Late July Snacks: Nicole Bernard Dawes. Crackers and Cookies were Failing… Tortilla Chips Saved Them
with Nicole Bernard Dawes
Executive Summary
Nicole Bernard Dawes grew up in her dad's Cape Cod Potato Chips factory and her mom's health food store, and spent her career proving organic snacks could taste as good as conventional ones. Her company Late July limped along for years on crackers and cookies until a brutal 2008-09 crisis (her father's death, a called $3.5M loan, a discontinued $2M cookie line) forced a Hail Mary pivot into organic tortilla chips, which took the brand from ~$8M to over $100M in sales. Snyder's-Lance went from 20% to 80% owner, Campbell's absorbed the brand via a 2018 merger that defeated her buy-back clause, and she moved on to found Nixie, an organic sparkling-water and soda business that she describes in the interview.
Key Takeaways
Takeaway 1
Dawes describes learning inside her father’s company while also wanting her own work to be recognized. Her account includes both useful access and frustrations with others’ assumptions. It does not independently establish what every observer believed or what resources were available; family-business experience is one part of her particular starting position.
Takeaway 2
Dawes says an early cracker plan assumed buying frequency closer to chips and that slower repeat purchase affected the economics. Her historical category comparison is not a current market statistic. Measure repeat sales, household behavior and working-capital needs for the actual product rather than transferring a neighboring category’s assumptions.
Takeaway 3
Dawes recounts discontinuing a personally meaningful cookie line because its economics were difficult during a wider crisis. It sacrificed revenue but, in her view, helped the company focus. That outcome does not prove cutting a loved product is always right. Compare contribution, cash needs, customer effects and realistic alternatives.
Takeaway 4
Dawes describes a loan being called after her father’s death and a later ownership change she says did not trigger the protection she expected. These are her historical account, not an independent legal interpretation. Have qualified counsel review exact trigger, control and buyback provisions, and assess insurance suitability rather than buying automatically.
Takeaway 5
The account links a difficult period with a move toward tortilla chips. Family dietary needs and organic positioning influenced the choice, while taste and distribution mattered to the business. The notes do not establish universal allergen safety or a medical benefit, and a successful pivot in one story is not proof that a crisis requires an all-or-nothing bet.
Takeaway 6
**Ask directly for the decision when the stakes are existential.** On her first make-or-break sales call, to Stop & Shop, the linchpin for a distributor and a whole new channel, Nicole was so nervous she read the presentation verbatim. At the end she simply asked the buyer to say yes on the spot and told him what it would mean. He said yes. That single yes unlocked conventional distribution and turned seven years of grinding into an "overnight success."
Takeaway 7
Dawes describes using manufacturing partners, later strategic ownership and efforts to protect what she valued about the brand. Revenue, staffing and ownership figures are historical statements. Strategic capital does not always end in acquisition, and a particular board arrangement or choice not to litigate needs case-specific legal and financial review.
The Conversation Breakdown
Childhood in the family business
mom's health food store, dad Steve's storefront kettle-chip startup, the car crash that put Cape Cod Potato Chips on the front page and funded its first winter.
Selling and buying back Cape Cod Chips
1985 sale to Anheuser-Busch, 1996 buy-back for under $3M (brand only, distribution and manufacturing gone), Nicole running marketing and launching the reduced-fat chip.
Second sale and starting her own company
Lance buys Cape Cod for ~$30M (1999); a failed organic snack-mix concept ("Mulberry Snack Company"); pregnancy, an empty organic cracker aisle, and the founding insight for Late July; launching with the brand-new USDA organic seal in 2003.
The cracker years
debut at Natural Products Expo Baltimore 2003 as an instant "national brand," the sales collapse two months later, wrong velocity assumptions, the beloved but unprofitable sandwich-cookie line, and Snyder's-Lance's ~20% strategic investment in 2007.
The 2008-09 crisis stack
her father's terminal cancer and death, individual investors trying to convene a shareholder meeting at the wake, the bank calling the $3.5M equipment loan via the death-of-a-member clause, her youngest son's life-threatening peanut allergy discovery, and RSF Social Finance (now Regenerative Social Finance) plus Gary Hirshberg arriving as new lender and investor.
The tortilla chip Hail Mary and breakthrough
developing organic multigrain tortilla chips, competing against Kettle's Tias at Whole Foods, the make-or-break Stop & Shop pitch, conventional distribution unlocked, beating Tostitos in a taste test, and growing from ~$8M to $100M by 2014-15 with ~27 employees.
Exit and starting over
Snyder's-Lance to 80% in 2014 with board control preserved, the 2018 Campbell's merger that voided the buy-back clause, the emotional Newport Folk Festival goodbye, then founding Nixie (self-funded organic sparkling water and zero-sugar soda), surviving a COVID launch window, and her views on luck vs tenacity and why beverage is the hardest aisle in the store.
Core Frameworks & Ideas
Framework 1
**Big fish in a small category vs small fish in an enormous one.** Her dad was content owning a big share of a small category (kettle chips in New England); Nicole deliberately chose a small share of an enormous category (tortilla chips) because that is where transformational growth lives, accepting far tougher competition.
Framework 2
**Taste earns the second purchase; mission earns the loyalty.** Consumers rebuy only if the product tastes great; the organic mission is what makes them feel connected and loyal afterward. Lead with taste parity or superiority versus conventional products, let the organic discovery be a bonus.
Framework 3
Strategic-capital fit [editorial synthesis]: a corporate investor may add distribution or manufacturing capabilities and may also seek an acquisition. Investigate its objectives and alternatives, model governance and sale scenarios and review the exact language with qualified counsel. Acquisition is not an inevitable outcome of every strategic investment.
Framework 4
Small learning loops [editorial synthesis]: test products, repeat-purchase behavior and economics before expanding. Nicole links earlier learning with resilience in a later crisis; the revenue ranges in her story do not establish universal stages or prove a business model.
Actionable Next Steps
- ✓Have qualified legal and financial advisers review loan and investor clauses triggered by death or control changes. Ask whether insurance is suitable, affordable and capable of addressing the actual exposure rather than buying a policy automatically.
- ✓**Validate category velocity before committing financials:** benchmark how often a household actually rebuys your product type versus an adjacent one, and size inventory, trade spend and cash flow to the slower truth.
- ✓**Run a "what is hurting our lives most" review** (credit: Gary Hirshberg): if a constraint, like the founder's spouse being stuck at a distant factory, is crippling both family and company, hiring to remove it is not a luxury but a business requirement.
- ✓**Self-fund the learning phase when you can:** know your best sellers, velocities and product potential before bringing in investors, so you negotiate from evidence, not hope.
- ✓**In a make-or-break pitch, ask for the decision explicitly** and explain what a yes would change; then leave the room before you can talk yourself out of it.
Notable Quotes
“I saw Cape Cod Chips more like a sibling than I did a company.”
“there's two ways to be successful. You can be the a big part of a small category or you have to be a smaller part of an enormous category”
“I tell everyone I talk to like if you get debt, get key man insurance”
“I've built my entire career out of making organic and natural products, healthy organic natural products taste like conventional ones”
“The mission is what makes them feel connected to your brand, you know, gives you the loyalty, but the taste is always going to be the most important thing”
“It's really getting from like 10 million to 50 million is probably the hardest part”
“That's where the luck starts to fizzle out and the hard work picks up”
The One Thing to Remember
When your hero product isn't working, the boldest adjacent pivot, made decisively in a crisis, can be the thing that saves and transforms the company.