How Des Moines baking star Eileen Gannon starts her day

After winning hundreds of baking contests, Eileen Gannon entered one of the most important competitions of her life at the Iowa State Fair in 2018: the chance to commercialize a food product.

The big picture: Gannon's chocolate peanut butter sauce won the top prize and a small batch was taken to market.

• It sparked the start of her post-retirement journey of founding Sunday Night Foods sauces, now sold in 3,000 stores, including retailers like Hy-Vee and Fareway.
• The premium chocolate sauce company CEO also recently starred in Netflix's new show, "Blue Ribbon Baking Championship."

Here's how Gannon starts her day:

⏰ Wake up: Between 5:30-6:30am with no alarm clock.

🍳 Breakfast: A decaf espresso and her own green juice recipe.

• "I'm pretty wound tight, so I don't need the caffeine," Gannon says. "The Type A takes care of it for me."

📚 What she's reading: NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, Des Moines Register, Axios and Bloomberg.

🍰 A tip for people who want to bake professionally: "Rely on cookbooks more than the internet."