From the production floor to a pastry start-up of his own to the sales and marketing directorship, Craig Hendrickson spent more than a decade preparing for the day his father, Gary “Butch” Hendrickson, stepped back. That day came on October 27, 2026.
Gary “Butch” Hendrickson,
Continental Baking Company Limited, the home of the National, HTB, HoMade and Crave brands, announced on Tuesday, October 27, 2026 that Gary “Butch” Hendrickson is handing executive leadership of the company to his son, Craig. The announcement was made at a press conference at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel under the theme “Honouring Our Legacy. Shaping Our Future,” as the company begins a year-long run-up to its 75th anniversary in November 2027.
Butch, who has led the business since the mid-1990s, told the gathering that after more than three decades in executive leadership he had decided to step back from the day-to-day running of the company. In the company’s release he remains Chairman of Continental Baking. Craig, 30 when he launched his own pastry venture in 2018 and now in his late thirties, becomes the fourth generation of the family to run the business. His speaking notes for the event are headed “CEO’s Address.”
What Was Announced, and What Was Not
The company’s materials describe the change as a handover of executive leadership, and a leadership profile posted on the company’s press-room site earlier in October framed it as a transition of operational responsibility from the third generation to the fourth. The release does not state an effective date for the change, and the text reviewed for this article does not spell out Craig’s formal title beyond the CEO label on his speaking notes. Readers should treat the exact title and start date as points to confirm with the company; Butch’s continuing role as Chairman is stated.
The move closes a loop that began publicly in 2019, when Butch, then 67, told the Financial Gleaner he was planning his exit and that the transition would be gradual but “it is going to happen,” without naming a successor or a date. Seven years later, he has named his son.
Butch Hendrickson, on the handover: “now it is his turn.”
Four Generations at the Oven
The company’s own history, published with the announcement, traces the business to Reginald and Irene Hendrickson, whose early baking operations in St Elizabeth and later Mandeville laid its foundation. Butch told the press conference that his grandparents started the business over 100 years ago. Their son Karl took over after returning to Jamaica, and in 1952 the company established mechanised bread production in Kingston, the date from which National counts its 75 years.
Generation one Reginald and Irene Hendrickson — early baking operations in St Elizabeth and later Mandeville.
Generation two Karl Hendrickson — establishes the Kingston operation in 1952, mechanises bread production and adds biscuits, crackers and, in the 1970s, the Hannah Town Bakery and its HTB brand.
Generation three Gary “Butch” Hendrickson — takes the helm in 1994, invests heavily in plant and distribution, opens London (2010) and New York (2013) distribution.
Generation four Craig Hendrickson — production manager, then sales and marketing director, founder of CRAVE, and now the executive leading the company.
The company’s account also settles a discrepancy that has run through press coverage for years. Some reports credit Karl with founding National in 1952; the family’s own history places the business’s origins a generation earlier, and treats 1952 as the start of mechanised production in Kingston.
Learning the Business From the Floor Up
Craig studied business at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, graduating in 2012 according to the Gleaner; a director’s biography published by Recycling Partners of Jamaica describes his degree as being in entrepreneurship and economics. He returned to the family firm and began in production. The company says his career has since spanned manufacturing, supply chain, sales and marketing, giving him first-hand exposure to both the operational and commercial sides of the business.
His company biography credits him, as a production manager, with championing supply-chain optimisation and introducing new production lines. In a business where margins turn on flour costs, import rules, equipment uptime and delivery routes, an executive who has run the plant starts with credibility that a purely commercial leader would have to earn.
CRAVE: A Founder’s Test Inside the Family Firm
The defining early chapter came in January 2018, when Craig launched CRAVE Manufacturing and Distribution Company Limited, a sweet-pastry line aimed at a segment National did not serve. The Financial Gleaner reported that the first five products were strawberry and lemon Danish, a coconut swirl, a cinnamon roll and a sugar bun, sold in deliberately bold packaging and distributed from pink-liveried vans to supermarkets, convenience stores and small shops across seven parishes, with a plan to reach all 14 by year-end.
Craig told the paper he had borrowed from his father and started the company without his father’s knowledge, an admission made with Butch in the room. CRAVE operated from a 6,000-square-foot unit within National’s Half-Way Tree complex with about 15 employees and an initial investment of J$20 million from internal sources. Companies Office records named Craig and his sisters, Amanda and Rachel Hendrickson, as its owners, even as he described it as effectively a subsidiary of National.
Butch framed the venture as a revival: sweet goods were not new to National, he said, recalling a pastry shop run by his grandmother that was sacrificed to space constraints in the 1960s. Craig set a public goal of earning at least a quarter of National’s revenue from CRAVE within five years, a target the public record does not show was met, since neither company discloses earnings. Asked then whether he was next in line to lead, he answered: “I am not going anywhere.”
From the Plant to the Commercial Seat
Craig’s most recent formal role was Director of Sales and Marketing, and he is a director of National Baking Company and of the National Baking Company Foundation, launched in August 2015. He joined the board of Recycling Partners of Jamaica in 2019, has served on the board of Coconut Bay Beach Resort and Spa in St Lucia, and sits on the boards of non-profits including the Law Street Trade and Training Centre. The company’s leadership profile adds that he is a husband and father of two young children.
Taken together, those roles map a deliberate breadth: manufacturing operations, a start-up, the revenue side of the house, governance across a hospitality asset and a foundation central to how the family wants National seen. The company itself says that combination of production, operations, sales, marketing and entrepreneurship is what makes the moment particularly relevant.
The Inheritance: A Billion-Dollar Build-Out
What Craig takes on is not a static company. National has been building a new bakery at Catherine Hall in Montego Bay, announced in January 2024 at J$6.7 billion and described by the Jamaica Observer in June 2026 as a US$75-million plant, alongside new distribution centres. In that report Craig, then speaking as director of sales and marketing, said delayed equipment and storage costs had followed last year’s hurricane and that the plant was expected to be about 80 per cent complete by year-end.
Add a flood-prone site, export ambitions across the Caribbean, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and an 800-plus workforce, and the operating reality of the role is clear. The June comments suggest he was already the executive fielding detailed questions on cost and risk before the title changed.
His Stated Agenda
Craig’s speaking notes set out his priorities plainly. He named sales and operational efficiency as his focus, arguing that sales growth must be matched by the ability to manufacture, distribute and deliver consistently, and that sales, manufacturing, distribution and support teams must operate as one connected business. He pledged to fix processes that create delay or waste, to keep developing staff and to pursue innovation, technology and sustainability as part of staying competitive.
He also confirmed that The Bold Ones of Manufacturing, the programme Butch launched in 2010 to back young Jamaican manufacturers and which the company says has been on a ten-year hiatus, will return in 2027, with applications opening soon. His closing line was short: “I am ready to get to work.”
What to Watch
The questions now are practical. When does the handover take effect, and what exactly is Craig’s title? What role will Butch, as Chairman, keep in capital projects such as Catherine Hall? Can the Montego Bay plant be completed and certified on the timeline the company has signalled? And can a leader who built his reputation on production and sales steer the business through its 75th-anniversary year while the Bold Ones programme returns? Businessuite Magazine will follow each of them.
Sources: National Baking Company press-room materials for the October 27, 2026 announcement (press release, Chairman’s address, Craig Hendrickson’s speaking notes, leadership profiles and company history); Jamaica Gleaner and Financial Gleaner reporting on CRAVE (March 2018), Butch Hendrickson’s retirement plans (July 2019) and National’s expansion (November 2023); Jamaica Observer reporting on the Catherine Hall plant (June 2026) and the January 2024 launch; Recycling Partners of Jamaica director profile; Loop News. Details such as title and effective date are as stated by the company at the time of writing.
