Mightylicious, the gluten-free cookie company Carolyn Haeler built after her own celiac diagnosis left her disappointed by everything else on the market, has announced a fresh round of national retail deals pushing its footprint past 1,100 stores.
The Woodbridge Cookie Brand Born From One Bad Gluten-Free Bite Just Hit 1,100 Stores
Mightylicious, the Woodbridge based gluten-free cookie and baking mix company, announced in an August 12th release that it has signed distribution deals with nearly a dozen additional grocery chains, pushing its total retail footprint past 1,100 stores nationwide. The expansion marks another significant step for a company that started with one frustrated celiac patient trying to fix a problem the rest of the gluten-free snack aisle had never quite solved.
A Recipe Born Out of One Bad Holiday Cookie
Carolyn Haeler was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2012, and what followed was years of searching for a gluten-free cookie that actually delivered on taste and texture rather than settling for a passable substitute. The moment that finally pushed her to act came during a holiday shopping trip, when a store bought gluten-free cookie crumbled apart after a single bite. Haeler has described that specific letdown as the point she realized there had to be a better way, and she spent the years that followed developing her own recipe, ultimately building it around a blend of white rice flour, brown rice flour, and tapioca flour designed specifically to avoid the dry, crumbly texture that had defined most of the gluten-free options she had tried. She officially launched Mightylicious in 2018, turning that kitchen experiment into a real company.
Seven Flavors, Built Around Real Allergen Awareness
Mightylicious cookies are certified gluten-free, Kof-K certified kosher, and non-GMO, with a lineup that has grown to seven distinct flavors, four of them fully vegan. Every bag is sold with individually wrapped cookies inside to help preserve freshness and reduce the risk of cross contamination for allergen sensitive customers, a detail that matters considerably more for a celiac focused brand than it would for a typical snack company.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip
The brand’s original flagship flavor and the recipe that started it all.
Grandma Arline’s Oatmeal Coconut
A vegan bestseller built on a century-old family recipe, and a two-time Good Housekeeping honoree.
Salted Peanut Butter
Entirely grain-free, built from peanut butter, eggs, vanilla, and maple syrup.
Brown Butter Shortbread
A traditional dairy-based flavor rounding out the classic side of the lineup.
Double Dutch Vegan Chocolate Chip
A richer, cocoa-forward vegan chocolate chip variation.
Oatmeal Raisin & Vegan Chocolate Chip
Rounding out the seven-flavor lineup, both fully plant-based.
This past June, Mightylicious reformulated its entire cookie line into a new Crispy Gluten Free Cookies format, baking every one of its seven varieties thicker and longer in small batches for a denser, crispier bite while keeping the same allergen friendly certifications intact. The company showcased that reformulated lineup, alongside its baking flours and brownie mix, at the Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim this past March, a significant industry stage for a brand working to establish itself well beyond its Northeast roots.
From Cookies to a Full Baking Lineup
In 2024, Mightylicious expanded beyond finished cookies into a home baking line, giving customers with celiac disease or gluten sensitivities the tools to bake their own allergen safe treats rather than relying solely on prepackaged products. The lineup includes a gluten-free all-purpose flour formulated with whole milk powder to better replicate the protein structure of standard wheat flour, a fully vegan all-purpose flour built around coconut milk powder instead, and a vegan chocolate brownie mix built on premium Dutch cocoa powder. All three carry the same certified gluten-free, kosher, and non-GMO standards as the cookie line.
A Retail Footprint That Keeps Growing
Mightylicious products are now carried by a genuinely wide range of national and regional grocery chains, including Walmart, Costco, Whole Foods Market, Fairway, King’s Food Markets, Price Chopper, Harris Teeter, Earth Fare, Big Y, Schnucks, Kowalski’s Markets, SpartanNash, and Market of Choice, with the brand’s newest release confirming the products are also rolling out to Hy-Vee, ShopRite, and Winn-Dixie shelves in the near future. Both ShopRite and Earth Fare have also picked up the brand’s baking mix lineup specifically, giving the home baking products their own expanding retail footprint separate from the cookies. Beyond brick and mortar retail, Mightylicious sells directly through its own website and via Amazon.
That expansion has coincided with a real run of industry recognition. Good Housekeeping named the brand’s Oatmeal Coconut cookie one of its Best Snacks of the Year in both 2025 and 2026, a two year consecutive honor for a single flavor that speaks to the product’s staying power with mainstream reviewers rather than just allergen conscious shoppers. For a company that started because one celiac patient could not find a gluten-free cookie worth eating, the combination of a 1,100 store retail footprint and back to back national recognition marks a considerable distance traveled from that original frustrating bite.
