McLean, Virginia, entrepreneur Myles Powell has grown his line of frozen, “clean” mac and cheese — 8 Myles Mac N’ Cheese — from a handful of retailers to far more than 1,200 retail locations, together with shops like Total Food items, Sprouts Farmers Sector, Balducci’s, and Concentrate on.
Powell has elevated more than $650,000 to day by angel investors, enterprise money buyers, and from tiny traders through crowd-investing platform Honeycomb Credit.
Powell grew up in a meals-loving relatives that used a ton of time all-around the eating room table. Relatives favorites were being often consolation meals — collard greens, fried rooster and mac and cheese. Although finding out engineering, he started out a foodstuff blog in 2012. That caught the consideration of the Foods Community immediately after he utilized to be on a new Foodstuff Community exhibit, “America’s Most effective Prepare dinner,” in 2013. That did not go perfectly.
“Mind you, I experienced been cooking for just a couple of yrs,” Powell reported. “I was nevertheless a rookie. The outcome was not excellent. I experienced to make duck, which I’d never ever cooked prior to. I received the boot on the 1st episode, but I arrived property from the clearly show and realized at that second that I wished to be concerned in foods for the relaxation of my everyday living.”
8 Myles Mac N’ Cheese is cleanse, that means no additives, but it is however mac and cheese.
“It’s not nutritious. I assume a healthier mac and cheese is an oxymoron. But it is clear in conditions of all the substances becoming recognizable,” he explained.
It is also reduce in sodium and energy as opposed to other frozen models.
8 Myles is at this time sold in three variations — Homestyle, Buffalo Mac and BBQ Mac N’ Cheese, all produced with gourmet cheeses. It also arrives with a quality selling price, about $7.
“That’s the value tag involved with the serious products. Frozen is normally plagued by additives, and fillers, and development hormones that are changing serious elements, which is why you see points on the shelf for 3 bucks,” stated Powell.
Powell, who lives with his fiancé and her 8-yr-outdated daughter, is closing out his most latest round of fundraising this year, and going on to the up coming period for his company’s expansion, investing in new creation gear and a revenue and marketing employees.
“Consumer packaged merchandise is our foot in the door,” he claimed. “As we increase by way of more merchants throughout the country, we’re also going to make a line of comfort foods available through food stuff services entities like hospitals, universities, and stadiums. We genuinely want to showcase high quality, cleanse consolation foodstuff in as lots of places as probable.”
