Quinn Foods, launched by Kristy Lewis over a decade ago to reinvent traditional savory and indulgent snacks with better-for-you ingredients and sustainable farming, has raised $10 million in a recent series B round led by growth equity firm, NewRoad Capital Partners.
Michele Meyer, operating partner at NewRoad Capital Partners and former president of General Mills’ snacks division Small Planet Foods, will be joining Quinn Foods’ board of directors as a result of the capital raise.
This round, which also includes a follow-on investment from Boulder Food Group, Echo Capital, and Sunil Thakor, coupled with a previous financing round by chocolate giant Hershey, is expected to bring Quinn’s total funding to more than $13 million to-date, according to Crunchbase.
“Successful brands require authenticity and a penchant for innovation. Quinn has exhibited both to the highest degree,” Meyer said in a statement. “We believe in Quinn’s mission to provide better transparency to their customers, better ingredients in their products, and a better taste profile than its competition.”
Ben Fenton, partner at Boulder Food Group, also added: “We are extremely excited to welcome NewRoad and their team into the Quinn family to support this very exciting next phase of growth for the business. Kristy and Quinn have been at the leading edge of this movement towards transparency, traceability and sustainability while delivering on exceptionally tasty and innovative products within snacking.”
Lewis notes how her company’s mission has always been using the “very best real ingredients backed with a commitment to supporting agriculture and food transparency” since its inception, and its portfolio of farm-to-table microwave popcorn, pretzels, and pop-at-home kernels has helped Quinn become a salty snacks leader in over 1,000 U.S. retailers across the natural, mass, and conventional grocery channels in addition to e-commerce.
Notably, the company has experienced a 60% year-over-year increase in revenue since 2019 with sales from its pretzels line alone growing by 120.8% year-over-year across all brick-and-mortar stores, and 287.7% particularly in Walmart.
Lewis said she plans to use the newly raised growth capital to continue building out Quinn Foods’ team, bolster its grassroots marketing strategy, develop new products, expand its direct-to-consumer channel, and most importantly, lean into their “Be Better Do Better” mission — an initiative designed to “meet growers where they are and provide opportunities for them to integrate regenerative practices into their farming.”
“After 10 years, we are still very much dedicated to changing food and agriculture for the better,” Lewis told me, stressing how 99% of current agriculture is farmed conventionally with only a fraction being regeneratively farmed.
Regenerative agriculture, a process that aims to reverse climate change through conserving soil and diversifying cropping rotations, has become an industry buzzword in recent years, with an increasing number of food and beverage founders adopting the practice for their brands.
“How do we move that 99% in the right direction and incentivize growers to just make a start?” Lewis asked. “Our mission is to work with farmers who have a desire to take the first steps towards doing things for the better and growing from there.”