NICOLE DAWES, founder & CEO, Late July: ‘You can’t take your eyes off the ball for one minute’
In 2012, Late July’s revenues were a modest $18.6m. In 2014, founder and CEO Nicole Dawes says the brand is "currently at a $60m run rate", primarily due to explosive growth in sales of organic snack chips. Not bad going considering she’s vying for a share of some of the most vigorously contested shelf space in the industry.
Dawes - who knows a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t in the snacks market (her father Stephen Bernard founded Cape Cod Potato Chips) - launched Late July at Expo East in 2003.
However, the Barnstable, MA-based business really took off in 2010, when Dawes moved into organic, gluten-free, 100% wholegrain tortilla snack chips packed with chia, amaranth, flax, quinoa and millet.
The chips were an instant hit, says Dawes: “Today we’re in every major retailer in the US in some capacity. This year we're at a run rate of $60m - we’ve tripled the size of the business in three years.”
But there is no room for complacency, she says: “You can’t take your eyes off the ball for one minute. You’ve got to prove yourself every single day in the snacks aisle.”
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