Meat+Poultry - January 2022 - 27

BACON-PRENEURS
What started as a supper club in Manhattan
has evolved into The Baconer
BY JOEL CREWS | jcrews@sos land.com
C
amilo Velasquez, spent most of his
career working in consumer goods,
including the sports equipment
industry and working with leather goods.
He and his wife Elisa Lewis are dyed-in-thewool
foodies who, years ago, identified an
opportunity in the bacon segment to break
the mold of all the companies offering bacon
strips. The couple quickly realized that besides
some slight twist on thickness or a sprinkle
of pepper, what mainstream bacon products
lacked was true innovation. What they strived
for was creating something that sparks
inspiration, Velasquez said.
" Something that is familiar but completely
new. We saw an opportunity to come to market
with a product line that just stops you in your
tracks, " he said.
Their journey began around 2010, when
the couple was living in Brooklyn, NY, sharing
a loft apartment with another couple, one
of whom was a professional chef. Often, the
roommates hosted small multi-course gourmet
dinner parties for their friends, matching wine
with various culinary dishes created by the
chef. Initially the get togethers included small,
curated groups looking to socialize with other
like-minded people who were foodies like
them. The couple found the process of creating
innovative dishes as a source of connecting
with people and creating unforgettable food
experiences. Camilo said the " underground
supper club " evolved from something fun to
do with friends, to a side hustle as he started
getting calls from people requesting they host
their groups in more of a catering arrangement.
" Elisa was on the hosting side, and I was
on the food side, " said Velasquez, who worked
closely with his chef friend who cooked for
the growing supper club. The chef routinely
included smoked and cured meats on the
menu, including porchetta and especially
bacon, which piqued Velasquez's interest.
WEST COAST APPEAL
The couple went on to move across the
country in about 2012, first living in Los
Angeles before they settled in the Bay area the
next year, where Velasquez resurrected the
dinner club concept, still as a hobby mostly.
Soon, he began experimenting with curing
and cooking pork bellies himself in his home
kitchen, pushing the envelope beyond just
making bacon strips and in the process, he
developed a passion for the culinary side of
creating bacon-centric dishes.
" I would smoke slabs, I would slow cure
them for a long time and put all this wonderful
flavor in them and realized pretty quickly that
just cutting them into strips like everybody
does was not the most interesting thing to do
with a bacon slab, " Velasquez said.
Some of the signature products he
" Most bacon
co-packers are
just churn and
burn and are
just moving
stuff through
as fast as
they can. "
- CAMILO VELASQUEZ
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27
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Meat+Poultry - January 2022

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