5TH ANNUAL PITCH SLAM

COMPETITION & CELEBRATION

May 10, 2023, Oakland, CA

Whether it’s to showcase your talents or to keep your finger on the pulse of the latest trends in the natural products industry, Naturally Bay Area’s 5th Annual Pitch Slam Competition is the place to be to see the Bay Area’s best and brightest. Join us in celebration of our vibrant community and help us celebrate our five-year anniversary! 

2023 Pitch Slam Winners

  • Grand Prize: ¡Ya Oaxaca!
  • 2nd Place: SĀCH Foods
  • Don Buder People’s Choice Award: SĀCH Foods

2023 Pitch Slam Finalists

dosa by DOSA is one of the first modern, natural Indian brands in America with an expertise in introducing authentic, regionally-inspired Indian food to a mainstream American audience and making spice-forward product lines such as its lassi and FRESH sauces part of everyday living. They combine complex, authentic flavors with a fresh perspective on Indian cuisine that respects its boldness and diversity.

Encina Farms combines innovation with a respect for tradition to make the highest quality Iberico pork products in California. They are the first and only Iberico pork producer in California to focus on this legendary Spanish breed—and are committed to the highest quality meat and environmentally friendly farming. They offer California-raised Iberico pork to butchers, fine meat distributors, restaurants, chefs, and home cooks who appreciate its special attributes.

Hooray Foods‘ mission is to make delicious, harm-free food made from plants, not pigs. They have a vision for plant-based meats that closely mimic their animal counterparts while using ingredients that consumers can feel great about, because eating should be a joyful experience, not a guilt trip. Their first product is a plant-based bacon that sizzles in its own fat, just like pork bacon. It’s crispy, chewy, savory, sweet, and salty – all the things we love about bacon. What’s more, it’s gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free – making it a product just about anyone can eat.

Pescavore was launched with a focus on product innovation with exclusively sustainable, wild-caught seafood, making delicious snacks with clean, lean, marine protein. Pescavore tuna jerky strips are the first of their kind and the product of years of vision and hard work to bring the great taste and nutrition of fish to you in a convenient snack. They are on a mission to change the seafood industry for the better: to preserve and protect our shared natural resources and the livelihoods of those that depend on them.

Sāch Foods is on a mission to make the best-tasting vegetarian foods that are good for you and the environment. Founders Jasleen and Tarush are first-generation Indian immigrants, who are pioneering an essential new protein category with their line of paneer, (an un-aged, non-melting fresh cheese rooted in Indian cuisine), made with organic, sustainable, grass-fed California milk. Paneer is a time-tested, nutrient-rich food that’s also a high-protein favorite for millions around the world. It’s a fresh cheese that doesn’t melt. Paneer is rich in healthy fats that keep you full longer. Plus, it’s all-natural and completely gluten-free.

WAJU is proud to be the only water sourced 100% from real fruit. Most fruit is approximately 90% naturally occurring water. WAJU discovered a way to upcycle this pure water found within fruit and transform that into a refreshingly sustainable beverage. You still get the nutrient goodness and the bright taste of fresh fruit, but not the sugar. By harnessing the pure water found in fruit, they’re able to create the ultimate nature-powered thirst quencher that’s packed with nutrients AND good for the planet too. They empower consumers to create a healthier and more sustainable world, one sip at a time.

¡Ya Oaxaca! makes heat-and-serve authentic mole sauces from Oaxaca: Mole Negro, Mole Rojo and Mole Coloradito. These delicious and savory Oaxacan Mole Sauces reflect chef, cookbook author & television host Susana Trilling’s love of the regional cuisine and culture of Oaxaca. Chef Susana has been producing mole paste and other traditional culinary goods from Oaxaca and for well-known chefs around the country for the last 10+ years. In 2021, she had the idea to make a product line that would be more approachable for the at-home chef and worked with her sons to create a new line of shelf-stable heat and serve mole sauces.

Judges

Caitlin Landesberg, Managing Director, This Is Water

On a quest to develop the best beer in the world to address her needs, Caitlin Landesberg founded Certified B Corporation and functional beer pioneer, Sufferfest Beer Company. After being fully acquired by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in 2019, Caitlin launched This Is Water, a seed stage investment fund focused on mission-driven consumer brands. Caitlin brings 17 years of consumer marketing experience, from global brands such as Adobe Systems, Mozilla Firefox, and Strava, to her portfolio of brands and professional board seats and advisory roles. She also sits on the Board of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust and resides in Marin County, California, with her husband and three children.

Rodney J. Clark, Managing Partner, Aspect Consumer Partners

Rodney Clark is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Aspect Consumer Partners, a boutique M&A, strategic and corporate finance advisory firm based in San Francisco, California. Rodney is passionate about providing companies and entrepreneurs with the right advice to help them grow and succeed, and has spent the past 25 years focused on advising companies in Food & Beverage, Consumer Products, Health, Wellness & Lifestyle companies. His experience includes a wide variety of strategic and financial advisory assignments including, buy- and sell-side mergers and acquisitions, public offerings and private placements and Rodney has completed over $68 billion in M&A and financing transactions across a number of key industries. Rodney lives with his wife and two children in Marin County, California, and in his spare time he enjoys trail running, cycling, yoga, surfing and reading.

Jamie Nessel, Director of Product + Purchasing, Bi-Rite Family of Businesses

A leader in the Bay Area natural and organic foods world for over 20 years, Jamie has helmed sourcing, selection, purchasing, and merchandising teams in small and large retailers, in brick and mortar and online (previously Good Earth Natural Foods, Whole Foods Market, and Good Eggs, and currently with the Bi-Rite Family of Businesses in San Francisco). Jamie is passionate about mentoring the next generation of food business leaders at work, and in her free time enjoys reading science fiction and fantasy, hiking near home in the East Bay, and eating all the food with her partner Cang and their dog, Tina Turnip.

Vincent Kitirattragarn, General Manager, Mila by XCJ

Vincent Kitirattragarn is currently General Manager at XCJ, a modern Chinese food brand. Before that, he was Founder/CEO of Dang Foods, an Asian-American snack company with over $100M of aggregate sales. In total, he raised $12M of capital from angels, VC, and strategic partners. Dang’s coconut chips, rice chips, and nutrition bars are found in over 10,000 grocery stores and have earned many industry awards including the coveted SOFI “best snack” award multiple times. Dang’s journey was featured on NPR’s “How I Built This” podcast, and has been featured on social media by Chrissy Tiegen and Kourtney Kardashian.

A Cornell Graduate, Vincent is a Forbes 30 Under 30 awardee, and is on the Gold List A100 list of the top 100 Asian Americans. He is a board member of several CPG brands, and is director of a local camp for Asian American youth.

Betsy McGinn, Founder, McGinn eComm

Betsy is the founder of McGinn eComm and co-author of The Amazon Roadmap: How Innovative Brands are Reinventing the Path to Market, the quintessential start-to-finish guide for brands who want to launch, recalibrate, or optimize their Amazon business and ensure continued growth on this powerful platform.

As Seventh Generation’s first eCommerce channel director, Betsy pioneered the company’s innovative eComm strategy and created a thriving multimillion-dollar partnership with Amazon and other key online retailers. This laid the groundwork for Betsy’s broad and deep knowledge of “all things eCommerce” from sales and marketing to product development, operations, and finance in order to provide a comprehensive framework for online success.

Since founding McGinn eComm in 2014, Betsy has worked with hundreds of natural and specialty brands to establish and strengthen their strategic direction on Amazon and their own Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce. From product development and profitability optimization to guiding organizational change, McGinn eComm leads clients through every step of this complex channel, helping to ensure successful and profitable online businesses.

Betsy serves as a board member and advisor to a variety of natural products brands and investment firms in this CPG segment. With more than 16 years of eCommerce experience, Betsy is a thought-leader and regular speaker at events and conferences globally.

Visit Betsy at mcginnecomm.com

Special Guests

 

Paul Coletta, CEO, Urban Remedy

Paul Coletta is Chief Executive Officer at Urban Remedy, a plant-centric organic food company that seeks to reimagine our industrialized food system and give consumers easy access to fresh and clean prepared meals.

Mr. Coletta is a leader with over 25 years of experience building consumer lifestyle brands and high-performing teams across a wide range of channels and industries. Paul’s background in the food and beverage industry includes serving as the Chief Marketing Officer for Jamba Juice, Pinkberry, and POM Wonderful. Earlier in his career,
he held leadership roles with The Walt Disney Company, Viacom and Hewlett-Packard. Paul is on the Board of Directors for Equator Coffee. He is an advisory board member at UC Davis where he is currently working with students, faculty and industry partners to reduce food waste.

John Foraker, Co-Founder & CEO, Once Upon a Farm

John Foraker is Co-founder and CEO of leading children’s nutrition company Once Upon A Farm. While the father of four was raised in a conventional farming family, he went onto study agricultural economics at UC Davis, attend business school at UC Berkeley, and become fixated on consumer goods and the natural, organic food movement. After helping launch an infused oil company that invested in Annie’s, which was at the time a natural mac and cheese company, John became CEO of the company and shifted its mission toward bringing organic goods from niche to mainstream in the U.S. After the company went public, Annie’s was acquired by General Mills, where John consulted for the company’s organic food companies.

Eager to invest in another food company, he discovered Once Upon a Farm, which was alone in its mission to distribute fresh, organic baby food. He signed on as co-founder in 2017, continuing to drive purpose around healthy and clean food access for babies. In the last 5 years, Once Upon a Farm has been groundbreaking in the industry, expanding the portfolio to exceed expectations in delivering nutritional superiority in meals and snacks for babies to big kids across the store and with their own robust DTC subscription service. The $100M company leads in the creation of fresh snacking sets at key retailers, has recently launched a freshly frozen line of plant rich meals, and continues to increase expectations in the baby aisle with their own coolers aiding in their mission of driving systemic improvements in childhood nutrition.

Pauline Ang, Founder & CEO, Twrl Milk Tea

Pauline was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Hawaii. She was introduced to boba milk tea while attending UC Berkeley as an undergrad, and she was hooked after the first taste. As a Creative Director working on branding and design for Fortune 500 companies like Campbell, Starbucks, and Pepsi, she thought she had landed her dream project when she began working on a bottled milk tea. Unfortunately, she found the flavor of this product to be artificial, too sweet, dairy-based, and loaded with preservatives.

In early 2020, Pauline decided it was time to create a consistently delicious milk tea, using the cleanest ingredients possible, without compromising on flavor or relying on artificial additives. As she and her family sheltered from both a global pandemic and California wildfires that year, she became even more determined to create a great-tasting, consciously-made milk tea that supported family growers and minimized its impact on the environment. Her love of milk tea latte and desire to create a healthier future fueled her as she went on to test dozens of plant milks and hundreds of formulations before soft-launching Twrl Milk Tea in 2021.

 

 

2023 Pitch Slam Prizes

Grand Prize Valued at Over $50K:

  • 2023 Expo East booth in Naturally Network’s Pitch Slam Alley (provided by New Hope Network)
  • $5K cash (provided by Aspect Consumer Partners)
  • Slot to pitch at the 2023 Naturally Network Expo East Pitch Slam
  • 50 hours of Expo East booth planning & design or other marketing services from Parabolic ($10,000 value)
  • SPINS Launchpad Data Package with access to SPINS platform with one ID for one year, and access to Natural Channel data (valued at $10,000+)
  • NielsenIQ Trend Analysis (valued at $7,500)
  • Two hours of accounting and advisory consulting from BPM (valued at $2,000)
  • Supply Chain & Insurance Coverage Review by Heffernan Insurance Brokers (valued at $1,000)
  • 3, 1-hour working sessions with the Propeller Industries Team trade spend best practices, inventory management best practices, and a pitch deck strategy session.
  • 60-Day Scholarship to the TIG eTardigrade Program
  • 1/2 day workshop & lunch at the Mattson Innovation Lab tailored to the needs and goals of the winner including critical feedback, coaching, and actional recommendations informed by 45 years of food & beverage experience. ($5,000 value)
  • One year free Brandjectory annual premium subscription (valued at $828)
  • Plus, more to come!

2nd Place Prize:

  • 1-hour working session with the Propeller Industries Team to cover choice of trade spend best practices, inventory management best practices, or pitch deck strategy session.
  • SPINS Launchpad Data Package Valued at $5K+ Access to SPINS platform with 1 ID for one year Access to SPINS Store-Level Data across all proprietary retailers where the brand sells.
  • NeilsenIQ Top 20 search terms in the winner category & ad hoc report including one of 1500+ wellness characteristics for winner category
  • Supply Chain & Insurance Coverage Review by Heffernan Insurance Brokers (valued at $1,000)
  • Brandjectory (2) months monthly subscription ($258 value)

Don Buder People’s Choice Award:

  • $1K cash

Thank you to our generous partners!