Evansville company looking to future of zero-carb food products
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIt’s been a little over a month since Evansville-based ZeroCarb Lyfe announced that its snack product, Lyfe Chips, is being sold in all 16 Fresh Thyme locations in Indiana, and CEO Omar Atia says it has been a beautiful partnership.
The company, which originally created zero-carb pizza crusts made from chicken breasts, expanded its product offerings with what it calls the first zero-carb chips.
And now, Atia says the company is working to create more products that could soon hit store shelves.
He told Business of Health Reporter Kylie Veleta that the Fresh Thyme partnership was a “huge opportunity” to showcase an Indiana-made product.
“Customers that go to Fresh Thyme are customers that do care about healthy products. They do care about where the product is sourced. So it’s a perfect fit for our niche market,” Aita said. “And then, we know that Fresh Thyme cares about taking successful products nationally, and so it was a great opportunity for us to have that right out of the gate.”
The company, which also has a presence in Fishers, manufactures its pizza crusts, frozen pizzas and chips out of Wakarusa in Elkhart County.
The company recently secured the first patent for its zero-carb, protein-based dough and has two more patents pending, Atia said.
Since its inception, ZeroCarb Lyfe has raised over $5 million in seed funding. Heading into 2024, the company is preparing for a Series A round, a move Atia said will be used to show the company’s valuation growth and prepare for what he called “expansive growth.”
“We have a pending negotiation happening with the biggest conglomerate food company in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the potential of us having a joint venture to produce and sell in the Middle East and other places in the world,” he said. “We also have interest in other parts of the world for export.”
In the U.S., Atia said the company plans to launch two new frozen pizza and chip flavors in the next two quarters.
“We’re expanding our production, which we’ve already invested in; we’re just actually then commercializing that expansion. And then we have our preparation for the future products.”
Some of those future products include zero-carb taco shells, breadcrumbs, and pasta, as well as a few others that Atia said are being kept secret for now.
“We’re also looking at complementary products,” he said. “So, we have some R&D that’s going on right now for condiments, for instance, and those are potentially going to be in partnership with another entity.”
The company has invested in expansion of its assets in Wakarusa to support significant growth over the next two years. Atia said there may be a need for expansion into other parts of the country in the future, though there are no concrete plans to do so yet.
“Right now, we have Indiana as our as our location,” he said. “We love Indiana, and we want to grow here, and the northeast is a great place for manufacturing talent. There’s a ton of talent here that people don’t realize, and so we would love to leverage that talent for our growth.”
Atia said he believes ZeroCarb Lyfe will be the next big exit for a startup in Indiana.