Community Highlights: Meet Mandy Harper of Wholesome Bakery

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mandy Harper.

Hi Mandy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Wholesome Bakery was founded in San Francisco in 2009 by Mandy Harper, born from her vision to reimagine indulgence through a healthier, more sustainable lens.
Growing up with a Native American mother that avoided refined sugar, unhealthy fats, and wheat, where much of their produce was homegrown, Mandy developed a lifelong passion for better-for-you sweets. When she couldn’t find treats that were free from gluten, dairy, eggs, and refined sugar – and environmentally friendly – she created them herself.
Mandy began working in the food industry at just 15, mastering every role – both front and back of house – all the way to Executive Chef. With grit, creativity, and no outside funding, she launched Wholesome Bakery from her home kitchen and built it from the ground up – growing a thriving wholesale and CPG business purely through relentless hard work, dedication, and vision.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been a very challenging road – often being overlooked and underestimated despite clear market validation and proof of concept. But I am relentless and tenacious if nothing else. I know what I’m doing and I’ve put in my 10,000 hours – so I’m damn good at what I do at this point, I will proudly say.

Additionally, during the pandemic I had a brick and mortar – it was so unbelievably hard, so unbelievably expensive to operate. I didn’t pay myself for two years to ensure my team got paid.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Since our beginning Wholesome Bakery has been dedicated to using whole ingredients that are wholesomely sourced. That means we only use whole grains, whole sugars, and whole fats – no refined funny stuff or bleached weridness.
We go to great lengths to use ethically, sustainably, and humanely sourced ingredients. So when you’re getting your Wholesome fix, you’re enjoying a whole food that your brain, body, and conscience can feel good about.

Everything we make is Free of Refined Sugar, Gluten, Eggs, Dairy, Soy, Preservatives, Gums, Fillers or Freaky Artificial Anything – but not free of taste!

Our cookies, cookie sandwiches, brownies and almond tea cakes are launching now all over the LA and So-Cal area. Most notably in stores like Erewhon and Mother’s Market.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
My pervious brick and mortar landlord bet on me when many wouldn’t. He is now a friend and my financial advisor as he has a financial consulting firm with a small equity stake in Wholesome Bakery. When over 40 people applied to rent his space, he chose me because he could see my fire and grit. Opening my brick and mortar (which I closed in 2024 to focus on CPG) absolutely changed everything for me. Despite it being some of the hardest years of my life, I wouldn’t change it for anything. I learned so much and grew even more. It gave me the opportunity to perfect, redo, update and create products – then in real time see if they resinate with my customers. That has come in extremely handy now just focusing on CPG – because I already know what works and doesn’t. With CPG it takes months and months to get a new product into the hands of your customer. So I’m grateful I was “seen” by him which has helped get me to this amazing place in my career.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wholesomebakery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholesomebakery/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/wholesomebakery
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wholesome-bakery

Image Credits
My husband takes all our photos (he’s a professional photographer). Find him on instagram @nutter