Keto Genie produce bread and cookie mixes that are incredibly simple to make and taste great. They are made from real food, are nutritious and will support you on a Keto diet. A healthy life-style reduces stress and anxiety, Keto Genie hopes to play its part in helping others achieve their best.
What is your company background, how did you start the business?
As an entrepreneur and a trained chef, my love of food and business have finally been combined. For years I thought about manufacturing my own products but it wasn’t until I discovered the Keto diet that the idea took hold. At 52, I was overweight, I was getting regular headaches and I was tired a lot of the time.
My decision was made and I went ‘cold turkey’ and started Keto. That was mid 2019 and I haven’t touched sugar, potato chips, pasta or the other carb-fest foods since. The problem with eating cheesy concoctions and all these delicious keto foods - is what the heck do you eat them on. I missed bread & crackers! I searched and searched for decent bread recipes and couldn’t find one that I was truly happy with, so I began the research and development on my own bread.
Friends started to ask me about what I was eating and so they organically grew into my guinea pigs. With a pre-mix bread package and a few instructions, they were told to go make it without any help from me. Before long they were sending me photos and comments on the bread and requests for more.
We were ready to start taking sales and then the first lockdown hit. That threw a spanner in the works, particularly with getting supplies and also ensuring we had super fast delivery. What blew me away however, was the Kiwi spirit of supporting a local business and despite the lockdown the sales kept going. My daughter came on board and now we work together as a team, which I love. It gives me time to constantly be creative and has resulted in the release of our new range of cookies.
What is the current product range and variants and how do these products stand out in the market?
The product range is 4 bread-mixes and now 3 cookie-mixes:
- Classic Jurassic (lightly seeded bread-mix)
- The Need for Seed (heavily seeded bread-mix)
- Ginger Ninja (slightly sweet ginger loaf-mix)
- Brainy Bunch (blueberry and walnut slightly sweet loaf-mix)
- Choc Monster Cookie-Mix
- Out of the Blue Cookie-Mix
- Wookie Cookie Cookie-Mix
These products stand out because they are hand-crafted with only small batches at a time. We regularly sample and test to ensure consistency. We eat them every day and I am fussy when it comes to good food. They deliver what other keto-breads from the supermarket don't - they stay moist and are not dry - they do not contain hidden carbs like tapioca starch or sugars.
We only produce high quality, genuinely great food and the comments we get from our customers prove that we are not alone in these thoughts.
What are the plans for the business moving forward, is there any expansion on the horizon?
We recently moved into larger premises to cope with the last four months of expansion. We will continue to develop further items that Kiwi's want. In the pipeline is a Foccacia Bread-Mix, a Christmas Keto Cake-Mix and some other extremely yummy products.
We would like to expand into more stores so the availability to the public is greater while maintaining our online presence, we have plans already in place to expand into the overseas market.
The low-carb, keto food regime is becoming more and more popular and is made easy for the consumer when access to good, easy to construct food is available - and that's exactly what we plan to do.
Where are your products currently available to buy, and are you looking at or wanting to expand your availability?
Mainly online at our website, though we have 6 Bin Inns across New Zealand stocking the pre-mixes and receiving great feedback on them.
For more information visit ketogenie.co.nz and follow on Facebook and Instagram.
