04/18/2026
He went to prison four times for drugs and burglary. When he got out, he put his mugshot on a loaf of bread and built a billion-dollar company that hired hundreds of ex-convicts.
Dave Dahl walked out of Oregon State Penitentiary in 2004 at the age of 43, carrying everything he owned in a plastic bag.
It was his fourth time being released from prison. Fourth.
He had spent a total of fifteen years behind bars for burglary, drug possession, and assault. Fifteen years—his entire twenties and most of his thirties—locked in a cage, fighting addiction, and believing he was exactly what society told him he was: a lost cause.
When he got out that fourth time, nobody was waiting with job offers. Nobody wanted to hire a middle-aged ex-con with a criminal record longer than most resumes. His family was the only option left.
His brother Glenn ran a small bakery in Milwaukie, Oregon—NatureBake, a struggling operation that made whole grain bread for local health food stores. Glenn offered Dave a job out of desperation and family obligation, not because he thought Dave would revolutionize anything.
Dave started at the bottom. Mixing dough. Cleaning equipment. Showing up at 4 AM.
But something happened in that bakery.
For the first time in decades, Dave had a place to put his energy that wasn't self-destructive. He started experimenting—throwing in organic whole grains, seeds, and ingredients that made the bread dense, hearty, and unlike anything else on the market.
This wasn't the soft, processed white bread Americans were used to. This was bread with texture, with weight, with substance. Bread that had been through fire and come out stronger.
Just like him.
In 2005, Dave convinced his brother to let him create a new product line. He'd call it Dave's Killer Bread.
And here's where it got radical.
Dave wanted to put his face on the packaging. Not just his face—his prison mugshot. And his story. Right there, on a loaf of bread sitting in grocery stores.
His family thought he was insane.
"You want to tell people you're an ex-con?" Glenn asked. "On food packaging? Nobody's going to buy that."
But Dave insisted. He told his brother: "I wanted to be honest about who I was because if people couldn't accept my past, they wouldn't understand my bread."
So they did it.
The first loaves of Dave's Killer Bread hit shelves with Dave's face on them—tattooed, bearded, unmistakably rough around the edges—and his story printed on the back. "Ex-con. Four prison stints. Fifteen years behind bars. Second chance."
Industry experts predicted it would fail spectacularly. Who would buy food associated with a criminal record? Criminals touched this bread. That was the message, intentional or not.
But something unexpected happened.
People bought it. Not in spite of Dave's past—because of it.
Customers saw the honesty. They saw someone who had screwed up, paid the price, and was trying to rebuild. They saw the one thing everyone secretly craves: proof that second chances are real.
And the bread was legitimately better than anything else in the aisle. Dense, flavorful, packed with organic grains and seeds. It wasn't just a gimmick. It was a superior product made by someone who had something to prove.
Within a year, Dave's Killer Bread was the best-selling organic bread in Portland. Within five years, it was in stores across the country. Within ten years, it was a national phenomenon generating over $200 million in annual revenue.
In 2015, Flowers Foods—one of the largest baking companies in America—bought Dave's Killer Bread for $275 million.
A guy who couldn't get a job at McDonald's because of his record had just sold his bakery for a quarter of a billion dollars.
But Dave didn't just take the money and disappear.
He turned his success into a mission: Second Chance Employment.
Dave started hiring people directly out of prison—men and women with records like his, who couldn't get jobs anywhere else. He hired them to work in the bakery, gave them training, paid them fair wages, and treated them like human beings instead of mistakes.
By the time the company was sold, 30% of Dave's Killer Bread employees were people with criminal backgrounds. Hundreds of people who had been written off by society were getting paychecks, learning skills, and rebuilding their lives.
Dave became a living symbol of transformation. He spoke at events. He appeared on news programs. He told his story over and over: You are not your worst mistake. Your past does not define your future.
And for a while, it seemed like the perfect redemption story.
But life is more complicated than that.
After selling the company, Dave struggled. He had built his entire identity around the bakery, around being the ex-con who made good. When he stepped away from the daily operations, he felt lost.
He also struggled with bipolar disorder—a condition that had gone undiagnosed for years, masked by addiction and incarceration. Success didn't cure his mental illness. It just gave him different problems.
In 2013, before the sale, Dave had a manic episode that led to a bizarre incident where he rode a bicycle naked through Portland. He was hospitalized and later spoke openly about his mental health struggles.
The media coverage was brutal. Some people said, "See? Once a criminal, always a criminal." As if mental illness and past mistakes were the same thing. As if one bad day erased everything he'd built.
But Dave didn't hide. He went to treatment. He got help. He talked publicly about bipolar disorder and the importance of mental health care.
Because that's what he'd always done: told the truth, even when it was uncomfortable.
Today, Dave's Killer Bread is still thriving. The Second Chance Employment program is still operating, still hiring people with criminal records and proving that everyone deserves an opportunity to rebuild.
Dave himself is less involved in the day-to-day operations, but his legacy is baked into every loaf. His face is still on the packaging. His story is still being told.
And hundreds of people who thought their lives were over because of their records now have jobs, paychecks, and proof that they're more than their worst mistakes.
Dave Dahl's story isn't a simple rags-to-riches fairy tale. It's messier than that. He didn't just overcome his past and live happily ever after. He struggled. He relapsed into mental health crises. He had setbacks.
But he kept showing up. He kept being honest. He kept proving that transformation is possible, even when it's not perfect.
He spent fifteen years in prison—four separate times—convinced he was a lost cause.
Then he put his mugshot on a loaf of bread and built a billion-dollar company that gave hundreds of ex-cons the second chance he'd been given.
He didn't erase his past. He baked it into his future.
And he proved that your history is not your destiny—but it can be your greatest strength if you're brave enough to own it.
He was an ex-con who couldn't get hired anywhere.
So he hired people just like him.
And changed hundreds of lives.
