Blck Cocoa Bakes' Vegan Cheesecakes

Bre’Anna Johnston founded Blck Cocoa Bakes as a vegan cake company and was now ready to expand her offerings to include vegan cheesecakes. She was also ready to start selling in grocery stores. The issue? Selecting appropriate packaging. Bre’Anna had done some initial research, but had limited bandwidth to dive deeply into finding and testing the best containers and labels, never mind performing a cost analysis of each container. The founder had prioritized creating the label and making sure the vegan cheesecake would stay fresh in the freezer: she was looking for help with her other workstreams.

To help Bre’Anna identify the best packaging to ship her delicious cheesecake, we considered costs, quality, and environmental factors. We ordered samples of various size jars and boxes, and then met Bre’Anna on site to conduct a series of scientific experiments. We wanted to know how the cheesecake looked, but we also wanted to know how it tasted, how long it took to thaw, etc. The results led to a clear winner, which Bre’Anna ordered.

Blck Cocoa Bakes’ vegan cheesecake is expected to appear in Detroit retail locations later this Fall.

Take a look at our recommended jar already in use with Bre'Anna's labeling:

Bre'Anna Johnston

CEO and Founder of Blck Cocoa Bakes

"DNEP interns were really helpful as a sounding board to cut through the fluff and create concise short and long term business plans. They also helped me with finding packaging options, although what I found most beneficial was learning the process of how to go about business problems so that I can continue the work we did together and solve similar problems myself in the future."