Billions of investor dollars have flowed into food tech and wellness startups over the past few years. Blueberries, of all things, are turning out to be one of the smarter bets inside that boom. Fred Schonenberg, founder and CEO of VentureFuel, has watched that momentum build up close through the Blueberry Boost Accelerator, a program his firm runs with the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council to back startups using blueberries as a hero ingredient.
Part of it is timing. “Consumer demand for functional and better-for-you products remains incredibly strong,” Schonenberg says, and he points to PepsiCo’s nearly $2 billion acquisition of Poppi last year as the clearest sign of how much appetite there is for health and wellness brands right now. Blueberries slot right into that. They deliver on both flavor and function, and the health halo is already baked in. “They are familiar, functional, versatile, and widely loved,” he says.
Why Build an Accelerator Around One Ingredient
VentureFuel’s whole business model is spotting what’s coming next for an industry and then plugging in startups who can move on it faster than the incumbents. Blueberry Boost is that model narrowed to a single crop. “The opportunity with the Blueberry Boost Accelerator is to give the blueberry industry access to emerging startups, new business models, and innovations that can drive future category growth,” Schonenberg says. Founders get something out of it too: faster access to industry connections, commercialization advice, and blunt feedback from people who already know the category. Relationships like that, he says, would normally take decades to build. The accelerator compresses it into weeks.
What Actually Separated Last Year’s Winners
Passion for the product wasn’t the differentiator, according to Schonenberg. Understanding the problem was. “They had a deep understanding of the consumer problems they were solving and the commercial opportunity in the marketplace,” he says of last year’s standout founders. Pluff, the eventual winner, is the example he keeps coming back to: a blueberry mousse-style dessert that hits high-protein, low-sugar, indulgent, and functional ingredients all at once, and still tastes good. “You could immediately see how it fits into where consumer demand is heading,” he says.
Bonny, last year’s runner-up, took a different route to the same result. Founder Jessica Postiglione built clean-label fiber supplements around sustainable packaging, tapping into rising interest in gut health and making the category feel less clinical and more everyday. That combination, product plus commercial instinct, is what separates a company that can scale from one that’s just interesting.
Blueberries Are Showing Up in Stranger Places Than Expected
Applicants have taken the ingredient well past the smoothie aisle. Schonenberg has seen probiotic snack bars, functional sparkling drinks loaded with adaptogens and prebiotics, a fermented blueberry kraut built around gut health, and a startup using proprietary fermentation to turn blueberries into bioavailable ingredients for supplements. The creativity wasn’t the surprising part. What caught his attention was how cleanly founders tied blueberries to the trends already dominating consumer spending: protein, gut health, clean energy, cognitive wellness. “That’s where you start to see real breakout potential,” he says.
Separating Scalable From Just Clever
VentureFuel’s screening process isn’t romantic. Market size, differentiation, traction, whether the founder actually fits the market they’re going after, and whether the team can execute consistently once things speed up. Distribution gets just as much scrutiny: can this realistically land on a retail shelf or in foodservice, is there evidence of repeat purchases, can manufacturing scale without wrecking quality or margins. A great idea that can’t clear those bars doesn’t make the cut.
The Part Founders Usually Underestimate
CPG is brutal right now, full stop. Customer acquisition costs keep climbing, retail shelves are consolidating, supply chains are messier than they used to be, and funding has tightened. “The biggest challenge is getting from a great product to repeatable commercial traction,” Schonenberg says. Retailers aren’t impressed by innovation alone anymore. They want velocity, community, and loyalty, and they want founders managing all of that with almost no margin for error.
Commercial Readiness Isn’t About Size
“Commercial readiness isn’t about how big a company is; it’s about whether the startup is positioned to create meaningful commercial impact and scale effectively,” Schonenberg says, and he means it as a correction. VentureFuel weighs product-market fit, demand, traction, and team strength, as well as the unglamorous stuff: supply chain readiness, regulatory awareness, pricing, and go-to-market planning. Beyond the spreadsheet, he’s looking for founders who are resilient and coachable, because early growth almost never moves in a straight line.
Advice to Founders Applying This Year
“I wrote for my college newspaper, and one of the first things you learn in journalism is: don’t bury the headline,” Schonenberg says, tracing his application advice back to his own start in the business. “Tell us the problem you solve, why it matters now, and why you are the right team to solve it.” He wants proof that founders have actually listened to customers, not just claimed to, specific feedback and what changed because of it. And he wants to see traction, not potential. “Play offense,” he says.
Where the Next Wave Is Headed
Consumers are only going to get more demanding about measurable benefits, in his view, whether that’s energy, focus, gut health, or longevity. “Food is no longer just about consumption; it’s becoming a proactive tool for health and lifestyle optimization,” he says. The biggest growth, he thinks, sits at the intersection of food, functionality, and data, with brands leaning on AI and consumer insight tools to catch trends earlier and build with more precision. There’s a trust dimension too. Startups tend to move faster and engage more directly with consumers than big incumbents can, he says, which gives them an edge in building real relationships rather than just running ad campaigns. “The companies that win over the next decade will be the ones that combine innovation, strong consumer insight, purpose, and operational execution,” he says.
