How Four Entrepreneurs Stand Out in the Food & Beverage Crowd

So you want to start your own food or beverage company? Could you create the next Chobani, the next Poppi? Could you blaze your own trail to success, following your own plan for growth? Opportunities abound if you know where to look and how to capitalize.

Chobani was founded 20 years ago by Hamdi Ulukaya, and continues to grow and thrive in the categories in which it plays. Better-for-you soda brand Poppi came about and rose to prominence in the past decade, and it was acquired by PepsiCo earlier this year. Co-founder Stephen Ellsworth offered advice to burgeoning entrepreneurs during a Whole Foods Market “Beyond the Board” podcast this past June: “Fail fast … stay agile, adapt and pivot. The only constant in this world is change, and the more you’re able to embrace that, pivot and stay agile, the better you’re going to be.”

Regardless of where you end up, you have to start by taking a leap and filling a gap in the market, says Sam Gazdziak, communications manager at the American Assn. of Meat Processors (www.aamp.com), which represents small and mid-sized meat and poultry companies.

“There are real opportunities out there for small companies to find a niche and thrive in it,” he says. “It's not a difficult formula for a newcomer to the industry to copy, but they have to be realistic about the work involved; there are no overnight successes in our industry.”

The four entrepreneurial food & beverage companies featured on the following pages have stood out in the crowd. They disrupted traditional food categories by bucking longstanding ideas, creating products that consumers (both human and pet) clamored for and could get nowhere else. Take heed, and you too may fly far.