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Little Lad’s succeeds with no ads or additives

The story behind the popcorn that makes men cry when the bag goes dry.

Little Lad’s succeeds with no ads or additives

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Not many of us know what we want to do with our lives when we’re 14, but at that age Maria Fleming was looking beyond study halls and biology class and the prospect of learning to drive. She wanted to run her own bakery. “I discovered that the licensing limitations in Maine required that you be 18,” she says. “And I was disappointed. But I was still determined.” That determination did not fade, and when Fleming turned 18 she opened a bakery in Woolwich.

She began by making bread, then pies, cookies, tarts and more. 23 years later, she still runs Little Lad’s, a food company with more than 100 products sold in stores from Maine to North Carolina. Thirteen employees make the food in a former IGA on Main Street in Corinth, and this is one low-tech operation. Little Lad’s uses no animal products or byproducts. The emphasis is on fresh, healthful ingredients and hands-on baking. Simplicity is what Fleming has always pursued. “I never wanted the large equipment with the chemical additives and the preservatives and the conditioners and all of that,” she says.

Something else the business has stayed away from is advertising. It has never spent a dollar on ads and, remarkably, doesn’t employ a single salesperson. Rather than pouring money into marketing, Fleming says, she prefers to “make a product that customers will enjoy, and enjoy so much they tell their friends and keep buying it.”

Little Lad’s is best known for its herbal popcorn, which accounts for about eighty percent of sales. Some customers say, only half joking, that it’s flat-out addictive. Fleming has a slightly different description: “I think it’s just good, healthy stuff that they love to eat.”

www.littlelads.com

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