Tiffany Miller and Carnie Wilson have created more than Love Bites, they’ve created Love coffee, scented candles and even hand sanitizer. Love Bites by Carnie, has created a sweet sensation Bite Mob Team and have an extremely loyal audience who orders their treats online that are delivered from their Sherwood, Oregon location. Both entrepreneurs love to cook and have found their cooking and business freedom after teaming up over 40 years ago. As best friends, they tackle the challenges and unknowns of business together and support each other even through the inevitable differences of opinion. And this they manage with home life, children and delivering delicious treats as a balancing act. Carnie got started in business journey in a rather typical way, cooking bite sized treats in her kitchen that EVERYBODY raved about and got her started thinking: Can I sell enough of these to make a living? But how to make it happen? So she put a package of desserts together and took them to a Los Angeles restaurant that quickly offered her a deal. Not having much business savvy, Carnie turned to her best friend Tiffany who had the business background and asked about the demands that would go with the deal, including scary things like “exclusivity”. After some hand wringing, Carnie said, “Let’s be partners!” and the company was born. The first year was spent on the road and actually taking the desserts to the bite-size they now sell. The support for each other also gets them over the hump of being in different cities and still operating successfully. COVID has hit them hard; they had a café to serve their coffee and bites they had to close and are not certain if it will reopen. It also has affected production, but they have weathered so far, mainly because the flavors Carnie has created and continues to create have captured the public’s imagination. COVID put their grocery store distribution on hold, but now they are planning to co-pack rather than expand their own production. They plan to expand the brand and products nationally – one bite at a time.

"Masoni and Marshall the meaningful Marketplace" with your hosts Sarah Masoni and Sarah Marshall

We record the "the Meaningful Marketplace" inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Anton Kimball of Kimball Design

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

Thank you for listening to The Meaningful Marketplace Podcast with your hosts, Sarah Masoni of Oregon State University's Food Innovation Center and Sarah Marshall, owner of Marshall's Haute Sauce. Connect with us on Instagram @meaningfulmarketplacepodcast. 

Call our hotline with questions for Sarah and Sarah at 503-395-8858. If you want to support our show, write us a review, share episodes with friends, or subscribe to our Patreon.

Producer: Sarah Marshall of The Joy of Creation Production House
Audio engineer, mixer, and podcast editor: Haley Bowers 
Show logo design: Anton Kimball of Kimball Design 
Production Coordinators: Dave Drusky