Royal Crest is now delivering Udi’s granola

On a day such as this, with some sort of sleet falling from the sky like God is throwing mini water balloons, walking outside is not in my best interest. As much as I love Udi’s line of granolas, trenching through slush to get some cereal just doesn’t seem worth it.

But if you’re lucky enough to be a customer of Royal Crest Dairy, which has been delivering a variety of mostly dairy products throughout the Denver area since 1927, you can now get Udi’s granola delivered to your door.

“A few years ago I realized how good of a combination it would be,” explained Eric Clayman, Udi’s self-described Granola Tycoon. “Royal Crest was really interested, but we had packaging issues and just kind of put it on the back burner.”

It moved to the front burner about five months ago, when Clayman was watching his family eating granola and drinking Royal Crest milk one morning, and realized that the fit was too good to ignore.

So he contacted Royal Crest again, and they pulled together an agreement for how Royal Crest would deliver the granola, which Udi’s sells for $5.95 a bag. “It launched this month,” Clayman told me. “In the first day, we sold 300 bags of granola. This means it’s a pretty major account, and a whole other channel for us. We are reaching out to other delivery services in Utah and Kansas City, and we don’t think any of our competition is going this route.”

Clayman said he’s also renewed contracts with Wal-Mart and T.J. Maxx. Udi’s granola is now in all fifty states, and sales have increased 50 percent from last year, he added.

The Granola Tycoon is proof positive that a business can flourish in a bad economy if you’re willing to get creative — something Clayman has never hesitated to do. The last time I spoke with him, it was regarding his strange exchange with Stephen Colbert. He told me he still hasn’t gotten a response from the comedian, but hasn’t given up trying.

Maybe Royal Crest can deliver his message.