Legally Addictive

New York, New York

The concept for Legally Addictive Foods was born in late 2013 when my job in an industry I had been in for over 10 years evaporated and a one year non-compete prevented me from taking another position. (ask me more if you’re interested – it’s juicy but I’m not naming names!) A friend stepped in and asked if I wanted to sell “all that amazing food you always make for gifts and parties” at the Etsy Holiday Cavalcade in Williamsburg and within days the fun, cheeky names of the brand and products were in place. Believing it to be a good market to test in, we scrambled to get branding, labels and packaging ready. At the market some incredible friends jumped right in selling out both products and taking numerous on-the-spot holiday orders to handle the demand. Despite having no experience in the food business, I landed a job as an in-house caterer at a digital creative agency and spent my off-hours perfecting the recipes, developing packaging with gorgeous colorful labels and luminous rice paper bags and learning all I could about the food business. By leveraging my relationships in my prior field, we had our first wholesale order 3 months later to a subscription box service.

Legally Addictive has two products, the Wake & Bake Granola and Crack Cookies. Wake & Baked Granola is play on granola’s popularity as a baked cereal and as one of your favorite college activities. If it doesn’t sound familiar, allow yourself a second for research. And don’t worry; you shouldn’t have the munchies for anything else after trying this. Crack Cookies are simply cookies made from a cracker! This recipe’s genesis is an old Southern favorite, pecan pralines with graham crackers that my mother used to make, but has been modified to fit the sweet and salty bill that inspires extreme cravings.