ALUMNI ACCOLADES
Lisa Marsh
Sunshine Enterprises Alum, Gluten Free Entrepreneur & Taster of Deliciousness
Lisa Marsh is the CEO of Ms. P’s Gluten Free, a gluten free granola and snack food company. She suffered from health issues for many years and after her mother and sister both died much too soon, Lisa decided to make some lifestyle changes including eating gluten free. Unfortunately, many of the gluten free products did not taste good and left her unsatisfied. She started baking and experimenting with blending wonderful organic ingredients to create delicious and healthy gluten free cereal and baked goods. Lisa started selling her gluten-free products at farmers markets, after prompting from co-workers. She decided to launch Ms P’s Gluten Free to honor her mother, Mrs. Youlos Patterson-Brown who inspired Lisa to be a strong, independent woman.
“I had an idea, but I didn’t know how to bring it to the world. I didn’t know anything about retail or selling products. For example, I didn’t know I was supposed to get insurance before I started selling. Getting into Sunshine Enterprise’s Community Business Academy (CBA) was truly the beginning of formulating Ms. P’s Gluten Free,” explains Lisa. “Sunshine Enterprises provided me that glimmer of hope I needed, because before that I thought, ‘how does this work, what do you do and who do I need to talk to?’ The CBA was able to answer those questions for me and get me on the right path to entrepreneurship.” Lisa graduated from the CBA in 2014 and certified her business in December 2015. Thanks to Sunshine Enterprises, by December of 2016, Lisa had products on the shelves of Whole Foods. “I went from knowing absolutely nothing and asking about when to have insurance, to learning how to package products, get barcodes, make deliveries, get it on store shelves, and get paid. Sunshine introduced our product to Whole Foods when they opened their first store in the area before they had even broken ground. Sunshine also introduced us to some powerful players that we’re partnering with now.”
After her experience with Sunshine Enterprises, Lisa enrolled in the Good Food Accelerator (now The Good Food Catalyst) and was assigned to a mentor who told her to look at the numbers and make some pretty tough decisions based on what was selling the most – her granola was outselling her cookie bars 3 to 1. Armed with this new information she was ready to scale, grow, and move. She was advised to concentrate on one product, create two more flavors of it, and work on new packaging. Along the way of creating the two new flavors Lisa also joined an initiative with “HandsOn Twin Cities” which connected her with Target. The national retailer committed 10,000 hours of pro bono consulting services for Black-, Indigenous- and people-of-color-owned small businesses. Target worked with Lisa and her team for fifteen weeks on the Ms. P’s Gluten Free packaging. They created beautiful designs - ensuring the nutritional facts were correct, the ingredients were accurate and in the right place, getting the certifications on the back, making sure that everything on the bags were up to standard and in code.
Ms. P’s Gluten Free has continued to make amazing strides. In 2023, Lisa won a $4000 grant from Sunshine’s Annual Shark Tank Pitch competition and a $10,000 grant from Beyonce Knowles-Carter’s BeyGOOD Foundation. These grants enabled Lisa to create more jobs and provide continuous growth of the Mrs. P’s expanding snack line. Lisa’s products can now be found in all of the Chicagoland Whole Foods stores and Mariano’s locations. Lisa has three tips for aspiring entrepreneurs:
You have to know deep down that what you have is a gift, it’s not just about making money. It took me 27 years working in Federal Law Enforcement to know this business is what I can give to the world. What we offer keeps you full, keeps you moving, gives you energy and it works.
Find a mentor, have like-minded people in your corner who are going to help you when you have to go into the corner and cry.
Never, never quit. I used to get up at 5am, leave my house, work till 3:30 or 4pm, come back, take the Sunshine class (one day a week) for twelve weeks and work on my business in the evenings. It was not easy, but it was worth it.
For more information about Lisa Marsh and her products, visit www.mspsglutenfree.com.