Dewey’s Bakery Raises $25M, Acquires Farm & Oven

Hoping to turn a line of cookies and crackers into a larger national brand, Dewey’s Bakery last week closed a $25 million funding round led by Eurazeo Brands and also combined forces with the leadership team of another bakery brand, Farm & Oven.

As part of the deal, Farm & Oven CEO Mike Senackerib will become the CEO of the combined company, with Dewey’s owner and CEO Scott Livengood moving into the role of board chairman. Farm & Oven co-founder Kay Allison will be Dewey’s new CMO.

Eurazeo Brands focuses on consumer brand investments, including beverage brands Q Mixers and Waterloo Sparkling Water, which it acquired over the summer. Alongside the firm, Livengood and Senackerib were both investors.

New board members will include Jim Goldman, a senior advisor to Eurazeo, and George Birman, principal at Eurazeo Brands.

According to Birman, Eurazeo saw the potential to build on Dewey’s 90-year history in particular through the growth of both its private label business and its branded line of soft-baked and thin cookies.

“We believe that Dewey’s products have tremendous potential in the market, offering clean ingredients blended with familiar, bakery-inspired flavors that truly deliver on taste and texture,” Birman said. “We see a major opportunity to tell the Dewey’s story and build the brand’s awareness and distribution nationally.”

Dewey’s bakery cookies and crackers are sold in 8,000 stores, including Walmart, CVS, and The Fresh Market. Based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the company actually started as a brick-and-mortar bakery chain. It formed CPG brand Salem Baking Company, a cookie and cracker brand, in 1992, also expanding into private label.

Livengood, the former CEO of Krispy Kreme, purchased the majority of Dewey’s in 2006 with the goal to launch the Dewey’s Bakery brand, but the economic recession that began in 2007 initially slowed these plans, leaving Dewey’s to instead focus on building out its private label capabilities until last year.

It’s these relationships with large retailers, many of which have been working with Dewey’s for over 10 years, along with Eurazeo’s funding and the leadership change, that present a “renewed opportunity” to build out the branded business, Livengood noted in an email.

To lead the charge, Eurazeo proposed that Senackerib take over the role of CEO, noting that his 30 years experience at big CPG companies, such as The Campbell Soup Company and Nabisco, combined with his time at Farm & Oven, makes him the right fit for the company. To bring Senackerib onboard, Farm & Oven was also acquired, bringing it under the auspices of the larger company.

Farm & Oven, which launched as a direct-to-consumer brand in 2017, produces a line of vegetable enhanced Bakery Bites and mini Soft Baked Muffins, the latter of which launched in April. Moving forward, the brand will remain in market, albeit with production moved from its facilities in Warminster, Pennsylvania to Dewey’s plant in Winston-Salem.

“Mike shares our vision for Dewey’s,” Livengood said. “We felt there was meaningful opportunity and value in what he and Kay create at Farm & Oven, so it made sense to include the brand as part of this transaction.”

Though e-commerce has always been at Farm & Oven’s core, said Senackerib, the brand is sold in 2,000 doors, including Jewel-Osco, Lucky’s Market and Walmart. Birman noted its better-for-you positioning will add value to the Dewey’s portfolio: the Bakery Bites contain two servings of vegetables and one billion probiotics per three-pack. Moving forward, he added, Eurazeo expects to see distribution significantly increase now that the brand can leverage Dewey’s larger retail presence and production capabilities.