Susan O’Brien intends to change the world one Hail Merry morsel at a time.
In 2006, the just-turned-40 interior designer, yogi and mother of three sons fell in love with the hippie-esque raw foods movement.
So she turned her North Dallas backyard pool cabana into a makeshift test kitchen and set about the business that’s become Hail Merry LLC.
During the recent holidays, consumers noshed on mini pumpkin tart samples at Costco, found mini cookie-dough macaroons on their pillows at Omni Hotels and snacked on salted brownie bites aboard Virgin America flights.
These strategic partnerships are particularly important for products that need to be tasted to be believed.
It’s hard to imagine that anything plant-based, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, kosher and paleo-friendly is going to satisfy your craving for something rich and decadent.
Trust me. Two mini (some might say tiny) chocolate macaroons that weigh in at 50 calories apiece put 100-calorie packages of cardboard cookies to shame.
“Raw can’t be heated above 120 degrees,” O’Brien explains. “It’s vegan, so it’s just plants: nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables.” The fats the company uses — primarily in the form of coconut oil and raw nuts — are critical to taste, texture and lingering satiation.
Sales this year are expected to reach $15 million, nearly double those of 2015. The products are sold in the refrigerated dessert sections at Whole Foods Market, Central Market, Natural Grocers/Vitamin Cottage and Costco, as well as thousands of co-ops and grocery stores.
David Morgan, vice president of food and beverage at Irving-based Omni Hotels Resorts, says putting Hail Merry treats on pillows as part of the turndown service has been a differentiator for the hotel chain.
“We’re going to expand our relationship into catering and banqueting as well,” he says.
Vegans were Hail Merry’s first customers. Then came the gluten-freers. The latest fans are paleos, people who eat like cavemen — meat, fish, vegetables and fruit but no dairy, grain products or processed food.
“We’ve been able to transcend all of those trends. It’s all because our food tastes great,” O’Brien says.
Right now it’s hard to keep Chocolate Almond Butter Miracle Tarts in stock, O’Brien says. “It’s the healthy Reese’s peanut butter cup times 1,000. It’s my go-to snack. Paleos go crazy for that product.”
It all started eight years ago, when organic chef Renée Loux gave O’Brien her book, Living Cuisine.
“I couldn’t believe what I was reading,” says O’Brien, who’d been a mind, body and spirit gal most of her life. “It was a cookbook that was all about health and wellness — how superfoods could benefit the body and what each ingredient in the recipe does for you.”
O’Brien made some of the recipes and was blown away by the intense flavors and the luxurious texture.
She was ready to restart her creative juices. O’Brien had been an interior designer for 15 years, the later part spent designing commercial and clinical laboratories.
“I designed where the fume hoods and centrifuges would go. I would meet with pathologists. The palette was beige, gray and white,” she says.
“I’d raised my sons to be old enough to go to kindergarten. I thought, ‘It’s my time to go back to my creative roots,’” O’Brien says. “If Lara of Lara Bars could do it, so could I.”
Her parents and friends thought she was nuts.
But her husband, Steve O’Brien, who has an MBA in marketing from Southern Methodist University and is chairman of Reel FX, was on board from the get-go.
The name Hail Merry came to her for personal reasons that kind of came to her in a vision.
“I was going to my sons’ chess tournaments, which was like watching paint dry. And you have to be quiet,” she recalls. “The queen on the board has all these powers that the other chess characters don’t have. That inspired me. I had been burned by men in the corporate world numerous times. But this isn’t a man-hating thing. It’s a celebration of the female mystique.”
She’s also a devout Catholic. “I gain daily inspiration from the blessed Mother,” she says. One of her best friends’ name is Merry.
“It just came to me. It made sense. It was bold, and it was frightening to put your faith out there into the world. I was trying to sell raw food and trying to be true to my core. It was really scary.”
Ahead of trend
O’Brien’s first sale was to the legendary Roy Beard, owner of Roy’s Natural Market.
“He said, ‘OK, I’m going to let you in, because at least 50 people have asked if I was going to sell raw foods,’” O’Brien says. “He gave me an end-cap with two shelves. I had to come back every week to replenish.”
She made it into the Central Market on Lovers Lane when she was still making, packaging and delivering the products herself. After she made headway with Whole Foods in Highland Park, she realized she needed help and more money.
She found it after a friend introduced her to Sarah Palisi Chapin, an experienced food-service CEO.
Chapin met O’Brien at a tea shop on Lovers Lane in November 2008, thinking she might invest. O’Brien pulled out baggies of granola, macaroons, dips and tarts for Chapin to try.
“I had been running from fat my whole life and getting fatter,” says Chapin, who had just been diagnosed with diabetes. “I thought, ‘Is this real?’ The only thing I knew about raw food was from watching Sex in the City, which had this raw-foods waiter.”
At the time, Hail Merry had eight stores as customers and $40,000 in sales.
Alison Brushaber, a food scientist and trained chef who had previously worked for Chapin at Enersyst, became chief product officer.
“We were using stainless steel bowls and a spatula,” Brushaber says. “I brought my KitchenAid mixer from home. Then the power started blowing. It was clear that we had to get out of the cabana sooner rather than later.”
Next goal
Two years ago, Hail Merry moved into its fourth location, a 28,000-square-foot facility where all of its products are made.
This year promises to be the next phase of exponential growth.
Last May, an investment group — including Dallas-based HBC Investments; Mark Rampolla, founder of Zico Coconut Water; and Kevin Boylan, co-founder of Veggie Grill — paid $6 million for a minority stake in Hail Merry.
The capital will be used to retire debt, buy equipment and expand sampling.
“We had all sorts of interest in the brand,” Chapin says. “But we wanted a partnership of hearts and minds.”
Rampolla, who sold his premium coconut water company to Coca-Cola two years ago, first noticed Hail Merry a few years ago when he sampled chocolate tarts at a Whole Foods in Southern California. He was shocked that something so good for you actually tasted good, too.
When he learned the company was looking for capital last year, he got interested.
“I got to know Sarah, Susan, Ali and the team and felt like, ‘Wow! I want them making my food,’” he says. “They’re not just a brand. They’re not just idea people. They actually make the products. That’s rare. Very often, investors like me or our fund run away from that because it’s expensive and risky and complicated. But these ladies do such a good job and take it so seriously. It shows in the products.”
Hail Merry’s internal estimate of a $15 million year is “realistic, not a slam-dunk,” he says.
He also seems pretty comfortable with much larger figures.
Rampolla says he and his fellow investors think Hail Merry could be a $100 million brand five years from now. “We’ve built our assumptions around that. And we think they can get there.”
“I love that man,” says Chapin when she hears his forecast. “I love that he believes that we can do that because we believe that, too.”
For O’Brien, it’s not about the money. She dreams of a day when products like Hail Merry are the grocery store norm, not the exception.
“The vision hasn’t changed,” she says. “Walk into a grocery store, look at the refrigerated dessert section, and you see dyes, really bad sugar, oils and preservatives. Imagine a day when not only is Hail Merry the anchor of that section, but there are other brands, and we have a revolution. Who knew cottonseed oil was so bad for you?”
Twitter: @CherylHall_DMN