The Startup CPG Podcast · 6 Jun 2025 · 29m · Episode 158
Dina DiCenso, co-founder of RIND, a Brooklyn-based vegan cheese company, explains how they developed proprietary fermentation cultures to create aged Camembert-blue and blue cheeses, as well as a vegetable-based deli line called Veggie Underground. She details the strategic decision to bootstrapping the business with a four-person team, allowing them to compete against heavily funded private equity-backed rivals by focusing on product merit and direct consumer education through demos. DiCenso discusses their distribution strategy, which places RIND in high-end retail like Whole Foods and Erewhon, while targeting food service scalability for Veggie Underground, noting their recent appearance at the White House and success at the Shelfie awards.
early-stage companies
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Pinky Cole, founder of Slutty Vegan, explains how she bootstrapped a plant-based fast-food empire from a ghost kitchen to a $100 million valuation. She details the strategic use of provocative branding, the 'Purple Cow' theory, and the pivot from a destroyed Jamaican restaurant to a vegan food truck. Cole discusses her decision to raise $25 million from investors like Danny Meyer to scale operations while maintaining brand authenticity.
Matt Gibson and Inja Radman, founders of New Culture, discuss their journey from meeting on LinkedIn to building an animal-free dairy company using precision fermentation to produce casein protein. They explain why they chose mozzarella as their first product to displace unsustainable dairy, the challenges of scaling production during the pandemic, and their strategy for navigating FDA labeling regulations as 'animal-free dairy.' The episode highlights their partnership with major agribusinesses like ADM to distribute the product to pizzerias and their long-term vision for replacing animal-based cheese globally.
Jeni Britton, founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams and her new fiber company Floura, advises three early-stage founders on marketing, fundraising, and PR. Jesse Koenig of Jesse & Ben’s discusses how to market his healthy frozen fries to grocery buyers without relying solely on the 'seed oil' narrative. Casey White of Jaju Pierogi asks how to sustainably grow her dumpling brand to big-box retailers like Costco without losing control to outside venture capital. Callie Zeher of Ube.co seeks guidance on hiring a PR firm for her purple sweet potato pet treats while balancing her full-time science career.
Madeline Haydon, founder of nut pods, explains how she grew a plant-based coffee creamer brand from a $30,000 Kickstarter into a national retailer staple before its acquisition by Emperor Rock. She details the technical challenges of creating a shelf-stable, unsweetened formula that wouldn't curdle in coffee, the pivot from single-serve pods to cartons based on Whole Foods feedback, and the strategic decision to launch on Amazon to build brand equity before entering retail. Haydon also discusses the difficulties of fundraising as a pregnant woman of color with no industry experience and the eventual sale of the company.
Daina Trout, co-founder of Health-Ade Kombucha, explains how a failed attempt to create a natural hair loss product pivoted into a kombucha brand after realizing the formulation was too difficult. Starting in her Los Angeles apartment closet, Trout, her husband Justin, and friend Vanessa Dew sold kombucha at farmer's markets, eventually quitting their jobs at GlaxoSmithKline to scale the business. The company secured $2 million in Series A funding from First Beverage, allowing them to move from home brewing to professional facilities and secure distribution deals with retailers like Erewhon and Gelson's.
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