7 Fruit Snacks Business Success Stories [2023]

My name is Evan Delahanty and I’m the Founder & CEO of Peaceful Fruits. Peaceful Fruits makes healthy, delicious, rainforest friendly fruit snacks.

Though we are still small, we’ve gone from $8000 in sales in 2015, to $25,000 in 2016, to $150,000 in 2017. We are now employing 30 people with disabilities in our production facility and have paid tens of thousands of dollars in wages to some of the most underserved people in any community.

I’m Stephanie Stuckey, and I’m the third-generation owner of Stuckey’s, the first roadside retail chain founded by my grandfather, W.S. Stuckey, Sr. as a pecan stand on State Route 1 in Eastman, GA in 1937. With a $35 loan, he turned his side hustle into a multi-million dollar business with more than 350 stores in 40 states, a candy plant, a trucking business, a distribution operation, and a sign painting shop. My grandfather sold the business in 1964, and it fell out of family hands for decades. Under corporate leadership, we lost hundreds of stores and all of our tangible assets.

I think of Stuckey’s as an 80-year-old startup, we’re reviving this nostalgic brand by focusing on product sales and re-interest in road-tripping. Our key product lines include pecan snacks in a variety of flavors (healthy & sugar options to appeal to a wide consumer base), plus our classic Southern confections line (pecan log rolls, pralines, divinity, gophers, and delicious cheecans that are cheese puffs with pecans). We’re expanding our online and retail presence, bringing on new B2B partners every week in gift shop, gourmet food, grocery, and convenience store markets.