Honey Baked Ham is considering opening a Lancaster store. Eric Edwards handles franchise development for the company. He said the company is looking to expand here and in Columbus and Toledo. So right now we’re in the process of looking for a brand partner to work with,” Edwards said. “It’s pretty definite that we’ll be coming there. Just the timeline isn’t quite definite yet.” He said the company has some areas of the city in mind, but can’t say for sure where the store could go until it finds partner, or franchise owner. “Typically, we’re looking for an in-line unit in a well-developed part of the city,” Edwards said. Honey Baked Ham features dine-in restaurants and the company also has catering services. Edwards said the company is most known for its honey glazed spiral ham. The menu also features turkey, beef, chicken, salads, a variety of sides and desserts. Honey Baked Ham started in Detroit and has more than 450 stores, Edwards said. He
said it is a half-billion dollar company that is looking to become worth $1 billion and that it wants to grow with franchisees. “We’ve started to analyze different markets across the country where our stores perform the best and we have the best name recognition and a very strong customer base,” he said. “Then we start to target 10 to 12 very specific markets across the country. Ohio was a well-identified state which had three of those markets.” Edwards said Lancaster is an economically diverse market that is growing. “And Lancaster is also a very business-friendly environment,” he said. “It’s a really good city to work with. It just checked a lot of boxes and that kind of put it at the top of our list.”
