Start your day with artisan cereal
[me] & goji specializes in customized crunch
Jerry Seinfeld hasn't ordered any yet, but he really should.
One of America's most celebrated cereal mavens, Seinfeld would doubtless go ga-ga for the delectable, all-natural and almost infinitely customizable concoctions offered by a small but growing Barrington, N.H.-based artisanal cereal company called [me] & goji.
(Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times)
Formed in late 2008 by three twentysomething entrepreneurs -- two of them Northwestern University graduates -- and run out of a warehouse owned by a Whole Foods distributor called Associated Buyers, its sales and popularity keep climbing.
And, yes, its cereal obsessed founders get high on their own supply. You would, too, if 55 eminently edible ingredients -- from plump dried strawberries and raspberries to coconut and exotic quinoa flakes -- were at your constant disposal.
"Even having my own cereal company, right now I still probably go through two, three boxes a day," says Los Angeles-based Alexander Renzi, 25. "I'm kind of a cereal addict. It's better now with [me] & goji, but before that, I would probably sit down and go through a whole box of Smart Start to start the day. I love cereal. The whole concept -- I think Jerry Seinfeld said it -- of eating and drinking at the same time is great for me."
Renzi and one of his two business partners, Adam Sirois, also 25, played varsity soccer together at Northwestern. Goji's other operator, Carl Mikael Johansson, lives in Sweden.
Because the three of them are in widely separated time zones, someone is always working. For the time being, Renzi also puts in full days at a commercial data storage company to help pay bills, but he's aiming to soon be all cereal, all the time like his mates.
The seeds for [me] & goji (on the subject of which, possible cereal seeds include chia, sunflower, pumpkin, flax and sesame) were planted when Sirois and Renzi grew weary of the lame and largely unhealthy gruel that was served up on campus. Jocks, especially, need fuel that burns cleanly, and they weren't getting it.
"Every morning we were kind of shuttled into the cafeteria," Renzi says. "And right before we had six hours of training for pre-season they expected us to eat garbage food, essentially. And they expect you to perform at your optimal level. So we realized right there that there was a need, not just for athletes, but for people with certain food intolerances."
The company sells several pre-made blends online, but its Web site also encourages people to create their own. By dragging a few or many of the hand-selected (virtual) ingredients into a (virtual) cereal bowl, customers can devise mixes that meet their individual needs.
From gluten-free to mega-high in fiber, the possibilities are almost endless. Fifty-five ingredients, permutations showed, can make billions of different combinations.
The end product ships via UPS in a stay-fresh tube containing approximately 50 percent more cereal than store-bought boxes offer and, if the buyer so chooses, a unique brand name on the label.
Prices, while not outrageous, reflect the product's premium nature. The most expensive tube purchased so far, Sirois says, cost $60. But the average outlay is far less -- around $12.50, plus shipping.
"Even at that price, with the volume you get, you're looking at an average bowl of cereal less than one dollar," he says.
Among [me] & goji's thousands of customers, Lincoln Park resident Kate Gibbs, 29, is hooked. She orders a few tubes each month.
"I'm really into cereal and I'm really into health stuff," says Gibbs, an avid runner and mother of two young kids. "It was a legitimately perfect combination for me."
She even got her less health conscious husband to try some by hiding dried fruits and flax seeds amid chocolate granola. The verdict: "He loved it."
Even more important, her kids love it, too.
"A lot of cereal has a lot of hidden sugar and stuff like that that you don't realize, and I really like that this is all-natural and you know exactly what you're getting," Gibbs says. "Some of these cereals, they say they're fortified with vitamins and minerals, which means they basically spray it with a vitamin and mineral spray.
"I mean, I want my kids to have fun and eat junk food too, but I'm just more conscious of what I'm putting in their bodies -- and my body."
For more information on [me] & goji or to order, go to www.meandgoji.com.