Cleveland, cutting oil and the language of business
Jeff Church grew up in a middle-class family in Cleveland, Ohio, with the Midwestern operating system to match: family first, die-hard sports and a work ethic nobody questions. His father was the CFO of an industrial company and, with his partner, bought it in a leveraged buyout in the 1980s. Jeff spent summers working in the plant and still loves the smell of cutting oil.
He preferred sports to studying until halfway through high school, when he realized he'd need the same discipline in class that he brought to the field. A college accounting class and a grueling audit internship taught him to read a business on paper, and that every compelling idea eventually has to translate into numbers.
The three seconds
As the starting tight end for the Lakewood Rangers, Jeff once stood wide open in the end zone, seconds left, with his winless team trailing by less than a touchdown. He didn't raise his hand. The quarterback was sacked, the team lost again, and the moment stayed with him for twenty years.
At 38, with his third child just born and a career that had taken him as far as Wall Street, he got a second chance: leave the security for a startup that was his for the taking. Flipping channels at 2:00 a.m., he caught a panel of retired CEOs describing their regrets. Every one of them wished they had been bolder.
“I was now far more afraid of mediocrity than of failure.”
He raised his hand. He hasn't regretted it since.
Eight companies, five home runs, three strikeouts
In the years that followed, Jeff started or acquired eight businesses across manufacturing, finance and consumer products, raising more than $200 million in over 40 funding rounds from friends and family, angels, family offices, private equity and venture funds. Along the way he helped turn around struggling companies, advised founders, evaluated investments and served on boards.
Five of those companies were home runs. Three were not, and he still wakes up some nights thinking about the investors' money that was lost. He writes about the strikeouts as plainly as the wins, because that's where most of the lessons came from.
Suja
In 2012, a friend kept bringing Jeff bottles of dark green juice made from just apple, kale and lemon. When he finally tried it, his self-described unrefined Midwestern palate loved it, and he figured that if he did, anyone would. Six months later, Suja launched in 50 Whole Foods stores in Southern California.
As co-founder and CEO, Jeff led Suja through the move to High Pressure Processing, seven manufacturing locations in five years and 275 product launches in seven, growing from zero to $100 million in revenue in about six years. Coca-Cola invested in 2015 at a $300 million valuation. Whole Foods named Suja its Supplier of the Year, and Inc. and Forbes ranked it among the fastest-growing and most promising companies in America.
Then, on July 3, 2018, Coca-Cola declined its option to buy the rest of the company. What followed, a year of hard cuts, a pivot to wellness shots and a return to profitability, is the heart of The Cold-Pressed Truth. Jeff handed over the CEO role in 2019 and left in January 2020. The company later sold for about $300 million, and in May 2026 Suja Life went public on Nasdaq.
After Suja
Since then, Jeff has spent much of his time helping other founders build. Through the CPG Founders Group he runs a free community of hundreds of founders, a self-paced MBA for CPG and one-on-one advisory, and he built Babu AI, an AI co-founder for consumer brands. Founders at JUNI, Huxley, LIXIR, Live Pure and others credit him with their first retailers, their first raises and a few expensive mistakes they never had to make.
Today he is building his ninth company, PRODA, a protein soda, alongside some of the same people who helped build Suja.
Babu
More than thirty years ago, flying into Seattle at night, Jeff saw the summit of Mount Rainier lit by a full moon and promised himself he'd stand on it. Less than a year later, he did. Mountaineering took him to all seven continents. He has attempted six of the Seven Summits and stood on top of five, and he has run more than 55 marathons and ultramarathons.
On Kilimanjaro, the guides gave him the nickname that stuck: Babu, Swahili for grandpa, earned by a slow pace and a steady stream of unsolicited advice. His grandkids call him Babu now too. It's also the role he plays in the book: the experienced guy a few steps ahead on the trail, pointing out the cliffs.
He and Linda, who grew up in Morocco and whom he met when he walked into her store nearly 40 years ago, have been married for 37 years and have four grown kids. They live in San Diego.
