When the company moved to its 33,000-square-foot Alameda bakery in 2009, green thinking drove every decision from recycling to lighting. John Tredgold, aka J.T, Vice President of Bakery Operations for Semifreddi’s and Michel Suas at T.M.B Baking set out to design a new kind of bakery--a bakery that included natural light for energy savings and employee wellbeing, fresh air pumped into the bakery without unnecessary heating and cooling, and recycling made easy and simple. With the support of co-owners Tom Frainier and Michael Rose, the company forged ahead with sustainability-by-design. In addition to its green operations, Semifreddi’s helps sustain the surrounding communities. Since 1984, we have donated bread and pastries to thousands of schools and non-profits in and around the greater Bay Area. After all, the Bay Area is our world!
Our Alameda bakery proudly features:
- Northern California’s premiere naturally lit bakery
- 20 domed skylights & 44 solar light tubes to harvest sunlight with 98% reflectivity without heat transfer. This allows for lighting systems energy savings of 100% for most of the day.
- Programmable lighting system for non-daylight work hours. HIF with a color temperature of 5000 kelvin, close to natural daylight.
- Office & warehouse lighting with motion detector sensors
- Smart delivery routes—75% of sales are within a 30-mile radius of our bakery in Alameda
- Minimal packaging featuring recycled paper stocks and soy inks
- Robust recycling program:
- 95% of generated waste is recycled
- Green composting program
- Compostable plant based flatware for break room
- Bread and pastry leftovers are converted into chicken feed. Can anybody say "Semifreddi's fed chicken?"
