Denise Woodard

Company: Partake FoodsTitle: Founder & CEOIndustry: Notable in 2024: Woodard brought Partake to JetBlue, bringing a "top 9 allergen free" food offering into the catalog of the airline's in-flight snack offerings.

If you look at the ingredients list on a snack from Partake Foods, here's what you can be sure you won't find: wheat, tree nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, soy, fish, sesame and shellfish. (You can add to Partake's "No" list GMOs, as well as artificial preservatives and artificial flavors.)

The snack food company founded and led by Denise Woodard grew out of her own harrowing experience with a daughter's food allergy reaction, leading Woodard to come up with the idea to create snacks without any of the top nine food allergens, which are responsible for 90% of allergic reactions.

Tens of millions of Americans suffer from food allergies, and the issue is most acute among children. The CDC estimates that 1 in 13 children (8%) have food allergies. That is two per classroom in the U.S., and at least 2 in 5 children end up in the ER.

With no cure for food allergies, there is only one solution: avoiding ingredients that cause an allergic reaction.

Woodard tested her first batch of allergen-free cookies in 2016 after her daughter's trip to the ER with a severe reaction and a diagnosis with multiple food allergies. A year later, she left her career at Coca-Cola to focus on the startup full time.

Market adoption of the B Corp-certified brand's snacks has been steady, from thousands of Target store locations across the country to Doubletree by Hilton's guest cookie options, Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors, and most recently, JetBlue's lineup of inflight snacks. Marvel superheroes have made their appearance in the Partake lineup of partnerships as well.

Woodard's idea has attracted investors including Rihanna, Jay-Z's investment firm Marcy Venture Partners, and John Foraker, former CEO of Annie's Homegrown and co-founder of Once Upon a Farm alongside 2025 Changemaker Jennifer Garner.

In an industry where Black founders get less than half of one percent of investment dollars, Woodard told food industry trade publication SF&WB that she hasn't let any hurdles hold her back, and says a key to her approach came from the simplest of advice shared by Seth Goldman, founder of Honest Tea. "Just get started. Have a great idea that is needed in the market."