Whole Foods helping Austin-based brands go national

AUSTIN (KXAN) --- Inside Whole Foods Markets, you can spot one Austin-based brand after another.

Some of those businesses are expanding to even more stores outside the state. Tacodeli recently announced it is taking some of its salsas and queso nationwide.

"Tacodeli is one example of many Austin homegrown brands that started out small in a group of stores here in Austin and grew," said Whole Foods Principal Forager for Local & Emerging Brands Kristin Sherman.

'Eager to grow'

Flourish Plant is another businesses growing.

'We offer an organic house plant fertilizer that's actually made completely out of food waste. It's upcycled from the discards of industrial fishing, as well as corn steep liquor, which is a byproduct of cornmeal production," said CEO and co-founder Kate Ferguson.

The Austin-based company partnered with Whole Foods a few months ago. It planted its seeds in stores first in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

"I think it's been really amazing to have the advocates we've had at Whole Foods and the partners that have really helped," Ferguson said. "Their faith in us as a brand and helping us to expand and wanting us to expand with Whole Foods has been super exciting."

Ferguson said they're already planning to grow even more.

"We're really eager to grow with Whole Foods as far as different regions and have our product available on the shelves of even more stores," Ferguson said.

'We're just getting started'

GoodPop, another Austin-based company, got its start in Whole Foods more than a decade ago.

CEO and founder Daniel Goetz got the idea while studying at the University of Texas at Austin 15 years ago.

"We wanted to take that same nostalgia of stuff that we grew up with as kids, and let's make it clean for the next generation," Goetz said.

Goetz said they started at the farmers markets in town before getting inside one Whole Foods store.

"Would make the pops at night and then in the morning, I wake up and load them into my car in a cooler," Goetz said. "Go deliver them, put them on the shelves. In the afternoon, I would do sampling in the stores, cutting out little pieces of pops and giving them to people and telling them about my story."

Goetz said along the way, they prioritized educating people about their healthy ingredients and environmentally sustainable mission. He said that helped get them to where they are today.

'Right now, we're the number one frozen brand at Whole Foods nationwide," Goetz said. "So proud of that. I feel like we're just getting started."

'It's our hometown'

Austin-based company Whole Foods said promoting local businesses is a priority for the chain.

They offer a Local and Emerging Accelerator Program, where selected participants go through a 12-week education curriculum. Once complete, participants are considered for placement on the grocer’s shelves in their home city or area.

"We're actually reviewing or narrowing down our finalists as we speak," Sherman said. "We're in the process of interviewing finalists to determine our ten cohort members that will kick off in August of this year."

Sherman said when it comes to new products and growth, Austin is in the top 10 across the nation.

"Austin is certainly a hub for innovation, especially in the natural and organic consumer packaged goods, or consumer products industry," Sherman said.