Five Food Founders Tell University of Miami Students What Brand-Building Costs

Five founders of food companies took the stage at the University of Miami's Storer Auditorium on Wednesday, Oct. 14, to tell students what building a brand actually takes. "The Taste of Entrepreneurship," run by the Business School's Entrepreneurship Program with the Campus Creator Club and UStart, featured Antonio Ellek of Poshi, Will Nitze of IQBAR, Luis Mata of Meat N' Bone, Aidan Friedson of BANH and Ben Barrocas of Chillbar.

"[This event is] just really a celebration of all the hard work that these founders who are taking the stage have done," said Susan Amat, associate professor of professional practice at the Department of Management, who organized the event and mentors entrepreneurship students at the Business School.

The evening ran on two panels. The first, "No Shelf Life," paired Friedson and Mata, whose businesses sell directly to consumers daily. The second brought Ellek, Nitze and Barrocas together — founders who rarely meet customers face to face. The night closed with guests sampling Barrocas's Chillbar to mark the brand's Miami launch.

What did students hear about the food business?

The Entrepreneurship Program has hosted five food events in five years. This year's edition grew out of several of Amat's food-business students preparing to launch ventures at the start of the summer.

Food, Amat said, is especially demanding. "It's just so much more complex than people think," she said. Founders often overlook finding the right people, quality, shelf life, distribution and marketing, she said. Even a strong product fails if customers never hear about it, and because the industry turns on taste, the third, fourth or fifth best product can win by being better funded or better connected.

Amat's message was blunt: "The product is easy, and it's a long, long road after that." Her advice to students: "Figure out what [goals] matter to you and [focus on] nothing but that." She wants students to hear from entrepreneurs at every stage of development. "It's seeing [founders] at different stages of their journey and saying, 'That can be me,'" she said.

How did BANH build from a $0 start?

Alumnus Aidan Friedson has started businesses since childhood. As an undergraduate, he ran a meal-prep company, Reliables, which grew quickly but never turned profitable.

His next idea came from conversations with his current business partner, a Vietnamese chef who had always wanted to open a sandwich shop. BANH opened inside Books & Books in October 2025. "I was working 12-hour days every day in the beginning to get us over the hump," Friedson said. Free samples did the marketing: "One out of every three people that tried our samples would purchase something." When a customer's sample video went viral, food influencers flocked. BANH has since been named a 2026 Miami New Times Editors' Choice Winner for Best Sandwich.

What did the fire teach Meat N' Bone?

Luis Mata spent his career in finance, rising from financial analyst to CFO and CEO, before launching Meat N' Bone during the pandemic. The company sells directly to consumers online and through eight retail locations, two steakhouses and a quick-service restaurant.

In December 2024, a fire destroyed the company's warehouse and fulfillment center just as it opened four new locations. "It almost drove us out of business," Mata said. "We're still living with the consequences of that fire, but we're working our way through it."

Today, a team runs much of the day-to-day business while Mata focuses on fundraising, strategy and relationships — a long way from moving boxes in the morning and pitching for capital in the afternoon. His advice: don't wait for perfection. "It doesn't have to be perfect. Just start something, put yourself out there. Failure is just another lesson in life," he said. Meat N' Bone has taught him more in five years, he added, than the previous 20 combined.

How did Chillbar go from a Ninja CREAMi to dry ice delivery?

Second-year student Ben Barrocas grew up playing basketball and tennis and, by middle school, was frustrated that protein snacks forced a trade-off between protein, clean ingredients and taste. Last December he set out to make a better protein bar, then asked himself: "Why does the world need another protein bar?" Protein ice cream pints existed; no one had made a bar.

His home experiments fell short, so he found a formulator at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, and the two refined the recipe for months. Manufacturing proved harder. Ice cream co-packing is concentrated among a handful of facilities, and the team hit several roadblocks before finding a partner. After the official launch at the Oct. 14 event, the bars now sell online and ship nationwide on dry ice through a fulfillment partner.

What's next for student entrepreneurs?

The Entrepreneurship Program hosts multiple events each year, and student founders are already building on campus. Applications for the Elevator Pitch Competition stay open through Oct. 29, and a fashion entrepreneurship pop-up showcasing student-run businesses follows on Nov. 5.