Mecatos Bakery & Café: Driving Growth with Experience and Expertise
Columbian Bakery Chain Achieves Aggressive Goals with Assistance of FSBDC at UCF’s Advisory Board Council
June 4, 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Hal Thayer, Communications Director, FSBDC at UCF, 407.420.4850 or HThayer@ucf.edu
Jill Kaufman, Associate Director/ABC Program Manager, 407.420.4854 or Jill.Kaufman@ucf.edu
Orlando, FL – Finding broad industry experience and deep functional knowledge that can accelerate revenue growth in a small business is generally not easy, even for the most ambitious entrepreneurs and business owners. Edwin Lurduy, founder and CEO of Mecatos Bakery & Café, had built a successful company from a simple, family-owned business started in 2015 that shared his passion for Colombian food and culture with its diverse communities. Featuring Mecatos’ by-now renowned Colombian specialty coffee, delicious baked foods, hot bites, and desserts offered in a welcoming, relaxed, and modern setting, the company had grown to four stores in Central Florida by 2022.
Lurduy believed Mecatos Bakery & Café could be much more, however, and to achieve the growth he imagined possible, he sought fresh perspectives and deeper expertise. This led him to the Florida Small Business Development Center at the University of Central Florida (FSBDC at UCF) and its award-winning Advisory Board Council (ABC) program. Led by program manager Jill Kaufman, it offers small business owners the opportunity to work with a customized board of experts providing advice to help businesses grow – all at no cost. The FSBDC acts as a matchmaker between established local businesses like Mecatos and area professionals who volunteer their expertise and are purposefully selected to address the specific needs of the FSBDC client. Lurduy could not be happier with the results of his Advisory Board experience.
“The benefits we received from working with our Advisory Board, which was composed of people with decades of experience in marketing, legal, finance, and more, was incredibly valuable to a young organization such as ours” Lurduy recalls. “Every single idea or input they shared with us was important. They have lived this in much larger companies and it helped us to prevent or reduce mistakes and go in a better direction. It has meant significant changes at our stores and in our distribution center, some of the more critical ones being menu simplification, display and signage improvements, expansion of our catering operation, and help with sourcing and procurement of new products, how to look for them and how to negotiate them.”
Lurduy has long had aggressive expansion goals in mind for Mecatos and the ABC has helped him realize them. “We have received tools from the Advisory Board on how to reach those goals,” he continued, “all obtained from the Board based on their experience working with companies that have done this. From their feedback and advice, we have saved money, saved time, and made our operations more efficient. We have learned things that would have taken years and many resources to learn on our own.”
“During the term with our Advisory Board, they were crucial to our expansion plans,” Lurduy concluded. “While we were working with them, our organization grew from four to nine stores. Our revenues doubled. Our employee count doubled. Our distribution center expanded as far as labor and production. These are all numbers that were impacted in one way or another by the advice, help, and support of our Advisory Board Council.” And exactly the result he was looking for when he brought in its experience and expertise to help him.
For information about Mecatos Bakery & Cafe , please visit https://mecatoscafe.com/.
— FSBDC —
About the FSBDC at UCF
Hosted by the University of Central Florida (UCF), and with its main office in the National Entrepreneur Center located at the Fashion Square Mall in Orlando, the Florida Small Business Development Center at the University of Central Florida (FSBDC at UCF) is part of part of UCF’s Office of the President and the Florida SBDC Network.
The Florida SBDC at UCF provides aspiring and existing small businesses with no-cost consulting, low-cost training, and access to business data and research resources. In addition to its core service offering, the Florida SBDC at UCF also offers specialized services to qualifying companies, including capital access, market growth, government contracting, international trade, business continuation, cybersecurity, disaster planning and recovery, and more. The FSBDC at UCF serves an eight-county area that includes Brevard, Flagler, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Sumter, and Volusia counties and maintains 9 service centers across Central Florida.
In 2024, the FSBDC at UCF served 2,277 entrepreneurs in Central Florida with consulting services, resulting in more than 2,855 jobs impacted; $564.3 million in sales growth; $57.2 million in capital formation; $161.1 million in government contract awards; and 142 new businesses started. For more information, please visit www.sbdcorlando.com .
About the Florida SBDC Network
For nearly 50 years, the Florida SBDC Network, the state’s principal provider of business assistance [Fl. Stat. 288.001], has nourished a statewide partnership between higher education and economic development to provide existing and emerging small and medium-sized business owners with management and knowledge resources that enable overall growth, increased profitability, and economic prosperity for Florida’s economy.
In 2024, the Florida SBDC Network delivered 107,812 hours of consulting to 15,474 small business clients – resulting in business owners securing $304 million in capital, $732 million in government contracting, impacting 19,800 jobs, increasing sales by over $3.8 billion, and creating 1,019 businesses.
With over 40 offices statewide, the Florida SBDC is funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration, Department of Defense, State of Florida and other private and public partners. The Florida SBDC Network, headquartered at the University of West Florida, is nationally accredited by the Association of SBDCs and is a recipient of the President’s E Award for Export Service. Florida SBDC services are extended to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis. Language assistance services are available for individuals with limited English proficiency. For more information, please visit www.FloridaSBDC.org.
