Latest news with #Zanotti
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
09-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hundreds gather in Lansing to protest Trump actions against reproductive rights and trans women
Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Several hundred people gathered Saturday outside the Michigan Capitol in Lansing as they protested a myriad of actions and policies by the Trump administration, most especially the assault on reproductive rights. Held on International Women's Day, the protest was one of at least five taking place in Michigan, including in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Flint, as well as in cities around the world. 'We are watching as our reproductive rights continue to be stripped away, forcing countless people into impossible and dangerous choices,' state Rep. Emily Dievendorf (D-Lansing) told the crowd. 'We see abortion bans spread like wildfire, while maternal health care is gutted, putting lives on the line.' That sentiment was evident in many of the signs carried by those gathered Saturday, including 'Feminists Against Fascism,' and 'A Woman's Place is in the Revolution.' 'We see attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, especially against trans women and girls. who deserve to live with dignity and with safety,' continued Dievendorf, Michigan's first openly nonbinary legislator. Further emphasizing the frustration at the administration's attack on LGBTQ+ rights was Emme Zanotti, senior director of movement building and political affairs at Equality Michigan. 'I'm a transgender woman,' said Zanotti to a huge roar of approval from the crowd. 'I know we're not popular with this administration, are we? And I'm hardly bothered by that. I'm hardly bothered by a bunch of extremist, billionaire bullies' fascination with trying to define away my womanhood.' Zanotti then targeted efforts by Republican lawmakers in Michigan to try and ban trans girls from participating in high school sports, saying it is an attempt to generate fear and hatred toward the most vulnerable of kids. 'These assholes want you to believe that your safety, your security, relies on telling a 13-year-old transgender girl – who has teenage angst, wears face glitter and has posters of Chappell Roan on her wall – that she doesn't get to play soccer with her friends three nights a week,' said Zanotti. 'I think the definition of gaslighting in the goddamn dictionary should have a picture next to it and of every last one of these clowns who made banning trans kids from sports their legislative priority.' Also speaking was Kaylee Singer, the Mid-Michigan community organizer for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan. Singer said the fight for reproductive rights was in a critical moment, requiring a united front to maintain the right to control their own bodies. 'I won't sugarcoat it. The fights ahead are hard. The Trump administration is already working to dismantle public health systems, gut federal funding, tear families apart and attack gender affirming care. And we know it won't stop there. We've read Project 2025. We know their playbook. In the coming weeks and months, we expect an all out assault on sexual reproductive healthcare access,' she said. Singer told the crowd they can expect that assault will come on multiple fronts, starting with a defunding effort by pushing abortion providers like Planned Parenthood out of Title X, the nation's largest family planning program, similar to actions he took in his first term. 'When that happened, the number of Michiganders accessing affordable care dropped by 73%,' said Singer. 'That means tens of thousands of people lost access to birth control, STI testing, cancer screenings, and other basic health services. We anticipate Trump will reinstate that order, stripping away affordable care once again.' Singer said they expect that will just be the beginning move, with Trump's allies signaling their intent to resurrect the 1873 Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion medication like Mifepristone, one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortions, which are currently FDA-approved for use up to 10 weeks gestation. The two-drug regimen accounts for nearly two-thirds of all abortions nationwide, according to a report from the Guttmacher Institute. 'The reality is harsh, but let's be clear. These attacks are legally shaky and wildly unpopular with American people, and when they come we'll be ready, we'll be in the streets, in the courts, and at every door, fighting like hell to mitigate harm and make them pay a political price,' said Singer. 'But we can't do this alone. We need you, every single person in this facility and everyone you know to stay in this fight, because what they want most is for us to lose hope, to give up and to accept injustice as a new normal.' One chant that continually made the rounds during the event was 'We won't go back,' a theme Dievendorf expanded on in trying to characterize the point of the gathering. 'We are here today because we refuse to go backwards. We will not go back. So today as we gather, this is not a symbol. This is not a motion to make us feel better. This is not solidarity for a photo op. This is a moment in a movement. This is an opportunity for us to build and to grow. This is a part of a bigger, more important fight. This is us protecting our democracy today,' they said as the crowd cheered in approval. Sheila Marie speaks at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Lisa Sarno of Flint speaks to the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. A sign at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Sally Potter speaks to the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Julia Grant speaks to the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestor gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. Protestors gathered at the International Women's Day rally in front of the Michigan Capitol. March 8, 2025. Photo by Jon King. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
