Kind Crumbs

Kind Crumbs Story

When I was young, I baked often with my mom. Our family usually had a nice homemade dessert after dinner - pies, brownies, cakes and cookies. After suffering from chronic migraines, stomach pain and other health problems throughout my 20’s, my doctor diagnosed me with Celiac Disease in 2009, and put me on a strict gluten-free diet. My health improved drastically on the gluten-free diet, especially after I also gave up eating dairy and soy. But I learned from personal experience, and from interacting with others who lived with food allergies and intolerances, that having food restrictions can greatly impact a person’s emotional well-being and social life.

I became determined to bake treats that were just as good, or better, than what I ate before going gluten-free. I started converting traditional recipes to gluten-free during my spare time, which quickly become a side business. In 2011, I left my job as a paralegal to stay home with my then 1 year-old son, and went to work building Kind Crumbs. I was determined to keep working on each recipe until it was great. I wouldn’t (and still don’t ) stop at "just ok" - even if it took me 30 trial batches, as was the case with our cinnamon rolls. Quite often when a gluten-free person craves a baked good, they will spend twice the cost of a regular wheat-flour based product, only to find it dry, gritty, gummy, or made with such “healthy” ingredients that it doesn’t actually satisfy the craving. It can lead to even greater feelings of deprivation. My goal was to make sure our products satisfied that craving for feeling normal, and not left out.

Kind Crumbs grew from a cottage business to a small commercial bakery operating out of a catering kitchen by 2014. In 2017, we began leasing our own newly-built 2400 sf facility in Walker. Our sales almost doubled between 2017 and 2019 as we started delivering our products to more stores, shops and restaurants throughout west and mid-Michigan. 2020 was a challenging year for us, as many of the cafes and restaurants we supply closed their doors either temporarily or permanently. We started offering more opportunities for customers to pick up speciality items, like custom cakes, from our facility. This helped us adapt to the changing market, and also gave us opportunities to meet many wonderful families in our food allergic and vegan communities.

Kind Crumbs is unique for two reasons. First, quality is always our top priority. I insist on using high-quality ingredients. This is especially important with gluten-free flours, some of which can cost five times more than wheat flour, even when bought by the pallet. Second, we make our products free of as many allergens as possible. Everything we make is free of gluten and dairy. Our products are also soy-free, with the exception of the rainbow sprinkles we use on some of our cakes and donuts. Most of our products are also egg-free, except for a few products which we haven’t been able to formulate to be the same quality without the eggs. We also use corn-free baking powder, so our products are also corn-free unless they have a glaze or a frosting that contains powdered sugar. And finally, we never use nuts in our products. We keep our facility gluten-free and peanut-free, so even our team members eat gluten-free and peanut-free while they are at work!

Kind Crumbs Products

Kind Crumbs Wholesale Bakery produces a wide variety of gluten-free, allergen-friendly and mostly vegan baked goods for grocery stores, restaurants and cafes in Michigan. Products include muffins, cupcakes, cake donuts, breads, cinnamon rolls, brownies and whoopie pies that are free of gluten, dairy, soy, and nuts and but taste just as good as traditional wheat flour-based homemade baked goods. Most of our products are also vegan. Kind Crumbs products are designed to be stored frozen, and sold either slacked or frozen. We currently do our own distribution, but would like to start working with distributors.

Kind Crumbs does not require testing on their products and do not use the 2016 nutritional values. Their products contain GS1 barcodes. The company currently has placement in a few retail establishments across Central, West, and South East Michigan and self distributes.