One thing that keeps me up at night is the shelf life of the muffins. The lab results show that the muffins should last more than 4 weeks. I’m hoping that it's longer. 

But honestly, these muffins shouldn’t last 18 months. They’re not made with the same artificial ingredients and preservatives as other packaged mini muffins. That’s the trade off when you’re making a baked good with good, clean ingredients. 

Unfortunately, Amazon and other retailers do care about shelf life. So do the manufacturers and suppliers. They want bigger orders. But if your product doesn’t last a long time, then you’re going to have smaller, more frequent orders. Further, customers may order less at a time than other breakfast bars or muffins.

 

But what if my mission is to make good food that isn’t supposed to last forever. Real food rots. Think about it - fruits and vegetables only last so long. Same goes for a loaf of bread. 

I recently finished reading The Growing Season by Sarah Frey. She’s been working on a farm since she could walk. She moved out at 15 and worked to support herself through high school and college. At 19, she bought her family’s farm and turned it into fruitful fields of melons and pumpkins. Then, she used the profits to buy more farmland across the country to grow her operations. She ended up creating a multi-million dollar company that sells produce, sweets, and beverages to Walmart, Lowe's, and grocers across the country. 

 

A Harvard case study compared Frey Farms, her business, to David from David and Goliath. She said “I’ve always respected David because he didn’t play the giant’s game - he played his own. To me, that may be the secret of both business and life: playing your game, not theirs.”

For a while, I’ve thought that the packaged foods space needed an overhaul. Now, we’re hitting a turning point. Many brands have created healthier products that offer better, more natural packaged foods. Not every category has been disrupted, but many have. This trend will continue to persist as more of Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen Xers care about what they’re putting into their bodies. And what they’re feeding their kids/grandkids. 

Sarah Frey’s quote struck a chord. If I don’t plan to make a product that will fit large distributors’ requirements, then I’ll have to find another way. As long as there’s a community that agrees with my mission and accepts that products made with healthier ingredients won’t last in the pantry forever, then we can figure out how to play our own game, not theirs.