If you've ever picked up a loaf of Dave's Killer Bread, you may have noticed an intriguing story on the package. It shares that its cofounder, Dave Dahl, was once in prison but got his second chance by baking bread. That's the short version. Now, having sold the company, Dahl is sharing the rest of it.
That includes the good and the bad: The celebrity status in Portland; the speaking engagements; the evasion of police in 2013, during which he rammed several cop cars; the mysterious death of a friend after a "boys' night" at Dave's cabin near Mount Hood. Those who have read only what's printed on the back of bread packages know none of this. Everyone likes a success story; everyone wants to talk about the guy who pulled himself up by the bootstraps, worked hard, and became a multimillionaire. No one wants to see someone achieve all those things and then fall prey to the same problems that haunted them their entire lives. Horatio Alger didn't rise to prominence crafting those kinds of stories, and neither do advertising agencies. The narrative of Dave's Killer Bread understandably wasn't updated to include its cofounder's fall from grace. And now that the company has been sold and Dave is out of the office, if not entirely out of sight, it has slowly redacted his story from the packaging, one rewrite at a time.
Read the entire feature here: Against the Grain
Thumbnail photo: The Image Party / Shutterstock.com
