You Can Grow a Cookie with Karen Merz of Next Level Grains
LISTEN ON: APPLE | SPOTIFY
Karen Merz spent most of her career in e-commerce, fashion, and marketing. She knew how to build brands and grow businesses. What she did not have was a product of her own.
During COVID, a friend casually mentioned her brother was milling his own flour. Karen ran out and bought a mill, and fell headfirst into the world of ancient grains. She started making cookies for her son and before long, everyone who tried them was telling her to sell them.
Those cookies became Next Level Grains, a brand built around ancient grains and the belief that what you mill matters. Her signature product uses Khorasan, also known as Kamut, one of the original ancient grains, with a nutty, buttery flavor profile unlike anything in the modern flour aisle.
But Karen did not stop at cookies. She developed the Grow a Cookie Kit, a DIY milling kit paired with an illustrated children's book that takes families through the journey from wheat to cookie, no expensive mill required.
Subscribe to the Food Means Business Podcast with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones to hear the personal stories and "secret ingredients" of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.
Tune in to hear...
Why she chose Khorasan as her signature grain and what makes it different
The story behind the Grow a Cookie Kit and the illustrated children's book that comes with it
What the Food Business Bootcamp® taught her about operations, costing, and margins
Why her marketing background was both an asset and a humbling experience entering the food world
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About Karen Merz
Karen Merz is the founder of Next Level Grains, a grain-forward cookie brand built around ancient grains and home milling. With a background spanning e-commerce, fashion, and marketing, Karen brings deep brand and growth experience to her first food venture. She is a Food Business Bootcamp® Startup Accelerator graduate and a Hudson Kitchen member.
Connect with Karen and Next Level Grains:
Visit the Next Level Grains website
Follow Next Level Grains on Instagram
Connect with Karen on LinkedIn
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
Visit Hudson Kitchen
Follow Hudson Kitchen on Instagram
Connect with Djenaba on LinkedIn
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Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:01)
Hello, I'm Djenaba Johnson-Jones, founder of Hudson Kitchen and host of the Food Means Business podcast. Today I welcome Karen Merz, who is the founder of Next Level Grains. Welcome, Karen.
Karen (00:12)
Hi, how are you?
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:14)
I'm good. Thank you. So we met because you just completed our food business bootcamp program. But I would love to hear about what you were doing prior to that.
Karen (00:26)
Okay, so prior to that, I've been in the world of e-commerce, fashion, marketing, most of my career in some way, form or another. And for the last five years after leaving corporate, I've just been working with different sized businesses, a lot of startups, a lot of early stages and helping them grow their e-commerce business and made me think that I could do it too.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:53)
Yeah. So you started baking cookies. Can you give me a little bit background about that? Like why cookies and like why is now the good time to start your business?
Karen (01:03)
Yeah. So like I said, I worked with a lot of different size companies, really helping them with startup or expanding their e-commerce business. And I've always wanted my own business, but I never had a product. And during COVID, when everybody was making bread, also joined that bandwagon. And then a friend of mine told me, my brother's milling his own flour. I'm like, what? I was so curious about it. But I ran out and bought an inexpensive mill and I started making
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (01:17)
Yeah.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (01:26)
Hahahaha
Karen (01:32)
bread with it and that took a while and then was like well why don't I just make cookies for my son and so every time I made cookies people would rave about them and pretty soon everyone was telling me I should sell them I thought okay well maybe this is my product
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (01:49)
No, they are really good. They didn't last long in my house at all. So tell us about your product. What is Next Level Grains and what are the names of your products?
Karen (01:54)
good.
Karen (02:02)
Yeah, so Next Level Grains is the company that I formed and it's really about grains. since learning about milling, you take a deep dive into all the different grains. there are so many different varieties that when people talk about ancient grains, that's really a blanket for anything, any grain that's been around for a long, time.
Karen (02:26)
In the United States, our flour on our shelf is mostly made with modern wheat that's been modified from these ancient grains. So in that modification process, it loses some of its original characteristics. And my favorite grain, chloreson, also known as khmud, if it's a trademark, is my favorite one. It's one of the originals. And it just has such a...
Karen (02:54)
crazy profile, like it's nutty and it's buttery and it's just an explosion of flavors. And so I started making cookies with it. And one day my friend said, hey, you should call this a Kamuki because it's made with Kamut. And so that's how it started.
Karen (03:11)
Basically.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (03:13)
Awesome. So you signed up for our Bootcamp program and went through the eight weeks. from there, you're going to be launching your product out very soon. I know that you have the cookies, but I'll also talk a little bit about the other product that you have that you'll be working with as well.
Karen (03:31)
Yeah, so part being a marketer and, you know, realizing what I my whole experience, like what I went through with, wait, you can mill your own flour and then learning about ancient grains and what it really means. And so it's a whole education curve and how and so if I just have a cookie, a really good cookie, how do you get through that, you know, there's so little processing and the flavors, it's like a flavor explosion. And
Karen (04:00)
you know, how do you get that through? So I thought, hmm, you know, maybe there's a DIY kit. And so I developed exactly that. And so they can have the experience of milling their own flour at home without investing in a mill that can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. And so I developed Grow a Cookie Kit and a friend of mine wrote the story and then I wrote it and another friend illustrated it.
Karen (04:28)
It's really a charming book about this girl. Her older brother Jack calls her Cookie because her face looks like a cookie and he's obsessed with cookies. So she asks her grandfather, who's a farmer, hey, I see you growing vegetables and corn and all these other things. Can you grow a cookie? And he says yes. And it just blows her mind. he takes her through this journey that she didn't think.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (04:50)
You
Karen (04:54)
it was going to be that way. She thought she would walk out to the fields and just see cookies. So he took her through the process of, you know, starting with the wheat, you know, harvesting it, bringing it back to the kitchen, milling it, and it's the best tasting cookie you've ever tasted. And so hopefully that's a hit. And so I'm waiting for the book to be fully illustrated. My friend is in Amsterdam. She's really a great illustrator, and she really made the book.
Karen (05:23)
come to life and I'm so excited. So that will be ready in June and it will come with the kit. You read the story first and then you do it yourself. And another friend of mine developed a recipe so that you can take this small batch and make a batch of cookies, a small batch of grains.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (05:40)
That is really cool. That's going to be so much fun for families to really actually learn something and also make your tasty cookies. That's awesome.
Karen (05:47)
I hope so. And I hope, you know, then they say, well, instead of making them, why don't we just order them? I have one customer.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (05:52)
Yes, and that's me. That would be me. Yes, exactly. You'll have more than one customer, believe me. So talk a little bit about what you've learned so far about you can have your own business. But it's been a couple of months now as you kind of been getting everything started. What's one thing that you kind of learned about business and then something that you may have learned about yourself as well?
Karen (06:14)
Well, the boot camp was a godsend because there, you know, I always tell clients, from the marketing perspective, you don't know what you don't know. And I didn't know anything about the food business. So I, you know, coming to you, the source, you know, tell me what I don't know. And, and the class did and being with other people in the same situation. it was really a great platform.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:25)
and
Karen (06:40)
because you see people having the same challenges or different challenges and learning the operations part. And it was an amazing experience. And I thank you again.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:52)
I'm so glad. Thank you for taking the course. It is so much fun to watch all of you walk through that process and actually create something on the other end. I'm wondering if you met somebody that was just getting started, what piece of advice would you give them about getting started? Yeah, in a food business,
Karen (07:13)
in a food business. Well, take the Hudson Kitchen Boot Camp for starters.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:18)
Thank you, but other than that.
Karen (07:23)
I just, you know, there's a lot of things. And again, I go back to my statement, you don't know what you don't know. And just, you know, keep asking people questions about how they started and being curious. you know, and now we have chat GPT, you can ask questions too. so it's all in the details. And there's a lot of details.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:46)
Yeah, that's true. Talk about your plans for the next three to six months as you of ramp up and get the business going.
Karen (07:52)
Yeah, so I've secured a commercial kitchen space with Hudson Kitchen. Thank you. I can't cut the umbilical cord yet. I'm so excited about that. And so I'm launching my site May 1st. The kit won't be ready yet because I'm still, the book is being illustrated and printed, but I'm going to start producing May 1st and hopefully
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:57)
Yay, we're excited. We don't want you to, we want you to stick around for sure.
Karen (08:19)
working with local retailers, pop-ups, doing pop-up shops, and still the people that I know, I've been collecting emails in the meantime and communicating, doing what I know about marketing and hopefully being successful with direct-to-consumer. Food is so different than fashion, because I always used to say, fashion is like fruit, it goes bad fast, but food goes bad faster.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (08:44)
Yes, it's true.
Karen (08:48)
So all the operations and logistics, I'm so worried about how can I get, like the freshest possible product and, and, know, make the customers happy. And so that's, I'm not so focused.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (09:00)
Yeah, I'm sure that's really that. Thanks for sharing that. I'm sure it's going to it's going to be amazing for sure. Lots more more to learn along the way. Just here. What what do you think has surprised you about the process so far?
Karen (09:07)
Thanks, I hope so.
Karen (09:17)
Yeah, well, it's surprising. And we were talking a little bit about this before the podcast started about all the regulatory systems and processes and the FDA and food safety and getting your SOPs done and having a safe food safety plan. mean, that's it's so important. And being the type of person I am about details, you know, I'm really worried hyper
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (09:46)
You
Karen (09:46)
worried about these details and I'm so glad that I was with experts like you to guide me through, but I'm still very worried about those details and executing them well and delivering a great product.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (10:04)
No, I definitely think you will. think the fact that you're going to be in our facility, but also just be around. There's other businesses to be around to ask questions to. We'll kind of hopefully lessen any mistakes that you could possibly make. But yeah, I think you have a good foundation now and a good start for sure.
Karen (10:23)
I hope so, but that's why I chose to be with you for the first few months, because I know I'm going to lean on you because of these things that I'm just not familiar with in the food business world, the operations, how many details and how meticulous you have to be about those processes.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (10:43)
What are you looking forward to?
Karen (10:47)
I am looking forward to at least being good at those things and then being able to focus again on marketing, which I know. So I'm really nervous about the processes and that was a big surprising how many details and how I need to focus on operations. I've never been an operations person. I've always been a front end marketing person.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (10:51)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Karen (11:15)
And then all the decisions that go into operations that affect your bottom line. So I was so happy to get that from this bootcamp too about costing and margin on your product and how the littlest decisions like packaging and, you know, all add to the costs of things. And, you know, you still want to deliver your product at a price that's affordable to people. So.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (11:42)
Right.
Karen (11:42)
You know, it's a lot to juggle and that I think was again, the most surprising part of this bootcamp and what I was hoping would be easier, but it's not. But again, I'm grateful of first all that I've learned from you being the expert there.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (11:51)
Hehehehehe
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (12:00)
I think you also were able to contribute to the group as well, because you do have the marketing expertise. So especially when it came to creating their Shopify websites, that's something that you're an expert in. And I think the group really benefited from getting that feedback from you about that. That was really great. Yeah, yeah.
Karen (12:14)
Yeah, I'm not. always happy to help and you know, it's like, no, you don't again. Like, you don't know what you don't know. And I'm here. So have those questions because and I'm always happy to help out and I wish them all the success too.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (12:25)
Yeah, me too, me too. At Hudson Kitchen, have what we call a money bell that we ring when we're celebrating something. So I'm wondering, what are you celebrating?
Karen (12:36)
I'm going to celebrate the launch first on May 1st. Finally, my website will say we're open for orders. So that will be the first thing. Yeah.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (12:44)
Amazing. That's great. So Karen, everyone know where they can find out about you and Next Level Grains.
Karen (12:52)
Yeah, nextlevelgrains.com and we'll be opening May 1st for orders.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (12:59)
Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much for being here.
Karen (13:02)
No, thank you. Bye-bye.