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September 17, 2011

Naturally Boulder Announces Pitch Slam Winner & Fall Award Recipients.

 

They’ve Done it Again~

We here at *elephant journal are proud to media-sponsor Naturally Boulder. Their mission: “to nurture start-up natural and organic foods companies and promote Boulder as the epicenter of the natural and organic products movement.” ~ ed.

Every year Naturally Boulder puts on the Fall Awards as a way of shining light on the green movement with strong efforts from the small and large natural and organic food companies and foodies in Boulder, Colorado.

The Fall Awards have been going on for the past seven years and is never a let-down. This event gets bigger and better each year, and a sold-out show this year brought 300 people to the Boulder Theater for a magical evening of networking, food, celebration and new ideas thru business pitching.

The day started out at the Rembrandt Yard in Boulder, where twenty-six entrepreneurs had three minutes to pitch their business idea to a panel of natural and organic leaders from the active industry. The judges were Jane Miller of Rudi’s Organic Bakery, Phillip Anson of EVOL, Peter Burns of Celestial Seasonings, Mike Ferry of Horizon Organic and Debbie Carosella, a brand and product innovation consultant.

It was a packed room full of energy eagerly listening to new ideas and waiting to hear who the next person was to pitch. Out of these twenty-six people, only four of them would make it to the next and final round for an amazing $26,000.00 dollar door prize package.

 The four finalists:

Maddy D’Amato of Love Grown Foods, Kerry Gilmartin of Bamboobies, Ryan Weilert of Hope Hummus and Sanjay Rajan of Slow Color repeated their pitches last night in front of the Boulder Theater audience.

After a very difficult decision, the judges awarded the $26,000.00 dollar door prize package to Kerry Gilmartin, founder of Bamboobies.

Bamboobies is a Boulder-based company that makes sustainable nursing pads from bamboo for breastfeeding mothers. It truly is an amazing idea and it will be a greatly appreciated addition to the market and to the industry.

The fall awards don’t end with the Pitch Slam winners. The community had an opportunity to nominate fellow leaders into 4 categories:

  •  Best Young Business (fewer then 5 years)
  •  Company of the year (more then 5 years)
  •  Local Hero (a leader in governments, academics or a not-for-profit)
  • and a Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

The Best Young Business award was presented to New Planet Beer.

Company of the Year awards was presented to EVOL.

 

The Local Hero Award was presented to Chef Ann Cooper of Boulder Valley School District.

 

Lifetime Achievement award was presented to Hass Hassan, co-founder of the original Alfalfa’s in Boulder, Fresh & Wild stores in the U.K., founding partner of Greenmont Capital Partners, and current CEO of Madhava Natural Sweeteners.

It goes to say that Boulder is full of entrepreneurs wanting to make the Natural and Organic Industry more sustainable, strong, innovated and community based. Thanks to Naturally Boulder, this gives the opportunity for ideas to spark, relationships to build and community gatherings.

Cheers to our winners in the Natural and Organic Industry, and bravo to our growing passion Well done! 

 

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Alex Hanifin is a Boulder local. She climbs rocks to get off the ground. She bakes to enjoy herself. And her work comes along with it all.

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