Linda Friedman cooked up a sweet idea in her kitchen.
The Tucson mom enjoyed baking for her three children in the heart of the family’s home. She dreamed of spreading that love in the form of handmade granola, created from locally-sourced, organic ingredients, to be enjoyed by folks who appreciated the care required to make each crunchy morsel.
“Home is where the heart is and where my inspiration comes from,” Friedman said as she pulled baking sheets of granola from the oven to cool, filling the kitchen with its spicy, nutty perfume.
While the idea for her Bird’s Nest Baking Company was born in her family’s home, Friedman recreates the homey feeling of her own kitchen in the commercial kitchen she bakes out of at Tanque Verde Lutheran Church.
Baking granola isn’t all that unlike the goodies she bakes for her family — just on a larger scale. Friedman bakes as much as 200 pounds of granola a week — sometimes more — to be sold at Whole Foods (her first account), AJ’s Fine Foods, Food Conspiracy Co-op, Sabino Canyon Visitors Center, Tohono Chul Park, Sky Harbor Airport and her original selling spot — Heirloom Farmers Market, among other places of business.
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Through her company’s online store, Friedman sells granola throughout the country.
“These are long hours, but it’s so much fun,” Friedman said as she mixed a giant bowl of ingredients by hand. “I can’t imagine anything else in my life.”
Three days a week, Friedman, who has three part-time employees, bakes her granola, generally a different flavor each day. On a recent day she created huge batches of Sonoran Blend, a recipe she dreamed up a few years back.
“This was an inspiration I had four years ago,” said the Iowa native who has spent the last 17 years living in the Sonoran desert. “I wanted to take advantage of the bounty we have in the desert. I wanted to source locally and find as many desert ingredients as I could. If oats grew here and were organic, I would use them.”
Her Sonoran Blend, which has become one of her most popular, combines organic oats from Oregon with local tastes — prickly pear fruit from Cheri’s Desert Harvest, organic mesquite beans ground into a fine powder, puffed amaranth and organic pecans from Green Valley Pecan Company, along with pumpkin seeds, cinnamon, fresh-ground flax seed, extra virgin olive oil, agave from Mexico and brown sugar, all organic.
Her other popular flavors are cranberry flax, with a hint of orange, and apple cinnamon.
“I am a firm believer that food in its original, natural form just tastes better,” Friedman said.
The idea for Bird’s Nest Baking Company came in 2008, and Friedman, who had a background in advertising and fashion, started production in 2009.
“I have always baked,” Friedman said. “I baked with my mother and my grandmother. I have always been in the kitchen and working with really fine, pure ingredients is important to me.”
As a child, her father called her Linda Bird, for the way she thoughtfully and carefully selected every bite of food. When she became a mother, she chose every morsel just as carefully for her children.
“It was important for me to start my kids off on a healthful, nutritious foot,” she said. “When I decided to launch my company, I wanted to share a wholesome and delicious way to start your day and keep you fueled throughout the day.”
Because of licensing rules — and better space — Friedman has always baked her granola in a commercial kitchen. She worked out of a bakery until recently moving into the spacious kitchen at Tanque Verde Lutheran Church.
“It’s almost like working out of your home kitchen, but there’s lots of storage and big tables to work on,” she said. “That is really critical.”
She was surprised to find that some people were unsure what granola was and what to do with it. She is trying to change that, and found her first customers at the Heirloom Farmers Market, now at Rillito Park.
“The farmers market is a great place to try out new ideas,” Friedman said. “We get great feedback.”
In addition to the traditional 12-ounce bags, Friedman produces mini bags of 1.25 to 2 ounces, and 5-pound bulk bags, all weighed, hand packed and hand sealed in the kitchen. Friedman makes all local deliveries, enjoying spending time with customers.
Whole Foods, whose representative discovered Bird’s Nest granola at a farmers market, helped put Friedman on the granola map. Her products are carried in nine Whole Foods stores throughout Arizona.
“Having a client like Whole Foods love what I make was wonderful,” she said.
Helping this single mom develop her business has been her three children, who were very hands-on in the early years.
“It was a family affair when I first started out,” Friedman said. Of course, there was plenty of taste testing to be done by her kids. Now Adam, 21, Jared, 17, and Ellie, 14, help behind the scenes.
Just about all of the heavy lifting — literally — is hers. With oats coming in 50-pound bags and all the mixing by hand, “it’s a great upper-body workout,” this former dancer said. “It’s not for the faint of frame.”
As the company grows, Friedman is returning home to help develop new products and flavors.
“The home kitchen is where we come up with new flavors,” she said “It’s the perfect spot to do it. It’s such a natural environment to try out new things.”
Friedman said she is fortunate to have the support of family, friends and customers as her business grows.
“I don’t need to be the biggest. I just want to make the best tasting product and make it by hand.”