Click the play button above to listen to the episode.
This Episode is Sponsored By: City National Bank
What drives consumers in the frozen food sector? According to Red’s All Natural founder Mike Adair, they want both convenience and better-for-you attributes. City National Bank managing director Jennifer Braasch also shares how the frozen food sector has grown despite the pandemic and inflationary pressures.
Click Below to Subscribe
About Michael Adair:
Mike Adair is the Founder / CEO of Red’s All Natural, a clean label frozen food brand. Mike started Red’s fourteen years ago based on his wife’s famous Taco Tuesday dinners and named the company after their beloved dog, Red. Today, Red’s is one of the largest natural / organic frozen-food brands in the country. They make delicious, clean-label, and convenient burritos / breakfast sandwiches and other fun items. Mike started the company while earning his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Prior to Red’s, Mike had a six-year career in finance at Pioneer Investments in Boston after attending Boston College and moving to New York City and finally Seattle.
Outside of work, Mike spends his time hiking, fishing, playing cornhole, and obsessing over his lawn. This is all in between racing kids to sports activities all over Tennessee. Mike lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Paige, and three kids, Finley (14), Samantha (13), and Hunter (10).
About Jennifer Braasch:
Jennifer Pricco Braasch is a Managing Director with City National Bank’s Food & Beverage Group. Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she supports food and beverage industry executives with creative financing solutions and industry intelligence. Working with City National’s team of experts, she provides the bank’s full range of financial solutions to food and beverage businesses nationwide.
Ms. Braasch has over 20 years of financial services experience. Prior to joining City National, she served four years as a senior relationship manager for Wells Fargo’s Food & Agribusiness group, and spent 15 years with GE Capital’s Corporate Finance and Antares Capital groups in Chicago, including four years as part of the Food & Beverage team.
Ms. Braasch earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and her master’s in business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
In addition to her company responsibilities, Ms. Braasch has been an active volunteer for several community organizations, including the Hunger Task Force, where she serves as a member of the Executive Council; the Tosa Community Food Pantry, where she serves as Vice President of the Board; and the Lakeview Food Pantry, where she volunteered weekly for seven years. She resides in the city of Wauwatosa with her husband and their two children.
About City National Bank:
With $95.4 billion in assets, City National Bank provides banking, investment, and trust services through 69 branches, including 21 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Miami*. In addition, the company and its investment affiliates manage or administer $94.5 billion in client investment assets.
City National is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of the world’s leading diversified financial services companies. RBC serves more than 17 million personal, business, public sector, and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the United States, and 27 other countries.
For more information about City National, visit the company’s website at http://www.cnb.com/foodandbev.
*City National Bank does business in Miami and the state of Florida as CN Bank.
City National Bank Member FDIC. City National Bank is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada.
©2023 City National Bank. All Rights Reserved. cnb.com
