This LGBTQ+-Owned Snack Brand Makes Granola with Love

Early Bird Foods & Co. is a nearly 20-year-old company. Its granola is a favorite of Martha Stewart, scored a feature in The New York Times, and even helped inspire the house granola at the Michelin-starred restaurant Eleven Madison Park. But despite this success, the brand doesn’t have a bustling office and a big staff.

Instead, Nekisia Davis (Nick-EE-sha) and her partner in life and business, Jen Watson, run the business from their cozy home in the Michigan woods. It’s a women-owned, LGBTQ+-owned snack brand that’s just as quirky as the day it was founded. 

Here at The FruitGuys, we’re big fans of Early Bird—in fact, we’re featuring two flavors of its granola as our Snacks of the Month for Pride Month 2025!—so of course, we wanted to know the full story. We spoke with Jen to get the details on how Early Bird began and the queer love story that keeps it going. 

The Early Days of Early Bird

According to Jen, Early Bird started with a dare. In 2008, Nekisia was standing in the kitchen of Franny’s pizzeria in Brooklyn, New York, deep in a conversation with a chef. The two of them were complaining about how lackluster granola can be: Where’s the flavor? The crunch? The variety? 

Nekisia dared herself to make something better. That night, she mixed together oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, coconut chips, and pecans (an homage to her childhood spent snacking on nuts from her grandmother’s pecan orchard). She sweetened the granola with maple syrup and brown sugar and added a unique savory punch with salt and olive oil. 

Then, she took her creation to work—and as Jen put it, “everything went like a rocket ship to the moon.” 

The granola was such a hit with her friends that Nekisia turned it into a business and started selling bags at the local Brooklyn Flea market. The recipe she invented became the brand’s bestselling Farmhand’s Choice flavor. 

“Nekisia was the first person to bring to market a granola made with extra virgin olive oil, maple syrup—no refined white sugar—and sea salt,” Jen explained. “Before Early Bird, the fats used were butter or canola oil. … Still to this day, I think we would win the award for having the saltiest granola out there. It’s a combination of savory grassy notes from the olive oil and the darker sweetness of coconut chips and brown sugar.”

How Early Bird Got Its Name

In those early days, Early Bird didn’t have a name yet—it was just “Nekisia’s granola.” Then, one morning at the Brooklyn Flea, she spotted something interesting between racks of African beads, piles of vintage clothes, and bicycle repair vendors. 

“She was taking a break from doing her thing, walking around, and she stumbled across a guy selling all of these vintage fruit crates, the size people used to use for records,” Jen said. 

An old peach crate with a bird stamped on it caught Nekisia’s eye, and her mind started churning. It struck her that the early bird gets the worm, just as the early riser gets the granola—and the name Early Bird Foods & Co. was born. 

Over the next few years, Nekisia added more granola flavors, including Jubilee (starring pistachios and dried cherries) and Kiss My Oats (her famous oat base without the fixings). She also started offering grab-and-go granola snack packs called “Baby Birds,” perfect for office snack breaks and adventures. 

You can purchase Farmhand’s Choice and Kiss My Oats Baby Birds in bulk from The FruitGuys here. It’s the perfect way to support an LGBTQ+-owned snack brand and celebrate Pride Month in the office. Plus, every bag comes with a great love story. 

Nekisia & Jen: A Queer Granola Love Story

Nekisia (she/they) and Jen (they/them) first connected in 2010 and dated for a few months before parting ways. Then in 2014, they got back in touch—all thanks to granola! 

Jen was opening a Brooklyn food hall and event space called Berg’n and hunting for granola to use in yogurt parfaits. If you’ve ever watched a rom-com, you can guess what happened next: Jen reached out to Nekisia to ask about a delivery, and that old spark lit up again.

Well, kind of. The rom-com didn’t go quite as you might expect: The pair stayed in touch for the next five years and evolved from business acquaintances to friends. Then, one day over lunch in 2019, Jen spontaneously invited Nekisia on a trip to Puerto Rico. 

“She was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I would love to go to Puerto Rico. That sounds amazing—get me out of here!” Jen told The FruitGuys, chuckling at the memory. “She escaped to Puerto Rico with me and we’ve been together ever since.” 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Jen’s restaurant job shut down, and they moved in with Nekisia. They also joined Early Bird and helped guide the brand through tough times, including the pandemic and a bankruptcy. 

“I think one of the things about Early Bird that’s especially unique these days is that there’s no venture capital in this company,” Jen told The FruitGuys proudly. “It’s 100% Nekisia and a few of her dearest friends and family members.”

Today, Nekisia and Jen run Early Bird together from their house in Michigan. Nekisia makes the big decisions, Jen handles sales and culture, and a copacker manages making, packing, and shipping the granola using Nekisia’s beloved recipes. 

Why Being a Women- and LGBTQ+-Owned Snack Brand Matters

Nekisia and Jen are proud that Early Bird is not only an independent brand, but a women-owned and LGBTQ+-owned snack brand, too. Jen told us that for them, Pride Month is a time to “come together, help amplify other people’s voices, and lift each other up in this room where we should all have a seat at the table.” 

Nekisia and Jen are passionate about equality and accessibility, not just for LGBTQ+ folks but for everyone, including BIPOC and low-income people. That’s why they give away their granola recipe for free on the company’s website—so people who can’t afford to buy it can make it at home. 

“Why am I going to keep this away from you? Why am I not going to share everything I can, everything I have with you? That’s how we approach our lives in general,” Jen said. 

How to Celebrate Pride Month with Early Bird

To support Early Bird and its mission during Pride Month, consider ordering The FruitGuys’ Thoughtful Snack Box for recurring delivery to your office. Every box we drop off in June will feature Early Bird’s granola! You can also order single-serving Baby Bird packs of the Farmhand’s Choice or Kiss My Oats flavors in bulk here for your workplace’s Pride Month celebrations.