Evan Delahanty's Kickstarter campaign for Peaceful Fruits wild acai fruit strips raised more than twice the $10,000 he had hoped for, giving him just enough to justify going to the Baltimore trade show.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Peaceful Fruits' founder Evan Delahanty barely had time to savor having raised $22,848 for his wild acai fruit strips business before he was on the road to the Natural Foods Expo East trade show in Baltimore.
His month-long Kickstarter campaign for Peaceful Fruits fruit strips raised more than twice the $10,000 he had hoped for, giving him just enough to justify going to the trade show, but not enough to say, start drawing his own paycheck.
While in Baltimore, Delahanty said he connected with some of former mentors, logged some orders on the trade show floor, and found a Florida distributor to ship Peaceful Fruits to natural foods grocery stores in the Sunshine State.
"Yeah, it's been a good couple of weeks," Delahanty said.
Peaceful Fruits acai-pineapple and acai-apple fruit strips are now available in nearly 100 stores in six states: California, Maine, New York, Oregon, West Virginia, and Ohio. Northeast Ohio retailers include: Hattie's Food Hub; Acme Fresh Market; Krieger's Market; Mustard Seed Market & Cafe; Nature's Bin, Vita Urbana Bistro & Urban Market.
At The Blick Center in Akron, a workforce development program for people of different abilities, workers are still labeling, counting, and mailing out the fruit strips by hand. They will soon also be shipping Kickstarter rewards such as Peaceful Fruits T-shirts and fruit strips to some of his 210 backers.
And at the Hattie Larlham Food Hub in Akron, where about half of the 18 workers have intellectual and developmental disabilities, they have already started creating the three new flavors he promised investors if he got at least $25,000 in pledges.
Next year, Delahanty is also planning a trip back to Pikin Slee, a remote village of Suriname where he served as a community economic development specialist for the Peace Corps, with the local donor who chipped in $10,000 for the all-expenses-paid trip to meet the Saramaccan people in the Amazonian Rainforest.
It was during his two years there that Delahanty got the idea for his business, transforming wild-harvested acai berries into 100-percent all-fruit strips. Peaceful Fruits aims to protect the Rainforest and provide income for the people who live there, as well as create jobs for workers in the Akron area.
And even though he didn't get the $50,000 in pledges that would have helped him launch a line of acai-infused rainforest-friendly chocolates, Delahanty said he hasn't given up on that idea.
For more information about Peaceful Fruits LLC, follow the company on social media:
-- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peacefulfruits/
-- Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeacefulFruits
Or log on to the company's website at http://peacefulfruits.com/
