WORCESTER, Mass. – One local baker has transformed her business over time from a traditional bakery to one with a very unique menu.
“We are, up to now, completely free of all top nine," Jennifer Lee's Bakery owner Jennifer Lee said. "Gluten, eggs, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy and sesame seeds."
It’s a bakery where many traditional ingredients never even enter the building. With two locations in Boston and Worcester, Jennifer Lee’s Bakery eliminates the nine most common food allergens. In 2014, a severe injury led to Lee finding her niche in vegan and allergen-free baking.
“I fell and I fractured my neck at work. I was coming out of a walk-in freezer and I slipped on ice," Lee said. "While I was recovering, I broke out in hives all over my body. And they kept telling me it’s a gluten and dairy allergy. It was actually the opioids they were giving me.”
By going gluten and dairy-free, Lee discovered recipes, and a new direction for her baking.
“So I wanted to help people with food allergies because nobody understood them in 2014, and the gluten-free options were cardboard,” she said.
She says a lot of trial and error went into finding the right substitutes for her recipes. Part of her work includes calling distributors to make sure the ingredients meet her top nine allergen-free standards.
“Because it’s not just, oh I have a stomach ache, for some people," she said. "It could kill some of my customers.”
During the pandemic, her bakeries started making deliveries, and Lee hired friends who had been laid off.
“Once they started going back to work," she said, "I realized I had to do all of it myself, or we wouldn’t make it.”
After putting thousands of miles on her car, often working more than 20 hours a day, Lee is opening a larger space. It's a lot of hard work, but she says it pays off when customers with allergies discover her bakery.
"It is emotional,” she said. “It’s my favorite part, watching moms cry. They come and they’re like, their child can finally have a cupcake. This is their first time ever in a bakery at 14. When they come to the bakery, they're sobbing because they say, 'My child can have anything!' For that brief second, they can be a normal child and just experience it.”
Lee plans to keep the menu expanding at 127 Cambridge Street in Worcester. She'll add even more breakfast, lunch and dinner options. She also plans on hosting allergen-free events. The grand opening is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 29.