Gluten-free journey leads to Gluten Free Snack Food Business

Lisa Marsh is the CEO of Ms. P’s Gluten Free, a gluten free granola and snack food company. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MS. P’S GLUTEN FREE.
Lisa Marsh is the CEO of Ms. P’s Gluten Free, a gluten free granola and snack food company. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MS. P’S GLUTEN FREE.

Gluten-free journey leads to Gluten Free Snack Food Business

By Tia Carol Jones

Lisa Marsh created Ms. P’s Gluten Free while still working in federal law enforcement. She has been on her own gluten-free journey after having health issues and was trying to find gluten-free snacks.

It started with the Ms. P’s Gluten Free Cookie Bar and now includes three flavors of gluten-free granola.

In 2009, Marsh put herself on a gluten-free diet, taking out everything that included wheat, rye or barley. Then, went back to the doctor who told her to stay away from wheat, rye and barley.  She started to feel better and she lost a few pounds. In her quest to find good gluten-free snacks, she only found one gluten-free cookie that was a little more on the expensive side. It led her to start baking her own snacks, finding recipes online and making them gluten-free. She would take her snacks to her job and the positive response from her co-workers served as confirmation that she should turn her gluten-free snack making into a business. 

“They said they were so addictive and so delicious they couldn’t believe they were gluten-free,” she said.

The first store Ms. P’s Gluten Free was carried in was the Whole Foods Market in Englewood, which closed in 2016.  But, you can find the products at any Mariano’s in the city, as well as Amazon, Community Fresh Market and on the Ms. P’s Gluten Free website: www.mspsgfree.com.

Marsh made the shift from law enforcement to entrepreneur as a leap of faith. A faith-based entrepreneur, she planned her transition over a number of years. After 27 years in federal law enforcement, she went into Ms. P’s full time in 2017.

 “My firm belief is that with God, anything is possible,” she said, adding that she started the business with her own money, without a loan.

Marsh didn’t take out a loan until 2019. She described that time as challenging, but she made it. She took a class with Sunshine Enterprises, which helped her with developing her business. She also had a mentor who tasked her with finding a product that would sell the most. It turned out the granola was outselling the cookie bars. So, she started with the Berry Nutty Granola, and expanded to the Chocolate Hazelnut Pecan Granola and the Harvest Blend.

Marsh said it was very important to have resources, development and organizations that could help her scale and grow her business. While she just wanted to bake, there were so many other aspects she had to learn – marketing, branding, cash flow.

“If you don’t come from that retail world, you don’t know that. Going through all of these cohorts or incubators really helped us to solidify the business, they helped us to understand the different aspects of running Ms. P’s and to be better entrepreneurs,” she said, adding that she also has connected with Ernst & Young EY, which has a yearlong cohort for minority business owners.

Marsh estimates she has participated in 10 or 15 small business cohorts. She is currently participating in a small business cohort. She believes if she is going to run a successful business, she needs to understand the best ways to grow and scale the business.

The most popular granola is the Berry Nutty Granola, it is sweetened with organic, liquid Stevia and honey. Marsh was recently informed the Harvest Blend, which includes pumpkin seeds, cranberries and chia seeds is quickly becoming a favorite among people.

Her advise to other Black women entrepreneurs is to go for it. She has learned a lot and has taken other entrepreneurs under her wing so they can learn and grow together, while building strategic partnerships. She said, if people have an idea they can turn into a product, it can be done.

 “When I started this, I had no idea about retail. I had no idea about business or marketing or branding or financing, none of that. And, here we are, finally, after having to learn all that, starting to see the fruits of our labor,” she said.

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