LAS VEGAS — What began as a side project for Jovi Chen-Davis is now a vibrant, vegan edibles brand changing the way cannabis can be used in food. As founder and CEO of Munchy Co., she’s bringing a savory innovation to the International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE).
Cannabis edibles more commonly take the form of brownies, cookies, gummies and other sweet options, leaving savory snacks in the white space. Following hefty R&D, Chen-Davis’ experimentation to merge the snack food and cannabis industries was a success in the form of an extruded snack.
Munchy Co. debuted at IBIE 2022 in Las Vegas, previewing one of its three flavors — Vegan Barbecue — as a sample at Booth #7551 in the Cannabis Pavilion before the products launch in the Denver and Long Beach, CA, markets in 2023. Other flavors, which Chen-Davis expects to be received well in these first markets, include Vegan Cheddar Jalapeño and Vegan Hatch Chile Lime varieties.
For her, this sector’s great unknown was not an obstacle, but an opportunity.
“The reason why people do sweets is because there’s a charted path on how to do it, so everyone sees what works,” Chen-Davis said. “In an industry that can be kind of volatile, I guess it could be easy to do what works. But I feel that this is feasible with the right team being me.”
Though traditional cannabis edibles involve the use of fat such as cannabis-infused oil or maltodextrin cannabis blends, the powder version of maltodextrin cannabis mixes with the seasoning process of snacks to create a new kind of edible.
The Vivid Team, a product and brand creation consultant in the cannabis space, has helped Chen-Davis fill a share of the cannabis market that had not yet been tapped into.
She is also leading the way through the core mission of her company.
After facing her own issues getting Munchy Co. off the ground, Chen-Davis plans to build a social equity fund from the proceeds of her company to help other entrepreneurs of color build their businesses.
“I lost everything, and I was like, ‘This cannot happen to other people of color. I refuse to let it happen if there’s anything I can do about it,” she said.
With Munchy Co. set to officially launch in 2023, this ambitious CEO is set on paving a new path in cannabis.
“I know I’m on track with my thinking because cannabis is slowly being integrated into other types of products,” Chen-Davis said about her trailblazing path with Munchy Co. “And I feel like snack foods is the white whale — I’m going after it. It’s the next frontier.”
This story has been adapted from the August | Q3 2022 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.
