As a 6-year-old marches off to first grade, her parents marvel at the transformation from helpless newborn to the girl with the confident toss of her head and cheery wave goodbye at the bus stop – all in a half-dozen short years.
The growth of Woodstock’s Mommy Knows Best, a lactation industry business, has been equally phenomenal since 2014. In October, the company will commence its first production run at its own local manufacturing facility at 935C Dieckman St., just west of Route 47 and south of Route 14.
When owner and chief executive officer Tim Tierney says that his company “views every problem as an opportunity,” he could be talking about the genesis of Mommy Knows Best.
Tierney already owned TNT Pro Series, a line of workout products and equipment, and Vie Naturelle, a line of natural products for treating acne and stimulating hair growth, when wife Jennifer faced challenges in breastfeeding their newborn. Tierney saw that women were buying herbal supplements to increase lactation, but there was no one place where information and products were available.
Tierney launched Mommy Knows Best with a supplement containing blessed thistle, goat’s rue, and fenugreek – natural ingredients to increase lactation – and then moved on to putting those ingredients into cookie and brownie mixes and ready-made cookies.
Tierney also noted “a huge gap in the market” in maternity skincare products to cater to mothers’ changes in skin during pregnancy and postpartum. Mommy Knows Best first formulated Organic Nipple Cream, a product that gained national exposure when Khloe Kardashian identified the cream as one of the favorite items on her baby registry.
Since then, the company has expanded the product line with stretch mark cream and oil; cellulite cream; and a brightening cream for the dark splotches that occur on the face during pregnancy.
Adding manufacturing
Mommy Knows Best has relied on manufacturers in Texas, Iowa, and Chicago to turn out its products, but Tierney expressed the desire to have a manufacturing facility in Woodstock in a March 2019 interview with The Woodstock Independent.
Completing the deal on the Dieckman Street space allows the company “full control over the supply chain,” Tierney said.
At first, the facility will turn out 3,000 units a day of the maternity and Vie Naturelle skin care lines, along with TNT workout creams and gels. Over the course of a month, five machines will produce nearly 100,000 products.
A formulator and machine operator are the first two employees, and Tierney expects adding one or two more.
The new manufacturing facility is named Shay Labs, a tip of the cap to chief operating officer Shahnawaz Sheikh, who goes by the nickname “Shay.”
“If it weren’t for him,” Tierney said, “we wouldn’t be getting into manufacturing.”
Rapid growth
From its beginning as a one-person operation, Mommy Knows Best now relies on a team of 15 people.
The company’s revenue has grown 760 percent over the past three years, with 10,000 products shipped each week to online customers alone.
Recently, Tierney and his team have focused on expanding the business’s retail presence. Mommy Knows Best products are in all Meijer stores in the U.S. Through Sheikh’s efforts, Walmart stores in Canada carry the Mommy Knows Best line. Soon, Tierney said, the company’s products will be in Walmart and Target stores in the U. S.
Besides the manufacturing facility, the company owns two warehouse spaces, comprising a total of 4,000 square feet, on Eastwood Drive for its products. Last December, Tierney moved his office staff from West Judd Street to a larger suite at 665 W. Jackson St.
Bump during COVID
As the pandemic took hold, Mommy Knows Best’s sales fell 80 percent in March, but Tierney said the company had rebounded to near its previous peak.
Part of the rebound is in a private online community of new moms that Christa Knight, the company’s brand marketing manager, oversees.
Each week, Knight hosts “Mom Talks with Christa” on topics such as natural childbirth, breastfeeding tips, and managing new-mom anxiety during COVID.
“Especially in a time like this,” Tierney said, “Mom needs a company like this.”
The Facebook community of new moms numbers 7,000 and has been increasing by 1,000 members a week during the past month, Tierney said.
Tierney is contagiously optimistic about how far his business has come and where it’s going.
Noting that his employees participate in profit sharing, Tierney said that what most excited him was “the idea of creating a new business and a new source of income for the team.”
“We have a special thing,” Tierney said, “the right time, the right place, and the right people.”
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'Mom needs a company like this' - Woodstock Independent
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