Inspiring Conversations with Tammy LeMoine of Starfish Bakery

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tammy LeMoine.  

Hi Tammy, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
We are a local bakery in Chapel Hill that sells online and delivers our outrageously good baked goods for good! We rent kitchen space from the Piedmont Food Processing Center in Hillsborough and then deliver our goods to the local clientele. 

After being involved in the local public schools for many years, we had the idea to gather “empty nest” parents with young adults in our community. Starfish Bakery wants to lend a helping hand to young adults, hiring them at a fair and living wage while also providing some guidance on ways to get ahead after high school. 

Like the woman in the parable, we hope to make a difference, one person at a time. We bake all kinds of desserts, pastries, breads in order for the young adults to earn a living wage and help them plan for and further their education or career. 

The Starfish Parable 

An old man was walking on the beach one morning after a storm. In the distance, he could see someone moving like a dancer. As he came closer, he saw that it was a young woman picking up starfish and gently throwing them in the ocean. “Young lady, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” he asked. 

“The sun is up, and the tide is going out, and if I do not throw them in, they will die,” she said. “But young lady, do you not realize that there are many miles of beach and thousands of starfish? You cannot possibly make a difference.” The young woman listened politely, then bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it into the sea. “It made a difference for that one.” 

Original author unknown 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We have just begun, so we are still learning a great deal about running a bakery business. We are trying to have slow controlled growth that will ensure the quality of our baked goods and not get too overextended. We are learning each week on how to improve and become more efficient. 

We hire young people from programs in our community called Second Family Foundation and Blue-Ribbon Mentor Project. We spend a lot of time training and learning about our employees. They have taught us a great deal in return, and we think it will make our company stronger in the long run as we all learn to become more efficient in the kitchen together. The young adults would like more hours, but we are not able to offer full-time employment just yet. We are looking to increase our business in a slow controlled way while supporting the folks that work here. 

As you know, we’re big fans of Starfish Bakery. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
We bake all kinds of goods from Whoopie Pies, Breads, Cookies, Cakes, Pies to Savory Pastries. We sell online through StarfishBakery.org and make deliveries on Friday unless you have a special occasion. We also sell at a few local vendors in Hillsborough, such as Steve’s Garden Market at 610 North Churton Street and Hillsborough Farm and Garden at 3517 NC Highway 86 N. We participate in the Saturday Slowdowns at RambleRill Farm at 913 Arthur Minnis Road on the first Saturday of each month to sell our baked goods. We are honored to be on the preferred vendor list at UNC Hospital and have done some projects for UNC Business School too. 

We are in our third year of business and excited to find new opportunities to sell our baked goods. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.starfishbakery.org
• Instagram: StarfishbakeryCH
• Facebook: StarfishBakery

Image Credits
Tammy Lemoine