More and more people are making an effort to learn how to interpret the labels of the food products that fill stores and supermarkets. Yes, those lists of ingredients and nomenclatures - for many unintelligible - that compile the information of what we are going to eat. They carry them, and they are suspiciously long, even foods as basic and fundamental in our diet as bread. However, there are also people - and there are more and more of them - who try to consume and produce with as few ingredients as possible. The founders of Laroti, a very special bakery located in Campos, had it clear: here they would make and sell bread without labels to decipher. And so it is.
As happens to many of us practically every day, Juan Ocampo and Ana Bunge asked themselves almost every morning: "what can we eat today that is nutritious, healthy and not repetitive?" This daily question gave rise to the idea of what Laroti could be: a space in which to prepare and sell ready-to-go food or, what amounts to the same thing, a rotisserie. Hence the name, of course, which comes from the French rotisserie, and in some Latin American countries it refers to establishments that serve ready-to-eat food to take home.
However, the concept changed and today Laroti is a bakery, although it still has a lot to do with the meaning of the word home, because long before Laroti became a reality, Ana and Juan were making bread at home to order for a year. When they saw the success of their creations among their acquaintances, they bought their first oven, a second-hand semi-professional oven that arrived on the island from Valencia. "We started at home and then looked for a place. We wanted to make family life compatible", Ana explains, "because, before, Juan worked in a hotel restaurant" and the bakery presented itself as a business model that allowed them to work hand in hand and spend more time with the family. Not in vain, they define themselves as a micro bakery "because we do everything ourselves and we do it in the form of small selection and small production".
"We are defined by the awareness of what we offer".
In Convent de Campos street, this family found the right place to start their project so, after a small renovation and a lot of bureaucracy, Laroti opened its doors in June 2022. When we ask Ana how she would define her business, she doesn't hesitate: "we are defined by the awareness of what we offer". That awareness, as we have the opportunity to see, is based on two unwavering core values: one has to do with the product, which "we always try to be local and organic to try to be as 0 kilometer and sustainable as possible," says Ana. Flours, as the main ingredient, are carefully selected because, as Juan reflects, "we have become accustomed to eating bad bread. The typical processes have been lost and, for a question of price, we work with flours that are not from here and that we don't know how they have been cultivated or treated".
The other major factor has to do with time. There is no room for urgency here, because good bread does not understand haste. "A loaf of bread takes 48 hours from the time you start it until you bake it", and this is the case at Laroti, which offers a selection of breads made every day with nutritious ingredients and, of course, by hand. They usually have 10 varieties on the counter: wholemeal rye bread, spelt, white wheat, the legendary Mallorcan xeixa flour, gluten-free purple corn... On weekends they dare with some even more special and tremendously tasty ones, such as the delicious carob and walnut bread, the Mediterranean fig and almond bread or the aromatic black olive and rosemary bread.
It is undeniable that more and more people prioritize good products. That made with conscience, with care and respect, and that somehow brings us back to a way of making, working and, in short, living, from which we have been moving away over time. Bread is no exception and Laroti is a good example of this. As Ana tells us, "there are more and more people working with semi-professional ovens" and the growth in the supply of sourdough bread, which is already noticeable on the island, may have a lot to do with this desire to recover the essence of a food that, with its industrialization, had been lost.
"Working with passion, with taste and with the desire to improve is what motivates us".
At Laroti they see this change every day, this return to bread made with flour, sourdough and water, thanks to their customers. In summer they have received the visit of many tourists and now, in winter, they have adjusted the amount of production, although they work with many local customers who have become regulars. Even so, if one day there is a surplus when it is time to close the shutters, as they tell us, nothing is thrown away: the bread is donated to a local association that distributes it among families with less resources.
Before saying goodbye, we talk about the future, but we dare to affirm that, more than the projection towards tomorrow, what feeds Laroti is the enthusiasm for the present. As the couple tells us, perhaps "someday we will serve breakfast or a meal, but without rushing. Laroti is our first project, we have been thinking about it for a long time without knowing how it was going to be and materializing it is our daily illusion. Seeing that it works and working with passion, with pleasure, with the desire to improve... is what motivates us". May it be so, we think. Here's to many more years of enthusiasm, awareness and good crumbs.
