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Dan Lohman: Kristine, thank you so much for coming on today. Can you please tell us about your journey to Naturally Colorado?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure. Um, I have been the executive director now for 3 years, um, and before that, I was also the facilitator's coordinator, the forums facilitator, the coordinator for all our roundtable discussions.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And prior to that, um, I have been in the community since 2010, um, at different, um, companies, Michelle Dinnerceuticals, Wetterspoon, Healthy Scoop, um, a couple other companies that I worked, um, as when I was a consultant.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: So I've been in the community for a really long time, and it's just a great place to engage with people, share insights, trends, all the things, and really collaborate and network.

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Dan Lohman: It is. I absolutely love it. I am so thrilled to be a part of it, and thank you for, again, making time and letting me contribute. So, can you tell us a little bit about what's going on at Naturally Colorado? How about, let's start with, why did Naturally Boulder become Naturally Colorado?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yeah, absolutely.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure. When I came on as Executive director in 2023, um, it was really after, um, everything that was happening with COVID, so I came on and I had a couple really important goals to listen and learn, first of all, because lots of things were, were, um, changing and different.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: raise the energy in a community that is really based on a lot of in-person networking and collaboration. And the third piece was make that change, that transition from naturally Boulder to Naturally Colorado.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And the reason really was because, you know, things were adjusting. People weren't specifically coming to Boulder, they were coming to, you know, cities around Boulder. They were coming to the Front Range, they were coming to Denver, Louisville, Superior, Erie, etc. And so, we really saw the need to, um.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Kind of push out of side of Boulder, keep our history, that's where the mecca is, that's where people were coming, that's where the expertise is still today, but really meet people where they are, meet them on the Front Range, and as we built Naturally Colorado, meet them across the state, so meet them on the western slope, meet them in their rural communities, so that they had the opportunity to get the expertise.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: that everybody else was getting in Boulder and on the Front Range.

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Dan Lohman: Great, I appreciate that. So, and then how did you, how did you acquire, or how did you merge with Colorado Food Startup?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure, so we basically merged with Carol Food Works, um, basically because they had their organization within Denver, and they were doing very similar events that we were doing, education and networking, and really thought that bringing them together, a lot of, uh.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: members that were Caro Foodworks members were also naturally Boulder members at the time, so it really made sense to blend what we were doing, but keep the cultures of both, keep the history of Boulder, keep that culture of startup organizations with Caro Foodworks.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: and blend that with what we were doing. You know, upwards of 50% of the brands that are in the Naturally Colorado community are those startup brands that are 5 million or less. So they're looking for the networking, they're looking for coaches and advisors, um, and the education that we provide.

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Dan Lohman: Fantastic. So, now, my next question is, naturally network. What is that? How are you aligned with that? And then all the other branches, how do they tie in? How do you coordinate? How do you help support each other?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure. Uh, so Naturally Boulder, at the time, um, I think it was about 4 years ago, um, developed Naturally Network, and Naturally Network was built to be the umbrella for what was starting to happen, um, of the other cities across the United States, other regions.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: building other naturally chapters. So there was naturally Chicago, and there was naturally Bay Area, and naturally North Bay, and really looking at that and saying, let's get some consistency across all these chapters, because we wanted to make sure that we were all talking in the same direction with our conscious business as a high priority.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: So the Naturally Bolder developed naturally Network, and now, uh, today, we have 11 chapters. So really, those chapters, um, as executive directors, we meet once a week so that we can share best practices, some tips, some tricks, what events we're doing, and also cross-promote, because there's a lot of times that we have sponsors.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: that are across the United States, so they can get to other events at different chapters. And we also do virtual events, so it's a really great way for us to promote virtual events that are happening across, because there's different expertise and different sponsors.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: That get to be played up in those virtual events.

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Dan Lohman: Fantastic. Thanks for sharing that. So, if I'm a founder of a new brand, why would I look to you guys? What's unique? What's different? What would I expect to get out of it? How can you help me?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure, so there are so many ways to plug in, um, to any of the chapters, but Naturally Colorado specifically.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: You know, we have our forums, which are smaller, more intimate roundtable discussions. We have, um, forums that are built on marketing, sales, operations, and we have one specifically for startups, for founders.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: So that you can come in and talk to other founders, share your successes, share your challenges, and get insights for what other people are doing. That's one way. We also have our mentorship program. We have one-on-one mentoring, we also have cohorts.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: So that you can learn retail readiness and marketing, etc. Um, we also have networking events. We have a Women in CPG, um, networking event that happens on, uh, quarterly. We also have monthly, last Wednesday of the month.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: networking events that are at different locations across Boulder, Denver, etc, so that we can, again, meet people where they are. But it's an opportunity to come in. Um, we do some great networking games, um, we might do tours, um, we might have a speaker for a little bit last.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: last month, we went to CU and invited students to come in to hear about what it's like to be in the food and beverage category in CPG. So, a lot of the times that we're doing, we're doing a lot of things to be able to get people talking to each other, because collaboration really is the key.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: So, instead of reinventing the wheel, why not talk to somebody that's already done it, you know, within our community, and be able to have that conversation really well. So, um, we have a lot of different ways. We also do, um, some signature events. One of them is our pitch competition, which is coming up, uh, April 22nd.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And that is for companies, startup companies that are 2 million or less. So they can apply to pitch. We choose 5 finalists, and within that, um, you get the opportunity to also learn how to pitch at the same time, because this might be your first pitch, or maybe even your second or third pitch.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: But you get a coach, you get mentorship, you get data from NIQ, you get a graphic designer that can help you build your slides. You know this because you're a coach for one of the finalists, so it really is the opportunity for people to really collaborate and help uplift.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: the founders that are starting their business, because again, no reason to reinvent the wheel on building a CBG business, but be able to collaborate on that.

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Dan Lohman: I think that is so important, and thank you for giving me the opportunity. I'm having a blast, especially with the brand that I'm working with. I think what's really unique about this, Kristine, is that when we talk… when I… I've been involved in a lot of other pitch competitions before.

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Dan Lohman: And those are focused more on getting capital, getting in front of investor. I like the holistic approach to this, where we're not only.

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Dan Lohman: focused on that, but we're also talking about how do you get in front of a buyer, or a retailer, or a consumer? Can you talk more about that?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Totally. So we do have a program called the CBG Academy. That's an on-demand virtual, um, academy, where the first modules, the first learnings that we have right now are for retail readiness.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: So that has everything for getting retail ready, for purchasing, for pricing, getting your slides ready, talking to a buyer, talking to a broker. So it is those stair steps to get you retail ready, to get you into a retailer, and how to go about that. So that's one really key way that we do that. And I do think our mentorship program.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: offers that opportunity also, um, with coaching, because you'll come in and maybe you need to know more about marketing, so we can… we can connect you with someone that's very marketing-focused. Or maybe you're looking for your sales strategy. We can connect you with someone there also.

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Dan Lohman: I used to love going to the meetings that you guys would have back in alfalfas. I'm dating myself, it's been a few years.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yes.

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Dan Lohman: But I love the fact that you guys had those on Wednesday… well, I think it was Wednesday mornings.

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Dan Lohman: As a young founder, I loved being part of that community, not only because I was trying to learn about the space, but I was also trying to network and find people that were a similar position to me.

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Dan Lohman: Can you share some experiences that you've had, or some of the stories that people have told you, why this matters, and how this impacted their business?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Well, I would start out by the fact that in 2005, that's why Naturally Boulder started at the time, because the industry was booming, people were building businesses, but everyone was in their own silo, especially as a startup company.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And what came about is Mark Retzlaff, Joan Boykin, and Sylvia Taos came together and said, why don't we.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: create an organization, um, with the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, with their economic development, and pull something together so that people could start talking to each other, because.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: If they're walking down Pearl Street Mall, they might catch up with each other, or they might ask for, you know, a conversation. But it was really about that ability to have a conversation, because someone has the experience, or someone's been through the challenge that can be shared. So that's why Naturally Boulder started.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And today, that same, you know, idea, those same values are happening with the networking events, with the education, with the mentorship, and you kind of ask where do people plug in? I would highly recommend, one, getting signed up for our newsletter, which you can find on our website, and actually going to the website to find out what events are happening. Right now, I think we might have maybe 10 different events that are happening.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: within just the next 3 months from the mentorship, from the networking, from the forums, and the pitch competition that's coming up next week. So, naturallycolorado.org is really the place, you know, to get connected to see what's happening. And then, I really recommend.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: being in person, coming to the events, you know, we should have somewhere between 350, 400 people at the pitch competition. So you brought up the idea that the pitch is, you know, about funding, it's about marketing. We have 5 amazing judges that all hit the different aspects.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: you know, impact, sustainability, what's your story there? We have, um, someone from funding that's there. We have someone from Natural Grocers that's a judge that will be able to kind of talk about that, ask questions about your retail readiness.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And I do think if you're not pitching, it's great to be there because then you get to see how people are actually talking about their business and what they're doing successfully.

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Dan Lohman: Fantastic. And of course Springfling, is that coming up this year? Because that's one of my favorite events.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Which, which event, sorry.

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Dan Lohman: Springfling.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Spring Fling has actually moved to fall, so now we call it fall fling. Um, it used to be in the spring, but because our pitch competition is now in April, it's really hard for us to bounce again to a big signature event, so we moved it to the fall. Um, it's in October. Last year, we had 60 tables.

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Dan Lohman: Oh!

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Dan Lohman: Okay.

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Dan Lohman: Gotcha.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Which is really amazing, because we had a VIP hour, which we brought in some buyers, and we brought in mentors and coaches for an open hour before anybody came in from the general public, and came through and provided feedback. So heard the brand's pitches.

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Dan Lohman: Wow.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Provided feedback, um, so it was a really great way for those brands to get really good insights on what they're doing in their business.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And then once we opened the door, it was really amazing that through the, I think it was 3-4 hours that we had, um, all the tables that were there for everyone who actually submitted what they did, but we sold more than $15,000 worth of products during that time. So it's really a great opportunity for you to get in front of retail buyers and coaches.

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Dan Lohman: Wow.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: To get in front of, um, the community members, um, and sample and sell your product at the same time.

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Dan Lohman: They're a blast and the other cool thing is that people fly in from all over the country to be a part of it because they're such a big event, which I love being able to.

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Dan Lohman: Talk to the Gary Hirschbergs and the other people like that, so that's fantastic.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Definitely.

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Dan Lohman: Can you talk a little bit about what's happening in 2026? What are the plans, or the goals, I should say, for 2026?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure. So, um, pretty much 3 main goals. Um, one is sharing the expertise across the state. Um, so, related to that, we are going to the Western Slope in October, beginning of October, before the fall fling, um, and we are doing a CBG food and beverage and ag workshop.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: on October 5th, I think is the date. It's Monday. And with that, we're also doing a pitch competition. That pitch competition is more about creating awareness, so we'll have five finalists for that also.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: But again, when I first came on board, the goal was to share the expertise across the state in transition at Colorado, and this event and this timing is really fantastic for us.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: It's during the West Slope Startup Week, um, so we'll have more time throughout the week also to engage with finance and marketing and operations, um, overall throughout that, um, organization.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And then we also are focused on our forums, which are roundtable conversations. So those are events that we've had for probably about the last 5 years, but we're raising the bar on them. So we're bringing in really strong roundtable conversation topics with speakers that have expertise. Um, and then it's your time as a member of those forums.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Um, which you could be an industry partner, so a service provider and or a brand. And you have the opportunity to share expertise, you have the opportunity to share successes and challenges.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And again, they're based on your functions in your business, operations, sales, marketing, we have a sustainability forum also, and really highlighting the opportunity to get really deep on conversations and things that you need. Our third piece is our mentorship program. We have had an amazing mentorship program in the past, one-on-one mentorship. Last year, it was a cohort.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: where if you were looking for marketing or operations or sales, we put you in different cohorts. This year, we're going to focus on our CPG Academy, so it's going to be one large cohort. Last year, we had 30 mentees, which is really amazing.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: So, I really see that happening again, and you'll go through the CPG Academy with someone who will be, um, helping you understand everything, looking at your homework, offering office hours.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: But then we'll do a market tour, and maybe we'll do a tour of a commissary, um, or, um, you know, a distribution center, so that, again, as a startup, you can really see what are all the things that you need to be involved in, and or, if you're looking for a commissary kitchen.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: this is the kind of thing that you might be looking for. I think, you know, those priorities are really important to us because we're sharing the expertise that the community has, and we're really engaging, um, overall, and doing it on a couple different ways, you know, very intimate, but yet also with the bigger scales, especially with our signature events, the pitch competition and the fall fling.

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Dan Lohman: And brands need this so much, so thank you, thank you for everything you're doing. One of my most popular podcast episodes was with the guy that actually ran Denver, uh, Denver Startup.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yeah.

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Dan Lohman: And now that's Colorado startup. Can you talk about your relationship with that, and how that's helped you blossom and increase your footprint?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure. So, Startup Colorado is really focused on rural, um, communities across the state. Um, and what we have done is really created an amazing partnership where they have the conversations with a lot of, um, community members and business.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: startups that are across the state. We have plugged in with them for the opportunity as their food and beverage CPG expert. So we bring experts. One of the key things that we've done this year is our idea factory, which just ended. We had 12 startups, which were in the idea phase.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And, um, we had 4 weeks of really sharing with them resources that were across the state, naturally Colorado being one of them, uh, CSU Extension, another one, Startup Colorado, and then some, uh, funding people, some marketers, etc.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: and really kind of shared, here's all the resources that you have that you can build. We did office hours, so they kind of said, here's our idea, because it was really about, you know, launching ideas. Here are our ideas, like, you know, can you give us feedback?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And then at the end, our goal was to pick 3 of the members, companies, that were in the idea factory as winners, and we'll be announcing them at our pitch competition. Um, two of them truly are ideas, picked minis.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Zebra Sips, and then the third one is Rocky Mountain Drinks, and they are on the western slope, and they have about 50 stores with a hard seltzer. So, really exciting to see the ideas that are forming across the state, and we want to be there for them.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: To answer the questions and help them grow.

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Dan Lohman: I love how Denver… at Denver, when they started that, I think it was the biggest event in the nation.

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Dan Lohman: And so I'm guessing that this is even bigger now, so that's really cool. It's great to see that Colorado embrace young entrepreneurs. I know that they did it, they also did it in the tech space, too, but also in the food space, it's fantastic.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yes, totally. They do. Creative space, they have probably, you know, 5, 8 categories that they pinpoint. Really focusing on rural, because I think when you're living in rural, you're, you know, a brainstorm of one when you're building your business.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And that's really not that easy to build that business that you're doing. So if you can have more people virtually and in person, hence the reason why we're taking our pitch competition and our workshop to the Western Slope, they don't need to come to the Front Range for the expertise.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: They have the expertise there, and we'll just help facilitate that.

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Dan Lohman: That's fantastic. Let's circle back around to the pitch competition coming up in April. What else would you like to share about that?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Mm-hmm.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure, we have 5 amazing finalists, so we have Dry Storage, which is a company that does ancient grain flower, stone milling. We have, uh, Mungfu, which is a BIPOC women founded tofu company. We have Zingy, which is really awesome, vibrant pepper relishes.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: We have Old Salt, which is a personal care product, soaps for men, and then we have Tea with Tay, and that is a woman-founded tea company that currently is all online, and she's looking to build that business but also take it into retail. I'm excited to say that it's an all-woman finalist round, which is really exciting.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: But more importantly, you know, really looking at the size of these companies, and how they really want to excel, and how they want to grow, and how they can learn from the community in so many different ways.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: So we have an amazing prize package with PR, we have, um, fulfillment consulting, accounting consulting, a UCG package. We have a lot of things for these finalists to really utilize as they build their business. And again, the five judges are really there to support them.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: ask the questions to see who is the one that is really going to stand out. But we have a grand champion, one champion overall, we have an impact leader, and then we have our people's choice. So the audience also gets a chance to say, here's who we think, you know, is gonna be really the standout star for this.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: For this pitch competition, so everybody gets, you know, a really great opportunity.

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Dan Lohman: I think it's a great, great experience, great opportunity for people. So, if I'm a young brand and I want to aspire to this, can you tell me a little bit about the process of how I get in front of people, how I get noticed, and then why all that matters?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yeah.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Sure.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yeah, you know, I would say that, um, the first step is obviously getting into the community, kind of seeing what's all happening and learning and getting the networking and the education from it.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: For the pitch specifically, we have an application process that opens up usually about 3 months before, so we open it up in January. Um, actually, we opened it up in December this last year, um, early, so…

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: apply. We go through the process with a criteria for the samples and a presentation that they all submit, so we go through that and we choose 5. This year, I think we had 26 applications.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And then, um, once we go through that, you know, we choose the five finalists. We also give feedback to the people that didn't actually make it into the five finalists, because that's the growth opportunity that happens.

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Dan Lohman: Good.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: And then, as a finalist, you get a lot of really amazing things. So, as I mentioned, there's coaching, which you are our coach for. You get a one-on-one coach that really helps you move through the things that you need to present for. So, how are you talking? What do your slides look like? What are you kind of communicating? And how do you go through the.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: question-answer piece of it when you're talking to the judges. We also do, um, an hour-long pitch, um, session, so that they can see, you know, what did people do, um, in the past that won at the pitch competition? So we share those kind of.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: learnings. We also have, um, an interaction with Darcy Landis, who's the Whole Foods market lead forager. So she's very much willing, as a community member to be able to give feedback to those finalists, because it really is an opportunity for you to grow. Whether you win or not, you're growing, you're learning something.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: We do have a lot of people that apply two, three times to this, because they're growing each time, you know, they present something new, and actually coming and seeing all the pieces. So, I would say one of the best part about it is exactly what you're doing, that community engagement.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: The insights that you're helping somebody one-on-one with their business so that they can go through this process.

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Dan Lohman: Thank you for saying that. I think it's so important, and the key point that I want to reiterate is that.

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Dan Lohman: When you're starting a business, like you said, on your own, it's you, yourself, and nobody else a lot of times, but being able to have a community, one, and then more importantly, the thing I really love about this.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yeah.

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Dan Lohman: Is that you've got mentors helping you, different people, different eyes, different perspectives.

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Dan Lohman: that are weighing in, and long story short, this is going to help you when you get in front of customers. This is going to help you talk to retailers, this is going to help you talk to investors.

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Dan Lohman: etc. And this is how you build a successful brand. So, thank you for sharing all that.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yeah, I would actually say, one thing that I did forget, um, you know, a lot of times when people are pitching, they're worried that because they're so new, they don't have any data for the category. We have them work with, um, someone from NIQ in their category, so they can get the category data that can be added to their slides, because as a judge.

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Dan Lohman: Is there… go ahead.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: they're definitely looking at the retail readiness. Is this a good category? Is it trending? Are the things positive happening to it? And we provide that, that help you get that data through NIQ, which is a really awesome thing, because a lot of times you're like, well, I know my category is trending well, but I don't know all the data, and we provide that for you.

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Dan Lohman: And also, in addition to that, we got some great insights from them, not only from the data, but the consumer piece, how the consumer shops the category, so what a wealth of information. Yeah, I love it. So, thank you.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Agreed. Yeah.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Yeah, awesome.

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Dan Lohman: So, anything else we haven't talked about that you'd love to share?

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: You know, I just want to share that, for me personally, this is a really amazing role. I've really stepped into my superpower by being able to offer, you know, the community connection, all the way from the networking to the education, but for Naturally Colorado to be able to.

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Dan Lohman: Cool.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: build really important programming for companies to come in and learn the ways. And it isn't just for startup companies. We have a lot of established brands. We have Bobo's and Quinn's and Simply Elizabeth.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: and Celestial Seasonings, Justin's Nut Butter. So we have really amazing companies, uh, that have, um, you know, founders that are also willing to talk to people within our community and do the give back, because.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: they started out with Naturally Boulder, and now they have been able to build their business. So, we're a community of give back and sharing, so that we can, you know, all raise up for the Better For You category.

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Dan Lohman: And this is where this movement kind of started. In fact, this is the mecca, so thank you for sharing all that.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Totally, yes. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this. It's been really, really awesome to be able to share, kind of, where we've been and where we're going, and, um, the excitement that I personally have, and that we have as Naturally Colorado.

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Dan Lohman: Love it. Thank you for your time.

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Kristine Carey_Naturally Colorado: Thank you.