Alumni Spotlight: Interview with Dr. Debby Good of Good Family Foods Group
Dr. Debby Good is an active member of our RAMP alumni community and CEO and Founder of Good Family Foods Group, a nutrition-focused company committed to developing innovative, science-backed products that support health and wellness.
Her company’s first product is the CLAW bar. This bar contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) that, when ingested, helps reduce body fat while maintaining muscle. Her product is grounded in decades of Debby and her peers’ own research.
Outside of her work at Good Family Foods, Debby serves an associate professor in the department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech, and Chair of the Health Sciences Division for the Council for Undergraduate Research, and the Director of the Mid-Atlantic Region for Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society. Debby also serves as the executive chair for the NRV Walk to End Alzheimer’s.
Debby received her bachelor’s degree in biomedical research from State University of New York at Fredonia and her doctoral degree in cellular and molecular biology from Northwestern University. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.
We had the opportunity to sit down with Debby and discuss her work in the regional innovation community.
Tell us the origin story of your company. What inspired you?
I never really thought about starting a company, to be honest. I submitted the patent application for this invention, the use of conjugated linoleic acid to treat genetic obesity, and use of it in food items, in 2020. While still pending, it is moving through the stages to be fully patented.
Mark Mondry, director of LAUNCH at Virginia Tech, suggested that I consider RAMP, and I thought “why not.” I wasn’t thinking about creating a company but rather learning about business and marketing as an interesting subject. I’m a lifelong learner, so I really joined RAMP for the learning aspect, and found out I really did want to start a company. The training I received propelled me to do it. I gained the wings and confidence to keep going even after the program ended.
What has it meant for your company to have participated in RAMP?
Participating in RAMP in fall 2023 was just the beginning of the journey. Through RAMP, I have continued to pursue networking opportunities. This journey is not a one-and-done thing. If you are serious about starting a business based on your technology, you need to keep at it, and RAMP helps you do that!
Who are some Roanoke-Blacksburg mentors that have impacted you?
The entire RAMP and RBTC team: Jessie Dunn, Erin Burcham, and Mike Abbott have continued to support me and my efforts. My RAMP mentor, Tom England has also continued to be very supportive of my efforts. The people that I did RAMP with continue to be supportive of my efforts through LinkedIn. The RAMP community is like a business family that continues to support and mentor me even three years past my direct involvement.
Describe a typical client and the reach of your product?
There are lots of people who want to lose weight. 1 in 8 people worldwide are obese, and these bars may be an affordable supplement to a healthy diet and exercise. The global CLA market is valued between $50 and $123 million with up to a 9% growth rate. There is a need for a product that is not a large, hard-to-swallow pill or pharmaceutical.
I originally developed these bars with kids in mind, particularly kids with Prader-Willi Syndrome, a genetic condition that leads to later onset obesity, with voracious hunger. My research showed that a mouse model of PWS lost body fat and retained muscle using CLA with a high-fat diet. Parents of kids with this syndrome are interested in lower calorie snacks that help manage weight and hunger in their children. The bars meet that need at under 100 calories per serving. They are high-fiber, all-natural sugar, organic, vegan, and gluten-free.
What is one obstacle in the founding of your company that you’re most proud of overcoming?
There were so many obstacles and still are. I thought I would be selling bars by 2024, but they didn’t extrude from the bar machine. We had made them by hand for testing purposes. That was the first obstacle and required about 6-8 months to re-formulate the recipe and test it again for CLA stability. Several obstacles with packaging came up. One time, we had to scrap 30,000 labels and start over again. Right now, I’m learning all that I can about crowdfunding so that we can launch our bars on Kickstarter with global reach.
I expect to have more barriers put in front of me, but I also expect to be able to work through them and get these products out to the world where I really think they can help with healthy weight loss.
What piece of advice would you give early-stage tech/biotech entrepreneurs?
Get into an accelerator and surround yourself with like-minded people. However, don’t stop there — keep educating yourself. I turn to podcasts on starting a business and founder podcasts. Keep attending RAMP and RBTC events to keep your name out there and network. Build your social media presence on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
Tell us a fun fact about you.
I used to play steel drums with the PanJammers. Once, we opened for Bob Marley’s band in Roanoke. That was certainly a highlight of my steel drum days. I stopped playing during COVID, but I often think about joining again. I also have played with the Blacksburg Community Band in the past. I plan to go back once things have settled down a bit.
Do you have any additional comments about your team or impressive accomplishments?
I am lucky to have some VT undergraduate and graduate students who have worked with me on this project. Shadi Ariyanfar went through RAMP with me and my husband, Danny Miglia. Faisal Alotaibi and Antoni Reynolds are currently working on the CLA mouse project and Michele Guardado-Montesinos helped with the bar development. Mira Yeoh has helped with my website redesign, and Abby Reed is in the lab working on new product development. I’ve collaborated with Sean O’Keefe in Food Science and Technology and Melissa Wright in Extension at Virginia Tech.
Outside of VT, I’ve also got a fantastic co-packer, Basecamp Co-Pack in Denver, CO, who has been with me since the beginning. Thank you to ePac for the wrappers, Warneke Paper Box Company for the boxes, and my designer, Kyra Aulani, Founding Mothers Media. It takes a team!
RAMP and RBTC are part of the Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance (RBIA), established to grow the region’s innovation economy, technology and life sciences sectors, and the supporting professional communities. It aligns the strengths and programming efforts of the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council (RBTC) and the Regional Accelerator and Mentoring Program (RAMP).