East Boston resident Nick Raccuia is on a mission to develop high quality and great tasting snacks for Ketogenic and low-carb diets.
And he is well on his way to reaching that goal, having founded KetoBrownie, a Boston-based nutrition company.
A former certified public accountant who grew up in Saugus, Raccuia came up with the idea to introduce Ketobrownies as a new dessert treat in 2016 after doing extensive research on the benefits of ketogenic diets.
Raccuia, 30, is a 2008 graduate of Pope John XXIII High School in Everett. He attended Suffolk University and received a graduate degree in Accounting. He became a CPA and worked at a large public accounting firm and later at Fidelity.
“Then I quit accounting after four and a half years and started a brownie business – so it was quite a change,” said Raccuia.
He started making recipes inside his Orient Heights apartment in December, 2016. He put his first food product live on his KetoBrownie website six months later.
Raccuia became a customer himself and found his brownies to not only be a delicious treat, but an effective supplement to his ketogenic diet.
He dropped 30 pounds from his 5-foot-9-inch frame and now weighs 155 pounds. He also immediately noticed improvements in his mental clarity, an increase in energy levels, and a positive impact in his overall mood.
KetoBrownie is building a loyal customer base
Using social media such as Instagram to build an advertising platform, Raccuia’s new company generated $2,000 in sales in the first month.
“I’ve just kept at it the last four years and now we’ve reached $1.5 million in online sales,” said Raccuia proudly. “I got investors six months ago so they infused a lot more capital into the business and hopefully I’ll be scaling it up pretty heavily over the next few years.”
Raccuia company now produces multiple products. The most popular product is the ketobar which comes in three flavors, chocolate almond, cookie dough, and peanut butter chocolate chip. Customers are also trending toward the company’s brownie mixes.
Raccuia has set out to build upon the company’s success and he is constantly looking to improve the recipes.
“Since our launch of the original product, we’ve done four major reformulations and iterations,” said Raccuia.
KetoBrownie now has more than 20,000 customers. Raccuia said the ketogenic diet gained wider exposure when NBA superstar LeBron James began talking about its effectiveness as a weight-loss measure in his diet.
“I’ll have to send LeBron a KetoBrownie T-shirt,” he said.
Raccuia, who works out regularly at a Sal Bartolo’s boxing gym in Winthrop, continues to be his company’s best promoter as a physically fit young man who says he feels great.
“I’ve never felt better than doing keto,” said Raccuia. “Mentally, I have a lot more energy. I don’t feel sluggish. When I ate a lot of carbs, I felt sluggish, run-down, and tired. I often say it’s a lot like buying premium gas for your car – you’re just putting the highest possible fuel into your body. The main thing my customers tell me is that they generally feel really good.” Customers can purchase KetoBrownie products on the company website (ketobrownie.com) and on Amazon.com