Food & Drink People

Dave’s Killer Bread: More Than a Second Chance Story

If you’re a fan of Dave’s Killer Bread®(and I’m a big fan), you may have glanced at the wrapper one day while waiting on your bread to toast—it tells a warm and fuzzy redemption story about the bread’s inventor, a guy named Dave Dahl, who was in prison for 15 years and, once released, was given a second chance by his brother Glenn to be employed at the family bakery, where he went on to create “a loaf like no other,” what he called “killer” bread (which has taken the retail bread world by storm over the last decade). The story goes on to explain how the company is built on the belief that everyone is capable of greatness and that one third of the employees at their Oregon bakery have a criminal background, and how they have “witnessed first-hand how stable employment sparks personal transformation.”

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What a GREAT story, right? Glenn was an awesome brother for giving Dave a chance. The company sounds wonderful, and, the bread is reeaallly good—if you like whole wheat bread, it’s so much tastier than “the usual”, full of organic seeds, grains and goodness, and its story makes it taste even better. But as with much in life, what’s trotted out as the public face is only a small part of a much bigger picture. The tip of a very layered iceberg. I wish the wrapper had room to tell more.

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First off, some background: Dave and Glenn grew up in the 60’s alongside other siblings, working in their parents’ bakery in Milwaukie, Oregon. The family were Seventh Day Adventists, a church that espouses, among other things, clean living. But Dave rebelled at church, bakery, school, parents—just about everything, starting in his teens. When Glenn picked up Dave at the bus station after he was released from prison in 2004, it wasn’t Dave’s one and only time in prison. Over those 15 prior years, Dave had been to prison on and off FOUR times and to jail numerous times, so it also wasn’t Glenn’s first time to hope for better days for brother Dave. Second, Dave’s prison sentences were the result of using and dealing meth, burglary and armed robbery to pay for his addictions, assault…not a pretty picture. Third, the big spark of Dave’s transformation happened while in prison, during that fourth time he was there—around 2001, when he was suicidal (he’d been battling depression for years) and saw others try to take their own lives, only to end up scarred and still depressed. He didn’t want that path, and felt the only way to improve his life was to admit to the prison staff he had problems, and ask for help. Once he made that huge step, he began receiving anti-depressant treatment and felt better. He started playing guitar. He enrolled in a Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) program that the prison offered, and his success with that skill “freed his mind. “Because my mind was free, I felt free,” Dave said in a 2019 NPR podcast interview.

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Glenn noticed the difference, and when Dave asked, on that ride from the bus station, if he could come back to work at the bakery, Glenn took a chance. Dave had to start out at the bottom, making $12 an hour, but he loved the work and was determined to use the concept CAD had taught him, of “replicating something and then making it better.” Dave experimented with all sorts of new bread recipes and less than a year after he was hired, the Dave’s Killer Bread line was launched, sold first (by Dave and his nephew) at Farmer’s Markets, to rave reviews. People loved the bread, and loved the story behind the bread. Dave loved working at something that gave him purpose. After stores began asking for the bread, the company grew into more space, with more employees (many who were ex-cons, mentored by Dave). Seven years later, the bread was so successful that the company’s revenue exceeded $53 million, and Dave, whose caricature was on every package, was president and a local celebrity in Oregon, often giving inspiring speeches to students and community organizations. In order to keep growing, Glenn and Dave sold half the company to a New York private equity firm.

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While we’d all like to think a creative endeavor that earned him widespread praise would help Dave put his past problems behind him, those of us that have known people with substance abuse and mental health issues or at least have watched a lot of movies/documentaries know it’s not that simple. True to how life can go, the fairly quick success and wealth that came Dave’s way as the bread became a hit was a little overwhelming, causing Dave’s ego to inflate (as well as his speaking schedule and stress level) and he thought of himself as a rock star, the “Ozzy” of bread, open to a “rock star” lifestyle to go with it… after “discovering” tequila while on a vacation in Mexico, he began a drinking habit that grew and grew. The new board of directors asked him to check in to a rehab center, but it didn’t help. Eventually, the board forced him to take a sabbatical. He was banned from setting foot on company property.

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As you might imagine, Dave had a hard time giving up control of “his baby,” and ended up having a mental breakdown that caused him to, on a November day in 2013, go into company “breadquarters,” punch a life-size cardboard cutout of himself, intimidate employees (who called the police), and later the same day, participate in a brief chase with police, ram two police cars and assault a police officer. Part of the incident was broadcast on TV. (Needless to say, that sabbatical became permanent.) Luckily, Dave didn’t have to return to prison, but rather went to a psychiatric hospital, was found “guilty except for insanity,” and received a diagnosis of Bipolar I. (Though Dave worried his troubles would spell the end of the successful company, it doesn’t seem to have hurt it at all. Two years after his very public breakdown, Dave, Glenn and the rest of the Dahl family sold their stake in the company to Flowers Foods for $275 million, and the shelf space for Dave’s Killer Bread products, at least at my local supermarkets, appears to grow every year, now including bagels, buns and English muffins.)

Dave thought he couldn’t get any lower than he did in his prison days, but the 2013 fall was pretty painful, as he felt he’d let down so many people—his family, investors, the ex-cons that looked up to him, the public…one might think the weight of that would drive an alcoholic to drink themselves into oblivion and that this story ends with Dave destitute and living on the streets, but Dave has transformed himself once again. Interestingly, with his face still seen all over the country on bread packages every day, he began buying and collecting African masks in 2015 after discovering one at a garage sale, and it became a passion. He now owns Discover African Art, an Oregon-based, tribal art collection/warehouse offering one-of-a-kind African masks, figures, furniture and textiles online to the public, and by appointment for in-person showings. In 2020, he invested $250,000 into Nucleos, a start-up dedicated to providing credentialed education and training programs to those incarcerated, and is an advisor to the organization.  He is also involved in Constructing Hope, a Portland nonprofit that encourages self-sufficiency through skills training and education in the construction trades.

As far as I can tell from my research, Dave must be managing his addictions and mental health fairly well—it doesn’t look like he has been in trouble with the law since 2013 and he continues to speak and tell his story through podcasts, news interviews and on his website, www.davedahl360.com. Dave’s life has not been perfect by any means after he was given those second chances by the prison’s programs and by his brother, but it has been better, and his bread-making ingenuity, art enthusiasm, and advocacy for the incarcerated have made the world a better place.

I think the real message behind Dave’s Killer Bread is that there’s no such thing as a perfect life, even though one’s “wrapper,” or social media feed, or “public face” may try hard to make you think otherwise—that everybody falls or fails at something sometime, sometimes many times, sometimes in spectacular fashion many times, but it’s in the getting back up again and again where the true champions can be found, especially among those who are also battling addictions and mental health issues.

Kudos to you, Dave, for continuing to get up, dust yourself off and move on. And God bless all the people out there who have shown you, and others like you, some grace.