Cheesy CPG: A Friendly Bread’s growth story

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Cheesy CPG: A Friendly Bread’s growth story

26 Nov 2025

Lily Cota

Lily Cota is a writer, editor and photographer from Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated from Missouri State University with a Bachelor of Science in English and a minor in Photography. When she’s not writing, you can find her reading fantasy novels, thrifting, trying out local coffee shops and spending time with her nieces.

KANSAS CITY, MO — Most people probably think they know all there is to know about grilled cheese sandwiches. It’s just bread and cheese, after all.

But what if that grilled cheese was made with pre-toasted, artisan sourdough bread? What if it was packaged in an individually wrapped format, ready for a toaster oven, combining home-cooked flair and modern-day convenience?

With its heat-and-eat frozen grilled cheese and steadfast commitment to authenticity, Baltimore-based A Friendly Bread is changing the way consumers perceive CPG baked goods.

But the brand’s journey didn’t start with this vision in mind. In fact, it’s amazing it even started at all, considering founder and CEO Lane Levine didn’t like bread growing up … that is, with the exception of sourdough.

“I always thought sandwiches were just too wet and soggy,” Levine said. “But I came across sourdough here and there and always remembered that it was a chewier or crustier bread that seemed to hold up better.”

That distinct fondness, coupled with the impending burnout of 12 years in non-profit work, led Levine through a budding baker’s rite of passage as he began casually experimenting with sourdough. This newfound passion ignited curiosity, and A Friendly Bread was born with scrappy beginnings and swelling potential.

“Before building this business, I never had the experience of participating actively with a product … a physical thing somebody could buy from me,” Levine said. “The intangible nature of non-profit work really wore on me, and suddenly I was making something that I felt could be my first engagement in the goods economy, so I went with it.”

Levine’s bread was a hit at farmers markets and among a growing core of home delivery customers, with a local following that grew every day. So much so that customers were sending him pictures of their DIY grilled cheese sandwich innovations, opting for two slices of A Friendly Bread’s sourdough as the base. Suddenly, a light bulb flickered, and the brand started doing pop-up Grilled Cheese Nights at luxury apartments. The response was overwhelming … and enlightening.

The grand grilled cheese idea was hatched, and A Friendly Bread restructured its ascent as a premium, par-baked CPG sandwich brand. But things are never that simple, and the path to success isn’t always linear.

A brand can’t truly consider itself established without experiencing its share of R&D and distribution detours.

In the beginning, A Friendly Bread manufactured its products by hand in a co-working production space. To make things easier on the bakers and increase production, the team took a leap with upgraded automation — and a bit of practical frugality.

“I set a rule for any kind of large equipment investment — whether it’s production or packaging — that nothing we purchase can only be used for one thing,” he said. “We needed to buy an industrial-sized slicer to efficiently slice the bread for the sandwiches, but I realized it could also be used to slice the cheese.”

This story has been adapted from the October | Q4 2025 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the digital edition here.

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