Patrick Duffy, best known as Bobby Ewing on the long-running prime-time soap Dallas, has a new role: bread entrepreneur. The actor and his partner, actress Linda Purl, have launched Duffy’s Dough, a sourdough bread line built on a family starter dating to 1952 - and a pledge to give every penny of profit to fighting hunger.
The line is now rolling out in Kroger stores nationwide.
The starter at the heart of the brand has a story as dramatic as any television plot. Duffy says it was passed to his mother in Alaska when he was 3 years old, and “it’s been in our family ever since.” Today, it lives in a Maryland bakery and forms the base of every loaf sold under the Duffy’s Dough label.
The venture began modestly - and over drinks. “A bottle of wine might have been involved,” Duffy said with a laugh. The couple started baking in their garage before landing a deal with Kroger. “Kroger saved us from our garage,” Duffy said.
The brand’s defining feature is its charitable mission. “The mandate is that it will always give away 100% of its profits,” Duffy said. Purl said the scope of the food insecurity crisis surprised them both. “We thought, all right, well, it’s a food product, we’ll give to food scarcity,” she said, “having no idea of the profundity of food scarcity in this country.”
Duffy put a number to it. “1 in 7 people in this state go to bed hungry every night. It’s ridiculous.”
For two actors with five decades of combined career success, the project is also about legacy. “We’ve been doing this for 50 years now, and it’s time for us to realize what we can do that’ll go on after we’re done,” Duffy said.
Purl said the partnership with Kroger validated that instinct. “You want to be involved with something meaningful and fulfilling at this point,” she said. The couple pitched the retailer in person at its Cincinnati headquarters. “We stood up from that meeting, the gentleman put his hand forth and he said, ‘We’re from the Midwest, our word is good,’” Purl recalled.
Duffy said buying a loaf is itself an act of giving. “If you buy a single loaf of Duffy’s Dough, you realize that you’re giving that portion of the profits from Duffy’s Dough to a charity to fight food hunger.”
Duffy’s Dough is available in the bakery department of Kroger stores. The line includes sourdough loaves, dinner rolls, sandwich rolls, multigrain, and baguettes.
To watch the Live in the D segment, click on the video above. To find the nearest Kroger location, visit Kroger.com.