Founder Feature: Breanna and Jared Golestani of Kokada

The Startup CPG Podcast

Startup CPG

Startup, Food, Business, Beverage, Cpg, Entrepreneurship

4.9 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of The Startup CPG Podcast, Grace Kennedy sits down with Breanna and Jared Golestani, the co-founders of Kokada, to discuss their journey from a kitchen experiment during the pandemic to launching a nationally distributed brand. As a husband-and-wife duo, they share how their love for food (and each other) led to the creation of their delicious coconut-based spreads and snacks.

Breanna and Jared dive into the origins of Kokada, inspired by Breanna’s experiences playing volleyball for the Jamaican national team and her passion for creating a low-sugar, coconut-based treat. They recount their early days at farmers’ markets, their big break winning the NOSH Pitch Slam, and how they navigated funding, scaling, and building a supply chain—including working with international co-packers.

They also highlight their new product launch, Kokada Dunks, a better-for-you twist on nostalgic snack packs. They discuss retail strategy, the importance of in-store demos, balancing growth with sustainability, and lessons learned in securing financing without compromising their long-term vision.

Tune in now!

Listen in as they share about:

Origins & Inspiration for Kokada
Scaling & Expansion Strategy
Challenges in Supply Chain & Inventory Management
Marketing & Driving Sales in Retail
Funding & Financial Approach
New Product Launch: Kokada Dunks
Advice for Other Founders

Episode Links:

Website: https://kokada.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/breanna-atkinson-golestani-588136b7/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-golestani/

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Episode music by Super Fantastics

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know it can be a big pain?
0:02.0	Inventory management.
0:04.0	Keeping tabs on all your ingredients, how much products you have across warehouses and comands,
0:08.0	your retail and e-com orders and tying all of that together.
0:12.0	When your Excel spreadsheet breaks, wipe your tears away and call our partners at Syn7Core,
0:17.0	the most commonly recommended inventory management software from our community. You can track everything in real time in one place.
0:23.6	Sin 7Core also integrates with all the major tools that we all use like QuickBooks, Shopify, Amazon.
0:29.6	The most common thing I hear from brands in our community who use them is that they wish they had gotten started sooner.
0:34.6	So if you're thinking now might be the time, it probably is.
0:38.9	And we have a special deal where you get 50% off your first three months.
0:42.8	Check them out at Syn7.com slash startup CPG.
0:46.1	That's C-I-N, the number seven.
0:49.8	So that's Syn7.com slash startup CPG.
1:13.0	We wanted to make like essentially like a nostalgic but better for you version of something that like had like a simple cleaning ingredient deck and you know parents felt good about giving
1:18.1	to their kids.
1:19.4	Also that was another thing that I think that we had from a tailwind standpoint is the growing
1:25.9	prevalence of peanut allergies which fun fact, circa about a week ago,
1:30.3	the FDA just came out with their final ruling, or not final ruling, a, let's just say,
1:35.0	updated set of guidance that coconut is no longer considered a tree nut. Since what was it, the 80s or the 70s?
1:41.6	183. 83, it was considered a tree nut because the word nut was in coconut, even though, biologically
1:49.8	speaking, it's not.
1:50.9	Fortunately, schools, even before the whole FDA ruling, we're smart enough to know that
	...

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