We were lucky to catch up with Holly MacKinnon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Holly , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

As many of us are aware the American food industry, like many industries in America, is driven by profit and not by consumer well-being. Big food prioritizes making products as cheap as possible which makes them full of chemicals and lacking real nutrients. The average American’s diet is made up of 60% ultra processed foods, that’s food that our body biologically doesn’t recognize as “food”. The biggest issue is allowing these chemicals to be put in our food when there’s tons of researching proving the negative effects it causes on our health. There’s often a focus on marketing hype and flashy labels rather than transparent and accurate information about the ingredients and their sources. This can mislead consumers who are genuinely trying to make informed and healthy choices. While this is super frustrating it’s also beautiful when we become educated because as consumers we have the buying power to make change, we vote with our dollars!

Holly , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Small Seed Bar came from the simple idea that a protein bar should nourish your body and taste good. When I graduated college I became interested in health and wellness and ended up taking a health coach course. That’s when my eyes opened up to the real truth. The more I dug into the food industry and ingredients on the market the more I realized how sick everything I was consuming was making me. My husband and I were both working 60+ hours a week and lived on protein shakes and bars. There was nothing on the market that met my standards for nutrition, ingredients and protein. It was a passion project turned business. I saw the need for a simple, real-food protein bar that didn’t taste like all the others. After months of experimenting in the kitchen I finally created the perfect nutritionally dense protein bar. That’s when the idea of Small Seed Bar came to life, we couldn’t be the only people who lived a busy life but didn’t want to sacrifice our health with every bite we took. We needed something that fueled their body and brain and gave them sustained energy – Small Seed Bar is exactly that. We carefully select every ingredient for optimal gut health and bioavailability. This is the reason why our customers always tell us they never feel bloated, they have sustained energy, they aren’t hungry and hour after eating, it doesn’t spike their blood glucose levels, and now we have ruined all other bars for them – because once you go Small Seed you never go back! On top of our customer satisfaction, it’s been amazing to build this company and brand with just my husband and I. We have no employees it’s just been us running marketing, manufacturing, R&D and operations. This business has allowed us to be independently employed for 5 years while simultaneously growing our family from two to four. Our mission is to expose corruption in the food industry while educating people on the importance and ease of leading a truly healthy lifestyle while providing people with a simple solution *insert* Small Seed Bar.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My husband and I started this business in San Diego in 2018 as a small farmers market brand. Right as we started to see real potential in the business we found out we were expecting our first child. We had both just quit our full time jobs and had no savings. Within 3 months we packed up our whole life and moved across the country to a place where we knew no one and had no connections, Raleigh NC. We hit the ground running as we now not only needed to provide for ourselves but our new little baby. 2019 was our biggest year to date, we were picking up traction, growing rapidly and having conversations with big national retailers. At this point we had maxed out multiple credit cards and loan options to meet the demand of scale. Then 2020 came and the entire world, not just our changed. Our entire business model was based off wholesale and overnight we lost 90% of our revenue. After a month it was clear things weren’t going to open back up anytime soon. That’s when we decided to pivot, flipping our entire business upside-down and became a direct to consumer business. This was a whole new set of skills that needed to be learned basically overnight. From algorithm to ad spend I immersed myself into the world of digital marketing. Now our focus was on creating relationships with our customers and not buyers at giant retail stores. Our entire livelihood was riding on Small Seed succeeding and we weren’t going to go down without a fight. This all came at a cost. While trying to figure out our new margins we were slowly burning through all of our money and couldn’t continue to pay ourselves. With this we had to find an alternative way to create more cash flow. Due to the housing market rising our house went ups 40% in value so we decided to move to South Carolina (cheaper living) and use the profit from the sale of our house to continue to run Small Seed. Now 2 years after selling our house, we are finally getting out of the hole that 2020 tried to burry us in,

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

This sounds so simple. I just am who I am. I mean that quite literally, I am just authentically myself. When you are confident and comfortable in yourself it shines a natural light. As we started this business people would tell me “you can’t talk that way, you can’t dress that way, you can’t swear or use lingo or be that laid back, but the truth is you can. It builds a different kind of relationship with my customers. I known them by name, I know their kids names and where they went on vacation. I spend time trying to be as personal as possible with all of them because I am just like my customers. I am someone navigating my health, a busy parent, always working, working out and everything in between. Being relatable and me has been the best strategy for growing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.smallseedbar.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallseedbar
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smallseedbar