We recently connected with Ashton Yoon and have shared our conversation below.

Ashton, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

Covid was a major driving factor of our pivot from a B2C to a B2B model. Right before covid, I had recently finished grad school and my co-founder was still in his program- we were just really starting to get off the ground and then the world shut down. It was an interesting time to be an emerging CPG brand at that time as the potential touchpoints you could have with consumers became very limited. Sampling events no longer existed, consumers weren’t browsing the stores, and there were few opportunities for new product discovery. Very fortunately for us around that time we had also received federal funding from the National Science Foundation to develop our technology. Early covid was the perfect time to hunker down and get a lot of research done, since the amount that we could do on the brand side was limited. It was through this research that we expanded into many other product categories. Simultaneously during covid, private label experienced a boost in popularity and consumer demand for healthier and more functional food products has also increased. In responding to these shifts, we eventually adopted our current B2B model.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ashton Yoon and I grew up in Los Angeles, CA. I attended UCLA where I earned my B.S. in Environmental Science. Post undergrad, I worked in PR in the fashion industry for a few years. Although the experience was extremely character building, I ultimately decided I wanted to go back to grad school to reorient my career back into the science and math fields where I felt I could use my skills to better impact society. Inspired by a Netflix documentary featuring food scientists, I decided that food science was the perfect union of my skills and interests and never looked back. I attended Cornell University where I earned my M.P.S. and M.S. in Food Science with a focus in Food Engineering.

During my time at school, I met her co-founder and founded Antithesis Foods, a food company making processed foods that are tastier, healthier, and more affordable. We focus on the B2B market, formulating, scaling, and selling finished products, finished ingredients, and dry blends that are high in protein and fiber, and low in calories and net carbs. Driven by a desire to change the norm in the food industry, we care deeply about getting better-for-you into the hands of more people, faster.

What sets us apart from other food companies is threefold: 1) We are strongly food science based, our entire team is composed of food scientists. We stay on top of the latest trends and technology in the industry and use the best food science to make our better-for-you products; 2) Our core competency is making healthier foods with unparalleled taste and texture. We know how to formulate; 3) Commitment to mission. While it might be easier to make foods taste great and be more affordable by using cheaper commodity ingredients that are nutritionally poor, we want to make are we are putting good out into the world.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

We decided to self fund the business in the initial stages before seeking external funding- between all our initial cofounders, we probably put together around $10K and tried to stretch that as far as possible. We wanted to reach certain proof points to de-risk our concept before taking money from outside the team. We then raised a small friends & family round, followed by pre-seed.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

A great touchpoint that we have started is a quarterly trend box where we put together a couple product concepts based on current food trends and send them out to our present and past sales leads, business contacts, strategic advisors, etc. For example, this current quarter’s trend box is themed “Nostalgia,” and we included a low sugar fruity cereal flavored mini cookie as well as a goldfish shaped pizza flavored bite made with upcycled ingredients (all are high in fiber and protein and vegan). We have found that this is a great way to stay atop of mind, keep in touch, and show people the innovative better-for-you products we can make. Another way we try to ensure brand loyalty is we try our best to be great partners. We bring a lot of value in terms of the types of products we can create, and we do it really fast. Fast communication and iteration is one of our biggest assets as a startup and we think the quality of what we deliver alongside this great communications make us a must-have partner for new product development.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.antithesisfoods.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashton-yoon-4556a447/