Julia Collins is a food tech entrepreneur who has spent her career building food companies, including

Zume Zume, Inc. is an American manufacturing-technology company headquartered in Camarillo, California. Founded in 2015 as an automated food delivery company, in 2020 the company shifted to food packaging and delivery logistics. History Zume was fou ...

Pizza where she became the first Black woman to co-found a unicorn company.

Early life and education

Collins was born in San Francisco, California. She earned her Bachelor’s from Harvard University in 2001 and her Master of Business Administration from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 2009.

Career

Collins first started in the New York restaurant industry, co-creating a restaurant chain, Mexicue in 2010 and serving as director of

Murray's Cheese Murray's Cheese is an artisanal cheese and specialty foods retailer and wholesaler based in Greenwich Village in New York City. It was founded in Greenwich Village in 1962 as a spinoff of Glen Alden farms, an egg and dairy wholesaler. The company ...

in 2012. In 2015, Collins helped develop Zume Pizza as a co-founder with Alex Garden. Zume Pizza is a robot-powered pizza-making business that uses robotics and automation to create pizza. As of 2018, the Zume Pizza is worth 2.25 billion. Through Zume, Collins became the first Black woman to co-found a unicorn company. In 2019, Collins also founded Planet FWD, a carbon management platform for consumer brands to help understand their carbon footprint. Some of the major brands Planet FWD has worked with are:

Clif Bar Clif Bar & Company is an American company that produces energy foods and drinks. The company's flagship product, CLIF Bar, was created by Gary Erickson and Lisa Thomas. The company is based in Emeryville, California and was privately held until ...

, Blue Apron,

Kashi Kashi or Kaashi may refer to: Places * Varanasi (historically known as "Kashi"), a holy city in India **Kingdom of Kashi, an ancient kingdom in the same place, one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas **Kashi Vishwanath Temple, Varanasi * Kashgar, a cit ...

Numi Organic Tea Numi Organic Tea is a privately owned triple bottom line social enterprise based in Oakland, California. Numi is known for its assortment of organic and fair trade certified teas and herbal "teasans". The company was founded in 1999 by brother ...

. They also sell their own brand of carbon neutral snacks called Moonshot Snacks, with a focus on regenerative agricultural practices, local suppliers and recycled packaging.

References

{{Authority control Living people Stanford University alumni Harvard University alumni Businesspeople from San Francisco American technology company founders American women company founders 21st-century American women Year of birth missing (living people)