SJU’s Food Marketing MBA Program Hits the Sweet Spot for Maine Chocolatier

Kate McAleer is setting a high bar in the world of candy and chocolate making, supplying her unique confections to everyone from Whole Foods and Walmart to Acadia National Park and outdoor retailer REI — all while earning her MBA in Food Marketing from SJU.

McAleer founded Bixby & Co. in late 2011 along with her mother Donna. The company, based in Rockland, Maine, distributes its sweet treats to more than 3,000 stores nationwide, offering certified organic, non-GMO, vegan, and Rainforest Alliance Certified products. It also happens to be the first bean-to-bar candy supplier in the state.

There’s a reason why that’s important to McAleer. Driven by her mother’s ongoing (and now lifelong) treatment for breast cancer, McAleer was inspired to learn more about what ingredients found their way into her food. She began to read labels and find ways to produce all-natural, ethically sourced chocolate made entirely from scratch. Instead of purchasing off-the-shelf, pre-made chocolate products like most major manufacturers, McAleer sources the cacao beans herself, hand selecting the purest chocolate and overseeing its journey from rainforest to retailer. That was important to one of her earliest customers, too. According to McAleer, Whole Foods had a “no-no” list of roughly 80 ingredients that are prohibited in any of the products offered in their stores. Bixby & Co. was able to meet those stringent requirements and quickly found its way to the retailer’s shelves, where it soon gained a loyal following.

McAleer was given the confidence to forge ahead with her plans for a factory in 2016, when she was the first recipient of a $100k grant from the Tory Burch Foundation to help promote women entrepreneurs. It was the accompanying education grant, and advice from a mentor, that led her to pursue her online MBA from SJU starting in the spring of 2018.

“Starting a company is one of the most challenging things you can do…ever,” McAleer says. Her motivation and passion is to “bring change to a category that is predominantly dominated by very large companies who do a great job at creating mainstream products.” In her online classroom, McAleer rubs virtual shoulders with others who work for some of those same companies, gaining valuable insight and networking opportunities that will help her grow her business. McAleer frequently uses her business as a case study in her class, and says her professors appreciate “having a rogue entrepreneur to shed the reality light on the conversation.”

The SJU Food Marketing MBA is the only program of its kind in the world, and McAleer says she “appreciates its laser focus on such a nuanced and complicated industry.” Its online option gives McAleer the flexibility she needs to pursue her degree at her own pace and expand her knowledge base while spanning the globe. In fact, she sometimes finds herself learning at 30,000 ft., participating in class from her phone while traveling to South or Central America to meet with a cacao supplier, or while on her way to meet with one of her major retail customers.

McAleer calls chocolate an “amazingly inspiring” product, and she’s excited to be part of a small but growing market for those who want to make a more health-conscious decision.

“A lot of startups go the venture capital route, and sometimes the founders ousted because they’re not deemed to be a ‘fit’ for the now-larger company that they’ve built,” McAleer says. She’s excited to build a company where she plans to be involved for the long-haul, and she believes her SJU education will be the perfect springboard for future success.