Shelia G's Brownie Brittle was founded in Flordia in 2011 by Sheila G. Mains who left a career in finance to pursue her love of baking.
“I always loved the corner pieces of the brownie and I loved snacking on the drippings on the side of the pan,” Mains told BakeryandSnacks. “And I discovered one day that I wasn’t alone.”
Brownie Brittle’s gluten-free products come in traditional chocolate chip and dark chocolate sea salt flavors retailing for $3.49 to $3.99 per five-ounce resealable bag at major retailers including Kroger, WalMart, and Target.
The company’s Cookie Bites and Brownie Brittle Bites use the same base recipe as its original Brownie Brittle recipe, but are pan coated in chocolate. Also packaged in five-ounce resealable bags, the bites products are sold for $2.99 to $3.99 in major retailers.
Mains added that she foresees more coating flavors to come such as a salted caramel chocolate and a peanut butter chocolate.
Gluten-free is no longer a fad
Creating gluten-free products came after the company received many requests from customers, many of whom were mothers shopping for their children who had allergies to gluten.
“We had so many requests from consumers and I said, ‘We can’t ignore this and we need to address this’,” Mains said. “I think it’s growing; it’s not a fad.”
It took around three to four months to develop a formulation for the gluten-free products, which are contract manufactured on pre-existing gluten-free production lines at different plants in Florida and California, according to Mains.
“Until we were able to develop a gluten-free formula that delivered that ‘oh wow’ factor we weren’t putting it out there,” she said. “We managed to do it.”
Future growth with new flavors
Mains said constant product innovation has been the key to its success and that it plans to introduce to new flavors and packaging sizes for its products in 2018 including launching organic offerings for its Thindulgent range.
“We’ve got two or three things in the pipeline,” Mains said. “I think there’s plenty of room for innovation.”
The company produced around 200,000 bags of Brownie Brittle in its first year, and has grown that number to 40 million bags sold in stores today.
Mains said that the company aims to achieve 20% to 30% year-over-year growth for the next few years.