Allergen-Free Food Manufacturer Has New Howard County Owner

By George Berkheimer, STAFF WRITER

One of the nation's most well-known resources for allergen-free food products and baking mixes has been saved from extinction by a Howard County entrepreneur.
Glenn Molin, president and CEO of Next Generation MRI in Columbia, acquired the faltering Allergy Grocer business of Hagerstown, along with its Miss Roben's brand of products, in August.
The self-financed deal has breathed new life into the online mail order company and its manufacturing facility, both of which closed in March but are now preparing to re-launch in November.
"I've always been intrigued with business," said Molin, who started his health care career as a doctor of chiropractic with several multidisciplinary clinics before opening his MRI center in 2005.
Looking to put newfound skills from a recently completed University of Maryland MBA to good use, Molin discovered the opportunity by chance when he mentioned his own food allergies to an acquaintance over lunch.
As fate would have it, his lunch partner specialized in mergers and acquisitions of mid-sized health care companies and was looking to find a buyer for the business.

Maintaining Continuity
Founded as Miss Roben's in 1992, Allergy Grocer initially offered only a handful of wheat- and gluten-free mixes and food products to people with celiac disease.
Over the years, it grew into an international mail order business and food distributor with its own dedicated manufacturing facility that specialized in food allergen- and gluten-free products.
Jay Berger, who co-founded the business with her husband, Roy, acknowledged that the company's recent difficulties were directly tied to the economic downturn.
"Our numbers were still up last fall but started looking downward quickly," she said, as many budget-conscious customers began making cakes and other treats from scratch or cut them from the family budget entirely. "Our business was self-financed all the way, and we came to a point where we just couldn't finance it anymore and decided to put it up for sale."
Berger has agreed to serve on an advisory panel for the new Allergy Grocer and Miss Roben's, which Molin counts as a great advantage for the company.
"I greatly respect her gluten-free and allergy-friendly knowledge base," he said.
The return of two long-time employees - a plant manager and baker - will serve to aid continuity, he added, "and I'm also looking to rehire one of the factory workers."

Fresh Ideas
The revamped business will take advantage of its web presence through online marketing, search engine optimization and blogs, Molin said.
Although there are no plans for a brick-and-mortar store, Molin's immediate goal is to start introducing Miss Roben's products to more retailers. "We're going to continue the business-to-customer model, certainly, but I think we could get greater visibility by putting more of an emphasis on the business-to-business aspect," he said.
In the meantime, Molin has a few other ideas and improvements he's ready to pursue.
"For starters, we have improved some of the existing products and added a few new ones," he said, noting that recipe tweaks have already resulted in moister yellow and tan cake mixes, breakfast muffins and carrot cakes.
Miss Roben's is fortunate enough to have developed roughly 50 proprietary recipes for cake, muffin and other baking mixes. "The only problem is that they tend to have low nutritional values because of the [allergen-free] flours that are used," Molin said.
He is now working with experts in the food industry to find ideas to make the mixes more nutritious and improve their flavors.
"It gets old always having to bake your own bread and make your own snacks," Molin said, which is directing the company toward the relatively unexplored market for ready-to-eat products. "We'd like to move into that market, as well and offer some shelf-stable products with no preservatives."
Miss Roben's had some limited success with similar products in the past, "but they were limited to a specific time of year and it was difficult to get shelf space to keep them frozen," Molin said. "New technologies and flash-freezing processes may make this a possibility now, but our first order of business is to get back up on our feet and get ramped up for business."

Customer Relief
Online forums and e-mail list services run by celiac and food allergy support groups have garnered anxious posts and appeals for alternate sources of safe products since their members began learning of Allergy Grocer's troubles earlier this year.
These message boards have now begun to convey a sense of relief concerning the company's anticipated return.
"I have searched the globe, and they really do make the only bagels safe for my son," said Stacey Kitay, a former Howard County resident who recently moved to New York. "Even Enjoy Life [brand bagels] has flax seeds, which he cannot have."
Kitay's past experience with Allergy Grocer was "extremely positive on every level," she said. "Their customer service was above and beyond," and played a role in her decision to start her own business as a nutrition and health counselor (www.IntegrativeWellnessNewYork.com).
About 10% of Allergy Grocer's past sales have been in the international arena, primarily to Canada and Europe, and new markets are currently being explored. The company already has a distributor lined up in Australia and is working on finding a distributor for Mexico.
Molin isn't too concerned about the company's ability to pick up where it left off with loyal mail order customers, but recognizes that some effort will be required to break into domestic retail markets.
"We're starting a major push to sell to buyers who bring products to the end users," he said. "Large grocery chains are going to be harder to get into, but we're hoping that mid-level retailers like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's might be more of a possibility."