Zoë's Story
I’m Zoë – hi! I am one of the Co-Founders of Fire Ox Foods.
A little bit about me:
I grew up on Long Island, by the beautiful beach and ocean
My mom used to call me zo-bird, which has now been shortened to bird.
I love running, hiking, skiing, yoga, and eating!
My husband and I have a boykin spaniel who we love
I’m not vegan or gluten-free. I love real food from the earth that is grown and made with love
Favorite foods at the moment: freshly-made sourdough bread with lots of salted butter
How did I get into making food?
My mom
I have had an up-and-down relationship with food throughout much of my life. My grandmother never cooked for herself and didn’t teach my mom how to cook. My mom did her best to cook for us, to say the least, and I am so grateful to her for that. I remember our refrigerator never having enough food in it - it was never stocked. My mom usually didn’t eat enough, she exercised frequently, and was always very thin.
Me and my ‘eating disorder’
My mom’s behavior certainly rubbed off on me as many things our parents do and say rub off on us (even if we really don’t want them to). I struggled with an eating, exercise, and body image disorder since I was 15. I ran a lot, pushed myself really hard, and didn’t eat enough. At my lowest point, I admitted myself to the hospital to be part of an in-patient eating disorder program. I was the victim of myself - my own beliefs, thoughts, and actions. I continued to struggle with an eating disorder and body image issues in college – even while playing field hockey, lacrosse, being part of orchestra, and studying. After college, I still struggled with overeating and over-exercising, but I slowly got better. My partner, and now husband, was one of the main reasons my relationship with food improved so much. Emotionally stable partners and friends are key to healing. So how does this relate to why I started Fire Ox? Given my somewhat traumatic relationship with food, why start a food company?
My passion for the environment
Although my mom wasn’t a fancy chef, she cared a lot about the beaches, waterways, and family farms we grew up around. My mom fought vehemently against the invasion of the ‘McMansion’ (as my mom would put it) and the vanishing of family farms in the Hamptons. She stood up for the earth and for local food – she stood up for what she believed was right.
So it should come as no surprise that I went off to college to study the environment. I focused on the impact civilizations have had on the environment and the reverse impact the environment has on us. Academics call this work environmental justice. I now call it interdependence.
After college, I worked as an Environmental Education camp counselor and as an Americorps VISTA doing environmental education work in North Philadelphia. During this time, I learned what life was like for a 2nd grader and a 13-year-old living in an impoverished community – impoverished in people’s connection to the earth, impoverished in people’s connection to real food, and impoverished in a typical monetary sense. I learned how complicated and difficult it is to improve communities in order to improve kids’ lives. It is about physical safety, stable family, access to good role models and mentors, access to good education, access to real food, access to mother earth, and about having a social / community support system in your neighborhood… and lots of other things I’m not thinking of!
how could I improve communities and the environment?
What should I focus on?
The food begins…
I was lucky enough to get an interview for a position at a local food distributor startup called Common Market MidAtlantic. At the time, I was passionate about the environment and I liked food, but I didn’t know enough about the food system to be super passionate about sustainable food. As a very early employee, I jumped right in and learned a ton about how our food system works -- How our food system is set up to make people sick and farmers broke, how food is grown and distributed, how it’s marketed, how food service companies work, how warehousing and inventory works, and much much more. So, over the next 2.5 years or so, I would say I became a sustainable food advocate and a bit of a foodie (not a full-on foodie compared to some of my friends and colleagues).
Starting my own food business
In 2014, I moved to New Haven with my partner with the intention of applying to business school. I loved the energy of working at a startup like Common Market, but I didn’t understand the business side of things well. So why not go to business school and maybe start my own company? During my MBA and Masters of Environmental Management, I learned what I liked and disliked. Consulting and banking were definitely not for me, but I was drawn to the art of creating something from nothing – something that came from my heart. So that’s where I started – my heart. Well, not exactly.
After over a year of building my business, (called zoni at the time), I realized I was creating what I thought I “should” create, instead of what I wanted to create. I also learned to distinguish between my heart’s passion to help people eat better coming from a desire to control what people ate (from my mind) versus coming from my own desire for nourishing, delicious food (from my body and my heart).
With this awareness came the ability to shift where my passion came from – from head to heart. I had an insight: I was creating these meals to heal myself - to nourish myself with delicious, real food. I realized that healing myself can help others too. And that’s when I said goodbye to Zoni Foods and created wildkind… and wildkind is now Fire Ox (after a legal dispute that we’ll talk about in an upcoming blog post).
RETHINKING FAILURE
I was brave enough to trust my gut and say goodbye to my old brand and line of products. When I looked back on the years of growing the zoni brand, it made me feel like a failure – a failure for not figuring this out sooner – a failure for spending a lot of time and money building a brand that was no longer. Over time, I started to learn and appreciate that brands and products evolve over time. It is important to nurture and celebrate that evolution – just as caterpillars become butterflies and seeds become flowers.
Also, building and growing my company taught me an immense amount. I learned so much about myself, how to make food on a commercial scale, how to create a brand and market it, how to build a team, fundraise, and manage accounting, and how to manage employees (and the learning certainly continues!). These teachings are what guide me and empower me in my work today. So in fact, it would be very silly for me to discount the years growing zoni. Molting our old skin made way for new skin – a skin that felt right.