Sweet Nothings was founded out of a common problem faced by many individuals: the inability to find healthy snacks that meet their needs. Beth Porter, co-founder of Sweet Nothings, was looking for clean and healthy snacks that her children would enjoy, but unfortunately, she couldn’t find any on the shelves. Consequently, she took it upon herself to create her own. This is how the Sweet Nothings company began.
Today, Sweet Nothings is a clean-snack company that offers a variety of tasty, healthy snacks. According to Co-founder and CEO Jake Kneller, Sweet Nothings retails clean, organic, plant-based superfood snacks such as Spoonable and Squeezeable Smoothies and Nut Butter Bites. The products are made from only organic fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds with no artificial flavors, added sugars, or unnecessary fillers.
The idea of using high-quality ingredients sets Sweet Nothings apart from their competitors. According to Kneller, most of the convenience packaged goods (CPG) use shortcuts and fillers in their products, but Sweet Nothings doesn’t compromise on quality.
Sweet Nothings’ journey began when Co-founder Beth Porter wanted clean snacks for her kids and started experimenting with a food processor, creating a smoothie-like snack that quickly became popular with family and friends. From that beginning, Sweet Nothings grew to become a distributor in over 3,500 stores that range from Kroger to Whole Foods, and it’s expanded to offer three distinct product lines in just four years.
One of the biggest wins that Sweet Nothings experienced was the distribution deal with Sprouts stores nationwide, which helped them gain access to customers from Florida to Texas to California.
The biggest challenge Sweet Nothings faced was the pandemic, which caused their revenue from corporate and university cafeterias to drop overnight. However, they managed to stay afloat by launching a DTC (direct-to-consumer) site and reaching out to grocery stores about carrying their products.
Launching their new Kids’ Squeezable Smoothies and Nut Butter Bites was the biggest risk Sweet Nothings took, as they had to invest a lot of capital to promote them before knowing if they would be a success. However, the move paid off substantially, as it helped grow their business three-fold in 2022 and allowed them to create a brand across multiple categories.
If Sweet Nothings had an extra $100,000, they would launch more in-store demos to get their products in more customer’s hands, says Kneller.
In conclusion, Sweet Nothings is an inspiring small business that started from a personal need and turned into a thriving, healthy snack company that’s changing the snack industry one nut butter bite at a time.
