We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lisa Marsh a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lisa, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Mspsgfree was created because I had a need for delicious gluten-free snack foods. I have been gluten-free since 2009 and what I was finding on the shelves was not working well. There was very little taste, many items were super dry and not palatable. I began baking and came up with our line of snack foods that are delicious, nutritious and healthy 😋. Our mission is to provide our delicious, nutritious and healthy snack foods to minority females between 35-60, who need healthy snack foods to continue taking care of their families and themselves. We aspire to become that go to brand for healthy snacking, moving more and living longer. We do this to help break generational curses that have plagued our family for years, so others don’t have to endure what we have. Our mom Mrs. Y L Patterson-Brown the business namesake passed away at 60, our dad passed away at 42, and in 2018?, we lost our middle sister Venita who was only 51. We are creating and developing our snack foods so deliciously that our consumers forget how good they are for you.. When you feel good, you move more and have greater longevity. That is our greatest desire at Mspsgfree..
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I became gluten-free in 2009, began baking shortly after that, then started selling our gluten-free products at farmers markets, after prompting from co-workers. I completed our first accelerator class at Sunshine Enterprises in 2014. Certified the business in 2015, and was on the shelf at our first Whole Foods Market location by September 2016. We grew slowly from there, to three stores, to six, to 15. Then the Pandemic hit and we thought where do we go from here. Our sales dropped like a rock and we were in big trouble.. We provide delicious, nutritious and healthy snack foods that keep you full, encourage movement and longevity and we were struggling. We reached out to our network, received a large order, then received assistance from the PPP. We are most proud of our ability to survive during a time when many did not. Our ability to pivot and reach our market, to provide value and help people snack healthier, move more and live longer 😀 We now have our delicious, nutritious and healthy gluten free Granola in Whole Foods Market locations in and around Chicagoland, on Amazon and in the first black owned autonomous grocery store in the United States called Nourish +Bloom in Fayetteville, GA. We will soon have products in Mariano’s. Mspsgfree was founded on the need for delicious, nutritious and healthy gluten free snack foods and has a mission to provide these for our customers and consumers. We promote healthy snacking, moving more and living longer.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
When I founded Mspsgfree in 2015, I was employed full time in federal law enforcement. I worked for the federal Bureau of Prisons for 27 years and thought I would retire as a Warden. I worked on both Mspsgfree and in the government for years, then decided to step out on faith. I left the job I had grown to love, it was stable, gave me a decent salary and a way of life for my family. My salary was in six figures and my husband didn’t get it. In December 2017, I transitioned to Mspsgfree full time not knowing what the future held but fully recognizing that I needed a change. The early years in 2018 & 19, we’re a real struggle, then in 2020 things got worse. We kept moving forward and even had to change our strategy for Mspsgfree to survive. We made the adjustment moving more towards marketing and advertising rather than conducting in store demos due to the Pandemic, We found more mentors and advisors, a marketing collaborator, and began payroll for our staff. These times were extremely difficult and we made the necessary adjustments to keep moving forward. These were two major pivots that put us on a growth trajectory for my life and the life of Mspsgfree.
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
Mspsgfree Granola is still hand made in our commercial kitchen by our staff. We had no idea about manufacturing products or even what CPG meant. We took our first Accelerator class and raised our hand day one asking when we should get insurance, the answer was hello before you sell anything. We were Green, new and ready to learn. Our first commercial kitchen was restrictive, we couldn’t store items without paying additional fees which we didn’t have and we had to schedule way in advance to ensure we had kitchen time. We often forgot essential items needed for our products or ran over on our time and left the kitchen exhausted. Our current kitchen allows us to store products there, has large industrial mixers we can use and we are usually the only ones in the kitchen. The kitchen is huge gives us more oven space and has more than enough room to accommodate our baking needs. We can now bake 12 pans of Granola at a time where in the first kitchen we were limited. We feel we can scale in this facility until it’s time to either purchase our own facility or go to a co-packer.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.mspsgfree.com