Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Amy Keller, CEO of FAVES, located in Los Angeles, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

FAVES, the first Climate Candy, has set out to solve the climate crisis by preventing food waste by upcycling perfectly good fruits and vegetables to create candy that's good for people and the planet. FAVES makes both healthy choices and climate impact more accessible. FAVES offers a full serving of fruits and vegetables - this is stealth nutrition at its finest. FAVES works with local farms to procure imperfect produce that would otherwise go to waste.

Tell us about yourself

Increasingly, we expect our professional endeavors to line up with our values, interests, personal histories, and beliefs. I wanted a clear and deeply satisfying answer to the question, "Why did you spend all that time and effort producing that product or service or starting that company? When I decided to create PurePlus, I wanted it to positively impact people's lives and health and the planet's health. This business idea is consistent with my values and lifestyle and contributes to my personal goals and dreams. It directly and positively affects lives beyond mine, and the world will be better off if I succeed. It will have a positive environmental impact.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I created a business with higher margins to work with, allowing us to pay people well and generate critical cash flow to fuel growth. We have now launched the product and will grow continuously for years to come and potentially become a billion-dollar business. We are a category definer and are new to the world and different from what's out there today. I realized that the exciting businesses were innovative, differentiated, and disruptive. To be successful, we must be imbued with this sense of mission, personality, and personal values.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Creating a set of food-focused climate restoration goals to educate the public on our mission: creating and eating candy can help reverse global warming and improve the health of people and the planet. Food is rising as one of the more powerful levers for reversing global warming. The ability to grow my capability to share this dream of ours to reverse climate change and teach millions of citizens about how easy it is to affect change. It's high time to help people realize and seize their full power in our highest potential solution to heal ourselves and the planet: What we choose to eat, including all of us.

The way we eat and produce food is a significant contributor to climate change. In fact, agriculture is estimated to contribute between 13-24% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Given this enormous footprint, wasting less food presents a key opportunity to address climate change. Food is the single strongest lever to optimize health and environmental sustainability on Earth. This requires a combination of substantial shifts towards mostly plant-based dietary patterns and dramatic 50% reductions in food waste. This includes a 100% increase in the consumption of fruits and vegetables.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Expose yourself to new insights, transformational experiences, and unique opportunities to positively impact the world.
  2. Inspire your team and others that are willing to take action and eager to learn and be inspired to leverage their networks to make real change. On top of that, they will adopt the tools to inspire those in their global communities to take action.
  3. Build a proof of concept, then build powerful partnerships and great storytelling to combine a worldwide network.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Food is the number one cause of poor health. Our world is overfed but undernourished, calorie-rich but nutrient-poor. Nearly 870 million people in the world are undernourished and 9 out of 10 people don't eat enough fruits and vegetables.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://climatecandy.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myfavesweets
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/favesweets/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amygkeller/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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