This Female Entrepreneur Built an Incredible Vegan Food Brand Despite Having All the Odds Stacked Against Her

If you look at the dairy-free milk category now, there are no shortages of options. You can get everything from almond milk to oat or even quinoa milk and they come in every flavor and variety you could imagine. Globally, the dairy alternatives market is set to exceed $19.5 billion by 2020, according to Markets and Markets. This is a hot category that has utterly exploded in the past decade (pun not intended) – but a few years ago, the dairy-free options were few and far between.

In fact, lack of good dairy-free creamers is what led Madeline Haydon to launch her company, nutpods. In a recent episode of the #EatForThePlanet with Nil Zacharias podcast, Madeline shares the story of how she got the idea to launch a dairy-free creamer company after being handed a bottle of powdered, sugar-laden non-dairy creamer at a café when she was pregnant. Being extra conscious of what she was putting in her body, Madeline was repulsed by the prospect of putting a super processed product in her coffee (which, of course, was decaf). With that, she realized there was a real need for a clean dairy-free creamer and she got to work.

Granted, Madeline did not come from a background in the food space, rather she worked in medical devices and blood banking, but that didn’t stop her from diving right in and launching a Kickstarter campaign. Even though a commercial product wasn’t available yet, nutpods still attracted a huge following and was successfully funded on the platform by 2013. From there, Madeline continued to take the unconventional route, angling to get nutpods onto Amazon instead of looking at retail distribution. Thanks to their steadily growing social media presence and the sheer quality of the product, nutpods soon became one of Amazon’s top-sellers and it continues to be a Best-Seller and Amazon’s Choice in its category.

Although the dairy-free market is becoming increasingly saturated, nutpods has remained a consumer favorite and gained quite a large cult following. To learn more about how Madeline grew the company and developed a trusted, well-loved brand presence using social media and smart marketing, listen in!

You can listen to the full episode below or on the following platforms: iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher.

If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the #EatForThePlanet with Nil Zacharias podcast for new episodes with food industry leaders, health, and sustainability experts, as well as entrepreneurs and creative minds who are redefining the future of food – and order your copy of the #EatForThePlanet book!