Mavia Bakery was initially established under the umbrella of a small nonprofit organization called Sadalsuud. The bakery began first as a school to teach women new skills, such as how to make artisanal sourdough bread, with the goal of later integrating them into a professional kitchen.

While Mavia began as a means to provide economic opportunities to vulnerable women, with the ultimate goal was to fund Sadalsuud’s Arabic literacy class for girls through the bakery sales.

Soon after, the bakery began to gain a lot of popularity of the quality of its bread, which sought from the beginning to integrate local grains and stone-milled flour into the formulas. In 2020, we moved into our current corner of Gemmayze, which became our base of operations.

We continue to promote biodiversity and healthy food systems by growing local wheat varieties without chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and milling much of our own flour we use in the bakery.

In the years since we first started, we have grown our bread offerings and expanded our production. We cater bread and desserts to various local cafes and bars, and have even launched our woodfired sourdough Friday pizza nights. At the moment, we continue to break bread and desserts, and serve brunch on Saturdays.