Wolfparc spoke with Claudia Goldfarb of Sow Good, we went under the hood to find out what makes the Sow Good brand so good (pun intended).
If you are a food entrepreneur or founder in the CPG space, there are more than a few nuggets for you to pick up.
The Problem?
“I was trying to eat healthier, and I was also conscious about my impact on food waste. I would try to have a smoothie every morning. But every time I would go to the refrigerator, the spinach would be moldy or the strawberries would be too mushy.
The Solution?
We decided to apply freeze-dried technology to fruits and smoothies. We created products that can sit in your pantry for two years without spoilage. All you need to do is add water, ice, and blend.
And that’s how Sow Good started – So people could have access to healthy food regardless of emergencies and lockdowns.
Funding?
The easiest part of course is the idea. The Goldfarbs had to raise funding to get the product off the ground. In January 2021, Black Ridge Oil and Gas, Inc. announced that it had changed its name to Sow Good Inc. and entered the freeze-dried food products market. In February 2021, the company announced it had raised more than $2.5 million in capital from the sale of 631,250 newly-issued shares. And so growth began.
Brand Design
Sow Good is about sowing goodness in your community, with your employees, and with your product. But it is also about not taking yourself too seriously. We can take incremental steps towards environmental stability, health, and eating better. The design agency we worked with did a brilliant job of translating our vision, the quality, and premiumness of the product into our brand design.
The first name we gave ourselves was Sustain Us, because we are heavily invested in sustainability not only environmentally, but also with regards to products that would sustain the human body and sustain our employees and communities. Our brand agency suggested changing to ‘Sow Good’ which is a double entendre that encompasses everything we are about as a brand.
Packaging
We realized that we could not keep the integrity of the product with transparent or window packaging. As you think through your product, packaging, and your mission statement, you have to ask – What’s your ultimate goal? For us, we learned that the way the consumer would have the best experience with our product was by having metalized film with exceptional moisture and vapor barrier protection.
At this point, we asked Claudia to name a celebrity who captures the essence of the Sow Good brand and she said:
“Blake Lively or Jennifer Aniston really encompass healthy, natural lifestyles and I feel like they are very authentic, and that’s something about our products and our brand. We want the authenticity of our passion for what we do to come through.”
Parting words
Claudia had these lessons to share:
“Surround yourself with a really strong quality team. You are not going to know everything and you shouldn’t. Don’t try to be everything in your company. Be true to your vision, have a really clear idea of what you want to accomplish, and then find the people that are going to support you.
Don’t let fear dictate your decisions. You are going to make mistakes, we are all going to make mistakes. Learn from them, don’t beat yourself up, and move on.”