We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anique Russell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Anique, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
I was a new mom fresh out of college on a mission to change the health legacy for my family. I witnessed several of my family closet family members pass away from chronic health issues and I became passionate about empowering my family through food. In 2014 I began making all of my son’s baby food from scratch using a variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices; as my son got older and out of the baby food stage, I had to get more creative in helping him to eat a variety of fruits and veggies and that’s when I started making fruit and vegetable frozen pops! My first recipe was a sweet potato chocolate bar, my husband Ali, saw how dedicated I was to these frozen fruit and veggie bars that he stepped in and started to create different flavors using all kinds of exotic fruits and vegetables like dragon fruit, jackfruit, rutabaga; like all the things that make your mouth drop! He became really invested in the process and that is how Too Good Eats official became a business in June 2016. After having a taste testing with family and friends we decided that other families needed to be empowered to feed their families real fruit and vegetables deliciously so we created an LLC, researched AKA googled farmers markets in our area to reach a greater audience and began selling from push carts after we found a commercial kitchen to produce our product! One market turned into 5 and participating in all of the hottest festivals in our area and getting booked for catering events. In 2020 we extended our product line and launched a line of artisan juices that match the integrity of our gourmet fruit and veggie frozen pops- no added sugar, no water added, nothing from concentrate, just real fruit, vegetables, natural super-foods, herbs, and spices to help families Live Too Good! We now wholesale our product to retailers and still operate our carts around the Columbus, Ohio area with plans to expand. In taking our idea to launch we spent so much time on sourcing ingredients, vetting packaging, and truly understanding the food industry from retail to direct to consumer, it was and is still a lot but thankfully we’ve built a strong network of people that we can call upon to ask questions while we build Too Good Eats. i know people like to scream “self made” these days but nothing in business is self made.
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 Anique, I am the fearless co-founder of Too Good Eats where we empower families every where to live a balanced life and Live Too Good! Our company Too Good Eats manufactures gourmet frozen snack bars and artisan juices made with only real fruit, vegetables, natural super-foods, herbs, and spices. I am a founder by accident, my career trajectory was to become a school principal and chill out but my entrepreneurship calling came when I became a mom and wanted to change the health legacy for my family and others. Honestly, I should have known I’d start a business because I grew up working in my parents business and I married a man that worked for his dad growing up, so we both understand what running a business is like and the grit it requires. I call Too Good Eats my business passion because I am truly doing the work I love every single day and the people I meet and impact through my business confirm that Too Good Eats is empowering others! I quit my full time teaching career to obtain my MBA, to understand business better and have been building Too Good Eats since 2016. I am passionate about community and that resonates through our business. This year I piloted a youth entrepreneurship program through our business called – Nourish Our Community! The program teaches valuable skills and business training not typically taught in a k-12 environment. We offer a paid summer internship program and the students love it so much! Students have the opportunity to operate our push carts, learn about personal finance, health and wellness, and how to operate a business. I am most proud of taking a risk and having faith throughout my journey in building Too Good Eats alongside my husband, it’s only up from here!
How’d you meet your business partner?
I met my co-founder and husband Ali, in college at Central State University but we did not know we’d become business partners and life partners; like comes at you fast LOL. Ali graduated with a degree in environmental engineering; I graduated with a degree in education. Starting a business was not our life plan and we had our first kid in our senior year of college but little did we know, all of these events would birth Too Good Eats and now we are running our business full-time together. Passion and believing in yourself is contagious because Ali joined me and got excited about making frozen pops and drinks with real exotic fruits and vegetables that people LOVE today because he saw how passionate and dedicated I was about creating recipes, sampling, and I couldn’t stop talking about wellness and balance in our lives, that passion and dedication made him feel comfortable and he decided to join me in building Too Good Eats. Now Ali is our chief of product and recipe curator! Together we compliment each because our work styles and skills are so different.
Have you ever had to pivot?
You can love an idea in your business but that doesn’t mean it won’t hinder your long term success. We launched Too Good Eats in 2016 with just our frozen fruit and veggie bars, in 2017 I had the idea to extend our product line with baby food; that was not a good choice and we learned that quickly. Too Good Eats is a family brand but when we launched the baby food line, customers immediately thought of us as only a baby brand and that hindered us from getting into certain venues to share our brand and made our customers believe that they only needed our product if they had kids or if their kid was between the ages of 0-12 months. of course that was not my intent and with a small marketing budget I decided to pull the baby food line and focus on our true north which was creating real fruit and veggie products for the whole family to enjoy, no matter what age! Now we proudly create real fruit and vegetable gourmet frozen pops and artisan drinks that are loved and enjoyed by all ages! We are truly refining the family friendly concept.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.TooGoodEats.com
- Instagram: too_good_eats
- Facebook: Too Good Eats
- Linkedin: Anique Russell
- Youtube: Too Good Eats
- Yelp: Too Good Eats