Former KIND Exec Launches Baking Mix Brand Built on Guilt-Free Shortcuts
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the food and beverage industry has seen a surge in consumer demand for convenience. Capitalizing on this trend, Lindsay Hancock, the former SVP of sales at KIND, has launched My Better Batch, a line of premium baking mixes crafted to deliver homemade-tasting cookies.
The 4-SKU cookie mix line – which includes Double Chocolate Chip, Celebration, Classic Sugar and Chocolate Chunk varieties – is free of artificial colors and preservatives. Additionally, the brand is Non-GMO Project Verified, a hallmark Hancock says exists in the attribute-specific brands but not necessarily in the mainline aisle.
My Better Batch’s cookie mixes are currently available direct-to-consumer via the brand’s website, TikTok Shop and Instagram Shop for $7.99 each. The brand also offers “Try Them All” and “Chocolate Lovers” variety 4-packs, both of which cost $29.99.
The brand will debut in Sprouts Farmers Market’s Forager Program for emerging brands, marking its first national account (My Better Batch is currently in several independent retailers).
Hancock’s inspiration for My Better Batch stemmed from a desire to create a baking shortcut free of “mom guilt” that consumers could successfully pass off as their own recipe.
“There’s a very distinct difference between a scratch-made cookie and a cookie that comes out of a box. That desire for a shortcut is where the idea for My Better Batch came from,” said Hancock.
The main difference? The utilization of simple ingredients consumers would find in their own pantries, such as Dutch-processed cocoa powder and premium semi-sweet chocolate chunks.
Hancock believes the emergence of gourmet cookie franchises like Crumbl has created ample opportunity for premium baking mixes on the grocery store shelf to be successful even sitting alongside legacy value brands like Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines.
“Having [been in the industry] for many years, I realized that in order for something to go on the shelf, something else has to come off. We needed to have something special about this product to get it on the shelf in the first place,” she said, highlighting the fact the mixes were designed to be “better than homemade” in terms of both taste and preparation time.
Though the brand is still discovering who its primary demographic is, the mixes were crafted for not just moms but anyone with “a full plate and an empty stomach” – including career gunners and college students.
Data shows the segment is ripe for disruption. According to Circana, dollar sales in the overall baking mix category grew 1.5% to $1.86 billion in the 52-week period ended September 8. However, the cookie and cookie bar mix segment saw sales slide 5.1% to $171 million.
Due to the hefty startup costs associated with self-manufacturing, My Better Batch has partnered with a co-manufacturer to produce its baking mixes, which helped accelerate the launch and will enable the brand to expand into adjacent categories within the baking aisle in the near future, Hancock said.
“I’ve actually already started R&D for some [new] recipes and other categories and I also have my eye on a completely different category in the baking aisle that isn’t a mix,” she said. “I felt like cookies [were] something we could start with, but knowing we have a co-manufacturer in place, it feels like we can do a lot in the aisle.”
