CHARLOTTE, NC. — Charlotte bakery Amélie’s French Bakery and Café has announced the launch of a wholesale artisan bread kitchen, sending out the first bread orders this month. This bread service is extended to hospitality, retail and hotel brands with a goal of expanding to retail bread service in all the existing bakeries by the end of the year.

Amélie’s bread making team is led Joseph Feliz and includes Jamie Prentiss, Nova Bakery’s former business development director, to conduct the wholesale side of the bakery.

“This has been a dream of ours since I first met Joseph five years ago and understood his passion and expertise around great bread,” said Frank Reed, co-owner and chief executive officer of Amelie’s. “We’ve also benefited from some of the bakers in our existing bakeries that enjoy making pastries but their true passion was bread. Joseph is putting together a great team and the quality of the bread shows their love. When the folks at Nova Bakery retired, we were fortunate to be in a position to buy most of their bread making equipment and rent the space from them. We have completely renovated the bakery and equipment and are ready to go.”

Amélie’s team of bread bakers has spent the summer developing, testing and refining age-old recipes and new and exciting offerings, including sourdough, herb focaccia, baguettes, rosemary and kalamata olive, asiago and black pepper, cranberry pecan, roasted garlic and thyme potato.

“I am very excited to be bringing to Charlotte the high-quality European style breads I have spent a career making,” Mr. Feliz said. “This is going to be fun.”