Lori Sandler traces the start of her company to the day in 1999 that her son Benjamin celebrated his first birthday.
Not long before, she had learned that Benjamin was allergic to peanuts, tree nuts like cashews and walnuts, milk, eggs, sesame and shellfish. All Ms. Sandler could come up with to celebrate was some shaved ice with a candle in it.
Luckily, he was too young to know the difference. But Ms. Sandler took to her kitchen to create treats that were safe for her son to eat.
Then, she started working on recipes that she could make commercially, knowing that thousands of families also have children with food allergies.
In late 2004, she started Divvies, a company that sells cookies, popcorn, cupcakes, candy and gift-pack combinations that are free of peanuts, tree nuts, milk and eggs.
Ms. Sandler is among a handful of entrepreneurs who are starting businesses that sell candy, cookies, cakes and other sweets free of potential allergens. The companies were almost all started by people who are allergic or are relatives of children with life-threatening allergies to nuts, eggs and dairy products.
“There’s been a pretty huge increase in these companies, and a lot of them seem to be people who were personally affected by an allergy or intolerance and didn’t think there was enough out there for themselves or their children,” said Robert Pacenza, executive director of the Food Allergy Initiative, a nonprofit organization that raises money to treat and cure food allergies.
More than 12 million Americans have food allergies, according to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology. Fish allergies are the most prevalent, with 6.9 million people reporting them, followed by peanut allergies, 3.3 million people.
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Photo by Jodi Hilton.
Dane on December 7th, 2007 at 7:42 am
According to Wikipedia, something like 8% of children have food allergies, so this could be a big market.