136
9 min 24 sec

Corn Syrup Allergy Leads to Booming Baked Goods Biz

After a doctor diagnoses her husband with a corn syrup allergy, a healthcare analyst mixes up a line of healthy, sweet baked goods that turns into a stable second income.
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Co-Packing Food Product Retail

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What It's About

A healthier baked goods side hustle that makes its way into Whole Foods.

Business Model
Product
Skills Required
Baking & Nutrition Knowledge
Complexity
Medium
Profit Potential
Medium

Words of Wisdom

This was not Adrienne’s first side hustle experiment. She also used to make and sell floral arrangements like wreaths and centerpieces to her customers at farmer's markets and specialty stores. It wasn’t a large business, but it taught her an important lesson on the value of getting one thing right instead of trying to do it all.

Fun Fact

When Adrienne's success started to outgrow her kitchen, she started looking into co-packing—the outsourcing of the food production business. A co-packer is a company that will take your recipe and then bake your product to your specifications, in the quantity you need. Then you get a chance to approve a sample product to make sure everything is exactly the way you want it.

Notes from Chris

Episode 136

By day, Adrienne Smith is a healthcare fraud analyst, but at night, she operates her healthier baked goods side hustle. Adrienne's classic desserts serves up traditional, sugar-free or no-sugar-added culinary confections. Her diet-friendly sweets can be found in specialty stores like Whole Foods, and soon she'll be launching a gluten-free line.

She began to bake by subtracting sugar from different recipes and replacing it with sugar substitutes that turned out to be much healthier. Fortunately, Adrienne is creative by nature, and the experimentation produced stellar results. Pretty soon she was baking cakes, cookies, pies and muffins that not only tasted great, they were actually healthy.

While continuing to work her full-time job, Adrienne started taking cakes to events at work, to family gatherings like cookouts and dinners, and to church and community functions. People who tried them mentioned that they even tasted better than traditional desserts with sugar or corn syrup.

But she also had a problem. Baking for church functions or even small shops was manageable from her home kitchen and by herself, but beyond that, she would either have to decline potential orders or be constantly frazzled trying to fulfill everything.

As demand increased, she realized that she didn’t have the ability to bake everything from her kitchen. It was also increasingly difficult to work full-time while juggling this side hustle.

Did she quit her job? Nope. Abandon the hustle? Nope. Instead, she got smart and learned about co-packing, the focus of today’s episode.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SEE ALSO:

  • U.S. Co-Paker Directory: Are you reaching a point where you're outgrowing your own kitchen? Here's a directory containing co-packing companies in each state!
  • Working With Co-Packers: Part 1 & Part 2: This two part series goes into what you should look for when selecting a co-packer and best practices for working with a co-packer once you've found one
  • Belgian Fine Chocolate Comes to America: After living in Belgium for 13 years, a Louisiana freelancer starts a seasonal side hustle making fine chocolate out of his home. It brings in close to $8,000 working only a few months of the year
Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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Quote of the Day
"I wanted to sell the products to stores, local restaurants, and other establishments—but you have to persevere if it's your passion. I really had to master time management and stay focused."
—Adrienne Smith #SideHustleSchool

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To infinity and beyond,

Chris Guillebeau