recognition of time served. It demonstrated verified skill, professional readiness, and the ability to carry greater responsibility within an organization.

His industry involvement extended from state and local baking associations to the RBA presidency, educational initiatives, and SkillsUSA competitions. Those experiences provided new ideas, professional friendships, and a clearer understanding of where the industry was headed.

D’Agostino encourages bakery owners to make room for professional service, even when the demands of the business make participation difficult. Industry involvement strengthened his company, expanded his perspective, and created relationships that lasted well beyond his years as an owner.

A Legacy Measured in People

When asked whether he was proudest of the company, the people, or the legacy, D’Agostino focused on the employees who learned a trade within his bakery. He takes particular pride in those who entered the company needing an opportunity, developed viable skills, supported their families, and eventually became successful bakery owners themselves.

La Bonbonniere, now known as Labon Bake Shoppes, will soon mark three-quarters of a century in business. That longevity reflects a family tradition, but it also reflects the willingness to learn, adapt, build systems, develop people, and make difficult decisions when necessary.

A lasting bakery is not built by standing still. It is built by knowing what must be protected, recognizing what must change, and creating an organization capable of carrying the work forward.

Listen to the complete conversation with Matt D’Agostino on The Perfect Rise podcast.

About the Author

Kimberly Houston is the Member Experience Director for the Retail Bakers of America, host of The Perfect Rise podcast, and an award-winning pastry chef, educator, and business strategist. Through conversations with bakery owners, educators, and industry leaders, she explores the systems, leadership strategies, and operational decisions shaping the future of the baking industry.