DIY Pizza Night Inspires Gail Becker To Launch Good-For-You Food Giant, Sizzling With $100M In Revenue

One night, Gail Becker decided to try a homemade pizza dough recipe using cauliflower.

Her kids loved it, but the process was messy.

Becker wondered: What if a tasty and nutritious cauliflower pizza could be readily available in the frozen foods section of your nearest supermarket? 

It wasn't long before Becker would leave her executive role at Edelman to pursue this endeavor full-time, eventually launching one of the fastest-growing food brands in recent years — Caulipower.

"I started the company because my two sons had celiac disease, but most people who buy our products do not eat gluten-free. And that is the point!" Becker tells Benzinga.

Whenever their friends would visit, her sons would request gluten-free pizzas, but "regular pizzas for everyone else."

"It was clear they were embarrassed by the way those crusts looked and tasted," Becker recalls. "In starting Caulipower, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could just share the same food even if people had different reasons for eating it?’ That is the notion behind Caulipower. We make delicious food for everyone to eat. In a world with so much divisiveness, it's wonderful to be able to deliver a message that unites us. Everyone wants and deserves delicious food."

See Also: $9,700 And Sliding Into Oprah's DMs Helped This 31-Year-Old CEO Disrupt A $200B Industry

Since May is National Celiac Disease Awareness Month, Benzinga thought it would be an opportune time to feature Becker's story. Read on to learn about the rules she broke along the way, the challenges she faced, her advice for up-and-coming entrepreneurs and the lessons she learned from her late dad that contributed to her extraordinary success.

BZ: Caulipower's packaging (Real Cluckin' Chicken, They Said It Was InPastable, You Live On The Veg, All About The Base, to name a few) is quite clever and unique. Did you come up with these irreverent names, or is the packaging a testament to hiring the right minds and working with the right people?

 

G.B.: Some I came up with and others are a testament to the incredible creative team at Caulipower who, I believe, are the best in the business. When I first started Caulipower, I wanted to do something different with the packaging to stand out from the rest of the crowded and highly-competitive world of frozen pizzas — as well as make consumers smile. It had been a long time since people smiled as they shopped the frozen food aisle. I always thought it was Caulipower’s job to give our consumers great tasting, better-for-you food, and some joy and laughter too!

You used to work in your dad's store starting when you were 5 years old. How did being under his tutelage inspire you?

 

What a gift to be able to tell a story backward. All those Saturdays ringing the cash register — for $20 plus lunch — obviously had an impact on the entrepreneurial path I chose, though clearly, I didn’t know it at the time. I learned so much from that small perch behind that counter.

My dad built his small business by building relationships. He knew people’s first names and they knew his. He would ask about their families, their pets and their jobs. Those relationships are what kept them coming back to him. Caulipower was built in much the same way. I entered an industry I knew nothing about and was incredibly fortunate to meet people who shared my vision of making delicious, nutritious food more accessible to all.

Sometimes his customers needed a little help, and he was there to give it, either by throwing something extra in the bag, handing them a treat or letting them pay later. I learned the importance of being empathetic to what people are going through and see that as a core tenet of a successful brand. I also believe it is all our responsibility to leave the world a bit better than we found it, and help others less fortunate along the way. My dad grew up with nothing and was hungry all the time. That is why since Caulipower sold our very first pizza, we have given money to The American Heart Association’s Teaching Garden program to help build working vegetable gardens in underserved schools nationwide.

One day, a man went into diabetic shock and fainted in my dad’s store. No one knew what to do. Within seconds, my dad tore open a candy bar and slowly fed it to him with his head in his lap. Slowly, he regained consciousness and thanked him for potentially saving his life. I saw firsthand the importance of fast action and decisiveness — which is something that has served me well in building Caulipower to more than $100 million in revenue.

You once said: "Know which rules to break, and which rules to follow." Which rules did you break when it came to launching Caulipower?

 

Ha. How long do you have? I think the memes on all our packaging are a stark rule we broke. A lot of packaging experts tried to talk me out of doing it and said that the concept would break a lot of design rules. Caulipower was about to be a massive disruptor to the pizza category by innovating the cauliflower crust pizza. So, why not disrupt the packaging as well?

Another good example of a rule we broke was going into Walmart Inc. WMT so early in the trajectory of our business. Lots of experts counseled me not to, but I held strong to our mission of making healthier food more accessible to all, and Walmart was going to be key to that. That decision and commitment to our mission have served the company well.

You once said, "People don't realize success is not a finite point — you have to work even harder to maintain it because everyone has their guns pointed at you." Explain.

 

There are many ways to define success. Too often, entrepreneurs define it in terms of personal financial success. If you do that, you’re probably setting yourself up to fail. Success in traditional terms is hard to chase because it’s ever-evolving. One day you’re on top of the world and the next day, you’re worried about your livelihood because competition is coming for you. Oh, and then there’s a global pandemic. I think a much more sustainable view of success is looking at it in different ways: Did you take a risk and bet on yourself? Are you helping people lead healthier lives? Are you making the planet better? Are you contributing to the economy by offering well-paying jobs? If you use those metrics as your guard rails, chances are financial success — and peace of mind — will follow.

When you started Caulipower six years ago, you sold your belongings and cut out luxuries. The gluten-free market is now projected to reach $7.5 billion by 2027. Where does Caulipower go from here?

 

Seven years for me since I started the business a year before launching. Honestly, I really did enjoy that part of it. We were so small then, flying under the radar and I didn’t have as many people relying on the company — consumers, employees, investors. I work every day so that I never let any of them down. Caulipower’s goal is to be the number one better-for-you frozen food company in the country, across various categories. That’s a big but achievable goal. All of my time and energy is focused on getting us there.

This story is part of a series of features on the subject of success, Benzinga Inspire.

Image: Courtesy of Caulipower