Notes

Charlie Crystle & Craig Lauer

CEO & Chief Product Officer, The Lancaster Food Co.

Old friends Charlie Crystle and Craig Lauer were walking their dogs when the threads of a running conversation wove into an idea: a locally sourced, organic food company that would pay thriving wages.

“It was a combined passion for food and supporting local agriculture and having a positive impact on the local economy,” says Lauer. “All of these different skills and passions came together.”

From that conversation in late 2013, Crystle and Lauer founded The Lancaster Food Co., a producer of breads, spreads, and other products to come. The launch was meteoric, rising in mere months from the seed of an idea to a food producer with twenty vendors from metro Washington, D.C., to metro New York City. Some big names come up in the conversation about sellers or hoped-for sellers of their goods – Giant Food Stores, Wegmans, Whole Foods Market.

“Big isn’t necessarily bad,” says Crystle. “We’re trying to become big.”

The Lancaster Food Co. (www.thelancasterfoodcompany.com) was founded to make things happen. The name conjures Lancaster’s Old World values and reputation for wholesomeness, says Lauer. The mission includes a commitment to hiring people living in poverty or near-poverty and paying them enough to support their families and even build savings.

It’s “just not right” when workers paid a supposed living wage are “just scraping by,” says Crystle. “They should be able to pay their bills without working multiple jobs. They should be able to feed their families without government assistance.”

If others follow their example, he says, “it’s better for the community. You deal with that first, and you’re going to strengthen the community, ultimately.”

The partnership draws on the strengths of each. Lauer and Crystle grew up together in Lancaster, went their separate ways, and came home. Crystle is an entrepreneur whose ventures include founding ChiliSoft, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems, and co-founding GiftWorks. Lauer spent twenty years in New York City consulting on brand development for major companies. He’s the one who is passionate about food and cooking. Crystle credits Lauer with developing “some amazing stuff” that sells because it’s just so good.

“I had never heard of roasted sunflower spread, and now I eat it all the time,” he says. “It’s really good.”

Lauer says they “care very much about demand and meeting people where they want to be met. But if we can’t make it great, we’re not going to make it. We have very, very high standards.”
That said, he adds, “there aren’t too many things we can’t make great.”

Lauer admits that a “naïve energy” has propelled their rapid growth, but “we just like trying to be nimble and trying to bring things to market in a seasonal way.” Crystle says they’re “serious about the mission, but it’s fun, too. We’re learning all the time.”

Social impact companies don’t just plow profits into charity but also operate on sound business principles that make them competitive and that uplift everyone they deal with, says Crystle. The driving force is creating something “that is really fulfilling and makes it easy to get up and go to work every day.” Lauer concurs.

“If we can serve as any kind of model or – this might sound a little highfalutin’ – but as some kind of an inspiration to others who are thinking of building a business, [are] currently building one or have built one, then that’s a win.”