7 minute read
Here’s To
BUSINESS
continued from page 36
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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.”
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 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 company 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.”
COURTESY OF ARI TOLWIN
Ari Tolwin stands in front of the grocery story mini-mill.
— ARI TOLWIN
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.
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. 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.
“It was the right size at the right price with the right function,” Tolwin says of Numilk. But the pandemic saw the machine being turned off, along with anything else inside Whole Foods that customers could touch. “We knew we had a real problem.”
At the same time, Tolwin says customers turned to Amazon Prime, which offers home delivery from Whole Foods for its members. “We didn’t just have a short-term COVID problem,” he continues, “but we also had a longterm problem and that was that our machine works best when you’re in a store.”
Tolwin began to consider how customers could bring the mini-mill home. He decided to work on a countertop version that would initially go to coffee shops and businesses, then make its way into people’s homes. The vision included a small stainless-steel kitchen appliance, similar to a Keurig machine, that could create a variety of plant-based milks, protein shakes and lattes.
MAKING IT TO TV
Tolwin took this idea to Shark Tank, a TV show where entrepreneurs can secure business deals. He never considered it until a friend mentioned it in passing one day. “I figured the most difficult stage was getting them to read the application,” he says of Shark Tank. “They get 30,000 applications a year.”
Yet out of 30,000, Tolwin’s application made it to the next round. From there, he went through an extensive interview process that he says combined “every application that I’ve ever had in my life.” After months of interviewing and what he recalls as “countless exercises,” Numilk’s countertop business plan made it to an episode. On-air, Tolwin and Savino presented the idea.
“Here’s our goal, here’s our plan and here’s our preparation,” Tolwin says of the outline presented to Shark Tank. “We’re going to execute it to the best of our ability, and hopefully we’ll get the outcome that we want.”
That outcome was a $2 million deal that Tolwin says will go toward building out the commercial side of the Numilk business. He’s partnering with coffee shops, small grocery stores and high-end cafes to bring Numilk to their establishments. While there are no Michigan locations locked down yet, Tolwin hopes to one day scale Numilk to his home state.
In the background, he continues to work on the home-based unit and keeps on dreaming big. “We absolutely will scale internationally,” he says of Numilk’s long-term plans. “We’re uniquely suited to it.”
JVS Human Services’ Senior Vice President Nancy Bogdan has been honored alongside only three others in the U.S. with the NCSE (National Council of SourceAmerica Employers) Management Excellence Award. The national honor is presented annually to individuals who have displayed excellence in leadership in the management of an AbilityOne participating nonprofit agency and significantly advanced employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Each winner received a trophy and $1,000 in SourceAmerica Training Incentive Vouchers for the winner’s nonprofit agency.
Jewish Fund Awards New Grants
At its springboard meeting, the Jewish Fund, established in 1997 from the sale proceeds of Sinai Hospital to the Detroit Medical Center, awarded the following new and continuation grants: • Alzheimer’s Disease
and Related Disorders
Association: $15,000 for a one-year grant to train culturally competent volunteers in the Jewish community to expand capacity for educational and support programs. • Birth Detroit: $29,910 for a one-year grant to provide coordination of internal and external referrals to support perinatal health services. • Children’s Foundation: $20,000 for the second year of a two-year grant of $40,000 to provide eyeglasses to visually impaired students in need within the Hamtramck Public Schools. • Coalition on Temporary Shelter: $14,500 for a one-year grant to support improved health outcomes for young children residing at its Peggy’s Place location. • FernCare Free Clinic: $13,923 for a one-year grant to support expansion of care to patients with chronic care conditions. • Hope Village Revitalization: $30,348 for a one-year grant to embed a community health worker to support health access for residents of the HOPE Village neighborhood. • Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue: $400,000 for the first year of a three-year grant of $550,000 to support its building renovation and shared workspace collaboration. • Jewish Family Service: $143,405 for the first year of a three-year grant of $401,675 to implement a Zero Suicide framework internally and with community partners to advance and expand suicide prevention work. • Jewish Family Service: $280,000 for the third year of a three-year grant of $900,000 to maintain daily functioning and improve quality of life for vulnerable older adults aging in community. • Kadima: $268,000 for a one-year grant to support the integration costs of Kadima and JVS, should a merger be approved. • Knights and Dames
of the Order of Malta Medical and Dental Clinic:
$15,000 for a one-year grant to expand services to an increased number of patients with its move to its new facility. • North Star Reach: $25,000 for a one-year grant to support its Sickle Cell camp. • Repair the World: $48,700 for the third year of a three-year grant of $168,350 to deepen and expand its service and learning programming for young adults, teens and families.
