She Always Made Granola, Then Her Husband Became Ill: Chatham Granola Born As A Result

Dee Mozdean has always made granola. She comes from a long line of Italian cooks, a family tree wherein everything is scratch-made.

Mozdean, 58, had spent 16 years as a sales executive in New York when her company was bought out around 2014. She had to determine what she wanted to do next with her life.

That inflection point eventually led to the creation, 10 years later, of Chatham Granola.

“I think when they say ‘When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,’ in my case, when life gave us lemons, I made granola,” Mozdean said.

Mozdean and her husband, Bob, bought their first summer home in Chatham in 2009. They fell in love with the community and everything the coastal town had to offer. Their lives have since revolved around Chatham.

Upon deciding to leave her career in sales and marketing, Mozdean enrolled in pastry school. At the Institute of Culinary Education, she learned the science and chemistry behind baking, graduating with a pastry arts degree in 2015. After, Mozdean made baked goods and started doing some catering, parties and farmers markets.

Then Bob was diagnosed with leukemia.

“That was just earth-shattering,” Mozdean said. “So, hospital, transplants, the whole nine yards. So the next two years of our life dealing with that was really eye-opening, and it really mattered what we gave him to eat, as far as being healthy, fiber-rich, gluten-free, heart-healthy, everything. And honestly, he was sick a lot, so what he really craved was my granola.”

Importantly, Mozdean could control exactly what she put into the granola she made, and knowing not only what went into their food but how it affected everything became a priority for her and Bob. Her granola, as a result, is a grab bag of health-conscious attributes: anti-inflammatory oils, healthy fats, gluten-free, dairy-free and with superfoods like nuts and seeds.

Mozdean made a lot of granola, and Bob ate a lot of it. She brought granola to the hospitals and gave it to nurses, doctors and other patients. A friend finally told Mozdean she needed to sell it.

“And I said, ‘You know what? Maybe I will,’” Mozdean said.

Thus Chatham Granola launched in May 2025. For the past year, Mozdean has been a one-woman band. She sources her ingredients, makes and bakes the granola, packages it, labels every bag by hand and delivers the product. She does her own tastings and marketing.

Her core granola recipe has always stayed the same, but there’s still been lots of experimenting. Weights and measurements, as Mozdean knows from pastry school, are key to baking. And granola is all about the balance of salty and sweet.

“Even though it's granola, it's still chemistry getting it to be the right amount of sweetness without being too sugary,” Mozdean said.

In addition to an original version, Mozdean makes a vegan granola (with coconut nectar instead of honey) and a clustered, on-the-go snack offering. The granola is produced out of a commercial kitchen inside Mozdean’s home in Plymouth. Last year, she made the granola in the kitchen of her summer home in Chatham, which was limiting and unsustainable. She has increased capacity and a more controlled environment in Plymouth.

“It's been kind of a whirlwind, and I kind of look at my granola in the same way as like farm-to-table,” Mozdean said. “Mine is literally from the kitchen to your door.”

The branding, however, remains all Chatham. The granola comes in a hydrangea-blue bag on account of Mozdean’s love for the flowers. The label includes an image of Stage Harbor Lighthouse, a meaningful landmark for the Mozdeans as their first home in Chatham had a view of the building.

The granola is available for purchase at a select number of stores, farms and restaurants from Plymouth to the Cape and Nantucket.

“I'm kind of very selective as to where it goes,” Mozdean said. “I don't want to be everywhere. I just want to be in those places where quality really matters to people.”

Bob, by the way, is in remission and doing well, and still eating granola daily.

“People say to us, ‘Are you tired of granola?’ and I say, ‘No, We eat it every day,’” Mozdean said. “And we really do.”