This Montafoner bakes the rolls of the US superstars

Because in his new home Los Angeles, his customers include not only the large-scale catering company of the Austrian star chef Wolfgang Puck, but also the Hollywood superstars.

Hollywood greats like Harrison and his son Ben Ford, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck and Christoph Waltz like to come to the restaurant of his farm shop in Brentwood and trust in the baking skills of the native Montafoner. “Ben Ford runs a restaurant chain here and swears by my bread. He is one of our most loyal regular customers,” says the 31-year-old in the VOL.AT video call.

After his first stay in the USA as part of an exchange program in Virginia in 2011, it was clear to the trained baker that one day he would gain a foothold in the “Land of the Free”. There he also met his current wife Sarah, with whom he is now expecting children in May. The professional baker can now look back on a tough apprenticeship, five of them in the British metropolis of London alone.

After his return to the States, things happened in quick succession: the Montafon native is now the manager of the Farmshop company, a leading bakery in Los Angeles, California. “We are an organic large-scale bakery that still makes a lot by hand. We attach great importance to craftsmanship and high-quality and sustainable products. Since we source all of our raw materials from farmers in California, we call ourselves a farm shop. All of our ingredients can we can trace it back to the source. This business model is very well received by the Americans, especially here in Los Angeles, the people attach great importance to good nutrition and try to live sustainably,” explains Resch. In 2014 he returned to Schruns for a short time, where he said yes to his Sarah at the registry office.

Production takes place 365 days a year, 24 hours a day in shifts. Over 250 customers in the greater Los Angeles area, from Santa Barbara to San Diego, would enjoy the farm shop products. In addition, exclusive grissini and granola muesli bars have been created for the airline Jet Blue.

“We’ve been living in California since 2016 – at first it was very hard, especially in the restaurant and bakery, 90 percent of the Spanish is spoken here, so I first had to learn ‘basic Spanish’. Meanwhile, my Spanish isn’t any more either so bad,” says the entrepreneur about his difficult beginnings.

In addition, two car accidents with his boss’s car threw him off track: “The two accidents within two weeks cost me dearly. The streets here are very wide, up to ten lanes on the freeway – if you haven’t for a long time When you drive a car, it’s very difficult at first and you lose track. The traffic here in Los Angeles is one big ‘shit show’,” says the likeable Montafon native with a smile, looking back.

“When I started as a supervisor back then, I quickly realized that I was technically superior to everyone else. My problem was simply that I couldn’t make myself understood. I pushed my English to improve my communication as quickly as possible. That was it the key to success, because our Austrian training still enjoys an excellent reputation worldwide”, the passionate baker grants an insight into his career.

A woman from Montafon, who was very special to him, was the decisive factor in Peter Resch’s professional career: “Actually, it’s my grandmother’s fault in Vandans that I decided to do an apprenticeship as a baker. My parents were professional musicians and traveled a lot. That’s why I I spent a lot of time with my grandma and helped her to bake biscuits, cakes or strudels. That’s how I discovered my love for pastries and the art of baking bread.”

The baker noticed early on that Americans are very peculiar when it comes to food, especially when it comes to their soft spot for various types of bread. “In the USA, this bread, which is popular in our part of the world, is frowned upon. When I was a night shift supervisor, I worked on my own recipes. I then refined the wheat and rye sourdough that I had prepared at the time and implemented it in a somewhat more modern ‘California style’. Through the The whole thing came to a head during the pandemic. My bread became an absolute hit overnight and the company grew from 25 in 2020 to 110 employees now,” says the successful emigrant proudly. Since then, the annual turnover has increased tenfold and his company, which he also briefly guides in the video call, produces on an area of ​​2000 square meters.

The Montafoner, who set out to introduce the Americans to Austrian baking, can tell a real success story of a Vorarlberg emigrant in the land of unlimited opportunities.