Olivia Yetter, founder of Oy’s Joys bakery, shares the story of how she started her business by selling at farmers’ markets in her neighbourhood in Toronto. The pandemic provided an opportunity to increase production and reach more community members. Read more about Olivia’s vision for her growing bakery.

Q: Can You Tell us about yourself and oy’s joys bakery?

oy’s joys is a boutique bakery founded by myself, Olivia Yetter (she/her pronouns) in the early months of 2016. After gaining experience in the restaurant industry, I felt I had the chops to pursue my passion for baking. I do not agree with many of the practises that are common in the restaurant industry, such as a lack of work-life balance, rampant waste, unchecked substance abuse issues and mental health struggles, lack of fair compensation. The list goes on, so I felt that I needed to create my own space where I had control over my company’s values, thus moving toward the change I wanted to see in the industry.

Q: How do you build connections with the community through oy’s joys?

We got our start by selling at farmers’ markets in our neighbourhood and found that it was a great way to build connections with our community members. It gave us an opportunity to speak directly with customers and get to know our regulars. We were able to connect with the market volunteers as well as fellow vendors. Once we got a taste of community culture we were hooked. We started to see the strength in the community and how a reciprocal relationship is mutually beneficial. From there we got more involved with sustainable food practices, more specifically we decided we wanted to source our ingredients from local vendors as close to home as possible, meaning that we are literally able to invest in our community.  

Q: How do you choose which ingredients to source? What values do you have in mind?

We have to strike a balance when it comes to sourcing ingredients. Ultimately we are in a big city and that generally means big price tags. oy’s joys ensures almost all of the ingredients we source are produced in Canada. Also, we prioritize organic and raw ingredients. With that being said, we source most of our ingredients from vendors in Kensington Market and St. Lawrence Market. All of our baked goods use organic flour, free range eggs, and organic milk. Though this means that our products are not necessarily accessible to those who live within tighter means, in the future we hope to be able to reach marginalized members of our community in creative ways. We believe strongly in using in season fruit/veg and source directly from the producer whenever possible. We do not use ingredients that are refined, processed or unethically produced and generally air on the side of scratch made to ensure we are selling the freshest and highest quality products.

Q: How has OFN  helped in organizing and navigating sales during the pandemic?

OFN is the first online space we have used to sell our baked goods. I’m a little tech illiterate so all of our sales previous to COVID have been in person or through email. OFN is super easy to use and allows us to reach a wider audience than we have in the past. I love how the platform supports food transparency as well as creates an accessible platform for producers to sell. The support team is super helpful. It was sort of an accident that we fell into using OFN but it perfectly aligns with oy’s joys’ values and we plan to continue using the platform to sell moving forward. Also, it makes organizing our sales, issuing invoices so much easier (I am a convert, but still a little tech illiterate, ha!). 

Q: What is the community response like to your shop?

The community response to our shop has been overwhelming! All of our farmers’ markets have many regular customers that we have the privilege of catching up with weekly during the market season. Also, we have received countless written messages with glowing reviews of our products and customer service. We personally know the vendors that we source our products from and they have always taken a vested interest in our shop. We couldn’t be more grateful for how friendly and supportive our community members have been. The market volunteers especially have been so generous and supportive of our shop, going so far as to order for their whole neighbourhood block.