About Us

  Outside View

Since opening it's doors in 1989, Specialty Bakery of Tulsa takes pride in its steadfast commitment to offer the highest quality bread, buns, rolls and private label bread products to its customers country wide.  As a testimony to this commitment Specialty Bakery of Tulsa is now one of the best managed wholesale bakeries in the country.

We operate in a 57,000 sq ft facility equipped for baking, R&D, shipping and receiving and storage.  In 2012 we underwent a massive expansion adding a whopping 20,000 square feet of production space.  This was in an effort to increase efficiency, meet the growing demand for fresh bakery products and advance our mission of being the number one commercial bakery in the region.  

  History

Specialty Bakery of Tulsa (SBT) was established in 1989 by Lan Robinson.  Lan has a long history of working with bakery products when he began working in his parents shop at age 5.  He would wake up as early as 4:00 am to go to work in the shop and work until 8:00 am when he left for school.

His parents were the proprietors of 10 ‘Little Lanny's Sub Shops' in Tulsa and sold sub buns and other baked products from their bakery.  This is where Lan drew his love for baked food and learned a lot about providing quality products.  Later when he attended the Tulsa University to complete his Bachelor of Science in Management degree, he decided to write a business plan for a commercial bakery as his senior paper.  Specialty Bakery of Tulsa is what the business plan became.

  Production Line

In line with our unwavering commitment to deliver quality bakery products to our customers, we are constantly seeking to improve our production line by investing in equipment and upgrading our production process.

One area that we feel we have an advantage over our competitors is the decision to buy slightly used equipment that can be upgraded by our staff and used in the bakery.  This gives us a unique advantage because we save on the cost of new equipment and this allows us to serve our customers better and keep growing.  Today with 47 employees SBT can handle any size order you have.

  Ovens

We have invested in a wide range of large ovens which allows us to bake a many types of rolls, buns and bread for our customers.  The ovens also give us a lot of leeway in producing private label products that our customers love.

Our bread products have a 21-day shelf life.  But we can formulate bread products with as little to as much shelf life as you want.  Our bread products are also GMO-free.

  Office and Management Team

Lan Robinson, Jr.

President in charge of Research and Development.  Lan is truly a master baker and has been creating bread products for over 40 years.

Jason Butel

Vice President of Operations (since 2013).  Jason handles audits, lot tracking, employees, recipes, ingredients, bakery PR and more.  He is unstoppable!

John Robinson

HR, Sales, & Winner!

I was born and raised in the bakery business as a baker's son.  I graduated from OSU with degrees in Business Administration and Marketing.  After college I stepped away from the bakery and worked in marketing, sales, restaurants, and even the oil industry.  I now work at Specialty Bakery of Tulsa as a team member with my brother and the Specialty Bakery of Tulsa family (2019).  GO COWBOYS!

Steve Heller, CFP, EA

Chief Financial Officer.  Steve has worked with SBT since 1991 handling all phases of the financial statements, tax returns, payroll and website management.

  Our Business Model

When SBT was established, our initial focus was on mom and pop restaurants, restaurant chains and convenience stores.  Over the years as we grew and our customer base expanded and we started supplying large distributors with bread products.

We now sell to all major distributors in the country and have customers in every state.  We also export to Canada and Mexico.  These distributors, in turn, sell our signature buns, bread, and rolls to medium sized restaurant chains across the country.

We no longer provide retail bakery products to the general public.  SBT has grown to become one of the best known commercial bakeries in the country.

  Future of SBT

Currently, we are in the middle of a million dollar automation project, adding a spiral proofer, tunnel oven and one mile of conveyor.  To meet the increasing demand for bakery products in our country we are working on expansions programs and we have some plans for future expansions already in place.

The two automatic 'Spiral' baking proofers we are installing will give us the capacity to produce 1 million units of bread, rolls, buns, per day.  With the two Spiral proofers, we will be able to enhance our production process not just in terms of the numbers but also in terms of quality.  This is also important because we will be able to provide baked products that are softer and have a better set crust.

The future for SBT is bright.