In today’s episode, we are delighted to welcome Lindsay Hancock, the founder and CEO of My Better Batch, a remarkable brand transforming the way busy families approach baking. With a background in the food industry and a passion for family-friendly solutions, Lindsay brings both heart and expertise to our conversation.
Whether you’re a first-time parent navigating the juggle of work and family, or a seasoned caregiver seeking fresh ways to connect in the kitchen, this episode offers inspiration, actionable ideas, and a warm reminder that even small shared rituals (like cookies) can build meaningful bonds.
Tune in and join us as Lindsay shares how My Better Batch is redefining convenience, quality, and connection for families.
- Click here to Order Your Cookie Mixes Now – Use code TINYTRANSITIONS for a discount and free shipping on any order over $25
- Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mybetterbatch/
Episode Highlights:
- Lindsay’s journey from corporate CPG executive to entrepreneurial founder, and how her personal experience as a working mom sparked the idea for My Better Batch.
- The “why” behind My Better Batch: crafting premium, clean-ingredient cookie mixes that deliver homemade taste with minimal prep — just add butter and an egg.
- Real-life stories of busy families discovering the joy of baking without sacrificing quality, connection or time together
- Practical tips for parents and caregivers on how to carve out meaningful moments with kids, even in the rush of everyday life, and how simple baking rituals can be a vehicle for that.
Sleep Struggles Solved + Results Guaranteed
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Welcome to the Kid Sleep Show podcast, where we dive into the magical world of sleep and all things parenting. Join us as we embark on a journey filled with expert advice, practical tips, and heartwarming stories that will transform your little ones into sleep superheroes and empower you to navigate the beautiful chaos of parenting. I’m your host, Courtney Zentz, and I’m on a mission to change how the world views sleep and provide accessible sleep coaching resources for all families to build healthy sleep habits in their home for children and adults of all ages.
As an award-winning speaker, author, and pediatric sleep expert, myself and my team of consultants work intimately with families around the world to teach healthy sleep habits to children and adults. I believe wholeheartedly that sleep is the foundation for which a happy home is built. So let’s sleep together.
Hey everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of the kid’s sleep show podcast. I’m joined by a personal friend who I’ve known for over 20 years, which is crazy to say.
It’s probably much longer than that, but 20 makes me feel young. Her name is Lindsay Hancock and she came out with an amazing new product just in the past year that I want to talk about. I’m excited to have her on because it is somebody after my own heart.
So Lindsay, welcome to the show. Let’s talk to all of our listeners about my better batch. So say hello, introduce yourself and we can dive right into these amazing treats that I know all of our listeners are going to enjoy.
Awesome. Well, Courtney, thank you so much for having me on today. It’s so exciting to talk to you.
And I love that you said 20 years because I think you’re exactly right. It’s been a lot. It’s been a lot longer than that.
Um, but I am Lindsay Hancock. I’m the founder of my better batch. Um, we make a cookie mix.
Um, and I don’t know about you, but I am constantly looking for shortcuts that I can feel good about taking. And I don’t know if you’ve ever shopped the grocery store. Um, there’s often a really distinct difference in a mix that you pull from the shelf cookie mix specifically, there’s a taste difference in a texture difference.
And as I was trying to find a shortcut, I realized that there was nothing on the shelf that tasted homemade. Um, and that’s what really was the catalyst behind starting my better batch. I wanted to offer a product that, um, gave you a shortcut.
You could feel good about taking, um, something you could pass off as your own homemade treat. And nobody would know the difference and you could take all the compliments and the credit, um, and tell them it was grandma’s homemade recipe. And you know, that you can’t share the details, but I really was looking, um, looking for something that was clean.
I could feel good about serving to my kids and their friends. Um, and that’s something that was just super simple to make. Yeah.
I love this because I am somebody who generally on Sundays does meal prepping. And, you know, I try to manage time as a working mom with, you know, two kids as you have two kids as well, right. And to your point, like friends come over and I am somebody who adopted when I was pregnant, the, can you read the label rule? Right.
So my friends will pick or my kids will pick things off the shelf and be like, Hey, can we get this? I’m like, if you can read all the ingredients, yes. You know, and it sort of became this joke because we, we try to eat healthy and clean and, you know, really understand what it is we’re putting in our body. Cause I try to explain to my kids like food is fuel.
So I love that you call that out immediately because cookies are a nice treat. Right. And I think having the parties and having the friends over and the snack after school, it’s also something that like I don’t always have time to or don’t always have the flour for, you know, making those things.
And every once in a while I end up with like the carp, those little moths that end up flying out. And then I have to put everything away inside of my pantry. And I like, I get a little pissed off and cursed for a couple of minutes.
And then I throw everything away and I have to sort of start from scratch. Like, Oh my gosh, I don’t want to deal with this, but I want to know that I’m not like, you know, we grew up with like a specific brand of cake always on our counter. And, you know, you look at the ingredients now and I’m like, I don’t know that I would eat that, you know? Absolutely.
Well, I think, you know, if you’ve walked down the baking aisle, you know, that there’s been very little innovation in the baking aisle for a long time. Most and they’re, they’re the legacy brands. They’re the brands that you walk down the aisle and you see the color and you know exactly who they are.
And I think consumers have just grown accustomed to knowing that the product is going to taste. Okay. It’s not going to taste over the top and great, but they need to check a box.
They need to get something done. And so they’ve just made it. Okay.
We’re going to buy, we’re going to buy that mix and we’re going to bake it in the product. It’s just going to be okay. But that’s, that’s okay because I needed a shortcut.
I didn’t have time to bake from scratch. I want you to be able to have it all. And so I really want to be able to revolutionize the way that people shop for shortcut baking.
And we’ve started hearing cookies, but they’re, um, you know, our goal in the future is to be able to expand outside of cookies. Yeah. Which I love it.
I mean, to keep it simple, it’s like butter egg, right? And you put it in and your cookies are ready. So I think as a busy parent, who’s like my daughter’s like, I, can I help you bake the cookies? And while on the front end of that, I’m like, yes, absolutely. I love that inside.
I’m like, Oh yeah. So we like to say that our cookies are as easy as three, two, one. So three simple steps, two added ingredients, just the butter and the egg, which you said, and then one bowl to clean up when you’re done.
And that’s kind of the best part. And you know, not only is it simple, but it also tastes delicious. Um, and so that’s an added bonus.
I, I don’t feel like people shop in the baking aisle, um, for things that don’t, they don’t shop there necessarily to get healthy. Um, and I’m with you. I wanted to offer something that was made with clean ingredients, because I really do think that that plays a huge role, not only in taste, but also in texture.
Um, and so I wanted to be able to achieve that because I know the big guys aren’t that are on the shelf today. Um, so that was an absolute must, but you know, I think, I think that just translates into a better product when it’s all ingredients that you could find in your own kitchen pantry. Um, those ingredients that you’ve thrown away, cause you don’t use often enough, but I, you know, I, I think that does translate into the finished product.
Now, how did you come up with the flavors? Cause right. We got some set here. My kids and I have, um, already the double chocolate ones, which were amazing.
Yep. Very excited to know that we’ve recorded this episode because he wants to make the chocolate ones. So how did you come up with the flavors? Like let’s talk about the different flavors that you started as sort of your core pillars.
So originally I, you know, I shopped everything that there was on, on the grocery store shelf. I grew up making cookies from scratch. My mom always made cookies from scratch, my grandmother.
Um, and that was just the way we did it. I, I never went to the grocery store shelf to buy cookie mix specifically brownies and cakes. Yes, but not necessarily cookies.
And so I really needed to educate myself. I love baking cookies, but I really needed to educate my, myself on what was out there. So I baked, I baked everything.
Um, there were kind of two schools of thought. I could go about it and come up with flavor profiles that don’t exist on the shelf today. Um, or I could take the flavors that are most popular chocolate chip sugar cookie chocolate.
Um, and I could do them better. And we obviously chose the ladder. Um, so it was a lot of just trial and error.
I, my poor family, my poor neighbors, they ate so many cookies, um, over about a six month period that they had, they eventually said like, you’ve got to stop. We would have these tastings in my kitchen, blind tastings where I would make, I’d make the Betty Crocker product and the Pillsbury and the Duncan Hines. And I’d make my recipes.
And my goal was to try to make sure that, um, you know, as we were doing a blind tasting that these performed better than, than any of the others. Um, and so, but that process took a good six months to develop. And then, then it was a matter of once we had those flavor profiles, it was, we need to take those to someone who can commercialize them for us.
Instead of making them in one pound batches here in my own home kitchen, they are now made in 2,300 pound batches, um, in a huge co-manufacturer. Um, and so, you know, so, so to go back to your original question, it was a lot of trial and error. Um, at the end of the day, I wanted to be able to offer flavors that, that resonated with people and those nostalgic flavors.
Um, they won out over having just unique flavor profiles. Yeah, no. And I think like sticking with the basics is, is perfect.
Cause that’s what people like. People want our neighbor next door. He wins the Goshen County fair every day and his cookies.
And I think the secret ingredient is condensed milk. Interesting. So I, you know, it’s like, you got to give them a couple of cocktails and be like, tell me what’s in your cup.
Yeah. Tell me, tell me what you’re doing. But it’s like, he makes these like world renowned West Chester cookies.
Right. But I think your point, like that’s what people want. Like they want a chocolate chip cookie dunked in milk.
Now I know from watching your social as both your friend and cheering you on because you’re like, you know, doing amazing things is you do cool flavor combinations. So talk about some of the ways, like you have these core pillars, but they don’t have to stay a sugar cookie. Right? Like, so talk about some of the things you’re doing.
And I know, you know, as this episode airs later in the fall, there’s going to be some exciting things happening with different flavors too. So talk about that a bit. Yeah, no.
So I, um, each one of our boxes, um, has a secondary recipe on the back. Um, and it actually, each one has a QR code. So if you scan that QR code, um, it’ll take you to a video where I show you exactly, not only how to make chocolate chunk cookies from start to finish, but also this is the back of our chocolate chunk.
This is our s’mores bliss cookie. So I wanted, I wanted something that was absolutely delicious on his own, but then I wanted, I wanted it to also act as a base to be able to do all kinds of fun things with. Um, so you’re right on our social media, uh, on our channels, we do all kinds of seasonal seasonally relevant, um, ideas, but just a way for you to be able to dress it up and, um, and do something unique and different.
And, you know, I think there’s a lot of people out there that are looking for shortcuts that don’t quite think maybe they’re not bakers. Maybe they’re not have never baked from scratch. Um, and I want them to be able to create things that they otherwise didn’t think that they could just with a few simple additions.
Um, I’ve got our double chocolate here in front of me. This is a Choco sugar mashup cookie. So these are actually some of my most favorite to make, but it’s just our classic sugar cookie and our double chocolate here.
And we just roll them together. And it creates this like really fun cookie where people will say to you, like, where did you get that? How did you make that? Well, it was so simple. It was two mixes that I made.
They came together in 15 minutes and, um, but it, you know, just something that allow people and provide some inspiration. Yeah. I love it.
There’s the strawberry ones that I’m like, okay, we’re going to do that when we make the sugar cookies. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. So I think it’s your point. Like it gives people the variety that they want off the pillars where you also don’t have to worry about like I do.
And again, I want people to please know that my house is clean and that sometimes I get, I only twice I’ve gotten, we are not judging you, but I know people are going to listen to this and be like, well, why don’t you close the Ziploc bag that your flowers and Courtney, you know, and sometimes too many other things going on. Maybe my daughter closed the bag. Yeah.
But, um, you know, sometimes it’s nice to just like pull it down and be like, Hey, I’m going to make sugar cookies today. There’s kids coming over and it takes 15 minutes, you know, and, and they can be done, which I think is perfect for little hands too. And you prove that, um, with your daughter helping you make them.
And you know, just something that, um, that you can do together. I think baking is a really emotional activity. Um, I think people take, you know, when you take the time to bake, oftentimes you’re doing it with people that you love and want to spend time with.
Um, and if maybe if not that you’re taking what you’ve baked and you’re sharing it with other people and you’re like really proud of that. And so I think there’s, there’s just something emotional about that experience. And so we, we want to be part of that experience.
Yeah. Which I love. I know as somebody who, and you know, my history, a lot of our listeners do, but I had my stomach removed seven years ago, so I have no stomach.
And it is really interesting because my body doesn’t want certain things. It kind of, it will never like reject things, but like, if I eat something, it just doesn’t like, I know it for a couple of days in a variety of ways. Um, so it’s fascinating.
Cause I was like, okay, like I struggle sometimes with white sugar. And so I’m like, okay, let me try one double chocolate cookie because we made them. And I did good.
And my body immediately reacts to things like this, you know? And my kids are always like, can you please try it? Like stop trying to make pizza and stop trying to make healthy brownies and healthy cookies and healthy cakes because they suck. I try to rig everything so that I can eat it, you know, um, which is really hard because I have specific dietary things that like really do set me off, you know, gluten being one of them. So it’s like, I try to rig things with almond flour, but it’s always the baker.
I feel like the texture’s never as good. I can get away with brownies, but that’s about it. Everything else with flour doesn’t, it just doesn’t come out the same way.
Um, but I was like so excited because I could eat these and be like, okay, I’m not going to get sick. This is a way, you know? Um, but I mean, I just think that there are a lot of things that we have as parents to do. You and I were chatting about it when we first got on here.
Right. And so the inspiration to create a product that you can feel good about feeding your family and serving as a treat to your point, sometimes as your own, you know, you don’t have to necessarily advertise that they were my better batch. So it’s good for you obviously, because you want people to buy the my better batch mix, but you know, it’s nice to say like, Oh, I made chocolate chip cookies today.
And you know, here you are welcome to the neighborhood. We have another mutual friend who shares your name, who, um, she’s, she gives these away as gifts all the time. She gives the boxes away as gifts all the time, but she also bakes the cookies and gives them away.
And she was like, Oh, I told it was, I told them it was my secret recipe. I couldn’t share it. I’m like, okay, whatever, whatever.
That’s that’s exactly right. Yeah. But it’s good.
It’s options. You know, now I know you just launched. So talk a little bit about your story, right? Like as somebody who is an entrepreneur who knows how hard it is behind the scenes, not just what you’re seeing on the front end, right.
You came up with the idea, you did a ton of baking and now you’re all over the place. Right. I was like looking in target the other day.
I’m like, Hey, there’s, Hey, honey. We’ve had some really awesome momentum. So my career, my entire career, um, not because I had it planned this way, but it has been in food.
Um, I graduated from college, my degrees in exercise and sports science. I never used it a day in my professional career. I ended up getting a job at the corporate office of the fresh market.
So I’m based here in North Carolina. Um, they are specialty food retailer. Um, I had that opportunity to run marketing for them for almost seven years, um, before leaving there and joining a startup as employee.
Number one, we manufactured, um, trail mixes, nuts, confections things. If you’ve ever scooped your own trail mix at a whole foods or a fresh market type store sprouts, we did all of that where it’s sold in bulk. You don’t know where it comes from, but companies like we started does that type of product.
Um, we sold that company 10 years later to kind snack. So kind bar, um, and had an opportunity to work for kind for a couple of years. Um, it was a huge, it was a super valuable experience for me to be part of a, a much, much larger organization during my time with kind they sold to Mars.
And so it’s like what I thought was huge. Wasn’t even anything compared to that next acquisition. I think in that two and a half years that I was with kind, one of the things that I learned was more about myself.
And it was that I am not a big company person. Um, when you’re in a company of that size, you have to stay in your lane. And I don’t stay in my lane very well.
So, um, so, but that was really valuable for me to kind of figure out where I wanted to go next and what I wanted to do simultaneously, as I felt like my professional life was kind of not falling apart, but it just wasn’t quite what I had planned. Um, I had a marriage that failed that I didn’t see coming. We had been married almost 18 years.
And, um, so here I found myself with this professional career that was, I, I say the puzzle pieces were thrown out on the table, my personal life, all the puzzle pieces were thrown out on the table, but it was a really great opportunity for me to start putting those puzzle pieces back. And they were going back into place just in different places. And, um, that was almost five years ago now.
Um, but so really, I, I chose to take this leap, um, at a time that was probably the most stressful and uncertain time of my life. Um, but I did it for one, one reason. And I keep going back to, you know, my, why is my boys, they are now 18 and 13.
Um, and I wanted to be able to show them that when things get hard, like we don’t walk away from it, we lean in and we figure out how to push past it. And I wanted them to be able to have an opportunity to see firsthand, like how, what perseverance looks like. And, um, and so they’ve been part of this journey with me.
So we, we shipped our first order in April of last year. So it’s been a little over a year. Um, we are now, um, in, you mentioned target, we launched in 200, about 200 target locations this summer.
Um, we have two seasonal products that will be in all target locations in November and December. So all 1900 targets, which is super exciting. Um, we’ve launched in the Southeast and Lowe’s foods and the fresh market and earth fair, um, online we’re on thrive market and Amazon and sold through our website.
Um, we also have a rotation coming at Costco in the Midwest. And so we have just some fabulous momentum, um, but we’re really just getting started. So, so things are looking really great.
We’re working hard to be able to get our product in front of more customers, um, and make it easier to find and to shop. Um, but it is, it is a grind. We were talking about that.
It is the, the days are long. The work is hard. Um, but we, we have some great momentum.
We’ve got some great feedback from early adopters, early customers of, of my better batch. Um, and we’re excited to be able to continue to grow. Yeah.
It’s so exciting. I mean, it’s just, I think on a personal level having known you for so long, right. I was just joking because, uh, Savelia had a gentleman come over from river dance.
They fly over once a year do all of their work before her competition and stuff, you know, in this fall. And he was born in 1999. And I’m like, I graduated from high school.
But I mean, I think to your point, like perseverance in, as a female founder, as a mom of two, as a full-time working professional, right. Who is trying to now navigate a life change. Right.
And I think you mentioned something that a lot of our listeners, you know, postpartum especially, I think change a lot and predominantly our listeners are postpartum the kids podcast. Yeah. But I mean, I think I’ve often found myself like, am I doing life’s work? Is this what I want to do? Do I go, go to sleep every night feeling joy and showing my kids that I can do it all today for whatever that looks like today.
And I’m going to do my best to give it my all tomorrow. And some days are going to be harder than others, you know? And I think when as parents, you’re navigating the busyness of being a parent, being a working parent, right. Being a single parent of two kids, right.
That are busy. They’re in sports. They’re in activities.
You’re trying to do all the things and work and balance it all. It is an adjustment, you know? So I just want people to know, like one of the things you said was like the puzzle looked different when we put it back together. You know, I think it resonates with me just on the personal level for the folks that are listening and watching this, like your journey is going to look different.
Your journey is going to look different. Your development of your career and self is going to look different and different can be better. Right.
Yeah. And I think people are so scared sometimes of that, like the void that can happen, you know, in these career transitions and life transitions where it’s like, you know what, kind of trusting your process. And I think keeping the pieces together, like don’t blow the puzzle up and burn it, but it’s like, okay, let’s, the puzzle is going to look different.
And, and I think to your point showing the kids the perseverance, I’m sure they’re actively involved in the packaging and the labeling and design and the taste testing and the, Hey, mom’s traveling. I got to get on a flight and we’re going to do this. And you’re going to do that.
Like there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that, you know, the kids don’t see. And, and I think there’s beauty in being able to say like we built this. Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s not, and I, we talked about this earlier too.
Like everything on the outside looks like rainbows and unicorns, right? We don’t show on social media, the, we don’t show the, the bad, um, we show the good, we show the smiles, we show the laughter and everything, but not every day is like that. And I think, you know, I’ve never had a forum to be able to share this before, but you know, the hardest, there were two points in my career that were the absolute hardest for me to be able to push through. And that was when I went back to work after being on maternity leave.
So postpartum, like when I, because you are different, right. Those kids make things have changed. Things have changed for you.
Your, um, your priorities change, the things that matter changes. And, um, those were like, those were two defining moments in my career. Um, and I think oftentimes like when you’re in them, it doesn’t, as those things are being put into different places, it doesn’t always seem clear as to the why, or even that they’re going into the right places, right.
Or you’re doing the right thing. But I think looking back, I think those of us who have had those experiences can say that like it did, it worked out, it was different, but it worked out and it’s okay. We’re better for it.
Um, but yeah, it’s, it, it is, it is hard. Um, and even though we’re not showing all of the hard on the outside, like it is, it is there. So, um, yeah, I think, I think being real is really transparent is really important too.
Yeah. Well, that’s good. I mean, I think it’s just like the people that are listening to this might be sitting in their kid’s nursery right now with the baby sleeping on their shoulder going, well, this is just not ideal.
Right. I mean, it’s hilarious, you know? Um, but I, I mean, it’s real like, you know, and I think the cookies specifically, right. To bring it back to my better batch, taking one thing that might’ve been overwhelming to you to think about having to make a treat or having friends over where you can serve something you feel good about and do it in a way that’s easy.
Like you literally crack an egg, put the stick of butter in, whip them up and put them in the oven. And it was like, Oh, check. Right.
I did something today. Right. That makes you feel good.
You know? So I think to bring it back, like simplicity in some things we can’t control. Right. And of the things we can control, I always tell families, I’m like, look at what you control and look at what you can say, kind of do delegate, delete, decide is what I tell parents.
And I’m like, some stuff you’re just going to have to delete. Like, but in the space of this, like it might be really important that somebody does get to bond with their child. Maybe it’s after daycare and they want to just be fun, but they also don’t have time to like, you know, make their whole kitchen full of flour, which is what happens with me and all the stuff I have to pull down.
This is a simple way to do that. And it’s a bonding activity that can only take 15 minutes, but it’s like a fun memory of like that activity that you did together. So, I mean, I just think what you’re doing is so cool and I’m so excited to watch My Better Batch grow and you can find them all over the place.
Like you said, you know, you can get it on your website, on your social media handles, at Target, coming to Costco. We’ve got a store locator on our website to make it easy. So you can just search your zip code.
And yeah, lots of new retail partners coming on board early next year. So yeah, we’re trying to make it easier to find. That’s good.
Well, I appreciate you coming on. I hope you go out and get My Better Batch. Like I only have three boxes left because we already made the chocolate ones, but we have chocolate chunk, the confetti, classic sugar, and then you have the double chocolate.
Which just happened to be my favorite. So the fact that you started with them, that you started with a good one. Yeah.
I was going to say, my kids were like, we’re going to do this one first. So that a lot of my daughter helped me, but my son is very anxious to make the chocolate. Okay, good.
And maybe I’ll give one to my neighbor next door who makes the cookies and ask what his secret ingredient is. There you go. A little intel for you, but your cookies are fabulous without the intel.
So thank you for coming on to the kids video podcast. I’m just excited to share. I think female founded brands in a space where there’s quality in them as well as the love and effort that you put into this business every day is really cool.
So I’m excited to share with our audience and I hope people go out and next time they pass them in target or check out mybetterbatch.com. They’re going to have the ability to get some delicious cookies. And can you give us a sneak peek on the flavors for the holiday or are they still? I can, I should have been a little bit better prepared. So the first one is holiday cheer.
So it is our our chocolate chunk. We took out a little bit of the chocolate chunks, but added in red and green sprinkles. So that’s a fun one.
And then my personal favorite is chocolate peppermint. So this one is you know, mint is an interesting flavor in baked goods and if it’s done well, like it is so good. Sometimes it can be really overpowering.
This is like the perfect combination of rich chocolate and in the right amount of peppermint. So it’s exciting. I know my husband’s like, can you make snickerdoodles out of the sugar cookies? I’m like, you can probably just roll them in the cinnamon and sugar.
That’s exactly right. And if you turn the, um, the sugar cookie box over, um, there’s a recipe right there. Look at, look at that.
Tell them I’m, I’m speaking to him. That’s it. He’s like a, I call him schnooky bear, but he, he likes schnooky doodles.
So, okay. All right. So, um, so this is exciting.
Well, I wish you the absolute success. We’re going to put all the links for everything out in the show notes, in the description, wherever you’re watching or listening to this. And we’ll make sure you can find Lindsay because not only is she a dear friend, but she’s just a rock star.
So I’m super excited to watch the success of my bitter batch and all the good stuff you guys have coming down the line. Well, thank you so much. It was great to chat with you
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