How a New Hampshire couple turned a sourdough hobby into booming home bakery

In December 2023, Gary and Tory Sessa weren’t planning to start a bakery. They just wanted bread—the healthy kind made with flour, water, and salt. Nothing more.

As they prepared to start a family, Tory became increasingly mindful of what they were eating.

“She was adamant that when we started our family, she didn’t want to eat processed foods,” Gary said. “So I started making bread. Eventually, I tried sourdough and had some fun with it.”

What began as a simple effort for a couple to eat cleaner has since grown into Sessa’s Sourdough, a high-demand home bakery producing about 200 loaves a week. It draws hundreds of customers to online sales drops and has an 8,000-person Instagram following—all from the couple’s home kitchen and a converted greenhouse pickup stand.

Like many home bakers during sourdough’s pandemic-era resurgence, Gary turned to YouTube tutorials. But he quickly learned sourdough isn’t as simple as it looks.

“It was a little bit of trial and error. YouTube has a ton of information, but you have to figure out your area. Humidity, heat, temperature—things like that all create variation,” he said.

At first, they gave loaves to friends and family. Then Tory began posting photos online.

Courtesy Sessa Sourdough

“People were like, ‘Oh, would you sell it? Would you sell it?’” Gary said. “After saying no for a few weeks, I said, ‘You know what, let’s try it.’”

The operation began with a folding table at the end of their driveway, offering a handful of grab-and-go loaves. Family and friends were their first customers. Then word spread.

They upgraded to a white outdoor cabinet with double doors. Soon, they outgrew that too. Last spring, they converted a greenhouse purchased at Costco into a small farm-stand-style pickup shop, complete with heat and air conditioning that Gary wired himself.

Inside the house, production ramped up quickly. Today, they bake about 200 loaves a week, along with cookies, scones, bagels and English muffins—most of it made by hand. On prep days, Gary spends about five hours mixing and shaping dough. Tory adds another two hours at night after their baby goes to bed, preparing cookies and scones. Bake days stretch six to seven hours, followed by packaging.

When they started, they could bake just three loaves at a time in their home oven. This February, they invested in a commercial oven and renovated their basement into a dedicated kitchen space, allowing them to bake 16 loaves at once.

“It gave us a full 10-foot countertop, a very large stainless sink, and we can do all the dishes down there,” Gary said.

“It was getting really crazy having to deep-clean my kitchen every other day,” Tory added. “I’m very mindful that people trust that we’re cooking in our home for them.”

Courtesy Sessa Sourdough

They’ve expanded beyond traditional loaves, experimenting with pepperoni pizza focaccia, raspberry white chocolate chip scones, and strawberry cheesecake-inspired creations.

“We always try it first,” Gary said. “You never want to produce something and think, ‘I hate this.’”

Sales happen through online “drops,” where customers log on at a specific time to claim loaves before they sell out. The system helps control inventory and reduce waste—but demand is intense.

Recently, more than 350 people were online the moment a drop went live.

“It’s so wild to us,” Tory said. “Every time I see that number, I can’t believe it. There are 350 people wanting a loaf of bread that we’re making in our kitchen.”

Today, most customers find them on Instagram.

Shannon Bulmer of Manchester has been buying their bread since last summer.

“The texture of this bread, more than anything, draws me back time and time again,” she said. “It’s crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. It has to come back to whatever Gary’s doing with the starter. That starter is magic.”

Bulmer said the bread reminds her of the renowned sourdough from Boudin Bakery in San Francisco, which she visited on a work trip.

Kim MacDonald of Bedford also discovered the Sessas on Instagram about six months ago.

“It’s truly the uniqueness of the product itself—the taste, the moisture,” she said.

The business has reshaped the Sessas’ lives. Gary spent 18 years at Market Basket, often working 60-hour weeks and rising to manager before moving into cybersecurity sales. Tory previously worked in property management and now works part-time from home.

During maternity leave, Tory said she worked harder on the sourdough business than she ever had at a full-time job, squeezing in work between naps and staying up until 2 a.m.

“I’d much rather be tired building something of our own and be able to stay home with my baby,” she said.

Now, the couple is weighing whether to open a brick-and-mortar storefront. Customers are eager. The Sessas are cautiously optimistic.

“I never thought we’d get to the scale we’re at now,” Tory said. “We definitely want to,I just don’t know the timeline yet.”