163: Izzy Shu of JOI on Turning a Thesis Project into a Vegan Milk Business with a Difference
Vegan Business Talk episode 163
In this episode I interview Izzy Shu, one of four co-founders of JOI (Just One Ingredient), a plant-based milk company with a difference.
When Izzy and her fellow co-founders met in grad school, they quickly realized their shared passion for healthier lifestyles and a quest to make the world more sustainable, and created a thesis project: An innovative solution to make plant-based milks cleaner, more accessible and more eco-friendly.
In 2016, JOI was created. The company offers concentrates made from whole, natural, raw ingredients which, when blended with water, create customizable, instant clean and nutritious plant-based milks.
Before founding JOI, Izzy worked in marketing and brand identity, as well as graphic and production design.
In this interview Izzy discusses:
• Why the company pivoted from hardware manufacturer to creating food products, despite investing time and money in the former
• How JOI is different to other plant-based milks and also to standard ‘instant milk’
• The benefits of a subscription-based sales model and a customer rewards program
• How Covid impacted the business – in a good way
• And more
Katrina Fox
Katrina Fox is our resident guest vegan business expert at Vegan Business Tribe.
An award-winning journalist, content marketer and copywriter, Katrina is the author of the bestseller Vegan Ventures: Start and Grow an Ethical Business, the first global book providing success strategies for aspiring and existing vegan business owners, and host of the Vegan Business Talk podcast.
She’s written extensively for niche and mainstream media for more than 25 years on animal advocacy and ethical business and was a regular Forbes contributor for a year specialising in writing about vegan and plant-based businesses.
