Check Out Edward Celaya’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Edward Celaya.

Hi Edward, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
This all started because every year for Christmas, my mother would make peanut brittle for the family as gifts. She only did so after times had gotten tough, and she could no longer afford to buy everyone a gift but still wanted to give something. After a while, she kept getting asked if she would sell her recipe, to which she would always say no.

So, in 2019 I asked my mother if I could sell her great recipe for peanut brittle as I knew it was sought after, and I wanted to get out of the corporate rat-race and start something of my own. After her blessing, we started out of our little townhouse in Parker under cottage food law, only making two flavors, traditional and spicy peanut brittle. Little known fact, we signed up for all our markets and Parker Days 2019 without making a single batch of brittle.

To provide a small insight into our operation: my children help label, bag and seal the product, my wife is our marketing/accounting/assistant to the regional manager/public relations department(s), and I am our company’s sales/RnD/production/legal/IT/supply chain. I explain all of this to show how we are a family-run operation. Since then, we have expanded into a commercial kitchen to provide over 15 different flavors and offerings in various markets, stores, and online sales shipping to anywhere in the US. We now use peanuts, almonds, pecans, cashews, and macadamia nuts, with each nut having at least one variant. In 2021 we also started making and selling Ranchero Sauce. This is one of my recipes brought to life!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Every business has its’ struggles, and for us, our struggles started right away. We did not start making brittle until late May of 2019 and then selling it at markets until June. So, with only a month under our belt, my wife had lost her job and our inspiration, my mother, had passed away from cancer. But with that came a blessing in that my wife was now available to run the business so that I was able to take care of things back home. She was even able to take a week to fly in to be with our family.

As the year rolled on, things started to get very tight with money. There were times we struggled to feed ourselves and only through trades at the markets were we able to feed our family. Of course, as luck would have it, the air conditioning went out at our townhouse at the beginning of August. By the way, we were still making the brittle there under cottage food, using all our resources to keep the product from melting and getting ruined.

As the markets were starting to slow down and we did not know what we were going to do for the winter, but finally, my wife and I had found jobs (and some AC units). We even found a commercial kitchen to move our brittle-making operation to in October, so we could sell in stores in time for the 2019 holiday season. There have been times that we have had to learn which markets and stores worked through trial and error. We could not tell you how many times we were not sure if we were going to make it only to have a large order come in or a record-breaking day would occur out of the blue.

We have the best customers, great business partners and have met so many incredible people that have blessed us along the way so many times over. Our boys are now teenagers and can help us out in a way that has been so rewarding to work as a family. We have been able to teach them about what it takes to run a business in hopes to be able to pass it down one day.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Throughout my high school and college years, I worked in various restaurants and eventually in sales, selling knives and vacuums. Then in 2010, I joined Dish Network on the phones as a customer service rep. Within two years, I had worked my way up from training new reps as the number one agent on the floor to finally working in Dish Networks corporate offices as a business analyst, which led to the next phase of my career.

I left Dish Network in 2013 to join Sprint as an IT help desk guy coding trouble tickets. However, I feel my “big” break came in 2015. That was the year I joined Kaiser Permanente working in the IT department on various projects. I was there until 2017, when I started doing various IT contracts. I worked with Comcast Business as a project coordinator, along with a small stint with the Air Force, eventually making my way to Charter Communications in 2018.

Finally, in 2019, I had been laid off for my 2nd time, and I had enough. At this point, I wanted to start something of my own. I did go back to Kaiser again in October of 2019 until April of 2020 but COVID19 ended my role there. Since then, I have been able to stay busy with May Contain Nuts in creating new ideas and getting into new markets. My hope is that my future lies only with MCN and its continued success.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
As a kid, I really was blessed with having so many great memories I could pull from. But I would have to say my greatest time was when I was with my mother going to the movies to see the newest blockbuster. That and the time when I was 11 in which I bought a random bumper at a car show because it was only $5, to a car I didn’t even own (my thought was to put it on my wall).

Pricing:

• Peanut – $9
• Cashew/Almond – $10
• Pecan – $11
• Macadamia – $14
• Ranchero Sauce – $6

Contact Info:

• Website: mcnfoods.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maycontainnutscandy/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MCNfoods