Real Sourdough. From a Starter We've Fed for 35+ Years.
No commercial yeast. No vinegar shortcuts. No dough conditioners. Just flour, water, starter, salt and time — with a living culture that is older than the company itself. This is the sourdough program built for operators who want the real thing at scale.
Every loaf traces back to one jar.
At the heart of every Crestone sourdough is our original mother starter — a living culture more than 35 years old. It predates the company itself, and its lineage is traceable further back still. A dedicated starter crew feeds it every single day; our Texas bakery alone builds 24,000+ lbs of starter daily. Most industrial "sourdough" begins with purchased dehydrated brick starter — that's powdered milk, not milk. We make it the old-fashioned way: flour, water, wild culture, time.
"You can't shortcut thirty-five years of fermentation."
Most "sourdough" on the shelf isn't sourdough.
The category has a dirty secret. To hit industrial speed and cost, many large bakeries make what insiders call "sourfaux" — bread engineered to taste tangy without ever being naturally leavened. Here's how the two actually differ.
Industrial "Sourfaux"
- Leavened with fast commercial/instant yeast for speed
- Sourness faked with added vinegar, citric, lactic, or acetic acid
- Dough conditioners, emulsifiers and preservatives to push throughput
- Fermented in a few hours — flavor and texture never develop
- Built from purchased dehydrated "brick" starter by the bag
- Long, chemical-sounding ingredient list
Crestone Naturally Leavened
- Leavened by our 35+ year-old wild starter — no commercial yeast added
- Sour comes from real fermentation, never from added acids or flavors
- No dough conditioners, no preservatives — clean label
- Over 24 hours of slow fermentation — no shortcuts, no fast-dough enzymes
- Starter built daily in-house from flour, water and wild culture
- Four ingredients: flour, water, starter, salt
If the ingredient list has yeast and vinegar, it was never sourdough. Ours has neither.
Slow bread, made on purpose.
- Step 1
Feed the starter
A dedicated starter crew feeds our 35+ year-old mother culture every single day — our Texas bakery alone builds 24,000+ lbs of starter daily.
- Step 2
Mix & autolyse
Flour, water, starter and salt. The dough rests so the flour fully hydrates and structure begins to organize on its own.
- Step 3
Long, slow fermentation
Over 24 hours of natural fermentation — no shortcuts, no fast-dough enzymes. Bread spends roughly 15 hours on racks, with about 200 racks in process at any given time.
- Step 4
Score & bake
Hand-scored and baked to a deep, blistered, caramelized crust. Then delivered fresh, par-baked, or frozen — your call.
Everything today's guest is looking for — in one loaf.
Sourdough is the fastest-growing bread on menus and shelves for a reason. Naturally leavened bread lines up with almost every clean-eating trend at once — and ours is engineered to check every box.
Four Ingredients
Our core sourdough is flour, water, starter and salt — nothing else. A spec sheet a buyer can read in one line, and a label shoppers trust on sight.
The Traditional Way
Long, slow, natural fermentation — the way sourdough was made for centuries. Over 24 hours, no shortcuts, no fast-dough enzymes.
Clean Label & Non-GMO
Our sourdough line: no dough conditioners, no preservatives, with non-GMO ingredients available on request. Exactly what retail and foodservice buyers want on a spec sheet today.
Crestone sourdough is a traditional wheat bread. It is not gluten-free and is not suitable for people with celiac disease.
One starter. A whole shelf of sourdough.
Classic White Sourdough
Our signature naturally leavened loaf — open crumb, mild tang, deep caramelized crust. Boules, batards, sliced pans and sandwich formats.
Cracked Wheat Sourdough
Whole-grain character and a nutty, hearty chew from the same wild starter as our classic loaf.
Whole Wheat Sourdough
A full whole-wheat naturally leavened loaf — earthy, sturdy and built for sandwich and retail programs.
Jalapeño Cheddar Sourdough
Real cheddar and roasted jalapeños folded into the naturally leavened base. Production-ready and a proven grab-and-go and deli-case favorite.
Poblano & Aged Cheddar Sourdough
Roasted poblano turns the crumb golden, with a smoother, deeper pepper flavor and aged cheddar throughout.
Sourdough Rye (Kosher)
A wild-fermented rye produced as a kosher-certified program for retail, deli and foodservice accounts that require it.
Roasted Garlic Sourdough
Sweet, mellow roasted garlic carried all the way through a naturally leavened crumb.
Multigrain Sourdough
Our starter plus a hearty blend of whole grains, topped with golden flaxseed instead of sesame — wholesome and clean-label friendly.
Custom Sourdough
Have a signature loaf in mind? Our culinary R&D team develops custom naturally leavened sourdough to your spec — shape, weight, inclusions, crust and format.
Want a loaf that changes with the season? The Seasonal Rotation Program.
Keep your year-round sourdough SKUs and dedicate one slot to the season. Pick 3–5 seasonal loaves a year from our 40-loaf menu — or have our R&D team design your own — and we handle the calendar, artwork and spec transitions.
Fresh, par-baked, or frozen — same starter, same soul.
Fresh Daily
Baked and delivered fresh on our Southern California and Dallas–Fort Worth routes — shelf-ready sourdough with nothing to finish.
Par-Baked
Freezer-to-oven loaves your team finishes for that just-baked crust and aroma at the point of sale. Ideal for in-store bakery and deli.
Frozen
Fully baked and frozen for nationwide distribution and long code dates — naturally leavened sourdough that ships anywhere.
Artisan character. Industrial consistency.
Naturally leavened doesn't have to mean unpredictable. We run our sourdough out of two SQF-certified bakeries with the same starter lineage and the same specs, so the loaf a buyer approves is the loaf that ships — every order, every location. That's the hard part of sourdough, and it's exactly what we do.
Sourdough questions, answered.
Bring real sourdough to your menu.
Tell us the variety, format and volume you're after — we'll send samples and connect you with a program manager within one business day.
- Direct response from a bakery program manager, not a generic inbox.
- Culinary R&D team available for custom development.
- SQF-certified production at both facilities.