About 50 years ago, Warren Bell’s father started making bialys (which take their name from the Polish city, Bialystok) in basements in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, NY. Since that time,Warren has built the family business into a global supplier of bagels and bialys. Given today’s new machinery, anyone can make a bagel, but no one can make a bialy like us. Unlike bagels, bialys are not glazed.These days many companies use freeze dried onions;we only use fresh onions, which makes our bialys so unique.
We manufacture our bialy by mixing the dough and allowing it to rise.The ball is shaped by hand, dabbed with the onion mixture and put onto a conveyor, then baked in the oven at 700 degrees. It takes about five to five-and-a-half minutes to get that perfect brown color.We bake about 2,000 dozen bialys a day, selling them to food service companies and supermarkets all along the East Coast.We also make and ship about 5,000-dozen bagels a day, shipping them to France and Japan among other places. We sell about 12 different flavors to Japan.
People always ask us the difference between a bagel and a bialy. A bagel contains malt which converts to sugar; there is more flour relative to water in a bagel, which gives it more density. There is no sugar in a bialy and it has the grated fresh onions on top for flavor. Bagels are boiled before baking; bialys go straight into the oven. The best thing about a bialy is that it is low in calories as well. Recently Bell acquired the Ace Brooklyn Bagel Company, which expanded our bagel business greatly. Because we have the best bialy in town,we are working on having the best bagel as well.
Warren Bell has worked with Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and Brooklyn Goes Global programs, which have been a great help to him. He has received many prestigious awards, among them the (Brooklyn) Borough President’s Mom & Pop Small Business Award, Small Business Administration’s Exporter of the Year, and The Entrepreneur of the Year.Warren has also been featured in many magazine articles as well as in the news and on television. He puts his heart into his business and is always looking for new products and ideas to please his customers.
“Dealing with the Orthodox Union has been a wonderful experience,”Warren says.“The OU is an extremely professional organization and has always been a tremendous help to me. It is always available when I have a question or concern, and recommends companies where we can buy our ingredients. Most of all, the OU treats us with utmost respect.”