In Dialogue: Sweet Loren’s Founder and CEO Loren Castle on Building a Health-Focused Business and Turning It Into a Baked Goods Powerhouse, Part 2

I recently had the opportunity to connect with Sweet Loren's Founder and CEO Loren (Brill) Castle . After her battle and recovery from Hodgkin’s lymphoma at just 22 years old, Loren was inspired to develop healthy eating habits, but still wanted to have a healthy dessert alternative to satisfy her sweet tooth. This inspired her to found Sweet Loren’s, which provides consumers with cookie dough that is gluten-free, dairy-free, free of the top 14 common allergens, non-GMO, and made from high-quality ingredients. You can read more about Castle’s inspiration for her company and what the early days of starting her business were like in part one of the interview here. In our continued conversation, Castle shares insights on how she built her company bootstrapped, addressed an unmet need for consumers by providing healthy and delicious dessert options, the company’s commitment to supporting research to fight cancer, and what’s next on the horizon for Sweet Loren’s.?

Liz Elting: You founded your company completely bootstrapped without any outside investment. What led you to take this route and forgo outside funding? In your view, what makes bootstrapping an effective means to build a business??

Loren Castle: I knew I didn’t want to bring on any outside investment immediately and give away control of my business. During Sweet Loren’s early days, I navigated the business entirely on my own. My mom passed away the same time I launched Sweet Loren’s into Whole Foods, and I bootstrapped the business at the beginning by doing everything myself, including recipe testing in my tiny New York City studio with a toaster oven, raising my bed to store the bulk ingredients underneath, traveling with a toaster oven on the subway to demo the product in-stores, taking overnight buses in snow storms to not miss a retailer meeting, and overall being as scrappy as possible. I hired a couple of interns throughout those beginning years because I wasn’t making enough to hire anyone full time. After I got the orders signed from Publix and Kroger supermarkets nationwide, I knew I needed some help and hired my first salesperson and operations lead.?

When you don’t have funding and you are just starting out, you have to be very specific about where you spend because it could be the make or break of your business. Does the packaging really need to be re-done now? Do we have the funds to cover creating and launching a new flavor? Probably not. In the beginning I was able to raise a little from friends and family as angel investors, and we were lucky enough to become profitable very quickly. Many years later, and I’m grateful that we don’t need to raise funds again if we don’t want to because we built a sustainable and profitable business.?

Elting: Many times, entrepreneurship isn’t so much about inventing as it is about answering an unmet need in an industry, solving a problem, and innovating. What need did Sweet Loren’s aim to fulfill? Why was this so important for both consumers and the industry as a whole?

Castle: I was inspired to start Sweet Loren’s out of my personal need for a healthier, delicious cookie option when I couldn’t find any on the market. I figured if I was searching for a solution, other people probably were too. If you are really solving a problem then consumers are willing to pay for it, and they will remain loyal because there is nothing else like it on the market. I started my company to challenge the status quo of the outdated refrigerated cookie dough and, now, Sweet Loren’s is the #1 natural cookie dough brand in the country. Our cookie dough combines the nostalgic flavors of a favorite childhood treat with the high standards and expectations of today’s conscious consumer. It’s unbelievable to think Sweet Loren's sold nearly 100 million cookies in 2023!

Elting: Can you speak more about the work Sweet Loren’s is doing with the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF)? What sort of initiatives are you collaborating on to help fight childhood cancer?

Castle: As a young cancer survivor myself, I’m extremely passionate about supporting cancer research and awareness. Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation has raised more than $250 million for childhood cancer and funded over 1,000 research projects that have saved the lives of kids fighting cancer with no treatment options left. We’re very proud of our partnership with Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for the second year in a row and will be launching a limited-edition Lemon Cookie Dough variety in April contributing to a $10,000 donation to the organization.

Elting: It looks like Sweet Loren’s is growing fast, having just launched the company’s new Breakfast Biscuits in 2023. How do you approach expanding, whether it be adding new products or reaching more customers and new markets? What’s your approach to planning where you’ll be in six months? A year? Ten years??

Castle: Our fans have asked us for breakfast and shelf-stable snacks since we started the brand, and we have been innovating behind the scenes to make that happen. The breakfast biscuit category is currently a $600 million market dominated by one major conventional giant. We did a ton of extensive research to find out that over one third of today’s breakfast biscuit consumers are concerned about the processed ingredients in the current product offerings, and 44% of them are proactively seeking options that are non-GMO, plant-based, and gluten-free. Sweet Loren’s new Breakfast Biscuits line is allergen-friendly, includes better-for-you ingredients, and is gluten-free for a tasty, nutrient-rich, and convenient breakfast or snack.?

We’re constantly listening to consumer feedback and buying trends and innovating new products that help solve the common concerns of ingredient quality and allergy restrictions. We just announced launches into three new categories coming soon—Puff Pastry, Pizza Dough, and Pie Crust—that we’re extremely excited to be able to offer to consumers! I foresee us continuing to support our quick brand growth and maintaining our founding mission of creating delicious, better-for-you foods that everyone can enjoy!