St John’s Bakery In The News

Nurturing community while breaking bread at Saint John’s Mission

“Saint John’s Mission, a charitable organisation based in Toronto, stands out for its multifaceted approach to community service. At the heart of its operations is Saint John’s Bakery, a unique social enterprise that not only produces quality sourdough bread but also provides meaningful employment opportunities to marginalised individuals...”

Link: https://torontoguardian.com/2025/02/community-saint-johns-mission-bakery/

St. John’s Bakery – one loaf at a time

Radio-Canada featured a video segment on our St. John’s Bakery, and how its good bread is put to good use in more than one way.

Have a look at their ‘Réintégrer un pain à la fois’ (three minutes, in French).

St. John’s Bakery teaches craft of
artisanal bread (link)

Unique social enterprise provides immigrants, recovering addicts and people with disabilities skilled employment and pride in making great bread.
(an article in the Torotno Star by Manisha Krishnan Staff Reporter,
Published on Mon Feb 16 2015)

Baker Spencer Smith dusts work surfaces with flour before getting ready to work with the bread dough. St. John’s Bakery transforms lives with job training and the simple alchemy of bread, yeast and water.

Chris So / Toronto Star

Baker Spencer Smith dusts work surfaces with flour before getting ready to work with the bread dough. St. John Bakery transforms lives with job training and the simple alchemy of bread, yeast and water.

REDEFININGTO – Breaking Bread, Building Community

POSTED August 5, 2012 BY Shauna Trainor (Toronto Guardian)

What began as a legacy from local baker Joe Link, ignited a passion for bread making under the leadership of Father Roberto Ubertino at St. John the Compassionate Mission. Today, St. John’s Bakery has evolved into a flourishing social enterprise in the heart of our city that not only strives to provide the best quality organic breads and baked goods to the people of Toronto, but also works to help and engage those in need in an effort to strengthen our greater community and create a space filled with hope, dignity, and respect.

Breaking Bread, St. John’s Bakery

“Bread deals with living things, with giving life, with growth, with the seed, the grain that nurtures.” – Lionel Poilane, French Boulanger

Link: http://torontoguardian.com/2012/08/redefiningto-breaking-bread-building-community/

New businesses are cooking up more than just profits

TAVIA GRANT

Stephanie Smith laughs with Father Roberto Ubertino, executive director of St. John the Compassionate Mission and St. John’s Bakery - Stephanie Smith laughs with Father Roberto Ubertino, executive director of St. John the Compassionate Mission and St. John’s Bakery | Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail

From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Apr. 01, 2011 7:39PM EDT
Last updated Thursday, Aug. 23 2012, 4:50 PM EDT

A few steps north of Jilly’s strip club and Dangerous Dan’s Diner on Broadview Avenue sits a humble little bread shop.

St. John’s Bakery sells handmade bread from its unprepossessing quarters, using organic ingredients and 200-year-old recipes drawn from Brittany, France. In peak season, it churns out 2,500 loaves in an eight-hour shift.
Click here to read more.

“Bon coeur et compagnie”

109 série docuumentaire saison 3 épisode 31 Geneviève Brault

Bakery - Mission

St. John’s Bakery (3:09, French)

Estelle in the Wilderness — the story of St. John’s Bakery

God’s Table in the Wilderness & Radical Gratitude; Podcast, October 13, 2002

Part 1 (21:22, mp3)
lower quality (19.5 mb)
higher quality (48.8 mb)
Part 2 (33:09, mp3)
lower quality (30.3 mb)
higher quality (75.8 mb)

“In Paris today millions of pounds of bread are sold daily, made during the previous night by those strange, half-naked beings one glimpses through cellar windows, whose wild-seeming cries floating out of those depths always makes a painful impression. In the morning, one sees these pale men, still white with flour, carrying a loaf under one arm, going off to rest and gather new strength to renew their hard and useful labor when night comes again. I have always highly esteemed the brave and humble workers who labor all night to produce those soft but crusty loaves that look more like cake than bread.”

- Alexandre Dumas (1802–70)