After less than a year in business, this plant-based, protein rich granola company has grabbed over $100,000 in prize money and the attention of Amazon.
ENJOY CERES
6723 St. Claude Avenue
experience@enjoyceres.com // EnjoyCeres.com // facebook.com/enjoyceres // @enjoyceres
In February 2022, local entrepreneurs and friends Rich Simmerman and Branson Morgan launched a plant-based cereal company called Ceres. Just six months later, that company took home the top prize at Startup St. Bernard, which included $100,000 in cash and in-kind services.
Six months after that, after less than a year in business, the newly rebranded company, Enjoy Ceres, was named “Top Physical Consumer Product” at the 2022 Amazon Web Services (AWS) University Startup Competition. The company was one of only 13 companies selected from a pool of over 1,000 applicants. The recognition came along with a prize package of $10,000 cash and up to $10,000 in marketing support from Amazon available for future use.
Simmerman, an MBA student at Tulane University, and Morgan led the team as the first winners representing Louisiana in the competition, and now head a group of six employees and staff.
“We were the first Louisiana-founded startup to compete in the AWS University Startup Competition, let alone win our category,” said Simmerman. “Representing Louisiana and Tulane and learning from the other ventures was exceptional. Since then, Amazon has created exciting opportunities for our brand and allowed us to expand our products to people across North America on their platforms. We’re a small team, with six people doing everything from product development to marketing and shipping.”
Speaking in May, Simmerman said his team has been busy with “an exciting pivot within the last three weeks.”
“After testing our flagship product with customers since January, we have pivoted to meet their increasing demand for plant-based protein snacks,” he said. “‘Ceres’ is now ‘Enjoy Ceres;’ we have updated our product line. We are no longer selling cereal. Our flagship product is ‘Plant Protein Crunch,’ a 20g protein super granola’ with zero sugar and 4 carbs per serving.”
“We went with this product because we knew there was a gap in this product space,” said Simmerman. “The rise in popularity of plant-based protein snacks is remarkable, but most of our innovations have been in bars and puff-like snacks. We know granola is increasing in popularity, and we learned from surveying potential customers that introducing our first product as a ‘Crunch,’ or ‘Super Granola,’ would make it incredibly versatile. Customers can enjoy 20 grams of clean protein in a crunchy, sweet snack rather than a powder of plant-based meat alternative.”
Enjoy Ceres products are currently available in 10 stores in Los Angeles (where the products are made) and in New Orleans (the headquarters of the company) as well as online and through a subscription service. The “Cinnamon Vanilla Crunch” granola ($12.50-$19.98 per bag) and “Vanilla Zest Power Protein Powder” ($27.99) are currently available with a brand-new line of “Plantiful Protein Bars” coming soon. The products contain zero to low sugar, are keto friendly and gluten-free and made from 100% plant-based protein.
While the products are manufactured in Los Angeles, the company was founded in and still counts New Orleans as the place of its inception, flavor inspiration and home, with the goal of creating new items in the city in the future.
“We landed on Cinnamon Vanilla due to our initial customer surveys in 2021,” said Simmerman. “The most popular flavor choice was ‘Cinnamon,’ and we saw market trends supporting going with that flavor. We went with it and took inspiration from PJ’s Coffee in New Orleans, adding a bit of Mexican vanilla to the blend to make it taste great and more naturally sweet. My co-founder, Branson, and I moved to California after completing undergrad [from Tulane]. We learned so much about plant-based food and consumer brands, but it wouldn’t be fulfilling to start Enjoy Ceres anywhere other than where our friendship started, and where the problems we hope to solve exist the most. We want to show the world that plant-based, healthy food can be innovated in New Orleans. This is our home, and we love this city.”
Enjoy Ceres was created with the intention of tackling the problem of food insecurity and food deserts right here at home, with Simmerman’s own firsthand experience playing a big role.
“I grew up in a town of about 500 people with one red light and one grocery store — Springfield, Louisiana,” he said. “It’s a beautiful community full of farmers and agricultural activity, yet as a kid, I mostly ate low-quality, boxed goods at our grocery store. As a result of eating the foods available to me as a kid, I grew up with an unhealthy diet and experienced food-related health issues. After growing up and exploring more of the world and learning to understand that my childhood experiences weren’t ‘normal,’ but unfortunately shared by many people in communities around the world, I decided that this would be a significant interest in my life. I believe that healthy societies and happy lives start with how we fuel our bodies — with what we eat.”
According to an April 2023 report by Market Research Future, Simmerman and Enjoy Ceres are indeed riding a huge wave of popularity, with the potential for growth increasing in the next seven to 10 years.
“The plant-based snacks market industry is projected to grow from USD 49.5 billion in 2023 to USD 77.9 billion by 2030, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.85% during the forecast period (2023 – 2030).”
It goes on to note: “From 2022 to 2030, the market for plant-based snack bars, which held the largest market share in 2022, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.7%. This might be as a result of the plant-based snack bars’ many health benefits. The market is growing as a result of growing consumer demand for cookies, meatless snacks, and snack bars made from plants. Demand for snacks made of cereal is increasing as vegan diets become more and more well-liked. Plant-based snack bars are expected to experience the highest CAGR between 2022 and 2030.”
In short, business is booming for plant-based, healthy snacks, and Enjoy Ceres is determined to make New Orleans a big player.
Simmerman said new markets and new flavors continue to open up, with potential for ideas and outreach growing each month.
“We’re focused on expanding our plant-based protein snacks and making them more accessible by hitting new stores in new regions,” he said. “We’re also in the middle of raising capital to fuel online expansion and break into larger markets, so it’s going to be an exciting year for us. 2022 was challenging, and we learned a lot about our market, so we hope this will be our breakout year. We opened a public vote in early 2023 for our next flavor, and the public voted on blueberry, so that’s our next flavor! It will be blueberry with natural notes of citrus.”
Did you know? According to a recent report from the Good Food Institute (goodfoodinstitute.org): The U.S. retail market for plant-based foods is worth $8 billion. Plant-based foods made up 1.4% of total retail food and beverage dollar sales in 2022. Six in 10 U.S. households purchased plant-based foods in 2022.
