In 1996, Patrick, together with his brother Gary, and best buddy John Ayers, built the bakery into the back of the old Keene Farmhouse.

Patrick’s Artisan Bakery is a state-of-the-art facility built into an old-world, Vermont hilltop farmhouse and setting. The bakery space is light and airy and a wonderful space to spend a day – or a night! The bakery is a high-production facility in a small package. It was designed and built as a small-batch pretzel bakery, but it has performed incredibly well as a small batch but high-volume granola bakery, as well.

In 1997, after developing delicious hard pretzels, Patrick launched a line of chocolate-covered hard pretzels. Those pretzels were a huge hit and sold at Hunger Mountain Co-op for a few years.

For years, Patrick worked with refugees and asylum seekers (more about this on his website). During that time, he co-packed granola one day a week for a granola company. He also produced his chocolate covered pretzels.

In 2011 Patrick dove back into the bakery fulltime and focused on pretzels again – this time a line of soft pretzels. For a few years Patrick sold his pretzels at the Capital City and Burlington Farmers’ markets. When he started to retail his pretzels, Hunger Mountain Co-op was his first soft pretzel account.

In 2018, Sean and Karen Lawson reached out to see about including Patrick’s pretzels on the menu as they launched their new brewery and taproom. This has led to a wonderful collaboration between Green Mountain Twisters and Lawson’s Finest Liquids that continues to this day.

About 10 years ago, Patrick began World’s Finest Granola. The rest is history!

Patrick grew up as the fifth child (of six) in an amazing, dynamic, and loving Italian-American family, and the child hours were full of wild lands and animals. His Italian Grandma, Theresa, was a baker and passed the tradition on to the entire family. Patrick watched, learned, and helped her. His love for baking became a fixture in his life.

Recently, Patrick answered some questions for us:

What is next for you and your business?

For Green Mountain Twisters: I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing – continuing the quest to perfect my pretzels. There are always offers to grow, go big, and increase production and distribution. Perhaps this will happen someday but probably not under my watch.

For World’s Finest Granola: We are growing and having fun managing issues related to this growth. We will be building an addition to the bakery this year to provide more space for packaging and storage. I feel incredibly fortunate to work together with my buddy and granola baker Dave.

What is your guiding philosophy in business?

My guiding philosophy is to be kind, open, generous, engaged in community and world, human and environmental issues and events, and letting my business and products be an expression of the love, joy, integrity, and happiness that we hold so dear. Also, not to let other expectations or even excitement in our products define the scale or direction of the business. We need to keep it real, manageable, and healthy for ourselves and the crew.

Over the years, I have resisted outside offers and suggestions to grow Green Mountain Twisters beyond my own micro-scale. It’s a question of lifestyle and a passion for that well-integrated life. At this point, I don’t want to have to leave home to work. Some days, during midday or afternoon bake sessions, I’ll mix a batch of dough, take the pup for a walk, or work in the gardens or in the woods. My baking is fully integrated into my life here at Keene Farm.

What makes your products unique and different?

Green Mountain Twisters: I find it impossible to find a good quality pretzel – especially soft pretzels. Pretzels have gained a reputation as a bit of a gimmick snack food.

For the past 27 years I have made it my baking mission to improve the quality of pretzels – returning them to a respected and honored ”craft” status. My means of doing this has been to dive deep into every aspect and detail of pretzel production, including ingredients, process, and production. For decades now, I have worked to improve the quality of my pretzels every time that I bake. The learnings in the early years were huge. Now, after 27 years, the changes and improvements are very nuanced – probably imperceivable to anyone else. Every time that I bake, I learn a tiny bit more and make incremental changes. For decades now, my pretzel baking has been a practice. Early morning bake sessions are a meditation.

World’s Finest Granola: We have our own style, our own process and have a few tricks up our sleeves! We bake granola differently than other granola companies. Our flavors are unique, and we strive to have very fresh products on the shelves. At Hunger Mountain Co-op, our granola is only a week or two old – often just a day or two.

We use the highest quality ingredients – primarily organic. Our three original flavors are certified organic. I believe that the energy we put into the food helps to define the outcome and quality of the product.

We have a tradition on the granola baking crew that before baking for the day we sit and have coffee or tea and have a good check in with each other. Besides checking in about how we each are doing, it’s a chance to shed any stressors before we start baking granola. My bakery is a “Stress-Free Zone!” At the same time, our bake days are rich in discussing many issues and sharing endless stories and life experiences. We have been so fortunate to have had amazing folks work on the granola crews.

What is your favorite thing about what you do? 

Waking at 3 am to start my bake day! Also, my daily relationship with my sourdough.

Being able to work with such wonderful people – from distributors and delivery folks, buyers, store staff, to meeting many of my customers as I make deliveries to Hunger Mountain Co-op.

And, of course, my beloved pups – Penzi (until 2010) and Zawie who is a love-pup and jokester and can be seen on our granola labels.

What would you like people to know about you? 

I feel very fortunate to have had a unique and kind of quirky life. There are some details on my website.