After Loren Castle graduated from college, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a rare cancer that affects the body’s lymphatic system. Although Castle is now cancer-free, her diagnosis changed the way she looked at food.
Castle started studying nutrition and took cooking classes to learn to feed herself the most nutritious food possible. It was her sweet tooth that made her realize there were no packaged bakery items on the market that were truly delicious and made with better ingredients that she liked. So Castle made her own.
In 2009, Castle started baking out of her studio apartment in New York and sold the product at local farmers’ markets. That’s when Sweet Loren’s was born. After a few years of perfecting the recipe, Castle took her product to Whole Foods and quickly distributed it to more and more retailers.
Now, according to the company, it’s the No. 1 brand in the natural cookie dough category, and No. 3 overall.