Tiffani Neal loves to cook and enjoys entertaining. “I’m the person who always has people over for meals,” she said.
One morning, a friend raved about the pancakes she was serving. That’s when Neal, who has had a food blog and started a dining club, decided creating a pancake mix could be her next big thing. And that’s how she started Barlow’s Foods.
Inspiration for the name came as she looked at the picture of her grandfather, Arthur Barlow Harris, that sits on her desk. “I had a list of crazy names, but nothing would stick,” she said. “Then, looking at that picture, I could imagine his name on the package.”
Neal said she worked with a graphic designer to come up with a package design, and then “I made up bags of the mix and sent out samples to whoever I could get an address for. I would put bags of mix in the car and drop them off on neighbors’ doorsteps with a cute card. I did whatever I could to get in front of people.”
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
She got a business license and rented space in the commercial kitchen of Golda’s Kombucha on Atlanta’s Westside.
It took time and persistence for the business to take off. Golda’s Kombucha was the first store to offer the mix for sale. “I have a sales background, so I just kept calling,” Neal said. “Buford Highway Farmers Market was our next customer, and now we are in stores from Los Angeles to East Hampton, New York.”
In the metro area, her mix can be found at more than a dozen locations, from Ancient Awakenings in Woodstock to Stripling’s in Bogart.
Her nostalgic-looking packaging helped, she said. “There are many emerging brands in this category, and if we’d had the traditional ‘grocery’ look, we wouldn’t have had the same opportunities that we did with our packaging.”
Still, Neal soon realized that her packaging wasn’t telling the full story. “The mix works for pancakes, but it also makes great waffles and biscuits,” she said.
So, the package now lists all three uses, as well as directions for each.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Expansion of the product line came as she offered samples of the pancakes and people wanted a little syrup with them. She had local peaches on hand, so she looked up a recipe, made a syrup she called “peach cobbler,” and served it with her samples.
The result, Neal said, was that “people started saying, ‘The pancakes are delicious. Can I buy a bottle of the syrup, too?’” Soon, she was selling cases of the syrup.
Because she wanted to support local farmers and work with seasonal produce, Neal soon launched a strawberry bourbon syrup, and then blueberry-lemon.
“Adding the syrups to our product line meant I could grow our sales without having to come up with 112 different types of pancake mix,” she said. “We have our signature mix, and seasonal syrups, including the sweet potato syrup we make in the fall.”
Another accolade came when Neal won the grand prize at this year’s Flavor of Georgia competition run by the University of Georgia. “I entered in 2022 and didn’t place at all,” she said. “I was reluctant to apply this year, but finally did on the last day.
“It was a huge surprise when we won the grand prize for our peach cobbler syrup, chosen over the 124 entries and 36 finalists in the competition.”
As a result, she said, “people who didn’t pay attention when we first reached out to them to carry our products are now reaching out to us. Farmers markets are asking if we’d like to sell there.”
Asked whether she has any advice for other entrepreneurs, Neal said they should “follow whatever has been placed in your heart. If I had known all the ins and outs of this business, I’m not sure I would have moved forward, but everything happens for a reason.”
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