Universities have long launched startups in fields like software and biomedicine, but many are now taking increasingly prominent roles backing entrepreneurship around farming, food, and agricultural technology.
Part of Purdues Applied Research Institute, DIAL Ventures hosts a fellowship aimed at digitizing the agriculture and food industry. The venture studio connects fellows with startup experience to corporate partners and university experts who help them hone businesses addressing real market needs, says Professor Allan Gray, the program’s executive director.
“The problem is our incumbent companies who feed the worldthey’re not digital-native, and so for them to innovate in the digital space is actually quite difficult for them,” he says. “That’s where DIAL Ventures steps in.”
So far, the program has backed companies in areas like farmland management, rural logistics, and agricultural equipment maintenance as well as a digital marketing platform for farmers as content creators called Make Hay.
They are coming to market as experts say burgeoning technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and drones can help address long-standing issues in food production, thanks to innovations from automated harvesting and pest control to data-driven crop yield and logistics optimization. Gray says he expects multiple successful exits by startups within the next few years.
Funding in the U.S. “agrifoodtech” sector grew 14% year over year in 2024, according to a recent report from venture firm AgFunder. But tech meant to handle real-world crops and food, not just abstract bits and bytes, can’t be built from isolated offices in Silicon Valley. A key part of Purdue’s role, Gray says, is ensuring technically adept entrepreneurs learn from the experts on the agricultural side.
“You’ve got to be open-minded and really be careful about listening to what the industry is telling you is the challenge that’s in front of you,” he says.
Of course, at universities serving rural communities, it’s not unusual for students to arrive with their own agricultural expertise, often from working on the family farm. And many of those schools are now helping those students sow their own business ideas.
At Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, a program called Start Something includes a Student Incubator that supports work in emerging areas like soil analytics and drone pesticide application. One student doubled his drone business from one summer to the next, bringing in more than $200,000 in revenue, says Kevin Kimle, Start Something’s director. Kimle’s own son, Iowa State alum Jackson Kimle, runs a business harnessing innovative water filtration technology for a novel kind of Iowa livestock: fresh shrimp.
More than 1,200 students participate in Start Something programs every year, including roughly 200 who take the program’s capstone class, which culminates with business plans presented to real investors and entrepreneurs. Kimle envisions adding programming for high school students interested in agricultural entrepreneurship, which can in turn help recruit them to Iowa State.
Successfully pursuing new ideas can help graduates thrive in rural areas while giving back to the community, Kimle says, and entrepreneurial ventures can make it easier for family farms to stay viable for a new generation.
Other ag-minded schools, including many that are part of the historic U.S. land-grant program with its long ties to farm and food innovation, boast similar programs, often backed by successful founders among their alums. The U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, which promotes entrepreneurial education, has a subgroup for agricultural and rural entrepreneurship, and student startup hubs have launched at schools like the University of Nebraska, North Carolina State, Texas A&M, and Pennsylvania State University.
Penn State offers support for entrepreneurial students throughout the campus, including the College of Agricultural Sciences, which launched an Entrepreneurship & Innovation program in 2012. Today, it includes offerings like Ag Springboard, a Shark Tank-style student pitch competition that draws hundreds of entries and works with students from a range of majors, says teaching professor Mark Gagnon, cofounder of the program.
“A good number of our students from [the College of Information Sciences and Technology] and computer science come over the ag space, because these are some big challenges to solve, to figure out how to feed the world and reduce the impacts on our footprint,” says Gagnon.
Students have launched companies like Phospholutions, which has developed a soil additive that makes phosphorus fertilizer use more cost-effective while reducing its environmental impact. Perhaps equally important, undergrad innovators train their startup muscles for later use, says Gagnon. “Having that experience at 20 years old is incredible,” he says. “Because when they’re 45 years old and they have the connections and the capital and they see an opportunity that has value and is scalable, they’re just that much further along.”
This story is part of Fast Company and Inc.‘s 2025 Ignition Schools awards, the 50 colleges and universities making an outsize impact on business and society through entrepreneurship and innovation. Read about the methodology behind our selection process.
Lets hear it for the frazzled. Those multitasking, multiskilled superhero women (and lets be honest, theyre almost always women) whose days are packed to the brimjuggling leadership roles and caregiving, studying in between appointments, work calls, and late-night birthday party prep. Theyre keeping it all going and doing it well, even if they feel like theyre barely holding it together. Procrastination? They dont have time for it.
In my new book Small Moves, Big Life, I lay out clear, accessible daily practices for dialing down overwhelm, especially for women in high-performance positions. Its all about small, repeatable actions that keep you productive, focused, and moving forward, even on your busiest days. These arent chakra-activating, crystal-powered wellness goals (not that theres anything wrong with that; you do you), theyre practical, no-nonsense, science-backed shifts that take just a few minutes and truly deliver momentum, not just in your work output, but in your mindset, too.
Do the Thing
Do the Thing is one of the key tools in that framework. Its incredibly simple, effective, and designed to reduce decision fatigue. A hack, if you will. Its an approach Ive used for years, and I honestly couldn’t have founded and built an international business, led teams, and raised two daughters without it. Ill admit, its a little counterintuitive, but hear me out.
At its core, Do the Thing is a smarter way to write a to-do list. Weve all scribbled down an overwhelming list of everything we need to do only to freeze at the sight of it. When your workload is intense and your brains already at full capacity, even planning becomes exhausting. That list of everything ends up doing the opposite of what we need. It stirs up guilt, triggers decision fatigue, and makes us feel like were falling behind, no matter how many hours we put in.
Ive seen this firsthand. In 2019, I was moving my family to New York City, restructuring my business, managing school logistics, and navigating a divorce all at once. I had big plans and even bigger responsibilities, and even though I knew I was doing my best, I was overwhelmed and out of sync. Despite constant effort, I didnt feel like I was making real progress; I was doing everything but not really achieving anything. I needed to reclaim clarity, and fast.
So, I did something radical: I ripped up the endless to-do list and rebuilt it from scratch. Thats how Do the Thing was born.
The Power of Three
I started with a blank sheet of paper and wrote down just three things: the highest-priority, biggest-impact actions for that day. These were my nonnegotiables. At the time, they were things like finalize a franchise agreement, review legal documents, renew a passport.
Just three high priority tasks I told myself I would absolutely get done, no matter what.
Once those were completed, I didnt move on right away. I took a beat and recognized the win. I even gave myself a quiet, mental Atta girl. Because progress deserves acknowledgment.
Then, I added two bonus tasks, things that would also move my day along but wouldnt be the end of the world if I didnt get to them. Finally, I added one feel good action: something to look forward to that restored energy. That mightve been a 15-minute walk, calling a friend, or trying out some new skincare. Just a tiny, intentional reset.
What I created was a reverse pyramid:
3 must-do items
2 nice-to-haves
1 mood-boosting reset
It was short, focused, and completely doable. And it changed everything.
That day, I got more done, not by doing everything, but just by doing what really mattered. My decision fatigue lifted, my energy returned, and I had a clear view of what success looked like. I finally had momentum, and it felt good.
Doing Less Can Actually Drive More Results
Over time, my Do The Thing tool became a mindset. It helped me reframe how I defined success, not by how busy I felt, but by whether I made meaningful progress.
Theres expert thinking to back this up. According to Don Sull and Charlie Sull in theMIT Sloan Management Review, The power of specific, ambitious goals to improve the performance of individuals and teams is one of the best documented findings in organizational psychology. So, being specific wins, but I would add consistency and intention, too.
One of the best benefits of Do the Thing is that it creates space for full-out effort. In my dance training, this meant not just learning the choreography, but performing full-out it like it was opening night. Now, years later, I apply that same mindset to work: show up fully, deliver with intention, and then move on.
Heres the equation I live by:
Consistency + Full-Out Effort + Time = Results
When you apply that formula, even to just three tasks, you start seeing big change. You go from exhausted to accomplished. Your long-term strategy becomes clear. And you go from spread-too-thin to truly impactful.
Getting it done
Perfectionism convinces us we need to do more, try harder, and never miss a beat. But the real magic? Its in being specific, doing what matters most, and doing it with focus, clarity, and intention.
Do the Thing doesnt require a life overhaul, expensive systems, or elaborate rituals. Just a short list, written with clarity and intention, and followed consistently. Over time, thats how momentum is built. Thats how high performers stay grounded. And thats how you trade feeling frazzled for the extraordinary feeling of getting it done.Excerpted from Small Moves, Big Life: 7 Daily Practices to Supercharge Your Energy, Productivity, and Happiness (in Just Minutes a Day) (BenBella Books, October 7, 2025)
When asked, 88% of Americans will say theyre above average drivers. In the ability to get along with others, 25% of students rate themselves in the top 1%. When couples are asked to estimate their individual contributions to household work, the combined total routinely exceeds 100%. These are all statistical impossibilities. Theyre also great examples of how were predisposed to overrate our abilities and contributions. As an aspiring CEO candidate, its important to have the humility to recognize your inherent, self-serving bias and counteract it through the following steps:
Objectively assess your capabilities versus whats needed
Fill your skill gaps and gauge your progress on the way
Refuse to play politics in the process
What the company needs
Assessing your capabilities starts with understanding what the company needs in its next leader. Brad Smith, the former CEO of financial software giant Intuit, uses a horse racing analogy: The reason there are very few Triple Crown winners, he says, is because the Kentucky Derby is a very different track from the Preakness, which are both different from the Belmont. The right horse will win on the right track. If youre a candidate, first ask yourself in an intellectually honest way, What does the company most need? and then Do I have that skill set today?
To understand if you have whats needed, and where you stand, analyze your abilities along at least four dimensions. The first is breadth of experience and record (for example, leading transformational change, delivering a profit-and-loss statement, and representing the company externally). The second is knowledge and expertise (as it relates to such things as financial acumen, sales leadership, technology, target markets, and industry trends). The third is leadership skill (for example, your ability to think strategically, establish executive presence, build teams, and show self-awareness). The fourth is the strength of your relationships and overall reputation. How are you viewed by internal stakeholders, such as your boss, peers, direct reports, and influencers? How about by external stakeholders, such as investors, customers, suppliers, regulators, and community leaders? And how do board members size you up? Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, summarizes success on this dimension as whether you have “followership.” The best definition of a leader, he reflects, is if people are willing to follow you.
Consult others
To help break through your self-serving bias, its important to seek others views. That might involve getting feedback from mentors, confidants, peers, and so on, but more often than not, you should ask someone else to gather that 360-degree information. The person who collects the feedback could be a trusted colleague, but most often, its an external coach.
While some leaders view having a coach as a weakness, the best point to the sporting world, where no player or team gets to the championship without a great coach. Nasdaqs CEO Adena Friedman shares, “Before I became CEO, I was getting 360s and coaching over a period of years. The coach gathered all the feedback. Then I sat down with them, and we discussed it together. It helped crystalize the feedback into ideas for improvement and action.
Robert Smith, founder and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity partners, explains the value of doing so. If you’re right-handed, you usually have a weak left hand. A great coach, he suggests, helps you see What’s your left hand? What are you weak at that you can learn to be better at? And what are the things you need?
A learning journey
Once youve assessed how you score along these four dimensions, its time to start improving yourself. Think of it as embarking on a learning journey that involves cycles of taking action and then reflecting with a close group of advisers on the progress being made. Such journeys typically combine ongoing leadership coaching with participation in various forums or roundtables, visits to other companies, targeted reading lists, briefings from experts, and finding opportunities to gain experience and build relationships by dealing with the media, presenting to the board, and representing the company externally.
Pursuing this path requires striking a delicate balance. Without being seen as self-promoting or currying favor, youll want to increase your visibility so those who need to know are aware that you want to make the final ascent. Ive seen this go awry so many times when people begin to run for the job, shares Intuits Smith. They almost campaign for the role, and thats the quickest way to throw you off track.
How it all comes together
Former CEO of Westpac, Gail Kelly shares her keys to success: Dont play politics. Dont undermine people. None of that ends well. Be authentic, transparent, a team player, and an active supporter of colleagues for the greater good, even if theyre also in the running for the role. Her advice reinforces the importance of taking a gut check of your motivations and intentions. If theyre not sustainable, you simply wont be able to walk the line with authenticity.
Michael Fisher, the CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center summarizes how it all comes together: Its a quiet ambition pursued with humility. You gain confidence as you go by learning and growing every day.
Getting the balance right doesnt just set you in good stead as a CEO candidate. Its also a win for the institution. What company isnt better off for having more service-oriented leaders connecting across the enterprise and boldly solving for the good of the whole organizationespecially if theyre doing so while delivering on their core responsibilities, building their self-awareness, and developing new capabilities and more fruitful relationships?Adapted from CEO for All Seasons. Copyright 2025, Dewar, Keller, Malhotra, Strovink. Reproduced by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.
At the Port of Seattle, cargo is always on the move. Longshoremen load and unload cars, electronics, grain, logs, and hundreds of other commodities from ships and trucks before these products land on store shelves around the world.
The life of a longshoreman can be a difficult one, with long and labor-intensive hours spent on the waterfront. Yet, many of them say the work itself is not the most difficult part. Especially in recent months, as unpredictable tariff policies have impacted the number of ships entering U.S. ports, uncertainty is plaguing our ports and the workers who make domestic and global trade possible.
Were very fortunate to have the jobs we do and what they pay and the benefits we have, but at the same time, the unknown is what keeps us from enjoying those benefits, says Kesa Sten, a terminal chief at the Port of Seattle and president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 52.
An unpredictable number of ships
Within a few weeks of his inauguration, Trump made tariffs a cornerstone of his international policy agendabut these are not the low, consistent tariffs of past administrations. Broadly implemented and ever evolving, the new administrations tariff policy has led foreign leaders to scramble for deals and has led importers to wonder: Are these high fees here to stay?
At the ports, this unpredictability has led to inconsistent numbers of ships coming in: busy periods as importers race to get their goods into the country before new tariffs take effect and much slower days while they wait and see.
Compared with last year, the number of imports the Port of Seattle is managing is significantly lower, on average, though spikes in activity during pauses or before new tariffs take effect have, in some cases, met or exceeded last years averages.
Just this last week in the Port of Seattle, we were rocking, Sarah Esch, a dispatcher for ILWU Local 19, told Fast Company in early August. I think they were just trying to land wherever they could in the U.S. before the August 7 deadline.
The August tariffswhich were implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law that allows the president to take charge of international commerce regulation during a national emergencyhave been deemed illegal by federal courts. However, they will remain in effect until at least October 14 while the case is appealed to the Supreme Court, thereby extending uncertainty for importers and workers at the port.
As dispatcher, Esch will continue to dole out jobs to those working on the waterfront all year. However, now that the busy summer season, when cruise and container ships alike flood Seattle, has come to an end, she is expecting much less work to be availableespecially for the newer workers hoping to become registered longshoremen.
Registration comes with big benefits, such as health insurance, retirement, and first pick of available jobs at the port. Getting registered, though, can take many years and comes down to the number of hours worked. As fewer ships dock in times of economic uncertainty and trade instability, fewer jobs are available, and the registration process can become more drawn out and competitive.
I need to be available, hoping to get work on the waterfront, Cole Lowenstein, a second-generation longshoreman working in Seattle, tells Fast Company. It takes me away from a lot of other things.
Lowenstein has been a casual, the industry term for a dockworker making their way toward registration, for more than six years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he remembers there was so much work available that casual workers would compete to see how many days in a row they could work, sometimes reaching 30 or 40 days straight. This year, his coworkers were in awe of the fact he worked nine days in a row.
With job opportunities slowing down, Lowenstein says he lives 12 hours at a time, always waiting for the next dispatch to see if there will be enough work to warrant staying near the port or if he should make the trek back to his home in northern Washington.
I spend a lot of time sleeping in my car just because Im two or three hours away from the house, and its not really worth the drive back, he adds.
These already irregular work schedules have become even more unpredictable in the age of ever-changing tariffs.
What the tariffs are for
High tariffs have been a key part of Trumps economic strategy since his first term. However, while his first-term tariffs targeted specific importssuch as electric vehicles, semiconductors, and steel, his second term has seen steep, across-the-board tariffs leveled against trading partners. Moves that are baffling to some economists.
Our president has offered several explanations for the tariffs, Gene Grossman, an economist and professor at Princeton Universitys School of Public and International Affairs, tells Fast Company. Interestingly theyre in direct contradiction with one another.
A White House fact sheet related to Trumps tariffs outlines his goals for the policy: reducing trade deficits, bringing jobs back to the U.S., and raising revenues. Regarding these goals, Grossman says, you cant have it both ways. Bringing jobs stateside would require us to produce more goods here and import less, but importing less does not allow tariffs to bring in revenue.
Still, Trump has moved ahead, creating a complex web of frequently revised tariffs over the past few months. In early February, he imposed steep tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, though many were suspended shortly after taking effect in March. He then announced a 10% tariff on all imports to the U.S., which both took effect and was paused on April 9. And despite summer-long negotiations, new tariffs were unexpectedly announced in August. Nearly all U.S. trading partners are impacted by a set of broad-reaching tariffs, which have been in effect since August 7.
A 15% tariff, if you knew it was going to apply to everybody always and it wasnt going to be changed next month would be a problem for importers . . . but it would be a known problem, says Grossman.
The current unpredictable state of global trade is a separate issue for importers, Grossman adds, since it encourages firms that might invest in U.S. trade to wait and see what will happen, rather than acting.
So far, the result of this wait and see attitude has been slowdowns in tradeand at the ports. The West Coast has been particularly hard hit, because it processes many imports from China and other countries in Asia that have been hit with high tariffs. Lowenstein has even noticed longshoremen usually based at Southern California ports coming up to Seattle to find work.
Ive only heard rumors about how slow it may be [in California], but the rumors are pretty alarming, Lowenstein says.
What today’s low registrations mean for the future
For Esch, who was in the process of becoming a registered longshreman during the 2008 recession, the slowdowns today feel familiar. She remembers how the inconsistency of work added an extra dimension of uncertainty to an already difficult registration process.
I almost moved back home because it had just gotten so dreary and I went through bankruptcyIt was tough, it was really tough, Esch says. Im good now, but, oh my god, I certainly wouldnt want to be a casual right now.
Derailing the registration process for the next generation of longshoremen does more than inflict uncertainty on workers, it could destabilize the industry as more longshoremen choose to pursue other careers. After a long slowdown in work, if the number and frequency of ships coming to U.S. ports returns to previous levels, there may not be enough workers to handle their cargo, Lowenstein suggests.
Entire ships can sit for a day, a night, a shift, two shifts without being unloaded, he says. The ripple effects of that through our economy, I couldnt even begin to articulate.
The ports are responsible for an estimated $2.89 trillion in economic activity, according to a 2024 report by the American Association of Port Authorities, and they support nearly 22 million jobs.
For now, many working those jobs are sticking it out, hoping the tariffs uncertainty will settle soon. They’re buoyed by the longshore community, which they describe as both vibrant and close-knitthe type of community that rallies around each other in hard times as well as joyous ones.
Its just a huge swath of the American public that all work at the same place, getting to know everybody, Esch says. Were together for decades, so it really is like a family.
After weeks (or months) of applying and interviewing for jobs, you finally land the role made for you. Its a moment of celebration and reliefthis feels like the finish line.
But what happens if, mere days after starting, you think: Did I just make a huge mistake?
Maybe the job description was misleading, maybe the culture feels off, or maybe you just cant shake the sense that you simply made the wrong move. Should you immediately look for the exit? Or is it possible to turn things around and make the role work?
Early job regret can be a common experience, but its also one that needs to be handled carefully, both for your career growth and your professional reputation.
Identify your feelingsthen take action
Before making any big decisions, its important to take a step back and reflect on whats driving your regret.
Is it the actual tasks of the role? Is it the company? Is it the people you work with? says Madeline Mann, author and career coach who runs Self Made Millennial, a YouTube channel about career development with over 400,000 subscribers.
Pinpointing the source of regret will help you figure out whether the situation is temporary, something that could improve with time, or a much bigger mismatch between you and the job itself.
If your new role seems unclear, overwhelming, or if youre unsure how to execute your tasks, it might be time to seek clarity from your manager. Still, even if your manager thinks theyre telling you everything, there are times theyve been in their role for so long they dont necessarily remember what it feels like to be a new employee, Mann explains. Taking initiative to fill those gaps is far more effective than throwing in the towel and thinking, No one told me, Im lost. I give up.
If you know what youre struggling with and youre comfortable doing so, make sure you share it with your manager and be as transparent as possible. Tell them what you need; that way, You’re bringing solutions to your manager, versus kind of putting it on them, Mann says.
Shifting your perspective to look for the positiveseven small onescan also help you regain a sense of control when you feel regret.
Sometimes we get into this victim mindset. But what is good? What is positive? What can you accomplish? explains Mann. Celebrating even minor wins can remind you why you took the job in the first place. That may help you build momentum while you decide whether the role is truly the right fit for you.
Patrice Williams-Lindo, CEO of Career Nomad and a career pivot coach, echoes Manns sentiments.
If youre regretting your new job, ask yourself, Is it a blip or a collapse? If its just an adjustment, stay and recalibrate, Williams-Lindo says. Now, she adds, If its true misalignment, its time to leave. Staying in misalignment is how you compound career debt. In other words, lingering in the wrong role can make it harder to leave later.
When to bail
If youve done all the above and still regret it, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere.
But if the company itself isnt whats giving you reservations, that doesnt always mean you need to leave the place entirely. I always encourage someone to do their best to try to find a better fit within the organization they’re already at, Mann says.
The best way to do that is to send out emails or instant messages when you’re a new hire and say, Hey, I’m new. I just joined. Here’s my job title, and I’m making sure to connect with people in different departments so I can really understand the business and how I can be of service, possibly somewhere down the line, or collaborate with you in some way. Would you be open to talking for 15 minutes? Mann explains.
If youve tried to make the role and company work, and it still doesnt feel rightit may truly be time to move on.
Mann refers to these situations as oopsie” jobsroles that last less than three months but were intended to be longer. Those oops jobs you can just very easily leave off of your résumé if you’d like, Mann says.
Update your LinkedIn and digital footprint so this role looks like part of your evolution, not a mistake, Williams-Lindo says. This might include refreshing your profile, highlighting key accomplishments, and aligning your experience with your broader career narrative. If you choose this route, its best to have a simple and understandable reason for why you left when bringing it up in interviews.
If you start complaining about the company, that’s actually actively hurting your candidacy for other jobs, so make your reason for leaving that company as concise and positive as humanly possible, Mann says.
A good example would be: When I joined the company, there was a certain role I joined for. Once I joined, the priorities shifted quite a bit to something that was very much outside of my skill set, and so it was a mutual split. It made the most sense that I wouldn’t continue in that role. I even explored other roles in the company, and nothing seemed to fit with my exact skill set at that moment. So that’s why I’m open to new opportunities right now, Mann explains.
The key here is not blaming. Instead, you’re just saying things happened and that youre looking elsewhere.
To reinforce that forward momentum, Williams-Lindo adds another phrase you could try: I realized where I can create more impact . . .’ and its at the new company youre interviewing with. That frames you as future-focused and resilient, qualities every employer is scanning for, she says.
Whether you stay or go, its crucial to be clear on what you truly want moving forward so you can avoid this happening again down the line.
Maybe it’s because you didn’t know what you were searching for in the first place, Mann says. She emphasized that clarity is key before making any career move.
Dont burn bridges on the way out
Leaving a job early always carries the risk of damaging professional relationships. Many people overlook the importance of their final impression at a company. But by working hard until the end, documenting your tasks, and supporting colleagues, you can create goodwill even in a challenging situation, Mann says.
If your manager sees that in good faith, you gave it a good try, but it just wasn’t the right fit, I think it can make a huge difference, she says.
Of course, not every manager will take the news gracefully. Some may feel blindsided or frustrated, but even when emotions run high, the best thing you can do is stay calm, be transparent about your decision, and focus on leaving solutions, not problems, behind.
Whether theyre mad or not, the best thing you can do is document your wins, create clean handoffs, and position your departure as a values-driven choice, Williams-Lindo says.
You dont burn bridges by leaving; you burn them by leaving sloppily, she adds.
Glen Powell has proven that he can hold it down as the star of blockbuster movies, from Twisters to Hit Man. But on October 3, in his hometown of Austin, he was holding down the grill at the parking lot of his local Walmart.
Powell’s grill work was pulling double duty as promotion for his new TV comedy, Chad Powers, and for Smash Kitchen, his clean food brand, which launched at Walmart in April. The brand debuted with a suite of condiments including ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and barbecue sauce that look and taste on par with heritage brands but are made with all-organic ingredients. Priced from $1.97 to $4.97, they’re just pennies more expensive than their legacy competitors.
After just six months on shelves, Smash Kitchen has lived up to its name, contending that its revenue is significantly outpacing that of legacy brands in the category, including Heinz, French’s, and Hellmann’s.
On October 7, Smash Kitchen introduces a line of oilsextra-virgin olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oilall priced from $4.97 to $15.97.
[Photo: Smash Kitchen]
Sales figures shared exclusively with Fast Company show that . . .
Smash Kitchen has generated more than $10 million in sales since April, and is on track to top $20 million by the end of the year.
As Powell told me from his home in Austinjust hours before slinging burgers for his neighborscooking oils are a crucial part of his broader goals for the brand. “The intention was always for us to take over the American pantry,” he says.
Thanks to the brand’s bona fides, consumers becoming increasingly ingredient-conscious, and Walmart’s efforts to capture those consumers dollars, Powell is poised to become the leading man of the Walmart shopper’s basket.
[Photo: Smash Kitchen]
The right time for a challenger
Smash Kitchen started with Powell’s interest in making organic food accessible to more people, but it took off when he met two veterans of popular consumer brands. With Sameer Mehta, cofounder of dog food brand Jinx, and Sean Kane, who helped launch celeb-led brands the Honest Co. (with Jessica Alba) and Hello Bello (with Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard), he settled on the idea of reformulating pantry basics.
The trio decided to start with condiments, a $12 billion market, according to Mintel. And the timing couldn’t be better.
Though the market is dominated by large legacy brands, data from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shows big companiesthose with more than $1 billion in annual saleslost share by about 3% between 2020 and 2024. In the same timeframe, smaller condiment manufacturers, with revenue under $1 billion annually, have grown share by 2.2%, while private label has grown 0.9%. It’s happening at a time when BCG’s data shows growth flatlining in categories associated with heavy processing.
But brands that have positioned themselves as focused on ingredients, like Kraft Heinz’s Primal Kitchen and Unilever’s Sir Kensington’s, tend to be sold at higher price points or in higher-end stores. Powell was determined to create products that contain better ingredients but are accessible to everyday Americans.
“I didn’t grow up in a place where I was able to buy organic,” he says. “You buy what you can afford.”
[Photo: Smash Kitchen]
Expanding Smash Kitchens Range
Now Smash Kitchen has entered the cooking oil aisle, and a market segment thats expected to reach $7.5 billion by 2028.
The company has created an extra-virgin olive oil, an avocado oil, and a coconut oil, all free of artificial preservatives and flavors, all available in both traditional and spray bottles. As with condiments, Powell says price was a key consideration. “We spent time sourcing the best avocados and olives and coconuts,” he says. “But we’re trying to understand how to be as efficient as possible, to make sure we can get the best prices for the customer.”
That’s where his cofounders Mehta and Kane bring their expertise at scaling cleaner products affordably (they also used their past experience with Walmart to snag the retailer as Smash Kitchen’s launch partner). With 4,500 U.S. stores and the accompanying logistics capabilities, Mehta says Walmart has “provided the scale for us to command a really great price.”
Dan Frommer, retail expert and founder of The New Consumer, says launching at Walmart is not easy task. It requires a lot of capital for manufacturing inventory, as well as expertise in logistics to get products into stores and onto shelves. “Going from zero to Walmart’s scale is impossible for many brands,” Frommer says. “As a startup, you need to have deep pockets, as well as a very strong ground game.̶
[Photo: Smash Kitchen]
Walmart’s evolution
Meanwhile, Walmart has also focused on appealing to the changing tastes of U.S. consumers. The company just announced that it will eliminate synthetic dyes and other additives from all in-house brands by 2027. Last year it launched a new private-label brand called Bettergoods that is carefully calibrated to customers’ desires, including more organic ingredients.
Many American consumers are cutting down on their household spending because of inflation and worries about the economy. Walmart has benefited from this trend, acquiring more customers with household incomes above $100,000 and $200,000 who may be opting to shop at the retailer instead of more expensive grocers like Whole Foods. “Walmart has done a really good job of making their assortment friendly to higher-income consumers,” Frommer says. “If you wanted healthy soda or snacks, you previously had to go to Whole Foods, but you can now get many of them at Walmart.”
Still, these cleaner brands often cost more than legacy national brands. Smash Kitchen ketchup costs $3.97, while Heinz is $3.59. Smash Kitchens organic extra-virgin olive oil is priced at $8.97 for a 16.9-ounce bottle, while Walmart’s in-house brand costs $7.36. But the newcomers success suggests that its prices are not cost-prohibitive. “For core consumers, this is an affordable upgrade,” says Melody Richard, Walmart’s SVP of Pantry. “And for higher-income customers, these are much more affordable prices than they’re used to paying elsewhere.”
[Photo: Smash Kitchen]
The Celebrity Brand Playbook
Call it (Paul) Newman’s law of celebrity brands: For every celebrity brand with a dedicated celebrity founder, like Newman’s Own, there is at least one that just slaps a celeb likeness or endorsement on some white-label products.
Kanewho partnered with Alba, then Bell and Shepard, on new brandssays Powell takes his role as cofounder seriously. Powell has taken a particular interest in taste-testing the products. “Growing up in middle America, a lot of my friends and family assumed that organic food just doesn’t taste as good,” Powell says. “I’m trying to show that foods that are good for you can also taste great.”
But Powell’s biggest asset to the brand is his enormous platform. It can be hard for new brands to break out in a crowded market. Powell is prominently featured in posters on Walmart endcaps featuring Smash Kitchen products, and he promotes the products in videos across social media, including one in which he’s a “condiment sommelier.”
“We’re really fortunate to have somebody like Glen who has a microphone neither of us have,” Mehta says. “He’s on track with culture and social media. We don’t just need shelf space at a big retailer, we need a microphone to tell the story of what it means to be a clean, organic label.”
Kane says his work launching brands with celebrities has taught him that that their long-term success depends on being able to stand on their own. For instance, the Honest Co. continues to do well even though Alba stepped away from the role of chief creative officer last year. “The smart thing to do is to use the celebrity for the first year or two as a launch mechanism,” says Frommer. “Ultimately, people are only going to keep buying them over and over if they like the product and if they serve a purpose in their life.”
That is certainly Powells hopethat the brand stands on its own, and that people continue to buy Smash Kitchen products because they love them, not because of the companys famous founder. “This is why I’m not putting my face on the bottle,” he says.
At the beginning of this year, a climate tech startup called CarbonCapture was ready to break ground on its first commercial pilot at a site in Arizona.
But the project is now about to open 2,700 miles away, in Alberta, Canada. The company started considering new locations shortly after the inauguration, as the political climate around climate projects quickly changed.
We were looking for regions where we felt we could get support for deployment, says CarbonCapture CEO Adrian Corless. Canada was an obvious choice given the existence of good government programs and incentives that are there.
[Photo: CarbonCapture]
CarbonCapture makes modular direct air capture technology (DAC), units that remove CO2 from the air. In late March, reports came out that the Department of Energy (DOE) was considering cancelling grants for two other large DAC projects, including one in Louisiana that involved the company. By the end of May, by the time the DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations announced that it was cancelling $3.7 billion in other grants, the startup had already signed an agreement with Deep Sky Alpha, a facility in Canada that is simultaneously deploying and testing multiple direct air capture projects to help the industry grow.
The startup had already self-funded its planned project in Arizona and built the modules for the site. Because it didnt rely on government funding for the project, it could have moved forward in the U.S. But it saw that it would be harder to move from the pilot to later commercial projects in Arizona. Now, it’s planning to build its first full commercial project in Canada as well. (The company wouldn’t disclose the cost for either project.)
[Photo: CarbonCapture]
We just didnt see a pathway in the U.S. to be able to show that linkage between doing a commercial pilot, starting to generate [carbon dioxide removal] credits and selling them, and then being able to raise the capital for something thats much larger, Corless says.
Canada offers an investment tax credit of 60% for direct air capture equipment, plus an additional 12% for projects in Alberta, the heart of Canadas oil and gas industry. The country also has strong support for R&D and first-of-a-kind deployments for early-stage companies, and multiple programs supporting climate tech specifically.
The Canada Growth Fund, for example, is a $15 billion fund designed to advance decarbonization. And while Mark Carney, Canadas prime minister, has taken steps backward on climate policy, hes also said that he wants the country to be the worlds leading energy superpower both for conventional energy and clean energy.
The situation in the U.S. is very different. Trump recently called climate change a con job in a speech to the United Nations. When Chris Wright, the energy secretary, recently canceled another $13 billion for renewable energy projects, he said, if you cant rock on your own after 33 years, maybe thats not a business thats going places, despite the fact that fossil fuels have gotten subsidies from the U.S. for three times as long. Fossil fuel subsidies are now nearly $35 billion a year, or as much as $760 billion if you include health and environmental costs.
Direct air capture tech arguably hasnt been hit quite as hard as other forms of climate tech, like offshore wind power. When the One Big Beautiful Bill gutted other funding, from tax credits for EVs to solar panels, it left in place some credits that facilities can earn for capturing carbon as they operate. But the Department of Energy recently cut multiple grants that would have helped new DAC projects get built. One of the large projects CarbonCapture was supportingthe Louisiana facility previously under review, called Project Cypresslost funding, and the company just received official notice of its cancellation.
Corless says that the startup is still carefully watching what happens in D.C.and the company still hasn’t made any announcements about whether it might move its whole company, not just particular projects. Right now, it’s headquartered in L.A. with around 50 employees. It also has a small factory for its equipment in Arizona, next to the site where it had planned to build its first carbon capture facility.
[Photo: CarbonCapture]
Moving the first project to Canada happened quickly. Five weeks ago, the site in Alberta was an empty field. Four weeks ago, the company shipped the modules it had built in Arizna to Canada. Construction crews have been finishing the final touches, and the company plans to begin commissioning the system next week. Deep Sky Alpha already had some key infrastructure in place, including access to solar power to run the equipment. The pilot will ultimately be able to capture 2,000 tons of CO2 a year, which will be buried underground.
It’s possible that other companies might follow CarbonCapture’s move. “I think that there definitely are going to be several companies that are looking at the same data that we’re looking at,” Corless says. “And I think that it’s not lost on the Canadian government that they have an opportunity as well to step up and potentially take a leadership role in this space, which the U.S. has really owned for the last five years.”
“The U.S. does have a real advantage, even without DOE support,” says Erin Burns, director at the nonprofit Carbon180. “But its very likely that uncertainty around DOE programs will weaken that edge. Some projects will move abroad. Some that might have thrived here will not. Others will achieve only a fraction of their potential. Each outcome is a setback on its own. Together they add up to millions, possibly billions, in lost investment and slower American innovation.”
