MANAGING director of Bakedbio Foods & Snacks Limited, 19-year-old Levavion Bailon-DeMarquez is gaining recognition for his bold, persistent, and innovative approach to entrepreneurship. What began as a casual pastime baking cupcakes in high school has evolved into his sole source of income and a growing snack food business.

With no initial plans to start a business, Bailon-DeMarquez said the feeling of being the one to deliver something people looked forward to eventually transitioned into a sense of leadership and entrepreneurship. The idea started in Clarendon, where his friends gained traction selling cupcakes. Seeing the opportunity, he began selling them at his own school. With just $2,000 and limited baking knowledge, he bought cake mix, followed the instructions on the back of the box, and started selling. Upon graduation, Bailon-DeMarquez moved to Kingston, determined to continue selling cupcakes, this time to corporate customers. Up until 2021, the venture operated under the name “Craved Cupcakes” before eventually transitioning to Bakedbio Foods.

“We continued selling to small spaces. At one point, I was walking into business places and asking persons who worked there if they were interested in buying the product,” he told the Jamaica Observer in an interview.

This became a weekly routine, taking orders, noting quantities, and returning at the end of the week to deliver. By 2023, they secured a co-working space in Liguanea, St Andrew to sell from, after baking at home and transporting products to the location. But eventually, he realised cupcakes weren’t generating the revenue he hoped for, prompting him to begin researching other product lines.

“It’s either A, we didn’t have enough shelf life for the supermarket to take us on, or B, it would be a thing where the supermarket already had their own bakery,” he explained about the hurdles he faced.

He eventually decided on creating a shelf-stable product that could be mass-produced without needing daily sales. Bagels were the first experiment, but the market wasn’t receptive. The pivot to snacks, specifically seasoned popcorn, soon followed. After developing the product, he distributed samples widely. However, early feedback skewed negative, pushing him back to the drawing board multiple times.

“It became a thing where I almost gave up, because it was like every time I tried something new with the flavours, there were complaints,” Bailon-DeMarquez admitted to the Sunday Finance.

It took more than 90 iterations before arriving at a sample people genuinely loved. That marked the company’s breakthrough a year ago. The business mindset truly kicked in when he saw what he was building, especially when he became responsible for paying others, including part-time contract staff. That feeling of accountability and progress motivated him to fully pivot the business model. Today, Bakedbio Foods & Snacks is gearing up to sell seasoned popcorn in two flavours; chilli lime and sweet & spicy barbecue. The last six months have been focused on building distribution networks, and the company has secured contracts with both local and regional distributors, with products expected to hit shelves by September.

“Locally, we reached out to a few brands, but we haven’t had as much success as we’ve had regionally. However, we have gotten traction as it relates to stores independently of the distributors,” he said.

The products will be available at Hi-Lo supermarkets and Blaize gas stations locally, with distributors handling other retail outlets. Regionally, Bakedbio products will be rolled out in the Dominican Republic, Dominica, and Belize. Securing these contracts, Bailon-DeMarquez says, was a leap of faith.

“I got up. I left the country with no real plan to go to an event, and when I got to that event, I met a friend who introduced me to someone who would have been one of the persons to introduce us to all the other people that we now have distributed across the Caribbean,” he said.

Although the snacks are not Jamaican-flavoured, Bailon-DeMarquez says the goal is not to make products only for Jamaica, but rather to make quality snacks in Jamaica for everyone. The company recently closed on a new building for manufacturing, which it is leasing and outfitting with its own equipment to serve as a factory. With this venture being his primary source of income, Bailon-DeMarquez admits the fear of failure crosses his mind.

“If this fails, what did I do? If I should fail at this, it will be hard for me to get something [a job],” he shared.

Still, he sends a message of motivation to himself and to others.

“You have to be willing to take a risk and believe in yourself that you’re not going to accept failure as a real outcome. Sometimes, you have to be delusional. I went into this saying, ‘There’s no way I’m failing.’”