Encore from April of 2021 : Renee Dunn is the Founder and CEO of Amazi Foods, a mindful food company that makes unique and very tasty fruit snacks. While attending Wesleyan University, Renee had the opportunity to study in Uganda. She was struck by the local entrepreneurial sector and their delicious tropical fruits, so she opted to later return and conduct her thesis research on the state of entrepreneurship in Kampala.

After graduating, Renee interned at The Aspen Institute where she focused on entrepreneurial ecosystem analysis. Combining her passion for healthy food with her development experience and her entrepreneurial spirit, she founded Amazi Foods in 2016 to reduce food waste, create job opportunities, and encourage business development.

Renee Dunn's academic background and how she got started in entrepreneurship

What Renee learned about the fruits business in Uganda and why she chose to work with plantain, jackfruit, and papaya 

What Renee did to provide a solution to Uganda's local fruit farmers and how her company's supply chain works 

How Renee started distributing her products to Sprouts and how she identified her customer persona 

How Amazi Foods has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic

Renee talks about growing the e-commerce side of her business and how that has impacted the business

Renee's future plans for Amazi Foods and the benefits of partnering with local farmers when building a food brand

The biggest challenges Renee had to face growing her business

While in college, a visit to Kampala, Uganda introduced Renee Dunn to some exotic African fruits. She loved the country's jackfruit, plantains, and other fruits that are not easy to find in the US. She also discovered that despite a buzzing entrepreneurial spirit in the city, most of these fruits were sold in few outlets and limited to a few customers.

To help solve this problem for the Ugandan farmers and help bring these exotic fruits to the US, Renee decided to start a fruit snacks company. She had the fruits sourced and processed in Uganda, and then had them shipped and distributed to US stores. Although she faced a myriad of challenges, her persistence bore fruit and now her products are found in many Sprouts stores.

Renee Dunn, the Founder and CEO of Amazi Foods, is Steve Cleere's guest in this episode of the NexxtLevel Podcast, where she talks about her journey building a snacks business out of exotic African fruits. Renee explains how her company makes the snacks, how she handles the logistics of transporting them from Uganda to the US, and how she has been expanding her market through online and retail stores.

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Amazi Foods

Amazi Foods in Sprouts

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Misfits Market

Imperfect Foods

“Saving A Natural Wonder - Our Gorongosa on the NexxtLevel Podcast!”

Our podcast today is sponsored by Kitchen2Shelf, the educational arm of NexxtLevel Brands. Kitchen-2-Shelf provides online and in-person courses and workshops for CPG entrepreneurs at any stage of growth. 

Whether you're an early-stage startup, a local growing business, or if you want to just expand your distribution to a national level, Kitchen-2-Shelf can help you learn what you need to know to grow.

Visit their website to get access to some free tools that can help you understand where your business stands. 

Contact them today to find out how they can help you grow your brand and expand your business to reach its full potential.

In our previous episode, we talked about having a great idea for a food product and how to consult the Food Innovation Center about creating it, but Greg Vetter of Tessemae's simply brought in a tub of lettuce with his secret dressing on it and walked out of a Whole Foods buyer meeting with an order. After selling 600+ bottles in five days simply doing in-store demos, Tessemae’s dressing became an instant phenomenon at Whole Foods and soon expanded exponentially through the state, the region, and eventually the whole country.

From its fascinating beginning in an Annapolis MD Whole Foods store, where Greg Vetter and his family made dressing at night and drove it to Whole Foods stores on Fridays, doing demos every weekend, to getting the call from Walmart asking if they could develop a shelf-stable version for them, Tessemae’s trajectory was almost inconceivable.

The origin of this great dressing came from Greg’s mom Tesse - who had to figure out a way to get her kids to eat their veggies while staying healthy. Because serving a dressing full of artificial ingredients was not an option, she created and perfected her own all-natural recipe. When her oldest son, Greg, realized how great it was, he said, “Mom, let’s go into business together and make this for the world!” As Tessemae's All Natural grows its product line around the globe, the commitment to healthy eating and healthy living remains the core of the company's mission.

Join us as Greg tells me about his initial “ignorance” of the food production industry, their growth and learnings from 2009 through today, and how they plan to keep innovating flavors and products under the Tessemae's brand.

The “NexxtLevel Brands Podcast’ is hosted by G. Steven Cleere, Founder and “Chief Pot Stirrer” of NexxtLevel Brands. This show focuses on disruptors and thought-leaders from the Entrepreneurial Food, Beverage, and CPG Industry, but we also share tips from veterans and key suppliers that may help fellow CPG professionals achieve their goals.

Discussion Points

Resources:

Greg Vetter LinkedIn

Tessemae's’s Website

Tessemae's Instagram

The Obstacle is The Way Book

NexxtLevel Brands Website

Steven Cleere LinkedIn

Do you have a prize-winning recipe that you think could make a great product to sell at retail? The Food Innovation Center is ready to help you convert your grandma’s secret sauce recipe into a retail-ready, safe, scalable product that’s ready for the grocery store shelf.

My guest today has been called the million-dollar palate because she is leading that team that is able to transform your next big idea into a retail product.  Sarah Masoni, Product and Process Director at the F.I.C. in Portland, OR, has an infectious laugh and self-effacing humor that makes her a very entertaining guest.  Sarah works with food entrepreneurs and small to mid-sized food companies to help them create foods and beverages focusing on specialty foods. She has over 30 years of experience working in the food industry including quality control and assurance, research and development, product scale-up, ingredient sourcing, ideation, and product evaluation. She is a fellow podcaster, and teaches entrepreneurial classes at The Food Innovation Center (FIC) Agricultural Experiment Station is located in Portland, OR. 

The FIC is a resource for client-based product and process development, packaging engineering and shelf-life studies, food safety, and consumer sensory testing. Research work is conducted to develop innovative processing, packaging, and traceability technologies, and to address food safety challenges. The FIC also engages in scholarly research in agricultural economics and marketing. The Agricultural Development and Marketing division of the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) is located at the FIC, providing local, national, and international marketing access and development. Clients include producers, processors, marketers, and entrepreneurs.  The FIC is committed to taking food products to market and advancing Northwest foods.

In today’s episode, I speak with Sarah about her family background that led to her career, her success stories, and how the FIC is organized and functions to assist food entrepreneurs to get their dreams onto retail shelves.

The “NexxtLevel Brands Podcast" is hosted by G. Steven Cleere, Founder and “Chief Pot Stirrer” of NexxtLevel Brands. This show focuses on disruptors and thought-leaders from the Entrepreneurial Food, Beverage, and CPG Industry, but we also share tips from veterans and key suppliers that may help fellow CPG professionals achieve their goals.

Discussion Points

Resources:

Sarah Masoni LinkedIn

Food Innovation Center at OSU

Email Sarah

Meaningful Marketplace Podcast at Startup Radio Network

NexxtLevel Brands Website

Steven Cleere LinkedIn

This show originally aired in April of 2021. It was a great interview worthy of another listen. 

Howard Kaufman is the Co-Founder and CEO at ORL, an emerging organic and natural oral care brand. ORL toothpastes, mouthwashes, and breath sprays are formulated to achieve a perfect 7.0 pH balance, which allows your mouth to naturally remineralize, clean, and refresh with organic and natural ingredients. 

Howard has over 30 years of multi-channel business development experience driving growth and profitability from Fortune 100 companies to growing small startup entities. Before founding ORL, he was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Lehi Valley Trading Company, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Prime-Line Products, and Vice President of e-Commerce/Direct Business at PetSmart.

What Howard Kaufman learned about ingredients used to make most oral care products

How Howard and his co-founders founded ORL, why they use recyclable glass, and how the idea for using CBD came about

ORL’s sales and marketing strategy

How Howard decided on what stores to sell in

The ingredients and formulations that lead to ORL’s consistency

Howard talks about how people's increased awareness of health have shifted the shopping habits around his products

Items on ORL's future product lines

Howard's biggest challenges when building his company and how he overcame them

Unknown to most people, many of the regular oral care products sold in the market contain harmful ingredients and chemicals that can negatively affect your health. This is a discovery Howard Kaufman made after reading the label on a product made for children.

In a bid to find a healthier solution for himself and his family, Howard set out on a journey to research the types of ingredients used to make the most popular toothpastes and mouthwashes. His fears were confirmed—so he decided to start an oral care company and provide organic solutions to health-conscious consumers.

In this episode of the NexxtLevel Brands Podcast, Steve Cleere talks to Howard Kaufman, Co-Founder and CEO at ORL, about his journey on researching harmful ingredients in regular toothpastes and how he built ORL to provide people with organic oral care products. Howard also talks about the ingredients used in his products, the marketing side of ORL, and how he overcame big challenges to grow the brand.

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ORL

ORL CBD

ORL on Amazon

Howard Kaufman on LinkedIn

PubChem

Brian Hinterlong on LinkedIn

Our podcast today is sponsored by Kitchen2Shelf, the educational arm of NexxtLevel Brands. Kitchen-2-Shelf provides online and in-person courses and workshops for CPG entrepreneurs at any stage of growth. 

Whether you're an early-stage startup, a local growing business, or if you want to just expand your distribution to a national level, Kitchen-2-Shelf can help you learn what you need to know to grow.

Visit their website to get access to some free tools that can help you understand where your business stands. 

Contact them today to find out how they can help you grow your brand and expand your business to reach its full potential.

My guests today are Ani Collum and Doug Siegel, the co-founders of Zolt, a company that offers “plant-powered super drink” powders with amazing functional ingredients like reishi mushrooms, ashwagandha root, green and black tea, guarana, and many more.  Each formulation of adaptogens, antioxidants, and terpene botanicals is tailored to key areas of human function like sleep, immunity, energy, balance, and overall cognitive performance. Plants survive and thrive by releasing endogenous biochemicals that help them flourish under various circumstances (some of them really extreme) and many of those plant botanicals can help humans perform at their best, too. 

We’ll hear from Doug and Ani about their partnership, how the product line was started with a personal story of Doug’s, and some of the challenges along the way in their journey to success.  

The “NexxtLevel Brands Podcast’ is hosted by G. Steven Cleere, Founder and “Chief Pot Stirrer” of NexxtLevel Brands. This show focuses on disruptors and thought-leaders from the Entrepreneurial Food, Beverage, and CPG Industry, but we also share tips from veterans and key suppliers that may help fellow CPG professionals achieve their goals.

Discussion Points

Resources:

Zolt Website

Zolt Instagram

Ani Collum LinkedIn

Doug Siegel LinkedIn

NexxtLevel Brands Website

Steven Cleere LinkedIn

99% of people agree that food waste is a problem.  The pandemic has accelerated many trends around the world, and reducing food waste is now at the forefront of the movement to reduce greenhouse gases and global warming.  Thousands of major CPG brands and companies worldwide have “sustainability” goals that need to be met.  One way they can meet these goals and increase profits is by using upcycled food ingredients.

Join me for an eye-opening and extremely inspiring talk with Turner Wyatt, CEO of the Upcycled Food Association.  So far, they have ‘certified’ 200 products (just within the last nine months) that in aggregate have saved 800 MILLION POUNDS of food from going to waste.  Imagine what those numbers will look like once they get through the next 200 products that are on deck to be certified and officially put back into the food chain in other CPG products.

The NexxtLevel Brands Podcast is hosted by G. Steven Cleere, Founder and “Chief Pot Stirrer” of NexxtLevel Brands. This show focuses on disruptors and thought-leaders from the Entrepreneurial Food, Beverage, and CPG Industry, but we also share tips from veterans and key suppliers that may help fellow CPG professionals achieve their goals.

Discussion Points

Resources:

UpCycledFood.org

Turner Wyatt LinkedIn

NexxtLevel Brands Website

Steven Cleere LinkedIn

Whether you are a decades-old brand or a start-up, there are do’s and don’ts to building your brand.  Paul McDowall and Catherine Clark, founders of ClarkMcDowell agency, are here to share their insights on a few brands they’ve worked with through the years. Clarkmcdowall has three approaches to brand building: creating from scratch, transforming, and amplifying.

We’ll hear about the transformation of brands like Palmolive and the amplification of a brand like Kind Bars. Paul and Catherine’s long-time friendship/partnership shines through in the beautiful ways they work together.  They call it “intelligence and imagination” - combining the strategic thinking brain with the graphic or creative brain– both have equally important roles and neither is relegated to that specific function.

Join us as we discuss old and new ways of branding, the effects that the lightspeed technology changes and generational changes may have on your branding direction, and some tips and tricks to think about, wherever you are in the branding process.

The “NexxtLevel Brands Podcast’ is hosted by G. Steven Cleere, Founder and “Chief Pot Stirrer” of NexxtLevel Brands. This show focuses on disruptors and thought-leaders from the Entrepreneurial Food, Beverage, and CPG Industry, but we also share tips from veterans and key suppliers that may help fellow CPG professionals achieve their goals.

Discussion Points

Resources:

ClarkMcDowall Website

Catherine Clark LinkedIn

Paul McDowall LinkedIn

NexxtLevel Brands Website

Steven Cleere LinkedIn

Did you ever think to yourself, “I could make a better smoothie than this!”?  Our guest today had the same thought.  Ted Volz is the founder of Clean Energy, a one-man operation that began producing clean label, fully organic, shelf-stable, one serving smoothie packets.  He did all the research, ran the numbers, found a co-packer and 3PL provider, and put out a terrific product that is getting rave reviews.  Ted did all this on his own, during a pandemic.

Join us for an inspirational discussion about how Ted Volz, a “numbers guy” with years of experience in accounting, became frustrated with the offerings he observed in the market and set out to create something better.

The “NexxtLevel Brands Podcast’ is hosted by G. Steven Cleere, Founder and “Chief Pot Stirrer” of NexxtLevel Brands. This show focuses on disruptors and thought-leaders from the Entrepreneurial Food, Beverage, and CPG Industry, but we also share tips from veterans and key suppliers that may help fellow CPG professionals achieve their goals.

Discussion Points

Resources:

Ted Volz on LinkedIn

Clean Energy Website

NexxtLevel Brands Website

Steven Cleere LinkedIn

Do you want to know how the health and wellness trends of your customers may impact your business as the industry evolves?  Join us for a discussion of the Murphy Research “State of Our Health Overview” that reports how we define health and wellness, how important are they in our daily lives, and how attitudes towards fitness and nutrition affect purchasing behavior, technology adoption, and personal happiness.

In this episode, I speak with Sarah Marion, Director of Syndicated Research at Murphy Research in LA.  Marion is a cultural anthropologist, a market researcher, and a storyteller. Her work at Murphy Research moves between different types of data and finds the narratives that weave them together, connecting the dots across primary and secondary research, quantitative and qualitative information, trends and headlines. 

Murphy Research is a full-service market research firm that understands that groundbreaking research lies at the intersection of science and creativity.  They are known for innovative research design, rigorous execution, and enduring insights, and they offer quantitative and qualitative services to help clients with market assessment, brand strategy, product development, customer loyalty and engagement, and communications research.

The “NexxtLevel Brands Podcast’ is hosted by G. Steven Cleere, Founder and “Chief Pot Stirrer” of NexxtLevel Brands. This show focuses on disruptors and thought-leaders from the Entrepreneurial Food, Beverage, and CPG Industry, but we also share tips from veterans and key suppliers that may help fellow CPG professionals achieve their goals.

Discussion Points

Resources:

Sarah Marion LinkedIn

The State of Our Health Overview

Murphy Research Website

Email Sarah Marion

NexxtLevel Brands Website

Sarah Marion is the Director of Syndicated Research at Murphy Research, a full-service market research firm. She is a cultural anthropologist, a market researcher, and a storyteller. In her role at Murphy Research, Sarah leads the company's syndicated offerings, including the State of Our Health Syndicated Tracker, overseeing topic development, study design, execution, analysis, and storytelling. 

As a cultural anthropologist, Sarah is an expert at connecting the dots between many types of information — from academic research and ethnographic insights to everyday beliefs, behaviors, and objects. Rather than gathering mere insights, she brings numbers to life and produces stories that brands and products can use as an identity. Sarah specializes in health and wellness, food and beverage, CPG sustainability, the natural and organic market, and shopper insights.

Sarah Marion talks about her work in market research and cultural anthropology

Murphy Research's custom market research work and the types of syndicated research the company does

Sarah talks about her company's methodology of study for the syndicated tracker

What research has shown about the health shifts caused by the pandemic

How to use data for storytelling and how the pandemic has impacted young people 

Sarah talks about shopping trends in the wellness space, defines mindfulness, and explains how it’s measured

Are people reverting to old habits because they're tired of the pandemic?

What do companies want to see from custom research?

What Sarah learned from The Great Resignation

How the pandemic forced people to slow down

Sarah's advice to entrepreneurs 

Over the last two years, there have been a lot of shifts and changes in the food and wellness space triggered by the pandemic. Some of these changes and effects include consumer shopping behavior, marketing strategies, the supply of goods, and lifestyle habits.

It is essential for brands to look into the data behind these changes because it significantly impacts how businesses are run. They affect sales volume, profits, supply chain, and product demands. This is where market research firms like Murphy Research come in handy to help brands understand how consumers interact with their products.

In this episode of the NexxtLevel Brands Podcast, Steve Cleere joins Sarah Marion, the Director of Syndicated Research at Murphy Research, to talk about the need for market research in a changing world. They also discuss the effects of the pandemic on consumer behavior, Murphy Research's syndicated tracker, and what Sarah learned from The Great Resignation. Stay tuned.

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Deezer

iHeartRadio

TuneIn

Amazon Music

Kitchen2Shelf

NexxtLevel Marketing

Murphy Research

Murphy Research Blog

State of Our Health Syndicated Tracker

Sarah Marion on LinkedIn

Sarah Marion's email: [email protected]

Our podcast today is sponsored by Kitchen2Shelf, the educational arm of NexxtLevel Brands. Kitchen-2-Shelf provides online and in-person courses and workshops for CPG entrepreneurs at any stage of growth. 

Whether you're an early-stage startup, a local growing business, or if you want to just expand your distribution to a national level, Kitchen-2-Shelf can help you learn what you need to know to grow.

Visit their website to get access to some free tools that can help you understand where your business stands. 

Contact them today to find out how they can help you grow your brand and expand your business to reach its full potential.