"Sweet Seeds" owner tastes success

MAT-SU -- Hefting 50-pound sacks of oats, hand mixing hundreds of pounds of granola and working near a hot commercial oven is no easy job. And when Cheryl Ess makes a mistake in her recipe, she jokes, her family has to "eat it," and that's not just in terms of profit.

But despite the challenges of starting up a new business, the Valley resident says she's enjoying the growing success of her "Sweet Seeds." The business is only a few months old, but already she has her product -- "Cheryl's Ultra Granola" -- in about a dozen coffee shops and gift shops around the Valley and from Talkeetna to Seward. The Palmer store "Nonessentials" also sells the granola at Anchorage's Saturday Market and will include it with its Alaska State Fair Booth. And more than one out-of-state visitor has asked for mail orders as well.

Ess, a thin, tan, athletic mom, doesn't look like your typical home baker. For much of her adult life she has worked as a commercial fisher with her husband, Charlie, and for the past several years she has run her own house-cleaning business. There have been some similarities in her careers, however -- hard physical work, which she says she enjoys.

"And I've always liked to bake," she said, admitting with a grin that her husband calls her "Cakes."

She said her relatives have often enjoyed her baked goodies and told her she should open her own shop. She was surprised one Christmas, however, when she sent out homemade truffles and granola. She knew the truffles would be a hit, but she found that the granola was almost as popular.

The former manager of a Seattle health food store, Ess said she has always been interested in nutrition but has never been able to find a good granola locally. And so she began to think about making and selling her own. Her husband, she said, was encouraging but more cautious -- you need capital to start up a business, he told her.

But Ess said she has never been much of a planner.

"I'm more of a 'jump-in' person," she said with a laugh. She said she originally anticipated needing around $500 in startup funds. "But you can spend $1,500 or $2,000 really quickly," she said.

Making granola by the hundreds of pounds instead of cupfuls presented some unique challenges. She had to buy honey by the bucket and oats by the 50-pound bag, always looking for high-quality, organic ingredients, which also come with higher prices.

And she needed a commercial kitchen, with the proper certifications. The community came to her rescue. For a while she baked in the Moose Lodge in Palmer. Then, the owners of Bagels Alaska said she could use their larger commercial oven, and they cut her a good deal -- a fee paid in homemade granola.

As she began baking on a larger scale, Ess realized she needed a more exact recipe. At home, she said, she could experiment and just throw things together. But in the marketplace, consistency is important, so she wrote down her recipe. When she forgets something -- say brown sugar -- the less-than-desirable outcome comes home with her.

"Along the way, you do learn stuff, like, OK, you cannot miss an ingredient," she said. "Our family ends up eating the rejects."

In addition to settling on a recipe, Ess also had to choose a packaging and marketing approach. She spotted the small, brown-paper bags at a local coffee shop and decided the packaging was perfect. Not only did it provide a convenient carrying container, but it also had a clear-plastic window where people could actually see the product.

Even here she has found challenges, however. The distributor recently bumped up the price, and since Ess wants to be consistent in her own pricing, she has to swallow that loss.

Setting a price for your own product is difficult, Ess said. Oftentimes, small business owners want to cut themselves short by not charging enough. But Ess had to honestly think about the number of hours she was putting into ordering, mixing, baking, packaging and distributing her product.

Perhaps the easiest part for Ess was finding a market. She said she started by going places she already frequented as a customer. She said her product seemed a good match for the shops, and she went in with a positive attitude and a sample of her product.

The reception was positive and, so far, Ess estimates she has sold more than 1,000 pounds of granola.

Eventually, she said, she may need to hire an assistant or even set up her own commercial kitchen. And she may come out with a new product -- granola with raisins or cranberries. But for now, it's just Cheryl and her "Ultra Granola."