Coming off the heels of a $500,000 crowdfund raise, Verity Noble and Rachel Irons are going to swim with the sharks.
The founders of local grocer Nude Foods, which has locations in Boulder and Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood and describes itself as “zero waste,” will appear on the March 11 episode of ABC TV’s “Shark Tank.”
Irons and Noble want Nude Foods to be seen as a full-size, waste-reducing alternative to the King Soopers of the world, rather than a small-scale specialty outfit. The plan is to add more stores out of state and deliver nationwide.
“Even more than the money, it’s really important for us that people understand we aren’t this niche little store,” Irons said. “We do have everything you need and we do want to make this mainstream.”
Nude Foods sells its produce, snacks, premade meals and more in glass jars, which customers then return to the store when they shop for their next round of groceries. Irons personally vets all of the store’s vendors to make sure the food and supply chains are up to the market’s standards, she said. About 45% of the store’s items are sourced from Colorado.
“There are bulk stores, there are co-ops, there are all these different things that people can do, but they take so much effort,” Noble said, explaining that it could take hours hopping from place to place and filling up containers with food.
“And we’re like, ‘Mainstream shoppers have not got time for this,’” she added. “So what we have created is a store that’s really like a traditional store, the only difference is that instead of putting your food packaging in the trash when you’re done with it, you bring it back to us and we wash it, sanitize it and reuse it hundreds more times.”
Irons dreamed up Nude Foods years ago while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Soon after, she started building out a space in a former restaurant dining room at the Broker Inn in Boulder alongside Noble and co-founder Matt Arnold.
The operation pivoted to delivery-only during COVID. Then, in September 2021, she and Noble opened the Boulder store at 3233 Walnut St. They added the Denver location at 3538 W. 44th Ave. in April 2024.
In 2023, Nude Foods lost $420,000 on $1.5 million in sales, investor materials show. In 2024, the business lost $350,000 on $1.8 million after adding the Denver store.
Nude Foods has 500 members who pay $15 a month for discounts and savings on the jar fees. Noble said most customers come by word of mouth, so the “Shark Tank” attention along with increased capital will help the business grow further.
Noble said that the $500,000 crowdfund round, which gave small-scale investors equity in Nude Foods, recently got extended for up to $300,000 more. That, along with a potential TV bounty, will be spent on marketing.
“This is the future of how we want people to shop. It’s what’s best for everyone,” Irons said. “And getting national publicity like this helps to cement that.”
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