When we first decided to start a bakery, it was to create a livelihood consistent with our vision for sustainability. This is why we are and will always be determined to stay small and local.

Our Mission is to provide the Rogue River watershed with the most wonderful artisan bread we can imagine. We are devoted to using the best ingredients we can find: organic, pesticide free, gmo-free and local whenever possible. We maintain high quality standards in our bread-making techniques. We have great rapport with customers and are open to feedback. The slow food, local food and sustainability movements guide our business decisions. We value and respect our employees and treat them as family. We are committed to the ecological well-being of the planet and contribute to the protection and regeneration of the remaining natural and wild places on earth. We are devoted to creating a fairer and more just society.

Announcing New Changes for 2016 !

Community Action Plan & New Logo Launch 

Our 2016 logo makeover marks a moment in Rise Up! Artisan Bread history.  In 2015, we paid off much of our company’s debt, gave all our employees a raise and were able to donate more money, time and bread to local non-profit fundraisers!

When we chose to name our business Rise Up! Artisan Bread, it was with the vision and dream of creating a company that not only baked great, wholesome bread for the people but also engaged in positive action that would benefit the community around us, including people, flora and fauna.

We are now proud to be in a more secure financial place to be able to extend our energy and intention to the community around us.

We invite you to learn more about the inspiration and energy behind Rise Up! Bread

Watch our video...

"From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. " -Thomas Merton
 

Rosie Demmin began baking bread for Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center in 2002.  Although she only baked 70 loaves a week or so, her passion for bread baking was ignited.  Mick Sopko, Daniel Leonard and Ed Brown were her first zen bread teachers.  Two years later she and Jo were married and expecting their first daughter.  In 2006, they moved to Oregon and began the plans for their bakery. In the beginning, Rosie struggled to get Jo, with his french artisan training, to try making some whole grain breads.  It was finally Peter Reinhardt’s Whole Grain Bread book that convinced him to try some recipes, which eventually led to the birth of Rise Up’s Sprouted Multigrain and Rogue Sourdough.  Since then, Rosie, like Jo, has also studied Artisan Bread baking at the San Francisco Baking Institute.   She is ecstatic to find that her passion and study of bread continues to deepen with each passing year.   Like most small business owners, her weekly tasks include every aspect of the business.  She mixes dough, shapes bread, packs it, does the books, customer-service and employee management.  When she is not busy in the bakery, she enjoys being a mother of two fabulous girls.  

Singing our Praise & Appreciation for the Unsung Heroes of the Bake!

While Rise Up! owners, mixers, shapers and bakers get most of the glory for the bread we bake we want to recognize that nobody would eat it if our devoted staff of packout crew members didn’t wake up at the crack of dawn to hand pack each loaf. Our delivery drivers and farmers’ market staff are the final pieces to the excellent customer service that we aim to provide. We are so grateful for these, our unsung heroes. If you see them out there in the world while on deliveries or at the Farmers’ Markets, please remember go ahead and thank them because you wouldn’t be eating our bread without them.

The Story of Rise Up!

When we first came to Oregon in 2007 we built a small, old-world style (Arab origin) cob oven with the help of our friend and local cob builder Coenrad Roghman. Jo started every Saturday morning by loading wood into the baking chamber and lighting the fire that would keep the oven hot for 10+ hours after the coals are removed. Then he began the invigorating process of mixing 80 pounds of dough by hand! We were testing and tinkering with recipes and “keeping our chops up” as my dad likes to say.  

During the next couple years we devoted most of our time to designing and constructing the bakery. The bakery is part of a structure shared by the rest of the Full Bloom Community and includes a communal dining room, kitchen, library/lounge, office, and kids loft. It was built by our friend and local French-Canadian pole-framer John Difrusica, who also is known for his wilderness survival skills and funky bass playin’. Other local carpenters joined his team including: Matt Musselwhite, Autumn MacIvor, John Mehta, Matthew Garrity and Silus Murphy Ellis, all of whom we maintain close working and friendship relations to this day. We also sanded and stained a lot of the lodgepole pine ourselves.  Rogue Valley Electric did an amazing job giving us power and David Kennedy plumbed the building brilliantly.  Then Lydia Doleman brought in her talented strawbale team to build up the walls and Ashland’s Lomacatsi finished them off with multiple coats of lime plaster. Each loaf of bread we bake literally were born of a community endeavor.

Our Llopis-Oven

During the process of constructing the bakery walls - the oven was built into the building. At almost 13 feet in diameter, and 7 feet tall, the Rise Up! oven has a mighty presence. Spanish made and built by two visiting Spaniards over 8 days in September of 2008. This wood-burning masterpiece uses about a cord a month to keep it between 350-550 degrees all the time. Our wood is harvested sustainably from local sources. The most amazing feature is that the stone hearth rotates “lazy-susan” style to make loading it with 90 to 150 loaves a breeze. We know it is well worth the investment, saving labor, wood, our air, and our backs. 

By July of 2009, the recipes were ready, our wood-fired baking skills were honed and the oven and building were finished and ready to go thanks to the amazing work of so many skilled artisans in our local community, friends and family.  To this day we are grateful to them all.  We wouldn’t be where we are without them, nor would the bread.  

Thank you for reaching out! We will get back to you as soon as possible.  

If you need something right away - give us a call!  (541) 899-3472