Today we’d like to introduce you to Alyssa.
Hi Alyssa, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in a family of bakers here in Texas. My Tía Paty was actually a dentist in Mexico, but when she came to Laredo, she opened a bakery instead. So I was surrounded by baking my whole life and definitely had a sweet tooth growing up.
But in adulthood, I started having health issues that forced me to really look at how I was eating. Like a lot of people, I initially thought the answer was cutting things out, including gluten. But I refused to give up on it entirely. I’m stubborn that way, I guess.
That’s when I went down this rabbit hole learning about heritage grains, ancient grains, and traditional processing methods. I realized the problem wasn’t gluten itself, it was what modern processing had done to wheat. Everything I learned pointed to the same thing: we’d industrialized wheat in a way that stripped it of what made it work with our bodies.
My background before this was pretty varied. I was a Teach For America Corps Member and worked as a data journalist before landing at Google. All of that gave me this data-driven lens, but I also had this deeply personal connection to food and baking through my family.
In 2024, I started testing cake mixes at farmers markets here in Texas, using stone-milled heritage grains from local Texas farmers and millers. The response was incredible. People were hungry for an option that didn’t ask them to avoid gluten, just to have access to better quality wheat, processed the way it should be.
That’s how Ollin was born. We launched in May 2025 with two mixes, “Golden Hour” Yellow and “Anyday” Chocolate, and we hand-pack everything in DFW. It’s my first company, and I’m all-in, working full-time to change how people think about gluten.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road. If anything, I feel like I’ve made every mistake you could make starting a business, but hindsight is 20/20. Being a first-time entrepreneur with no formal business background, I always say you have to be slightly delusional and just insanely optimistic to really get over the hurdles of entrepreneurship and trying to get something as competitive as a product out into the world.
One of the struggles that really sticks out to me is the sense of having to do things alone. I think one of the biggest myths we hear as Americans is about the lone entrepreneur, the lone genius, the lone whatever you have it. But the reality is that businesses aren’t built on one person. They aren’t built off of their unique labor alone. They’re built off of so many other people. Being able to admit that I needed help and to seek it out, either through advisors or through the people I have on my team, has made a night and day difference that I think is going to really contribute to the longevity of the company and what we’re building.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Ollin is a cake mix company on a mission to change gluten’s reputation. We’re what I call “gluten-positive,” not gluten-free. The problem was never wheat itself, it was what modern processing did to it.
We make two cake mixes: “Golden Hour”, a buttery yellow cake, and “Anyday”, a unique chocolate cake. What sets us apart is how we source and process our grains. We partner exclusively with Barton Springs Mill in Dripping Springs, where they use a 1,500-pound Austrian stone mill to preserve grain integrity. We source directly from Texas farmers we know by name, featuring heritage grains like spelt and rye.
We say no to roller-milling, chemical bleaching, synthetic enrichment, and artificial preservatives. Instead, we use traditional European stone-milling techniques that keep nutrients intact and create flour your body actually recognizes.
What I’m most proud of brand-wise is that we’re not following the crowd. While everyone else is creating gluten-free alternatives, we’re addressing the root problem and proving that properly sourced and processed wheat can be both delicious and digestible. Our packaging reflects this too, it’s bold, colorful, and completely reimagines what a cake mix should look like.
As a Latina-owned business born and raised in Texas, supporting our local food system matters deeply to me. When you buy Ollin, you’re supporting Texas farmers, Texas millers, and strengthening our state’s agricultural traditions.
We’re pioneering a gluten-positive movement.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was best described as a theater kid who wasn’t actually in theater. I have this very theatrical, loud energy. But at the same time, I was also really studious and curious, always in the more academically challenging classes. I was what I’d call an overachieving slacker. I was friends and classmates with the people who graduated in the top 10 (Out of 1300) of our class, whereas I was somewhere in the top 200 by comparison. I can’t even remember the exact number at this point.
Interest-wise, I always had a fascination with food, but it was always through the lens of justice. That started to really crystallize when I was older, around high school age. I remember watching documentaries like Supersize Me or films about food access in Mexico and just feeling this sense of righteous anger. Those memories have really stuck with me.
I think that’s why my approach to building Ollin, even as a premium food company, is about going back to basics and rewriting the narratives we’ve been fed. So many Americans recognize they have an unhealthy relationship with food today, and a lot of that comes from the stories we’ve been told. I want to change that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ollinyall.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ollinyall/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Ollin-yall-61573748055704/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ollinyall/
Image Credits
Paul Torres Garcia
