Our Mission
Sprout Momma began in a home kitchen as a way for Kim Tavino to better nurture her family with healthy grains and fresh ingredients. Kim’s son, Ryan Fennessey, a baker and chef, soon joined the business. Together, they specialize in custom, artisanal bread that combines King Arthur flour, Sprouted Ancient Grain, Sprouted Whole Wheat, vegetables and fruits — organic when possible — sourcing from local markets and farmers. Sprout Momma can create any flavor profile using sprouted or traditional techniques that fit your needs.
Sprout Momma’s bakery is off the beat and path but that’s how we like it! We are one big family, with our staff and customers, the bakery will be your second home once you come in and experience the Sprout Momma way. Our breads are a new take on old world bread making. All the locals have fallen in love with our staff, breads, and grab and go food.
We have recently started preparing breakfast and lunch sandwiches, using our artisan breads. We have other options including, deli prepared salads, vegan cheeses and soups. Our local bakery also provide all kinds of cakes from wedding cakes to kids birthday cakes.
Sprout Momma also does catering, nothing is too big or too small for us. We can do sandwich trays for a business meeting or lunch in to full catered events such as weddings or your next holiday party. To spice things up in catering we have recently bought a rolling wood fired pizza oven. We can hitch it up and bring the party to you. Sprout Momma will handle each and every detail, and will take care of you, your event, and even your dishes.
I credit sunny Hilton Head Island for introducing me to the food business. I moved here in 1979, and worked at one of the local seafood restaurants. By 1982, we opened the second Italian restaurant on Hilton Head, called LaPola’s. With a lot of hard work, the restaurant was a success, and by 1992, I added a seafood restaurant called Kingfisher.
My three children — Ryan, Amanda and Abby — were with me throughout this journey. When my children were still small, I began my lifelong love for fitness. I attended aerobic classes, always trying to get back in shape after having children. In 1993, I opened a fitness studio for women. I wanted to help others who struggled with the same issues I did.
Once I realized that juggling two restaurants, a fitness studio and three children were too much for one mom to handle, I sold my businesses and began a private health coaching business — working from a studio at my house where I practice today. Looking back, the idea for Sprout Momma Breads wasn’t a far-fetched addition to my resume. I have always loved to bake. I have fond memories of baking with my mother as a little girl.
The idea for healthy bread came to me during Christmas time. I always make gifts for my clients. I thought bread and Olive Oil would be a nice touch. The challenge was to make a tasty, healthy alternative to the overly processed and packaged breads that fill grocery store shelves. I tinkered with the recipe for six months, during which time I made some really bad bread similar to paper weights. I finally found two bread recipes — Honey Wheat and Cinnamon Cranberry — that seemed to please everyone’s palate. My clients said they tasted so good, they all said they would love to order some loaves.
Before long, Sprout Momma Breads grew and I needed help with production. I enlisted the best chef I knew — my son, Ryan. At first, he helped me man the booths at the markets and get the product out. Today, Ryan experiments with his own recipes — always including fresh ingredients with healthy benefits. He bakes breads from my old recipes (Honey Wheat and Cinnamon Cranberry), as well as very complex 24- to 48-hour fermented doughs, English Muffins, Ciabatta and more! We sprout all kinds of grains and create Old World European breads that are what bread is supposed to be — healthy and flavorful. As for the future, hopefully it will mean more expansion and continuing to spread the love for healthy food.
I am deeply, extraordinarily obsessed and consumed with BREAD. This simple, old-fashioned five-letter word courses through my veins, keeps me up all hours of the night and enlightens my spirit. My story with food actually begins when I was a baby. My parents owned restaurants on Hilton Head Island in the ‘80s. While balancing me on her hip, my mother seated guests and hurried waiters and busboys.
It wasn’t until I was a little older, when I started working with the “man behind the curtain” — my loud, boisterous, passionate and guiding father — that I knew culinary arts is what I was meant to do. He taught me how to cook like they did in the Old World, before microwaves, seasoning packets or frozen foods. As my mentor, he taught me the art of food — from cutting whole fish and breaking down sides of beef to mincing garlic by hand and making fresh pasta.
I honed my cooking skills for many years in a tiny, dimly-lit, hot kitchen filled with bad language, bad English and Mariachi music jamming. More than anything, this kitchen was filled with so much passion. It was intense, fast, loud and dangerous. To me, the guys who worked behind the scenes had ninja-like skills. Everyone knew there could be no room for mistake. Every detail — down to the size of the chopped herbs — mattered. If you didn’t get it right the first time, trash it and start again.
It was this attention to detail and early years of experience that led me to become a successful chef for fine dining restaurants, hotels, country clubs and catering companies. When my mother suddenly started picking my brain about flavor profiles for breads, I jumped at the chance. Both of my parents are unbreakably passionate, talented people. They instilled in me that if you’re going to do something, do it the right way. Otherwise, do something else.
Today, I strive to create bread that looks like it was handcrafted in an ancient European village. I am a true artisan with complete respect for those who have come before me. Food should be real. Food should be nourishing, wholesome, local, fresh.
My grandma was Italian and made her own pasta and I would help in the kitchen, where I fell in love working with my hands and creating. I lived in Orlando for 10 years and vacationed on Hilton Head Island and when my parents bought a house down here perfect excuse to move to paradise.
I have been baking and decorating cakes for 15 years, and most of it was self taught. I started my hospitality career in Winter Park Camber of commerce as an event planner, as an internship. That internship taught me a lot but soon after I continued with a fine dining restaurant in JW Marriott. Then the love of baking and decorating started at 4Rivers. This is where I was taught decorating at the professional level, not just making cakes for my family. This is where I become deeply passionate about baking and decorating cakes. Next stop for me was at Publix on Hilton Head in the bakery department, where I was a cake decorator. My career at Publix was 4 years.
After 4 years I felt as if I out grew my position and was ready for a more family oriented environment where I knew I could grow with the company, people and also really wanted to learn how to bake bread. I was a frequent customer at the Famers Markets for Sprout Momma, and just so happened there was an opening for a bakery assistant, and jumped at the opportunity to be apart of that innovated company. Once I was apart of the Sprout Momma family, I was hooked! Ryan Fennessey took me under his wing and showed me the ropes of baking bread and the rest in history.
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