A homegrown treat poised for takeoff
The Lola Granola Bar ”“ which has gained the attention of the Food Network ”“ was energized from its start, fueled by desperation, need and a mother”™s love for her family.
In 2010, Mary and Ernie Molina were struggling to get by. The couple had lost the two cellular phone stores they had owned for more than a decade.
“We closed and we sold off everything that we could,” Mary said.
After being turned down for government assistance, Mary left the Social Services office in tears while trying to reassure her children and herself that things would be all right.
Ernie was able to get a job selling commemorative gold coins, earning just enough to get by.
“My husband was working in a cubicle and was going to the dollar menu (at McDonald”™s) because that”™s all we could afford. And he realized fast food isn”™t supposed to be consumed all the time.”
So when Ernie ask that Mary buy him granola bars to eat at work she said, “I can make it myself.”
After following the advice of her aunt who simply said take whatever is in your pantry and bake it, Mary created the original Lola Granola bar in the kitchen of her Croton Falls home. Because of her children she said, all of whom have soy allergies, she had what she needed.
“I had oats, flax seeds, nuts and dried fruits in our pantry,” she said. “And I just mixed what I thought would be good.”
Her bar received rave reviews from her husband who suggested she sell the bars. Mary was initially resistant to the proposal, but after researching the market, she discovered the need and growing popularity of whole food items. That convinced her it was a viable business.
After a year of trial and error, the Lola Granola bar made its debut late last year. Although her parents ran a catering company on the side when she was younger, Mary had never imagined she too would be in the food business.
Mary expanded on her original bar. Using oats from the Finger Lakes region, Hudson Valley honey and other whole ingredients, she came up with five variations for the granola bar. All of the flavors were named for the children in her life.
They include the original, which is cranberry and almond and named after daughter Lola; The Ruby, with cranberries named for her daughter; The Enzo, “who is absolutely nuts so we gave him the almond and cashew bar;” The Ellie, whose bar is filled with dates and cashews; and The Nathan, named after the couple”™s nephew because “he loves blueberries.”
Lola Granola Bar Inc. developed a small following that made it attractive to distributors. So far, distributors including Ingenuity in Katonah and Croton Egg Farm deliver to 40 retailers listed on the company”™s website. That list doesn”™t include the recently added Whole Foods. But growth for awhile was stifled, in part, because of lack of experience in the industry and a dearth of money.
Ernie worked in sales and had knowledge of manufacturing, but the company struggled because he didn”™t have the connections. “We found it very difficult to move forward,” Ernie said. “We were low volume and we had no money so how do we get our bars made on a mass scale and meet the minimums of these people? It was so hard.”
They didn”™t get a loan, but the Molinas managed to secure $40,000 from friends and family. Later they were able to add another $20,000 bringing the total to $60,000. Aside from the low startup capital, the Molinas also said they found it was hard to break into a market that wasn”™t represented well in New York. “There”™s nothing that exists like this for us on the East Coast,” Ernie said. “We were going to be forced to go to Canada or California, and we wanted to create jobs here in Westchester County or New York state.”
After months of searching, they managed to find a manufacturer in Syracuse that could produce 250 bars a minute instead of the 300 bars in five hours they could do on their own.
Around that time, Mary said the fledging company started to pick up steam. Since then she”™s been on the Food Network and next month she”™ll be on QVC promoting the granola bar that is free of soy, wheat and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The small corporation Mary formed, which counts only she and her husband Ernie as employees, continues to rely on help from friends and family to do demos of the Lola Granola product, as well as ship online orders.
Mary said their commitment to the Lola Granola bar is paying off and she”™s optimistic that the company”™s reputation will open doors to new markets beyond the tristate area.
“We want to target more metro areas like Boston, lower Jersey, Philly, and D.C. and take full advantage of the opportunities that exist for us,” she said.