Highlights
- Cameron Sheldrake pitched Off the Cob Tortilla Chips, seeking $100,000 for 15% equity, highlighting the use of sweet corn for a unique and flavorful chip.
- Despite the Sharks appreciating the taste and packaging, concerns about scalability and costs led to no deal being secured.
- The business eventually closed, and Cameron returned to his family farm after the company ceased operations.
Overview
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Name | Off the Cob Tortilla Chips |
| Founder | Cameron Sheldrake |
| Industry | Food & Beverage |
| Product | Tortilla chips made from sweet corn |
| Funding | No deal secured on Shark Tank |
| Investment Ask | $100,000 |
| Equity Offered | 15% |
| Valuation | $666,667 |
Cameron Sheldrake introduces the Sharks to Off the Cob Tortilla Chips, his snack business the features natural corn tortilla chips, in Shark Tank episode 612. Cameron is yet another successful Kickstarter business appearing on the show; his project successfully raised a little over $15K to ship the first pallets of Off the Cob Chips to 28 Boston area Whole Foods markets back in October, 2012.
Off the Cob Chips have six ingredients: sweet corn, certified organic GMO free yellow corn, certified organic GMO free white corn, expeller pressed sunflower oil, cane sugar and sea salt. The corn Off the Cob uses is grown on small farms throughout the American Midwest. The corn Cameron uses makes a lighter, sweeter chip that’s also better for you than most processed chips.
Cameron grew up on a family farm in Ithaca, NY – which is where he got his passion for and knowledge about organic foods. The 2012 graduate of Babson College always dreamed of being an entrepreneur and when he formulated his chips, he went for it! Like most food entrepreneurs who appear in the Tank, he’s likely looking for cash to fund inventory and help with getting national distribution.
Will a Shark take a bite out of Off the Cob?
Off the Cob Tortilla Chips Shark Tank Recap
The segment opens with Cameron on the family farm where he reveals they throw a lot of sweet corn away each year. He invented Off the Cob to stop wasting it. Cameron enters the Tank seeking $100K for 15%. He explains the difference between grain corn and sweet corn. Sweet corn is what you eat when you cook corn on the cob. The Off the Cob chips taste better! He hands out samples and Nick Woodman compliments Cameron on the name and the packaging.
He’s in 45 stores now and Lori says she never knew there was a difference between grain and sweet corn. Grain corn costs 30 cents a pound and sweet corn costs $5 a pound. Mr. Wonderful balks at the price differential. Cameron says he’s going into 100 stores and is getting in with a major snack food distributor. He sells to distributors for $1.60; it costs 85 cents to make each bag.
Mr. Wonderful goes out because of the challenges involved. So do Mark and Daymond. Lori loves the chips but thinks it will be too hard to scale. Nick says he’s not price sensitive and the marketer in him wants to invest in it, but he’s out. Nick says he wants Cameron to stick with it and he thinks he’ll be successful. Cameron says he’s going to keep doing what he’s doing and keep selling chips.
RESULT: No Deal
Off the Cob Tortilla Chips Shark Tank Update
The Shark Tank Blog constantly provides updates and follow-ups about entrepreneurs who have appeared on the Shark Tank TV show. Cameron went back to the farm. This company is out of business.
Posts About Off the Cob Tortilla Chips on Shark Tank Blog
Off the Cob Tortilla Chips Information
Video
Cameron and ‘Off the Cobb’ is perpetrating a fraud through its’ manipulation of online reviews and misrepresentation of the tortilla product the company produces and sells. This is quite unfortunate, but can sometimes happen when a business owner is trying to grow a new business. I am glad the Sharks did not offer Cameron a deal. They may have ‘sensed’ that they should avoid doing business with this company.
Without going into significant detail, the fraud/misrepresentation is are occurring in 2 ways. First, Cameron or Cameron’s associates created fictitious reviews on Amazon (see the Off the Cob Amazon pages at: http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Corn-Tortilla-Chips-Pack/dp/B00AGNOP16 and http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MV9A40E/ref=pdp_new_dp_review). If you will notice, all the reviews are written within a few days of each other, the reviews are written by Amazon ‘user names/screen names’ that have never written any other reviews, and the reviews all have nearly identical writing form/style (use of ‘extreme’ words like ‘wow’, use of exclamation points, sentence structure, review length, etc). Of course, all such reviews are extremely biased and positive. Second, the company represents that the chips are made from sweet corn. In actuality, the first 2 ingredients (yellow corn and white corn) are not sweet corn ingredients. Instead, these are ‘grain’ corn or ‘field’ corn. Sweet corn is only the 3rd product ingredient, which indicates that it is a small proportion of the product ingredients.
These acts of misrepresentation are of a fraudulent nature and were performed to mislead consumers. I advise everyone to take these facts into consideration before making a tortilla chip buying decision or entering into a business relationship with Off the Cob.
This is just the way big business would try to stamp out little business when there is a brilliant idea in the making. I have eaten all kinds of sweet corn, yellow sweet corn, white sweet corn (white is the best) and the yellow and white mix sweet corn. Who told you (shark tank) the man uses grain corn? the man says he uses sweet corn right? Also, as for the Amazon reviews, big whoop de do, so the family were making their own positive reviews to promote their product, that isn’t fraud that is ingenuity, ask any politician, geez, you people really want to squeeze out the true American dreamer. I will make up my own mind, I am ordering a case of these chips and I am a connoisseur of corn, and I will tell everyone whether they are any good or not.
Off the Cobb is a brilliant product. We need to invest in our healthy future and stop accepting inferior grain corn products for something that will be well received in your body – and it’s good for the Earth. We all need to fully support this entrepreneur and products like this.