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Mimi's Mountain Mixes: How She Rolls Through the Pandemic

Specialty Food Association

Hendersonville, NC, August 26, 2021 — The pandemic brought a lot of changes to the world but even more surprising was the change it made to Mimi’s Mountain Mixes located in the mountains of western North Carolina.  Mimi’s Mountain Mixes manufactures 12 different baking mixes (biscuit, breads, cake, pancake, soft pretzel and pizza crust mixes). As a socially conscious company, a portion of each sale helps owner, “Mimi” Lin Johnson support women and children’s shelters.

During the pandemic people couldn’t find loaves of bread on the store shelves.  They went back to their kitchens and started making it themselves. Since Mimi’s Mountain Mixes only requires the addition of a can of beer or soft drink, folks kept mixing them up and baking them up. “Mimi” Lin says, “Pour + Stir + Bake = Yummy”.  The team at Mimi’s also kept mixing up mixes as fast as they could. “Our customers were amazing and incredibly loyal.  We had online orders from customers that have ordered from us for years and new customers reached out daily. Even our retailers shocked us with orders from stores around the country.  We were and still are so grateful to each and every one.  We even had to rent more space to keep up with production and shipping.” Johnson said.

“A lot of our dear friends in the specialty food business weren’t as fortunate.  They have had to either scale back or close. It’s heartbreaking because we’ve been with them at food shows around the country.  We help each other set up and take down our booths, we know each other’s families.  We will miss them as will the public when things settle down” said Johnson.

Mimi’s is a women-owned small business.  It is operated by “Mimi” Lin Johnson with a lot of backbone supplied by her husband of 7 years, Gene Carlson.  “Gene is my biggest fan!” says Johnson.  “He’s the one who encouraged me to see if Beer City, USA (Asheville, NC and surrounding mountain towns) would like my baking mixes.  That was over 7 years ago, and we are now in 400 plus retailers in 49 States.  We have even exported Mimi’s Mixes to stores in Germany and Canada.”

At just over 5 foot tall, even the pandemic doesn’t seem to be able to slow down Mimi and her Mountain Mixes.

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www.mimismountainmixes.com