Schulich Alumni Lands a Dragons’ Den Deal
This past summer, Richa Gupta (MBA ’10) made time in her busy schedule to return to Schulich to speak to prospective students and record an episode of Schulich Startups Podcast with our entrepreneur-in-residence, Chris Carder.
“From doing my MBA at Schulich to working at General Mills, I learned a lot about business management,” shared Gupta. “However, I felt like I was not fulfilling my purpose. This motivated me to launch my business—Good Food for Good—and I haven’t been happier.”
Determined to make a difference in the food industry, Gupta launched her organic food B Corporation in late 2013. To date, the company has created three condiments: Ketchups, BBQ Sauces and Cooking Sauces. Each product has no added sugars and preservatives and is organic, non-GMO and certified vegan.
Their ketchup-style sauce is the only brand sweetened with one date per bottle.
“It only has one gram of sugar per serving, while the traditional ketchup has about four grams,” shared Gupta on the podcast. “A chocolate chip cookie has less sugar than one serving of ketchup. BBQ sauce is even worse.”
Inspired by the One for One model of Toms, Gupta implemented Buy One, Feed One. She has fed over 250,000 people to date by donating to Akshaya Patra Foundation and Food Banks Canada.
Last month, Gupta appeared on Dragons’ Den after being invited to apply. On the show, Gupta shared that her products can already be found on shelves across Canada at major stores like Whole Foods, Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro. The additional funding will allow her to expand her product lines and to reach her goal of feeding one million people by 2020.
You can watch Gupta’s Dragons’ Den segment here and her Schulich Startups Podcast episode here.