Matt Lacasse - Building Birch Benders (just add water)

Matthew LaCasse and his wife Lizzi Ackerman LaCasse started Birch Benders in 2011. Recognizing an opportunity in the market, the duo set out to create a restaurant-quality pancake mix that is delicious, and easier to make than from scratch (just add water). Birch Benders has experienced meteoric growth and has become a favorite breakfast food brand carried by most of the top retailers in North America.?

Matt started his entrepreneurial journey while growing up in Maine, where he would sell painted beach rocks to family members. Things escalated when Matt realized he could arbitrage bulk-deal candy bars from the supermarket, selling individual bars on the school bus for triple what he’d bought them for.

Once he was old enough to work, Matt took a series of restaurant jobs on the Maine coast. He realized he could upsell customers by enhancing the dining experience with stories about the food, which was a learned skill Matt would utilize in the future. For most people, food is connected to memories, and tapping into nostalgia and emotion can create an elevated food experience.?

Matt brought this mindset to his first entrepreneurial endeavor,? a sandwich shop he opened in his home state after college. He worked tirelessly 7 days a week crafting sandwiches for a loyal customer base. Matt’s claim to fame was his ability to size up a customer and build a custom sandwich that he knew they would love. He enjoyed watching people light up after biting into his work of art.?

It was, however, a temporary gig and Matt relocated to Boulder, Colorado, in search of good skiing. And that’s when the pancakes hit him.

The idea was to shake up the pancake market with something really fresh. Walking the aisles of the grocery store, he realized it was a sleepy category ripe for disruption. What started as a plastic-egg cracking concept morphed into a jar of dry ingredients that could be topped with water, shaken, and poured right onto the griddle. Matt launched with an array of different flavors and a couple sizes. Before long, his pancake mix was on the shelf at a local Whole Foods in Boulder. And for the next 18 months, Matt and Liz would demo their products at the store everyday, twice a day. Not only did this give them great insights into what customers wanted, it taught them how to be successful within the retail channel. The numbers continued to grow and before long, Birch Benders was being rolled out to Whole Foods across the country.?

One day, the buyer at Whole Foods suggested they launch a Paleo version to cater to this rising trend. It took 99 product attempts but they were finally able to launch the product. There was no competition at the time and sales began to skyrocket. Before long, Walmart, Target, Costco, and other retailers were calling, looking to put Birch Benders on their shelves.?

Matt and Liz had to move quickly to scale up the company. They went from manufacturing small batches to making millions of pounds of mixes and waffles. They brought on a team of professionals across all aspects of the company in order to continue their epic rise and maintain a high customer satisfaction level.?

In 2020, Birch Benders was acquired by Sovos Brands so that the company could successfully transition into its next phase of growth.?

The rise of Birch Benders is an incredible story and speaks to the importance of fortitude, strategy, narrative, execution, and hard work. It is extremely difficult to break into the highly protected retail channel. Congrats to Matt, Liz, and the team to all of your success!?

And for those who are wondering, the name Birch Benders arises from Matt’s childhood memories of clambering up birch trees and riding their bend to the ground – that fleeting yet permanently ingrained feeling of childhood, freedom, wholesomeness.?

?Learnings from talking with Matt

• Build a good sales story. Something that resonates with your target audience.
• Test, test, test. Matt spent 18 months demoing Birch Benders products and getting direct feedback. The immediate input proved invaluable.
• Stretch to fit. During the scaling stage, the Wholefoods buyer, came to Matt about making a paleo pancake mix – basically making pancakes without any of the traditional pancake ingredients. It took about 99 tries, but they came out on top. It’s now a top-selling product..

One other thing!

I am running a class teaching entrepreneurs how to sell their business (without leaving money on the table).

The course runs in late January.

If you are interested in learning more, visit the course website here.