ChiChi Foods does the impossible: it takes chickpeas and turns them into oatmeal.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Washington University student Chiara Munzi realized that while she loved to eat oatmeal for breakfast, it wasn’t very filling. Typical breakfast options, including pastries and cereals, carry loads of sugar and hardly any protein. But that’s not the case with chickpeas. In her search for a better breakfast, Munzi would mash them up and add other ingredients like honey and fruit. It tasted great and was very satisfying.
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“Then I had this epiphany moment,” said Munzi, founder of ChiChi Foods. “I thought, ‘Why don’t we replace the oat with the chickpea and make chickpea oatmeal?’”
The rest is history.
The breakfast startup’s hot cereals are sold online and at more than 30 stores in the United States—many of which are based in California. However, the company got its start in St. Louis via Washington University’s Skandalaris Venture Competition, a class that provides mentorship for students with new ideas, creative inventions, and scalable ventures. SVC also connects students with the capital they need to develop their ideas, while helping them bring their products to market for fast customer feedback. That feedback is crucial for the growth of all startups, according to Izzy Gorton, who was assigned to the same SVC group as Munzi in 2022. Now, Gorton is ChiChi Foods’ head of design and research.
In the beginning, the pair made their product by hand, measuring and bagging ingredients in Munzi’s college apartment. The two women won third place in the SVC competition, and the $5,000 prize allowed them to rent a commercial kitchen and complete their first production line. Munzi, 23, and Gorton, 21, started selling their chickpea oatmeal online and at local farmers’ markets in 2023. The first St. Louis store to pick up their product was United Provisions in the Delmar Loop. Later, they expanded to several area Straubs locations.
“They took a chance on us,” Munzi said. “I think in a bigger city, it would have been a lot harder to do this kind of thing.”
Last October, the startup went viral on Instagram and TikTok. Their unique business journey has also led to numerous media opportunities, including appearances on How I Built This on NPR, and the Amazon Prime Video business competition series 60 Day Hustle, which launches on August 8.
“Our story has gone viral on social media because we authentically share our journey as two young women learning to start a business,” Gorton says. “It’s helped us build a loyal community that loves our product and shares our values.”
Munzi and Gorton say they owe much of their success to several mentors, including local entrepreneurial business leaders Jerry Rosen and Todd Siwak, CPG founder and CFO Russell Kohn, and Tara Bosch, the founder of SmartSweets. This year, ChiChi Foods surpassed over $150,000 in sales—three times the amount from 2023.
The pair is now working on direct-to-consumer growth to reach a wider audience and gather more customer feedback. ChiChi Foods is focused on online sales, but the company may expand to more stores.
Whatever the future holds for ChiChi Foods, Munzi and Gorton are focused on changing the way you see chickpeas—and your first meal of the day.
“We’re on a mission to revolutionize breakfast with Chickpeas,” says Gorton.
