Shara Rutberg

1 month ago | newhope.com | Jessica Rubino |Mark Hamstra |Shara Rutberg

Grace Burleson from the 2025 Expo West Soapbox Series interviews Zentis Group about their new popping boba, Kültee. Zentis is a 130+ year-old company that newly entered the U.S. market with Kültee, the first consumer brand from the company. In their second year attending Expo West, the brand is sharing the applications of their popping boba in everything from bloody marys to cheesecake bites.

1 month ago | newhope.com | Mark Hamstra |Shara Rutberg |Douglas A. Brown

While women lack representation in many industries, natural products retail has never been one of them. Many of the earliest health food store proprietors were women: Nutritionist Gladys Lindberg launched Lindberg Nutrition in Southern California in 1949; Lill Chapman opened Sunrise Health Foods in south Chicago in 1961; and, of course, Sandy Gooch, in co-founding Mrs. Gooch’s Natural Food Markets in 1977, is often credited with conceiving the modern natural products store.

1 month ago | newhope.com | Shara Rutberg

In the early years of vegan cheese brand Nuts for Cheese, founder Margaret Coons and her first employees each “had one very strong arm,” a “Brie bicep,” from using giant ladles to fill each triangular cheese mold. Ten years later, the London, Ontario, Canada-based brand produces over 6,000 wheels of cheese every day, and the muscles Coons works most are mental. The biggest challenge? Getting people to overcome past vegan cheese experiences that literally left a bad taste in their mouths.

Nov 20, 2024 | supplysidesj.com | Shara Rutberg

Hitting on the "tremendous opportunity" to validate and address the important physiological differences unique to women in the active nutrition space. Shara Rutberg, Freelance Marketing and Communications Consultant, Content Strategy and Development, WriterAt a Glance"Pink it and shrink it" is passe. Correcting the disconnect between users and products. Earn trust. More than half of the people who go to gyms are women, according to the Health & Fitness Association’s 2023 IHRSA Global Report.

Nov 4, 2024 | newhope.com | Shara Rutberg

CPG founders, especially rookies, don’t always know when they’re heading in the wrong direction. When your vegan gourmet, allergen-free Rice Krispies treat-on-a-stick falls off and slumps to the ground within minutes of being served, it’s obvious that something isn’t right. But accepting an invitation from Sprouts to launch a novel plant-based marshmallow creme across the country for the holidays? That’s an opportunity any emerging brand would jump on, right?