“We’re moving into food and food products that actually regenerate, replenish, and heal the earth,” says entrepreneur Julia Collins.
Companies like Zume are incredibly important because they’re using technology to create a better future for food.
Essence
Julia Collins was just a little girl when she discovered her passion for food. Her grandparent’s home in San Francisco became a communal haven where she was able to witness how cooking brought people together.
After attending Harvard University as a biomedical engineering major one thing remained: her love of food. This in turn inspired her to seek a career in the business. After developing two successful restaurants in NYC, Collins saw the opportunity to return to her roots in Silicon Valley and combine her love of food and technology with the development of Zume Pizza.
Since co-founding the pizza company which is known for its robotic technology that makes pizzas, she is a unicorn in Silicon Valley with a company valued at $2.25 billionafter raising an additional $375 million this year.
With so much success in just three years with Zume, Collins is stepping down as President and preparing for the next phase of her journey in food tech and her goal of wanting her 11-month-old son to inherit a planet that’s healthier than the one that we’re living on right now.
Ahead, Collins shared with ESSENCE her humble beginnings in the food industry, the challenges Black women face in Silicon Valley and what her plans are for her new company:
How did you get your start in the food industry?
There was nothing that would please my family more than for me to get this incredible degree in [biomedical engineering]. The problem is I wasn’t living my authentic truth. You know, even at 18 years old, I knew that it just wasn’t for me. It wasn’t until I came to Stanford Business School and I permitted myself to live in my authentic truth and to say to myself, ‘Julia, it’s food, this is what is meant for you. This is what the universe is calling you to do.’
I was fortunate that [restaurateur] Danny Meyer gave me my first job in the business. He took a chance on me, and that was the turning point in my career when I got to be a summer intern at Union Square Hospitality Group where the early Shake Shack was being formed. I can’t claim any success for that enterprise, but I had the good fortune of working for Randy Garutti who is now the CEO of Shake Shack and working for Danny Meyer, who’s been a most well-loved person in the world of restaurant development. I was working for Richard Coraine, who’s probably the smartest person in the world of restaurant development on earth. After that I knew that I couldn’t do anything else with my life. I had to be in the food business, and so when I graduated from Stanford Business School, I went back to work for Danny before going on to start my other food businesses.
