What Eric Martin, the chef and manager of the restaurant, originally had in mind was supplying bread to other restaurants.
The organization has opened dozens of bakeries, supplying subsidized bread to the war-ravaged, drought-parched population.
Some might say that supplying artisan-baked bread to spoiled New Yorkers is a type of emergency service.
A mobile field kitchen run by prisoners from the camp supplied turnip soup and bread at first light and then again at night.
Ecce Panis supplies bread to all the restaurants and to the public.
He supplied bread to the hungry and clothes to the naked, he said.
The country's main benefactors are the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc - which can supply guns but not bread.
In addition to its retail operations the company supplies bread to fine dining restaurants and hotels in the area, as well as grocery stores.
Bats are attracted to the old caves near the mills that once supplied flour and bread to the whole town.
The international agencies had been supplying clean water and fresh bread and medical necessities - services that benefited 400,000 people, a third of the city's population.