Abe's on a roll with launch of crisps

Abe's Real Bagels owners Brent Milburn and Megan Sargent.

Closing the doors of a popular Auckland bagel cafe three years ago has proved the right decision to keep Abe's Real Bagels business rolling.

It gave owners Megan Sargent and Brent Milburn the space to concentrate on getting their bagels into supermarkets - and that has been well worth it.

A commercial bakery in Mt Wellington produces close to 150,000 steam-baked bagels a week - that's seven million a year - which are sold into 85 per cent of supermarkets throughout the country.

Now turnover is expected to double in the year ahead with the launch of Abe's Real Bagel Crisps.

With a longer shelf life, the crisps - made of thinly sliced and toasted bagels - can also be exported.

Sargent was confident of pinching a share of the local potato chip market and hoped sales would be evenly split between bagels and bagel crisps by Christmas.

In anticipation of this, Abe's has increased its production capacity, taking on new premises three times the size of the original bakery.

Sargent latched on to the bagel-making idea during a trip to the United States in the mid-1990s.

Spying a long queue outside a San Diego bagel cafe, she joined the throng to see what all the fuss was about.

After tasting her first bagel, she was excited by the concept of healthy fast food and thought there could be an opening for a Kiwi bagel brand.

On a later trip to Britain, with then fiance Milburn, the pair travelled via the US so Milburn could try a bagel.

Next stop was a trip to an auction in Omaha, Nebraska, where the couple bid for a set of bagel making equipment - big mixers and a bagel former were among the $30,000 haul.

After some training for Milburn in a US bagel cafe, the pair set up the Swanson St cafe 10 years ago, when bagels were relatively new to the local scene.

The name Abe's was chosen because it was Jewish (bagels originated from a Jewish community in Poland about 400 years ago) and because it put them among the first in the phone book.

Despite some saying the economy was bad, and that US fast foods didn't work well in New Zealand, the pair "just had a feeling" it would work.

Set-up costs were mostly paid for by cash advances on their credit cards. They made no profit in the first year.

It was during the Auckland power crisis in 1998 when Abe's really made a name for itself. Hiring a small generator put it among the few cafes with their doors open and office workers flocked in for coffee and bagels.

Then Pak'N Save was on the phone, asking for a supply of bagels to its Albany store, quickly followed by Foodtown.

"We never had to put a proposal to the supermarkets, it was more like - when can you get them in our stores nationally?" said Sargent.

Although the cafe business was good, they believed closing it was necessary to devote themselves to bigger opportunities in the wholesale side of the business.

Abe's is the country's biggest bagel company with 30 staff.

Bagel's history

Bagels originated in a Polish Jewish community about 400 years ago.

At one time, they were given to women as a traditional gift after childbirth.

In the 1800s, Jewish settlers took bagels to the United States where their popularity grew.

Traditionally, the doughnut- shaped bread rolls were boiled then baked, but they went hard quickly.

Steam-baking is now the most popular method of production.