Granola is handmade on baking sheets by the company’s workers. (Photo courtesy Golden Girl Granola)

Golden Girl Granola is a woman-owned, family-run business in Shirley making small-batch artisan granola that has become so popular it can be found at several supermarket chains.

They make loose granola in 10-ounce bags and 2-ounce snack packs, along with chewy granola bars. It’s all-natural, whole-grain granola that is GMO-free, dairy-free, cholesterol-free, casein-free, trans-fat-free, wheat-free, and has no preservatives, artificial colors, or flavors, made in a gluten-free and nut-limited kitchen. Ingredients (and employees) are locally sourced wherever possible and they’re also sold locally (and online).

Each batch of granola is baked twice, hand-stirring all of the ingredients before, during, and after baking to expose every ingredient to the low heat that brings out the toasted natural flavors. This long, tedious process enables it to be crunchy and free-flowing from the bag.

Current flavors are Bluesberry, Chocolate Decadence, Creative Cranberry, Forest Maple, Home Sweet Honey, Truly Tropical, Original, and (seasonally) Pumpkin Harvest.

Their baking facility is in Phoenix Park, a historic and well-preserved building that used to be a Shaker broom factory powered by the mill pond in front of it. They’ve been in the space for 12 years.

“Shirley is a beautiful town and we have found the people here to be friendly and welcoming… Shirley is the only town where everyone says ‘hello’ as you pass people on the street, and that friendliness is also part of the Phoenix Park environment. Shirley has become a second home for us,” said owner Deborah O’Kelly.

Golden Girl has five employees, several of whom live right in Shirley.

“One accomplishment I am very proud of is seeing some of our youngest employees from the past learn and build self-confidence enough to go on to bigger and better jobs. We miss them, but it is like raising a family,” she said.

Family is how it all started for O’Kelly, as a child with her predecessors and as an adult with her descendants.

It was the excellent cooks of O’Kelly’s family who taught her to have an interest in food. “I guess I started at the age of five when I snuck into the kitchen one morning to make eggs three different ways before anyone got up to prove to my grandmother that I knew how to cook. I ate all the evidence, though,” she said.

Golden Girl Granola started in 2007 with donuts. Her daughter Catherine wanted to sell something at the Carlisle Farmers Market, and people bought them, but it had a short shelf-life, so she decided she wanted to try something else. O’Kelly’s other daughter Jacquie came up with the idea to make granola because it was healthier and more versatile.

“[Customers] liked granola because it was a healthy alternative to commercial cereals. When they sampled our granola at our stand, their immediate reaction was to grab the bag to see how much salt and sugar were added to bring out delicious flavors, and they were shocked to see how little was in our granola. ‘This actually tastes good!’ they exclaimed,” she said.

The decision to make it into a full-time business for O’Kelly was a slower process.  There was such a demand for the granola that first summer that customers begged to keep them supplied year-round. O’Kelly did that while her daughters were at college, and sold granola at multiple farmers’ markets together the next two summers. Then a few local stores began to contact them about stocking their granola, identifying them by their name, flavor names, and packaging colors.

“I realized we had a product people loved and a brand that they recognized and remembered. Those were two fundamental features of successful products, so I decided to devote myself to building a business. I had always wanted to make and sell a food product, and this was my chance… I never intended to start a business; it just happened,” she said.

Since then, Granola Girl has gone through several expansions of the business, their commercial kitchen, and the manufacturing space.

Jacquie was also instrumental in coming up with the Golden Girl Granola logo.

She devised the brand name that summer, naming it after her very blonde self. Jacquie loved Pippi Longstocking as a child, so she drew a similar “Golden Girl” which they dubbed “Gigi” for the business initials of GG. Each flavor has Gigi in a different outfit and is doing a different task, like playing a musical instrument on the packaging of the “Bluesberry” flavor.

“Pippi was always getting in trouble, not because she was naughty, but because she was curious and unafraid, not aware of boundaries. That is why Gigi’s foot on the package extends a bit beyond the circle,” O’Kelly said.

“The girls aren’t directly involved anymore, but still feel part of the business,” she added. Now it’s run by O’Kelly with support from her husband Terry.

“In the beginning, we were thrilled to sell more than 10 bags at an outdoor market. Now we ship in 13-foot pallets, so we must be doing something right,” Terry O’Kelly said.

Supermarkets that sell Golden Girl Granola are Whole Foods, Wegmans, Roche Bros, Big Y, Donelan’s and Crosby’s in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, eastern New York, and Wisconsin.

Golden Girl Granola is sold at small local retailers including Rota Springs Farm in Sterling, Bolton Orchards, and Tully Farms in Dunstable.

Once they became popular in stores, O’Kelly started hearing from visitors to New England who had tried their granola on vacation and wanted it at home, so they started selling online.

“Sales took off during the pandemic as even local customers were reluctant to venture out,” she said, starting their policy of offering free shipping. O’Kelly said shipping costs have risen in the years they’ve been operating online, but so has their volume of sales, so they decided to keep offering free shipping to help the online business to grow.

O’Kelly loves having this purpose in her life. She’d like to continue to expand to regions beyond New England and to eventually become a nationally recognized brand.

She said it’s challenging to keep up with the demands of a changing market, fluctuating costs, new competitors, and standing out on the shelves of the larger grocery chains that carry thousands of products.

But there is so much joy in the response they get from customers who take the time to write to them or who they meet in stores when they do sampling.

“Just the other day a father asked his seven-year old daughter to pick out a flavor she might like for breakfast. She dutifully selected a flavor probably based on the image of Gigi on the package. When I suggested that if she sprinkled that granola over a bowl of ice cream, it would taste like an ice cream cone, her eyes lit up with such delight that I forgot I had been standing for three hours. That was worth the entire day,” O’Kelly said.

O’Kelly and her family like to give back, donating their time, energy, money, and granola to a variety of local causes and nonprofits.

“Our family is the most important thing to us, so events that support families and children get most of our attention, particularly in conjunction with the arts,” she said.

Her husband Terry added, “WGBH is one of the groups we always support… Arts for children, particularly music, is one of the charities we can never say no to. Jacquie was a pianist and trombone player who graduated from Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory with degrees in psychology and trombone performance. Catherine was an oboist and remains a classical guitarist who teaches and performs locally. Our home was always filled with wonderful smells of cooking and sounds of music.”

And dance, including a recent addition for O’Kelly of ballroom dance as a hobby, which she does four to five times a week.

To purchase or learn more, go to goldengirlgranola.com, where there’s lots of granola recipes — including unusual options like pasta shells with prosciutto and lemon crunch topping or chorizo meatballs with mole sauce. Golden Girl granola can also be found on social media everywhere @GoldenGirlGranola.