The Vancouver Sun
Gone Crackers delivers a winning wafer
Rave reviews for recipe leads to firm's expansion
Mia Stainsby
January 15, 2003
Friends told her she'd "gone crackers," but Heather Nichol forged on.
She'd just experienced an unimaginably horrible year: She had suffered from yeast and mould toxins in her apartment, a bank employee was found to be embezzling money from her account, her mother and a friend had died.
"Life's too short," Nichol says, and continued developing a recipe
for a cracker to sell, one that didn't have sugar, yeast, additives
or preservatives. "During my mould-poisoned days, it used to drive me
crazy ... there was so much sugar in crackers to act as a preservative.
So I worked hard at making crackers without sugar."
It took her about a month to perfect the recipe, but she knew she had nailed
it when friends gave it rave reviews.
One year later, Gone Crackers is being sought by Elizabeth Taylor, who
picked them up at a wine shop in Los Angeles that sold 86 cases in the two
months before Christmas.
Her first customer was Leslie Stowe Fine Foods, but her local client list
now includes Urban Fare, Pane Formaggio, Les Amis du Fromage, Choices,
Capers and Stongs. Okanagan wineries sell them with their wines.
"Sales have taken a gi-normous leap," Nichol says. "They literally tripled
overnight last October [from about $2,500 a month in sales to $8,000]. I've
got huge orders from L.A. and Calgary."
The Vancouver entrepreneur/designer has a business history that includes
forays into fashion accessories and dinnerware, so she knew she had her work
cut out for her when it came to marketing her creation.
But she also had connections in Vancouver's fine-food retail industry,
having once operated the Fourth Avenue Food Shop.
Those connections helped open doors. Nichol now has more than 40 customers,
and she's looking for more, including a deal in the works for
private-labelled lines for some major retailers.
She started producing Gone Crackers at a commercial bakery in Vancouver --
"It was a nightmare, of course" -- but the volume has increased so much that
she's already moved to a larger facility, also in Vancouver.
"Nobody but nobody does this alone," Nichol says, crediting friends and
advisers with helping her navigate the bumps in the road.
But much of the enterprise was a one-woman show in the beginning.
"I delivered all those crackers myself," she says of the back-breaking early
days. "That way I got to talk to my retailers."
BOLD BOLT OF TASTE:
The crackers do justice to caesar salad, cheeses or even crumbled over
Campbell's tomato soup, Heather Nichol says. "Or they're nice with a glass
of wine, brie and pear or antipasto."
Gone Crackers snacks, in a stylish box, funky enough to put out with hors
d'oeuvres, take irregular shapes and are light and crunchy, yet heftily
flavourful and substantial. They're thicker and denser than most crackers,
which are wimpy in comparison.
Gone Crackers are available in two flavours: Reggiano Parmesan/Rosemary and
Flax/Sesame.
The thing that separates them from regular supermarket crackers is a fresh,
savoury flavour -- bold enough to hold its own, but restrained enough to
accommodate other flavours, such as cheeses or antipasto. I tried the
Parmesan/Rosemary and what you taste is good quality Parmesan with hints of
rosemary.
At a tall $5.99 a box, they are expensive, but put them up against Ritz or a
Carr's and there's no contest. You can find out more on the Web site
www.gonecrackers.ca (Nichol says her favourite e-mails from Gone Cracker
fans are the ones that say: "I can't believe it. I ate the whole box.")
Bakers Journal
Nichol Fine Foods makes a name for itself with designer crackers.
Tuija Seipell
August / September 2003 (Vol. 63, No.7)
In December 2001, an unusual-looking box of crackers appeared in Vancouver's fine food stores. Customers noticed and loved the box and its contents. By January 2003, the Gone Crackers brand was the talk of the town in well-heeled foodie circles, particularly after rave reviews in the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province newspapers.
And while Heather Nichol of Nichol Fine Foods - the person and company behind the brand and its funky, blue box - may have gone crackers more than once during the process of developing and marketing the brand, she's not complaining. The future for the latest designer cracker that retails for $6.50 per box looks bright.
In January 2003, Vancouver Sun's restaurant writer Mia Stainsbury wrote, "Gone Crackers snacks, in a stylish box, funky enough to put out with hors d'oeuvres, take irregular shapes and are light and crunchy, yet heftily flavourful and substantial. They're thicker and denser than most crackers, which are wimpy in comparison... The thing that separates them from regular supermarket crackers is a fresh, savoury flavour - bold enough to hold its own, but restrained enough to accommodate other flavours."
Heather Nichol readily admits that this kind of endorsement is priceless. "It is quite amazing, really," she says. "It is almost like an advertisement, but it is written completely based on the writer's own personal experience. So it's much better than any ad we could have written ourselves. The phones just would not quit ringing after this appeared."
And as if handling such a "problem" wasn't enough, the second wave of mad phone ringing started in June 2003. An article by the Vancouver Province's food critic Mark Laba - Mark Laba's Adventures in Dining - showered Gone Crackers with more praise. He wrote about the crazy jester pictured on the box: "A little scary but his wave is friendly and these are some of the best crackers I've ever tasted. Price is steep but you'll impress everybody, from the sweat-pant encased to the eveningwear clad. Tried these out on some hoity-toity wine-palate pals and they were at 'em like wolverines on a tourist lost in an animal safari park."
Getting media attention is a skill - and Nichol has formidable talents in the area - but she says it is not what makes a business.
"Connections and attention are wonderful and valuable, but the products do have to be able to stand on their own," she says. "No hype is going to keep this going."
Nichol is a multi-talented person; whether it be painting fashion accessories and dinnerware, public relations, managing a restaurant and operating a food store, she has done a lot of things.
"It may sound scattered, but it all makes sense to me," she says with a laugh. "I've always cooked, I've always loved food - that's the world in which I am most comfortable."
On a mission to avoid additives, sugar, yeast and preservatives, Nichol looked for a cracker that did not have sugar. She could not find one, but spotted a market niche instead. She started to develop such a cracker and was determined to make it a huge success. While her friends said she'd gone totally batty, crackers and bananas trying to do it, she continued to experiment in her kitchen.
A month later, she had perfected her first recipe and her friends liked the reggiano parmesan and rosemary cracker. It had the highest quality ingredients and no yeast, sugar or hydrogenated oils. The second flavour Nichol developed was flax and sesame, this one without dairy.
With the two flavours, Nichol rented a baking space, developed the now-famous packaging and delivered the first boxes to Leslie Stowe Foods, a Vancouver-based, high-end food and catering business known for providing the unusual and the spectacular to the city's food enthusiasts.
Nichol hasn't stopped since.
"I did everything myself, and still mostly do," she says. "I took the orders, baked the crackers, carried the boxes, delivered the cases and did the PR."
While she is now developing a new strategy - meaning that some of the tasks must be delegated - she still enjoys the direct client contact.
"That's how I got to talk to the retailers, and that is invaluable."
Today, Gone Crackers products are available in more than 40 specialty food stores and wineries in B.C., Alberta and the U.S. and the list is growing daily.
And what about the Liz Taylor story? Nichol is somewhat exasperated, although amused, by a persistent and oft-published rumour that Liz Taylor has bought tons of her crackers.
"I do not want anyone to think that Ms. Taylor is somehow endorsing the product," she says. "I sent her a box through a friend of a friend, and Ms. Taylor tasted them and, apparently, liked them. But this whole topic is really getting out of control."
What a nice problem to have. One could imagine much worse things to be happening to a company barely two years old. And Nichol does send crackers to celebrities when that seems appropriate, but she's not claiming they endorse them.
Not one to hide her ambitions, Nichol says she will be on Oprah one day.
"When I was starting, I watched Oprah and I'm thinking, here are all these people talking about their amazing successes. I am going to do that, too. If they can do it, I can do it. And I am definitely going to be on that show one day."
Nichol has no intention of staying small.
"I need huge volume for this to work, and I am working on it," she says.
She is currently developing several new products, including new cracker flavours and a new, sweet product that is still a secret. In August she moved to a 2,000-sq.-ft. commercial baking space on Annacis Island in Delta, near Vancouver. In addition, she is negotiating with a national distributor. She also has a pair of lucrative, private-label deals in the works, deals that could make Gone Crackers huge.
In spite of her fast success, Heather Nichol is not going crackers.
"I am not rushing things, but neither am I sitting waiting for things to happen," she says. "Currently, I wear about 15 hats and some of that has to change so that I can focus on managing the business and taking it to where I envision it going."
Which will no doubt include a stop at the Oprah Winfrey show on the way there.
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