Last year, Kelli Kloss made a large amount of pastries and goods to sell at The Farm at Rocky Top’s spring market.

It was less than a year since the former stay-at-home mom began working again as she tried to get her baking business, Mon Petit Pain, French for “My Little Bread,” off the ground.

This was a two-day market, so Kloss baked many items ahead of time. She was prepared to sell a lot of fresh bread, bagels and brownies.

But not long after the market began, the sky opened up and rain began to pour.

Kloss went home to Opelika with a car full of 40 to 50 loaves of bread, 10 four-pack cinnamon rolls, 18 four-pack muffins and 40 large single brownies.

This weather event risked translating into a big loss for a new small business.

Desperate, Kloss turned to social media and her local community. She told her story and offered a discount for people to come and purchase baked goods from her home.

“It went insane,” Kloss told the Ledger-Enquirer. “That made me cry because I sold everything. People came to my house and picked up bags after bags.”

This experience, early in her efforts to grow Mon Petit Pain, helped Kloss find herself as a business owner in an area that, she realized, was looking for fresh food with clean ingredients.

Kloss has remained committed to clean eating and supporting other small businesses in the Opelika area as she has expanded Mon Petit Pain’s presence in Columbus at The Food Mill.

A dream that began in Belgium

Kloss spent her early childhood growing up in Belgium.

Her mother lived in the country because her grandfather was stationed there in the U.S. Army. Kloss’ maternal side of her family is from Kentucky.

Kloss’ father is Belgian, and Kloss grew up as a Belgian citizen until she was 16 years old, when she and her mother moved to the United States and lived in Tennessee.

While attending school in Belgium, she took culinary classes.

“I loved baking then,” she said. “My dream was to become a baker.”

After they moved to Tennessee, Kloss went down a different path. She worked as a bartender for 15 years. It was a profession she stumbled upon as a shy person, Kloss said, but the job taught her how to be more outgoing and a “people person.”

As she got older, married and had children, the nightlife became less appealing.

Her husband is from the Opelika area, Kloss said. After he left the Army in 2008, the family moved to Opelika from Tennessee in 2010.

“It’s so amazing,” she said. “And it’s great for the kids and so pretty.”

In 2018, Kloss became a stay-at-home mom for their three children. She implemented clean eating for her family to improve their health.

“My daughter was having a little bit of health issues,” she said, “and I have lupus, so I was doing some research on how to help my body. It turns out, clean eating has a big impact.”

This involved lowering the amount of sugar they were eating, gardening, canning and baking.

When she began baking again, Kloss remembered how much she loved it. She started sharing her baked goods with friends, who encouraged her to sell them.

“That was about a year ago,” she said. “And it’s been kind of a whirlwind since then.”

Partnering with other local businesses and The Food Mill

Kloss started off small, selling a few loaves of bread a week and participating in markets.

While selling her Mon Petit Pain product this way, a manager at The Food Mill purchased her bread.

The Food Mill, a Columbus restaurant and organization that aims to decrease food insecurity while promoting healthy eating, offered to carry Kloss’ bread.

“I got to learn about their business model,” she said. “And I really liked the idea of helping with food scarcity.”

Beginning last October, Kloss has been selling some of her bread and bagels at The Food Mill, which also offers other products, like sugar-free syrups, from local small businesses.

Kloss’ bagels also are used in their kitchen, The Food Mill catering manager April Rodgers told the L-E.

“It’s delicious,” Rodgers said. “It doesn’t seem too sweet or sour. They’re really soft.”

Kloss also plans to teach a class for Jordan Vocational High School career technical instruction (CTI) students, Rodgers said, who come to The Food Mill to take classes. CTI students have health challenges that make it harder for them to learn in a classroom.

Kloss, who volunteered to participate in the program, will soon teach students baking techniques and other cooking skills.

“They’re teaching them things that I’m teaching my children in homeschool,” Kloss said. “And I think that’s amazing.”

In Opelika, Kloss partnered with a local restaurant called Las Latinas to sell her products there. Las Latinas, for a time, also offered a space for her to leave orders for her customers to pick up.

This system is changing somewhat, Kloss said, because Las Latinas plans to close its front door. The restaurant still will be operating, but it will be different.

“I’m still doing pre-orders weekly, holiday pre-orders and events,” Kloss said.

Customers may visit the Mon Petit Pain Facebook page to find more information about how to order her baked goods.

As the baking business grows, Kloss and her family have learned how to transition away from her role as a stay-at-home mom, now that their old routine has shifted.

“We keep thinking as stay-at-home moms that we don’t do enough,” she said. “We’re very critical of ourselves.”

Kloss has learned to delegate more things and give her kids more responsibilities, she said.

“My children are older,” she said, “and they’re old enough to understand, ‘Hey, I’m not going to be there for this and that you are in charge.’”

Kloss advises other stay-at-home moms who might consider starting a business or reentering the workforce to start slow and take it one step at a time.

“Don’t rush it because that’s the part that gets overwhelming,” she said. “I’ve had to learn to say no.”

Kloss remains committed to giving back to her local community through helping with charity events and donations, inspired by the help she received from them last spring.

“I do feel like I want to keep giving back, while my community is supporting me,” Kloss said. “So, anyone who needs help with that, feel free to reach out. I’m more than happy to do things like that.”

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