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GOURMET NEWS JANUARY 2020 www.gourmetnews.com NATURALLY HEALTHY 1 7 seasonal in the fall, and Sinful Cinna- mon, which is the brand's newest flavor. Vanilla Almond Crunch is still the com- pany's top seller, LocoCocoNut Crunch is doing very well in the food service channel, and AppleLicious is also a top seller. Honey Roasted Peanut Crunch is appealing to those who don't like tree nuts. "I had a friend who would pick the almonds out of Vanilla Almond Crunch. I created Peanut so I didn't have to watch my friend pick almonds out of his gra- nola," Briscoe said. "It's peanut butter cookie meets peanut brittle and gets a conscience." CherryRific was Briscoe's first vegan flavor – it's made with dried tart cherries, agave sweetener (rather than honey) and some flaxseed to give it a bit of a nutty flavor. Sinful Cinnamon is a nut-free ver- sion of her granola that's sweetened with agave to make it vegan as well. "The agave changes everything," Briscoe said. "With the agave, it's the same amount of cinnamon, but you can taste it much more." The whole line is based on oats. "By def- inition, granola has oats. I've hung my hat on making a classic product that's as ele- vated as I can," Briscoe said. "Nothing weird, no fillers, nothing that ends with 'ite.'" A new facility that's triple the size of her previous location has given Briscoe the ca- pacity she needs to expand her distribution beyond Arizona, and Laura's Gourmet Gra- nola is finding its way into specialty mar- kets in other areas. The products' price point is prohibitive for mass-market stores, but it works well in specialty markets, Briscoe said. "We are an all-natural product that's now kosher-certified Parve and dairy- free," she said. "It's just a matter of getting it into somebody's mouth and then they buy. Price point stops mattering when they taste it." Briscoe is now working on a chocolate flavor, and she's experimenting with other options to appeal to those following a plant-based diet. "We want to do it in a way that you don't eat it because it's good for you, but you eat it because it's deli- cious, and it just happens to be good for you," she said. "I'd rather be in 30 well- picked stores than in 300 'Let's hope it sticks' locations." For more information, visit www.lauras gourmet.com. GN Laura's Gourmet Continued from PAGE 1 Foods, the gourmet banner of the Basha's Inc. grocery chain, headquartered in Chandler, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb. Nothing happened at first, but Briscoe kept making her granola, serving it to catering clients and giving some of it to her friends, and they all kept telling her how great it was. Then one day, while she was on her way to teach a cooking class, she ran into a group of Basha's executives in her local AJ's store. They included Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eddie Basha, and Briscoe seized on the opportunity to pitch him on her product. "They started us on the shelf," she said. "That's all I ever wanted was AJ's." Over the next few years, though, Briscoe started meeting other people who loved food and then turned out to love her food, most notably her granolas, and some of them worked for restaurant com- panies and some worked for specialty grocers. It wasn't too much longer before she was making her living by making her granola. "There was never an intention," she said. "I didn't wake up one morning and say, 'I want to be in the granola busi- ness.'" Her line has now expanded to include LocoCocoNut Crunch, CherryRific Crunch, AppleLicious Crunch and Honey Roasted Peanut Crunch in addi- tion to the original Vanilla Almond Crunch and Pumpkin Pecan, which is

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