The Food Means Business Podcast

Nobody tells you how it's going to feel to be a founder. The doubt, the comparison, the exhaustion of being the visionary and the operations manager at the same time, those are the things Regina L. Henry, founder of RLH Global, has been helping Food Business Bootcamp founders navigate for eight years. In this episode, she and Djenaba get honest about what building a food business actually feels like and what it takes to keep going anyway.

Before you price your product, raise money, or pitch a buyer, there is one question you need to answer: what kind of business are you building? In this episode, fractional CFO and SFT Consulting co-founder Elena Minton breaks down the three paths food founders take and why your answer shapes everything from your cost structure to who you let in the door.

Kelsey Bross built Kel's Kitchen Table with a granola recipe, a farmers market tent, and a willingness to listen. A year and a half of weekends spent talking directly to customers taught her more about her product than any spreadsheet could. In this episode, she shares how she built her brand from the ground up, what the Summer Fancy Food Show changed for her, and why she chose to grow on her own terms before taking her brand national.

By the time Rachel Cheng joined co-founders Marlon and Ben to build Yay's Snacks, she had spent seven years learning what it takes to build a food operation that gives a founder room to lead. In this episode, she shares the systems, the team culture, and the mindset that create space for a founder to grow the business, rest, and actually live.

Eve Chery sat on her Pikliz recipe for five years before the Food Business Bootcamp finally moved her to act. In this episode, the founder of C'est Si Bon Pikliz talks about bringing a beloved Haitian condiment to market and the unexpected discovery she made about her own relationship to her culture.

Alli Meyer has spent her career turning data into decisions, from her early days at IRI (now Circana) to brand work at Applegate Farms and Dr. Praeger's. In this episode she breaks down what market research actually is, why most food founders either skip it or overthink it, and why Yahoo Finance might be the most underrated tool in your research stack.

Christina Branco of Starving Artist Food Photography has spent her career capturing food in a way that tells a story. In this episode she breaks down her process, explains why props are about guiding the viewer not decorating the shot, and shares the one question every food founder should ask before hiring a photographer.

Ryan Mulligan spent 12 years in CPG consulting before walking away to build the brand he always wanted. In this episode, he talks about launching Morty's Naturally Leavened White Sourdough Bread, the dog behind the name, and why there is never a right time to start, only the time you decide to go for it.

Dr. Jonathan Deutsch of the Drexel Food Lab shares what separates a delicious home recipe from a commercially viable product, the one word every food entrepreneur needs to learn, and why you should talk to a food scientist before you spend a single dollar.

Arnelle Thomas of Irie Brew Kombucha shares how Caribbean culture and a passion for wellness led her to kombucha, what the Food Business Bootcamp® taught her about commercializing a volatile product, and why she believes you can do it and figure it out at the same time.