12 June 6 • 2019
jn

ADAM FINKEL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Organic
 Growth

R

abbi Jonathan Sacks, formerly the 
chief rabbi of England and the 
author of 30 books, notes that 
the medieval scholar Maimonides held 
that the highest form of charity was job 
creation. Economic policy, Sacks further 
articulates, is not about abstractions like 
GDP but about people.
Employment, he says, is a moral issue 
because dignity comes from what we 
do to enhance the lives of others. Sacks 
writes that work being fundamental to 
human dignity is a Jewish idea just as 
it is an economic one. “We believe that 
everyone should be able to say, ‘
I made 
a contribution to the common good. I 
gave; I did not just receive. I earned my 
daily bread.
’
”
Daily bread and doing good is some-
thing that Jackie Victor knows well as 
the CEO of Avalon International Breads, 
which just celebrated its 22nd anniver-
sary June 5. Avalon, the largest buyer of 
organic flour in the state, is in a period 
of dramatic organic growth.
It’
s a made-in-Detroit story that 
started when Jackie and co-founder 
Ann Perrault opened in 1997 that has 
become a made-in-Detroit success. 
Millions of Sea Salt Chocolate Chip 
Cookies, Vegan Blueberry Muffins and 
crusty loaves of Farnsworth Family 
Farm Bread and other leavened items 
later, its growth has soared from not-
even $800,000 a decade ago to almost $8 

million in 2019, and now employs more 
than 100 people, most of them people of 
color and Detroit residents. 

STEADY GROWTH
Do the math: Avalon now has five retail 
outlets serving 1,300 customers a day. It 
has a growing group of more than 100 
restaurants, cafes and grocery stores — 
from Whole Foods to Holiday Market 
— offering its Hastings Street Challah, 
Dexter Davison Rye, vegan carrot cake 
slices and an evolving and often season-
al assortment of other breads and pas-
tries, now available for catering as well, 
including Jackie’
s favorite, the Motown 
Multigrain Bread. 
The baking, which used to occupy 
just 2,000 square feet, has now moved to 
a bakehouse that measures nearly 50,000 
square feet.
Plum Market CEO and co-founder 
Matt Jonna said he’
s a big enthusiast of 
Avalon and especially loves its vegan 
offerings. All Plum Market’
s large-for-
mat stores sell Avalon products. “We 
started selling Avalon items 12 years 
ago when we opened our first location,
” 
Jonna said. “I am a big fan of Avalon 
and Jackie in particular, and I have great 
respect for what she has built.
”
The Avalon retail network has 
expanded into Ann Arbor and a 
Downtown location, where it is a tenant 
of one of the many Bedrock buildings. 

While corporations are expanding and 
doing more business in the city, Victor 
is cognizant of the income inequality 
and disparity that has been growing as 
well. “The truth is,
” she said, “most of 
Detroit has not changed in the way that 
the Downtown core has, and a lot more 
needs to be done by all stakeholders.
”
Victor had her first residence in 
Southwest Detroit, then lived in 
Midtown, Cass Corridor and Lafayette 
Park before moving to Huntington 
Woods two years ago when her children 
became high-school age. When she was 
raising her kids, she saw a wonderful but 
very small Jewish community in Detroit. 
Now she sees a vibrant and increasingly 
active one.

“One of the most satisfying things 
over the last two decades is to see the 
younger, progressive Jewish people that 
have moved into the city,
” Victor said. “I 
started to see it 10 years ago when they 
revitalized the Isaac Agree Downtown 
Synagogue; there are now young, Jewish 
leaders who are activists, making mov-
ies, studying in rabbinical school and 
using their experience within the com-
munity for the greater good of the city.
”

A COMMUNITY OF SUPPORT
To Victor, growth can’
t be viewed 
through a singular lens. To her, it’
s 
always about Earth, community and 
her employees. About half of Avalon 

employees have been with the com-
pany two years or more — well above 
industry-average. “Our flagship store on 
Willis had almost zero turnover last year 
and we have many people there who 
have been with us for 17 years, off and 
on,
” she said. “
At the Bakehouse, we have 
a number of people who have worked 
with us for up to 13 years, off and on.
”

One attraction: Jackie prioritized 
health insurance for her team long 
before it was mandated. 
Her brother, Jewish communal leader 
and philanthropist David Victor, said 
that Jackie leads with her heart and is 
100 percent authentic. “No pretense, no 
prose, what you see and what she feels 
is what you get. And you know you’
re 
lucky to get it.
”

Victor credits her father, Steven 
Victor, as her business role model. “He 
thought I was crazy at the time, but 
always supported my endeavors, as did 
my entire family,
” she said. “My brother, 
David, my sister, Julie, my mom, Arlene 
all were there every step of the way. My 
extended family has always been uni-
versally supportive of Avalon and every-
thing I have done with my life, although 
it has taken twists and turns that might 
have been surprising to them. My par-
ents had a very close circle of friends in 
the Detroit Jewish community that were 
always very supportive as well.
” 
Victor’
s mother recycled before it was 

jews d
in 
the

Avalon International Breads’
Jackie Victor has been a visionary
in Detroit’
s rebirth.

continued on page 14

on the cover

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