The Startup CPG Microgrant Program

Startup CPG’s mission is all about giving small food & beverage startups access to resources, information, and a network to help them scale. And since its inception, Startup CPG has made part of that mission to give back to communities through the Revenue Grant Program. This quarterly program offers the opportunity for brands to donate product to a local food bank, but at full revenue. While sales of food and beverage grew $12B vs prior year, we are all too familiar with the challenges for small brands starting up - distributors focused on existing brands, buyers hesitating on resets, and supply chain issues that can freeze out small brands, so it is exciting to help brands in our community with these microgrants, while also helping the community at large. This past Spring, the Startup CPG Microgrant program awarded 5 microgrants to founders from our community, delivered nearly 1500 servings to Food Bank for Monterey County, and provided help to at least a few brands who have been adversely impacted by COVID. The 5 microgrants were awarded to Startup CPG brands from a variety of categories:

Winner 1: Kekoa Foods is the first organic baby food with herbs, roots, and spices, helping the next generation of parents create healthier eaters from Day 1.

“I resigned from a 20-year career in January 2020 to dedicate myself fully to launching our business. COVID hit and our co-packer stopped returning calls. We moved production from east to west coast then our pouch manufacturer horribly underdelivered citing labor shortages. January 2022 we’re finally live on Amazon.”

Daniel P. Auld, PhD Co-founder & President Education & Research

Winner 2: Piedmont Pennies is a handcrafted snack company whose goal is to help the world “Stay Cheesin,” one snack at a time.

“Our commercial kitchen in Chapel Hill, NC closed for a month during our busiest season due to COVID. We had over 300 orders to fulfill in one month, but weren’t able to find space. We pivoted, opened our boundaries, found a new kitchen in Charlotte, NC, and hired more help. Also, we were not able to attend any wholesale trade shows due to COVID, so we leveraged social media and sent individual emails to retailers and delivered samples all across NC to save on shipping. COVID has made entering food CPG difficult, but a fun challenge, made better by communities like Startup CPG.”

Becca Jordan Wright CEO, Head Penny Pincher

Winner 3: Chedz is an all-natural baked cheese snack that is keto, diabetic and gluten-free friendly that is loved by kids and adults.

“Covid has made our sales very sporadic and new sales have been challenging. Many of our retailers were shut down periodically during Covid which hurt our sales. We pivoted into launching cookies for private branding and that has helped keep us afloat. However, the rising inflation is really impacting our margins.”

Susan Hall, Hall Brands LLC CHEDZ

Winner 4: Founded by a pastry chef, Nana Joes Granola makes organic, gluten-free granola by hand and believes in providing great manufacturing jobs right in San Francisco.

“Our cost of goods are up 52% in the last two years - here’s our feature in the SF Chronicle! We also lost several food service accounts. It’s forced us to shift focus to DTC, but the rising freight costs make it difficult to keep our margins to cover our overhead.”

Tali Perelman, Marketing

Winner 5: Every bag of ONO has 20g of protein, to keep you fueled. Our base ingredients are organic oats, chia seeds, flax seeds and lions mane mushroom for a fully balanced meal

“We launched mid-pandemic so our entire business model and strategy has been curated to go with the flow of the pandemic, starting off with really high costs for ingredients, supply chain issues, having to launch DTC only... I could go on haha. But it’s been an awesome journey nonetheless.”

Nilou Shahryari, Founder Overnight Oats