Little Portion Bakery finding an eager market

Founder’s wife turns her granola recipe into a business to support the hermitage

Published: December 4, 2014

By Dwain Hebda
Little Rock Correspondent

Mark Shepler, courtesy Little Portion Hermitage

Members of the Little Portion Hermitage community combine ingredients for the day’s batch of baked goods. Little Portion Bakery, opened in 2013, is enjoying rapid growth heading into the Christmas season.

Mark Shepler, courtesy Little Portion Hermitage

Little Portion Bakery is running on all cylinders these days, given the holiday season and a sparkling new website showcasing the business’ line of all-natural baked goods.

The brainchild of Viola Talbot, wife of John Michael Talbot who founded Little Portion Hermitage in 1980 just outside of Eureka Springs, the bakery opened in 2013 offering Viola’s Granola, St. Anthony’s Hermit Bars and St. Clare’s Breakfast Cookies.

“I wanted to find something that we could do at home, that doesn’t take age, it just takes love and skill and prayer,” Viola said. “Those three ingredients go together with what we put in our granola and its being blessed by that.”

Little Portion Hermitage has never lacked for endeavors to support itself. But with the march of time and the aging of the community, some of the more physically demanding industries, like the now-discontinued agriculture operations, became harder to fulfill. Even parish missions and other events take their toll.

“I’ve been playing professionally since I was 10, I’ve been doing Christian music since I was about 19 and I’ve been doing Catholic music since I was about 25. Man, I have been out here beating the bushes for a long, long time,” said John Michael, 60. “I’m still out on the road today doing the TV show and doing all these other things. I’m getting older and I’m getting tired!”

Out of this, Viola, 74, started developing the idea for a bakery business. Over the course of about two years, she worked out recipes, secured suppliers and navigated regulatory channels. Initially, product was sold on premises or trucked along to John Michael’s missions and other appearances.

“Out here on the road, at the spiritual resource table, we also now have a section for the bakery,” he said. “Viola’s starting to outsell my DVDs, my books and my CD’s. In fact we usually sell out the first day.”

“It’s a very holy competition,” said Viola, pride beaming in her voice. “It has not been an easy road, I’ve run into many, many obstacles, but right now we’re above the obstacles.”

The recent introduction of the bakery’s website has only accelerated demand: Core items, both regular and gluten-free, are available a la carte or as gift packages.

“What I am also doing this year is Christmas boxes,” Viola said. “That gives people a way to help us while they do their Christmas shopping. We’re extending it to that level because it’s a win-win situation for everybody.”

“We get people giving us granola from Christian bakeries, Catholic bakeries, monastic bakeries, we get it all the time,” John Michael said. “But I got to tell you, and I’m telling you the truth, this is the best tasting stuff, especially the gluten free. It’s all natural, but it doesn’t taste like sand. It’s just jumping off the shelves.”

Prayer, as is printed right on the packaging, is an ever-present ingredient in the bakery and the goods it makes. Viola said it’s also what guides her in shepherding the venture’s growth, moreso than complicated marketing schemes or sales strategies. She’s not in much of a hurry to expand the product line or branch into different categories. For the Talbots, the formula for success is as simple as the ingredients in Viola’s signature granola: Make something exceptional, sell it and then make more.

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” John Michael said. “We are monastics and we do spend our time in prayer and study and in hotel rooms we play Gregorian chant music to try to make the place holy. But we also have been watching programs like ‘Shark Tank’ and ‘The Profit’ and stuff like that. And one of the things that comes out very clearly is keep your product line focused and small and do what you do well.”

The Talbots aren’t complete amateurs in matters of free enterprise. Thus, the products hit a number of today’s consumer hot buttons — all-natural, interesting back story, artisan product supporting a wider cause — marketed as tasty components of a physically and spiritually healthier lifestyle. A playfulness and authentic joy running through the marketing hype (“Ten out of ten hermits agree!” “Put a little heavenly spring in your step...”) helps set Little Portion apart.

So far, demand has built to keep the bakery humming five days a week, despite an original commitment to growing slowly so as to avoid debt. The sudden success has sent them scrambling to figure out how to make the most of the opportunity.

“We are aware that this could become something really, really big,” John Michael said. “And we don’t really want it to be that big. We would really prefer that it be something that is made in the monastery, by monastics who put love into the work. We don’t want it to become an industry, so it’s not a big, huge operation …”

“Not yet!” laughed Viola.