Food Business: Entrepreneurs Highlighted

Food Business: Entrepreneurs take aim at unexplored applications, underserved categories

4.28.2025

By Caleb Wilson

KANSAS CITY — In order to stand out from the competition in a crowded food and beverage industry, food entrepreneurs are utilizing innovative applications to target underserved categories.

Take Snacklava by Dar Baklava, for instance. Sherif Badawy, MD, founded the baklava manufacturer after identifying a need for healthier, snackable baklava.

Snacklava is aimed at health-conscious consumers seeking a clean label alternative for everyday snacking occasions. The product features reduced syrup content and an increased amount of nut inclusions.

“We have been reimagining baklava as a healthier snack, a better-for-you option, making it with six simple ingredients, no artificial colors or preservatives,” Badawy said.

Badawy’s comments come from the recent Food Entrepreneur Experience webinar on April 23, which hosted a variety of entrepreneurs from across snack, meat and dessert segments.

Cassie Maschhoff and her sister Chelsey, a professional chef, co-founded Lottie’s Meats after noticing the “bad rap” pork products have among US consumers.

“We were just kind of in a dialogue of ‘pork kind of got, still does, gets a bad rap,’ but we grew up eating a lot of it,” Maschhoff said. “The more we dug in and talked to friends, colleagues, consumers, we kind of got why. It’s really perceived as highly processed, unhealthy, kind of boring … but we also knew the power of pork done right.”

The founders then leveraged their familial experience of several generations of pork farming to develop the retail meat brand. Lottie’s product range includes two varieties of fully cooked pork sausage links, and two varieties of ground pork blends, all formulated free from nitrites, nitrates and chemical preservatives.

Full article here.