The brand was created thinking of everyone who likes practical, healthy, and tasty alternatives for snacks and breakfasts. Granola or pancake mixes are some of the options.
Cooking a healthy lunch or dinner may be easy, but the worst thing, most of the time, is knowing what to make for breakfast or snack. It was also because Fernanda Vasconcelos felt this difficulty that she decided, in 2019, to create Nolita - the brand of healthy products for breakfast and snacks that sells granola and pancake mixes.
Tired of the difficulty in finding tasty and healthy options in the market, the entrepreneur, with a professional background in marketing, decided to start making granolas without refined sugar in her kitchen, which she later offered to her family and close friends. After noticing that the concern for healthy food, in which flavor is never left aside, translated into a potential business opportunity, she decided to move forward.
"It started of a need of mine that then became a purpose. A few years ago, I started wanting to know more about healthy eating and realised that I thought I knew a lot, but I didn't know anything. Some things were a big revelation. Even though I am in the marketing area, I understood that I was being permissive to the messages and I didn't know anything about the science itself," reveals Fernanda Vasconcelos in an interview with MAGG.
"Since I started eating differently, I've noticed huge levels of energy and increased capacity at work - and I wanted to give that to other people as well. At work, when they saw me taking my granola for snacks, they wanted to try it too. And that's what led me to go ahead with the project," she continues.
Both granola and pancake mixes are available in four flavors.
It started with granolas, currently available in four flavors (crunchy, nutty, berry, and sporty), made with ingredients such as buckwheat or Portuguese raspberries, and this year launched itself in pancake mixes. "I already knew that pancake powders were in high demand because people want things fast, but the truth is that when we make traditional recipes, they're not very healthy."
The pancakes are also available in four flavors (chia, raspberry, blackberry, and cocoa) and have the particularity that they are made with lupine flour, "an ingredient with high levels of protein and fiber", explains Fernanda. "We eat one of those pancakes and we're not hungry all morning," she guarantees.
As for future projects, the entrepreneur says that one day she would like to have the financial capacity and structure to focus on the children's market. "I think that, when it comes to children, there is a lot of work to do", she tells MAGG.
At Nolita, the products are vegan, have no added sugar or gluten, which makes them also recommended for people with diabetes and celiacs. In addition to pancake mixes (starting at 0.99€ per pack) and granolas (starting at 1.79€ per pack), you will also find a natural sweetener (2.49€) and a natural prebiotic fiber ($2.99).
At this moment, Nolita products are available online on the brand's website, in the online store of Casal Mistério, and several producers' marketplaces.
Author: Mariana Carriço, MAGG magazine
Published on September 6th
