The three co-founders of Three Farm Daughters get asked a lot if they’re really sisters. They are. And yes, running a business with siblings can get intense.
“As sisters, you just have a tighter relationship than you would just a general coworker,” said Mollie Ficocello, who founded the company with her sisters, Annie Gorder (the oldest) and Grace Lunski (the youngest). “It gives us a chance to have more grace with each other.”
The siblings grew up on their family farm in Grand Forks, immersed in the rhythms of planting and harvest. They played in the same office where their parents crunched numbers, rode tractors on Sundays and delivered meals to the farmers working in the field.
“When farming’s in your DNA, you want to go back to it,” Grace said. “It just has something that pulls at your heartstrings.”
After college and stints away from home, all three found their way back. They were working side-by-side in their parents’ office when their dad floated an idea: what if the daughters built a food brand using crops grown in their own fields?
That question became Three Farm Daughters—an artisanal, high fiber pasta brand made from North Dakota-grown durum wheat semolina and wheat flour.
“One aspect of our company that we’re extremely proud of is that we’re American grown, milled and made,” Annie said.
In a category often associated with Italy, they made a case for North Dakota, showing off the farm’s combines and the bins of durum wheat on social media. They started visiting local supermarkets, and were carried in 43 local retailers. But self-distributing—with husbands, cousins, and farm employees loading up vehicles—quickly revealed its limits.
“Driving 60 miles to drop off $43 worth of pasta just wasn’t a great business model,” said Annie. “We started to rethink how we could run things in a more economical way.”
That’s when they decided to open an Amazon storefront.
“It was a pretty slow start. We wanted to just dip our toes in the water and learn,” said Mollie. She credits Amazon seller support with getting them up to speed.
“We got connected with a seller support person who was really helpful, and gave us answers to questions we didn’t even know we had.”
As they grew more comfortable, they expanded their presence using Amazon A+ Content—which allows sellers to enhance product listings with immersive visuals and rich media—to bring their farm story to life with photos and videos from the fields.
“A+ Content allows us to say to customers, ‘Hey, this is actually where the grain comes from. This is what a farm looks like. This is what harvesting looks like,’” Annie said. “It’s really helped us build connections.”
Customer reviews revealed something else: people were noticing how they felt after eating it.
“We started getting emails from diabetics saying, ‘Hi girls, I can eat pasta again,’” Grace said.
The sisters hadn’t initially set out to create a low glycemic product. But the feedback prompted them to pursue low-GI verification. Combined with the pasta’s naturally high fiber content and resistant starch, it attracted a health-conscious audience actively searching for better-for-you pantry staples. By using Amazon ads to target wellness-minded customers, they were able to accelerate awareness and drive significant sales growth.
Amazon Subscribe and Save has also helped the founders create repeat customers who use the feature to auto-fulfill orders.
“As a mom of four, I love Subscribe & Save. From a business standpoint, it helps me forecast and understand our numbers and plan,” said Annie. It’s been a winning strategy. Since joining Amazon, Three Farms Daughters has grown its sales 500%
As the company has grown, so too has its footprint. Today, roughly 25 people work across the broader farm and business operations. Their success has also allowed the siblings to expand a decades-old tradition started by their dad: a fall food drive called Cans for Corn. The yearly event invites the community to donate canned goods in exchange for sweet corn grown on their farm. All donations go to the local Salvation Army.
But for the sisters, the real impact is building a direct line from soil to supper for their customers.
As Mollie noted: “If we can grow a product, make a product, and ship it directly to you, I don’t know how you get much more farm-to-table than that.”