North Mallow with Mike Nelson feature 58 of Together Talks
- KLS
- Sep 7, 2023
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 14
"Together Talks" feature 58: North Mallow presented by KLS, freight company
Some Background on North Mallow
Today's edition of "Together Talks" campaign, KLS had the opportunity to interview North Mallow and founder Mike Nelson. Sparked around a Minnesota campfire, the idea of a flavorful, better-for-you marshmallow inspired them to create North Mallow marshmallows.
As camp counselors, they have some serious s’more-making skills and recognized that the simple act of roasting marshmallows created joy and connections among our campers - experiences that would last a lifetime.
Together as a husband and wife team, Mike and Christine want to share the joyful moments they experienced at camp and successfully improve upon the classic to deliver a delicious line of mallows that roast to the perfect, gooey consistency and that we all can feel good about sharing with our family, friends, and campers.
Mike and Christine believe food should be made with simple, real ingredients. Unlike traditional marshmallows, North Mallow never use high fructose corn syrup, chemical preservatives, or anything artificial. That way, North Mallow is a flavorful, feel-good treat that everyone can enjoy.
2016 - Local Farmers Markets
The beginning of North Mallow started with Mike making marshmallows for fun. He told us very few people know you can make your own marshmallows. Someone learned of his endeavor and asked if he would be interested in catering an event with smores. Soon after they started a catering business . Throughout their events they were constantly asked where their marshmallows could be purchased. Mike never thought about selling their creation, just figured it would be a side gig that he enjoyed. 2016 Mike started attending local farmers markets with the intent to sell his product.
2017 - 1st Stores
Mike told us he had interest from a few local stores about selling his product. He was told if he can get the packaging right for retail, he will get an opportunity to have his product on the shelves. Three stores brought on North Mallow in 2017.
2018 - Super Bowl
Mike told us this was a crazy year. The Super Bowl was held in Minnesota this year. Catering had started to pick up some steam and Mike was hoping to have a ton of events during the week of the Super Bowl. A few months out, he had only secured one event. He was hoping it would be a big thing to boom their business.
North Mallow ended up doing 18 events in 4 days. Mike told us he did events for Justin Timberlake and Terry Bradshaw in addition to working the actual Super Bowl Game at US Bank Stadium, operating two suites for 3,000 people total.
He shared with us the craziest moment for him was having a National Guard Escort into the stadium!
2019 - Catering, Retail, & Health
The non-stop events over those four days helped catapult North Mallow with some real momentum. Demand was becoming a real driver for the company at this point. This year they grew to around 150 catering events while also being in almost 500 stores. While the growth felt incredible, Mike was worried because they didn't have the money or financing to sustain it.
He told us there were many contributing factors to the retail side struggling. First he admitted his lack of knowledge when it came to the CPG industry as a whole. Also, the difficulties working with a co-manufacturer. He told us about a debacle they experienced where the one they partnered with weren't making the product correctly. He had to put an emergency call into a friend with a kitchen and ask his employees to come back and make marshmallows to ensure the product was created correctly. Immediately Mike made the decision to bring the manufacturing back in-house to preserve the integrity of the product. Mike shared with us that the company made a lot of money from catering but lost a lot of money from CPG. He told us he almost considered shutting down their website and ending the CPG side because the catering business was going so well.
Towards the end of 2019, Mike ended up in the hospital with a stress ulcer. It was at this time Mike did some introspection and remembered why they started North Mallow..."Ignite Joy", the motto of the company. Mike said he learned things the hard way, both in business and personally with his health scare. But fortunately Mike got everything back on track and North Mallow was heading into 2020 with real optimism. After nearly 150 catering events in 2019, Mike told us they had 230-240 booked.
Covid...Pivot...Corporate Gifting?
2020 the Pandemic hit.
North Mallow completed 4 catering events.
F-O-U-R...
May 2020, Mike said they were close to shutting down. Collectively they had one last idea to see if they could salvage the company. Mike has a cousin who is a professional baker in Copenhagen who helped create a graham cracker recipe for North Mallow. With that, Mike began selling a smores kit. The company put it on the website and sold almost 200 in about 30 hours. The feedback and demand was great Mike told us. They got them all out that week and luckily it was a cool week weather wise so nothing melted!
The company spent the rest of the summer of 2020 learning how to ship smores kits around the country. The next year they developed a hot cocoa kit to provide more value to their consumers. Shortly after the company redesigned the packaging to have their branding showing on both products. This provided some real traction for North Mallow.
2022, they were hoping catering would pick back up, but the hybrid office scheduling was limiting that. But then something interesting happened, those corporate clients began reaching out wanting to buy kits to send to their employees working from home. As Mike shared, "Corporate gifting was never on my radar and then suddenly it hit me in the face. I thought why aren't we doing this and realized this could be huge for us."
With that realization coupled with the demand for the kits, the company dove into corporate gifting. At this time the kits were not able to be customized. Also customers were saying we love your smores kits, but we are missing the fire. Eventually they created their Travel Campfire, which has a wood fire-starter in food grade soy wax. So now you can bring the Travel Campfire anywhere to roast marshmallows and make s'mores with their s'mores kit. Mike told us, "With the Pandemic corporate gifting really exploded. But we found you can only have so many yeti mugs, or tumblers, or hats. it was the same thing being given over and over. We bring the ability to provide this really cool and unique gift." North Mallow is selling the experience...Ignite Joy.
Vulnerability to focus on Mental Health
Mike told us one of the proudest moments for him has been his ability to grow professionally and personally. He said he is not one to celebrate the wins very often, but he has been making a conscious effort to do that lately. Mike talked about learning about imposter syndrome and making sure not to get caught up in other businesses and try to compare to your own. He told us how he used his stint in the hospital to reframe his outlook, "I reconfigured how I look at my business and what brings me joy. Then I remember I get to make and sell smores for a living." (Said with a big smile)
He told us something he has done that has helped his development is joining the EO (Entrepreneurs organization) where he has had the ability to talk about fear there. Speaking with likeminded individuals has given Mike an outlet to open up and be vulnerable, something he admittedly struggled for many years. He shared that being open and talking about your doubts and struggles matters so much.
Recently Mike took the company to the St. Paul Saints game (Minnesota Twin's AAA affiliate club) on Smores Day! He got to throw out the first pitch, relax, enjoy and have fun with his entire team. But most importantly he got to celebrate a win. The little moments Mike is trying to make a more common occurrence to enjoy with his team, his family, and himself. He told us, "Getting to bring joy to a lot of people is so incredible. We get emails and pictures of families enjoying their smores around the bonfire saying our product made their cabin weekend. Knowing that we are the reason for making their weekend, to bring such joy with our experience, it is really special."
In Closing
KLS wants to thank Mike Nelson, Founder of North Mallow for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for the North Mallow journey with their social handles below!
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