COURTESY OF ARI TOLWIN
BUSINESS continued from page 36
dynamics of the industry were too difficult,” he says. “So, at a certain point, with a friend of mine, we had the idea for Numilk.” BUILDING A BRAND As an adult, Ari Tolwin followed a primarily plant-based diet. “When it comes to dairy-like products, we’ve always sort of bemoaned the fact that plantbased milks just aren’t that great,” he explains. “They’re filled with gums; they don’t have a ton of nutrient value; and they have the same antiquated supply chain that produces dairy.” Tolwin started to brainstorm how he could alleviate those challenges and create a plantbased milk that was healthy, tasty and, above all, scalable to grocery stores across the country. One feature he always loved at Whole Foods was a peanut butter grinder that allowed shoppers to make fresh peanut butter onsite. He wondered if the same could be done for milk. “We could make plant-based milk that could be better for the environment and more delicious,” Tolwin says of Numilk, launched in 2018. “And we could do it in a way that was differentiated [by in-store shopping] to allow people to make fresh plant-based milks on location.”
Ari Tolwin stands in front of the grocery story mini-mill.
“WE ABSOLUTELY WILL SCALE INTERNATIONALLY ... WE’RE UNIQUELY SUITED TO IT” — ARI TOLWIN
Yet, in order to make almond milk specifically, Tolwin would need a special mill to process the almonds. Because a mill is generally a large piece of equipment
here’s to Forgotten Harvest announced the recent hire of Michael Butman as chief information officer. He will lead technology improvements for the organization as the senior technology strategist and as a member of the Executive Team. He brings more than 30 years of technology leadership and 22+ years of nonprofit experience.
38
|
JUNE 10 • 2021
that’s expensive to operate, his goal was to create a mini-mill that could easily sit within a grocery store like Whole Foods. Tolwin found a German com-
pany that made miniature mills and enlisted its help as a vendor. The first prototype for Numilk’s mini-mill was created and set for launch within a New Jersey Whole Foods location. But then things changed. “We were about one or two months out from completion of the machine when Whole Foods was purchased by Amazon,” Tolwin recalls. His Whole Foods contact left the company, leaving Tolwin and Numilk without any connections. Regardless, he decided to complete the mini-mill and managed to get it inside the same local Whole Foods. “We rushed the machine in the store as quickly as we could,” he remembers. “We hoped to sell 100 bottles of Numilk a week. On our first day, we sold 130 bottles.” A NEED TO PIVOT It was clear that Numilk was a hit. By Day 2, Tolwin saw 170 bottles being sold. In comparison, he says, Whole Foods generally sells 10 bottles of any juice or milk product a week — making Numilk’s sales a landslide success. Yet over the next six months, the mini-mill required constant attention. Without much testing, it was frequently breaking down. By the time it was fixed and ready for scaling to other stores, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and business came to a halt.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer reappointed Florine Mark of Farmington Hills to the state Council on Physical Fitness, Health and Sports. Mark is the ambassador and the former president and CEO of the WW International (formerly Weight Watchers International, Inc.). She is also the board chair for the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit and a member of the Detroit Regional Chamber Board of Directors Executive Committee.
