January 5, 2016

Former managing partner of Wines.com, former president of Viansa Winery and founder of KRAVE Jerky, Jon Sebastiani, announced he has launched Sonoma Brands, an incubator dedicated to the development of new food brands and the disruption of the packaged consumer foods space, according to Forbes.

Backed by a capital investment by limited partner, private equity fund, Velocity Made Good (VMG) Partners, Sonoma Brands plans to invest a minimum of $500,000 per investment in several food start-ups, and plans to launch between three and five new food consumer packaged goods products beginning in 2016.  

The formation of Sonoma Brands (named for his hometown), is the next venture for Sebastiani after Hershey agreed to acquire KRAVE in January of 2015 for $220 million. Founded in 2009, Mr. Sebastiani grew KRAVE, which sells specialty meat jerky in flavors such as Chili Lime and Black Cherry BBQ, to sales of $35 million in the year prior to its acquisition.

“The vision of Sonoma Brands stems from my passion for this region that yields extraordinary culinary expertise and an immense network of esteemed chefs and entrepreneurs,” Sebastiani said in a recent press release. “Our goal is to partner with strong, imaginative leaders to push boundaries, invigorate industry categories and differentiate ourselves through our agility in adapting to ever-changing consumer needs.”

In an interview with Forbes, Mr. Sebastiani explains, “Given the massive trends toward more artisanal brands in virtually every category, we’re looking for innovation and newness. We have just an explosion of fantastic entrepreneurs. Clearly, we’re going to go through our own filtration process: First and foremost, are they in a category we can understand and where we can add value… The real intent for me is to be a mentor and really help from an operational standpoint. Our intention is to help them along with an exit in a five to seven-year time window.”

Sonoma Brands is well funded and ideally positioned to immediately begin supporting and developing new small to-mid-sized brands through the building of management teams for collaborative action with the goal of driving growth, brand awareness, and the creation of strategic value for stakeholders.

The incubator is planning its initial product launch within the ‘better for you’ food category in the first quarter of 2016, with a second launch planned to follow in the ‘better for you’ sweets category in the second quarter.

“It’s a huge category, and I understand that’s a bland statement, but we have a product that we believe is going to provide a very interesting, very exciting, different option,” Mr. Sebastiani told Forbes. “It’s a very fun product. The category is as a stale as jerky was, and we’re going to add life to it.”