The Good Crust, a Canaan-based food business, sells pizza dough to grocery stores, institutions, and restaurants throughout Maine. Heather Kerner founded the company in 2020 to make dough from local grains and to create a workforce development program to employ Mainers with cognitive and physical differences. The flour is sourced from Heather’s twin sister Amber Lambke’s company Maine Grains.
The dough is currently sold to 200 wholesale customers, including 27 school districts and Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital, the University of Maine at Machias, and the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Wholesale customers can purchase frozen dough balls and pre-sheeted dough rounds of various sizes, enabling dining staff to easily add their own toppings to create nutritious, homemade pizza.
Kerner, who has been an occupational therapist for 26 years, currently employs 15 people on the dough-packing team who may have difficulty finding employment, including those with cerebral palsy, autism, traumatic brain injury, as well as those in recovery for addiction. Visit The Good Crust to learn more about the company, their Friday night pizza takeout, or to order pizza dough for your institution.
To learn more about Maine’s Local Foods Procurement Program, and how to help Maine’s state-funded institutions achieve farm-to-institution goals, reach out to Brittany Peats, Maine DACF Institutional Market Development Coordinator: brittany.peats@maine.gov.
