baked with pride in poughkeepsie, new york

little loaf bakeshop

Year 2022-2023 Recap

Founded in 2021 by co-owners Colleen Orlando and Rian Finnegan, Little Loaf Bakeshop is a queer- and trans-owned vegan bakery that creates high-quality vegan pastries and experiences for our customers and employees—all in service of sparking joy, fostering connection, and building community.

We are lucky to be based in the Hudson Valley, which gives us access to a multitude of local ingredients. In fact, we get our flour, vegan cream cheese, pasta and chipotle sauces, and much of our produce (from apples, mushrooms, tomatoes, strawberries, beets) from businesses and farms.

All in all, our goal is to create a joyous, kind, and sustainable business that will be here as a place of support and connection for years to come.

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Brand Design

With our brand identity, we wanted to be approachable, warm, memorable, and a gender-neutral-kind-of-cute (the name ‘little loaf’ is based on our cats, after all).

It was also important to us that the brand identity incorporate our pride in both being an LGBTQ+ owned and Poughkeepsie-based business.

To start, we submitted a detailed brief to 99designs and received a ton of interest from designers. We narrowed down the options, and had our family and friends and even some professional contacts (bakeries for Colleen; marketing for Rian) vote for their favorites. We still hear from folks to this day say “that’s the logo I voted for!"

Final Artwork

Ultimately, the design we went with was one that we felt was fun, approachable to folks from all walks of life, memorable, and easily recognizable both physically and digitally.

The design is used across our website, business cards, booth branding, packaging, merch, social media posts, and more.

We also worked with some friends of ours over at Sketchdeck to design shirts, aprons, tote bags, and more—of course incorporating our love of both cats and pastries.

Reviews

  • Hands-down the best freaking pastries vegan or non-vegan. I discovered this heavily pastry shop at the New England Vegan Fest and I purchased $90 worth of whatever they had at the fest. After coming home and eating some of it, I wished I had purchased the entire inventory.

    -Lu P

  • the absolute best pastry I have ever eaten. Talented bakers, unique variety of products. Grab some at the Beacon or Hyde Park farmers markets.

    -James S

  • Absolutely scrumptious! The unique, complex, delicious pastries are perfect honestly. You can taste the levels of love in each bite with surprising flavors creating a satisfied palette. The mushroom square is a meal. Culinary Artists!!!

    -Tasha M

  • Not only are the food and beverages amazing every time, but the service is always the most friendly and welcoming. I love having a safe space to get delicious treats and drinks ☺️

    -Makenzie M

  • An oasis of great food with a huge serving of progressive mindset and caring for the community. An inspiring first visit. We will be back and we're telling everybody about this pastry paradise.

    -Jay B

  • Stopped at their booth at the Beacon Farmer’s Market today and got an almond croissant. Excellent! I don’t consider myself vegan but had I not known it was vegan I wouldn’t have thought twice. I absolutely loved the aesthetic of the logo and pink boxes as well as the story behind the Bakeshop!

    -Olivia

  • I'm a foodie who was visiting the area from Northern Virginia, and was SUPER impressed by this little bakery! Their team bakes throughout the night to ensure that fresh out of the oven quality and taste. Now that is dedication! The double baked Nutella croissant with toasted hazelnuts was to die for! I wanted to take one of everything back home with me, but knew these pastries couldn't sustain that level of freshness (I put the cookies in the freezer, and they held up really well!). I'm going to gift myself with a Balmuda toaster oven for Christmas, so that I can bring back more of these pastries next time! Little Loaf definitely deserves an online store and storefront of its own, and I cannot wait to come back!

    -Garlind J

  • As a Vegan I’m extremely satisfied and if anything words can’t describe how amazing the Vegan Croissant Sausage egg & cheese was. Top notch, the buttery flaky goodness of the croissant is so warm and soft, the juicy and hearty sausage is a huge add on to the egg which is seasoned perfectly & fluffy as well the melted cheese gives the sandwich the perfect savory flavor. HIGHLY RECOMMEND, NO JOKE !!!

    -Zoolie Z

  • I wouldn’t say that I’m a connoisseur of pastries, but I am a lover of food, and these really are the best pastries I’ve ever had - by far. Little Loaf’s offerings are creative, yet accessible, and their flavors are incredibly well-balanced. The fact that everything is VEGAN(?!) blows my mind. I (a meat and animal product eater) would have no idea. I love how much attention they pay to their ingredients. This is an amazing queer-owned small business and I am so happy they’re in the Hudson Valley. I hope they’re here to stay and grow!

    -Melanie B

Milestones

  • -Over $100K in sales in year 1

    -Over $320K in sales in year 2

  • Hired 3 full time employees and 7 part time employees

    Our philosophy is to cross-train full-time team members so everyone can do a bit of everything.

    We believe in on the job training and don’t require pastry school qualifications, and we encourage those with gaps on resumes to apply. We also hire from job readiness programs, either for youth or for adults re-entering the workforce. This creates opportunity for the employee, loyal team members for us, and a more differentiated and high quality product and environment.

  • We are opening our own space in the new Wallace Campus project in Poughkeepsie, which breaks ground in December 2024. The mission of the project aligns with our values; 100% affordable housing, re-entry programs, beautiful green spaces, and diverse and eclectic local businesses.

  • We took on a number of strategic accounts about four months into our business and have grown it strategically ever since. Our partners include Lagusta’s Luscious, Peaceful Provisions, Sweet Maresa’s, Blackbird Infoshop, SUNY New Paltz, Gab’s Veg Table, and TasteNY. The first four have massive vegan followings. So, while the margins aren’t as high, the opportunity to increase awareness and exposure—and align with these reputable and admirable brands—more than made up for it. We’ve learned so much from them!

  • Through donating proceeds from our products or via events at our space, we’ve invested significantly in raising money and awareness for the LGBTQ+ community in Poughkeepsie (and beyond). This includes raising money for the Trans Closet, Dutchess County Pride, Queerwater, Trans Girl Scouts, and more.

  • We’ve maintained a 5-star rating on Google - and are up to 28 reviews!

Marketing Highlights

Social

Instagram Followers: Grew from 0 to 3K organic followers in first 12 months

Instagram Reach (per post): 428% YoY increase, increasing from 265 to 1.4K accounts reached per post

Email

Audience: Grew from 0 to 1K organic subscribers in one year (without pushing for sign-ups)

Open Rate: 61% avg open rate across 18 newsletters sent

Attributable Sales: $509 average per email since starting in December 2022; $721 average for the last 9 months (42% increase)

Search (Google)

Organic Search Impressions:
First 3 months (Jan-Mar 2023): 3.16K
Last 3 months (Jun-Aug 2023): 10.2K (222% increase)

Search Clicks:
First 3 months (Jan-Mar 2023): 434
Last 3 months (Jun-Aug 2023): 773 (78% increase)

Cookie Butter Strikes Back! This is our twice baked cookie butter croissant 2.0 featuring crunchy @lotusbiscoffus cookie butter, chocolate almond frangipane, cookie butter pastry cream (yum!) topped with Maldon Salt and a whole biscoff cookie! These
Join us & @dutchesspride next Saturday, February 17th rom 1pm-3pm at @pkunderwearfactory for a community gathering for LGBTQ+ folks and allies of all ages to come together and break bread! 🥐 We’ll be providing pastries, breakfast sandwich
We had to make SOMETHING for Valentines Day! This is a chocolate raspberry heart ❤️ made with chocolate almond frangipane, raspberry chocolate pastry cream, fresh raspberries and vanilla whipped cream. Available today at @pkunderwearfactory and @th
It’s the last weekend for our special strawberry rose croissant, which features strawberry pastry cream and rose whipped cream. We’ll have this at @pkunderwearfactory today and tomorrow, and then on Saturday and Sunday it’s magicall
Hi everyone! We are excited to be at the Tarrytown & Sleepy Hollow for the first time this weekend! You can find us there from 9am-12:30pm. We’ll have an assortment of sweet, savory, and specialty vegan pastries. Get more details about the

Events & Partnerships

  • "Drag me to the Movies" hosted at the Underwear Factory

    We have access to an incredible space for a very reduced rate, so we decided to start throwing queer events there that were accessible to all and that also benefitted local nonprofits like the Dutchess County Pride Center and the Trans Closet.

  • "Drag me to the Movies" hosted at the Underwear Factory

    We have access to an incredible space for a very reduced rate, so we decided to start throwing queer events there that were accessible to all and that also benefitted local nonprofits like the Dutchess County Pride Center and the Trans Closet.

  • "Drag me to the Movies"

    We have access to an incredible space for a very reduced rate, so we decided to start throwing queer events there that were accessible to all and that also benefitted local nonprofits like the Dutchess County Pride Center and the Trans Closet.

  • Supporting the Trans Closet

    The Trans Closet provides clothes, gender-affirming supplies, and other resources without question or cost to the trans community in the Hudson Valley

  • [queer] joy

    More joy—especially more queer joy!—is also something we are focused on serving to our community.

  • Queer Cookies

    We made vegan lofthouse cookies (aka grocery store cookies!) with sprinkles for folks’ genders. We donated any proceeds from these cookies to Queerwater, a free youth sailing camp run by the Hudson Sloop Clearwater.

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  • Non-Binary Open Mic

    We work with DCPride to host events in our space—we pay for the space (heavily discounted to us) so they can provide programming to the LGBTQ+ community, especially youth.

  • Queer Soup Night

    We’ve opened up our space twice to Queer Soup Night, a loosely-organized movement that brings together queer chefs to cook for our community. It’s donation based, and all proceeds go to a non-profit like the Dutchess County Pride Center or the Trans Closet.

  • Queer Soup Night

    We’ve opened up our space twice to Queer Soup Night, a loosely-organized movement that brings together queer chefs to cook for our community. It’s donation based, and all proceeds go to a non-profit like the Dutchess County Pride Center or the Trans Closet.

  • Baking Classes

    Colleen teaches baking classes from time to time, either for a nominal charge or for free if we are working with the Dutchess County Pride Center.

  • Festivals

    This year, we’ve begin showing up at more vegan festivals not just for exposure, but also to get to know the other vegan business owners, producers, and non-profits in the area. This allows us to more easily collaborate on products and events.

  • Trans Girl Scout Cookies

    We bought cookies from trans girl scouts for seasonal pastries, then donated all of the proceeds back to those girl scouts. It was important for us for those girls to be seen, loved, and supported from their community across the region.