Loren Castle didn’t know what she would do after she graduated from the University of Southern California in 2006. But just months after finishing school, she got diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and had to undergo six months of chemotherapy.
It was at this time that she started focusing on cooking and eating healthy, including looking for healthier baked good options that didn’t use ingredients like bleached white flour. Castle started baking her own versions of popular cookies using ingredients like oat flour, eventually amassing an entire binder full of them. In 2010, after years of seeing how beloved her cookies were by family and friends, she started selling them at New York farmer’s markets. They were a hit there, too.
By 2011, Castle’s new company, Sweet Loren’s, was selling her unique cookie dough at her local Whole Foods. The company has continued to grow over the years, and its now vegan, gluten and allergy-free products are sold at 35,000 grocery stores around the country. Sweet Loren’s is projected to bring in $120 million in sales in 2025.
Here’s Castle’s advice to other entrepreneurs looking to find similar success.
‘You have to be so obsessed with your idea’
The No. 1 question Castle would ask budding entrepreneurs as they dive into their business is, “how bad do you want this?” she says.