Featured VentureMom – Heather Terry – Good Sam Chocolate

Heather Terry is just like Willy Wonka if he were a champion of fair trade, sustainability, and regenerative agriculture. So, it’s fair to say that she’s nothing like Mr. Wonka. 

The Entrance Into The Organic Industry

Heather K. Terry, co-founder of GoodSam Foods, has spent most of her career building, growing, and exiting companies in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. Her first business was NibMor Chocolate. She traveled extensively to visit farm cooperatives, where she became aware of the power of organic food, the challenges of the fair trade movement, and how it’s vital that we help farmers stay in the farming business.

“I came into the natural products industry after my father struggled with terminal lymphoma for over a decade,” she explained. “To me, the link between health and the things we put in and on our body are completely intertwined.”

Food, cooking, and gathering around the table are also central to her family life with her six-year-old daughter and husband. Both Terry and her husband have demanding work schedules, so they carve out what they can when both are home.

When Heather Met Sam: The Start Of A Partnership

After 10-plus years in CPG, Terry joined the team at BeyondBrands, where she met Sam Stroot on a project that started with dried fruit but blossomed into a partnership involving the best chocolate she’d ever tasted.

Sam’s wife, Isabelle, is from Colombia, and for years, he had been trying to get more Colombian products out to a wider market. After the country signed a peace agreement in 2017, the farmers were incentivized to grow produce outside of coffee, including cacao.

“The quality of the cacao is excellent,” Terry said. “The farmers don’t use chemicals on their crops and everything is regeneratively farmed.”

The dried fruit concept evolved into Colombian chocolate and led to the creation of GoodSam Foods. GoodSam is all about food that is good for you, good for farmers, and good for the planet.

“We are committed to the organic food movement, fair and direct trade with our farmers, and sustainable and regenerative farm efforts,” she said.

The name of the company has a double meaning. First, it’s based on her partner Sam’s name. Second, there is the parable of the good samaritan who helps a stranger in need.

“Americans want to help others, but don’t really know how to help or what is authentically fair trade,” explained Terry. “So for us, we want to offer products that consumers know are made ethically by farmers who are paid and treated fairly.”

VentureMom Tip

Find a partner whose mission aligns with yours.