fciwomenswrestling.com article, wildfriendsfoods.com Indiegogo photo
Improving upon perfection enlightens that what you loved with a passion wasn’t exactly perfect, even though it seemed pretty close.
For most of us who love peanut butter we might wonder with all of the variety out there, from processed to organic, how in the world can it get any better?
Well there is good news.
We seem to be getting closer to peanut butter perfection.
At the global business site forbes.com, they share a nice introduction. “Back in 2011, Keeley Tillotson and Erika Welsh were college roommates at the University of Oregon who loved peanut butter. So they started making their own in their tiny apartment that mixed in new flavors, like cinnamon raisin, and chocolate coconut, without the high sugar content typical of such snack foods.
Fast forward four years from the Shark Tank airing, in May 2012, and Tillotson, now 23, and Welsh, 25, are running Portland-based Wild Friends, a nut butter company with sales expected to reach $7 million this year and distribution in Whole Foods, Costco, Kroger and a number of other supermarkets. At a time when funding has gotten tighter for many startups, the duo recently raised $1.4 million from investors on CircleUp, including a $100,000 investment from John Foraker, president of Annie’s, the prominent natural and organic foods company that is now part of General Mills, who they consider a mentor.”
What is even more impressive about their story is that the two young women had to do what was once the unthinkable for a serious college student deep into their education and what was that?
To drop out.
We saw them on Shark Tank and they are indeed bright, resilient, courageous and very determined.
Let’s travel to their home at wildfriendsfoods.com and meet them and understand how all of this seeming perfection began. “One rainy day at the University of Oregon, we were in our college apartment, scraping the bottom of yet another empty jar of peanut butter. As hungry college students and athletes, we ate a lot of peanut butter, and on this occasion, neither of us felt like biking to the store in the rain to buy more. So, we decided to try making our own!
That day, Wild Friends was born. Less than a year later, we left our college lives behind to pursue our peanut butter dreams. Since starting Wild Friends in 2011, we’ve launched dozens of new flavors of nut and seed butter that are sold in thousands of stores across the country. Through all these changes, one thing has stayed the same: Our passion for delicious products made with the healthiest wholesome ingredients we can find.”
That determination is very consistent with their Mission.
Mission
At Wild Friends, Our Mission is to make food friendly.
Friendly food is:
- Delicious and fun to eat
- Made with real ingredients we can recognize and trust
- Free of preservatives and additives
- Non-GMO, All-Natural and Organic whenever possible
- Ingredients sourced from suppliers who care about quality as much as we do
- Produced and packaged with the planet in mind
- Made by happy and healthy employees
- Made by a company dedicated to unceasing improvement in taste and quality
Their methodology and philosophy also contribute to their great success.
They continue, “Communication is the key to doing great work as a team. We are responsible for our own job training. We ask questions and ask for help whenever we need it. We work with our team members and managers on a daily basis to get clarity on where our priorities lie. Top notch communication is essential because it allows us to do more with less.
Our ideas are not attached to our personal worth. We welcome feedback from our teammates because we know critique means better work. We create an environment where new ideas are encouraged, cultivated and implemented.
We can always be better: as a company and as individuals. We focus on learning, improving, and being open to failure along the way. We are conscious of our personal levels of happiness and productivity and make continual changes to grow. We are open to learning from and teaching each other.”
If you ever wonder what chasing perfection is all about, we seem to have at least part of the formula in the above belief systems.
We are certainly becoming convinced.
They conclude, “Actions speak louder than words. We trust each other to act independently to do the right thing, even when it’s not easy. We go the extra mile to WOW our customers and our coworkers. We get excited about the opportunity to help others.
We are building something together that has never existed before. We are going to make mistakes and it’s going to be messy. We embrace the crazy adventure and expect the unexpected. We’re here to have fun.”
They certainly are exceptional at public relations and brilliant marketing.
We love that super cute squirrel.
A true test of a product’s worth are reviews from customers who tried the product and lived to smile about it.
We trek over to amazon.com who might want to sell us something, anything for that matter, so we are going to be very quiet and scan for reviews on Wild Friends Peanut Butter.
Here are two.
“Saw these on a home shopping channel and they were less money on Amazon. I purchased 2 and had them shipped to each of my daughters. They loved them! All the flavors were unique and tasty. They found different ways to use them – a topping on brownies (chocolate coconut); spread on bagel (cinnamon raisin); not just a pbj sandwich. Based on what my daughters have said, I would highly recommend this product; even give as a gift.”
Here is another.
“This is some of the absolute best peanut butter I’ve ever tasted! From my experience, it doesn’t need to be kept in the fridge (I also kind of like runnier natural peanut butter), especially the honey pretzel, which, in my opinion, is one of the most creative and fun flavors. It’s my favorite of the three as well! I highly suggest ordering on Amazon for the shipping charges rather than their website, but if you can find another way to support the entrepreneurs directly (I bought one of their t-shirts which are really good quality as well) I’d do so!”
Peanut butter has long seemed like the perfect food. It’s tasty, inexpensive in comparison to other sandwich and snack products and far healthier.
It didn’t seem like it could get any better but after the brilliant peanut butter creation of Keeley Tillotson and Erika Welsh, perfection is not just a desirable word found only in the dictionary.
~ ~ ~
OPENING PHOTO fciwomenswrestling.com article, wildfriendsfoods.com Indiegogo photo
https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Friends-Peanut-butter-pack/product-reviews/B008B80MF6
https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Friends-Foods-Chocolate-Coconut/dp/B00EEEG9LM?th=1
