My first experience with freeze-dried fruit was around age 11, at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.  My parents bought me a pouch of “astronaut food” from the gift shop.  It was a bag of freeze-dried strawberries and peaches.

This is what astronauts eat?

It was crunchy, weird, and kind of amazing.  I learned they carried this stuff to space because it was lightweight, nutritious, and didn’t spoil.  I never forgot it.

Fast forward to 2024.  I wasn’t chasing childhood nostalgia. I was looking for a smart product to build a business around: something lightweight, durable, and shelf stable. Suddenly, my mind jumped back to that moment in 1998. Astronaut food.

I hit the local grocery stores and bought every freeze-dried fruit brand I could find.  I sought feedback from family and friends, dug into the market, and built a strategy to create a brand.  Everything backed up the gut feeling.  Something was there.

That’s when the idea started to feel real.

I sourced quotes from Vietnam, Chile, and Colombia.  Colombia came through with the strongest offer, so I flew down to meet the suppliers.  If you’ve never been to Colombia, then whew.  The people, the place, the energy. Being there made the whole thing feel alive. The product was solid, the partnership clicked, and Fruvibe was born.

When I got home, I called a design guru in Philadelphia to create the packaging.  The moment I saw it, I thought, “this has a vibe.”

Now Fruvibe is real.  That’s not because I’ve been dreaming about freeze-dried fruit my whole life, but because a kid’s parents took him to the Smithsonian once upon a time, and the day left an everlasting impression.  

It only took the idea 25 years to come to fruition.  But, hey – that’s about how long it took for Voyager 1 to reach the end of the solar system.