Kate Flynn

Post-pitch story

Kate Flynn founded Sun & Swell Foods in 2016 with a simple idea: healthy snacks that don't leave plastic behind. The certified B Corp makes organic snacks, from date bites to trail mixes, in compostable packaging. It's built for people who care about the ingredients and the wrapper. The years after the pitch brought a stack of recognition. Flynn was named a Tory Burch Fellow in 2019, and in 2020 Sun & Swell won PepsiCo's WomenMade Challenge and a NEXTY Award for sustainable packaging. In a profile with Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs, the company reported raising about $1.8 million, earning roughly $4.2 million in total revenue, getting into more than 500 stores and keeping over 1.2 million plastic bags out of landfills. Those figures come from the company itself. Sun & Swell is still selling directly to customers on its website. Flynn remains co-founder and CEO, and she also runs a coaching and consulting practice for other founders, sharing what she learned building a mission-driven food brand. It's a steady consumer story: no blockbuster exit, but a growing company that has stayed true to its packaging-first mission for nearly a decade.