It started out with a bib for her baby. Now Pia Andersson delivers children's accessories to the green retail giant Whole Foods Markets.
The name makes you think of Dr. Seuss, but Mimi the Sardine is a company that designs and sells children’s accessories, and winner of the business category of the 2010 Swedish Bay Area Achievement Awards. The company was founded by Pia Andersson, a jovial red-haired woman living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Pia is a native of western Sweden and calls herself a “mompreneur.” She arrived in California back in 1988 and initially spent her time as a stay-at-home-mom, but it didn’t take long before she saw a business opportunity in a handcrafted bib she had made for her toddler out of the same wax cloth material as her tablecloth. She sent her innovation to a mail-order company only to find it instantly approved, and soon the company asked for more bibs, a lot more.
Before she knew it, she found herself – and her new company – accepting orders by the fax machine in her garage office. The demand ran into 30, 40 and 50 thousand items, all while she was adapting to her new role as business owner.
“What did I know about production, about big orders? I had to learn everything from scratch”, she says about those first hectic months, adding that her only real investment at the time was an $800 sewing machine.
Fast forward to the early 2000’s. The fledgling company is up and running and Pia works with a team of creative workers. This was also a time when reports came out of China talking about lead-infused products sold to the U.S. and around the world. It lead to a backlash from worried parents that wanted to make sure that they bought “green” and health-conscious products. Whole Foods, the world’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods, asked Mimi the Sardine to be a supplier of children’s feeding accessories.
“Whole Foods was a real breakthrough for us,” she says. “We now have a tremendous company, based on Swedish cutting edge knowledge in green textile technology. Our goal is to produce honest and functional products that live up to our motto: Eat, spill, be happy!”
All the Mimi the Sardine merchandise is produced locally in the Bay Area, using ecologically sound, high-end acrylic coated organic cotton, imported from Sweden, which meets the Oeko-Tex 100 Standard European textile safety standard.
In 2010 the company began distributing products to retailers in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. “We are currently looking for a partnership to help us expand into previously untapped markets here in the U.S. and overseas. We have the infrastructure and the Swedish do-it-right mentality, but lack the reach and financial clout of a bigger partner-company,” says Pia Andersson.
Pia Andersson's company "Mimi the Sardine" was one of the winners of the 2010 Swedish Bay Area Achievement Awards.
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