Is there a more archetypal hippy business than baking granola? Maybe next year the Love Farm tribe will be making sandals from used tires, merino wool neru jackets, adaptogen brews from forest foraging...

Whether or not there ever was such a thing as hippies, one thing's for sure. Magic is real. The story of how we got started with granola is clear evidence, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Mystery. Miracles. Magic.

The Adventure

Could Highland Flowers and Sleeping Bear Granola be an open source adventure? Would the granola business be even more delightful if it were radically transparent and accessible to the general public? Let's find out.

Here's some of the questions we'd like to explore...

Why glass?

Plastic encourages a throw away mentality. What to do? We had hundreds of clear plastic buckets bequeathed to us for packaging the granola, one use containers that would go into the trash once the granola was gone. We were feeling a little queasy about all the garbage we'd be responsible for if the business was a hit.

We had decided to just bake one flavor, Maple Pecan and go with all organic ingredients. Our first batch went into said plastic buckets with sticky labels we printed. This did not feel optimal. We pondered packaging alternatives, and were inspired by the OG dairy paradigm. Back in the day, milk would be delivered to your house in glass bottles and when they were empty, the milk man would pick them up and bring them back to the dairy to be sterilized and refilled.

Maybe there were milk women too, but in those days only one parent had to work to make ends meet, so women could stay home and give their full attention to raising healthy kids. Or in the case of milk women, maybe the man stayed home. I remember the little insulated box we had that the milk was put into, tho I don't remember meeting any of the milk men or women.

One day Sarah was walking through the woods and was given a sign.

A plastic bag from Sweet Home Farms Maple Pecan Granola lying on the forest floor! Partially decomposed, who knows how long this bag had been there. The message from the cosmos? Go with returnable glass jars.

Sleeping Bear Granola is normally $20/lb in a quart mason style glass jar. Bring us back an empty jar and the price for another jar is just $18. Simple.

The glass choice was confirmed after a recent staff taste test. Granola from 5 different baking sessions was compared. Granola stored in plastic buckets had lost most of it's taste while the granola stored in glass was still quite flavorful.

Why organic?

Not perfect, but a start.

What is open source?

Why transparency aligns with our definition of success.