Here's What Happened To Scratch And Grain After Shark Tank
We all know that "Shark Tank" has featured a ton of innovative kitchen tools and tasty foods over the years, and it should come as little surprise that many of these products relate specifically to baking. Whether it's the Baker's Edge pan for endless brownie edges or Doughp edible cookie dough, the sharks have seen it all.
One such product, Scratch and Grain, strives to bring easy baking to the masses. Entrepreneur Taya Geiger pitched her idea to the sharks on the show's sixth season, back in 2015. Per Shark Tank Products, Geiger's Scratch and Grain cookie kits aim to make baking simple, with ingredients included and pre-measured.
According to Shark Tank Tales, Geiger asked the sharks for $150k in exchange for 20% equity in Scratch and Grain Baking Co. Barbara Corcoran offered a $150k line of credit for 20% equity, which Geiger accepted. So where is Scratch and Grain today?
The story behind Scratch and Grain baking kits
Taya Geiger and Leah Tutin created Scratch and Grain after feeling frustrated with the hassle and mess associated with making baked goods from scratch. With their baking kits, there's no need for measuring spoons or big bags of flour and sugar. All dry ingredients come pre-measured and individually packaged; bakers only have to provide their own eggs, butter, milk, and so on.
Per Shark Tank Blog, Scratch and Grain kits were already available at Whole Foods and Amazon at the time of Geiger's "Shark Tank" appearance. Kits sold for around $10 apiece, with combo packs costing between $20 and $40.
Because Geiger and Tutin were personally hand-packing each kit, they needed a shark to help them move the company to an automated process. Fortunately, Barbara Corcoran agreed to bite, believing that the two women had what it takes to run a successful baking company. However, expansion soon proved to be too much for their business model.
Spoiler alert: Scratch and Grain is no longer in business
Despite landing a deal with Barbara Corcoran on "Shark Tank," Scratch and Grain's problems were far from over. The first of its two main problems had everything to do with automating the packaging process. In a 2016 episode of "Beyond the Shark Tank," Scratch and Grain machinery was already breaking, and cheaper machinery from overseas was simply too confusing to be worth the savings.
Scratch and Grain's second problem was cash flow. Target offered the company a deal for product placement in 1,500 stores, but as great as the "Target effect" would have been for sales, Geiger and Tutin didn't have the $100k it would cost to fulfill the order, and Corcoran was reluctant to keep handing them money. As Geiger explained to Delish, "We couldn't make cookie kits fast enough to keep up with demand."
Ultimately, this proved to be Scratch and Grain's downfall. According to BizNews, the company shut down in August 2021, as it did not have sufficient cash flow to keep its machines working and its demand met.