Ethan Homes: Founder/CEO of "Holmes Mouthwatering Applesauce"

Ethan Holmes founded Holmes Mouthwatering in 2008 at the age of 15 after being inspired by his grandfather's applesauce recipe and deciding to innovate his own line of products. While studying business at Hiram college, he launched the business in 2014 making small batches at a time on campus, eventually growing to his first major retailer: Heinen’s in 2015, Giant Eagle in 2016, and Whole Foods Market and Kroger in 2107, selling at a total of 300 locations.

To date, they have processed 500,000 pounds of apples from local orchards and made 250,000 units in-house for consumers across the U.S. selling primarily in the Midwest and online, achieving lifetime sales of $400,000.

In addition to making and selling applesauce, they created a community program called the Holmes Entrepreneur Initiative teaching youth entrepreneurship through programming, internships, and workshops around applesauce. His brand was chosen for the Chobani Incubator in 2020, The SKU Coca-Cola Accelerator in 2022, and raised $700k from angel investors and grant funding since their start.

After 7 years in business and many lessons later, he is now in the final stages of launching a rebranded, improved, and innovative line: 3.2 oz pouches of applesauce. The 1st pouched applesauce on the market with chunks of real fruit!

It took him $100,000 and over a year to finalize the packaging with global branding agency Moxie Sozo and nearly 2 years to find the right contract manufacturing partner to recreate their formulas and maintain a premium quality and competitive price point.

He had an opportunity to visit their new contract manufacturer in Chile in July to visit their plant and was happy to see they manufacture for prominent U.S. retailers, such as Kroger, Aldi, Walmart, Safeway, and more. Producing over 50MM+ applesauce pouches annually, giving his products a 20% gross margin increase and an option for price breaks as they scale.

He signed a 3-year contract with the manufacturer for 360,000 pouches or 60,000 sellable units to be made by the end of the year and delivered to the U.S. Q1 2023.

So far, they have commitments from the following: Target, Giant Eagle, Walmart, Heinen's, Whole Foods Market and food service accounts (concessions, foodbanks), and are expecting an additional 500 doors acquired throughout the remainder of the year (Sprouts, Wegman's, Marc's, Fresh Market, etc).

Visit Holmes Mouthwatering here: https://holmesmouthwatering.com/