Who is Joel Clark?
Joel Clark grew up selling his mother's whole-grain pancake mix from a red wagon in his Utah neighborhood when he was eight. In 1997, at 23, he took over the small family business, then bringing in about $29,000 a year, and ran it on the side for years while working in healthcare consulting and attending graduate school. His first major breakthrough was getting into Safeway after about two years of calling on the buyer. He hired Cameron Smith as COO in 2009, and it was Smith who suggested Shark Tank.
Clark pitched in Season 5 (2014) with about $2.5 million in prior-year revenue and walked away without a deal. The exposure still transformed the business: sales went from $3.6 million in 2014 to more than $50 million in 2017, as Kodiak moved into frozen waffles, oatmeal and snacks and spread to Target, Costco, Kroger and Amazon. In May 2021, L Catterton bought a majority stake. Clark stayed on as CEO until November 2022, when former Campbell Soup executive Valerie Oswalt took over and Clark moved to Kodiak's board.
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