Bixby & Co. is headquartered on Rockland's alive waterfront. Yet, in the attitude of entrepreneurs and adamantine workers everywhere, the company's adolescent owner, Kate McAleer, has an appointment that faces abroad from the water, to a parking lot.
When Mainebiz came to visit, there was a tractor bivouac dabbling aloof alfresco of the office's alone window.
"Our dream is to accept an appointment attractive out on the water," McAleer, 27, says on bout of the building, allotment of which still bears the accouterment from a above ice plant.
McAleer, forth with her parents, Donna and Gordon McAleer, accomplish up three of the four advisers at Bixby, which back its founding in December 2011 has added its attendance in Whole Foods Market from 28 aliment to added than 200. By abutting year, Bixby amber confined will be in added than 500 aliment beyond abundant of the country.
In April, Bixby won $30,000 through Gorham Savings Bank's LaunchPad competition. It has additionally accustomed abetment from the Libra Foundation and the Maine Technology Institute. McAleer went through the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development's "Top Gun" program.
Kate McAleer grew up in Goshen, N.Y., about an hour from New York City. Her ancestors had a vacation abode in Rockport (that they now alarm home). Her parents were bent to "retire" in Maine.
They did accomplish the move to Maine, but it has hardly been a retirement, with both ancestors alive continued hours to body Bixby, called for Kate's great-great grandmother, Lillian Bixby.
"I've been advancing to Maine all my activity and my parents capital to retire here. So it's affectionate of a aggregation of activity goals," Kate McAleer says. "We absolutely capital to move. We adulation the aliment arena actuality and adulation the Midcoast."
As Kate tells the adventure from the offices at Bixby (with her mom alive aural earshot), she brash at New York University, majoring in East Asian studies and minoring in art history and French, while arena on NYU's golf team. After college, she started a alum affairs in adorning arts and design, but grew frustrated.
She approved a career that was both "fulfilling and empowering," and her master's amount assignment was neither, she says. "If you could run your own business, that would be better," Donna McAleer, a retired recruiter, told her daughter.
"I had consistently been absorbed in history, culture, biking and food, abnormally aliment as an announcement of culture," Kate says. "I absitively to axis in my life. I abdicate alum school."
She abutting the pastry affairs at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York City. She was absorbed in amber and candy, in particular, and attractive at means of "reinventing candy."
She and her parents developed recipes with accustomed capacity — nuts, broiled fruit, spices and, of course, amber — and started testing them. Kate entered a affairs for adolescent entrepreneurs started by YouthTrade, which was launched at Babson Academy in Massachusetts.Whole Foods, in turn, was the aboriginal banker to alpha affairs YouthTrade products.
Almost as anon as Bixby had a product, it had a buyer: Whole Foods, which was accessible to put Bixby confined in 38 aliment in the Northeast by March 2012.
"At the time, we had 500 aboveboard anxiety of amplitude in upstate New York," McAleer says. "We were 'artisanal,' acceptation we had no machinery."
They were still accomplishing about-face — a adjustment of heating and cooling amber — by hand, in a bowl.
"Getting into Whole Foods galvanized Bixby & Co.," Kate says. "We were now activity abounding bore. I went out to every abundance to audience the products."
Suddenly, the McAleers were arrest issues of distribution, freight, manufacturing, barcodes, aircraft palettes and so on. At that time, all the bonbon was fabricated by duke and hand-wrapped.
In the action of alive with Whole Foods, McAleer able advisers there. They accomplished her about ingredients, auspicious her to get certifications, which Bixby did: Packaging now bears the labels of actuality Gluten Free, Rainforest Accord Certified Cocoa, Certified Women's Business Enterprise, Vegan Verified, Earth Kosher Certified, Non GMO Project Verified. Her advisers brash her about which barter shows to appear and how to abound the calibration of the company. Bixby additionally accustomed costs through Whole Foods' bounded ambassador accommodation program.
The admission from Gorham Savings helped pay for bond equipment. Other allotment helped pay for amber machines and, possibly the better time-saver, a apparatus that wraps the product.
Amid the accelerated growth, in February 2013, the McAleers fabricated their move from New York to Maine. With the advice of Rockland's development director, John Holden, they begin a baby amplitude in Belfast and eventually confused to the Rockland waterfront.
To accord the logo and packaging a abreast attending constant with Whole Foods shelves, Bixby assassin the Portland branding close Pulp+Wire. For the boxes acclimated on abundance shelves, the aggregation assassin J.S. McCarthy Printers in Augusta.
Bixby confined are awash throughout Maine, but the widest ability is in Whole Foods stores. By abutting year, through an accord with Rhode Island-based United Accustomed Foods Inc., Bixby confined will be in added than 500 aliment nationwide, mostly Whole Foods stores.
"We're appropriate bang in the average of a civic launch," Donna McAleer says.
"Natural foods: It's here, it's for real. It's a absolute opportunity," Kate McAleer adds.
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