We recently connected with Jonathan Ostroff and have shared our conversation below.
Jonathan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
In 2020, I decided to pursue an MBA at Loyola University Chicago. During one of my Entrepreneurship courses, we were encouraged to explore business ideas to respond to things that “bugged” us in our everyday lives. The spark came after watching the recent documentary ‘Kiss the Ground’, which dives into our most pressing environmental challenges. One statistic in particular stuck out to me: animal agriculture, especially CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), is responsible for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions and consumes 56% of freshwater. In that moment, it hit me that our current way of consuming meat isn’t sustainable long-term.
Here’s the twist—I love meat, especially beef. In fact, my entrepreneurial journey started in middle school when I bought a dehydrator and started making beef jerky to sell to my classmates. Giving up meat entirely didn’t feel like a realistic option for me, and I know many people feel the same way. I was searching for a middle ground, a product that could help me reduce my meat consumption without forcing me to eliminate it entirely. And that’s when the idea for DUO was born.
I started experimenting by blending ground beef with plant-based alternatives like Impossible and Beyond Meat. While the results were promising, my research revealed a surprising trend: despite these companies raising hundreds of millions in venture funding, their market penetration was less than 2%. Most meat-eaters weren’t sold on the taste, texture, or the heavily processed ingredients in these products.
The opportunity was clear: create a better “gateway product” for meat-eaters—a blend of meat and plants that felt natural, familiar, and delicious. Mushrooms became the perfect partner. They have a naturally meaty texture, a flavor profile that compliments beef, and are widely loved by consumers. Unlike the soy and pea proteins found in many alternatives, mushrooms are minimally processed and wholesome.
What got me most excited was the potential to solve two major problems: reducing the environmental impact of meat consumption and offering a product that truly appeals to the majority of people—not just vegans or vegetarians. DUO was designed to be a compromise, a step forward for sustainability without sacrificing what people love about meat.
Jonathan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
While my professional background is in marketing and sales, food entrepreneurship has always been my true passion. This love for creating and sharing food started early—back in middle school, I was making and selling homemade beef jerky to classmates. Years later, while living in Beijing after college, I turned my kitchen experiments into a small business, selling homemade pesto sauce to expats, including the Italian Embassy. These experiences solidified my love for blending creativity, flavor, and entrepreneurship.
DUO is the culmination of that passion. We are a blended meat and mushroom company based in Chicago, dedicated to reimagining what meat can be. While we started with beef as our first product, we’ve since expanded to blends featuring other proteins, including turkey, lamb, chicken, and pork. What sets DUO apart is not just our innovation but our range—we’re the only blended meat company in Chicago and the only one offering such a variety of animal protein and mushroom combinations.
We launched DUO at Chicago farmers’ markets and local grocery stores, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Parents love how DUO offers a healthier alternative to traditional meat while sneaking extra veggies into their kids’ meals. Home chefs are drawn to our products for their enhanced juicy texture, savory umami flavors, and the versatility to create dishes like burgers, tacos, meatballs, dumplings, stir-fries, and more. Hearing from our repeat customers about the creative ways they’re using DUO has been one of the most rewarding parts of this journey.
What excites us most is hearing how people prefer DUO over both traditional meat and plant-based alternatives. By blending the best of both worlds, we’re offering a product that doesn’t force people to compromise on taste, texture, or sustainability.
We’re currently scaling our production with local manufacturing partners here in Chicago to make DUO more widely available. We’re eager to see DUO in more retail stores and on restaurant menus, helping more people discover how easy and delicious it can be to eat sustainably without sacrificing the foods they love.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
A blind taste test conducted by a third party that highlights your product as being better than the competition. This happened for us over the summer in San Francisco. A research group called NECTAR conducted a blind taste test with 120 consumers who tried 7 different types of blended burgers. Additionally, there was 1 traditional 100% beef burger added to the test, as well as 1 completely vegan burger. A total of 9 burgers were sampled and ours scored the highest on taste and texture, even outperforming the 100% beef burger.
This was exactly the results we wanted to see since taste is always king for consumers. It proves that a blended meat product can be more desirable than simply meat alone. Having a superior tasting product to traditional 100% meat will allow us to more effectively compete within this multi-billion dollar industry.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Making product samples, specifically meatball samples was critical for our success. It’s one thing to talk about your product to a potential buyer/customer, it’s another to have them try a sample and let them decide for themselves.
When we sell at farmer’s markets, or have demos at the grocery store, 1 out of 3 people who try our samples purchase our product. 33% sample-to-sale conversion rate is great. It would be exponentially harder to sell the product if the customer could try it.
We also got in to our first retail store by showing up to our meeting with meatball samples. The store manager liked our product and we got into their store after a 30 minute meeting.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.eatduo.co
- Instagram: @eat.duo
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fusion-foods-group