Toni Lorraine Johnson has big ambitions for her Bucks County-based vegan dessert startup. She wants it to be the next Toll House Cookies, but of the brownie world.
The chef and entrepreneur is looking to raise at least $500,000 to aid in growth plans for her Dr. Brownies brand this year, which includes opening her own distribution facility and expanding wholesale production so she can start pitching to big grocery stores like Whole Foods and Sprouts.
Johnson also has her eye on getting her product into colleges and universities, stadiums and cafes as she looks to grow wholesale. Presently wholesale and retail account for about 20% each of business, with the remaining 60% coming from catering. Retail sales are primarily e-commerce and Dr. Brownies ships across the country and even internationally. In order to meet her goals, Johnson is focused on making wholesale 40% of business in 2023 and growing that to a projected 65% of business in 2024.
“We need to switch the model to be sustainable,” she said.
To do so, she is leaning on her past experience in corporate America, including at Philadelphia-based Fortune 500 firm Aramark.
Johnson’s career took two distinct routes, both of which have helped inform her startup. She worked in the culinary world, including serving as a culinary instructor at Philadelphia nonprofit Philabundance, and as an operations manager at Aramark. Her career also ventured into human resources, but her passion for cooking and baking always remained.
Johnson began baking at a young age, in part as a coping mechanism, but also as a way to create joy. “Cake was always something that I could do and make people happy,” she said. “I love to make people happy.”
Even while working in unrelated fields, Johnson maintained a foothold in the foodie scene, operating her own food truck as a side business.
In 2010, she purchased, restored and outfitted an old truck. When it launched as a food truck, Johnson sold staples like water ice and soft pretzels. Eventually the menu expanded to include hamburgers, hot dogs and Jamaican patties, a seasoned pastry often filled with ground beef. She kept that up for five years until she enrolled in an executive MBA program at Saint Joseph’s University, straining her already limited time and forcing her to pause operations.
The Covid-19 pandemic gave her time to reassess. A few years after completing her MBA, Johnson enrolled in a doctoral program at Cabrini University in 2019. While working and studying again simultaneously, Johnson also decided to revive her food truck, this time with a focus on desserts.
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The idea for Dr. Brownies – a play on Johnson’s doctorate – was inspired in part by one of her sons, who eats a vegan diet. During the pandemic, as she had before, Johnson was baking and sending brownies and other treats to her friends. When her son saw them, he asked if she would make him a vegan version.
For a while, she resisted, concerned a vegan brownie couldn’t live up to her standards. After testing products on the market, she decided she could do better.
It took a year to formulate the recipe. She launched Dr. Brownies in 2020 and entered the market at the end of 2021.
While the name focuses on the original product, Dr. Brownies also sells cookies, cakes and Johnson’s popular Jamaican patties, which have gotten the vegan treatment too and are filled with vegetables or soy-based protein. Products include mini brownie bites in packs of four, eight and 12; brownie and cake jars; cookies by the dozen; brownie pops; cakes; and mixed assortments fittingly named “Prescriptions.” Prices range from $10.99 up to more than $225 for catering trays.
In addition, Johnson recently began selling her cookie and brownie batters in 1-pound ready-to-make refrigerated containers. These, she believes, are what will ultimately differentiate Dr. Brownies in the market. The containers are good for up a month and allow a consumer to scoop and bake their desired amount.
Johnson believes they will be a game changer for parents of younger children who need last minute sweets for events like bake sales.
“Dr. Brownies’ bucket is about convenience and time. I give you back your time, but it's the convenience to bake with your kids and not figuring out ingredients,” she said.
The brownie mix comes in six flavors: nut, s’mores, double chocolate, and Oreo, the latter two of which also come in gluten-free options. A tub ranges from $17.99 to $19.99.
The plant-based cookie dough tub comes in sugar, chocolate chip and raisin, which are $18.99 each.
In addition to e-commerce, Dr. Brownies can be found at the Cheezy Vegan in Woodlyn and V Marks the Shop in Philadelphia. This year Johnson is looking to tap into markets like South Philly Food Co-op, Weavers Way Co-op and Martindale’s Natural Market in Springfield.
She also sees her mini brownie packs getting into cafes and coffee shops.
Dr. Brownies’ is headquartered in Richboro but production is currently based out of the Dorrance H. Hamilton Center of Culinary Enterprises in West Philadelphia. Johnson is looking for space for her own production facility, specifically in Bucks County. Johnson said growing the business in the suburbs made the most sense thanks to the county’s tax incentives.
Dr. Brownies has received about $27,000 in grants, including from the Bucks Built Startup Fund’s partnership with Penn Community Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Sisters in Business and Venture Café in Philadelphia.
As business grows, Johnson – who has bootstrapped Dr. Brownies – is considering a business partner to run operations. She also is seeking to raise at least $500,000, though through what method she hasn’t yet decided. She said crowdfunding through Kickstarter is a possibility.
The goal, she said, it to eventually get Dr. Brownies not only to be on the shelves of grocery stores, but to be “the largest plant-based dessert distributor,” she said.
