Jumping Off the Shelf, with Jen Zeszut of Goodles
The serial founder says the legacy pasta brands have made their beds. So she made a new one. Jen Zeszut’s mac and cheese brand, Goodles, is designed not just to stand out in the aisle—with rainbow-hued packaging amid a sea of beige and blue—but also to carve out a new customer for the classic pasta recipe: young adults who like convenience, but who aim to eat something healthier than your standard boxed fare. This meant changing adopting new market strategies in addition to creating a nutrient-packed mac and cheese. Jen is not a first-time founder, nor is she a stranger to the consumer packaged goods landscape. She left her role as CEO of the baby food company Cerebelly to launch Goodles in 2021, and the brand has been on the rise ever since. Today, it’s the fastest-growing mac and cheese in the U.S. and the seventh-fastest-growing natural food brand in the U.S. grocery category. For our mini-series highlighting Inc.’s 2025 Female Founders honorees, executive editor Diana Ransom sat down with Jen to discuss Goodles’s rapid growth, scrappy but innovative marketing, bringing in incremental customers, and how she raised $27 million for seed round funding. Additional research and information: Inc.’s 2024 Female Founder’s list (2025 out soon!) Read more on Jen Zeszut and Goodles on Inc.com: If You Cannot Outspend Your Competition, Out-Weird Them Visit: Goodles Visit: Goodles’s bio