Emerging Brands Podcast

The way we interact with our homes is changing, and Suze Dowling is at the forefront of that shift. As the Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Pattern Brands, Suze is building a modern "house of brands" designed to help people enjoy daily life at home. One of the stars of this family is GIR (Get It Right), a brand that has revolutionized the kitchen tool category with its high performance, plati...

When Ashley Cameron's son was diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease, baking cookies became more than just a kitchen activity; it became a vital source of comfort and connection during a difficult recovery. Those family moments and recipes eventually grew into Love&Cookies, which has quickly become one of the fastest-growing names in the frozen cookie dough category. Ashley leads the brand with a deep co...

Navigating the financial demands of a national retail launch is one of the most significant hurdles for any emerging brand. Sam Stutzman and Jackie Bae of Lunr Capital are helping founders solve this puzzle through commitment based, non-dilutive inventory financing. By providing the capital needed to fund production ahead of retail demand, Lunr allows brands to manage cash flow and scale without g...

Investor and certified integrative health coach Alaina Sparks is a systems thinker working at the intersection of health, capital, and everyday life. After a distinguished 15 year career at Deloitte, where she led global financial relationships, designed innovation strategies, and built the firm's fintech practice, Alaina recognized a critical imbalance: capital powerfully shapes opportunity, yet...

Building on a deep family history of farming in Punjab, India, co-founder Pooja Chopra is redefining what it means to lead a clean beauty brand. Alongside her mother and co-founder Jessica, Pooja launched Mudita Earth to combine farm grown ingredients with modern cosmetic science. While currently pursuing her MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Pooja is scaling the brand acr...

Having grown up on a sixth generation pork farm, Cassie Maschhoff spent a decade building a career in tech strategy and marketing at Google and Waze before returning to her family roots. Alongside her sister Chelsey, a Culinary Institute of America graduate and professional chef, she co-founded Lottie's Meats. Together, they are elevating pork in a clean and creative way, transforming a traditiona...

When one of Yough!'s co-founders was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis and told he would have to give up pizza, he knew there had to be a better way. This challenge led him to the viral two-ingredient dough trend, which sparked the creation of a brand that rethinks frozen favorites through the power of Greek yogurt. Together, co-founders Michael Rolland and Jason Miller have built a better-for-you...

As a third generation farmer and VP of Agriculture, Bryce Lundberg continues a legacy that began in 1937: a promise to leave the land better than he found it. Alongside him, CEO Suzanne Sengelmann leverages 30 years of brand building expertise, including leadership roles at Clorox and Angie's Boomchickapop, to transform this nearly 100 year old family farm into a consumer relevant powerhouse. Toge...

Co-founders Oliver Sindlev and Frederic Naayem are longtime food and beverage entrepreneurs who noticed a persistent problem in the confection aisle. For too long, "healthier" candy felt like a compromise in flavor, while legacy brands remained stuck in a cycle of artificial ingredients and refined sugars. To bridge this gap, they launched Smood Sweets, a modern brand that uses real fruit as the h...

When Ani Widham founded Nurtured with Nature in 2023, she set out to solve a problem every busy parent faces: the difficulty of finding quick, stress-free meals that are actually healthy. Frustrated by the "scary," unrecognizable ingredients found in most packaged foods, Ani created a brand rooted in radical simplicity. Its flagship frozen pancakes are made with just four unprocessed organic ingre...

When Pooja Bavishi founded Malai in 2015, she set out to do more than just make dessert; she wanted to be in the business of delivering happiness. Inspired by the aromatic spices of her first-generation Indian-American upbringing—like ginger, saffron, and cardamom—Pooja has built a Brooklyn-based brand that is revolutionizing the frozen treat category. By blending rich cultural heritage with innov...

For husband-and-wife team Sarah and Brett Bowlin, years of long-distance hiking and remote travel led to a frustrating realization: the beauty of the landscape rarely matched the quality of the food in their packs. Tired of nutritionally empty, overly processed meals that felt disconnected from the joy of a shared table, they founded Bowl & Kettle. Based in Colorado, the company is redefining outd...

When Kimberle Lau became lactose and egg intolerant and faced a high risk for breast cancer, she didn't give up on her love for treats; she reinvented them. As an Asian American mom of two, Kimberle turned her personal health journey into a mission-driven business. Today, Bake Me Healthy is a leader in the allergy-friendly space, proving that indulgent baking can be both inclusive and sustainable....

In 2018, Kiernan Laughlin co-created Deep Indian Kitchen, scaling it into the #1 frozen Indian brand in the U.S. and reaching over 26,000 stores. Building on that success, he created and launched Deep Brands in 2026, a family of cuisine-focused brands dedicated to increasing accessibility for global flavors. As General Manager, Kiernan brings 20 years of CPG leadership from giants like Unilever an...

When Liz Zwillinger and her co-founder Joey Zwillinger looked at the supplement industry, they saw a glaring gap in how women's health was being addressed. Most products offered a one-size-fits-all approach, ignoring the profound ways a woman's nutritional needs shift across different life stages. This realization led to the birth of Biologica, a wellness brand dedicated to creating science-backed...

After moving to the U.S. from Lebanon in 2020, Karim Khalil noticed that labneh on American shelves didn't resemble the traditional version he grew up with. Drawing on his background in engineering and global operations, he founded Yaza to bring authentic, thoughtfully redefined Mediterranean foods to the market. Yaza provides the cleanest labneh by using centuries-old straining methods instead of...

When Esther Hallam couldn't find a clean, organic formula option for her own daughter, she didn't just settle for what was on the shelf; she used her decades of product management expertise to build a better one. With a career spanning giants like Google, Gilt, and Travelocity, Esther applied the same rigorous problem-solving approach to the nursery. Today, as the Founder and CEO of Nara Organics,...

Jessica Dimcevski didn't set out to build another bloated, political agency. As the Founder and Creative Director of Blurr Bureau, she created an independently owned global brand studio designed to move at the high-velocity speed modern founders actually need. Operating between New York and Australia, Jessica has pioneered a "venture partner" model that assembles world-class talent specifically fo...

Caroline Foulk didn't set out to join the beer industry. A graduate of USC's Narrative Writing program, her early career was spent on national tours with artists like The Isley Brothers and Marc E. Bassy. But when the pandemic paused the music industry in 2020, a "temporary" stint helping her family launch Wagon Wheel Brewing Company turned into a six-year obsession with the business of brewing. A...

For over 14 years, John Scheer has sat at the intersection of business strategy, culture, and creative systems. As the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Herman-Scheer, he has become a trusted advisor to founders and CEOs looking to shape the future of health, wellness, and human performance. Based in Los Angeles, his strategic branding consultancy doesn't just build brands; it transforms th...

When best friends and sorority sisters Sydney Attis and Mikayla Garcia graduated from Arizona State University, they didn't just leave with degrees, they left with a creative partnership that would eventually disrupt the beverage industry. After cutting their teeth running a social media marketing agency, the duo realized they wanted to apply their storytelling expertise to a tangible product of t...

When Rebecca Schwartz Smith became a mother, she realized that while the world focuses on the baby, the mother's recovery is often an afterthought. Despite the significant nutrient depletion that follows childbirth, Rebecca found a market saturated with lactation-only products, leaving a massive gap for full-spectrum postpartum healing. Drawing on over a decade of brand-building experience, she fo...

In 2017, Veronica del Rosario and her co-founder Matt Michaelson started with a simple, high-stakes mission in a tiny NYC kitchen: to stop feeding cats "mystery meat." Today, Smalls has transformed from a home-cooked experiment into a full-scale movement, redefining what it means to care for a cat in the modern world. As Co-founder and Chief Brand Officer, Veronica has been the visionary behind a...

When Hailey Swartz co-founded Actual Veggies in 2020, she wasn't looking for a lab-grown "bleeding" burger. Instead, she and her co-founder, Jason, set out to solve a common frustration: a grocery aisle filled with highly processed, bland, and preservative-heavy imitation meats. Driven by a mission to make real food as craveable as it is nutritious, Hailey has led the brand from a kitchen-table id...

In Part 3 of this week's recap of Expo West, I'm joined one last time by Danielle Calabrese, founder of It's All Happening , to close out our coverage of the industry's biggest event. After diving into community and strategy, we're shifting our focus to the "what"—the actual products, ingredients, and innovations that defined the show floor in 2026. In this final episode, we break down the most im...