Katlin Smith: Founder and CEO of Simple Mills

Second Life

Clique Media, Female Founder, Entrepreneurship, Career Change, Career Pivot, Fashion & Beauty, Hillary Kerr, Personal Journals, Who What Wear, Clique, Career, Arts, Business, Careers, Second Life, Career Advice, Self-made, Entrepreneur, Mydomaine, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Katlin Smith is the founder and CEO of Simple Mills, a food company that makes a wide array of delicious gluten-free, grain-free, paleo-friendly, and non-GMO foods. Before starting her own company from scratch, Smith was a strategy and operations consultant. After years of relying on processed foods because of her demanding job, she switched to a Paleo diet in hopes of reaping the health benefits. Disappointed with the lack of store-bought options for her new lifestyle, Smith started making recipes of her own using healthier ingredients like almond flour and coconut sugar. With no background in food production or distribution, Smith reached out to her local Whole Foods when she was ready to sell her now-famous Almond Flour Muffin Mix. When the chain agreed to sell it on its shelves, Smith was eager to grow her business. She went back to school to build on the skills she acquired as a consultant and develop new ones so she could expand her line of products and distribute them widely. Today, Simple Mills is sold in over 30,000 stores nationwide, and Flowers Foods recently acquired the business for $795 million, marking one of the biggest female-founder exits in recent CPG history.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone. I'm Hillary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who What Where, and this is Second Life, a podcast, spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting
0:22.2	aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their second life.
0:27.8	Today on the show, I'm chatting with Caitlin Smith, the founder and CEO of Simple Mills,
0:33.6	a food company that's become a household name for its simple ingredient crackers, cookies,
0:39.7	baking mixes, and more. They make a wide array of delicious, gluten-free, grain-free,
0:46.4	paleo-friendly, and non-GMO foods. As a personal fan of their snacks, I wanted to know all
0:52.6	about the woman behind it. Of course, Caitlin didn't start her career as a CEO.
0:58.0	She actually began as a consultant for strategy and operations.
1:03.0	She was always on the go, working long hours, fueled by processed foods that left her feeling drained.
1:09.0	When she decided to try a paleo diet, she found that a lot
1:12.6	of store-bought options wouldn't work for her because so many of them have artificial ingredients.
1:17.6	So she started testing out her own recipes in her kitchen in Atlanta, making meals that she
1:22.6	wanted to eat with natural ingredients like almond flour and coconut sugar.
1:34.9	After months of trial and error, she perfected the recipe for what would eventually become her first product, almond flour muffin mix.
1:38.5	When she was ready to sell it, she came up against a couple of hurdles.
1:45.6	One, she had no background in food or consumer testing, and two, she didn't have any investors, so she was pouring all of her own money into her product. So she went out on a limb, called up her local Whole Foods,
1:51.8	and asked how she could get her product on their shelves. They agreed to a meeting, and the chain
1:56.8	immediately agreed to sell her mix after trying a batch of her muffins.
2:05.3	Determined to grow her company further, Kaelin went back to school to study business,
2:08.3	taking courses like accounting and entrepreneurial selling.
2:13.5	And she used what she learned to secure the investors she needed to expand her product line.
2:18.8	From there, Simple Mills started popping up at other retailers like Target, Walmart, and Costco with more products, cookies, waffle mixes, and crackers. Today, Simple Mills is sold in over 30,000
	...

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