A home baker from Morocco finds her place in a commercial kitchen
Hot Bread Kitchen graduate Latifa Habti took her home baking knowledge and turned it into a career with Whole Foods Market.
Growing up in Morocco, Latifa was surrounded by baking bread and big family meals. Her sister is known to make excellent m’smen, the Moroccan flatbread that’s best served with mint tea and honey.
Latifa immigrated to the United States in 2010 on a visa to be with her husband, who ran a small grocery store in their South Brooklyn neighborhood. She would help out in the shop from time to time, learning English along the way. Usually, her days were spent cooking Moroccan and Jordanian food for her large family- her husband, sisters, nieces, and nephews.
During her first few years in New York, Latifa picked up odd jobs in addition to working at her husband’s grocery. She enrolled in a one-month home health aide training course and for two years, Latifa worked as a home health aide, working no more than 10 hours a week and earning very little. In 2015, her husband shut down the grocery and Latifa felt the pressure to earn more for her family. “That’s why I came to Hot Bread Kitchen — to find work. Nobody gives you a chance,” Latifa says.
Two graduates of Hot Bread Kitchen told Latifa about the Culinary Training program and she was accepted in December of 2015. Because of her experience baking and cooking at home, and her drive to learn and earn, Latifa moved through the program quickly — mastering how to mix, shape, and bake over 70 different types of bread.
She significantly improved her English too, learning the names and shapes of bread and kitchen-specific vocabulary. Latifa said that Hot Bread Kitchen opened the door for her to work in the culinary industry and gave her the opportunity that no one else was willing to give her. “I didn’t think about what I was going to do, I just found Hot Bread Kitchen, and now I am a baker,” Lafita reflects.
Latifa is now employed full-time on the bakery team at Whole Foods Market in Williamsburg where she works independently overnight to produce over 350 pounds of dough daily. Support from the training team and opportunities for mock interviews landed Latifa an interview with Whole Foods Market as they opened up the Brooklyn location. “The training team helped me prepare for the interview and my confidence,” Latifa says.
Latifa joined the bakery team at Whole Foods Market Williamsburg when the store opened in 2016, and is thriving. As an overnight baker, Latifa is responsible for mixing and baking breads like focaccia, sourdough, and Italian breads that are sold in the store daily. She has also been responsible for training new team members, including Shyritta, another Hot Bread Kitchen graduate.
Whole Foods Market has been a critical hiring partner at Hot Bread Kitchen since 2014, hiring over 23 graduates and placing products from our culinary incubator businesses on the shelves across all New York City stores. “We continue to help [graduates] grow with Whole Foods Market, help them move on to leadership roles,” says Christina Minardi, Global Executive Vice President at Whole Foods Market. “My connection with Hot Bread Kitchen is not just about food; it’s also about women — supporting women in business and supporting immigrants and supporting people as they come to the United States and helping them grow.”
“We look forward to growing alongside Whole Foods Market,” says Karen Bornarth, Head of Workforce Development at Hot Bread Kitchen. “As they continue to open stores in the region, they create many job opportunities for the graduates of our training program. We look forward to placing more people with Whole Foods Market, in all departments, and seeing them advance into leadership roles.”
Now that Latifa has gained experience and expertise in bread baking over the past three years, she is looking for opportunities to expand her skill set, like extra pastry courses to learn cake making and decorating to grow in her career at Whole Foods Market.
As the primary breadwinner for her family, Latifa is happy she found Hot Bread Kitchen and has referred many of her neighbors and friends to the program. “I like working with Hot Bread Kitchen. We’re like family.”
Hot Bread Kitchen creates economic opportunity through careers in food. For more information, visit hotbreadkitchen.org.
