Earlier this year, Stacy’s Snacks conducted a survey that found 67 percent of consumers wish it were easier to find products and services from female-founded businesses and 79 percent think it is important to see more female-founded businesses in their communities.
To address this issue, Stacy’s has created a “Female Founder Finder” packaging initiative, which features female founders including Plano’s own Chi Nguyen, who we first told you about in July.
Purpose Tea Founder Chi Nguyen [Photo: Frito-Lay]
The DFW entrepreneur was among this year’s first 15 recipients of the Stacy’s Rise Project’s grant and mentorship program.
The new packaging initiative will feature a geotargeted QR code directing people to local female-founded businesses when scanned. The packaging has debuted across the nation this week, but Stacy’s directory can also be found here.
Stacy’s developed the initiative in partnership with free, multichannel platform Hello Alice.
“The Stacy’s Rise Project is a testament to harnessing resources and collaborating with like-minded allies for the benefit of female founders. By leveraging our Stacy’s national retail footprint and packaging with the digital expertise and community of Hello Alice, we built a resource for consumers and business owners alike,” Ciara Dilley, vice president of marketing for Frito-Lay, said in a statement.
After the Stacy’s Rise Project announced its 15 grant winners in May, it announced 15 more last month, which were all Black female founders. Black female founders have to face their own unique challenges when it comes to creating businesses, including that women of color annually receive only 0.2 percent of venture capital funding. Houston-based Kim Roxie, who created beauty tech company LAMIK Beauty, was among the second round of grant winners.
All 30 of these women’s companies, including Nguyen’s Purpose Tea and Roxie’s LAMIK Beauty, are featured in Stacy’s directory, which features over 13,000 women-owned businesses. Stacy’s also highlights the Stacy’s Rise Project companies through its Amazon HerCommerce Hub.
The Stacy’s Pita Chips artful packaging for the founder initiative is a limited edition. [Photo: Frito-Lay]
Mission-driven company Purpose Tea specializes in purple tea with health benefits, including lower caffeine levels, fat-burning properties, and high antioxidant levels, according to its website.
“Our business is obviously focused on empowering women and also bringing to market a very healthy tea. I think the mission of Purpose Tea really aligns with Stacy’s mission, which is, ultimately at the end of the day, knocking down barriers for women,” Nguyen previously told Dallas Innovates.
Purpose Tea’s social impact model helps provide training for Kenyan tea pickers in financial management, budgeting, gender equity issues, and nutrition, and also supports scholarships for the tea pickers’ children.
Stacy’s Snacks is part of Plano-based Frito-Lay North America. Next month, the Stacy’s Rise Project will culminate on Women’s Entrepreneurship Day.
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R E A D N E X T
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Oscar-winning actress and producer Witherspoon and the media company she founded, Hello Sunshine, will work with Plano-based Stacy's Pita Chips to help support the visibility and success of female founders. Stacy's is also growing its Rise Project legacy by launching FoundedByHer.org, a nationwide directory of female business founders.
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