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Our Company
Our administrative offices and our production facility are now located in Gridley, California-in northern California's agricultural valley. We are housed in a beautiful 54,000 square foot building that is dedicated gluten-free, certified organic and kosher. Mary's Gone Crackers has assembled a terrific team of people committed to getting our fabulous crackers onto store shelves and into your kitchens!
Please contact us with your comments or suggestions.
Mary Waldner
Chairman & Founder
As founder of Mary’s Gone Crackers, Mary Waldner leads both product development and brand strategy for the company. Mary is responsible for the development of all of the company’s products, and has been a Director since the company was incorporated in 2004. .
Inspired by her own struggles with Celiac Disease, Waldner created Mary’s Gone Crackers after finding a shortage of nutritious, gluten-free options that tasted good. Her handcrafted recipe became a hit not only with Celiac sufferers, but with consumers eager for delicious snacks they could feel good about eating. Mary’s Gone Crackers Original was awarded the Sofi Gold for the most outstanding cracker at the New York Fancy Food Show in 2008.
Waldner is a member of the Organic Trade Association and the Celiac Sprue Association.
Prior to co-founding Mary’s Gone Crackers, Waldner practiced as a psychotherapist for 26 years; she holds a master’s degree in clinical psychology and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Mary Waldner is married to Dale Rodrigues with whom she created Mary’s Gone Crackers. She resides in Paradise, CA.
Dale Rodrigues
CEO, President, & Founder
As co-founder of Mary’s Gone Crackers, Dale Rodrigues is the CEO and President. Dale is responsible for building the MGC team and leading the company in its accelerated growth while concurrently establishing Mary’s as one of the premier emerging brands in the natural foods industry and the category leader. Dale has been a Director of Mary’s since the company was incorporated in 2004.
Mr. Rodrigues has been an entrepreneur most of his working life, starting with his father’s modest redwood fence company; where he learned all of his carpentry skills and grew the business four-fold in three years, moving on to form his own custom redwood deck company when his father retired. Using the skills he developed while marketing his own business, Mr. Rodrigues created a data base marketing company which provided building permit data to suppliers and sub-contractors in the construction industry. He sold the business in 1996. As a licensed general contractor, he worked as a project manager for other high-end residential contractors, successfully managing their most complicated projects.
In 2003 Mr. Rodrigues left the construction industry to devote his full time efforts and talents to the successful funding and launch of the Mary’s Gone Crackers brand.
Mr. Rodrigues received his AA degree from Chabot Community College and attended University of California at Berkeley and worked towards a degree in Creative Writing.
Mr. Rodrigues is married to Mary Waldner, with whom he created Mary’s Gone Crackers. He resides in Paradise, CA.
Mary's Story
In 1994, I discovered that my lifelong battle with digestive pain and fatigue had been caused by an inability to digest gluten--a protein found in wheat, barley, rye and most oats. Once I eliminated those grains from my diet, the symptoms I had struggled with disappeared. (My son was found to have the same intolerance). As excited as I was to have found the source of my pain, I was also faced with the difficulty of finding things to eat in a culture that bases much of its food on the grains I couldn't eat. Having been a creative baker my whole life, I started experimenting in my kitchen. I knew I could live without bread, but the thought of not having my brownies was intolerable. I played with the alternative flours--rice, corn, garbanzo bean, tapioca, potato starch and potato flour, and others--until I was able to reproduce my brownies to my satisfaction. Pancakes, waffles, muffins, cookies and other essentials soon followed. I got better and better at blending the different flours into something that resembled the texture and consistency of wheat flour and produced different, but delicious results.
Going out in the world was a different matter. While my friends sat in restaurants filling up with warm sour dough bread slathered with sweet butter, I sat hungry. When I went to parties with tables full of cheeses and dips, there wasn't a cracker or bread stick that I could eat. I got an idea for a base for baked goods using brown rice. I played with it in my head for months and then started working with it in my kitchen. I tried it in a variety of forms before I hit on the cracker. That took many tries as well before I eventually developed the recipe for my unique rice cracker--brown rice, quinoa, flax seeds, sesame seeds, salt and wheat free tamari. I made them in small batches for myself, took them in little bags when I went to restaurants and parties, and felt less deprived. Then I watched as others started eating them. Everyone, from finicky teens to young children, to adults with a range of palates, loved them. I had to make more, so that when I went out, there was enough for everyone, not just me.
Soon I was making ovens full, buying sealable bags and giving them away. I took them with me everywhere and never brought any back home. They tasted great and stayed fresh for a long time. And there was nothing like them on the market. In 2000, I decided that these crackers needed to be mass produced. I think it was after I had taken a big batch with me on a trip to the Caribbean. My friend told me not to bother because everything gets stale and soggy in the warm, humid tropical air. I brought them anyway, hoping that they would withstand the environment and they did! One night while I was there we invited a few people from my friend's new neighborhood to have hors d'oeuvres and wine and I put out my crackers. Once again I watched as a room full of adults (from all over the world) tasted my crackers for the first time. A quizzical look would cross their faces as they took their first bite, and then they would look at the cracker and say, "wow, these crackers are delicious, where did you get them?."
We now have nationwide distribution and are reaching new fans every day. (We are also distributed in Canada under the name "Mary's Organic Crackers.") I am VERY happy not to be making them in my kitchen anymore! I'm looking forward to bringing you my other delicious, organic, gluten-free baked goods also developed in my home kitchen.
Contact Us
Mary's Gone Crackers
P.O. Box 965
Gridley, CA 95948
Toll free: 888-258-1250
Phone 530-846-5100
Fax 530-846-5500
Copyright © 2009 Mary's Gone Crackers, Inc. All rights Reserved. MARY'S GONE CRACKERS, CONSCIOUS EATING, STICKS & TWIGS, PEACE, LOVE & CRUNCH are registered trademarks of Mary's Gone Crackers, Inc. in the United States, other countries or both. The marquee trade dress is a trademark of Mary's Gone Crackers, Inc.