Sweet and crunchy granola, good for you and good business

In the midst of what some are calling a local food revolution both in Baltimore and across the nation, a delicious smell is permeating from a 1,000 square foot space in Curtis Bay in south Baltimore. It's coming from the home of Michele's Granola where saying that things are done a little different from the big guys would be an understatement.

To start, each flavor of Michele's Granola, from original to cherry chocolate, is made by hand with all-natural ingredients and deliveries are made free of charge. In a move that screams 21^st century, Michele's owner Michele Thornett found the commercial kitchen space they operate from on Craigslist. And last, Thornett and co-founder Tony Sowa are extremely dedicated to reducing their carbon footprint and utilizing as many green practices as possible.

Honing in on a good thing

Before they got to where they are today -- boasting a client list of more than 70 commercial customers from Philadelphia to Norfolk to Maryland's Eastern Shore -- Thornett's passion for granola was just a hobby that she never imagined would flourish into a thriving business. "It was never really a business idea. It was just something I enjoyed making," she says. "I love granola and I was looking for something in the grocery stores that tasted homemade and couldn't find it. I decided to try making it myself and started baking it at home and experimenting with different recipes."

From there, Thornett started making granola more regularly, giving it away to friends and family members as gifts. With their encouragement she went to her first farmers market in 2006 with a dozen bags of her granola. "I went to this market in Takoma Park outside of D.C. and sold all 12 bags that first week. The next week I took 20 bags and sold all of them and pretty soon I noticed people coming back week after week for my granola," she recalls.

Almost before she knew it, Thornett was doing 10 farmers markets a week while also holding down a full-time job. "When I first started, I really thought I would just make a little extra money by going out on a Saturday morning with my card table and a dozen bags of granola, but I started to see that there could be a career in it. I found out that farmers markets are a really serious business and saw how successful others were being and it was a huge inspiration to me."

Measured steps

In January 2008, Thornett and Sowa moved to Locust Point, taking what Thornett calls a leap of faith by co-founding Michele's Granola and purchasing a commercial kitchen in Curtis Bay. Sowa, who has been an entrepreneur since he put himself through college on money he made from his own landscaping business, sold that business to help Michele's get started. "The timing was really right because people were starting to become more aware of why it's important to know where their food comes from," says Thornett.

What began as a two-person operation with Thornett and Sowa doing everything to -- cooking together in the kitchen, boxing up granola, and taking it out to stores in the area � matured as have their roles. They now have eight staff members who help with production, baking, and packaging the granola. "Tony is now the sales and distribution manager and I'm more the production and business manager," says Thornett. "Things have grown so much in two years."

Though the business has grown, Thornett says they've purposefully done so gradually so they can better manage the changes that come with increased sales. "We like to handle the growth of our business through personal relationships. It's at the core of what we do. Our most important goal as we expand and offer our granola more widely is to maintain the quality of our product. We don't cut corners, we still do everything by hand, and we look for the best ingredients we can incorporate into our product and that's the way we intend to keep things," she explains.

It's a locavore thing

Thornett attributes much of the interest in their homemade, fresh granola to the local food movement. She says some of their first customers were local, independently owned markets like Eddie's of Roland Park and other organic chains between Baltimore and DC.

"Those are businesses just like ours so it was easy to connect with them, and they wanted to provide local produce to their customers. Farmers markets are essentially competition for them so they wanted to be able to offer those types of items, too."

To Thornett, who eats a mostly vegetarian diet and tries to eat locally grown food as much as possible, the local food movement just makes sense. "For me, it's a more powerful experience when I know where the food that I'm eating came from."

A percentage of their business also goes to coffee shops and local restaurants that use Michele's Granola in the recipes for items on their menus. Thornett says that one of their newest clients is Ram's Head Stage in Annapolis where they plan to sprinkle the granola on top of one of their summer salads.

"Granola used to be an afterthought like the mulch you put on top of your yogurt, but now chefs are saying if they can have fresh granola they can offer a great menu item. You can see the whole circle closing in terms of our local economy � the product is made here and consumed here. It's a beautiful circle."

Good for the environment, too

As they continue to grow, Thornett and Sowa say another thing they plan to maintain are their green practices. "We try to be as sustainable as possible in every aspect of the business, from composting in the kitchen to our use of recycled paper for printing invoices," says Sowa.

The two compost food scraps, floor sweepings, and the parchment paper that lines their baking trays through a company called Waste Neutral, which turns the compostable material into organic matter for soil, says Thornett.

Michele's Granola also works with a web host to ensure that their website is carbon neutral. "Our web host offsets the energy used for our website with wind power," she explains. "There are small things we can do and big things we can do. Our website is just one example of a small choice we can make as a business that can make an environmental impact."

The biggest impact is how all the little things, like using recycled paper towels in the kitchen, can really add up, Thornett continues.

One of their largest green projects has been to eliminate their use of diesel fuel in their delivery truck. Instead, they use recycled vegetable oil to fuel the truck. "I get the oil from one of the local pubs in our neighborhood," says Sowa. "I put on a big rain suit. Back up to their grease trap and pump the oil right out of their facility."

Although it's free fuel for their delivery truck, Sowa says it takes about 12 hours to pump into the truck versus the five minutes it might take to pump diesel fuel at a traditional gas station. "It's messy and time consuming but it's also a labor of love that we do because we want to do it. But I've definitely ruined a lot of clothes in the process," he jokes.

Doing business the right way

Joking aside, Thornett says that both she and Sowa are passionate about doing what they think is right for the community and the environment. "Sometimes when we're driving our vegetable oil truck down the road and there are 1,000 other cars on the road, it's hard to remember that you're making a difference, but I can absolutely see the impact of what we're doing."

As they plan for the future of Michele's Granola, the two have committed to holding onto their values -- a handmade product with fresh, all-natural ingredients, personal relationships with their customers, and environmentally-friendly practices.

"We've worked with more specialty stores, but an opportunity exists in more traditional type grocery stores," says Thornett. "You now see aisles and aisles of local produce popping up at traditional grocery stores."

The duo is also looking to expand their client base throughout the Greater Baltimore area and the mid-Atlantic region.

Testing on a new recipe, adding a sixth flavor to their to their menu that already includes original, pumpkin spice, cherry chocolate, cinnamon raison, and their nut-free flavor, ginger hemp. "We're developing a lemon poppy seed right now for the summer," says Thornett. "In the end, it's all about the food."


A graduate of both Towson University and University of Baltimore, Nicole Jovel lived in the Baltimore area for nine years. She writes for both corporate clients and local and regional publications.

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Captions:

Michele Thornett, co-owner of Michele's Granola - Photo by Arianne Teeple
Michele's Granola - Photo by Arianne Teeple
Michele Thornett, co-owner of Michele's Granola - Photo by Arianne Teeple
Michele's Granola - Photo by Emily Goodstein
Michele's Granola - Photo by Emily Goodstein