COTTAGE GROVE, Wis. — A Madison-area company leader will be traveling to Washington, D.C., this month.
Following its title win in Wisconsin, the company is a nominee for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s “Small Business of the Year Award.”
Fortune Favors started in 2018 in a small store on Atwood Avenue in Madison. All of the candied pecans were made in a small kitchen in the back.
Five years later, we now have a large headquarters in Cottage Grove. CEO Sam McDaniel said he never expected this kind of growth.
“Everyone had a dream, in a way,” he said. “But we didn’t expect the reality to happen so quickly.”
The company has fewer than 20 employees. The company moved its production to a roughly 19,000-square-foot space less than two years ago. Throughout the pandemic, the company pivoted to online sales and expanded its footprint beyond Wisconsin.
“We’re going to make about 200,000 pounds of candied pecans here this year,” McDaniel said. “We have customers from all over the country.”
Currently, all three Fortune Favors pecan flavors – Classic, Everything and Spicy – as well as the company’s signature Eric’s Up North Trail Mix and Magic Bars, are manufactured at our headquarters. There is.
McDaniel said the offering will expand.
“We’re working on other flavors, but I won’t talk about them right now,” he said. “But our superfans know, because they’ve been part of our testing.”
Whole Foods has taken note of this and is now selling Fortune Favor in some stores nationwide. McDaniel said his most loyal fan base is here in the Midwest.
“Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the big metros near us,” he said. “That’s where most of our people are. We’re very happy and proud to hear you say that.”
McDaniel said that without their loyalty and support, Fortune Favors would not have been a candidate for the National Small Business of the Year award.
“There’s a lot of hard work out there, a lot of anxiety, and it’s really nice to be recognized by people who really know what we’re doing,” he said. . “The other pieces are great too. We are very happy when someone says something nice about our pecans.”
He said the goal is to continue to grow and become a fully national brand, never forgetting its origins.
“We don’t want to leave it behind,” McDaniel said. “It’s just as important to us in the long run, if not more so, because so much of the legacy we leave is the impact we have locally and on the people who work here.”
