Rethinking Better-For-You Food: Investing, Ingredients & What Actually Scales with Tyler Mayoras
Consumer VC #359: Tyler Mayoras, Managing Director of Manna Tree
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Hey friends,
On today’s episode, I chat with Tyler Mayoras, Managing Partner at Manna Tree, a growth equity firm focused on investing in food, beverage, and wellness brands that actually improve human health.
Tyler has spent decades investing across food and agriculture, from early plant-based pioneers like Boca Burger to today’s next generation of better-for-you brands. In this conversation, we talk about how the category has evolved, why many plant-based brands lost consumer trust, and what investors really look for when evaluating health claims, ingredient labels, and unit economics.
We also dig into why frozen is one of the hardest categories in retail, how founders misjudge when to scale, and why profitability matters more today than it did a decade ago. Tyler shares how strategic buyers think about M&A, what oversaturated categories get wrong, and where real opportunity still exists in food and wellness.
If you’re building or investing in food and beverage and want a more honest view of what works beyond the hype, this episode is a grounded look at how durable brands are actually built.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
✅ Why many plant-based brands lost their way
✅ What “better-for-you” actually means to serious investors
✅ How ingredient labels matter more than marketing claims
✅ Why frozen is one of the hardest categories in grocery
✅ When brands should (and shouldn’t) expand into mass retail
✅ Why profitability now matters more than growth at all costs
✅ How strategic buyers really think about M&A today
✅ The biggest mistakes founders make when scaling too early
✅ Where Tyler sees the next opportunities in food and wellness
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:00 Tyler’s path from private equity to food & agriculture
03:00 Early lessons from investing in Boca Burger
05:30 The rise and fall of plant-based burgers
09:00 What “better-for-you” really means
12:00 Ingredients, labels, and investor red flags
15:00 Sugar alternatives, sweeteners, and health tradeoffs
18:30 Why sustainability messaging often comes second
21:00 The realities of launching food brands in retail
24:00 Why frozen is such a difficult category
27:00 When brands should expand into mass retail
31:00 Natural vs conventional grocery shoppers
35:00 Why M&A expectations have changed
38:00 What strategic buyers want today
41:00 Growth equity vs venture investing
45:00 Revenue and profitability benchmarks
49:00 Category creation vs smart trade-ups
53:00 Oversaturated categories and the protein boom
57:00 Where Tyler sees future opportunity
01:00:00 Lessons learned and advice for founders
Thanks for listening!