Behind the scenes of huge KC bakery whose sweets supply coffee shops across the metro

Natalie Wallington
·4 min read

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Scratch KC is the most prolific bakery in Kansas City that you may never have heard of.

While it has no retail location of its own, the wholesale bakery provides pastries and grab-and-go goods for more than 200 spots around the metro, including coffee shops like Made in KC Cafe, Rochester Brewing and Roasting Company, Front Range, Cafe Corazón, Summer Moon Coffee, Mother Earth Coffee and many more.

From the outside, Scratch’s headquarters is an unassuming brick building on an industrial block in North Kansas City. But inside, it’s a whirlwind of delicious activity, with dozens of bakers in hairnets and aprons bustling around giant mixers, dough rollers, prep tables and a funnel-shaped batter extruder.

The pastry room of Scratch KC, one of Kansas City’s largest wholesale bakeries. It provides baked goods for over 200 Kansas City area businesses.
The pastry room of Scratch KC, one of Kansas City’s largest wholesale bakeries. It provides baked goods for over 200 Kansas City area businesses.

The operation looks enormous to an outsider. But to the bakery’s CEO, Brad Killen, it’s more like a before photo compared to the massive expansion he has planned for the coming years.

“We’ll be moving out of this space in the next 18 to 24 months,” he said. “We keep rearranging, because we’re growing in massive, massive ways.”

A worker lifts one of many 50 pound bags of flour to storage at Scratch KC. The North Kansas City facility produces about 40,000 pastries and sweets a day.
A worker lifts one of many 50 pound bags of flour to storage at Scratch KC. The North Kansas City facility produces about 40,000 pastries and sweets a day.

The bakery currently sends out around 40,000 pastry items every day — but Killen is thinking even bigger.

He’s in talks with a yet-undisclosed partner in St. Louis to produce cheesecakes and the city’s signature gooey butter cakes by January 2025.

Packages of protein balls — the bakery’s most popular item — may soon hit grocery shelves around the Midwest.

And every year, customers inundate the business with requests for whole pies around the holidays and fresh bread year-round.

Kat Workman, Scratch KC’s vice president of production, folds sugar into an industrial-sized mixer. Some of the bakery’s top products include energy balls, cookies and, around the holidays, pies.
Kat Workman, Scratch KC’s vice president of production, folds sugar into an industrial-sized mixer. Some of the bakery’s top products include energy balls, cookies and, around the holidays, pies.
A bucket of eggs waits to be added to a batter at Scratch KC.
A bucket of eggs waits to be added to a batter at Scratch KC.
Production manager Christian Engelage applies a dusting of flour onto pastry dough at Scratch KC.
Production manager Christian Engelage applies a dusting of flour onto pastry dough at Scratch KC.

Scratch started in 2013 as a solution to what Killen saw as a problem in Kansas City’s coffee shop community: Nobody was selling really good cookies.

Killen wasn’t much of a home baker — “I really only made banana bread,” he says with a laugh — but he quickly advanced from baking at Opera House Cafe & Food Emporium in the River Market to baking in the evenings for wholesale clients out of SoHo Cafe’s kitchens downtown.

Eventually he and his colleagues bought SoHo Cafe’s space, and have been growing ever since into the massive wholesale operation they run today in the Northland. The bakery now offers over 100 different items to a massive list of wholesale clients, and is quickly expanding its shipping footprint beyond just the Kansas City metro.

Production baker Jolynn Stevens pours brownie batter into a baking tray at Scratch KC in North Kansas City.
Production baker Jolynn Stevens pours brownie batter into a baking tray at Scratch KC in North Kansas City.
Erin Rodda, a baker at Scratch KC, pulls freshly baked pumpkin cheesecake muffins out of the oven. The finished product will cool and then be packaged for delivery to one of over 200 coffee shops around the metro area.
Erin Rodda, a baker at Scratch KC, pulls freshly baked pumpkin cheesecake muffins out of the oven. The finished product will cool and then be packaged for delivery to one of over 200 coffee shops around the metro area.

Currently, Scratch employs three drivers who work eight-hour overnight shifts delivering pastries to wholesale clients around the metro. But new partnerships with major food distributors are expanding that capacity to a much larger area.

“Our next phase is going to be heavily focused on restaurants, grocery markets, a lot of sports stadiums — not even just in Kansas City, but all around — just because of our shipping capabilities,” he said.

Sticks of marzipan, a mixture of almond meal and sugar, on triangles of dough, waiting to be rolled into almond croissants at Scratch KC.
Sticks of marzipan, a mixture of almond meal and sugar, on triangles of dough, waiting to be rolled into almond croissants at Scratch KC.

On a recent tour of the bakery’s North Kansas City facility, one worker placed sticks of marzipan on long dough triangles waiting to be rolled into almond croissants.

Another piped a long squiggle of blue icing on top of the bakery’s well-known homemade pop-tarts — which they now have to call “Scratch-tarts” after a sternly worded email from Kellogg’s.

Inside a giant oven, trays of pumpkin cream cheese muffins revolved Ferris wheel-style on giant racks.

Outside another oven, hundreds of bacon strips destined for breakfast sandwiches and salads glistened as they cooled in wheeled towers stacked with baking sheets.

Brad Killen, owner and CEO of Scratch KC, holds a tray of coffee cakes. Killen started the company in 2013, in part because “I just saw the need for better cookies in Kansas City.” Now he plans to expand their reach even more.
Brad Killen, owner and CEO of Scratch KC, holds a tray of coffee cakes. Killen started the company in 2013, in part because “I just saw the need for better cookies in Kansas City.” Now he plans to expand their reach even more.
An assortment of baked goods cools inside Scratch KC.
An assortment of baked goods cools inside Scratch KC.

Although Killen now runs the business side of the operation, he still knows how to make everything the bakery produces — and exactly how each item should look and taste when it heads out the door. As we passed a cluster of cooling racks, he pulled aside a baker to point out the uneven icing on a tray of rainbow-sprinkled “Scratch-tarts.”

“Let’s get that fixed,” he said.

One of Scratch KC’s signature items is the “Scratch-tart,” a reference to Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts. Some variations feature red and yellow sprinkles to match the Kansas City Chiefs.
One of Scratch KC’s signature items is the “Scratch-tart,” a reference to Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts. Some variations feature red and yellow sprinkles to match the Kansas City Chiefs.

The pastries are part of a massive order for 20,000 tarts. (We won’t ruin the surprise, but a local hospital system plans to soon gift a pastry to every one of its employees.)

It’s the largest custom order the bakery has ever filled. But as he shops around for buildings up to five times the size of Scratch’s current facility, Killen envisions a day when orders like this one will be commonplace.

“Our entire front office staff is creating a game plan for how to increase what we’re doing from 40,000 items a day to hundreds of thousands of items a day that will leave our facility,” he said.

But amidst it all, he plans to keep an eagle eye on the quality control that has helped make the bakery so popular.

“The biggest thing is that Scratch is us, and Scratch is from Kansas City,” he said. “We’re trying to become that household name.”

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