An Akron-area man will appear Feb. 10 on national TV hoping “sharks” will find his startup fruit-snack business worth biting into.
Evan Delahanty, the 31-year-old creator of Peaceful Fruits fruit strips, will pitch his venture on the ABC reality show Shark Tank in an effort to score investment bucks from the panel of well-heeled, often snarky, “shark” investors.
Delahanty, a former Peace Corps worker in South America, calls his venture a “social good snack company” because the fruit strips — sometimes called fruit leather — contain acai berries that are picked in the wild in the Amazon region in Brazil.
Harvesting acai berries is a way for people to make money without hurting the forest, Delahanty explained. “You can harvest the berries year after year as a renewable resource, but you can only clear-cut once [in the Amazon] for mining or logging.”
Each fruit strip contains 25 acai berries. The berry has taken off in popularity over the past several years; it’s high in antioxidants, which work to prevent some of the cell damage caused by “free radicals” in the body.
The Shark Tank episode — recorded last year — will air at 9 p.m. on Channel 5 (WEWS). Panelists — the “shark” investors — are Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O’Leary.
Delahanty is prohibited from talking about the episode’s outcome before it airs.
Those involved with the reality show “are very secretive,” he said. “Obviously, they don’t want to spoil the episode.”
The show’s drama is real, Delahanty said.
“The [shark] investors are hard-hitting, aggressive, talking over one another,” he said. “One person is asking you about your marketing plan and another person is asking you about your finances, and neither one of those people want to wait for an answer.”
Since pilot production began in late 2015, Peaceful Fruits has sold more than $25,000 of snacks online and through local retailers such as Mustard Seed (with stores in Bath Township, Solon and Highland Square) and Krieger’s Market in Cuyahoga Falls.
Workers at the new Hattie’s Food Hub in West Akron make the all-natural, gluten-free strips, which are labeled and packaged by workers at Blick Center in Fairlawn. Hattie’s Food Hub includes a commercial food processing kitchen operated by Hattie Larlham, the nonprofit that provides job training and other services for people with disabilities. The nonprofit Blick Center (formerly Blick Clinic) also serves people with disabilities.
Delahanty started working on his venture after serving two years with the Peace Corps as a project manager and community economic development specialist in the Amazon.
In 2014, he participated in a food-based business training program at the Cleveland Culinary Launch and Kitchen. The program is overseen by the Economic Community Development Institute in Cleveland.
Last year, Delahanty participated in a 14-week boot camp for “social enterprise” businesses in Cleveland, winning $20,000 in a pitch contest.
“That gave us confidence,” he said. “I pitched pretty well in Cleveland ... and once I had that experience I had something to say to [the Shark Tank panelists].... I had something more to say than, ‘Hey, I’m some random guy,’ ” with a startup.
On Feb. 10, Peaceful Fruits will host an invitation-only Shark Tank watch party from 8:00 to 10:30 p.m. at the Mustard Seed Market & Cafe at 867 W. Market St. in Highland Square.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com. You can follow her @KatieByardABJ on Twitter.