ContenderCast with Justin Honaman

Straight forward, independent, no-nonsense advice is not easy to find. This is a must-read book for every budding and existing coffee shop entrepreneur. Andrew & Claire Bowen opened their first franchised coffee shop in 2007, after leaving senior roles in retail and healthcare. Within eighteen months they had opened three outlets and had over £1m turnover. In 2011 they developed their own independ...

For most of her life, Wendy Liebmann has been passionate about the convergence of consumers, shopping and retail. It's why she founded WSL, to help companies build their retail strategies by understanding and staying intimately in touch with shoppers, how they live their lives and how they spend. The goal, then and now, is to get retailers out of their ivory towers to meet shoppers on the selling...

Solobo Toys is a Montessori-inspired educational children's toy company owned and operated by neurodivergent parents. Their products are designed to emphasize simplicity while encouraging exceptional learning. The owners of Solobo are Daniel & Courtney, a husband and wife team. They are also parents to two amazing children. Daniel is an ADHDer & Courtney is Autistic, ADHD, and OCD. They utilize se...

Nana's is a family-oriented, Louisiana/Maryland style diner. Their goal is to provide fresh, hot, and comforting food that will make you feel at home while giving you a little peek inside the cuisine of Louisiana and Maryland. Owner Kelli Ferrell joins Justin to discuss this hot restaurant concept!

The Western Michigan University food marketing program will prepare you for many roles within the industry and provide the necessary tools for a successful career. Food marketing graduates are heavily recruited by leading firms in both retail and consumer goods. The program includes professional development, leadership, community service, networking and job search preparation. Russell Zwanka, dire...

Artificial Intelligence. Machine Learning. Generative AI. Deep Learning. What does it all mean?! And why should you as a founder or entrepreneur care? Michael Connor joins Justin to unpack all of this and more as related to the Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods start-up space.

Elevate your meal with six sauces that combine fresh ingredients and convenience. Haven's Kitchen fresh sauces save you time shopping, chopping, & cleaning so you can focus on eating. Flavor-Forward Sauces. Vegan & Gluten-Free. Cooking? Haven's Kitchens knows you've got it in you. Fluffy rice, crispy fish, perfectly roasted, caramelized vegetables…you just need a few tricks, a couple of tips and s...

Family-owned Langer Juice Company, Inc., has emerged as a major force and a top ranked brand in the very competitive juice industry. Since the formation of the company in 1960, the Langer family has remained actively involved in every aspect of making juice, from production and marketing to quality assurance. Producing beverages in many of the high-volume categories that include apple, cranberry,...

NestFresh started as a family company in Colorado in 1991. Their founders wanted to create an egg company focused on animal welfare and environmental sustainability. They believed that by treating animals right, both hens and humans benefit, and they are proud to maintain those founding values. In the early years, NestFresh Eggs were produced and sold exclusively in Colorado, and soon became Color...

Open Water is ultra-purified, electrolyte-packed canned water in BPA-free aluminum packaging. Recyclable? Check. Climate Neutral? You bet. P.S. Fill up at the tap whenever possible. No, really! Co-founders Jess Page and Nicole Doucet join Justin to discuss this innovative and fast-growing water brand!   ContenderCast Website:   http://contendercast.com   ||  ContenderCast on iTunes:   https://podc...

Moving the Middle is a must-read for any leader, manager or coach looking for a way to tap into the unrealized potential of their middle performers. Why the Middle? Your customers – Your culture – The economics – The physics – Your potential. This book was written to change the way you think about solving your greatest opportunity and challenge – your middle performers. As Retail and CPG brands re...

Do Good Foods is offering great-tasting products consumers know and love, that also have a tangible positive impact on the world. How? Today, 40% of the food we grow currently goes to waste. Can you imagine going to the store, filling five bags of groceries but then throwing two of them away? It's a waste of resources, time and money. And Do Good Foods is putting a stop to it. Rather than throw fo...

At Mother Raw, their love of plants runs deep. They like to say they're plant-powered and inspired by all the possibilities that can grow from a single seed. Their life's work is to make plants crave-able because everyone benefits from digging into their awesomeness! That's why they select the best of Mother Earth's incredible bounty including organic, non-GMO plant-based ingredients, and create r...

As COO of Nuts.com, Eran Mizrahi watched as vendors changed up pricing, quality, and lead times on a whim. With so much at stake, he knew there had to be a better way. He partnered with fellow Nuts.com alumni Aalap Patel to start Ingredient Brothers, a company that is data-informed but relationship-driven and sources ingredients for consumer products from around the world. Eran joins Justin to dis...

Founded in 2015 by Marian Leitner-Waldman and her husband, David, Archer Roose is dedicated to producing affordable luxury wines with minimal intervention. How? Marian and David created the concept of a traveling vineyard. Instead of building a winery and committing to a specific geography and varietal, they wanted to offer wines from the most-renowned regions around the world. So, they fostered p...

The Carbonauts host live, virtual workshops that help people optimize their lifestyles so that we can build a greener future. A natural sequel to TreeHugger.com, The Carbonauts inspires and guides people towards compelling, low-footprint ways of living and working by offering them live, time-efficient zoom courses that make it easy for them to slash their footprints at home and work while saving m...

First things first: the bagels. Shug's "Store 1," just steps from SMU, smells exactly like a bagel store should smell, which is not a surprise as every day they make all of their dough from scratch, in-house, then make their bagels the artisanal, old-fashioned way – including a necessary fermentation period, kettle-boiling them, then baking them in a massive, revolving tray oven. Founder Justin Sh...

Clutch Coffee was born in the Carolinas in 2018. With 20+ years of drive-thru coffee experience, combined with a burning desire to revitalize the lost art of customer service, they set out on a quest to build the best drive-thru beverage experience on the planet. They are passionate about people, providing opportunities, and creating a culture that is second to none.  They are equally inspired to...

Holistic Roasters is certified by Demeter USA. They source coffee directly from family-run, Regenerative Organic / Biodynamic farms and cooperatives. Holistic Roasters is certified by Demeter USA. They source coffee directly from family-run, Regenerative Organic / Biodynamic farms and cooperatives. Co-founder Gregory Kalinin joins Justin to discuss this growing coffee brand. ContenderCast Website:...

The story of T-swirl Crepe starts thousands of miles away on the shores of Japan. The Japanese Crepe borrows from a western concept and modernized it into new level of versatility that you can gobble on the go. Building on this new concept, T-swirl started to research and have perfected the 100% gluten free rice flour batter, to craft a crispy thin chewy layer that embraces all the decadent condim...

Nicole (Nikki) Dawes is the CEO and Founder of Nixie Sparking Water and also the Founder of Late July Organic Snacks. Founded in 2018, Nixie Sparkling Water is a brand that delivers exceptional taste without synthetic solvents, carriers or artificial preservatives. Founded in 2003, Late July Snacks offers tortilla chips and crackers made of organic, non-GMO ingredients that the whole family can en...

At Good Food for Good, their products are certified organic and free of refined sugar, soy, corn syrup, gluten, dairy, or preservatives. Basically, if you wouldn't add it when cooking from scratch, you won't find it in their products. Unlike most store-bought sauces you can find, they don't believe in relying on sugar and artificial additives for flavor. All of their organic sauces are Keto, Paleo...

From a small kitchen in Asheville, NC, two mothers with a purpose and passion for fermentation began making kombucha as a healthy alternative for their kids. From gifting jars to friends, families, neighbors and eventually selling through farmers markets—their shelves and countertops were quickly overflowing with kombucha. So they took a big leap—a leap that sparks fear, curiosity and can alter a...

Designer Dram began when one of the founders set about to create his own whiskey. He quickly discovered that the only way he could do this was by going through the process of creating an entire barrel of whiskey. As exciting as this was, this process takes a minimum of two years and costs upwards of $5,000 if aged well. Now each of us can create our own via Designer Dram. Co-founder Chintan Dhanji...

First it was salsa! Now it is chicken! Dave Zilko has been a food entrepreneur for over 25 years, most prominently at Metro Detroit-based Garden Fresh Gourmet. He succeeded in taking the company from $4.6 million in annual revenue to just over $110 million prior to engineering a sale to the Campbell's Soup Company for close to a quarter billion dollars. From his Garden Fresh experience, Dave wrote...