Soupergirl just won a national pitch competition that could put the local company’s soups on Kroger-owned grocery store shelves as soon as 2022.
The D.C. soup company is one of five winners in The Kroger Co.'s first-ever “Go Fresh & Local Supplier Accelerator,” a program that lasted several months and ended with a "Shark Tank"-esque pitch competition at the grocery store chain’s Cincinnati headquarters.
The company received more than 1,000 applications and narrowed the field to 15 businesses to pitch at the live event. Soupergirl founder Sara Polon presented a 10-minute pitch and emerged victorious, along with Twin Cities-based chutney maker Maazah; Nona Lim, an Oakland, California, business that makes refrigerated Asian noodle kids; Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale of Charlotte, North Carolina; and Simply Southern Sides, a spice and seasoning company out of Macedonia, Ohio.
The winners will get the opportunity to launch their products on Kroger’s shelves. Soupergirl’s packaged vegan soup and gazpacho could appear in stores as early as the first quarter of 2022, according to a press release. Kroger (NYSE: KR) owns the Harris Teeter chain of stores, which has more than two dozen locations in Greater Washington. While the details are still being worked out, the Soupergirl line will first appear in Harris Teeter stores, but could eventually grow into Kroger stores nationwide, according to a spokesperson for the D.C. company.
The chosen winners of the accelerator will also get business development coaching from Kroger and other opportunities to expand.
Polon founded Soupergirl in 2008 and grew the veggie-based soup business into a soup delivery company that also sells at Costco, Whole Foods Market, Lidl, Wegmans and others. She appeared on "Shark Tank" in 2018, and launched her first funding round in 2020. She closed that $2 million round with investments from Chevy Chase-based Arborview Capital, Honest Tea founder Seth Goldman and Glen’s Garden Market founder Danielle Vogel.
