New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
WILD ABOUT GRANOLA
Home cook’s favorite recipes inspire home-based business
For years, Tamara Joynes Ketchian has shared her mouthwatering homemade granola with friends and family who craved it so much they made holiday requests and even asked if they could buy some from her. Ketchian wasn’t set up for business, but now, her original granola — and eight other variations — are for sale to everyone because she’s opened Wildwood Granola, a home-based business.
“I’ve been making granola for a long time. I like to eat healthy snacks,” Ketchian said. “So, I thought, ‘Why not play with varieties?’ ”
She debuted the granola line recently at a May market and it sold like crazy.
Dee Bath, friend turned taste-tester turned customer, has the chemicaland preservative-free granola on yogurt every morning, she said, with Lavender Berry Tart her favorite.
“It doesn’t taste processed — you can taste every single one of the flavors,” said Bath. “She made it for me at Christmas every year and I begged her for more.”
All but one of Ketchian’s small-batch granola flavors are gluten-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, egg-free, soy-free and vegan. One flavor, “Chunky Monkey,” contains soy, but is still free of the other ingredients.
“I was trying to make it for a bigger market,” she said of the vegan angle, noting the granola doesn’t contain honey because vegans don’t eat honey.
Each batch starts with a base of gluten-free oatmeal, maple syrup and extra virgin coconut oil.
Her ingredients include various combinations of almonds, pecans, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, sugar-free coconut, dried banana, macadamia nuts, dried mango, lavender, dried blueberries, chocolate, cinnamon, turmeric and ginger.
“They’re very real, fresh ingredients,” Ketchian said.
Before raising her children, Ketchian was an art director at Weekly Reader. She then was a stay-at-home mom for 19 years and decided to start the business because she wanted to have a “purpose,” now that the kids are teens and more independent.
Ketchian obtained a cottage license, which allows her to make the product in her own kitchen, undergoing rigorous inspection that included testing her well water.
Under that license she can’t sell in stores, but can sell and deliver from her home, and at farmers markets and fairs. The business is on Facebook and Instagram, but doesn’t have a website yet. She can be contacted at wildwoodgranola@yahoo.com. She will be selling at an event on the Orange fairgrounds from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 6. If business booms she will rent commercial kitchen space.
“I’d love to open my own cafe someday,” and sell the granola there, Ketchian said, but she’s starting small because that would take a $200,000 investment, she said.
Her husband, Glen Ketchian, said he’s “really happy for her” after being home with kids for 19 years.
“She did a great job pulling it together,” said Glen Ketchian, noting he loves his wife’s granola on ice cream. “I’m not a granola guy and I’ve been eating it like crazy.”
One of his favorites is the popular “Chunky Monkey,” with unsweetened coconut flakes, dried pineapple, dried bananas, macadamia nuts and dark chocolate.
Krista O’Rourke’s family was part of the taste-testing crew and her family gives Wildwood Granola five stars.
“We’re totally tree-hugging granola people, so we’re really picky,” O’Rourke said. “They’re really whole ingredients. Tam is an amazing cook, not just with granola.”
O’Rourke said Ketchian has always shared her granola for girls’ weekends, kids’ events and even made a care package for O’Rourke’s son went he went off to college, which he considered a “huge treat,” O’Rourke said.
O’Rourke eats the granola over yogurt with fresh fruit, favoring the “Original Nutty” and also “Tropical” with macadamia nuts and dried mango.
Other flavors in the line include: “Nut-Free Triple Coconut,” “Golden Life, ” “Ginger Cranberry, ” “Forager” and “Coffee Coffee Coffee,” which contains espresso beans hand-dipped in chocolate. Ketchian uses local ingredients when possible and is looking for a local roaster to collaborate on the coffee-flavor granola.
She’s working on a grain-free, sugar-free granola for those on a keto regimen, but doesn’t have the recipe perfected yet.
Ketchian calls the business Wildwood Granola because she lives on Wildwood Drive and “I thought it was a good fit for granola — healthy, crunchy, natural,” she said.
The granola comes packaged with a simple wreath logo illustrated and co-designed by friend, taste-tester and ex-oworker Vilma Ortiz.
A large bag of 12 ounces is $13, a medium bag of nine ounces is $10 and a small bag of two ounces is $3 — or five small bags for $13.
“Eventually, I’d like to do a line of trail mix and granola bars,” Ketchian said. Trail mix is without oats and comes in chunky pieces.