Inspired by Family
by Sarah Buehrle
Parents will tell you that having children changed their lives. For Atlanta area entrepreneurs, children inspired whole new directions.
Bitsy’s Brainfood: The Juggler
Maggie Jones Patton, co-founder of Bitsy’s Brainfood, was born and raised in Atlanta. She now lives in New York, splitting her time between there and Atlanta, where she still has friends, family and business ties.
“It’s challenging,” Patton says of being both a mom and an entrepreneur.
In her car headed out to spend a Sunday morning with her family, she paused the conversation to address a brief interruption. After a muffled aside, she spoke back into the phone.
“Here I am, giving him a lollipop,” she says with a laugh. “But it’s organic. Sometimes you do what you have to do.”
Bitsy’s Brainfood, a line of organic, vitamin, DHA and EPA-infused cereals and cookies for children, attempts to help on-the-go parents give their children nutritional food, while maximizing snack time with education and play.
For instance, Bitsy’s Zucchini Gingerbread Carrot cookies have 40 percent daily allowance of vitamin B6, B12, DHA and folate, as well as 20 percent iron and calcium per serving. They also come in interactive packaging and alphabet shapes for impromptu ABC playtime.
Despite being made for children, Bitsy’s doesn’t hide the veggies. Patton says product names like Lemon Broccoli cookies and Fruit & Veggie 1,2,3 cereal make it clear to kids that healthy food can taste good.
“It’s not that kids are born with predispositions to wanting everything vanilla or chocolate. It’s the adults who do that, saying ‘Here’s a treat,’” Patton says. “We’re trying to teach them that broccoli can be delicious.”
Which is one of the reasons, says Carlotta Mast, executive director of content for New Hope Natural Media, that Bitsy’s Brainfood was one of 105 vendors nominated out of thousands for the 2014/15 Nexty Awards, winning two.
Patton, along with Bitsy’s co-founder and co-president Alexandra Buckley Voris, had written a grant in 2005 for an afterschool program that focused on preventing childhood obesity. The two were thinking about how to help kids be healthy “without being preachy,” Patton says.
Voris, who has a master’s degree in education, and Patton, who has a background in nonprofit management, started researching food and recipes. The two created their own recipes and started baking on Columbus Day 2009. Their products are now made in a South Georgia facility.
Patton fondly recounts moments where motherhood and being a businesswoman have melded for her, recalling a photo of her 4-month-old daughter wearing a hairnet in a manufacturing facility, and her first presentation with that holy grail of natural food retailers Whole Foods several years ago, given while wearing her son in a sling.
Patton says that parents who are thinking about starting their own businesses should pursue their ideas.
“Every night I go to bed, I feel good about it.”
Visit bitsysbrainfood.com for printables and smart eating games.
