<p>Joey Thurman: Why am I holding a massive piece of bread? I'm in Aurora, Illinois where this family-owned business, Katich Breads, is making bread like a delicious fine wine. Let's go check it out.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: I'm here in Aurora, Illinois with Dusan Katich. Did I say that right? I nailed it. Katich Breads or Katic Breads, if you will. Thanks for being here. What is Katich Breads?<br /><br />Dusan Katic: So Katich is our last name and it's just old-world bread, so French Italian breads, long fermentation, very wet dough. It's definitely different than the supermarket breads. I would say the difference is bologna to prosciutto.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: So prosciutto is just a little more-<br /><br />Dusan Katic: Sophisticated-<br /><br />Joey Thurman: ... sophisticated.<br /><br />Dusan Katic: ... old world, complex than, let's say, bologna. Yeah.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: Okay. And this is truly a family business. As we came in here, your daughters are working on some croissants [inaudible 00:01:08]. And this building has a lot of family history, right?<br /><br />Dusan Katic: Yeah.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: So how long has this building been in your family?<br /><br />Dusan Katic: We've had it for close to 42 years.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: Wow. And what was it originally?<br /><br />Dusan Katic: Originally, it was a furniture factory. We're talking about the '20s and '30s. Then it became a rainbow bread, which is a bread production place until about the '60s. My parents bought it then and they were selling furniture as Island Furniture. And then I'd say 2010 ish, 2012 ish, we moved up here and started the bakery over here.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: So what is your main stay? What's the number one selling bread?<br /><br />Dusan Katic: The number one selling bread would be sourdoughs because that's actually the best kind of bread for you to eat. It's the bread that people ate for centuries. Yeast bread is kind of a new thing. And then I would say the other thing we're really well known on for is the croissants. So look, to do sourdough well and croissants well, you have to pay a lot of attention. You have to have a good lamination on the croissants. That's what I'm a bit of a fiend on. And then the sourdough, you have to get the fermentation just perfect. And then it's really a question of how far can you push that flavor production too? So it's the fine wine of breads. It's not quick, but it's much more complex.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: So somebody coming in who wants to start a business in Aurora, especially brick and mortar or something along the lines you're doing, what advice would you give them? And would you say open up a business in Aurora or choose a different town?<br /><br />Dusan Katic: So I would say it'd be a combination of somebody that's aware of the city, the permits, all the certificates you're going to need and even a business consultant that can kind of tell you there are some options to try out your business and get it started that aren't going to create as much stress and won't mean you have to kill yourself or spend all your money to make it happen.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: Yeah. So if the mayor was watching this right now, your advice would be to maybe have a liaison to help with upstart businesses and maybe pull back on some of the fees?<br /><br />Dusan Katic: The fees are the fees and I think you just got to do it. And they're really not that expensive. At the end of the day, you'll be able to afford the permits and the fees and so on. Gosh, you have to think outside the box. I think a lot of these people that are developing cities ... One place I really love is Wynwood in Miami. Wynwood in Miami just started with graffiti artists and artists living in this abandoned warehouse district just doing their art on the wall. It wasn't any part of a franchise or any business. There was no plan to the whole thing. But the thing was so cool and hip and organic that people started to flock. And the people started to come for this very natural thing that was growing out there, that they started installing businesses there.<br /><br />Dusan Katic: Now you go to Wynwood, it's one of the hottest spots in the US. And this is the reason I say you have to think out of the box because I think a lot of people want to see franchises and developers come in, but it's really to your benefit to cultivate something natural within your own town with the people and the towns that you have, and you got to kind of help them out because you might create something new that doesn't exist anywhere else. And then you would be uniquely Aurora. And my brother made a point once. He's like, what's the difference between Aurora, Des Moines, Iowa and Boise, Idaho? It's all the same franchises. It's all got the same flavor. One place has got a few mountains and a few things. And this is the problem of the current way of approaching business. You have to think a little bit more radically about how to help some of the local people that have some sort of imaginative ideas, but they just have this obstacle of the financial part of the whole thing. And help them kind of grow that thing. And you might have business concepts that don't exist anywhere else. Then you would have something that is genuinely Aurora and tastes genuinely unique.<br /><br />Joey Thurman: That's great. Dusan, Katich Breads, and let's help make Aurora unique and taste good, right?<br /><br />Dusan Katic: [inaudible 00:05:18].<br /><br />Joey Thurman: Thank you, sir.<br /><br />Dusan Katic: Cheers.</p>