Cereal taken to space has ties to Waterloo Region

A cereal that was eaten in space has a link to a Wilfrid Laurier University graduate. CTV’s Karis Mapp reports.

Business for a cereal company with ties to Waterloo Region is taking off thanks to the Artemis II mission.

Goldy’s cereal was one of the items on the menu for astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft during the nine-day lunar flyby.

The brand’s story began with the company getting an email from the Canadian Space Agency in the summer of 2024.

“At first, we thought it was a junk email. We thought it was somebody phishing to offer us consulting services at a high cost,” recalled Goldy’s co-founder Daniel Carson.

Further research proved the email was legitimate and the gravity of the space agency’s request settled in.

“They were looking for a Canadian brand, a product that had a super long shelf life, a product that was very light in weight – the mass, a product that is nutritionally dense, easy to prepare and a product that doesn’t crumble like a cookie would,” explained fellow co-founder Daniel Schreiber.

“We check all of those boxes inherently.”

Without changing anything about their cereal, the pair began sending products regularly to the space agency for testing.

The testing included nutritional value, how the cereal would fare under zero gravity, moisture amounts, among others.

“After all these tests were done, they were like, ‘OK, you pass. Congratulations, you did a great job.’ The last part they had to do was give it to the astronauts to taste,” said Carson.

With a Canadian company, it only made sense that Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen got the final say.

“He chose our strawberry lavender superset cereal flavour, and it was approved for launch. So, we had to get the right amount of product down in time to Cape Canaveral for this launch and we stocked the ship,” Carson said.

“I think we were told that it cost 10,000 USD/kg to get anything into space,” Schreiber added.

The space agency generously flew the pair down to Florida to watch the launch in person – a surreal experience they won’t soon forget.

“We were sitting there scared and excited and then boom, the countdown happened and we just watched it go off into the sky,” Carson said.

“We were in this VIP area but there was still a couple thousand people there and everyone was just silent, just staring up to the sky like it was some sort of movie.”

It wasn’t until the duo returned home that they understood the weight of what they were part of.

Inspiring the next generation

Schreiber attended Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. in the early 2000s. Starting in economics and eventually transferring to general philosophy, he said the school still holds a place in his heart.

“I met my wife at Laurier. She was a Golden Hawk cheerleader. We met in her second year and we’ve been together ever since, so like 20 something years,” he said.

The partners have since returned to Waterloo on multiple occasions to give back to aspiring business students.

“They used us as a case study. So, it was really exciting to be there and share that experience with Schreiber,” said Carson.

Goldy’s story

Carson and Schreiber have been best friends for over 30 years. Carson had experience in marketing, while his partner had more experience in finance and manufacturing.

Goldy’s name came from the fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

“[Carson] always had this idea in the back of his mind of how perfect a brand called ‘Goldy’s’ would be for something like porridge or a breakfast brand, because it’s just a natural fit,” Schreiber said.

Both men each had three young children at the time and were experiencing the challenges of chaotic mornings.

“You need to feed your kids something. You want something that’s healthy, something delicious, something that you probably want to eat too so you’re not making two breakfasts,” Schreiber said.

Since then, it has only grown and is now featured on shelves across the country in stores such as Sobey’s, Metro and Longo’s.

At the beginning of August, the brand will also be featured in Walmart.

“We started off with one product, one idea, one concept and since launch, we’re now up to 11 SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit) with more in the pipeline,” Carson said.

“I feel like we’re very fortunate that a lot of things lined up for us that we didn’t necessarily think would link up for ourselves. It just happened in the right way,” concluded Schreiber.