Lily’s Sweets rapidly grows business with no sugar added

BOULDER — A longtime pioneer in the natural-food industry has partnered with another food-industry veteran to bring an under-the-radar no-sugar-added chocolate company into the spotlight.

Lily’s Sweets LLC, a Boulder-based company, was started by Cynthia Tice, one of the first food consultants showing big-chain grocery stores how to set up their natural-products sections.

“She started to think that instead of being on the consulting side, she could come up with product ideas and be on the brand side,” said Jane Miller, CEO of the company. “The root of Lily’s came from how she loved chocolate, it was her favorite food, but that she’s anti-sugar because of its inflammatory issues. In 2011, she came up with the base formulas for Lily’s.”

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That formula uses stevia, a natural, plant-based sweetener. It was one of the first chocolate brands to be sweetened with Stevia and by 2012 was accepted into Whole Foods nationally.

By 2018, the company was rapidly growing and received funding from VMG Partners. The decision was made to bring in Jane Miller as CEO, a food-industry veteran and former CEO of Rudi’s Organic Bakery. Because Miller was based in Boulder, the decision was made to relocate the company to the Front Range.

The company has grown from four employees in April 2018 to 25 today, most of which have been brought on in the last month.

“We’re growing fact,” Miller said “We’re the fast growing confection that is chocolate-based in the natural channel. We doubled last year and have a strong growth trajectory.”

Miller said that’s all due to Tice, who made a great-tasting chocolate ahead of the trend. While there have been many no-sugar-added projects in the past, many of them use malitol, a sugar substitute that can be difficult on the digestive system. Stevia has been around for a while, but a lot of people think it can have an aftertaste. But by putting Stevia with chocolate, the bitter chocolate was able to mask Stevia’s strong sweetness and create a great-tasting bar. Miller also credits the company’s rapid growth to an increasing awareness of sugar. Vocal groups such as those on the keto diet have helped push less sugar into the mainstream and bring it to the forefront.

Lily’s core products are a line of chocolate bars ranging from a creamy milk chocolate that is 40 percent cocoa to an extremely dark 85 percent cocoa chocolate. There are also candy bars with almonds, caramel, crispy rice and coconut. The company has also released baking chips to be used in recipes, and the company’s best sellers are its dark-chocolate baking chips.

Miller said the company is coming out with two new baking chips: a semi-sweet and a milk variety. The company is also releasing snacking items, including chocolate-covered almonds and peanuts, which will debut at Expo West in March.

In May, there are plans to release peanut butter cups.

“We have great-tasting products with Lily’s that have none of the sugar,” Miller said. “Our motto is ‘less sugar, sweet life.’ If you could have something that tastes great without the sugar, why would you ever eat something with sugar?”

Lily’s is available in stores across Colorado, including at Sprouts, Lucky’s and select King Soopers and Safeway stores. Nationally, it can be found at Whole Foods, H.E.B., Publix, Krogers and other stores.

As the company grows, Miller said much of the credit will come down to the best team she’s ever had: Sarah Meis, vice president of marketing and innovation; Seth Monette, senior vice president of sales; Phil Mason, senior vice president of operations; and Lonna Borden, chief financial officer. And of course, Cynthia Tice.

“I think ours is a wonderful story about a wonderful entrepreneur like Cynthia being the first to market,” Miller said. “Her ability to step aside and say that there are other people who can take this to the next level. She’s an innovator and conscious of the brand. She’s a great example of the power of entrepreneurship.”