Founding a Retail Food Company-Jeannine Sacco

Jeannine Sacco shares PrOats, at her 9.23.2010 presentation

On Sept. 23, 2010, Jeannine Sacco CIA ’06, SHA ’09, founder and president of BeetNPath, shared her experiences in starting a new retail food company.  Founded in 2009, BeetNPath is focused on supporting a healthier lifestyle for students, by providing meal choices made from all natural ingredients.   Jeannine discussed the difficulties of translating a vision or idea into a revenue producing product and the host of financial, marketing, sales, and operational skills necessary to launch a new product.  In the case of BeetNPath, the challenge of developing PrOats, their signature product, was not just in creating the right flavor but adjusting the ingredients to maintain the key 20 grams of protein, while producing it on a commercial scale. At the same time, Jeannine was developing the first full meal items, Loafer’s Delight™ and  Bolo’tini™, meatloaf and pasta entrees respectively. Then came production; the meals are packaged in MAP (Modified Atmosphere Packaging) containers that allow the entire meal to be stored with a longer shelf life but still reheated directly in the packaging.  Jeannine described the many hats a new business owner wears, finding suppliers for the packaging, sources for the raw ingredients, and producers of the commercial volume of product.  She recalled orchestrating the complicated dance that brings these factions all together to create the final product to be distributed to customers. And finally, sales, sales and more sales.  With an additional two entrees in development,  BeetNPath is taking off, with multiple flavors of their original PrOats now available, and distribution to over 20 locations in colleges and universities across the northeast. Read more about Jeannine and BeetNPath in our alumni spotlights.

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