Granola business flourishes for Redding couple
Invention is often born of necessity and sometimes, economic pressure and a scoop of granola.
Begun just a year ago in a kitchen in Redding, Ola! has found its way to shelves around the Northeast and onto food television.
Kurt and Dina Houser, are the principals of DK Design Partners which they founded together 10 years ago. Both seasoned veterans of the graphic and branding design world, they moved to Redding from New York City four years ago to allow their growing family to have a more archetypal suburban life.
“Last year the recession hit and everything just bombed, it affected our business tremendously,” Dina said. “Our design business has always allowed us to be part of a start-to-finish process. We’ve done inception, naming, all the way through to a finished product for others before. Being on that side we totally understood that process and the importance of having a strong brand.”
As clients’ advertising budgets dried up, so did a dependable flow of work coming to DK Design Partners.
“That was the catalyst,” Dina said. “I’ve made this granola for years and my mom made it for me.”
The recipe had begun to evolve when she began giving jars of the mix to DK clients as gifts.
“After many years of wine and the usual gifts, you don’t stand out,” she said.
The personal gifts were met with praise, expanding an idea to market the granola. In February 2009, in the midst of the frustrating and straining business climate, Dina finally decided it would be the time to build the granola brand.
“It was out of necessity. I love our design business and I love being a designer; but you rely on others businesses to sustain you. I really wanted to create something that was self-sustaining. Obviously the challenge was starting this during a really difficult time. But I think that was also in our favor because it was something new and fresh and something that’s under $10 that people can purchase without feeling guilty.”
Through the years working in branding, the Housers saw how so often a good idea could be focus-grouped so much that it loses itself.
“There is an importance to having different perspectives, but at the end of the day you have to go with your gut,” Dina said.
The naming process was left to the best focus group of them all, the Housers’ three sons.
“They rhymed everything with granola, and I finally thought, ola, of course, perfect,” she said. “It captures people’s attention and communicates to people what we’re about, before they even know what we have. We hit the ground running; we were in stores by the middle of March.”
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