You Don’t Have to Do This Alone: The Power of Mentorship for Food Founders
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
Release Date: 06/13/2025
Can Swapping One Ingredient Improve Your Margin (Without Losing Customers)?
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
Margins don’t disappear overnight, they slowly erode. Ingredient costs rise, transportation increases, retail fees stack up, and suddenly a once-profitable product is barely breaking even. In this episode, Jacinta tackles a question many food founders wrestle with: Can you improve margin by swapping or reducing an ingredient without changing your product? The answer is yes, but only when it’s done strategically. Jacinta breaks down how to evaluate ingredient changes while protecting flavor, coordinating labeling and packaging, and keeping customer trust intact. If you have a signature SKU...
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The Power of Focus: Scaling Your Food Product
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
Today’s episode is about the power of focus and why growth does not come from doing everything at once. Jacinta Kemboi invites food founders to pause and identify the one thing that will move their business forward this season. Not five things. Not ten. One. Inspired by a family trip to Kenya, Jacinta shares a story about her youngest son’s laser focus on seeing a lion during a safari. Despite distractions along the way, that clarity made all the difference. The same kind of focus, she explains, is what food founders need when scaling their Better for You products. In this episode, Jacinta...
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Expert Segment:How Food Founders Can Stay Ahead of the High-Protein Trend in 2026
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
High-protein isn’t going anywhere — and it’s shaping how food products will be built and judged in 2026. But many food founders are asking the real question: Are we building better products, or just chasing higher protein numbers? I sat down with Melissa Fernandez, Assistant Professor in the School of Nutrition Sciences and a Registered Dietitian, to cut through the noise and rethink what high-protein should actually mean in product development. We talk about responsible protein communication, realistic targets for meals and snacks, whole-food protein vs isolates, and why growing concern...
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52 Episodes Later: A Thank You + Giveaway for Food Founders
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
This episode is a celebration. When I set the goal to record 52 podcast episodes, I committed to showing up consistently for food founders navigating the real work of building and scaling their businesses. Reaching this milestone reinforced something I see every day in my work: growth does not come from doing everything at once. It comes from building simple systems and using them consistently. In this episode, I’m reflecting on what recording 52 episodes taught me about consistency, focus, and the behind-the-scenes work that actually supports growth for direct-to-consumer food brands. To...
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Looking Ahead: What 2026 Holds for Food Brands.
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
In this year-in-review episode, I reflect on what 2025 taught me about scaling food businesses and the conversations founders truly need as they grow from kitchen production to retail readiness. We revisit key themes from the year including retail readiness beyond buyer meetings, shelf life and formulation stability, co-manufacturing preparation, and the leadership decisions that quietly shape long-term success. I also share what’s ahead for the podcast in 2026, including more ETS Method–aligned episodes, deeper technical discussions, and founder spotlights focused on real scale-up...
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Unlocking Retail Success: Specialty Store Strategies
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
In this milestone 50th episode, Jacinta Kemboi reflects on the journey of building the Scaling Your Healthy Food Product podcast and the founders who have grown alongside it. She dives into the power of specialty food stores, one of the most overlooked but highest leverage opportunities for emerging food brands. Jacinta breaks down: • Why specialty food stores are one of the fastest ways to validate demand and build early retail traction • How to confidently approach store owners and buyers without overthinking it • The hidden advantages of local listings, from real-time product feedback...
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How the ETS Method Reveals Your Scale Up Readiness
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
Many food founders reach a point where they ask the same thing: “How do I actually know if my product is ready for bigger production runs, wholesale, or a co-manufacturer?” It is easy to feel almost ready, but without a clear assessment, it is just guesswork. Food founders either move too early and get stuck in reformulations, packaging issues, and expensive delays, or they hold back because they are unsure what ready really looks like. After helping brands launch millions of units into retail, I created a simple way to evaluate readiness using my ETS Method Framework: Evaluate, Test...
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Founder Spotlight: The Power of Wholesale — Lessons from The Sea Moss Guy & Co
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
In this episode, I sit down with Dezie St. Hilaire, co-founder of The Sea Moss Guy & Co, to unpack how a simple wellness habit turned into a fast-growing sea moss brand — and why wholesale became the unexpected growth engine behind their business. We cover the move from home production to a commercial kitchen, navigating perishable shipping, supplying cafés and wellness studios, and the real work behind running a business with your spouse. If you’re an emerging founder considering wholesale, this is a story you need to hear. Attend upcoming workshop on and the hidden gaps that...
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The Best Time to Approach a Co-Manufacturer
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
In this episode, I break down a question almost every emerging food founder asks: When is the best time to reach out to a co-manufacturer? The truth is simple. There is no perfect time. There is only a prepared time. Co-manufacturers do not expect perfection. They expect clarity in your recipe, process flow, packaging direction, volume estimates, and cost targets. When you have these pieces, anytime can be the right time. I also share why Q4 is one of the strongest seasons to approach co-manufacturers. Plants are forecasting next year’s capacity, some categories slow down, budgets reset, and...
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The Leadership Shift Every Food Founder Needs to Make
Scaling Your Healthy Food Product
At some point, every food founder has to make the shift from doing it all — production, sales, deliveries — to leading with vision and trust. In this episode, Jacinta Kemboi talks with leadership coach about how to make that transition successfully. They dive into what it means to lead with purpose, build a coaching culture, and create psychological safety within your team. Odette shares practical tools to help you delegate with confidence, reduce burnout, and lead through values — even when tough decisions arise. If you’re ready to grow beyond the kitchen and lead a team that scales...
info_outlineBeing a food founder can feel lonely — especially when you’re the one making all the decisions. But what if you didn’t have to figure it all out alone?
In this episode, we’re talking about the game-changing role of mentors in helping food founders grow with confidence. I’ll share how mentorship has shaped my own journey and why every founder—whether you're just starting or scaling—can benefit from the wisdom of someone who’s been there.
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