Nicole Cardone is the Co-founder and CEO of Fruitful Brands, the umbrella company of SorBabes and Fudgy Pop. SorBabes offers artisanal, flavor-dipped sorbet bars and Fudgy Pop produces rich, dairy-free fudge bars. After working as a financial analyst in the private financial sector, she created disruptive frozen food products focusing on flavor, quality, sustainability, and human and animal welfare.
Deborah Gorman is the Co-founder and Owner of Fruitful Brands, SorBabes, and Fudgy Pop, where she focuses on reinventing and innovating classic treats. The brands have been featured in Fortune, Buzzfeed, PopSugar, and more. As an experienced food industry professional, recipe developer, and chef, Deborah’s skills include innovation, R&D, and business development.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- How Nicole Cardone and Deborah Gorman’s versatile backgrounds led them to launch Fruitful Brands
- The genesis of SorBabes and its early products
- SorBabes’ initial manufacturing approaches and packaging designs
- Nicole and Deborah share how the idea for product expansions inspired Fudgy Pop
- What are the opportunities and challenges of managing distinct brands?
- Growth and innovation prospects for SorBabes and Fudgy Pop
In this episode…
Sweet treats like ice cream bars and fudgsicles are nostalgic for many American consumers. However, many of these products are now white-labeled, sold in bulk, and made with artificial ingredients some consumers can’t tolerate. Today’s resourceful guests have developed a unique way to innovate their product line while educating and targeting consumers.
Business partners and frozen treat trailblazers Nicole Cardone and Deborah Gorman recreated sorbet with frozen fruit bars after becoming dissatisfied with traditional options. Their staggering success inspired them to create similar products using chocolate. Yet sorbet and chocolate are distinct categories in consumers’ minds, so Deborah and Nicole founded a separate company to launch and market chocolate-dipped pops as exclusive products. Managing juxtaposing brands with products in adjacent categories creates opportunities to emphasize their similarities and differences through educational website landing pages.
In today’s episode of the Brand Alchemist Podcast, Taja Dockendorf hosts Nicole Cardone and Deborah Gorman, the duo behind Fruitful Brands, to talk about managing two diverse brands under one company. Together, they share SorBabes’ first packaging designs, Fudgy Pop and SorBabes’ innovation and growth plans, and how they partnered to reinvent the frozen food category.
