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MassDevelopment In The News
Where One Million Bagels is Just Another Day at the Office
September 27, 2007: The Boston Globe, by Davis Bushnell
A nickname - Bagel Boy - turned out to be the name of a company that Chuck Bouchrouche cofounded 15 years ago.
Bouchrouche picked up the nickname when he came to Massachusetts after running a small California bakery in the late 1980s. Its staples were Syrian and pita bread and his own bagels, which he touted.
"So, when I got here and began talking things up, everybody called me Bagel Boy," Bouchrouche, 42, recalled last week during an interview at Bagel Boy Inc.'s newly renovated, 200,000-square-foot plant off South Union Street in Lawrence.
The plant, once occupied by a sneaker- and shirt-box maker, now turns out 1 million bagels a day, which are sold under the private labels of supermarket chains, specialty food chains, and food manufacturers throughout the Northeast, said Bouchrouche, who is also the company's president. He is a native of Lebanon who immigrated to the United States 25 years ago.
Among the large customers is the Tewksbury-based Market Basket supermarket operation.
His company's annual bagel production would increase by 38 million, he said, if current negotiations for acquiring a bakery in metropolitan New York are successful. If that happens, Bagel Boy's annual revenues would probably rise 15 percent, he said, adding that revenues are now "close to $20 million" a year.
In May 2006, Bagel Boy acquired for less than $1 million the Zeppy's bagel brand as a way to get into the institutional market, he said. Bouchrouche, who lives in Salem, N.H., said there is "no secret" to Bagel Boy's success: "Hard work and the fact that we've been able to keep growing without sacrificing quality."
It was a hardscrabble experience for Bouchrouche when he started his Massachusetts venture in 1992. "I rented 200 square feet of space from a bakery in Methuen," he said.
That was Joseph's Middle East Bakery.
"Chuck showed up on our loading dock one day and said he wanted to start making bagels," said John Boghos, an owner of the bakery, which has since moved to Lawrence and is a leading supplier of pita bread.
"We said, 'Why don't we go 50-50 with Bagel Boy?' and I subsequently bought out the other partners and became the cofounder and co-owner of Bagel Boy," Boghos, 50, said last week.
His role today, Boghos said, is marketing Bagel Boy's 15 varieties of bagels to supermarket chains throughout New England. Besides Market Basket, big customers include Shaw's and Hannaford.
Personal savings of about $100,000 were used to purchase the first bagel-making equipment, said Bouchrouche, pointing out that the company was frequently on the move - to Lawrence eight months after its founding, then back to Methuen and Lawrence.
In February of this year, the company relocated to the South Union Street property, which was purchased and renovated largely with the proceeds of a $4.4 million tax-exempt, industrial development bond issue floated by MassDevelopment, the quasi-state economic development agency. The company also has credit with Citizens Bank, Bouchrouche said, adding that the city of Lawrence has been a partner, too, in terms of expediting the permit process for renovations.
There are 110 nonunion employees, many of them Hispanics, African-Americans, and Brazilians from the Lawrence area. It is expected that the workforce will increase to 125 by year's end, he said, adding that there are two shifts seven days a week.
Over the years, he said, Bagel Boy has always had the same manufacturing regimen. Flour milled in the Lawrence area is used to make the bagels, which, before being baked, are boiled and cooled overnight. The process yields crustier bagels favored by food stores, Bouchrouche said. Bagel Boy bagels retail for between $1.50 and $1.79 for a package of six.
Jerry Paquette, a commercial bakery buyer for Market Basket, said Bagel Boy is an excellent supplier. The chain purchases from the Lawrence company some 70,000 packages of bagels a week for its 58 stores, 35 of them in New Hampshire.
Boghos said Bagel Boy is able to gain an edge on the competition because of its adaptability.
"We're small and can turn on a dime, serving customers' special needs sooner rather than later," he said.
© Copyright 2007 The Boston Globe.
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