Minnesota-based Seven Sundays is entering the pancake-mix set this month with Oatcakes, a just-add-water format that blends oat-based nutrition with the familiar format of a weekend pancake. The launch extends the brand's footprint beyond cereal, granola, muesli, and Protein Oats — its core bowl-format lineup — into a higher-frequency prep occasion that competes directly on the baking-mix aisle.
Oatcakes debut at Target, Sprouts, and Fresh Thyme, as well as direct-to-consumer on SevenSundays.com, at a $7.49 suggested retail price. Three SKUs hit shelves at launch: Original, Double Chocolate, and a limited-time Pumpkin Spice. The multi-channel strategy — spanning mass, natural/specialty, and regional grocery simultaneously — signals a coordinated retail push rather than a staged channel rollout, and keeps the brand consistent with the broad ACV it has already built across Costco, Walmart, Kroger, Sprouts, and Whole Foods.
The Category Opportunity
The pancake-and-waffle-mix segment has seen renewed activity as better-for-you brands target the growing overlap between functional nutrition and comfort food. Oatcakes positions directly at that intersection: 10 grams of protein per serving, more than 20% of daily recommended fiber value, no refined sugar, no glyphosate, no artificial flavors, and a gluten-free formulation. The just-add-water convenience mechanic reduces friction versus traditional mixes that require eggs and oil, a meaningful velocity driver in a category where ease-of-prep correlates closely with repeat purchase. For category managers evaluating planogram placement, the SKU competes both with legacy national-brand mixes and with an emerging cohort of high-protein, clean-label alternatives that have been gaining TDPs in the natural and mass channels over the past 18 months.
Expanding the Brand's Format Range
The format extension is strategically deliberate. Seven Sundays has built its identity around breakfast staples reimagined with upcycled and traceable ingredients — the brand reports diverting more than 350 tons of food waste since 2020 through upcycled ingredient sourcing. Moving into pancake mix preserves that brand equity while capturing a new consumption occasion: the quick weekday breakfast that still carries weekend-comfort associations. "Oatcakes were our way of bringing a little bit of Sunday into the everyday," said Hannah Barnstable, Founder and CEO of Seven Sundays. "We want to give families the comfort and taste of pancakes with the nourishment of oats, making it easier to enjoy a breakfast that feels special, even on the busiest mornings."
For retailers, the $7.49 price point positions Oatcakes at a premium relative to conventional pancake mixes but inline with the functional-breakfast segment's established price architecture — a tier that has demonstrated resilience in syndicated scan data even as center-store volumes remain under pressure from private-label competition. The limited-time Pumpkin Spice SKU also creates a seasonal urgency mechanism that can support end-cap and in-store display programs through the fall promotional calendar, a tactic increasingly common among emerging brands looking to generate trial without heavy TPR spending.
With an existing national-brand footprint that already includes club-channel placement at Costco, Seven Sundays has demonstrated the supply-chain scale to support a coordinated multi-door launch. The Oatcakes introduction will test whether the brand's loyal cereal and granola buyers translate into a broader breakfast-category franchise — and whether the pancake-mix set is ready to accommodate a new functional challenger.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
