Our driver would put bread in a basket and bring it up to each house. In the late 1930s, bakeries started using motorized vans instead of a horse and wagon. By the 1950s they stopped delivering door to door and started delivering to grocery stores and restaurants. Most bakeries continued to sell bakery products at their bakery stores, now called bakery thrift stores. Our salesmen would get new customers by sampling their breads inside grocery stores.
S omething unique about the bread industry is the guarantee.
They serve a store or restaurant with bread one day and credit out unsold bread the next day at full wholesale price. The grocer and restauranteur can t lose. They only pay for what they use or sell. I n the 1970s, through acquisitions and mergers, Parisian, Colombo, and Toscana became San Francisco French Bread Company. This tripled their buying and selling power.