Date’d Nutrition: Uncomplicated Snacks and Desserts
Sarah Hegedus is adamant that she never intended to own her own business. “I always wanted to,” she says. “But once I became a mother, the risk factor just seemed too great.”
Then, in the summer of 2020, Hegedus’ now-business partner Jason Wright offered her a challenge: Start an LLC and find a facility to make the nutritional bars that her friends and family loved. If it didn’t take off, he’d pay her back all the money she’d put into it.
With no excuse not to, Hegedus launched Date’d Nutrition, introducing Western New Yorkers and people across the country to the healthy dessert recipes that she’d been fine-tuning. “We made all our money back in a week,” she says, still somewhat in awe. “And I haven’t sat down since.”
“When I look at Sarah, I see myself five years ago, with so much energy, similar questions, similar struggles,” says Rebecca Brady, founder of Buffalo-based gourmet cracker company Top Seedz and Hegedus’ mentor. Starting a business presents many challenges—and Brady is happy to share what she’s learned to help Date’d flourish. “Not only is Date’d a cool product with great ingredients, but Sarah is passionate, excitable and ready to listen,” she adds.
Date’d sells their products throughout the region, including at Elm Street Bakery in East Aurora and Buffalo’s Chandler Street Market, as well as to individual customers and businesses across the country. They’re also in discussion with Whole Foods to carry their products, beginning with stores in the Northeast.
The name that Hegedus chose for her start-up has multiple meanings. First of all, it refers to dates, a base ingredient in all of their offerings. Date’d has two lines of products: Snackables, comprised of their eight flavors of nutritional bars, and Delectables, which includes dessert offerings like filled dates (think a truffle) and cinnamon rolls, their most popular item.
Date’d’s products aren’t just innovative—their raw, refrigerated cinnamon roll was the first product of its type to market in the U.S.—but exciting. “When it comes to our familiar flavors like blueberry lemon or strawberries n’ cream, people think, ‘I know what this is going to taste like,’” Hegedus says. “But they’re always surprised.”
Their ingredients list, which is largely organic, is short and uncomplicated: rolled oats, medjool dates, coconut oil, maple syrup, freeze-dried fruits and raw nuts. However, the products are anything but simple; their flavors are bright and sweet, with a distinct mouthfeel that, unlike most date-based products, isn’t at all gummy.
“We didn’t realize the want and need for healthier dessert options until we launched our line,” says Hegedus. For many people, some with dietary restrictions and many without, a Date’d product gives them a treat at the end of the day that doesn’t upset their body or mind.
With the name Date’d, Hegedus also seeks to evoke a sense of connection to an earlier time when it was more common to know where our food came from. Hegedus’ mother, an executive pastry chef who was born and raised in Hungary, brought an appreciation for food sourcing with her, and passed this on to her daughter—along with the ingenuity and perseverance it takes to own your own business.
“I read something recently that said, ‘I hated working my 9 to 5 job so I started my own business and now I work 24/7,’ and that is 100 percent me,” laughs Hegedus, who as a CEO and mother of three kids, starts every day at 5 am and doesn’t rest until long after the sun has gone down.
Already, Hegedus’ determination has paid off. In December, she and Wright, Date’d’s CFO, won the top prize at the inaugural Erick Laine Business Accelerator competition, which aims to stimulate business growth in greater Olean and Cattaraugus County. They also plan to enter the 43 North competition.
Being a business owner has allowed Hegedus’ experiences and interests—studying psychology in college, being a lifelong athlete, working in marketing, managing others—to come together in a unique way. However, her well-roundedness and passion have also made it so that she’s involved in nearly every aspect of the business, from distribution to product development to doing all of their stunning photography and visual marketing herself.
“I want to know what’s going on—even as we grow, it’s important for me to know every one of my employees’ names,” says Hegedus, a self-proclaimed lover of people. “The reason I wake up every day is because I like pouring myself into every little bucket.”
And tomorrow, when her alarm goes off at 5, she’ll do it all over again.
