From heartbreak to sweetheart crunch

Mifsud, 25, graduated from the University of Redlands in Southern California where she was a National Collegiate Athletic Association softball pitcher and certified nutrition coach. There, she began making granola as a healthy, nutrition-packed meal, which she eventually turned into a full-time business.

“Passion about nutrition and having a passion for food was something I always had and I made granola and loved it,” Mifsud said.

Mifsud graduated in April 2019, returned home to Belmont and worked at SoulCycle, an indoor cycling and fitness center in Palo Alto. But the pandemic forced her home.

“I literally felt like my world was over and I was visiting my grandma and she asked me to make her my famous granola, and she said ‘Lindsey this is really good, you should sell it,’” Mifsud said.

It was at that moment Mifsud decided to follow her grandmother’s advice and begin a passion project making granola. She didn’t know much about entrepreneurship but help from her family, friends and some Google research led her to obtain a county Cottage Foods Permit in August 2020. The permit allowed her to sell food made out of her home.

Initial support from friends and family was maybe out of sympathy, she said, but a month later her parents home was filled with granola boxes.

“It was a fast turnaround,” Mifsud said. “Before I knew it, I had boxes everywhere.”

Granola

Mifsud prides herself on her all-natural, sugar-free granola. Her specialty is the blood orange apricot flavor. The day her grandmother asked for granola, Mifsud looked through the cabinets for an oil as most recipes call for coconut oil. However, Mifsud doesn’t like the taste and in her search for an alternative she stumbled upon blood orange-infused olive oil in her grandmother’s cabinet. And the happy accident became a hit, she said.

All granola bags are $12 for about a half pound, and grandma’s favorite blood orange apricot mix comes with oats, pumpkin seeds, pecans, walnuts, cinnamon, sea salt and organic honey and dried apricots.

She offers three other varieties of granola all with the same nut and oat base mix, however, the cherry vanilla comes with vanilla maple infused olive oil and dried cherries. The apple cinnamon flavor is the same but with dried apples. And another flavor dubbed sweetheart crunch, substitutes dried fruit with dehydrated strawberry powder, the same oat and nut mix, sea salt and organic honey.

Mifsud expanded her business by offering granola bars. They come in three package options: one bar for $6, five bars for $27 and 10 bars for $52. There are three bar flavors: blood orange apricot, almond butter and strawberry jelly and peanut butter protein, which she said is her favorite. The chewy dense textured bars are reasonable and perfect for on-the-go meals, a post-workout or great for a snack on a hike, she added.

Mifsud said her parents have been a beacon of support, however, the increased orders meant the family’s kitchen was monopolized by granola. It led her to find commercial kitchen space at KitchenTown, a community of food entrepreneurs in San Mateo who rent shared kitchen space.

She named her business, LL’s Kitchen after her mother’s text message nickname for her first and middle name — Lindsey Louise.

Her kitchen upgrade meant more expenses and more space to cook. Ready for the next step, she started a website for online sales and joined College of San Mateo and Burlingame farmers’ markets, on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

“My parents still help me with farmers’ market setups and getting all that together,” Mifsud said

Three years later, she said she now caters for events, special orders and obtained her processed food registration, which means she can sell her granola to grocery stores.

“And that opened a lot more doors for me,” Mifsud said.

For her, those doors are Bianchini’s Market in San Carlos and Portola Valley and Sequoia Foods in Burlingame. Her granola products are currently on the shelves of Sequoia Foods. She said her granola will be on Bianchini’s shelves the first week of June.

“I really do care about growing in the community, I care about supporting all the local mom-and-pop shops,” Mifsud said.

Looking back, she said she never thought a passion project would turn into a full-time job and business.

“I never dreamed that I would be a business owner, but I realized, behind hard work, people are capable of doing anything,” Mifsud said.

As a college pitcher, Mifsud said she thrived under pressure because her teammates were relying on her. Now, she has a team of three helping her create and manage the granola business.

“Teamwork and execution wins ball games,” she said.

When she was operating out of her parents’ house, she said she could make 12 to 24 bags of granola in an hour yet now she makes 150 bags in an hour, easily.

“I have a much better sense of hard work and it is hard to believe in yourself sometimes but this has helped me push through,” Mifsud said. “It fueled a fire within me to be my own person.”

Visit www.llskitchen.com/shopgranola for more information.

nick@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200 ext 105