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Frank, FNG Italian Bakery

There are only a couple of from-scratch bakeries in Ottawa and we're one of them. And we're the only one in a supermarket. We do everything from scratch, in the traditional manner, the way it's been done for hundreds of years. It's a dying art, but we're keeping it alive.

These days, if you go into a big grocery store, you won't find any scratch ingredients there. No flour. No yeast. No mixers. Nobody who can actually bake. Everything they do is done from frozen. They'll either use frozen, partially cooked bread which they just toss in an oven for eight minutes. Or they'll use frozen dough. It's awful stuff. There's no flavour. It goes stale fast. And it's often full of chemicals to keep it consistent during shipping.

We use four ingredients: flour, water, yeast and salt. We use no oils, lards, shortening (except pie dough), chemicals or fats. It's good, healthy food. And you'll taste the difference. If you've always thought of bread as just something to keep a sandwich together, let me introduce you to bread with real flavour.

• Meet the Owner
• Meet the Greengrocer
• Meet the Butcher
• Meet the Cheese Guy
• Meet the Deli Man
• Meet FNG Italian Bakery

There are three bakers here, including me, and we start at eleven at night and keep going until morning. It takes five hours to make a loaf of bread. It's hard work, too. People don't realise it, but you break your back baking bread. But it gets in your blood. And it's so rewarding when the hot loaves come out of the oven.

Speaking of which, that massive shiny thing with the big chimney is my oven, a Cinelli-Esperia from Italy. It's a real baker's oven, not like those tiny little warming boxes the chain store "bakers" use. Mine is a 56-pan oven with a brick heat chamber and real stone shelving. It's skilled work to operate it (you don't just turn a knob and set a timer) but if you know what you're doing you get absolutely even heat, great flavour and perfect crusts.