Scaling a Business Without a Plan: How Urban Remedy Got Into 400 Whole Foods Stores
Dear FoundHer...Real Founder Stories for Women Small Business Owners
Lindsay Pinchuk
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Neka Pasquale turned a side project into a $48 million business, and she'll be the first to tell you she had no idea what she was doing.
She was an acupuncturist treating patients when she started making food and juices as part of their care. People loved it, word got around, and before long, Urban Remedy was growing faster than she could plan for. There was no roadmap. Just a lot of late nights, a lot of mistakes, and a refusal to quit.
On this episode of Dear FoundHer, Neka sits down with host Lindsay Pinchuk to talk about starting a business for the first time with no roadmap, no business background, and no idea the thing would grow into what it became. She shares what it was like fulfilling 500 juice orders while pregnant, shipping food across the country before she was remotely ready, and learning operations, HR, and food safety by making every possible mistake first.
The story of how Urban Remedy landed in Whole Foods is worth the listen alone. It didn't come from a pitch. It came from a bike ride. That's partnership marketing working exactly the way it's supposed to, and it's a reminder that the relationships you're already building matter more than any campaign you could run.
Scaling a business that sells fresh organic food nationally comes with scaling challenges most brands never take on. Neka talks about managing rapid growth without losing the mission, the burnout that built up quietly over 12 years of nonstop doing, and why protecting what your brand stands for gets harder the bigger you get.
For women entrepreneurs who are building something that actually means something, this conversation offers a candid look at what growth actually asks of you.
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 How Urban Remedy Started by Accident
06:25 Managing 500 Orders While Pregnant
08:39 The Operational Chaos of Scaling a Business
11:15 How a Bike Ride Led to 400 Whole Foods Locations
15:36 Staying True to Your Mission at Scale
22:22 The Real Challenges of Scaling Fresh Food Nationally
23:39 When and Why to Hire a CEO
29:14 What Every Woman Founder Needs to Know Before Scaling a Business
Connect with Neka Pasquale:
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Join THE networking community for women business owners over forty, The Dear FoundHer... Forum
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Dear Founder. I'm Lindsay Pinchuk, your host, and this is the first of three |
| 0:05.0 | guest episodes this month that I'm so excited to share because every one of these women |
| 0:10.1 | built a business that you've probably already encountered in your real life. And every one of them |
| 0:15.3 | did it through partnership thinking before they ever spent serious money on marketing. |
| 0:21.2 | Today's guest is Nica Pasquale, founder of Urban Remedy. |
| 0:24.6 | If you've walked through a Whole Foods anywhere in this country in the last few years, |
| 0:28.4 | you've seen her brand. |
| 0:29.8 | Cold Press juices, beautiful organic salads, ready to eat fresh food and glass jars. |
| 0:34.7 | Urban Remedy will do roughly $48 million in revenue this year, and they |
| 0:39.1 | just hit profitability after 15 years of building. Here's what I want you to listen for in this |
| 0:45.0 | conversation. Nika built Urban Remedy out of her acupuncture practice. Her first customers |
| 0:51.2 | were her patients. Her first community was the people she'd already been |
| 0:54.9 | treating for years. And the moment that took her from a kitchen operation to a national CPG brand, |
| 1:01.5 | you would be surprised, but it was a bike ride. Her then CEO, Paul, was on a bike ride with a friend |
| 1:07.0 | who happened to work at Whole Foods. They started talking about Urban Remedy, and that one |
| 1:12.3 | conversation became a partnership that put her kiosks in 400 Whole Foods locations. I always say, |
| 1:18.9 | you never know where a contact, conversation, or connection will take you, so make sure that you |
| 1:24.9 | are sharing your story with everyone. And this is exactly what I've been |
| 1:28.8 | talking about all month and actually for the last five years. Partnerships are the foundation, |
| 1:34.6 | not ads, not virality, relationships you've already built and the conversations that you're |
| 1:40.6 | already having. Nika also got introduced to me through a mutual connection, |
| 1:44.9 | which in itself is the perfect example of how partnerships keep working. So with that, |
... |
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