Hannah Rossman started Blue Grouse Bread to bring a taste of home to the mountains of Colorado. Originally from Vermont, she grew up surrounded by bakeries that worked closely with locally grown grains. When she moved west in 2008, she struggled to find quality bread in the region.

“When you’re younger, you don’t realize it’s just not something every community has,” she explains. “I didn’t know how much I loved it until I missed it.”

Before founding Blue Grouse, Rossman worked as a farmer, in restaurants, at farmers markets, and as a pastry chef. But she kept returning to whole grain bread—something she saw as both everyday nourishment and deeply tied to place.

What began as a small operation, baking just 10 to 12 loaves at a time, has since grown into a wholesale bakery serving the Western Slop with hundreds of loaves each day.

“When I started, I wish I’d known it would work out,” Rossman explains. “I wish someone would have told me that you’ll be fine in three years.

She started Blue Grouse with her cousin, Ben Rossman. He led the charge in the kitchen while she learned bookkeeping. With no formal business background, it was trial by fire. 

“Luckily, I was the fiscally conservative one, and he was the risk taker,” she says.

Rossman also credits much of their early success to Blair Marvin and Andrew Heyn of Elmore Mountain Bread. The couple runs a wood fired bakery in Elmore, Vermont — the town where Rossman grew up. They also own New American Stone Mills, which builds and sells stone mills around the world.

“They have a business model that is similar to what I wanted to create,” Rossman explains. “They bake in the middle of the woods and send delicious bread out all over.”

“Blair and Andrew held our hands as we built the business,” she continues. “They helped us decide how big the oven should be and the size of the bakery. We owe so much of our ability to launch at the size and scale we did to them.”

From the start, however, Rossman knew she wanted to prioritize Colorado grains and whole grain bread. Her background as a farmer shaped her commitment to supporting regional grain growers, along with her belief in the nutrition and flavor of whole grains.

Today, Blue Grouse keeps its menu intentionally simple: one country loaf, one seeded loaf, one baguette, and several rotating varieties. In the country loaf, “we try to sneak in as much whole grain as possible,” Rossman says. The baguette, however, remains mostly white flour.

“White flour isn’t really serving us in any way except that it’s pure magic, like a special treat,” she adds.

Customers seem to agree. These days, Blue Grouse bakes roughly 600-800 loaves three times a week.

“I can so distinctly remember our first biggest bake,” Rossman says. “At the time, that was 500 loaves, and now 500 loaves is a mellow day.”

Reaching that level of stability was not without challenges. Like many businesses, Blue Grouse had to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Demand for bread remained strong throughout the shutdowns, but Rossman worried about her employees’ health—and she was pregnant at the time.

“I was working the oven until I was seven months pregnant,” she recalls. “Even though I think we’re going into a new round of challenges with the economy, with high commodity and gas prices, it’s not as hard as being seven months pregnant and running all of that.”

Today, Rossman takes pride in how far the business has come. She has gone from working six or seven days a week to four. The staff has grown from just two people to a thriving team, and one employee, Colby Brown, has become a business partner. Over time, she has shifted from doing nearly everything herself to building a business supported by capable colleagues and a strong community.

Looking ahead, Rossman hopes to sustain the bakery’s success while creating even greater stability for her employees and strengthening relationships with local farmers.

“And to get more people to buy our one hundred percent whole grain loaves,” she adds.