The historic Union Cooperative Store bakery building is now completely restored and equipped with a new wood fired oven and everything needed to begin life anew as the Rise Up Bakery. The only thing missing was a baker. Now that that lack has been resolved.

The Barre Historical Society has had the good fortune to find an artisan baker with long and unique experience running a wood fired bakery. This month (July 2019), Jim Haas will become the first baker since Joe Piccolini closed the Bakery in the early 1940s.

Jim grew up in Danby, Vermont and has been wanting to return to Vermont where his mother continues to live in the home where he grew up. He will be moving here with his wife Larissa from the Ukraine, where he founded the country’s first commercial wood-fired bakery–AgroEast Baking &Milling Co. He specializes in artisan hand-crafted breads and also has a background of financial management and training bakers for his overseas business.

Jim has had an interesting life. After years in corporate financial management, profit planning and control, he turned in a company PC for a wood fired oven and life as an artisan baker. Jim says, “The truth is, I get a real thrill working with my hands and putting in an honest day’s work. And I get to provide honest nourishment to the community to boot!”

Learn more about Jim:

Jim Haas has been baking bread for 9 years. Goodwine, Banda Agency and director Egor Petrov made this documentary about him to promote local farmers and good food. Ukraine, 2015