Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford

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She was hyperventilating backstage. Her cards went everywhere. She ran over time. She was ready to congratulate someone else when they announced the winner.
That winner was Theresa Dang from SUP Foods. Theresa won the inaugural CPG Investor Hub pitch competition at Foodpreneurs Festival 2025.
SUP Foods is Asian freeze-dried soup cubes inspired by Theresa’s family's greenhouses in Vietnam. Before SUP Foods, Theresa had no food industry background, had never pitched to investors, and was up against founders with major retailer listings and corporate pedigree. 
In episode 159 of the Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast, Theresa gets into what it really takes to build a food brand from the ground up while working full-time and what happens when you back yourself publicly, even when every nerve in your body is telling you not to.
Don't miss this episode — you'll learn:
💡 What the CPG Investor Hub investors told Theresa about business structure, trademarks, and getting investor-ready
🤝 What happened after she was crowned the winner and what she walked away with
This episode of Season 17 is brought to you by NFTC – The Natural Foods Trading Company. If you're a growing food brand navigating that tricky middle phase—scaling up, maybe landing your first major retailer, figuring out how to buy smarter—NFTC is worth knowing about.
The CPG Investor Hub returns at Foodpreneurs Festival 2026. Applications are open now at foodpreneursfestival.com.
LINKS & RESOURCES:
SUP Foods website
NFTC website
NFTC LinkedIn page
Your Free Pitch Plan
Become A Foodpreneurs Festival Insider
Grab Your Foodpreneurs Festival Ticket
Chelsea Ford Co. Industry Newsletter
Season 17 with NFTC
Season 17, out now, is brought to you by NFTC – The Natural Foods Trading Company.
If you're a growing food brand navigating that tricky middle phase—scaling up, maybe landing your first major retailer, figuring out how to buy smarter—NFTC is worth knowing about.
They're a mid-tier ingredient supplier specialising in natural wholefoods: nuts, dried fruits, herbs, spices, seeds, and more. Small enough to offer lower minimums and genuine flexibility, but backed by serious sourcing capability and a team that actually knows its range inside out.
Think of them as the ingredient partner that grows with you—not one you'll outgrow.
Check them out at nftc.com.au

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Your ingredient supply chain is the backbone of your product. Get it right from the start and everything else — ranging conversations, scaling production, landing major accounts — becomes a lot more manageable.
The challenge is, most brand owners are laser-focused on their finished product — the packaging and the branding — and the supply chain gets built around it as an afterthought. But what happens when you can't get your product on shelf in the first place? Or when your single-origin ingredient is suddenly unavailable? Or when you finally scale and your supplier can't move with you?
In episode 158 of the Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast, Shaun Borg — sales lead for Langdon, the go-to purveyor of the finest ingredients, and the man overseeing the Natural Foods Trading Company (NFTC) — shares everything you need to know about sourcing ingredients, straight from someone who has been doing it for over 25 years, with origin trips across India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Cambodia under his belt.
Don't miss this episode — you'll learn:
🌶️ Why unique ingredients are not your point of difference — and what to do instead
📦 How to source by the bag, not the pallet, and set yourself up to scale
🏪 Why starting with Independent retailers before major retailers is still the smartest move
🤝 How to set yourself up as a customer worth investing in, even when your volumes are small
This episode of Season 17 is brought to you by NFTC – The Natural Foods Trading Company. If you're a growing food brand navigating that tricky middle phase—scaling up, maybe landing your first major retailer, figuring out how to buy smarter—NFTC is worth knowing about.
LINKS & RESOURCES:
NFTC website
NFTC LinkedIn page
Your Free Pitch Plan
Become A Foodpreneurs Festival Insider
Grab Your Foodpreneurs Festival Ticket
Chelsea Ford Co. Industry Newsletter
Season 17 with NFTC
Season 17, out now, is brought to you by NFTC – The Natural Foods Trading Company.
If you're a growing food brand navigating that tricky middle phase—scaling up, maybe landing your first major retailer, figuring out how to buy smarter—NFTC is worth knowing about.
They're a mid-tier ingredient supplier specialising in natural wholefoods: nuts, dried fruits, herbs, spices, seeds, and more. Small enough to offer lower minimums and genuine flexibility, but backed by serious sourcing capability and a team that actually knows its range inside out.
Think of them as the ingredient partner that grows with you—not one you'll outgrow.
Check them out at nftc.com.au

Send us Fan Mail
Pitching your story does not mean telling people everything about your product.
Yet many do. When you're close to what you've built — every detail, every decision, every reason it's better — it can all come out at once when given half a chance to talk about it.
The problem is, customers, buyers and distributors won't listen for more than a few seconds. And buyers have heard it all before. #sorrynotsorry
The consequence is real. Inconsistent, overloaded messaging erodes trust before a customer even picks up your product, makes ranging conversations harder, and means every new stockist, channel, or distributor feels like starting from scratch.
In episode 157 of the Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast, Jayne Gallagher and Helen Johnston from Honey & Fox, a specialist branding and marketing agency working with premium food and drink businesses, walk through how to fix it, including their framework for building the soundbites that become the foundation of everything your brand says and does.
Don't miss this episode — you'll learn: 
🎬 How to create a movie trailer, not an essay, for your brand story 
🗣️ The "and, but, therefore" structure for building soundbites that stop people in the aisle
🚫 The language trap that makes good brands invisible 
👁️ How inconsistency across your touchpoints kills consumer trust 
💡 Why you can't build your brand story alone and what to do instead
This episode of Season 16 - Planning Season - is brought to you by Foodpreneurs Festival. The only Festival where packaged brands get seen, stocked and supported. Jayne and Helen are also bringing their Brand Story Studio to Foodpreneurs Festival in May. Details are on the Foodpreneurs Festival website.
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Honey & Fox website
Episode 148 Marketing System for Food Brands: Clear, Consistent, Low Maintenance 
Your Free Pitch Plan
Grab Your Foodpreneurs Festival Ticket
Chelsea Ford Co. Industry Newsletter
Season 17 with NFTC
Season 17, out now, is brought to you by NFTC – The Natural Foods Trading Company.
If you're a growing food brand navigating that tricky middle phase—scaling up, maybe landing your first major retailer, figuring out how to buy smarter—NFTC is worth knowing about.
They're a mid-tier ingredient supplier specialising in natural wholefoods: nuts, dried fruits, herbs, spices, seeds, and more. Small enough to offer lower minimums and genuine flexibility, but backed by serious sourcing capability and a team that actually knows its range inside out.
Think of them as the ingredient partner that grows with you—not one you'll outgrow.
Check them out at nftc.com.au

Send us Fan Mail
Your product is good. Your packaging was too — once. But something's shifted.
Maybe your range has grown and the system hasn't kept up. Maybe you're pitching to bigger retailers but your pack still has a farmer's market feel. Maybe sales have plateaued and you can't put your finger on why.
In episode 155 of the Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast, I chat with Natalie Townsend, founder and creative director of Griffin Grace, a brand and packaging studio that works with founder-led CPG brands across food, beverage, beauty, and wellness.
You may remember Natalie from episode 71 where we covered building a brand from scratch. Today we go deeper into the refresh: what to do when your packaging is holding your brand back.
Tune in to hear Natalie share:
🚨 The warning signs your packaging is creating friction — and costing you ranging opportunities
🔍 The strategic work that happens before a single design decision is made
📋 Why compliance changes are actually a gift — and how to use them to your advantage
💸 How to approach a refresh without throwing everything out and blowing your budget
🗓️ Why your packaging is never truly finished — and how to plan for that without it freaking you out
🏆 How a Byron Bay muesli brand listened to a David Jones buyer and got listed
Natalie also walks through real client examples — including how a staged refresh approach helped brands stay consistent while evolving, and why the cost of doing nothing is higher than most founders realise.
This episode of Season 16 - Planning Season - is brought to you by Foodpreneurs Festival. The only Festival where packaged brands get seen, stocked and supported. Natalie will be there speaking on the Dream Lab stage and exhibiting in the Festival Fairground. Make sure you drop by to hear her talk and say hi to her in the Festival Fairground!
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Griffin Grace website
Episode 71 Branding & Packaging to Get Your Product Off the Shelf
Your Free Pitch Plan
Grab Your Foodpreneurs Festival Ticket
Chelsea Ford Co. Industry Newsletter
Season 17 with NFTC
Season 17, out now, is brought to you by NFTC – The Natural Foods Trading Company.
If you're a growing food brand navigating that tricky middle phase—scaling up, maybe landing your first major retailer, figuring out how to buy smarter—NFTC is worth knowing about.
They're a mid-tier ingredient supplier specialising in natural wholefoods: nuts, dried fruits, herbs, spices, seeds, and more. Small enough to offer lower minimums and genuine flexibility, but backed by serious sourcing capability and a team that actually knows its range inside out.
Think of them as the ingredient partner that grows with you—not one you'll outgrow.
Check them out at nftc.com.au

Send us Fan Mail
Two creatives, a side startup, and a pasta sauce that's turning heads across Australia.
In Episode 155 of the Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast - Season 16, Planning Season - I sit down with Lachlan and Grga, the Melbourne co-founders behind Sorry Nonna. One's a graphic designer. The other's an advertising creative director who's worked with Netflix and Gatorade. Together, they're doing things in the pasta sauce category that Nonna absolutely did not approve.
Gochujang Arrabbiata. Limoncello Marinara. A limited-edition Carolina Reaper collab with Doom Juice wine. Oh, and a coffee bolognese that consumer testing quietly killed before it saw the light of day.
But underneath the cheeky branding and flavour obsession, there's a real business story, about what happens when creatives lean hard into their strengths, start planning (loosely), and build a cult following before chasing the majors.
Tune in to hear:
🍝 How Grga and Lachlan built a brand world first, and why they believe everything else follows from that
🍝 What winning a BiteBack Award actually unlocked for them - including the consumer testing that saved them from a very bad idea
🍝 Why they're in 100+ stockists in stores they genuinely love, and what that's done for their growth
🍝 How planning doesn't have to kill your creativity - it just needs to suit you
This episode of Season 16 - Planning Season - is brought to you by Foodpreneurs Festival. The only Festival where packaged brands get seen, stocked and supported.
LINKS & RESOURCES:
Sorry Nonna website
Sorry Nonna Instagram
BiteBack Awards Entry Kit
Your Free Pitch Plan
Grab Your Foodpreneurs Festival Ticket
Chelsea Ford Co. Industry Newsletter
Season 17 with NFTC
Season 17, out now, is brought to you by NFTC – The Natural Foods Trading Company.
If you're a growing food brand navigating that tricky middle phase—scaling up, maybe landing your first major retailer, figuring out how to buy smarter—NFTC is worth knowing about.
They're a mid-tier ingredient supplier specialising in natural wholefoods: nuts, dried fruits, herbs, spices, seeds, and more. Small enough to offer lower minimums and genuine flexibility, but backed by serious sourcing capability and a team that actually knows its range inside out.
Think of them as the ingredient partner that grows with you—not one you'll outgrow.
Check them out at nftc.com.au