The Food Means Business Podcast

Tune in with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones, and hear the personal stories and “secret ingredients” of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.

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Nobody Told You Building a Food Business Would Feel Like This with Regina L. Henry of RLH Global

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.

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The One Question Every Food Founder Should Answer with Elena Minton of SFT Consulting

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.

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The Operations Playbook for a CPG Founder Who Leads and Lives with Rachel Cheng of Yay's Snacks

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.

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A Local First Approach to Building a CPG Brand with Kelsey Bross of Kel's Kitchen Table

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.

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Owning Your Culture with Eve Chery of C'est Si Bon Pikliz

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.

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Why Market Research Is the Foundation of Every Successful Food Brand with Alli Meyer

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..

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Hiring a Food Photographer with Christina Branco of Starving Artist Food Photography

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.

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Become a Podcast Guest

We interview CPG founders who left the corporate world to jump head first into entrepreneurship. If you’ve taken the leap and have stories and advice to share, fill out the application form. We also invite experts who focus on serving the CPG community to apply.