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Glenbow Archives NB-55-517
Wellworth thewait
“IF YOU HAVEN’T TRIED SHELLY’S
4X bread, are you really enjoying that
sandwich?” In all honesty, the ship has
long since sailed for that bread-tasting
opportunity. But if you were around
Western Canada in the first half of the
20th century, you might be quite familiar
with the compelling billboards, illus-
trated with cartoon characters. They
appeared across the West, promoting
the quality of the Vancouver-based bread
maker’s high-quality 4X bakery products.
On some signs, it was recommended to
eat two slices at every meal.
Shelly’s was described as bread dough
that had been prepared, allowed to rise,
then knocked down and allowed to rise
again—a process that was repeated four
times before being baked. It was intended
to improve the quality and texture of the
bread, and to improve the overall eating
experience. But with the arrival of new
technology and a growing preference for
high-speed production, the 4X process—
which can add four to six hours to the
bread-making process—hasn’t been used
in commercial bakeries for many years.
However, it was a process that worked
in the early half of the 1900s for William
Curtis Shelly and his brother James—
Ontario bakers who moved west in 1910
to expand their business. They started
Shelly’s 4X Bakery in Vancouver, but the
bakery was just the tip of the business
iceberg that made William Curtis Shelly
a millionaire, a prominent businessman
and an influential B.C. politician during
the Great Depression.
In the 1920s, the Shelly brothers be-
came famous for their 4X bread that was
delivered door-to-door in neighbourhoods
across B.C.’s Lower Mainland “in gleam-
ing vans drawn by prize-winning horses.”
There are many photos in Vancouver
historical archives showing bakers at
work preparing pans of bread dough for
the large commercial ovens. Building
on the success of their original bakery,
the Shellys bought other local bakeries
and eventually formed a company called
Canadian Bakeries Ltd., which sold the
famous 4X bread, cakes and other bakery
products across Western Canada well into
the mid- to late 1940s.
The Food Issue
2016
Grains
West
50
AGAINST
THE GRAIN