Inc. Magazine – September 2019

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100 ● INC. ● SEPTEMBER 2019 ● ● ● PHOTOGRAPH BY HEAMI LEE

Three-year growth 3,026.4% | 2018 revenue $6.4M

New York City | Founded in 2010

Loren Brill

SWEET LOREN’S

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Sweet Teeth

After graduating from college, Loren Brill learned she had Stage II Hodgkin lymphoma. “All my friends were

headed off to jobs, and I was at home starting chemo,” she says. Brill began tracking which foods helped her

energy levels, and signed up for cooking classes to study nutrition and to take her mind off the treatments.

“That’s when I had this aha! moment, that I needed a healthier way to satisfy my sweet tooth.” After more than

a year of perfecting a chocolate chip cookie recipe, Brill began fielding requests for premixed dough for home

baking. In 2011, she started Sweet Loren’s with $15,000 in personal savings, eventually landing a meeting

with a Whole Foods buyer, despite not having any official manufacturing plans in place. Today, the gluten-free

vegan brand—which also offers edible dough—is sold at 10,000 supermarkets nationwide. “At the end of the

day,” Brill says, “everyone loves cookies.” —KATE ROCKWOOD