The Black Bread company was created by three black friends from the Southside of Chicago, Charles Alexander, Mark Edmonds, and Jamel Lewis. The company is being featured in a Black History Month docuseries entitled “Profiled: The Black Man” on Discovery +.
Charles, Mark, and Jamel
The idea for the company first formed in 2020 when Edmonds went to his local grocery store to simply purchase a loaf of bread. At the time, after the death of George Floyd, he was making a conscious effort to specifically support black-owned businesses.
“I was going to the grocery store with a list that my wife gave me,” says Edmonds in the docuseries. “At the top of the list was bread. I immediately started just googling every single bread brand that was in the aisle. When I got done, 45 minutes had passed. I left the store. I didn’t buy anything.”
After looking up all the bread companies in the aisle online, Edmonds discovered that none of the bread companies in the aisle had black CEOs or business owners. This was the moment that his idea for the black bread company formed.
Since Edmonds couldn’t find any black representation or ownership anywhere in the bread industry, he became determined to start his own bread company. He called up his two best friends, Charles and Jamel, with the idea for the company. Edmonds and his friends had no previous experience in the food industry.
“We started out knowing what we didn’t know,” says Edmonds.
The company is the first American black-owned bread company. Through the company, Edmonds and his friends are overall working to promote African American representation and to deconstruct popular media stereotypes and narratives surrounding black men.
You can purchase the bread from the company’s website (theblackbreadco.com) or at select retailers.