Purely Elizabeth reposted this
17 years ago, I started Purely Elizabeth with a simple idea & a deep belief that better food could help people thrive. Today, I’m proud to share that Purely Elizabeth has signed an agreement to join Ferrero Group. I started this company from pure passion. There was no grand plan or exit strategy. I felt called to create something better. Building Purely Elizabeth has given me a sense of purpose that shaped who I am. It has truly been the journey of a lifetime. If there’s one thing 17 years of entrepreneurship has taught me, it’s that companies are never built alone. They’re built by people who believe before there is proof. There are too many people to thank, but a few who represent different chapters: To those who believed at the beginning: Jason Bander at Lifethyme Natural Market, one of our first retailers; Errol Schweizer and the Whole Foods Market team, who gave us our first national opportunity; Elly Truesdell, who helped us secure a Whole Foods local loan when we needed it to stay afloat; the Wildfire team, our first broker, who went store by store helping us earn our place on shelf; and Julie Le Sueur and Caroline Caligari, my first two employees, who took a chance on me 15 years ago and are still by my side today And my mom, who literally called every Whole Foods in the Mid-Atlantic region asking them to put us on their shelves. To my leadership team: David Dusza, Cherry J., Mark Freeburg, Scott Donnel: thank you for carrying this dream with me. For believing, pushing, solving, caring, and leading through every high and low. What we’ve built would not exist without you. To every PE employee, past & present: thank you for giving a piece of yourselves to this company & caring about it as if it were your own. To our investors/board members: John Haugen, Ryan Newcom at SEMCAP Andrew Richards, Anne Lee at Swander Pace Capital, and Michele Kessler - thank you for believing in me and Purely, for challenging and championing us, and for being by our side through so many important chapters. I’m grateful for the role you played in getting us here. To Brandon Ng and Houlihan Lokey, and Chuck Cotter and Morrison Foerster: Thank you for protecting what we built, leaving nothing on the table, and helping us achieve an outcome I could only have dreamed of. I’m forever grateful to have had you in our corner. To our retail, broker, distributor, manufacturing & business partners past & present: thank you for taking chances on us, helping us solve the impossible, & bringing PE to millions of people. And to the Ferrero team: thank you for seeing not only what we’ve built, but what Purely Elizabeth can still become. I’m excited to continue leading Purely Elizabeth as CEO alongside our amazing team, and to dream even bigger about what we can build from here. To everyone who has been part of this journey: thank you! https://lnkd.in/dHwA_zSC