Episode 278: Rick Vanzura - CEO, Freight Farms

I was excited to interview Rick for The VentureFizz Podcast, as he has a very unique background in terms of scaling great retail and restaurant brands like Borders, Panera Bread, and Wahlburgers, which was a startup at the time when he joined as CEO. Sure in the case of Wahlburgers, it is helpful when the owners are celebrities and you have an A&E reality show to support the company, but regardless… you still need to have the right vision, product, and service… and even more importanlty, you need to have the ability to execute, which is where so many companies fail. Rick is now tackling a new but related industry and that is in the world AgTech as CEO of Freight Farms. It is a company that I have been following and have admired since I first heard about them from their time at MassChallenge and Techstars. It is such a cool concept - hydroponic container farms where can grow food any time and anywhere. Freight Farms recently announced a $17.5M Series B3 round of funding to support the growth of the business. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice for scaling companies in the food industry. * Rick’s professional background throughout his early career including his time as the EVP and Co-COO at Panera Bread. * How he sought out Wahlburgers and became the company’s first CEO and helped it grow to a $100M brand, plus details on working with the Wahlberg family and the A&E show. * All the information on Freight Farms in terms of how their container farms work, plus details on the company’s business model which includes hardware, software, and services. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.