Founder Feature: Lex Evan of Lexington Bakes

0:00Music

0:10My philosophy has always been that we are only as good as the ingredients resource and without our ingredient partners, we would not be winning awards. Like our awards are not just for the product that we make and sell. Our awards are reflective of the quality of the ingredient partners that we work with. So whenever we win an award, I share it with all of our ingredient partners because without them, we would not be making award-winning treats. Hey, everybody. This is Caitlin Bricker, Managing Editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today, I'm sitting down with Lex Evan, founder of Lexington Bakes.

0:47Lexington Bakes is a luxury baked good serving protein cookies, protein oat bars, and dessert brownies. But the luxury isn't in the cost of the products. It's in the ingredients he so carefully chooses. Lex just won an NXT award at Expo West for best vegan product, and he's bringing that energy into this conversation. We're diving into his journey from 20 years as a designer to teaching himself how to bake, why he trademarked radical ingredient transparency and prints his suppliers logos on his packaging, and his philosophy on protecting your time as a solo founder. This is a masterclass in staying true to your vision and building a brand with integrity.

1:25I'm excited about this one because my first interaction with Lex left me stunned in the best way. We'll get into it on this episode. As always, enjoy.

1:37Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin, and today I'm here with Lex Evan, founder of Lexington Bakes. Lex, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I've been waiting to be on the show for years, and I feel like it's the right time. It is the right time. We have a lot to talk about, but before we get into it, tell us what is Lexington Bakes? Lexington Bakes is a luxury bake shop serving protein cookies, protein oat bars, and dessert brownies. And it looks like you have a little bit of a halo going on in the background there. What's going on behind your head?

2:14Oh, you might be referring to my new Nexty Award. Hot and fresh. We just won a Nexty Award for Best Vegan Product at Expo West out of 3 ,300 brands exhibiting over 1 ,000 submissions. We are one of 37 winners of a Nexty Award, and it's for a product that I just launched two months ago. Oh, simple feat. How does it feel? I was nominated last year, and I was a finalist, and we didn't win. And after five years of, like, being a bridesmaid and never a bride, I wasn't going to go to the awards ceremony because I'm like I'm sick we'll get into this but like February was the craziest month in Lexington Bakes history I almost didn't go to Expo West because I was so exhausted I was like I'm not gonna win like it's an honor to be finalist like that is amazing that is a great win for me I need to go and rest and my friends were like you have to go I'm like okay and we won it is the biggest accomplishment of my life so far wow congratulations I mean I can just tell by the way you're grinning that this is a very proud moment for you and your brand and for your entire life as you're saying.

3:22I can't imagine how you're feeling right now. So I'm glad you made it to Expo. Sorry you brought home whatever you brought home with you along with your nexty, but we're good and the bad. I call it my Oscar. That's how it feels to win this. It feels like winning an Oscar. Wow. So what would your acceptance speech look like if you had one? I'm terrified that we were going to have to do acceptance speeches because I've never been to the awards ceremony before. But honestly, I just wanted, I would thank the community because without the encouragement of everyone in this industry, I don't know if I would have gotten this far.

3:54I'm not a professionally trained food scientist or a professionally trained chef. I taught myself everything I know when it comes to baking and recipe development and commercializing formulas. So I'm very happy and grateful that I've had that encouragement over the years. I've become friends with food scientists and they've become like amazing people to have in your circle. Just everyone roots for everyone and it is an amazing industry to be in. So I would just thank everyone who's in this industry making it possible for all of this to happen. Very well said. And you just touched on it, but before we dive into all things Lexington Bakes, I want to know who Lex is.

4:32So can you tell us a little bit more about your background and how you went from what you were originally doing to becoming a self-trained pastry chef to creating Lexington Bakes. I was very fortunate that I discovered what I wanted to do with my life in college. Not many people do. I went to school for graphic design and I had a brilliant 20-year career design. I worked at Johnson & Johnson for 10 years straight, which for a millennial is remarkable. Yes, it is. I got to work in big CPG globally. I got to study consumer behavior all over the planet. I've designed hundreds of products in over 80 countries around the world.

5:12When I go on vacation, I pop into shops and I'm like, look at all the sunscreen I designed. It's really awesome to have that experience. I went from that to now having the experience of, let's go to the grocery store and show you the things I made with my actual hands that are being sold in hundreds of grocery stores around the country. That pivot was unexpected and unplanned. I picked up baking as a hobby now 15 years ago alongside my design career. I really just love dessert. Like, I'm obsessed with sugar. And I wanted to know how all my favorite treats were made. This is the origin story. I bought a KitchenAid mixer when I was old enough and lived on my own and could afford a$400 mixer and just started Googling recipes every weekend.

5:58I baked every weekend for the first three years, like nonstop. And I was the person who brought like five cakes to a holiday party that I made myself. And I'm like, guys, I want to make all these flavors and I need to learn how to make all these things like enjoy because I'm not going to eat them all by myself. That's weird. So, yeah, I would bring stuff into work every Monday. and be like, look what I did this weekend. And again, that feedback of my community telling me we love your baked goods, like keep doing it, is how I landed to where I am today. Big question for you. What color was your KitchenAid?

6:32Your very first KitchenAid? It is the KitchenAid mixer that I've developed every Lexington Bakes formula on. It's the gunmetal black KitchenAid mixer. And I will never get rid of this machine. Maybe KitchenAid needs to sponsor you because not only have you had that for this long, but you're right here telling us it's standing the test of time. Oh my God, it didn't occur to me. I've had this machine for 15 years. That says a lot. I feel like not a lot of things we purchased today stand that test of time and can last 15 years. It still looks brand new and functions brand new. It's amazing. But KitchenAid, if this comes across your ears, I would love to do a gunmetal brown with gold accents.

7:14That is very on brand for us. Let's do a collab Lexington Bakes KitchenAid mixer colorway. Hey, you know what? Fingers crossed over here. Toes crossed too. Can't see it. Okay, I have another big question for you. Radical transparency. This is a big one for you and your brand. When I got samples from you, I had never seen anything like this before. Tell me how you came up with this idea, what it looked like to actually carry that through, and how people have received that from Lexington Bakes. Okay, so much of what I do is a result of gripes that I have with the world. At least you're honest, you know.

7:53When I lived in New York, I would just go to every single bakery I could go to. And when I started baking for myself and teaching myself how to make things, I was like, oh, I never thought to ask about the ingredients in bakeries. Like when you go in the grocery store, it's like you put on this persona or hat of like investigator and you're like, the ingredient lists are there, the nutrition facts are there. I'm going to take a magnifying glass and I'm going to scrutinize it like unbelievably so. The minute you leave the grocery store and you go to the bakery, everyone abandons all of those principles and values.

8:25And it's like, I'm just going to trust that the bakery is doing the best thing for me. And that's not the case. When I learned about organic ingredients and why they're better and no artificial ingredients and like all the shortcuts that can be taken in the baked goods world, I started questioning why I was going to bakeries if they don't offer that transparency. It's like you have this halo perception of bakeries making things from scratch. And that's not always the case. I'm not saying all bakeries, but most, especially if you have like 30 different items, like you're not making all of that from scratch every day.

9:00Like you're taking some shortcuts. So I was like, OK, if I'm going to do a bakery, like I want to solve this problem that I have for myself, which I'm sure not many people care to that degree. But I was like, all right, what is the complete opposite of that? And it's radical ingredient transparency. And I trademarked it because why not? I am going to tell you not just what ingredients I'm using, but the companies I'm sourcing them from. So you can trace everything to the source. And ultimately, all of this ladders up to communication. Another gripe that I have is everyone and their mother saying, made with the best ingredients.

9:39There is no definition for best ingredients. So I set out to define what that means for Lexington Bakes. And part of that is telling you, these are the ingredient brands that we use. These are standards for evaluating companies that we want to work with, for evaluating ingredients that we want to use and serve to you. And we're going to be fully transparent about it so that you can decide for yourself if this truly is made with the best ingredients on earth. And it is. I don't think anyone else scrutinizes ingredients as rigidly as we do. We do good for the planet and people, and we want to make sure that the companies we're supporting and sourcing ingredients from are doing that same thing.

10:20So that the good you do by shopping Lexington Bakes and supporting Lexington Bakes is compounded by all of these companies doing good for the planet and people and animals. We're trying to reduce the animal ingredients that we use. And that's a whole nother tangent, but I will stop here. I am very curious how your ingredient suppliers viewed this conversation when you approached them about this. Was this something that they had ever seen before? What was the reaction like? I was expecting a lot more of who the hell are you? Please go away. We're busy. And from the very beginning, people were like, this sounds wonderful.

10:57We would love to be on your packaging. I very timidly asked Nielsen Massey if we can just print their name in text. Like we have two areas on the back of our package. One is a paragraph, just text format because we can't fit every logo. I'm like, there's our regular ingredient list, which is the FDA, just basic names for ingredients. There's our radical ingredient transparency list where we list the brand and the product that we source from them. And then there's an area at the bottom of the back of our label where we put featured ingredient logos. and we reserve those three or four spots for the ingredients that are most prominent in the flavor or the recipe.

11:38So when we shared that with Nielsen Massey and I was like, I know you're Nielsen Massey. You're the biggest vanilla company. I'm obsessed with you. I'm just a tiny little one person show with two products. I'm just asking if we can print Nielsen Massey in the text area. And they're like, hey, what's this area with the logos down here? Can we put our logo there? And I'm like, are you kidding me? Absolutely. Like, I was just too scared to ask. But yeah, I would love to put Melissa Massing's logo on the bottom of this. So we have permission from all of our partners to print their names, to print their logos wherever we do.

12:09And over the years, we've now earned several top awards in the industry from Good Housekeeping to my new Nexty award. And I feel like I get to do all of our partners proud to have their logos and their brands on our packaging for now that we're winning awards for the best treats. I call it the best treats on the internet, but we're obviously in hundreds of grocery stores, so it's beyond the internet now. I just have to say, I think what you're doing is very commendable. I think it says a lot about you as a founder and where you want to see the industry go. And of course, as a partner to work with, I mean, the space that you have on your packaging can't be more than that big.

12:51The fact that you are not taking up that space just for yourself, but you're also taking up that space to highlight your ingredient supply partners. I've never seen anything like it. The fact that you were able to make space for that says a lot about you. Good things. My philosophy has always been that we are only as good as the ingredients resource and without our ingredient partners, we would not be winning awards. Like our awards are not just for the product that we make and sell. Our awards are reflective of the quality of the ingredient partners that we work with. So whenever we win an award, I share it with all of our ingredient partners because without them, we would not be making award-winning treats.

13:33Wow, that's powerful. What do they feel when you tell them this? What do they say? I feel like over the years, the excitement just keeps building. One recent story that like everything for this brand has been very kismet and kind of like serendipitous, but I was working on our new protein cookies back in September, and they're powered by almonds, almond butter, peanut butter, nut butters, and just nuts. That's what makes them gluten and grain-free. At that same time, Artesana, which is another brand that I adore, I've had their raw almond butter in my pantry for years. I'm obsessed with it. They reached out and they're like, hey, we heard about Licensed Bakes.

14:10We'd love to send you samples of our nut butters if you ever want to use them with baking. I'm like, am I on hidden camera? How did you know I'm working on cookies with nut butters because like we never did that before and I was like just FYI this is very serendipitous I love your product I'm actually using it in my R &D right now so yeah love to work with you I told them about a radical ingredient transparency they were a little hesitant they're like we don't know about that we need to try the product first but then as soon as they tried it they're like oh my god we've never had so much alignment from like different team members on like how good these treats are.

14:44We would love to have our logo on your packaging. And now I did them crowd because the peanut butter cookie uses artesana tahini and we just won a next year award for it. Amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if you got more suppliers that are approaching you and they're like, hey, we want to work with you instead of you searching through the supply chain for the best ingredient suppliers. To be fair, I want to work with artesana. I'm still very scared to approach people because I'm like, I'm just so inspired by the brands that these people build. And I'm like, are we big enough yet to ask for this?

15:16So it's really cool when there's inbound interest in like, we love what you're doing. We make good products. We'd love to kind of work together. That's crazy signal of success. If you ask me that you're getting that inbound request, not for free samples, but hey, can we send you something? Of course. I also want to talk to you about your no naughty ingredients. Talk to us about what that means and what clean ingredients mean to you or don't mean to you? So I try to avoid using the word clean in our messaging and our marketing. I think it's impossible in industry talk or just like B2B talk. But when it comes to consumer facing messaging, in another life, I would have been an English major.

15:58Like I am obsessed with words and what they mean. It was part of my job as a designer to also copyright sometimes. And like a graphic designer's job is just visual communication and words are visual communication. They transfer meaning and messages. And a lot of people don't think very deeply about the words they use to market their products and the implied meanings or kind of the counter meanings. So when you label something as clean, you're automatically saying the opposite is dirty and food is not dirty. We don't want to pass judgment on accessibility, affordability of whatever anyone deems clean.

16:39So again, this goes back to clarity, defining things, getting rid of the ambiguity. Clean is not a regulated term in the food industry. It's ambiguous. It means different things to different people. We just don't use it. So I wanted to come up with a better way to communicate our ingredient standards, which is no naughty ingredients, also trademarked. And on our website, we again have a definition of, hey, we realize everyone's interpretation of what is good or bad is different. This is our definition. It's our phrase, no naughty ingredients. Here's what it means to us. It means no artificial preservatives, flavors, dyes, colors, or flavors.

17:22There's no natural flavors in our products. Vanilla can be considered a natural flavor, but it's labeled vanilla extract. So it's just vanilla extract. Natural flavors can mean a whole slew of sub-ingredients that don't have to be disclosed. We don't use natural flavors. We also list that we don't use soy, corn, gums, or any weird oils. You can't really say seed oils because seed oils is also not very clearly defined. I think there's a certification agency that also says like some seed oils are considered seed oils, but other technically seed oils aren't considered seed oils because when people hear seed oils, they think about the bad seed oils, but not every seed oil is bad anyway.

18:02My goal is to get rid of the ambiguity, provide clarity, make sure we're communicating on the same message, the same point. We also have in our no-naughty ingredient definition, we recognize that for some people, alternative sweeteners provide access to desserts that you normally might not be able to have because of health conditions or just dietary restrictions. We're again not passing judgment on that, but we believe that those ingredients have not been thoroughly tested over the decades to evaluate the long-term effects. And while the FDA may classify them as grass generally recognized as safe, we wouldn't feel comfortable serving those to our consumers not knowing what the long-term effects are.

18:45Sugar, cane sugar, brown sugar, we use organic everything, but that has been used for like over 100 years. Is that it? Maybe. I haven't looked into the history of sugar, but it's got to be longer than that. Obviously, excess added sugar has been linked to health effects. We are all about balance, real, tried and true ingredients. I love it. Did you hear that? That's opportunity knocking. We've been building something big and today we're ready to share it. Introducing Opportunity Knocks, a new campaign giving startup CPG brands exclusive direct access to submit to leading retailers, distributors, investors, media, and more.

19:26Here's how it works. On Fridays, a new submission window opens exclusively for active Startup CPG email subscribers. Each campaign features a custom form tailored to that partner. Share your brand story, products, distribution, and traction. Startup CPG delivers your applications directly to the partner's team. Some campaigns include a live fireside chat so you can meet the partner and ask questions directly. To get every drop, subscribe at startupcpg.com slash OK. That's just the letters O and K. Today's drop is live and it's with Earth Fair. Ready? Go. Go subscribe. Go submit. Good luck.

20:16I think you hit on so many important topics just then. The accessibility piece and not shaming people for what they eat, because at the end of the day, we all have to eat. Would we rather people go hungry or have something in their bellies? I would say the latter. And it sounds like you are in the same boat. Yes. Wow. So much to unpack. I'm sure a lot of people are probably just like the wheels are spinning just like mine are right now. I do have to say to you, I want to touch on your LinkedIn posts. You get a lot of buzz on your LinkedIn posts. Sometimes they're kind of spicy. A little attitude here and there, which I love personally.

20:55Definitely some breadcrumbs for some big capital raised or new products launching, big announcements. But one thing that I really like that I see from you is your conversation about protecting your time and your energy as a founder. So can you talk to me about boundaries and how you're creating them and honoring them as a CPG founder? It's easy to get wrapped up in the generosity of this community because everyone is so open and willing to collaborate and help and work together. But not everyone comes from the same position. So I am a solo founder. I don't have any full-time employees at Lexington Bakes.

21:36I design everything from the website to the packaging. I RD the flavors. I'm still producing the product. breaking news for you, but our co-man just went out of business. So I'm still self-manufacturing. That news will be on LinkedIn later today. So yeah, it's a lot of people don't recognize that there isn't a full team behind me. And now that we've fundraised and we have investors, like it's even more important for me to protect my time because it's no longer just my time. My time is working for the success of our fundraise, where our business can go and making sure that our investors get a return on their investment over time.

22:14So I have to protect my time even more so now than before. But I think just everyone expects so much free work from other people. And I have been a designer for over 20 years. And this isn't new to me. I have always been asked for like, Oh, hey, you like to color and draw. Like, can you make a logo for me? And I'm like, it's a very simplistic view of my career. Thank you very much for that. No, I do not want to make a logo for you because that's not fun for me. It doesn't help me advance my career. It doesn't allow me to learn anything new. But a part of me is also like generosity has been instilled in me from my grandmother and my mom.

22:51I'm part of a big Greek family. Like we overfeed people. I want to do as much as I can for people. But I've learned that when you offer your expertise and kind of experience for free, people don't value it. So I stopped. I used to offer free office hours and after a few conversations where people would just ignore my advice it's like do you realize how expensive this advice would be if I actually charged you like not trying to inflate my ego or anything but like no it shifted my perception of generosity in that like you can't give it to everyone because everyone isn't going to respect what you're actually doing for them and yes like in the future if when I sell Lexington bakes and we make billions of dollars, I would be happy to help as many people as I can.

23:37But I can't help you until I've succeeded. And I feel like I'm still so early in building all of this. And there isn't really a support system other than me to do all of this work that now isn't the time for me to help a million people. I still try to help like one or two every now and then. But the most important thing in my life right now is making sure that Lexington Bakes continues to succeed and grow and that I can bring my dreams and visions to life before it's too late. And you are very community focused. I mean, from what you're saying right now, you do share a lot on LinkedIn about your founder journey.

24:14I would say that's free advice. You're posting on social media. I think what you're doing is wonderful. You also have your partners in mind and you have people in mind too. The first time I met you, I don't even know if you remember this. It was at Summer Fancy Food in New York City. We were in the basement. What you asked me wasn't how are you or would you eat today or any of the questions that everyone's asking each other. What you asked me was, what are you passionate about? And I was just like, I was floored because I was like, this man who I am just meeting right now for the first time, who knows nothing about me most likely, is interested in what I'm passionate about as a person.

24:55that will stick with me forever. And I will always associate that with you and your brand when I think of you. So A plus to you. That is so sweet. Of course. I mean, I really love what you're doing with Lexington Bakes. I really love what you're doing for the community. And I think what you are putting out there online, maybe it seems kind of like superficial to some people because it's online. It's very real. And I think these are the conversations that most people don't want to have. because they want it to be glitz and glamour and giving. But again, what you're doing at the center of everything is community.