NEENAH, Wis. (WFRV) – Ed Jervis spent two decades serving his country, and even after 20 years of service time, he’s still not done providing, albeit in a different manner—breadmaking, or ‘bred’making as he calls it.
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Jervis served 20 years in the Army, being deployed on multiple occasions. During his first six years, he was deployed three times to Iraq during his time with the 82nd Airborne Divison. Jervis says he retired from the service in April, but that’s not when his breadmaking started.
That journey began about five years ago in what Jervis jokingly called the ‘stereotypical’ fashion—during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people found random new hobbies. But it started with a gift that his mother-in-law gave to his wife.
“In 2020, we moved to Texas and we were closer to my wife’s family, and her mother gifted her a sourdough starter hoping they’d bond over it,” Jervis said. “But my wife jokingly wanted nothing to do with anything in the kitchen, specifically that.”
Jervis said he had started working from home for a while while his unit was quarantined, and when he started playing with it, it was like therapy, and it took off.
“I ran into an old army buddy from my time in the 82nd who ended up living about 40 minutes from us, he was the one who convinced me,” Jervis said. “He was like, ‘hey, this is good stuff, you need to share this with the world,’ and that’s where it kind of started.”
Jervis says that while it’s a passion, it’s not his full-time job, as he’s an instructor at Plexus, citing his ongoing desire to teach people, which he did as a drill sergeant in the army. But he still takes it seriously, baking in a home kitchen far more professional than you could imagine in a house.
“It started out just as a normal home kitchen, normal home oven and everything like that,” Jervis said. “This commercial oven that I got was my retirement gift to myself this year. It was a struggle trying to put 100 loaves through a regular house oven a day for farmers’ markets.”
Being a father of two, Jervis said that his desire to operate ‘Eds Breds’ out of his own home stemmed from his desire to be there for them after being in the Army took a lot of time away.
“Running a business out of my house that I enjoy, I get to see them all the time,” Jervis said. “Obviously, you get to spend time with them and they actually love it.”
Why Wisconsin, though? Especially for somebody like Jervis, who had absolutely no ties to the area? He says it’s because of his family and the desire to find a place to remind him of the small town in Germany they lived in during his time overseas.
“When we had to leave after four years, it was the first time all four of us were homesick,” Jervis said. “Our goal was to find somewhere that reminded us of that area, and we came and visited here four years ago because we were looking into Green Bay.”
Jervis says that whenever his family travels, they visit a local yarn shop because of his wife, and the only one that was open during any visit—was in downtown Neenah.
“We talked with the owners of that yarn shop, and that was the defining moment,” Jervis said. “We were like, ‘this is where we need to retire to, this is where we need to move.’”
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Jervis, born and raised in Philadelphia, has traveled all over the place, from Columbia, South Carolina, to Germany, to Texas, to countless other places, but now his life and heart reside here in northeast Wisconsin, with Ed’s Breds serving up doughy goodness.
