When someone who spends hours a week making sourdough bread gives you a recommendation on where to use said bread in a recipe, you listen.

At least that’s been the experience of anyone making a grilled cheese sandwich with some of the Cheddar Jalapeno sourdough at The Farmyard Market, a new farmstand operated by Shannon West at her home on Norton Road in Manchester.

West says she’s always had an enjoyment of food and being in the kitchen for as long as she can remember.

“I’ve always been kind of a foodie,” she explained. “Like the kitchen has always been my happy place. As an adult, I guess it’s like the southern in me. I love cooking for people. That’s kind of how I show love is through their stomach, I guess.”

The Farmyard Market offers a wide array of baked goods and other items. Classic Sourdough is a staple, though West enjoys experimenting with flavors like Garden Herb and Gouda, Lemon Blueberry and Carrot Cake.

A self-identified “spicy person” in both personality and flavor preference, West says her Red Chili Crunch sourdough is probably her favorite and uses it for avocado or cottage cheese toast for breakfast, also noting that it works as a nice side for pasta at dinner.

She also bakes scones, customer favorite chocolate chip cookies and cinnamon rolls.

West’s stand also has eggs, linen and room sprays, dipping spices and oils, beef tallow products and candied nuts.

While she’s always enjoyed cooking and baking, West says it was upon reading the ingredient list on a package of store-bought bread that she made the decision to learn how to make a healthier alternative for her three children.

“Our meals are not perfect,” admitted West. “We’re not completely free of all additives, but where I can cut down and make sure that it’s like basically farm to table for my family, that’s what we try to do. Our breads and stuff I make almost all of it. I just want my family to have healthy food. If I can cut out chemicals and additives, we try to.”

It was during that search that West discovered sourdough and began researching what goes into making it.

“I started reading about how challenging it was to make your own sourdough starter,” she recalled. “I’m a very stubborn person and so I was like ‘I’m going to do it. I’m going to prove I can do this.’” She worked with her first starter, feeding it every morning and night for two months until it finally rose, bound and determined to not let the process get the best of her. West eventually honed her skill to the point that she could make bread for her family, though it quickly grew from there.

“It was just for my family and then friends, and then I had people offer to buy it,” she explained. “On a very small scale I sold a couple of loaves a week, and then somebody invited me to do an event in Lynchburg, Spring in the Hollow, and so I did it and completely sold out at my first event.”

“It was wild,” she added. “Everybody loved it.”

West says that she was continually invited back to events in Lynchburg and started selling at a couple in Bell Buckle. She then started taking weekly orders, which sparked the advent of The Farmyard Market.

“I do weekly orders because every week everybody is like ‘Hey! I want bread every week!’ so that’s what we started doing, but with the farmstand, I had people order after the cutoff day of the week, and I can’t say no,” explained West. “I want them to be happy, so this is kind of my happy medium of I get that you didn’t get to place an order, so here’s some that’s available.”

Despite every new venture having its challenges, West explains that she has enjoyed the process of getting the farmstand up and running, especially the connections she’s been able to make along the way.

“First with weekly orders and then doing the farmstand, all kinds of people have stopped by,” she enthused. “Last week I had a lady that was on her way to a baseball tournament and said she needed cookies for the team, so we got those. People from all walks of life and all different experiences, that’s been my favorite part is just meeting people.”

West also says that she hopes to offer healthy alternatives to the community she enjoys being a part of.

“I’m doing this for the community so that they can have a healthy source of food and a place to get food that is made here and stays here,” she emphasized.

The Farmyard Market sold out of product halfway through the day its first Sunday in operation, a response that left West feeling incredibly grateful.

“It was far beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” she noted. “I’m so excited and so, so thankful.”

A storefront is something that West says she could see herself operating at some point, but for the moment she stays busy with what she has. She runs her family’s body shop in Tullahoma and owns Tri-Star Coatings there as well.

West also wakes up at 4 every morning to bake in order to stock her own farmstand as well as product that she sells out of Freedom Automotive in Manchester in addition to Byrum’s Body Shop, The Intimacy Boutique and Farmington Market in Tullahoma.

In addition to being West’s reason for baking her own bread, she says that her kids have also developed an affinity for helping her make it as well.

“They all have their own starter. They all make their own bread, and they love playing with flavors,” she explained with a smile. “One of them, their favorite to make is peanut butter and jelly in a loaf, one of them loves to do bacon, egg and cheese. They’re always in the kitchen. They mix stuff for me, and they add stuff for me. They absolutely love it.”