The Jamestown area’s last remaining family-owned Swedish bakery is now preparing to celebrate six decades of providing homemade fresh baked goods to its community.

The Ecklof family is observing the 60th anniversary of their business, Ecklof Bakery, later this month. Having opened its doors to the public in 1956, the bakery has endured a change of location and ownership while receiving unwavering support for its trademark ingredients and products – among which are its signature ”pink stripe” cookies.

According to owner Rick Ecklof, who purchased the bakery from his father, Dick, in 1976, the success experienced by the local business can be attributed to its long-standing roots that began with his grandfather.

”It started with my grandfather, David Ecklof, who immigrated from Sweden in the 1920s,” Rick Ecklof said. ”He started out as a baker in Warren until he moved up to Jamestown and opened up the Scandia Bakery, which he owned up until about 1945. My dad worked a little in the bakery, but then went into the Navy during World War II. During that time, my grandmother got sick and my grandfather sold the bakery to help take care of her. When my dad got out of the service, the bakery was gone and so he worked in a couple of other local bakeries before he opened up the original Ecklof Bakery in 1956, which was in the north end of the Foote Avenue Plaza.”

Rick Ecklof began working full time at the bakery in 1967, one year before Dick Ecklof died. In 1969, Rick Ecklof was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent the next two years abroad, during which time his mother was managing the bakery. He returned in 1971 to assume management duties, which he fulfilled in an on-and-off capacity until he officially purchased the business in 1976.

The bakery continued to operate at its original location until 2004, when it moved just down the street to its current location at 832 Foote Ave. Ecklof said the move came with a number of pros, including allowing for an expansion to the business in terms of scope.

”Because of our limited space in the plaza we couldn’t expand into the deli like we were able to do here, and we needed that to be able to cover the higher rent,” he said. ”We fill a little niche here. Because we’re a full-line scratch retail bakery, we don’t necessarily compete head-to-head with the supermarkets. They have mostly frozen, bake-off stuff and so we have the ability to make stuff that they can’t, which helps to keep us separate and fill that niche.”

Ecklof said the business has done well over the past 60 years, managing to ”keep our heads above water” in spite of recent changes to the small business market stemming from new regulations at the state level. These changes, he said, have brought difficulties in the form of a proposed $15 per hour wage increase and upcoming bans on using salt and trans fats in baked goods, which he said will change the trademark characteristics of the bakery’s products.

”That means we can no longer use all of our shortenings because anything that’s hydrogenated has trans fats in it,” he said. ”So the problem that we’re having now is that all the non-trans fat shortenings that the companies are trying to develop are not serving our needs. They haven’t found a frying shortening yet that works, and they haven’t found a shortening that we can use in our icings that works. This is going to be a huge problem because it’s going to change the taste and consistency of our products – which concerns me greatly because the government is changing our ingredients that we’ve been using for the past 60 years.”

Regarding a minimum wage increase to $15 per hour, Ecklof said his payroll would increase by 60 percent, which will force him to raise his prices by approximately 44 percent. When accounting for increases to payroll insurances like Social Security, Medicare and workman’s compensation, coupled with the fact that his suppliers will also be raising costs due to their own payroll increases, he said his price increases could be expected to be around 50 percent.

In spite of these obstacles, Ecklof said it is his intention to have the bakery continue after his impending retirement – which he said could be within the next year or two – by passing the business along to his son, Chad.

He said the bakery is planning to hold a celebration of some sort in the coming weeks to recognizing its 60th anniversary. Though no specific details have been determined, he discussed the possibility of doing a price rollback to offer the bakery’s goods at 1956-era prices for a limited time.

For more information about Ecklof Bakery’s regular specials and upcoming 60th anniversary observation, call 488-1516 or find the bakery on Facebook.