Fairfield Food Collective’s Denyce Rusch wears many hats

FAIRFIELD — Denyce Rusch is helping to oversee a Fairfield company that is making a name for itself in the world of baking and bread making.

Rusch is one of four people who formed the Fairfield Food Collective, which owns the building at 400 N. Fourth St. in Fairfield. The Fairfield Food Collective hosts Breadtopia, which Rusch and her husband, Eric, started in 2014 to sell products associated with artisanal home baking such as breads, bagels, pizzas and more.

The business started by selling baking tools, then selling the raw ingredients. Sales have been so good that the owners were able to expand by creating a separate business, Breadtopia Bakehouse, using the grains that Breadtopia sold.

Rusch is a graphic designer by trade but has experience in home baking. She was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and grew up in Ohio and South Carolina before going to college in North Carolina. She lived in Oregon until moving to Fairfield in 1983 and has been here ever since.

“A lot of our friends were moving to Iowa, and we knew this was a great place to raise children,” Rusch said. “On the West Coast, housing was too expensive, and we were not able to raise a family there.”

Upon moving to Fairfield, Rusch struggled to find work in graphic design because there were so many other graphic designers in town. The digital age was just beginning, and Rusch found work doing digital design with Paul Siemsen.

Later, Rusch purchased Busy Bee Bakery from Debbie Green and for five years baked cakes and other pastries from a certified kitchen in her home.

“It was satisfying to create products people really enjoyed,” Rusch said. “I employed three or four people with the business, because there was a lot of work to do.”

Rusch said her son Galen learned fractions by measuring brownie batter. Today, Galen and his wife, Liza, are co-owners with Denyce and Eric of Fairfield Food Collective.

Before starting Breadtopia in 2014, Denyce did office work and graphic design for four or five companies. Eric, whom she married in 1994, told her he wanted to start an online business.

“He tried several subjects, and to my surprise, he enjoyed bread baking,” Rusch said. “It was a dormant passion of his.”

When the couple launched Breadtopia, Denyce put her graphic design skills to work designing the website. Eric created videos on his experience of making various breads.

“Our goal was to bring the knowledge of professional bakers to at-home bakers,” Rusch said.

The couple has traveled the world getting to know artisanal bakers and attending bread making festivals in California, England, Germany and elsewhere.

Today, Rusch does some design work on the business’s packaging and labels, but she wears other hats, too. She helps with accounting, human resources matters and has been involved in birthing the Fairfield Food Collective and newly formed Breadtopia Bakehouse.

Rusch is helping to get the freeze-dried kitchen off the ground. The Sustainable Living Coalition, its members, and other donors teamed with the Fairfield Food Collective to purchase three freeze dryers. The groups hope to someday have as many as 10 freeze dryers working at once, processing 150 pounds of food per day.

Rusch said she hopes that her leadership role in the business will serve as an inspiration to young girls considering similar careers.

“It’s been both exciting and scary,” she said. “It’s brought me a lot of fulfillment, and has made me more community minded.”

In addition to her business duties, Rusch was president of the Fairfield Cultural Alliance for 10 years and continues to serve as a board member.