Hail Merry has been featured in the Dallas Morning News on the front page of the business section! Check it out here and read our summary below.
The article highlighted Hail Merry and the growing need and appetite for gluten-free products. The feature discusses how restaurants and hotels are a growing market for gluten-free products and Sarah Palisi Chapin, investor and chief executive of Hail Merry, asserts that these venues “influence early adoption.”
Karen Robinson-Jacobs gave readers an inside look at the Hail Merry factory and stats the company. Read an excerpt from the article below:
Susan O’Brien, founder of a Dallas-based company that makes gluten-free snacks and desserts, led an impromptu tour through her 13,000-square-foot operation toa production room where the air was heavy with the scent of cinnamon. A small clutch of hair-netted workers, including her former nanny, busily turned lemons and buckwheat groats into tarts and granola.
These days, roughly 90 percent of the raw, vegan and gluten-free treats produced by Hail Merry LLC end up in shopping baskets at grocers including Whole Foods and Central Market.
But that’s changing. Launched in 2006 in a poolside cabana at O’Brien’s home, Hail Merry today is finding an increased appetite for gluten-free products among restaurant and hoteloperators, including Subway and Irving-based Omni Hotels & Resorts.
The feature discusses gluten and the growing number Americans affected by celiac disease, emphasizing a greater need for gluten-free products and the overall health benefits of being gluten-free. Gluten-free products are “generally healthier.. because they are subjected to rigorous manufacturing protocols” according to Larry Finkel, research director at Packaged Facts – research company.
The author, Karen Robinson-Jacobs, highlights the facts regarding the growing market of gluten-free products. She mentions Subway and how they are “by far the biggest restaurant chain to test “gluten-free” in stores. She also includes the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine and their commitment to push gluten-free products in all the Gaylord properties noting that Hail Merry products are sold at the resort’s coffee shop. Another hotel, Omni, have Hail Merry snacks available upon request for the “members of Omni’s guest loyalty program.”
Susan O'Brien relates in the article,
Because of the rigid standards required for gluten-free kitchen certification, many eateries will look to buy products from companies such as Hail Merry.
The article concludes with stats regarding Hail Merry sales and our ambition to add more natural grocers, hotel rollouts, and attention to food service at airports, colleges, and offices. With the growing market, there of course attracts bigger competition, but Alison Brushaber, chief operating officer, explains how this is great and that “there will be more products for more people who want to eat this way, and the consumer will decide.”
If you haven't read the article be sure to check out this great feature. Big thanks to Karen Robinson-Jacobs and the Dallas Morning News!
