I talk with Chris about pivoting from a culinary career into making hummus for farmer's markets, to borrowing money from his dad to build a hummus factory, to shutting down his hummus factory to move in with his copacker.

Ithaca Hummus has lit the world of hummus on fire and Chris hasn't taken any VC money to do it. I love talking to interesting people who have unique stories and world views and Chris Kirby absolutely does not disappoint.

BY THE WAY, Chris just launched Guillermo's Salsa as Founder and CEO alongside Guillermo from Jimmy Kimmel Live! Me and Guillermo share a birthday AND a love of spicy food and the salsa is quite nice.

Tune in, like, subscribe, all that fun stuff. And make sure you follow Chris Kirby on LinkedIn as well to see what else he gets up to.

Greg Esslinger used to be a Supplier Manager at UNFI. In fact, he was MY Supplier Manager at UNFI when Yellowbird was a fledgling brand. We were both learning the industry at the same time from completely different angles.

Greg opted out of big distribution years ago to prioritize time with his family and meaningful work over climbing a corporate ladder that ultimately wasn't filling his cup more than draining it.

Tune in for a candid talk about what your distributor partners are optimizing for and some of the things you should look out for.

Follow Greg on LinkedIn for regular deduction tips.

David is the founder of Seed Ranch Flavor Co. and Grown As* Foods. Previously in the renewable energy sector, he never seems to stop moving.

That penchant for moving takes him all over the world. And he's using his business spend to travel there, in style, for almost free.

Check out David's story here and then head over to the Gross To Net Substack to see the points travel plan that David built JUST FOR ME. If you're a business owner looking to make the most of your travel rewards, hit him up at cpgpoints@gmail.com.

Tim Otto started his first business when he was 12, incorporated at 16, and sold it at 25. He had attained material wealth in his mid-20's but was burnt out.

When Tim met Alex (now his wife) he was finishing his MBA while she was in her first year of dental residency. Alex Otto had the seed of an idea that ultimately turned into Alcan Dental Cooperative: their answer to PE consolidation of dental practices.

Private equity has eaten dentistry. 34% of practices are now owned by DSO's, up from 2% in the 1990's. Alcan is an ownership model that keeps actual dentists in the ownership seat while providing the services and financial support of traditional PE-owned DSO's. The dental industry is about 20 years behind the medical industry in the US as far as PE consolidation goes. If we're not happy with how the medical industry works today, we won't be happy with how the dental industry works in a few decades if we don't change the incentives. Tim and Alex are doing just that.

Tim and Alex also started Kids Tooth Team Outreach which is a mobile dental clinic providing free dental care to kids all across Central Texas. The dynamic duo realized that one of the major hurdles to care was geographic access to dental practices, not just financial access. To date, they've delivered almost $800k worth of free dental care to kids.

Join me for a great conversation that will have you rethinking what it means to make a positive impact.

Mason was a chemical engineer at UT who started an environmentally-friendly lawncare service and discovered his lifelong addiction to entrepreneurship. Among other amazing accomplishments, Mason founded Greenling as a very early grocery delivery service and hit #3 on the Inc 5000 list when he was running Cece's Veggie Co.

Now Mason and his wife Jess run Small Potatoes which an anti-PE incubator for amazing early to mid stage CPG food brands. He also writes The Puzzle which is Mason's exploration of, as he says, building meaning from the ground up.

Follow Mason and also give us a 5-star rating on your podcast app! It helps a whole lot. Check out the Gross To Net Substack for more groundbreaking content.

Lauren Vogel is an Alabama-based yogi, marketer, and writer who, with her partner and co-founder, is building and running a community yoga app called Zentric. She's building small and following positive energy at every turn.

Tune in for a great conversation and follow Zentric on Instagram for flows and meditations.

Today I talked with Alison Cayne. Alison is the founder of Haven's Kitchen which was originally a cooking school and turned into a CPG brand. She also runs In The Sauce podcast (like and follow) and writes This Is Not An Advice Column on Substack.

Alison is an entrepreneur's entrepreneur.

We discuss everything including building and shutting down her brand, all the things she learned along the way, how she's giving back now, and what she got out of all of it.

Errol Schweizer scaled Whole Foods' grocery division from $1B to $5B as VP, launching brands like Beyond Meat and Vital Farms while setting national standards for organic and regenerative agriculture. Now he documents grocery consolidation and corporate profiteering as a Forbes contributor and newsletter writer.

In this episode, Errol breaks down how Whole Foods industrialized better-for-you food at scale, the economics behind grocery pricing power, and why Walmart's dominance shapes what gets grown and sold in America. He explains the math that drives food systems—from profit compulsion in publicly traded companies to the challenges of scaling regenerative agriculture—and makes the case for public grocery stores as a backstop to corporate food monopolies.

We dig into the uncomfortable truths about grocery margins, the difference between HEB and Kroger, why local food systems struggle to gain traction, and what it actually takes to operationalize the right to good food. Errol brings receipts on price gouging during COVID and explains why the middle of the food system—not farm-to-table movements or food tech—is where real change needs to happen.

If you want to understand how grocery actually works and what needs to change, this is essential listening.

Follow Errol's writing at The Checkout: https://grocerynerd.substack.com/