Baking&Snack - October 2013 - 12

Character in the
Face of Adversity

When Hurricane Sandy slammed into the East Coast last year, Tribeca
Oven’s 170,000-sq-ft bakery took a direct hit. Three feet of water flooded
the facility, destroyed four mixers, four ovens and many other pieces of
equipment, and most importantly, shorted out electronic controls on its
state-of-the art production line … it just created a plain ol’ mess.
A year later, Marc Essenfeld, CEO of the Carlstadt, NJ-based facility, recalled what a manager at a damage-recovery firm told him in the wake of
the disaster. “Three out of every four companies that go through an event
like this are out of business in a year, and the one who survives just takes
off,” Mr. Essenfeld said. “We’ve been fortunate. We’ve just been taking off.”
How did Tribeca survive for four weeks while it was out of business?
“Internally, it shook up the operation quite a bit,” Mr. Essenfeld said.
Specifically, the recovery was a test of character for its workforce. After
the storm passed, many of the 250 employees came back to the bakery
offering to help with the cleanup and the eventual ramp-up of production
— some even offered to do it without pay.
“Of course, we paid people,” Mr. Essenfeld said. “It was great to see
people rally around the company. However, there were others who said,
‘Call me when you get back up and running.’ We never bothered to call
them back.”
The disaster also changed the bakery’s culture. “As Rahm Emanuel once
said, ‘Never let a good disaster go to waste,’ ” Mr. Essenfeld said, paraphrasing Chicago’s Mayor from when he worked for the Obama administration. “We took that philosophy to heart, and it became a little bit of a
mantra. It was like a war around here. We held daily huddles, and we continue to do that today. The sharing of information on a daily basis, which
was limited before, has improved our operation significantly.”
Fortunately, Tribeca Oven’s customers understood the magnitude of
what happened and stood by the bakery. “We didn’t lose anybody,” Mr.
Essenfeld said. “We had some inventory at an offsite facility, which helped,
but the real key was our daily communication with our customers. Many
of our customers said, ‘Look at what they just went through, and they’re
still trying to take care of us.’ ”
In the end, he added, surviving Hurricane Sandy and its devastating floods made the artisan bakery stronger.
“It helped pull us all together,” Mr. Essenfeld noted. “We built
better relationships with our customers and our associates.”
And then he paused.
“But I wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” he said.
Or as Helen Keller once said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and
suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and
success achieved.”
— Dan Malovany, editor
dmalovany@sosland.com

/ Baking & Snack / October 2013

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Editor
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Dan Malovany
dmalovany@sosland.com
Laurie Gorton
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Joanie Spencer
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Shane Whitaker
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Charlotte Atchley
catchley@sosland.com
Contributing Editors:
Donna Berry
donnaberry@dairy-food.com
Theresa Cogswell
bakercogs@sbcglobal.net
Jim Kline
jkline@theensolgroup.com
Joe Stout
joestout@cf-san.com
Associate Editor

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Baking&Snack - October 2013

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