Today I'm talking with Brit at PTY Granola Company. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Brit at P&TY Granola Company. Good morning, Brit. How are you? Good morning. I'm so good. How are you? I'm great. You are where in Minnesota? Our kitchen is in Plymouth, and I live in Dayton, Minnesota.

00:30
Okay. I wasn't sure which was which, so I thought I should ask at the beginning. Yes. Okay. So I went and looked at your website this morning because I'm a dumb ass and hadn't had a chance to go look at it and found out what P&TY stands for. And I just giggled. So can you tell me about yourself and your company? Cause I can't wait for you to share your story. Absolutely. So I'm Brit Williams. I started P&TY Granola Co. five years ago. And it all started

01:00
I was making granola bars for my husband because he was eating a granola bar and I looked at it and I was like, Trevor, there's no nutrition in this granola bar. He's like, yeah, but it tastes good. I was like, well, let me see if I can do something better. And so I started making these bars and I would take them at the time I was an event planner and I would take them on the road with me for my staff. And one of the events that I did was for Whole Foods Local.

01:29
And Whole Foods staff there was like, you got something different with this recipe. It's not like what's on the shelf. I think you should do something with it. And that was April of 2019. And by June of 2019, I sold my first granola bar and it was all by Insta story. And I just was having people test it out and everything. And as I was doing that, I was thinking about the fact that there's like 50 million granola bars out there. And.

01:58
How do I stand out? Something has to catch them before they get to the taste. So if it tastes so good and they want to keep going after it, how do I get them to do that? And at the time, I had my son who's seven years old now, he was two or three, and I was teaching him manners. And he would yell at me like a toddler does and he would yell, no. And then I was teaching him about no, thank you.

02:27
And so then he goes, no, thank you. And I was like, Oh, so there's something to this manners, right? Like there's something like it hits differently when you consider someone, even if it's coming from a toddler. And so that's what got me to think about what does, what does my company stand for? What do I want people to think about when they have a granola bar? And that's where P and T Y comes from. Please. And thank you. So granola bars that say please and thank you.

02:57
So it's this message, this fueled by respect. Every time you have a bite of our granola bars or you go and grab them, I want you to just be reminded about the power of manners. I wanna think outside of myself. I wanna think about other people and how I can make them feel and how I can make myself feel by treating myself with respect as well. So that's where PNTY came from and it...

03:27
My hope, my dream is that our granola bar tastes so good that every day you have a little bite and you're just reminded about the power of manners and how that can make an impact in the world. I love it so much and I'm gonna tell you why. I always say please and I always say thank you to the point that when my dog does something I ask her to do. I say thank you Maggie. Yes.

03:54
And excuse me is a big one in my house. You know, we don't say, we don't say get out of the way unless there's a reason we say, excuse me, to the point that I say, excuse me to the dog as well. And everyone who listens to the podcast knows that I love Maggie beyond life itself. So of course I'm going to talk to her like she's my kid. And I have been talking to my kids like little adults since they were born.

04:19
And thank you and please and excuse me and all those wonderful things that let them know I care about them have been part of my vocabulary with my kids forever. So I'm just so impressed with the fact that you put that much thought into naming your business. Well, it makes a big impact, right? I'm sure your dog appreciates being acknowledged and respected, right? And so does our kids and whoever they interact with and whoever you interact with.

04:49
consideration factor and I think humans just need a little bit of a reminder of that like we're all doing our best right just have some consideration and and treat each other well. Yes patience goes a long way and that's part of consideration so yes I love it I love what you're doing. You asked me when I messaged you if the fact that you're not a cottage food producer mattered and I said nope.

05:14
But the thing is you were a cottage food producer, so you do fall under the headings of my podcast topics. And you're one of those people that gives the current cottage food producers hope. Because it's not easy to go from being a person who cooks yummy things in your kitchen and sells them to friends and family and people at the farmers market to having a full-blown business. Right. That is a journey.

05:44
So how hard was the journey? Was it pretty good for you or did you hit roadblocks along the way? I would say that I just tried to take one step at a time and I think the cottage food license is an amazing license that gives you, especially if you wanna grow, an amazing opportunity to try things with a lower overhead.

06:12
You don't have to follow certain rules. You obviously have to follow the license rules, but there's some leeway and there's some opportunity to take in feedback and adjust quickly to the feedback that you're getting from your customers. So I started as cottage food. And

06:33
I made everything out of my kitchen. You know, I have two kids and I was making granola bars in the morning before they got up and then I would drop them off at the neighbor's house in like a bag or a box or something. And they would pay me in Vemo and then I got into farmers markets and you could talk to people and learn what the rules were that were coming up next in a way that was less risky.

07:03
to kind of start that way, get your bearings, get a foundation, get the feedback, be able to adjust along the way and then say, yeah, I know I got a product that if I license it, I could actually grow this and I know what I'm going to take on in the next round of growth. And so after, so I had the cottage food license for a year and a half probably.

07:32
went to enough markets, got enough feedback, and I was like, I think I can do this in a commercial kitchen, get licensed for that. And then I moved into different packaging and then I got the nutritional stuff. So I took it one step at a time. There's roadblocks along the way, but roadblocks that I dealt with at that period in time are much different than this period in time.

08:02
I, yes, it was hard, but it was the right type of growth and the right speed in which to grow. And that's why I love that cottage food license. It just gave me the opportunity to take a little bit of risk, but to learn along the way. Yeah. And I'm going to say this, like for the record, because I talked to one of the ladies that is part of the cottage food place.

08:31
from Minnesota and she was very clear that it's not a license, it's a registration. There you go. So, so I try to, I always try to say cottage food registration, not licensing because she was like, it's not technically a license. And I'm like, yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, that's very fair. That's very fair. Yep. And the other thing is, um, I was going to go somewhere here. Oh, with the cottage food registration stuff.

09:00
It gives you a chance to really stretch and play with what you're making too. And I, I have mine. I have my registration. My husband has his because he makes a really fantastic yeast breads. And he keeps saying that he's going to sell them to the farmers market, but he seems to run out of time to make these threads in the summer because, you know, he was growing stuff in the garden and selling things. Yes. But, uh, I made granola.

09:28
You know, not granola bars, but granola, the first year that he was at the farmers market. I didn't do it this past year because I was too busy doing a podcast this year, but people really liked it, but I had made it with raisins and almond slivers. Someone said to my husband, they were like, could your wife just make it plain, like without the raisins and without the almond slivers? And he was like, I'll check with her when I get home.

09:57
And so I started making the plain granola and the plain granola actually sold better than the granola with stuff in it. So it's really nice, you're right, to be able to get the feedback and the questions and the things that people like and dislike so you can pivot or you can change. Yeah, and you can get enough of that feedback in an honest way because you're the one talking to them face to face. And if you get enough feedback going one way or the other, then you know, for sure.

10:25
make the change and stuff. So that's really cool. I've gotten similar feedback too. So I have, I have granola as well. And I sold it in two different ways, one with stuff and ...