Le Bus Bakery

What started out as a small bus providing breads for the University of Penn, quickly turned into a successful small business.

Le Bus, located in King of Prussia has been baking and selling their good since 1978. I remember first hearing of them when they opened their retail store in Manayunk, PA. That location is since gone, as the focus of the company has been more on distribution.

First, what do they sell.? Le Bus offers a line of artisan breads, rolls and pastries. Simple enough? Well, not really. What they do offer is the skill and experience in baking those breads to perfection. It is a passion that comes through with every bite.

Once the word got out, and the quality of their product was recognized and demanded, Le Bus started wholesaling their goods to area supermarkets and restaurant chains. Saladworks is a client, so if you ever ate there, and said, "MAN! I love the bread!", well, that's a Le Bus roll you just ate!.

Anyone who knows anything about bread here in PA knows that a good roll has a shelf life of about 12 hours. Once it gets to "tomorrow", the roll or bread has lost it's crunchy crust, and very soft inside. There have been many theories about why this is. It's gotta be the water!, maybe it's the climate here in the east? All we know is that bread is no good west of the Mississippi.

Le Bus, in order to combat that challenge, offers their clients flash freezing. That is the process of literally flash freezing their goods and allowing them to be baked again in order for clients to cut down on waste, and still offer a very fresh product to their customers.

They still offer their freshest products to area super markets. They have a DSD system (Direct Store Delivery) in the area that delivers their products daily so that you, the consumer, can enjoy their products at the peak of freshness.

Currently, Le Bus has 3 retail locations. One in the Reading Terminal Market, one on South St in Philly, and they have the outlet store right on Shoemaker Rd. in King of Prussia.

Aside from offering a high quality product, utilizing old world techniques to fashion their bread, rolls, and pastries, they built and executed a plan to market and distribute a product that is very difficult to do so because of how fast quality dissipates. Kudos to them for solving a problem and being able to service an area as wide as the Delaware Valley.