Episode 16: Simple Mills Founder Kaitlin Smith On Maxing Out Her Credit Cards To Become A Leader In The Boutique Food Industry

5 years ago, the word paleo would have sounded like a word out of a science booklet. Fast forward to 2018, and gluten-free and paleo are as popular as Instagram. If you're not following a paleo diet, your friends and family have most likely already told you how much better you'll feel if you convert. Kaitlin Smith suffered with gut problems for a while, before she started tracking almond flour sales in grocery stores. As diets like Atkins and South Beach Diet faded out, healthy lifestyle choices like paleo and crossfit hit the market, hard. Instead of trying to become the next Quest or Think Thin bar, Kaitlin started Simple Mills, a paleo food company, that sells products like pumpkin muffin kits (made with coconut sugar and almond flour), almond flour crunchy chocolate chip cookies, and frosting made with organic ingredients and cane sugar. If you've ever had a Simple Mills product, you know how freakin' tasty the stuff is too. She's gone from a team of herself, to a team of 27 people and growing. What started as a test in her Charlotte, NC kitchen, has made Kaitlin a leader in the food revolution, getting attention from places like Forbes, Whole Foods, and Thrive Market. She was on Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017, and Simple Mills lives on shelves across America in over 1,200 stores!

Follow Kaitlin on social media at @simplemills and Alexa at @alexa_curtis and @thisislifepodcast.