After Loren Castle graduated from college, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a rare cancer that affects the body’s lymphatic system. Although Castle is now cancer-free, her diagnosis changed the way she looked at food.
Castle started studying nutrition and took cooking classes to learn to feed herself the most nutritious food possible. It was her sweet tooth that made her realize there were no packaged bakery items on the market that were truly delicious and made with better ingredients that she liked. So Castel made her own.
In 2009, Castle started baking out of her studio apartment in New York and sold the product at local farmers’ markets. That’s when Sweet Loren’s was born. After a few years of perfecting the recipe, Castle took her product to Whole Foods and quickly distributed it to more and more retailers.
Now, according to the company, it’s the No. 1 brand in the natural cookie dough category, and No. 3 overall.
“I thought about how we do it using whole grain flowers that still taste amazing, healthier oils, so that it’s dairy-free and less inflammatory, and over time, I tweaked the recipe and went through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of batches,” said Castle in an interview with Food Dive.
The CEO and founder’s goal was to create a cookie that everybody could eat. The recipe is free of the nine top allergens and has ingredients such as cane sugar, oat flour made from rolled oats, palm oil, sea salt and fair-trade chocolate chunks.
Convenience is still king
Though Castle’s initial priority was perfecting her recipe, in order to get her products onto grocery store shelves she had to deliver on what retailers needed.
Castle took a meeting with the head buyer at a Whole Foods in New York who told her that cookies are best when they tasted fresh.
“We pondered baking mixes, premade cookies, cookie dough — and we landed on premade cookie dough to give people the best experience possible,” said Castel, “After studying the food industry, I realized there were only two major brands that carried premade cookie dough and neither of them stood for natural ingredients, so there was a huge opportunity.”
Ultimately, the U.S. consumer still prioritizes convenience even when seeking better-for-you products, Castle said, which is why Castle settled on a product that would still feel and taste fresh, but didn’t require a long process of cooking and cleaning.
“It took seven months to figure out the factory, design and packaging and finishing the recipe. I sampled it in Whole Foods, and then got it into Publix and Kroger supermarkets on my first meeting,” said Castle.
Now Sweet Loren’s are sold at 30,000 stores nationwide.
From a natural cookie dough to a food brand
Within the past year, Sweet Loren’s has expanded into four new categories — puff pastry, breakfast biscuits, pie crust and pizza dough.
When it comes to whether the brand is classified as “better-for-you” or not, Castle said it can get sticky giving such names to food products, but ultimately she has always aimed to “take the crap out of the U.S. food system.”
The company’s first priority is to exclude anything harmful from ingredient lists — artificial colors or dyes or flavors and chemicals that are linked to cancer.
Sweet Loren’s then looks to create packaged food that’s convenient and uses the highest-quality ingredients possible — and that people consider delicious.
“We’re better-for-you in the sense that we use whole grain flours, for example, and are able to sneak some fiber into our products, we also use oils that are naturally less inflammatory to the body so that our products are easy for most people to digest,” said Castle.
Ultimately,though, the company is creating products that are decadent. “These are things that light people up and make them happy — you’re not eating them for breakfast lunch and dinner,” she said.
Sweet Loren’s entrance into new categories has been a work in progress. “What people don’t realize is I can make a puff pastry product in my kitchen that’s delicious and dairy-free, gluten-free, all the things,” said Castle, “The challenge arises when you try to mass produce that to be sold at thousands and thousands of grocery stores.”
It took the company almost seven years to get its portfolio to where it is today.
Castle said her main priorities for the next few years include doubling down on brand awareness and looking to innovate more.
“We want to double, even triple our consumer base. We have a cult fandom from people who had no other options until we came along, but we want to gain the loyalty from more everyday consumers who are just looking to eat better.”
