Lindsey Cunningham is the Co-founder and CEO of RollinGreens, a brand that offers tasty, plant-based, clean label food. She was born into an entrepreneurial family in Scarsdale, New York and grew up with the dream of having her own restaurant. She is persistent, passionate and a risk taker.

Lindsey graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a BS in Journalism Broadcast News. After two summers at NBC, she listened to her childhood dream and started the RollinGreens food truck with her now husband, Ryan Cunningham. 10 years later, RollinGreens has thrived and expanded with a line of plant based frozen alternatives in more than 1800 stores nationwide. Their offerings include millet tots, cauliflower wings, and currently in the midst of launching their first shelf stable products.

What inspired Lindsey to enter the food industry through a food truck

The type of food Lindsey and her husband offers to their customers

How Lindsey found a co-packer for her millet tots, got into to Whole Foods, and later entered other retail stores

How Lindsey expanded her line of products from her first millet tots to her current SKUs

How RollinGreens differentiates itself from other frozen food brands and why they decided to make their products shelf-stable

How COVID-19 has impacted Lindsey's business

The biggest challenge Lindsey faced in growing her business and how she's looking to fund it

The target market for RollinGreens' products

How Lindsey's background in journalism helped in growing her business and how they are positioning themselves with a different buying team

Lindsey gives advice to fellow entrepreneurs on how to run a business and debunks the myth that healthy, natural food doesn’t sell in Walmart

Millet is such an underutilized yet nutrient-dense whole grain that many people don't know about. It’s actually used for bird feed and people do not realize just how healthy it is for humans. In an effort to not just educate people about its health benefits but to also provide health and nutritious food alternatives, Lindsey Cunningham and her husband, Ryan, started a food truck business selling millet tots. They had an abundant supply of millet from Colorado farmers, which they took advantage of and soon their products were on the shelves of Whole Foods.

In this episode of Nexxt Level Brands, Lindsey Cunningham gets interviewed by Steve Cleere where she shares her journey of growing her natural, plant-based food brand with her husband Ryan. She talks about her family's history in the food truck business, where she sources her millet grain, the health benefits of this particular grain, and why entrepreneurs need to be persistent in growing and scaling their businesses. Stay tuned.

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Nexxt Level Marketing

Hema Reddy is the Founder and CEO of Crafty Counter, a food company that specializes in nutrient-dense food that also is pleasing to the taste buds. Their flagship product, Wunder Nuggets, provides a well-balanced meal contained in every serving. Crafty Counter is designed to help flexitarian families have better choices so that they can help long term health and still have a positive impact on our planet.

Join G. Steven Cleere as he is joined by Hema to talk about flexitarianism, Hema’s Food Startups Podcast, and what is coming next for the Crafty Counter Line.

• [2:36] Background on Hema and the origins of Crafty Counter
• [8:44] The longevity of Flexitarianism
• [11:20] Challenges Hema had starting a commercial kitchen
• [16:40] Selling in the frozen section versus the fresh section
• [21:51] Marketing strategy for Crafty Counter
• [28:13] Upcoming products that Hema is planning to add to the line
• [32:08] The unique relationship children have with food
• [36:48] Wunder Nuggets don’t need a dipping sauce
• [37:42] Hema’s experience on the Food Startups Podcast
• [40:29] Advice for developing brands

• Crafty Counter
• Food Startups Podcast
• LinkedIn for Hema

Encore Presentation:

Katherine Harvey is the Co-founder of Bare Bones, a San Diego based nutrition company offering a full menu of protein-infused products including ready to use bone broth, collagen protein powder, and instant bone broth beverage mixes. After three years as a business reporter at the San Diego Union Tribune, Kate left journalism and took the leap into the food industry to run Bare Bones along with her husband Ryan Harvey.

Bare Bones quickly became one of the top innovators in the bone broth industry by pushing the limits of how to deliver bone broth to consumers with a focus on maximum convenience and top quality. Kate's words to live by are 'May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears'.

Kate talks about her husband's transition from being a fine dining chef to a bone broth maker

How Kate transitioned from being a reporter to writing a cookbook and entering the food industry

The difference between bone broth and bone stock, and benefits of taking bone broth

Why the new business decided to move to Oregon and how they landed their first investor

Kate talks about the process of getting into retail, the challenges they faced and what they learned from that process

How the company's first frozen product line was shipped and how they changed it to shelf stable

How customer feedback prompted the company create a less expensive and more convenient product

Where to find Bare Bones’ products

How selling on Amazon has impacted the company's sales

How Bare Bones’ broth products fit in with different lifestyle diets

Challenges faced in marketing to people in different consumer groups and demographics

Bare Bones’ plans for the future and new products coming out soon

What Ryan Harvey has been upto and what he does in the company

Why the company decided to move back to California

How attendants of Expo West were affected by the health crisis

Kate's advice to fellow entrepreneurs on managing through failures and resiliency

Where to learn more about Bare Bones and get their cookbook

It is ironic that a good number of chefs live unhealthy lifestyles despite working in restaurants. They rarely get the time to sit down and enjoy a good meal. Many times they drink stock to sustain themselves through service, and if this stock is store-bought, it is often not very nutritious.

Katherine & her husband Ryan are in the business of creating 100% organic bone broths to provide nutritious protein alternatives to people. Ryan was a fine dining chef who faced the same challenge many chefs working in busy restaurants face regularly. He & Kate launched their bone broth side business out of a local food delivery service and soon grew to not only selling in supermarkets but also in online marketplaces.

Katherine Harvey joins Steve Cleere in this week's episode to talk about her journey and her husband's transition to the food industry. She also talks about the benefits of her company's bone broth over common stock products found in food stores, how the company found its first investor and entered the retail market, and how selling on Amazon has impacted sales. Stay tuned.

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