Big Sandy Organics won the Albertsons Trail Mix Competition during this year's Boise Entrepreneur Week. Winning the competition brings a $50,000 prize and shelf space at Albertsons Supermarkets.
Heather Dilworth, who owns the company with her husband, Thomas, explained the road that brought them to this recent win. "We went through some challenges this year. We had 11 employees earlier this year, and we had to lay every single one of them off, except for my husband and me." All of that began by chance after the Dilworths met Bill Scott and his nephew, Nick Brook. The pair had come to Big Sandy Organics to teach the couple how to use the x-ray machine they acquired before the downturn. "He happened to absolutely love our Kracklin' Kamut snacks. He said, 'I'm gonna help you get this out there. I love your product. I think it's amazing. If you can give me some samples, I'll just give them to everybody I know.' He happens to set up facilities and equipment for about 600 other companies. A week later, they sent us an email and told us: 'Hey, there's this competition in Boise called the Trail Mix. If you fill out an application, they pick seven finalists, and then you come down and present and you give a pitch about your company. If you're ready to go to market, your chances are higher to get in.' So we filled out an application, and we were selected as one of the seven finalists. We went down to Boise and Thomas had seven minutes to pitch our business. I served samples to the judges. We served vanilla yogurt with churro Kamut on top, a salad with sea salt Kamut, and then just the snack by itself. Our friends had also made some dark chocolate bark Kamut and some peanut brittle made out of Kamut. Thomas killed it on his pitch." Not long after that, the Dilworths found out they had won.
Though they aren't sure yet exactly how many stores will be carrying their Kracklin' Kamut, they are hoping that the initial sales will go well and expand their presence in the chain to the point where they are in all of the Albertsons stores. The pair are hopeful that the opportunity brings about a revival in their business. "We're hopefully going to be able to bring some employees back before long. We went through some really rough months there, and we were really not even sure we were going to be able to keep our doors open. So this just kind of opens some doors, and honestly, these two guys that came to service our x-ray machine were literally angels in our lives. They have shared our products with so many people, and we have had so many phone calls and business meetings with people interested in our products. We feel like there's a lot of hope right now. We're pretty excited about that."
Heather explained that they plan to "use it (the prize money) for some R&D and then pay some bills. It was definitely an honor to win the Albertsons shelf space, too. It wasn't just the money, but it was also some business with a really large company." She also explained that they hope to reintroduce some old favorites and begin developing some exciting new flavors.
