The “Sparrow feast” includes natural sourdough bread and desserts

“It all started with simple bread made from quality ingredients. Bread only requires time, flour, water, salt and leaven”, say Simona and Julius PETRAIČIAI, who opened a natural sourdough bakery in Klaipėda last September, where they bake several types of bread, buns, croissants and other delicacies. Vilnius residents have already tasted the baked goods of the young entrepreneurs, and not only they have remembered the company’s Lithuanian name “Žvirblio puota”. The State Language Inspectorate won the title of laureate in the sixteenth competition for the most beautiful company names “Sparrow Feast”.
The desire to eat healthy
The start of the young family business of S. and J. Petraičius in Klaipėda coincided with their establishment in a new house in the Klaipėda district and accompanying their son to the first grade. “I hardly remember two months. There was a lot of tension, issues related to moving, opening a workshop, and school,” Simona said now with a smile. When she started baking bread at home a few years ago, she had no idea that it would become a business. If it weren’t for fatherhood, as the family admitted, perhaps both would still be employed today. Simona’s desire to bake bread came from her desire to feed her children as healthy as possible. Neither the first attempts nor the failures did not disappoint, and the smell of baking bread spread more and more often in the house. The family hasn’t eaten it yet – during the year, strangers taste it when they run out of their own, and to prevent this from happening, they often freeze the cut slices and advise their customers to do so.
When baking bread, Simona tried both yeast and natural sourdough, until she decided that she would only bake with natural sourdough. As word spread about the woman’s home-baked bread, people wanted to buy it. In this way, a group of regular buyers was gradually formed. After opening the workshop, Simona bakes rye bread with malt, wheat with seeds, with cheddar, with cheddar and jalapeños, butter – a total of seven types. “Recently, we made it with olives and rosemary, but only a handful of customers were interested in this bread. Maybe we’ll bake it again someday,” said Julius. The family is happy that customers appreciate the bread they bake and they buy not once a week, but several, so the bread is always fresh in their home.
“Of course, our bread is more expensive, but a transformation is taking place, when some people understand that it is better to have less, but better quality, that a full refrigerator no longer shows the status that you live better, but rather pay attention to what you eat”, Julius noticed the changes in buyers. Not only individual customers are interested in the bread baked by Simona, but a cafe in Palanga and two cafes in Vilnius order it.

Those with a sweet tooth are also welcome
“Sparrow’s Feast” bakes not only bread, but also desserts: buns with cinnamon, marzipan, croissants with chocolate, a cookie-like delicacy named Nessainai, and as the holidays approach, more than one recipe is tested and special baked goods are presented to customers. Now trying recipes for Easter sweets. The owners of “Žvirblios puotas” entrusted the baking of desserts to Gabriela Velavičiūta, their former neighbor. The girl is interested in the recipes of sweets, uses the books of foreign bakeries, but does not follow them blindly, because the sugar content of many baked goods is such that it overshadows the taste. According to Julius, they reduce the amount of sugar in their baked goods by 2-3 times. Customers also become tasters – in order to understand the taste of customers, when baking a marzipan cake for Christmas, they gave it to them to taste.
“We bake like at home. Our buns with natural milk and eggs, not powder, are very filling,” said Simona about the baked goods that customers love, which makes them reluctant to come even on Saturday morning.
Although “Sparrow’s Feast” is a workshop, here you can drink coffee or tea with sweets while looking through the storefront windows at the trees in front. “I did not expect that someone would come here to buy. I imagined that I would be alone, only I would have more space than at home”, Simona smiled during the interview while forming the dough for buns. At first, the family planned to deliver baked goods to customers, just like when they baked at home, but… they ran out of hands, because so far only three are working.
Baking bread, growing leaven – a continuous process that cannot be postponed. “The big step was when we switched from kneading the dough by hand and bought a mixer for it. “When we started baking, I did everything with my hands, and after a few weeks of rolling I couldn’t raise my hands to take off my sweater,” recalled Simona, who was not intimidated by the hard physical work, nor did she know how it would turn out.
At the opening of “Sparrow Feast”, its owners were awarded not only with flowers, but also heard many beautiful words of gratitude from customers. Simona and Julius are convinced that it is necessary to create a community, that a closer relationship than between buyer and seller is very important, and a kind word, sincere encouragement is the best gift for anyone who is determined to start something new.
“We’ll see how it goes, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to do something in my life, going beyond my limits. I needed a lot of courage and sometimes now I don’t believe that we did it, that we didn’t swim downstream – I didn’t go back to my work, where there was no creativity, no interest”, admitted Simona, who constantly feels the support of her husband Julius, because who understands better than her own person .
Julius, who has experience in restaurant management, consults with Simona on all issues. Helpfulness and easy communication with people is the most important thing for both of them. Their goal is the distinctiveness and uniqueness of baked goods, and if anyone wants to, they can copy: “We each have our own vision, we don’t try to please everyone. The most important thing for us is baking bread, we have received offers to bake without gluten, with ayer, but for now we have our own style, our own range.” The owners of the cafe “Nuogne skane” operating in Kretinga also wished them not to lose themselves.
Contest winners
Recently, several drawings of a sparrow appeared on one of the walls in the “Sparrow Feast”. Their author is Janina Žiuznienė, Simona’s mother, who lives in Daukšaičiai, and is a former art teacher. She is also the author of the “Zvirblio puotas” logo, and the Lithuanian name of the company was dictated to Simona and Julius by the children’s song “Zvirblio puotaa”.
Encouraging entrepreneurs to choose Lithuanian, correct, interesting and original names on the occasion of the International Mother Language Day, the State Language Inspectorate organizes the competition for the most beautiful company names every year. This year it was held for the 16th time, and “Sparrow Feast” became the laureate. Simona and Julius admitted that they were surprised that the State Language Inspectorate noticed such a small company. “It’s nice that we, the winners of the competition, were invited to the Lithuanian National Library of Martynas Mažvydas, where a very nice event was held,” said Simona, holding the diploma for the beautiful Lithuanian name of the company in a visible place.
The evaluation of the “Sparrow feast” led to the organization of a similar competition in the district. This year, the Klaipėda district municipality commission and the public will choose the names of the most beautiful companies established in the district in the last two years. The laureates will be honored on May 7, the day of the recovery of the press, speech and book.
Laima ŠVEISTRYTĖ
Author’s and personal
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