A New York rye.
A New Jersey bakery.
Pechter's has baked traditional Jewish rye since 1880. The bakery grew from horse-drawn wagons to one of New York's great independent bread companies, and today bakes the same sour rye in Harrison, New Jersey, for delis, diners and grocers across the state.
Pechter's through the years
A New York bread story: the family bakery, the Brooklyn years, and the Harrison bakery that carries the name today.
01 / New York beginnings
The first loaves
Pechter's dates its founding to 1880, when the Pechter family begins baking traditional Jewish rye in New York. Dark, heavy ryes and pumpernickels on a sour starter, for the neighborhoods that grew up on them.
Horse-drawn wagons, then electric trucks
Deliveries start by horse and wagon. Pechter's becomes one of the first commercial bakeries to switch its fleet to Edison electric trucks.
02 / The Brooklyn years
Brooklyn
Having outgrown its original Manhattan bakery, Pechter's buys the former Ward Baking plant at 800 Pacific Street in Brooklyn. The ovens there turn out dark ryes and pumpernickels, white bread, kaiser rolls, egg bread, layer cakes, bialys and bagels, with sister plants in the Bronx and Westchester and the Harrison Baking Company in New Jersey. At its height the company runs more than 1,000 employees and hundreds of delivery trucks.
Explaining the bagel
When a drivers' strike hits the Brooklyn plant, The New York Times has to tell its readers what Pechter's makes: a bagel is a kind of hard roll with a hole in the center.
Pechter Field's
Pechter's merges with another New York bakery to form Pechter Field's and keeps baking on Pacific Street.
Brooklyn closes, Harrison carries on
One of the last independent bakeries in the New York area closes the aging Pacific Street plant. The rye and the Pechter's name continue at the Harrison, New Jersey bakery.
03 / Harrison carries on
The Battaglia family
The Battaglia brothers, owners of Rockland Bakery, buy Pechter's Bakery in Harrison and keep the name, the rye and the routes, now with the reach of a regional wholesale bakery behind it.
A modern facility
Baking moves to a modern facility in Harrison, built for today's volume. The rye recipe does not change.
700+ products, 1,300+ wholesale accounts
Rye and pumpernickel, artisan breads, rolls and buns, bagels, muffins, pastry, cookies and cakes, plus five partner bakeries' lines, out our doors every morning to wholesale customers throughout New Jersey, Monday to Saturday and Sundays to select areas.
The rye, the bakery, the morning route.
Old-world sour rye
Caraway through and through, with the hearty crumb, crisp crust and distinctive tang that made the name.
Baked in Harrison, NJ
840 Jersey Avenue, where everything on the route is baked, packed and loaded for next-morning delivery to delis, diners and grocers throughout New Jersey.
Delivered the morning it was baked
Out our doors before dawn, Monday to Saturday and Sundays to select areas, to wholesale customers throughout New Jersey.
Put Pechter's on your counter.
Wholesale accounts for delis, restaurants, grocers and food service throughout New Jersey.