When I emigrated from China, I was 9 years old. I knew nothing about the food movement led by Alice Waters that was happening across the bay from where I first landed in San Francisco. Words like “organic, fair and sustainable” were not part of my daily life. What I did not realize then was that’s how we had always lived and ate. We bought live fish from the market because it was fresh and we bought fruits and vegetables that were more ripe and flavorful than was pretty.
Our family gatherings were always full of a variety of dishes. Our family debates were usually about which restaurants had the best food or which market had the freshest produce.

Fast forward to 2012. The word famous Alice Waters was closing Café Fanny. The granola made from Alice’s mother’s recipe at that time was a staple at specialty gourmet markets like Berkeley Bowl, Andronicos and Whole Foods. So when I had the opportunity to acquire Café Fanny Organic Granola, I jumped on it. Since then, we had added two new flavors and a growing bulk program.

When customers started to ask Café Fanny to hold the milk and pack the granola to take home, a very marketable product was born. So in 1984, Café Fanny Organic Granola was being marketed to some of the Bay Area’s best growing specialty markets as well as in famous markets in Asia like Dean and Deluca Japan and Korea. In 2012, Alice decided to close Café Fanny. I was approached about purchasing and carrying the granola line on. I knew that this beloved line is worth my love and attention.

We quickly worked on developing two new flavors to add to the original flavor. Next we added the bulk program for well-known markets like Rainbow Coop Market, Good Earth, El Cerrito Market and Shelton’s. The bulk granola also became popular with the service industries like Gott’s Road Side and Montclair Egg Shop.

Our next step is developing additional flavors and spreading the word of this amazing product line outside of California. We want this quality premium granola to be in every market along side of all the familiar breakfast cereals.

This loan will help me develop our next new flavor. It will also help us develop a sales team to spread the Café Fanny Organic Granola brand outside of California.