Pop Oats

As a new dad, the idea for Pop Oats started very innocently! I've always been a huge snacker and wanted to snack better after my first son was born. I always loved the health benefits of oats, though found oatmeal's lack of convenience, relative blandness, and commonly added sugars didn't suit my taste. I was amazed that oats – one of the longest marketed and most knowingly healthy foods in American history – had seen so little innovation in new products for decades. Oats have been a breakfast staple for over a century between oatmeal and cereal, though have long lacked the convenience necessary to allow them to be enjoyed much beyond breakfast. With that, I took my idea for making a crunchy, clean label, boldly flavored, and ready-to-eat oat snack to the USDA and the rest is history. In the years ahead of our 2023 soft product launch, we won an audience choice award in a startup accelerator, received a grant to expand our R&D ahead of commercialization, and we even received an issued patent alongside the USDA. Pop Oats are a testament to the power of both perseverance and creativity, and an example of what great public/private partnerships can ultimately produce. Our early years in the marketplace have largely involved providing Pop Oats to K-12 schools for the student nutrition programs. The grain space is sadly relatively lacking, and nutrition supervisors and dieticians alike love our healthy offering – their students simply love the awesome crunch and bold flavors. We've earned 90%+ positive feedback in every surveyed audience and are now excited for Pop Oats to step into the limelight as we begin forging more traditional retail relationships. We just recently moved our manufacturing to better prepare for future growth, and we're now prepared to serve a combination of traditional retailers, C-stores, club/warehouse stores, events/concessions, and food service. Exhibiting at Expo West has been a dream of ours in recent years, and we're eager for it to be our launch pad in taking oats from the breakfast world to the snack universe!