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said, "and I decided to go ahead and put mom's stuff in a mix." But he didn't know a thing about food.
"I went to some company that sold wheat and said, 'I need some wheat flour, and they said, 'What kind?' So I went to the library and checked out all sorts of books and studied different recipes," Jon explained. "I learned all I could about different recipes, competitive products, baking powder, sweetener, molasses, brown sugar and all the attributes of various grains." It took him six months of eating pancakes four times a day, experimenting with tastes, textures - every nutritional nuance. "They were pretty awful at first...flat," he recalled. "The hardest thing was to get the baking powder right, because whole grains are heavy." So he talked to chemists at baking powder companies and with their help was able to come up with his own formulation of baking powder that gives Kodiak Cakes their trademark lift and fluffiness.
Another challenge was offsetting the wheat's natural acidic flavor, to which kids seem to have an aversion. By adding just the right mix of dry milk, egg whites and a boost of honey, they were able to smother it out. Kids who sampled the cakes liked them and came back for more.
Then, while Jon was working on perfecting the final flavor, he ran into an old friend, Todd Schofield, at a Skyline High School reunion. Schofleld, a talented graphic artist, agreed to design the packaging. The name was inspired by a fishing trip to the Kodiak in Alaska.
"We didn't have any money, so we had to do all the legal work ourselves," said Jon. "We met with the FDA several times to do our own nutrition facts. They'd give me the manuals, and I'd read them and figure things out." Also required were bar codes, trademark searches, weight and measurements and slotting fees to get a new product on store shelves.
A few weeks before the finished product came out, Joel returned from his mission-perfect timing. "Jon bought and sold a pickup truck and made $1,400 profit. We thought, 'This will do! This will get us in business,' "Joel said with a laugh. Capitalizing on Joel's missionary zeal, the duo took a bunch of bags and
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