Bacon business lessons learned

In early 2022, MEAT+POULTRY published a story about three entrepreneurs who seized the opportunity to capitalize on America’s love for bacon.

Elisa Lewis, her husband Camilo Velasquez and the couple’s friend and business partner, Dana Young, had a great run as co-owners of The Baconer, an Emeryville, Calif.-based premium bacon company.

After its founding in 2016, the entrepreneurs saw exponential growth, thanks to the development of a high-quality product line, partnerships with key retailers and a brand-building campaign that garnered the company exposure on multiple mainstream media platforms. And then, just when The Baconer was about to go to the next level in 2022, an unforeseen perfect storm of challenges, including global inflation, supply-chain interruptions and overall volatility in the marketplace, forced the team to make the very difficult decision of closing down the company.

In this week’s MEAT+POULTRY podcast, Velasquez and Lewis recount the eventful journey of their business, which started as more of a dinner club and social event when the couple lived on the East Coast. The co-founders gave details of how the team built the brand of The Baconer, shedding light on what business strategies worked well and detailing some of the challenges along the way, including how the team decided it was time to pull the plug.

Looking back, Lewis said she wished they would have had the opportunity to learn from other start-up operators about how to avoid common pitfalls and how to make the most of opportunities as their bootstrapped company flourished. When discussing their experience, they admit there were some things they would have done differently but also acknowledged the many successes along the way.

The retrospective journey of Velasquez, Lewis and Young provides a rare opportunity for operators of other food companies to learn from the experience of The Baconer’s stakeholders and apply some of those lessons to their business strategy.