Denise Woodard: Founder and CEO of Partake Foods

Second Life

Who What Wear

Business, Careers, Society & Culture, Arts, Fashion & Beauty, Personal Journals

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Denise Woodard is the founder and CEO of Partake, an allergy-friendly food company. Woodard started her career in pound-the-pavement sales roles at Philip Morris and FedEx, gaining robust experience in winning business by providing genuine solutions to her clients. She then spent the majority of her early career at the Coca-Cola Company, starting in sales and then finding her niche working on the emerging brands that were better aligned with her values, like Honest Tea and Health-Ade. After rising through the ranks and becoming the director of national sales for Coca-Cola’s Venturing and Emerging Brands (VEB), Woodard was proud of the career she had built for herself and didn’t envision she’d ever leave her job. But after having her daughter, Vivienne, and finding out her child suffered from food allergies, she started to realize just how stark the allergy-friendly food landscape was. She couldn’t find any options that were nutritious and delicious, and after some nudging from her nanny, Woodard decided to do something about it. She promptly put together a new business pitch for an allergy-friendly snack brand, entered a pitch competition, and won. She spent the next year building Partake while working her day job before leaping into it full-time. Since then, Woodard has become the first Black woman to raise over $1 million for a packaged food company, and Partake Foods can now be found in over 18,000 retailers, including Target and Whole Foods.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone. I'm Hillary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who What Where, and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of
0:22.1	setting aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their second life.
0:27.7	Today on the show, I'm thrilled to welcome the founder and CEO of Partake Foods, Denise Woodard.
0:35.9	Denise never planned to become an entrepreneur. In fact, before starting partake,
0:40.5	she had a career she adored. After working her way up at the Coca-Cola Company, she was director
0:46.7	of national sales for their venturing and emerging brands. Think honest tea and health aid.
0:52.8	Denise only started to consider the idea of starting her own business after her young daughter
0:57.8	was diagnosed with severe food allergies in 2016.
1:02.5	When searching for foods that met her standards both in nutrition and taste, she came up short.
1:07.8	With some encouragement from her nanny, Denise took matters into her own hands,
1:12.0	entering a local pitch competition with the initial idea for an allergy-friendly snack brand,
1:17.4	and of course, she won.
1:19.5	With the mission of helping kids with allergies and dietary restrictions be able to partake,
1:25.1	Denise began working on the brand on nights and weekends, selling cookies out of her
1:29.8	car for the first year. After persevering through countless roadblocks like emptying her 401k
1:36.3	to fulfill orders and getting denied by 86 investors during fundraising, Denise became the first
1:42.5	black woman to raise more than a million dollars for a packaged food company.
1:46.7	Partake can now be found in more than 18,000 retailers, including Target and Whole Foods, and, on top of all of this,
1:55.0	Denise also founded the Black Futures Fellowship, a nonprofit that supports underrepresented people seeking food
2:01.8	and beverage careers. Denise is a perfect example of how to learn by doing, and I can't wait
2:08.0	for you to hear her story. Now, on Second Life, it's Denise Woodard.
2:15.2	Denise, you ready to go? I'm ready to go.
	...

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