How Jamie’s Farm Turned Dorm-Room Granola Into a National Brand

Company Name: Jamie’s Farm

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Year Founded: 2017

Website: jamies-farm.com 

Jamie Kim started baking granola out of her college dorm as a way to avoid the overly sweet, mass-produced options she found on most grocery store shelves. However, she never expected those homemade batches would one day sit alongside brands in major retailers like Whole Foods and FreshDirect.

Those early dorm-room batches eventually made way for Jamie’s Farm, a Brooklyn-based granola brand offering award-winning blends made with ghee and organic ingredients. The company has been recognized as the finalist in the Micro-Business Leaders category of the 2025 CO—100 for turning a simple idea into a nationally distributed brand without losing its culinary roots.

From a dorm kitchen to Whole Foods shelves

Kim’s love of granola started in high school, where she baked small batches as gifts for friends. But it was an early job in fine dining that gave her a new perspective on ingredients and craft.

“[I worked] at a three-Michelin-star restaurant when I was 16 years old,” Kim said. “I got a lot of this culinary inspiration and learned a lot about farm-to-table sourcing.”

That early training guided her next step: studying hotel administration at Cornell University with the ambition of opening one of the world’s best restaurants. But instead of pursuing fine dining, she found herself returning to granola — this time crafting recipes that stood out for their flavor, quality, and accessibility.

“I take a lot of that inspiration from my early years of working in the restaurant industry,” Kim shared. “That's why I love doing what I'm doing, because I'm bringing that culinary technique … to something a lot more accessible for more people to enjoy.”

Pop-ups around campus and placements in local cafes eventually led to her first Whole Foods partnership during her senior year. By then, her dorm-room side project had grown into a business with national potential.

[Read more: The Key Steps to Business Expansion] 

Thoughtfully crafted, from ingredients to process

From the start, Jamie’s Farm has stood apart by baking each batch with ghee — a clarified butter that gives the granola its rich flavor and crisp texture, without relying on the oils found in most brands.

“We make award-winning granolas that are specially baked with ghee instead of oil, so [it has] a really nice buttery flavor,” Kim said. “We focus on sourcing organic ingredients and making thoughtfully crafted granolas.”

That level of care extends to every step of the process. Ingredients are hand-selected — from tart Michigan cherries to fair-trade vanilla beans — and Kim seeks out producers who share her passion for quality. The same attention to detail has helped Jamie’s Farm grow beyond online sales to partnerships with independent retailers, major chains like Whole Foods, Central Market, Moms Organic Market, and FreshDirect, as well as cafes serving granola in bulk.

For Kim, scaling the business has never been about speed alone. Building relationships that honor the same values she started with — quality ingredients, careful sourcing, and expert craft — is what ensures the granola tastes homemade even as the brand reaches thousands of customers nationwide. But maintaining that level of care while scaling up has created new challenges as the company works to meet rising demand.

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Growing a national brand with small-batch values

As Jamie’s Farm expands, Kim is balancing opportunity with the realities of running a small but fast-growing business. Supply chain pressures have tested her team’s ability to keep production on schedule.

“We've been seeing ingredient prices going up over the past couple of months,” Kim said. “On top of that, back-ordered ingredients have kind of pushed back our production schedule. We're seeing that demand is increasing, but we're not able to provide sometimes in the timely manner that we want to.”

Beyond operations, there’s also the challenge of visibility.

“Sometimes you're solving all these problems of the operations, but you want to be spending a lot more time communicating with your customers and … doing something more forward-facing like the sales and the marketing,” Kim explained.

Still, these challenges haven’t slowed the company’s momentum. By pairing a chef’s precision with an entrepreneur’s resilience, Kim continues to grow Jamie’s Farm into a brand that resonates with customers nationwide. Its recognition as a 2025 CO—100 Top Honoree proves how even the smallest businesses can make an outsized impact when they lead with passion and purpose.

View the full 2025 CO— 100 List here.

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