Gourmet granola and advocacy: A conversation with 2022 America’s Retail Champion Margaret Barrow

·26 min·2 clips

Margaret Barrow, a tenured professor, started a gourmet granola company after her daughter challenged her to stop complaining about unhealthy snacks.

The episode begins with host Bill Thorne introducing Margaret Barrow, founder of It's NOLA and winner of the NRF's 2022 America's Retail Champion award. Barrow explains her background as a tenured college professor teaching literature and composition at Borough of Manhattan Community College for over 20 years. She started It's NOLA in 2017-2018 after realizing the granola she ate was unhealthy and her daughter challenged her to create a better alternative. Barrow developed gluten-free, organic granola bites focused on digestion and a chewy texture, initially for family. Her students encouraged her to start a business after trying samples, and they later conducted surveys at multiple colleges to provide evidence supporting the idea. Barrow highlights the challenges of running a startup while teaching full-time, including time management and financial pressures. She integrates mentorship into her company, allowing students to gain experience in roles like social media, while teaching them that failure is part of learning. Barrow describes how winning the NRF award surprised her and led to advocacy work, including co-hosting town halls with legislators to push for small business policies. She emphasizes the NRF's role in creating a community for entrepreneurs and helping them tell their stories to lawmakers. The conversation touches on Barrow's favorite product, Sassy Mango Masala granola, which a Whole Foods buyer called 'gourmet.' Thorne and Barrow discuss the importance of the NRF's Retail Summit in training small business owners for advocacy. Barrow concludes with career advice, stressing the need to build a community through organizations like the NRF to thrive, not just survive.

As heard by us

Margaret Barrow links small-business survival with focus, mentoring, community, and advocacy.

Retail Gets Real follows Margaret Barrow, CEO and founder of It's NOLA, as she balances a plant-based snack company with her work as a professor.

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Why you'd press play

You can hear Margaret Barrett, CEO and founder of It's NOLA, talk through the pressure of building a plant-based snack company and why community matters.

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