88 Acres Increases Capacity with New Bakery, Turns Attention Back to Innovation

Allergy-friendly snack maker 88 Acres has opened a new 30,000 sq. foot bakery in Canton, Massachusetts, significantly increasing its capacity and allowing for a shift back to innovation.

The move represents a new chapter for the nine-year-old, Boston-based company, which produces a range of seed-based products, including bars, granola alternatives and butters, all of which are free of the top nine food allergens. Having previously had to “find an efficiency or pull a miracle out of thin air,” the new facility in Canton will give it three to five times the capacity of its previous home in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, which will shutter its doors by the end of 2023.

“Being down here in a new, much bigger plant allows us not only to continue carrying out what we did in Dorchester but to do even more,” said Ledoux. “We are one of a very small handful of multi-allergen-free plants and none of that is changing at all. This is truly allowing us more runway to grow.”

The new plant has been a long time coming: According to Ledoux, 88 Acres “outgrew [the Dorchester bakery, opened in 2015] a couple of years ago and initially had plans to start looking for a larger space for manufacturing right before COVID hit.” That expansion has been fueled by steady distribution growth within the crowded bar category, with 88 Acres’ products currently available in more than 4,000 doors including Sprouts, Target and Whole Foods.

In addition, the business, which started out as a direct-to-consumer brand, now has a presence in food service as well. 88 Acres’ products are currently available at Northeastern University, Boston College, Harvard University and UMass Amherst as well as Boston Public Schools.

“Some of our innovation has just come from serving a personal problem for Rob and I and some of it has come from requests from some of our channel partners,” said Ledoux. “We’ve grown the portfolio from those first three SKUs to 25 [SKUs].”

The idea for the company was born out of a near-death experience during Ledoux and Dalton’s fourth date during which Dalton suffered a severe allergic reaction to tree nuts. Recognizing that Dalton “had to treat [food] as a potential minefield,” Ledoux was inspired to fill a white space in the bar category, an area often riddled with tree nuts and peanuts.

According to a report from Future Market Insights, the market for allergen-free food is projected to grow at an 8.6% CAGR between 2020 and 2030. Additionally, in a comprehensive research report from FMI – The Food Industry Association, more than 38% of retailers said they are increasing the space they allocate to allergen-free products. Other brands in the space include dairy-free and gluten-free baked goods maker Enjoy Life, nut-free spread maker Voyage Foods, SunButter LLC, which has recently moved into the snacking space with an uncrustables-style product, and granola butter producer Oat Haus.

Despite many employees having lived within walking distance to the old Dorchester bakery, 88 Acres was able to retain most of its 80-person workforce by “looking under every rock” for transportation solutions. The second and third shifts have a vanpool option through Enterprise while the second shift uses carpooling through which employees drive themselves.

In what Ledoux described as a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” the company has managed to recruit all but one of its team members through referrals from current employees. While continuing on its growth trajectory, the company has no plans to abandon this model of hiring.

“There was never any shortage of people knocking on the door. We were a little bit worried that we would have to rethink our hiring process, but the team funnels a ton of people to us, which is really great,” she said.