Name: I found Annie from Annie's Mac and Cheese. Here's her story.
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I found Annie from Annie's Mac and Cheese. Here's her story.

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Annie Withey isn’t easy to find.That wasn’t always the case. In the 1990s, Withey’s phone number was actually listed on every box of her mac and cheese — yes, Annie’s — which was slowly, steadily lining New England grocery store shelves.Strangers called Withey at all hours of the day. Once, at 3 a.m., she was awakened to a voicemail by an ensemble of partying surfer bros on the West Coast who wanted to know how to get their hands on a bulk order of mac and cheese.Funnily enough, Annie’s Homegrown is now based out west; its brightly colored headquarters, which includes a lovely looking garden, was established in Berkeley in 2011 and is where 50 or so employees normally work.Withey never relocated to California though. She lives quietly, privately on a farm in Connecticut. In 1988, then in her 20s, Inc. magazine, “I don't really like business." Or media, for that matter.Business, however you want to define it, has made Withey a wealthy woman, even as she’s completely removed herself from the company that she created (which is far more than just mac and cheese offerings these days). The long and the short of it is Solera Capital became the majority investor in Annie’s in 2002, then General Mills (which is ) bought out Annie’s in 2014 for a whopping $820 million. Withey was listed as “inspirational president” during the Solera Capital era, then left completely when General Mills took over.There’s been about the ethical dilemmas that arise when an enormous company like General Mills acquires an ostensibly environmentally conscious, organic brand like Annie’s, upholding “sustainable agriculture, organic ingredients, no artificial ingredients [and] support for farmers and communities.”But noticeably absent from those discussions, and noticeably absent more generally, is Withey herself. The more I read about Annie’s, the second-most popular mac and cheese brand in the United States behind Kraft, the more I wanted to know about the mysterious woman behind the brand. Her number isn’t on the boxes of mac and cheese anymore, obviously. So a few weeks ago, I left a voicemail for a number that I figured had a 50-50 shot of being accurate. Then I waited.A week later, I got an email:“You did have the correct phone number — our good ol' landline,” Withey wrote. “Now you will have my personal email too.” She signed it “bye for now.”I was tickled and intrigued. Was I about to become pen pals with the woman whose boxed mac and cheese was the comfort food of my (and many others') childhood? As it turns out, yes.The Annie’s mac and cheese origin story , but if you aren't familiar with it, then you’re in for a twist and a treat. In 1984, when Withey was 21, she and her then-husband Andrew Martin came up with the product known as Smartfood in the kitchen of their Boston home. That’s correct: Annie, the Annie’s lady, is also the cheddar popcorn lady.Around the same time, Withey incorporated the dried powder cheese from the popcorn to create her mac and cheese recipe. “The shelves in my rather small refrigerator were dominated by half-gallon sized plastic tubs of powdered cheddar cheese samples from Land O'Lakes,” Withey wrote to me over email, her preferred communication method. “I was in pursuit of an all-natural cheese popcorn recipe that used white cheddar cheese (not glow-in-the-dark orange!) While scooping the white cheddar powder one day, I had a ‘eureka’ moment.”She boiled elbow pasta from Kraft, measured an identical amount of white cheddar cheese as was in the Kraft packet, added butter and milk, and then ... “Whoa!” was the summation of her first bites.She didn’t immediately pivot to mac and cheese, though. She says that idea “remained on the back burner” until Smartfood was sold to Frito-Lay in 1989, a $15 million windfall that enabled her to turn her attention back to her preferred venture.Withey’s face was almost plastered on the original early ’90s rollout of mac and cheese boxes, but she “promptly put an end to that idea,” she says. She went with her bunny named Bernie instead. Withey has a keener eye for the business side of things than she allows herself to admit (or lets on). “There’s nothing more powerful than word-of-mouth advertising,” she wrote to me. She employed “guerilla marketing” tactics and would drop off Annie’s boxes anywhere she could, really. “Physically putting boxes in the hands of people was so much fun for me,” she says.Initially, when folks called the number on the box, they asked for Annie’s by the case. Withey estimates that when her very first warehouse was based in Connecticut, before the Berkeley glow-up, she was personally sending out 50 cases a week. People sometimes showed up to her house to request more macaroni, which became a problem. The local postmaster started detouring folks who asked where she lived.By the mid-’90s, Annie’s main fulfillment center had moved to Massachusetts, and there were more hands on deck. Withey still made a point of writing letters both on the back of the packaging of her burgeoning product line and also to individuals who reached out. People of all ages, but especially kids, sent notes and photos and drawings and “meaningful little gifts,” she fondly recalls.“I responded to thousands of letters, literally (I still have a callus on my finger from pen overuse!) and made the effort to answer all questions, offer advice and share some of my thoughts with the wonderful people who wrote to me,” she says.At the same time, Withey was growing weary of the day-to-day side of the business. After her daughter was born in 1997, Withey found comfort in organic farming and began selling vegetables at farmers markets in the area. It afforded her a modicum of anonymity and let her put food directly into people’s hands again.When Solera Capital swooped in, Withey saw an exit plan. She assumed the “inspirational president” title so she could mostly get out of the way. “I made it clear that I wasn’t comfortable being the spokesperson for the company and, thankfully, there were people in place that stepped up as spokespeople,” she says.Trend pieces with lots of jargon sprung forth about Annie’s space in the organic food realm; the boxed mac and cheese became readily available across the United States, and the company eventually moved its headquarters to Berkeley, then was bought out by General Mills. Withey fully cut ties with her product, and I can confirm her annie@annies.com email address sadly is not active anymore.During our correspondence, I asked Withey for her honest assessment of how General Mills is doing in her stead. “Although I don’t have any contact with the folks at General Mills, I have learned that they are committed to converting one million acres of conventional, degraded agricultural land to sustainable, no-till acreage within the next decade,” she wrote. “I am hopeful that they will quickly learn that crop yield is greater with no-till practices (plus countless other benefits) and that their conversion timeline will be accelerated.“[But] I do believe that General Mills gets it,” she continued. “There’s no denying that Annie’s is a special brand, and they know it would be detrimental not to keep the mission and culture intact.”There are plenty of wealthy folks who talk a big talk about their commitment to the environment and their community then live in excess privately. I do not think Withey is one of those folks; I’d bet a lifetime supply of mac and cheese that she has never munched on gold-flaked pasta, for instance. She’s remained in Connecticut in an early 1900s Victorian farmhouse with her husband because that’s what brings her happiness. She has four cows, seven sheep, a burro, two horses, two flocks of chickens, a dog and, of course, two house rabbits, who she says offer “entertainment and comfort.” She considers her job to be “keeping Mother Nature at bay.” When I asked about her hobbies, especially during the pandemic, she responded, “I guess my love of birds is a hobby.” Also, monitoring her house plants. And in case you were wondering, Withey still eats Annie’s once or twice a month, which she buys from her local co-op. “I don’t feel like I have reached mac and cheese burnout,” she says.In addition to my burning questions, I was compelled to tell Withey that one of my colleagues has children who love Annie’s, and when I was a ’90s kid, Annie’s was a staple of my diet, too. I was allergic to dozens of foods, which limited my palate and made me an even pickier eater than other children. Annie’s was luxury cuisine as far as I was concerned; I had the Alfredo mac and cheese for my birthday on at least three occasions. I still eat it a bunch, maybe more than a grown man is supposed to.To this, Withey says that my Annie’s story warms her heart, which warms my heart. I've since realized that I essentially emailed her the equivalent of one of those letters she used to regularly receive.“I don’t tire of the kind words I hear from people when they find out that I am Annie,” she says. “What really blows my mind is many of those younger people that I wrote to [in the ’90s] are having kids and serving them Annie’s. Pretty amazing. Fills me with pride.”More Bay Area food origins-----

Annie Withey isn’t easy to find.That wasn’t always the case. In the 1990s, Withey’s phone number was actually listed on every box of her mac and cheese — yes, Annie’s — which was slowly, steadily lining New England grocery store shelves.Strangers called Withey at all hours of the day. Once, at 3 a.m., she was awakened to a voicemail by an ensemble of partying surfer bros on the West Coast who wanted to know how to get their hands on a bulk order of mac and cheese.Funnily enough, Annie’s Homegrown is now based out west; its brightly colored headquarters, which includes a lovely looking...

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Sports editor @SFGate. Formerly: @GQMagazine. Contributed to @latimes, @verge, @deadspin, @la_mag, @Grantland33. Email me: alex.shultz@sfgate.com

Alex Shultz

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I found Annie from Annie's Mac and Cheese. Here's her story.

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