If you or anyone you know have ever suffered from a food allergy, you’ll want to know about Emy Desserts.
If you or anyone you know have ever craved delicious, sweet snacks, you’ll want to know about Emy Desserts.
Emily Horta, the founder of Emy Desserts, wants everyone to feel included. Her mission is to “provide desserts and snacks that EVERYONE can enjoy!”
Her treats are completely allergy friendly with no soy, dairy, tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, wheat, gluten, crustacean or seafood. She even goes a step further and makes it a healthier option by using no refined sugar, GMO, corn, sesame or coconut. To keep it safe, she buys from companies that are completely allergy friendly or have separate product lines.
While what she is doing will give people with food allergies something to cheer about, she’s not targeting people with allergies, she’s targeting everyone. Emily wants her customers to realize that “stuff can taste really good without allergens.
Emily graduated from the CIA about 1 ½ years ago with a degree in baking and pastry. She’s vegan and has dietary restrictions and knew firsthand that just going out to eat, “you see the lack of knowledge and unawareness about food allergies and eating restrictions in general. No one should feel left out, no matter if it’s choice or medical reasons. You should have something to eat that you feel safe eating and not a lot of companies realize that.”
As someone who really wanted to find a way to make a difference, and with her knowledge and background in culinary, she thought this would be the perfect way to do it.
She began baking when she was 15. When she started it was a lot of baking wedding cakes and traditional desserts. She started researching food allergies and veganism which influenced her to become vegan. Discouraged because as a vegan she found that most of the stuff in bakeries and was stuff she couldn't eat, she decided to make her own.
With food allergies becoming an ever-increasing worry for moms with young children Emily might have found an alternative to what parent can send to school with their kids. These days it’s not just your own kids that you have to worry about but the safety of others in the class.
According to researchers an estimate that 32 million Americans have food allergies, including 5.6 million children under age 18. That’s one in 13 children, or roughly two in every classroom.
About 40 percent of children with food allergies are allergic to more than one food. Emily’s line of allergy friendly snacks can help prevent the risk of accidental exposure while at the same time providing a delicious treat.
She comes up with all the recipes herself and develops them through trial and error, and what she feels safe eating. Currently there are 4 product lines, which we got to try:
Fudge cups—4 standard flavors and additional seasonal flavors
Protein bars—5 flavors (the trail mix was one of my favorites!)
Power bites—3 flavors
Truffles—6 flavors
Besides ordering from her website, you can find Emily in person at 2-3 events a week-- farmers markets, vegan festivals, craft fairs. She also sells at Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory, local artisan bakeries, Zoe’s Ice Cream, Nature’s Pantry and wants to get into supermarkets and Whole Foods.
You will find Emily on social media especially where you will get to know her and her desserts. She likes to keep her post personal and with a sense of humor.
Her biggest success? People that don’t have allergies really seem to like the products and become repeat customers even they don’t have need/allergies.
