Food waste upcycling success

In this new series Food & Drink Business revisits its Rising Star alumni. Our regular Rising Star feature in the print magazine profiles founders and their young companies, selected for innovation, creativity, tenacity, and potential. This week, we check in with the founders of functional snack food company I am Grounded, Vanessa Murillo and Lachlan Powell.

I am Grounded began in 2019, launching functional snack bars using upcycled coffee fruit waste. Every year around 20 billion kilograms of coffee fruit waste is produced.  

Where is the company today?

Lachlan: We’re so proud of how far we have come with I Am Grounded (IAG) in the last few years. Despite launching an FMCG product into market during the start of COVID, which at times proved difficult and challenging, we never strayed from our key mission to fight food waste and reduce coffee waste loading on the planet and on farms.

We also recognised a key gap in the coffee-obsessed Australian market for everyday functional snacks and beverages containing lasting, natural caffeine.

The market fit and appetite for our products is evidenced through our recent rollout of the full range of IAG energy bars into almost 1000 Woolworths stores across the county, ensuring there is now always an IAG energy snack close by to fuel your day.

What have been the high points?

Vanessa:

• 

  Successfully completing our Kickstarter campaign;
• seeing our first production run in real-life;
• ranging with Woolworths;
• supplying Canva HQ;
• winning Naturally Good’s Pitch Fest competition;
• being featured by Bonapetit and Forbes US; and
• travelling to Expo West in LA and seeing our brand on display.

What have been the challenges?

Vanessa: Running an FMCG business comes with the complexities of also producing a product that is open to customer feedback. It can be very challenging at times to juggle retailer expectations versus consumer expectations.

Knowing which people to partner with and what opportunities to explore and take on can be difficult. We’ve learnt that having a good team of people around you including advisors/mentors and opening your NPD process to a select number of customers, can help combat the aches and pains of running a successful FMCG business.

Is there anything you would have done differently?

Vanessa: Absolutely not, we think everything happens for a reason. We are building our business with the utmost respect for this process and integrity in our hearts, so therefore every decision we make is the right decision at the time we made it.

It’s only when you have hindsight that you question or ask yourself why, but there is no need to linger on the past for too long, as things move quickly in business.

Current goals?

Lachlan: From its inception, our mission as a business has been to find a way to use the innovative ingredient that is the coffee fruit. With Vanessa’s background as a Colombian and our close involvement with the coffee community, we feel a deep connection to this space and our mission of change in this industry.

Our recent partnership with Woolworths gives us the opportunity to scale across the country and create more impact in the coffee space.

We’re also excited to be working on NPD across multiple categories to bring deliciously naturally caffeinated and sustainable products to the Australian consumer and have our eyes set on other exciting global markets!