Carla’s first break came through the Local Forager program at Whole Foods. She called the Sherman Oaks office directly, dropped off samples, and waited. A woman named Kimberly emailed her back and gave her a meeting. Carla didn’t come polished. She showed up with her kids. She brought unbranded bags. She didn’t have a pitch deck or data to share. But the product was good enough to get into four stores. From there, the relationship grew slowly. Four stores turned into ten. Ten into twenty. Then a full region. It took nearly ten years before Nelly’s finally went national with Whole Foods. The process wasn’t fast, but it was steady. No major capital infusions. No celebrity endorsements. Just product quality, consistency, and a willingness to put in the work.

Staying Small on Purpose

While other brands were chasing DTC sales, celebrity partnerships, and viral marketing, Nelly’s took a different route. Carla didn’t spend on advertising. She didn’t build a massive marketing team. She didn’t even buy data reports. Instead, she focused on manufacturing and shelf presence. When the team landed in a new retailer, they supported the store directly. Promos. Demos. In-store activation. No fancy campaigns — just boots-on-the-ground support to make sure the product moved off shelves.

Early on, Nelly’s lost one retail account because they didn’t support it properly. They never made that mistake again. Sprouts, Wegmans, Winco, Fresh Market — every other partnership has stuck. Rather than chasing fast scale, Carla built trust — both with consumers and with buyers. Today, Nelly’s is in nearly 9,000 doors across the country, and they continue to grow carefully, choosing long-term partnerships over short-term wins.

Manufacturing In-House from Day One

Nelly’s has never used a co-packer. In the early days, Carla and her husband built their own 5,000-square-foot production facility, pulling permits themselves and designing the space around their needs. Ten years later, they expanded into a larger facility, increasing automation but keeping tight control over the product.

Manufacturing internally wasn’t a philosophical decision at first — it was financial. They couldn’t afford co-packer minimums. They couldn’t afford to outsource quality control. So they figured it out themselves. That choice became a long-term advantage. When COVID hit, Carla saw many brands struggle to maintain supply. But because Nelly’s controlled every part of production, they were able to keep fulfilling orders without major disruptions. Consistency mattered more than anything — and owning manufacturing made it possible.

Building Around Ingredients, Not Image

From the beginning, Carla built Nelly’s around product integrity. She sourced chocolate directly from farms in Costa Rica and Peru. She worked with family co-ops for vanilla, peanuts, almonds, and cashews. She avoided preservatives, emulsifiers, and any ingredient that didn’t belong. The result was a refrigerated candy bar that tastes indulgent but is made from ingredients you recognize.

Selling a refrigerated bar isn’t easy. It requires specific placement, careful supply chain management, and constant education. But it also builds trust with customers who taste the difference. Nelly’s bars are stocked in the produce or yogurt section of grocery stores, next to kombucha or refrigerated snacks. They’re built to be fresh, not shelf-stable forever. While competitors spent money trying to tell a better story, Carla put the story into the product itself.

A Different Kind of Growth

Carla knows Nelly’s doesn’t fit the mold of a “fast-growing” startup. They don’t have investors pushing them to expand into 10,000 stores overnight. They don’t have a marketing machine hyping every launch. They don’t rely on vanity metrics or influencer buzz. Instead, they focus on the fundamentals: sourcing quality ingredients, manufacturing consistently, and supporting retailers properly.

That philosophy hasn’t just helped them survive — it’s helped them stay profitable without raising prices in more than a decade, even as ingredient costs have fluctuated wildly. It’s not glamorous. It’s not flashy. But it’s sustainable. Carla believes that growth, when it comes, should be earned. And if you have to build slowly to do it right, then you build slowly.

Brand Study Reflection

Carla Spiropulo’s approach with Nelly’s Organics offers a rare blueprint for founders looking to build durable companies Focus on what actually moves the product. Manufacture carefully. Grow at a pace your systems can handle. And above all else — let the quality of your product do the heavy lifting. In a world obsessed with hyper-growth, it’s a reminder that you don’t have to scale fast to build something that lasts.