At Retail Innovation Week 2025, two speakers focused on entrepreneurship and resilience. Morgan Murdock of Unbothered Foods and Julie Smolyansky of Lifeway Foods shared their respective experiences building gut-health-focused food brands under challenging circumstances.
Manufacturing Challenges and Product Integrity
Morgan Murdock, a registered dietitian, founded Unbothered Foods, a fermented sourdough cracker brand, in her Chicago kitchen two years ago. Initially producing crackers by hand and selling them at local farmers' markets and door to door, she described the early days as physically demanding and unsustainable.
“I was working 15 to 16-hour workdays alone in a bakery, hand-rolling out crackers,” Murdock said.
A move to Kansas City required her to quickly scale the business and find a co-manufacturer willing to work with fermented dough – an uncommon process in commercial cracker production. Murdock said most sourdough-flavored products on the market do not use real fermentation, which was a non-negotiable for her brand.
“If it doesn’t taste good, people aren’t going to buy it again,” she said.
Lifeway’s Origin and Category Development
Julie Smolyansky, CEO of Lifeway Foods, discussed the company’s origin and evolution. Lifeway, known for its kefir products, was founded by her family after emigrating from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Smolyansky took over the publicly traded company at the age of 27 following the sudden death of her father.
Smolyansky said the company’s early challenges included introducing an unfamiliar product to American consumers and managing leadership within a family business. She also referenced her grandmother’s survival of the Babi Yar massacre in 1941, linking personal history with the broader theme of resilience.
Industry Context
Both founders cited manufacturing as a primary area of adversity and emphasized the importance of maintaining core product values during scale. Their experiences highlight ongoing challenges faced by emerging food brands, particularly those centered on fermentation, a complex and less common production method in mass-market manufacturing.
