Latest news with #Sisson
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Former elite marathoner and triathlete behind book touting brisk walking instead
Recreational athletes who lived through the 1970s will recall that two concurrent 'booms' — the tennis boom and the running boom — dominated the decade and reverberate to this day. An athlete and sports fan from my earliest days, I zealously pursued both pastimes (as well as several team sports) for decades. Tennis tournaments, round robins and instructional group clinics for the former; hour-plus-long daily training sessions and countless road races of varying distances —including one marathon — for the latter. Despite managing a case of chronic adhesive capsulitis, aka "frozen shoulder," I'm still able to play tennis regularly. (Turns out my dearly departed dad, who was also a good recreational player, was right when he told me tennis was 'a sport you can play for a lifetime.') But by the time I reached my mid-to-late 40s, my body rebelled against the cumulative effects of the daily pounding, so I gradually transitioned away from distance running to less joint-rattling cardio exercises like brisk walking, pool workouts, and isometric and functional strength-training, among others. On my own micro level, I've lived through the macro premise of a new book — 'Born to Walk: The Broken Promises of the Running Boom, and How to Slow Down and Get Healthy—One Step at a Time' — by former elite endurance athletes Mark Sisson, 71, with Brad Kearns, 60. Both were former professional triathletes; Sisson was a 2:18 marathoner who appeared on the cover of Runner's World in the 1980s, came in fifth place in the 1980 U.S. Olympics Marathon Trials — just barely missing making the team. (Only the top three finishers make the team — but the U.S. wound up boycotting 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow in protest of the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan.) Nowadays, though, both Sisson and Kearns extol the myriad health benefits of walking over running. Sisson — a New York Times best-selling author, fitness entrepreneur and podcaster, and founder of the Paleo diet nutrition program Primal Kitchen — says that the primary thesis of his book is that 'walking is the quintessential human movement pattern and that we all should do more of it, regardless of how fit we are. It is hardwired into our genes that we should walk extensively every day. In other words, we are born to walk.' And despite his world-class success as a marathoner and triathlete, he blames 'the flawed and often highly destructive born-to-run notion on an avalanche of hype, deception, misinformation, and fabrication that have fueled half a century of what we have come to call the running boom.' Interestingly, Sisson, who lives in Miami Beach and has been married for 35 years to his wife, Carrie, says that despite not having run a full nonstop mile in more than 30 years, 'I still consider myself a runner.' That's because he incorporates brief sprints into his walks and hikes. The 5-foot, 10-inch, 170-pound Sisson believes the reasons why he has 20 pounds more lean muscle with the same body fat (10%) as he did in his competitive racing days include following an 'an enjoyable, stress-balanced, longevity-promoting regimen of walking extensively every day, sprinting once in a while, lifting weights consistently, and playing in a variety of ways.' His social media feeds are filled with pics of him paddle boarding, and he rarely strays from his Paleo diet. Sisson notes that his goal with "Born to Walk" is to spare readers 'some of the repeated suffering and setbacks that too many endurance enthusiasts accept as part of the game.' What's more, he and Kearns present research-based data to expose 'the worst-kept secrets' of the fitness and running industries, which include, among others: Running is not an effective way to shed excess body fat. Runners get injured at a higher rate than they should. The construction of running shoes is often the driving cause of injury. Hormonal burnout, metabolic changes, mental health struggles, and cardiovascular disease are commonplace among accomplished runners and endurance athletes. Sisson asserts that the type-A personalities who are often drawn to extreme fitness programs can be undone by their own good intentions. 'An extreme devotion to endurance training can increase cardiovascular disease risk, compromise gut health, and suppress immune and hormonal function,' he says. Sisson has found 'that walking can be a great catalyst for fat reduction by improving metabolic flexibility, as well as regulating appetite and satiety hormones, and by prompting an 'under-the-radar' increase in metabolic rate.' Part 1 of "Born to Walk" takes readers through the history of the running boom and explains why so many people came to believe that if they just pounded out the miles like the elite runners did, they'd also attain those lean sinewy physiques. But what many distance runners never realized, says Sisson, is that by physiologically stressing their bodies more than was healthy or advisable, they released too much of stress hormone cortisol into their systems. As he explains, 'healthy cortisol production is what gets us alert and energized in the morning and able to execute all manner of physical and mental peak-performance tasks,' while 'chronic overproduction of cortisol is the problem' — one that causes the body to retain fat, become more susceptible to illness and suffer from internal inflammation. 'Antiaging fitness strategies should be focused on preserving hormone status, bone density, lean muscle mass, explosive power, balance, and mobility,' says Sisson. 'Of course, they should also support cardiovascular fitness, which most runners do fine with — unless they overstress the heart muscle and compromise overall cardiovascular health in the process.' In Part 2 of "Born to Walk," readers are taught how to exercise at their optimum VO2 max (which is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can absorb and use during exercise) to both burn fat and build a healthy aerobic base. They're also introduced to a comprehensive functional fitness program and approach to nutrition that are designed to improve their quality of life and help extend their longevity. Looking back, I now recognize that I, like so many of my generation, gravitated toward recreational distance running and endurance sports because they were promoted as the most effective ways to burn calories and fat, and to stay in peak shape for other sports. After all, professional boxers were venerated for their dedication to their craft when they did untold hours of early morning "road work" to get in fighting trim. And naturally, we would-be distance runners used the training programs of the world's elite runners as the template for what we should be doing. We mistakenly thought that if they were doing 100-plus miles per week and two-a-day workouts, we should be doing them too. The thinking back then was "if some is good ― then more is better." But learning about one's fitness goals, limitations and preferences is an ever-evolving journey ― one that I'm still on. What worked at age 20 didn't work at age 40 and what worked at age 30 didn't work at age 50 or 60. These days, however, I'm far more willing to adapt my regimen as circumstances warrant. I also recognize that all movement counts as "exercise" ― and that if it hurts, or isn't any fun to do, there's no need to "tough it out." And with all forms of fitness training quality is far more important than quantity. Sisson said he hopes that with "Born to Run" he and Kearns have 'helped reshape fitness culture to reject the flawed and dated 'no pain, no gain' approach of the past" while simultaneously putting folks on a path to 'an accessible sustainable program that increases movement and aerobic conditioning, avoids injury and burnout, and promotes a healthy, happy, energetic and long life — one step at a time.' This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Book debunks myths of running boom, promotes brisk walks instead
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Two Entrepreneurs Made $200 Million By Selling Mayonnaise For $10 Per Jar
You may be familiar with the adage, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door," but have you ever heard of someone building a better mousetrap? Mark Sisson and Morgan Zanotti have done exactly that. They co-founded Primal Kitchen in 2015 by selling avocado-oil-based mayonnaise for $10 per jar. Four years later, they sold the company to Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ: KHC) for $200 million. CNBC profiled their journey from startup to multi-millionaires, and there is a lot that everyday investors could learn from their story. Building a better mousetrap begins with the belief that there is a way to improve a product already on the market. In the case of Primal Kitchen, the product was mayonnaise. The popular spread is tasty, but notoriously high in fat and other ingredients that make it unhealthy to eat in large quantities. Don't Miss: Hasbro, MGM, and Skechers trust this AI marketing firm — Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — Sisson and Zanotti decided to change that. "At the time we launched Primal Kitchen, every condiment in the grocery store had either soybean, canola oil, sunflower seed oil, and or sugar," Zanotti told CNBC. Their decision to go with avocado oil made sense from a health perspective. Many nutritionists regard avocado as a "healthy fat," and a better alternative to saturated fats and oils, but avocados are expensive. That meant Primal Kitchen mayonnaise was going to be expensive. "We launched in a category where the closest price competitor was probably like $3 per jar," Zanotti said. Sisson and Zanotti's avocado-oil-based mayonnaise would have a price point of $9.95 per jar, which is more than triple their most expensive competitor. "So many of our advisors in the food space said, 'you're crazy, no one is going to spend $9.95 for a jar of mayonnaise,'" said Sisson. The conventional wisdom that most consumers won't pay that much for mayonnaise is basically correct. However, Sisson and Zanotti did have a few factors working in their favor. First, there is a large contingent of consumers in the "better for you" segment of the food market. More importantly, they are willing to pay the price premium for healthier alternatives to everyday condiments like mayonnaise and salad dressing. Trending: Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – "We thought, look, we want this product. We're going to test the market and see if other people want it, and if they do great, we have a business. If not, we shut it down," Zanotti explained. That's where Primal Kitchen's other built-in advantages came into play. Sisson already had a successful supplements business that was generating enough revenue for him to divert profits into developing Primal Kitchen. That also gave him a customer base with an affinity for health-conscious products. According to CNBC, Sisson invested $2 million in profits from his supplement business to start Primal Kitchen. It was a risky gamble, but CNBC pointed out that the global condiment business was worth $31 billion annually and expected to continue growing in the years to come. The CNBC profile noted Sisson's exploits in the food supplement and health industry included a successful blog with 3.5 million views per month and a book. "I spent ten years building a platform before I had a product," Sisson said, "It made it a lot easier to launch a product into that space." Ironically, Sisson met Zanotti in 2013 at an event for his fitness blog, and the two hit it off had an extensive marketing background and a genuine commitment to Sisson's vision. After an initial attempt to launch Primal Kitchen with a professional chef failed, Sisson offered Zanotti the chance to bring her marketing expertise to the table and become his partner in Primal Kitchen. In addition to investing his own capital, Sisson also personally guaranteed a multi-million-dollar line of credit. It was a risk, but Sisson and Zanotti believed in their vision and pressed ahead. The cost of buying enough avocados to supply Primal Kitchen was intense, and Sisson said the amount of credit he guaranteed often ran into the millions. "It was a combination of naivete and hubris that made me think we could launch this expensive mayonnaise," said Sisson. Primal Kitchen introduced its avocado-based mayonnaise to the market in 2015, and it was a hit with both the health-conscious and paleo-diet community. According to CNBC, the company sold its first 12,000 units within one week. It went from there to high-end grocery store shelves and became a nationally known product within a year. The company broke even in year two with $26 million in sales and was doing $50 million annually by 2018. That's when Sisson and Zanotti began looking for buyers. "I had always planned on growing this business to sell," said Sisson. "I was in my early 60s when I started the company." Kraft Heinz was immediately interested and put in the winning bid of $200 million before sealing the deal in 2019. All parties involved in the transaction were thrilled with the outcome. According to CNBC, Primal Kitchen did nearly $250 million in sales in 2024. Read Next:'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. Image: Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article How Two Entrepreneurs Made $200 Million By Selling Mayonnaise For $10 Per Jar originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Sign in to access your portfolio
CNBC
01-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Primal Kitchen co-founder began with $10 jars of mayo—he sold the company for $200 million just 3 years later
Industry advisors told Primal Kitchen co-founder and CEO Mark Sisson that he was "crazy" to try selling jars of mayonnaise for nearly $10 each, he says. The food blogger took the risk anyway, launching his paleo condiment and dressing brand in 2015 due to "a combination of naivete and hubris on my part," says Sisson, 71. Though Sisson's inexperience in the condiments business was a drawback, Primal Kitchen had a different significant advantage. Around 3.5 million people each month were reading his blog about fitness and nutrition, Mark's Daily Apple, when he launched Primal Kitchen, Sisson estimates. He's also a The New York Times best-selling author of books like 2009's Primal Blueprint, which promotes the paleo diet and lifestyle. Many followers already came to him to buy vitamins and supplements — the business brought in between $7 million and $9 million a year under the Primal Nutrition brand he founded in 1997, according to Sisson. (CNBC Make It was not able to independently verify the figure.) "I spent [over] 10 years building a platform before I had a product to launch," Sisson says. That made unveiling Primal Kitchen "a lot easier." Primal Kitchen's first product was mayo made from avocados — without any of the processed and artificial ingredients, added sugars, or soybean and canola oils often found in most mass market mayonnaise brands at that time, the company says. Sisson and his co-founder, Morgan Zanotti, were far from certain that the condiment would actually sell. "It was kind of an entrepreneurial experiment," says Zanotti, who served as Primal Kitchen's president until 2024. "We thought, 'Look, we want this product. We're going to test the market and see if other people want it. And, if they do — great, we have a business. If not, we shut it down.'"The cost was less important than making a mayonnaise that worked with the paleo diet, Sisson says. "Rather than start with a price point and back our way into ingredients and figure out the compromises that we would need to make … [I said,] 'Let's build the best possible product, and we'll price it [once] we know that it contains no bad ingredients, that it tastes great," Sisson recalls. When their initial run of 12,000 units sold out in only a week, Sisson and Zanotti knew they had found an untapped market. Three years later, after adding other successful new products like ketchup and salad dressings, Sisson sold the business to Kraft Heinz for roughly $200 million. He and Zanotti continue to serve the brand in advisory roles. Primal Kitchen may have started as an "experiment," but it still required some serious funding to get off the ground. Sisson was "netting between $2 and $3 million a year" from his supplements business, he says, and he put aside $2 million total to launch this new endeavor. That money went toward researching and developing recipes and then producing the initial runs of mayonnaise, he says. Buying enough avocado oil "required tremendous amounts of capital, which we didn't have, because we were running the company [as a] break-even [proposition]," he adds. Rather than seeking investors, Sisson opted to take out a business loan, starting a line of credit that eventually grew to $9 million, he says. Sisson was the guarantor on that loan, making him personally responsible if the company folded. "That was a difficult thing to sleep on every night for a couple of years," Sisson says. "That was always hanging over my head — this huge line of credit." Sisson had recruited Zanotti to help him run the business after meeting her at an event he hosted for his Primal Blueprint program. Zanotti, a former marketing executive for food brands like KeVita, came on board to help Sisson market Primal Kitchen, launching a social media campaign around the hashtag "#HoldtheCanola." The mayonnaise started selling in February 2015, with Sisson and Zanotti "hand-packing" the first orders, she says. Within months, Primal Kitchen was on shelves at Whole Foods Market stores — regionally, at first, but nationwide within a year of launching. They brought in $1.5 million in revenue that first year, which increased to $13 million in 2016, the year Primal Kitchen mayonnaise began selling in Publix grocery stores, according to Zanotti. By 2018, the year Primal Kitchen sold to Kraft Heinz, the brand reached $50 million in annual revenue, according to Zanotti. Making that success even sweeter was the fact that Sisson and Zanotti owned nearly all of the business, having mostly eschewed outside investors to maintain control. By the time they sold to Kraft Heinz, the co-founders owned 95% of the business, with just 5% owned by family and friends who invested in the company before the acquisition. "We didn't raise money from other people, so we weren't beholden to investors to show them some amazing growth [or] profitability," Sisson says. "I think the only directive to my team was: 'Just don't lose a lot of money, but let's grow as quickly as we can into these different areas.'" Primal Kitchen benefitted from being early to the paleo trend. Similar products can be found these days at grocery stores from comparably priced brands like Sir Kensington's and Chosen Foods. Even huge corporate brands like Kraft, also owned by Primal Kitchen's parent company, and Unilever's Hellmann's now make their own avocado oil-based mayonnaises. The global paleo food market was worth $12.6 billion in 2024, according to research from the IMARC Group consulting firm, which projects that market will keep growing to nearly $20 billion within the next decade. The Primal Kitchen brand continues to thrive and brought in $250 million in gross retail sales last year, according to the company. This was his hope from the beginning: Sisson realized early on that Primal Kitchen would need the vast resources and distribution channels of a huge company like Kraft Heinz to reach its current level of success, he says. "I had always planned on growing this business to sell. I was in my early 60s when I started the company," Sisson says. "You hit a point where there's no more that you can bring to this party that somebody else with greater access to money and distribution couldn't do" in a much better way.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Women in Motorsports North America Helps Women (and Men) Get on Career Fast Track
Women in Motorsports North America organizers announced fifth annual summit will be held Dec. 9-10, 2025 at the PRI Show in Indianapolis. If this year's event is anything like the previous four, it's going to be big—much like the group's mission. Men are welcome to be a part of the WINMA experience. Racer Lyn St. James has spent a lifetime of breaking down barriers, combatting stereotypes, bringing the positive energy and giving guidance to just about anyone looking to move up a few rungs on the racing ladder. These days, St. James is helping champion what has to be one of the fastest-growing organizations in motorsports. Women in Motorsports North America organizers announced this past weekend at Daytona International Speedway that its Women with Drive V fifth annual summit will be held Dec. 9-10, 2025 at the PRI Show in Indianapolis. And if this year's event is anything like the previous four, it's going to be big—much like the group's mission. "WIMNA is a group of men and women in the industry who are trying to help grow the industry," said St. James, who drove in seven Indianapolis 500s between 1992 and 2000. "It's not just about women. We do title it 'Women in Motorsports North America', but I want to make it really clear that it's about men and women coming together to help grow the industry. "We do this because we want to advance opportunities for the women in the industry as well as bringing new women into the industry through our educational activities. We connect through connections from all forms of motorsports. "And we enable. We enable more people to realize this is really a career. If you are studying engineering, business, finance, whatever, there's careers in this industry and we need to help it grow. "We're here to stay. We're here to help the industry grow because we love it." St. James is a co-founder of the high-energy group that is currently headed by executive director Cindy Sisson. Sisson has seen WIMNA grow from an initial Women with Drive summit four years ago at what she says was 'a honky tonk bar' that drew 110 people to where it has blossomed to bring in 340 people the second year, 450 in year three. This past December, the fourth annual event drew 620 at PRI. "We've moving," Sisson says. "This year, we had 70-plus speakers and panelists, 60 partners, 40 female drivers, representatives from 38 states and eight countries and 25 universities with 52 college-age students. "We are a community of professionals. A lot of people think were just about drivers, but we are about PR and marketing, communications, engineering, technical, racetracks, drivers, corporate management, media, human resources, education, hospitality, governing bodies, race series, suppliers, OEMs, medical, health, artists, and our favorite, the volunteers." Men are welcome to be a part of the WINMA experience. "We are not about displacing men," St. James adds. "We are about growing the industry. It's happening organically at many race teams. When women come into the teams, into the game, into the business, it brings different perspective. It really does grow the success of the team, of an organization. "I hope the mindset that you all have in our messaging is not about displacing anybody. It is about growing this industry and bringing in more people and different perspectives. The industry is changing rapidly with technology and with the whole issue of what motorsports all about. It represents everything in life because of the competition, because of the technology, because of the human dynamics. "We can demonstrate to the world that men and women can work together and win."
