HARTFORD – Today, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) announced that Scotts’ Jamaican Bakery will be recognized as “Murphy’s Monday Manufacturer”. In 1978, George and Pauline Scott opened Scotts’ Jamaican Bakery on Albany Avenue in Hartford just after immigrating to Connecticut from Jamaica, with a quick stop in Toronto in between. For the last 36 years, Scotts’ Jamaican Bakery has served Connecticut, whose largest immigrant group comes from Jamaica, and the Greater Hartford area, which is home to an estimated 17,800 Jamaican immigrants, with Jamaican baked goods and cuisine, like beef patties, spiced buns, oxtails with rice and peas, coco bread, and bulla cake.
Today, Scotts’ is run by two of George’s sons, Michael and Gordon, and his wife, Pauline. The Jamaican Bakery – which once operated out of only one storefront - now operates out of three retail locations as well as an 8,000 square foot manufacturing and wholesale facility. Nearly 40 percent of the manufacturer’s business is wholesale, and is regionally distributed, primarily in Connecticut. The Scotts prioritize hiring local residents. Consequentially, the majority of the bakery’s 45 employees live in the same neighborhoods as the facilities they work in.
“Over the years, Scotts’ Jamaican Bakery has become a sort of ‘poster child’ for how all manufacturing businesses around the nation should operate,” said Murphy. “The Scott family understands how important it is to support the people and communities that have enabled their business to thrive, and I’m so grateful for their continued service.”
When my mother (Co-Founder Pauline Scott ) evokes the company motto ‘we bake with love’ she’s talking about much more than bread,” said Gordon Scott, CEO of Scotts’ Jamaican Bakery. “It is a statement of our commitment to the people we serve; our employees, our customers and the communities within which we operate.”
The manufacturing industry plays a crucial role throughout Connecticut communities, creating new jobs and accelerating our state’s economic recovery. Today, Connecticut’s 4,602 manufacturers account for 10.2% of the state’s jobs and 87% of the state’s total exports. In order to protect and grow manufacturing jobs in Connecticut, Murphy has introduced two pieces of legislation that aim to strengthen existing standards and prioritize the purchase of American-made goods, the 21st Century Buy American Act and the American Jobs Matter Act.
