About Us

Andi's Story

Andi's products are entirely baked in an authentic artisan stone oven, fired by wood

A Swiss bakery discreetly nestled on an acreage in paradise, with a magnificent Rocky Mountain view…This is where you’ll find one of Invermere’s best kept secrets – Andi Schöni, baking up a batch of Schöni Artisan Breads in his custom-built wood oven.

Andi Schöni left Switzerland for Canada in 1982 as a trained chef in French cuisine, later learnt baking bread at Mt Assiniboine lodge, and ended up owning a wholesale bakery (Little Mountain Bakery) in Whistler, B.C. for 12 years.

Having moved to Invermere in 2000, Andi's love for real artisan bread led him to explore the old traditional ways of bread making. After lots of research, he built a custom commercial bakery with an authentic artisan stone oven, built locally by 'Lusti' in 2006. Today, Andi continues to passionately create and experiment away.

With the small bakery being located in his house, he is able to take the extra time and attention that authentic wood oven breads need to meet his high Swiss quality standards as well as his passion for the art of real wholesome bread making.

Besides baking and eating good bread, what else does Andi love to do? You’ll probably find him outdoors in our local paradise: mountain biking, running, cross country or downhill skiing, paragliding, or out hiking, enjoying all the natural beauty and the mountains when he’s not tending to his acreage.

Testimonial

WORK OF ART IN BREAD AND SCONES
Thank you very much for providing us with your phenomenal bread; we cannot get enough of it! Since our arrival to Canada in 2010 we have not had anything even remotely close to your work-of-art bread and mouth-watering lemon berry scones. -- M.M., Invermere

Our Bread

It is not unusual for a bread to take 40 hours or more from start to finish, which allows nature to work as needed, and the bread's character to develop.

Taking the Time to do it Right......

The journey begins by carefully creating and cultivating a wild yeast sourdough culture, other cultures, prefermented sponges and starters, and preparing ingredients, all of which need regular attention (up to several times a day)

Fruits and nuts are often chopped or crushed by hand while grains and seeds, etc. are properly prepared (e.g. properly sprouted and/or soaked overnight in filtered water)

I nurture and pamper the dough, allowing it to gently ferment and slowly rise, over a lengthy period of time, which also breaks down the gluten.

Each dough needs to be monitored and managed carefully since the daily heat, light and humidity changes throughout the day.

Every product is naturally made by hand and molded to perfection.

When only the Best will do:

Our very unique hand crafted Grain Mill, comes from the Ost Tirol in Austria.
All whole grains (spelt, dark rye and whole wheat), are milled freshly every week at our bakery. This mill has an especially big grinding stone, again handcrafted, and this allows for Andi to grind his whole grain flour at a very slow speed. This guarantees optimum flour quality as it preserves even more (basically all) nutrients and vitamins than his old grain mill.