Evergreen founder and CEO Emily Groden arrived at Expo West 2026 leading one of the fastest-growing brands in frozen breakfast. But just a few years earlier, she was hand-making waffles in a shared kitchen and pitching corner stores with a toaster tucked into a duffel bag.

In this episode, Emily explains how she turned a personal frustration into a breakout brand built on clean-label frozen waffles and pancakes made with real, whole-food ingredients. She shares why she refused to compromise on quality, even when it made manufacturing more difficult, and how Evergreen is leveraging protein innovation, strong retail data and a sharper family-focused brand identity to scale across channels.

It's a candid look at what it takes to build a modern CPG company – from zero experience to category leadership – while staying anchored to the mission of getting better food into more kids' hands.

Show notes:

0:20: Emily Groden, Founder & CEO, Evergreen – Emily discusses the launch of Evergreen's new pancakes and a clean-label protein line made with Greek yogurt and egg whites. She reflects on the brand's origins and how she built the company from scratch with no CPG background, self-funding the business and landing early retail accounts through scrappy, hands-on efforts. She explains how a recent rebrand helped better communicate Evergreen's core audience of families, shifting from a health-first perception to a more joyful, accessible identity. The conversation also covers Evergreen's broader mission to improve kids' nutrition at scale, its focus on affordability and mass distribution, and how strong retail data has fueled expansion by proving the brand brings new, high-value shoppers into the category. Emily also touches on fundraising, founder discipline, and why staying anchored to a clear personal "north star" has been critical to building the brand without compromising its values.

Brands in this episode: Evergreen