About Us

For over 100 years.

At Lewis Bakeries, we keep our focus on the customers. Everything we do behind the scenes — rising early, coming up with new recipes, keeping the old favorites consistently delicious, and teaming up with the right partners — is all for them.

The whole Lewis Bakeries family:

The yardstick of success is not the money you make or the money you have — it's what you've accomplished.

— R. Jack Lewis, Sr.

How we work has always been central to why we succeed.

At Lewis Bakeries, we've always focused on the people, both our own and the customers we serve. We treat those who work here like family, and we are always looking for new ways to make our customers happy and support their families and lifestyles with bread they love.

Why we R.I.S.E. every day.

Our culture is built around our Roots. We began as a small family business who prioritized quality baking, and we've continued to operate with those same central tenets as we've grown.

Our Integrity has remained strong. We're committed to doing the right thing: to being a sustainable, responsible company that keeps work and food safety as our top priorities.

When it comes to the Service we provide, we work to maintain the highest quality professional service to not only meet our customers' expectations, but to exceed them.

For that reason, our goal is to provide the very best baked goods while always looking ahead. Our commitment to Excellence means a passion for growth and innovation.

Baking responsibly.

We encourage our employees and suppliers to accept responsibility for conserving our natural resources and ever seeking new ways to use them efficiently. We also strive to prevent the waste of packaging, energy and other resources. To learn more, visit our FAQs.

We believe that being a good corporate citizen will help make us a successful company.

Chairman of the Board Dean Short

Join the family.

We were founded by three brothers and remain not only a family-run business but also like to treat everyone we work with like family. We prioritize integrity by complying with BRC standards and national and state labor laws. These ensure we uphold a fair and safe workplace for our company and safe baked goods for our customers. Learn more about working with us.

Work with Us

Our history began
over 100 years ago.

In 1925, three brothers borrowed $300 against their mother's home to open a bakery in Anna, Illinois. The bread of Amos, Armold, and R. Jack Lewis was delivered right to the homes of their customers each day in a Ford Model T, and the profits often went right into buying the flour for the next day's bread.

A household name.

Only twenty years later, the Lewis Brothers' Bakery had become a household name, with the bakery employing fifty people and baking 75,000 loaves a week to be delivered across twelve delivery routes.

Bunny is born.

Everything changed in 1947, thanks in no small part to R. Jack Lewis Sr. creating the bread now synonymous with freshly baked bread in Midwestern households.

Bunny became so popular and well known throughout the entire territory that customers began to call for 'Bunny' bread.

The Gazette Democrat, 1952

Bunny was delicious, and its slogan — "That's What I Said, Bunny Bread!" — was working. Growth continued into the 1950s, and Bunny became so popular, R. Jack Lewis, Sr. knew the bakery needed to invest in automation to keep up with demand.

Grow or go.

R. Jack Lewis, Sr. was the company's head throughout most of this era and was well known for his infectious enthusiasm, determination and efforts, and his words of wisdom. "You have to grow or go." By the 1980s, expansion grew tremendously, by tracking consumer trends and using new, emerging research into nutrition. The innovations began and didn't stop.

Healthy innovations.

R. Jack Lewis, Jr. took the helm and expanded the company across multiple states but also into another new territory: emerging nutrition research. In 1991, the first fat-free, reduced-calorie bread was made. Healthy Life, it was called, which was just what customers wanted. Healthy Life would go on to become an entire family of products.

Then, Healthy Life introduced its first bread and buns for those lowering their net carb intake, allowing those who still wanted to enjoy a sandwich or toast a way to do so, even on their new diet journey.

Still a household favorite.

Drawing from over 100 years of experience and listening to our customers, we continue to develop our great-tasting Lewis Bake Shop® products in a variety of sizes and flavors.

The innovative Lewis Bake Shop® ½ Loaf of Bread and ½ Pack of Buns were launched and have been celebrated ever since by both smaller households and larger ones with varying tastes. We look forward to remaining our customers' favorite for 100 more years to come.

Here's to the next 100 years of baking.

In 2019, H. Dean Short, grandson of founder Jack Lewis Sr., became company president of one of the few independent wholesale bakeries in the Midwest. He is now chairman of the board, and the Lewis Bakeries focus has remained where it has been since 1925: on baking the best quality breads for our customers.