For the team at Old Church Bakery, slapping down a massive vat of thick, yeasty dough on a floured countertop, ready to be kneaded and pulled, is just another Tuesday on the job.
For the bakery’s legions of followers on Instagram, a video of such a task serves as a comforting window into the Nancy Meyers-esque job—one that has garnered a staggering number of eyeballs.
“It just kept getting bigger,” said Megan Dueck, the bakery’s general manager.
The video in question was posted in August of 2023—a century ago in Internet years.
Baker Josiah is shown unleashing a massive container of raw chocolate cherry sourdough on the bakery’s count before giving it a satisfying little jiggle. It’s all scored by the already Instagram-popular soundtrack of Brenton Wood’s “The Oogum Boogum Song.”
Dueck knew to choose the viral sound to rise—(forgive a few baking puns)—the video’s views and likes.
Still, she wasn’t expecting it to reach over 35 million views in the years since.
“That was exciting. It was more than I expected, of course, and I post on our Instagram mostly for our community so yeah, it was kind of surprising.”
That’s putting it mildly.
The bakery’s Instagram following has reached 154,000 users– over nine times the size of Steinbach, the Manitoba city whose Main Street houses the booming business.
The chocolate cherry sourdough wasn’t a one-off, either. A baker’s dozen of Dueck’s Instagram videos have surpassed the one million view mark.
Pop star Jason Derulo even shared some of the bakery’s content with his 41.1 million subscribers on YouTube, scored with his own music, of course.
So how does the little bakery that could reach such repetitive viral heights?
Whether cutting into a bananas foster cruffin or drizzling impossibly rich chocolate ganache over a Valentine’s Day cake, Dueck cherry-picks content that scratches a certain itch that the Internet is hungry for.
“It’s really satisfying to see how different things are made. If you’re someone who likes to bake at home but haven’t chosen it as a profession, it’s cool to get a little bit of an inside scoop as to what that profession is like.”
The likes and views have whipped up sales, too.
While many of the bakery’s followers live in other countries, most of whom will never try a slice of its cappuccino cheesecake or buy a loaf of its smoked gouda and caramelized onion sourdough, Dueck said plenty of customers have driven hours to give Old Church Bakery a taste.
In fact, the bakery has maxed out its current space. The Main Street location doesn’t have the room to bake and store enough to feed the hungry masses, much less provide a place for them to sit, eat and enjoy.
In the months to come, Dueck and the team will pack up their aprons and mixers. The bakery announced plans to move in the spring to a space that’s square footage can accommodate the bakery’s rising popularity, including those who have travelled far and wide to eat the pastries they salivated over on their screens.
“Right now, if you’ve driven out, you’ve just got to go eat your croissant in the car, and it’s just, the experience is a little bit different,” she said.
“In the new space, we wanted to have a lot more area for people to come and have it be a destination worth visiting for more than just a good coffee and a pastry.”
