Late July Snacks: Nicole Bernard Dawes. Crackers and Cookies were Failing… Tortilla Chips Saved Them

August 31, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

As a child, Nicole Bernard Dawes watched her father, Steve, build Cape Cod Potato Chips from a tiny storefront into a regional hit, only to sell it, buy it back, and sell it again. When she started her own snack company, Late July, in 2003, she was determined to make organic crackers and cookies that tasted as good as the conventional brands she had envied as a kid. But the business limped along for years. Crackers turned out to have much slower consumer velocity than potato chips, and her premium sandwich cookies were so expensive to make that they were practically unprofitable. Then, in 2009, her father died of pancreatic cancer. Three weeks later, the bank invoked a death-of-member clause in her loan agreement and demanded repayment of a $3.5 million loan within 30 days. Late July was in default, and Nicole needed a Hail Mary. The answer turned out to be something she had wanted to make her whole life: organic tortilla chips.

The cracker trap and the cookie mistake

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What you'll learn

1 (00:36) **Expo Launch & Early Sales Spike** - Late July debuts at the Natural Products Expo in Baltimore and leaves as a national brand.
2 (01:44) **From Cape Cod Chips to Late July** - Nicole’s father Steve founded Cape Cod Potato Chips, a business that would shape her entire career.
3 (03:35) **The Unmet Need for Organic Snacks** - Growing up with a health food store mom and a snack food dad, Nicole saw a gap in the market for delicious organic products.
4 (10:17) **Dad Sells Again; Nicole Starts Her Own Company** - After her dad sells Cape Cod Chips a second time to Lance, Nicole decides to start her own snack company.
5 (19:08) **The Pivot to Crackers** - While pregnant and shopping at a health food store, Nicole notices the snack aisle is just as depressing as it was in the 1970s.
6 (21:35) **Launching Late July with Crackers** - Nicole launches Late July with three organic crackers, using her own money from the Cape Cod sale and co-manufacturers.
7 (25:20) **The Crackers Fail to Gain Traction** - After the initial Expo success, sales plummet because crackers have a much slower "velocity" than potato chips.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Nicole Bernard Dawes spent much of her childhood hanging out in her dad’s potato chip factory on Cape Cod.

She liked his kettle-cooked chips a lot more than the flavorless snacks in her mom’s health food store. But when she started her own business, she wanted the best of both worlds: a snack made with natural, organic ingredients…that still tasted good.

Nicole launched Late July Snacks in 2003, when most consumers barely knew what “organic” meant. For years, sales limped along. Then, in a moment of crisis, she made a company-saving pivot by launching a brand new product – organic tortilla chips. Within just a few years, Late July grew to over $100M in sales, and Nicole decided to launch a new brand in an even more challenging category: soda.

You Will Learn:

How growing up in a family business can help–and hurt–when you launch your own
The pros and cons of financial vs. strategic investors
When to cut a product that isn’t working
Why the fine print in a contract is so important
How the hardest decision might be the best one for your family and the business

Timestamps:

07:22 - The car crash that launched a potato chip company

21:00 - Pregnant and craving crackers: The birth of Late July Snacks

36:54 - The organic cookies that tasted great but nearly sunk the business

40:49 - Tragedy and crisis: a father’s death and a $3 million loan in default

50:31 - A tortilla chip Hail Mary

57:29 - Nicole’s first big sales call… and her last chance to save the company

1:08:49 - “The big fish eats the small fish.” A food giant acquisition

1:13:36 - Nicole launches a new brand, moving from a hard category–to an even harder one

This episode was researched and produced by Chris Maccini with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant. Our engineer was Robert Rodriguez.

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