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    Feed the world

    SMU grads and social entrepreneurs impact world hunger with craveable granola

    Jennifer Chininis
    Jan 3, 2013 | 12:30 pm
    • Impact Foods recently got picked up by Whole Foods.
      Photo courtesy of Impact Foods
    • Impact Foods founders and SMU grads Ben Hurt (left) and Blaine Iler.
      Photo by Leslie Katz/Urban Photography
    • Maple oat granola makes a healthy breakfast.
      Photo courtesy of Impact Foods
    • Ben Hurt in Honduras, on an exploratory trip to learn more about the area'shunger problem.
      Photo by Leslie Katz/Urban Photography
    • Ben Hurt, at a school in Honduras.
      Photo by Leslie Katz/Urban Photography
    • Ben Hurt (left) and Blaine Iler (right) delivering a $20,000 check to the WorldFood Program in October.
      Photo courtesy of Impact Foods
    • Impact Foods granola is good for breakfast and snacking.
      Photo courtesy of Impact Foods

    Picture two mid-twentysomething guys, a couple of years out of SMU. What do you see? Maybe you see two well-educated young men, following a certain prescribed path, settling into corporate careers and assessing how to climb the proverbial ladder.

    But that’s not the picture Ben Hurt, 26, and Blaine Iler, 25, want to paint.

    These social entrepreneurs, inspired by companies like Patagonia and Tom’s Shoes, founded Impact Foods with a simple — if big — mission: to end world hunger.

    “If we want to end hunger, we have to make a product so good that someone buys it over and over again,” says Impact Foods co-founder Ben Hurt.

    The seeds of the big idea
    Hurt and Iler met in an entrepreneurship class in 2008 and started their company a year later. They will both tell you that they didn’t know what they didn’t know. But they were willing to do whatever it took to find out.

    During that class, they realized that the model of a mission-driven business wasn’t just a fad, that it was something that could be their life’s work.

    “That’s what encouraged us to look at the really, really big problems — poverty, education, hunger, healthcare, things like that,” Hurt says.

    “We learned that if you prop up or support the hunger problem in any given community, you fix those other pillars. You’re fixing healthcare because children aren’t susceptible to certain diseases. You’re fixing poverty because you’re buying food from local markets and providing jobs.

    “You’re fixing education because the attendance shoots way up at schools with meal programs, because moms send their kids to school knowing they’re getting a meal. As a result, the kids can retain what they’re learning because they’re getting fed.”

    The start of something good
    Hurt and Iler started by finding people who knew more than they did. They knew they wanted a one-to-one food company — meaning for every product sold, a child gets a meal — and they chose granola because it was something they could tackle right away.

    So they enlisted a family friend, who had experience as a chef in New York, to help them create a recipe for an all-natural, wholesome granola unlike anything else on the market.

    In those early days, they were buying their own ingredients, labeling their own bags and baking their own granola in a commercial kitchen in Garland. After selling to family and friends through their website, Eatzi’s picked up the line that now includes three flavors: maple oat, vanilla almond and blueberry honey.

    “The recipe was awesome,” Iler says. “We struck something with this. We got fanatical emails from people, saying this was the best granola they’ve ever eaten.”

    “Our trip to Honduras rounded out the story — both the inspiration, why we are running a business the way we are, and the tactics of how that might be carried out,” says co-founder Blaine Iler.

    “We’re responsible for making sure we have the best product out there,” Hurt says. “People might buy it once because they’re helping to feed children, but people buy what they like. If we want to make an impact, end hunger, all of those things, we have to make a product so good that someone buys it over and over again.”

    The turning point
    A fortuitous meeting with Stephen White of Company Cafe would change the trajectory of the startup. White wanted to put the granola on the menu, along with Three Happy Cows yogurt. The yogurt company was in talks with Whole Foods and ultimately opened the door for Impact Foods, which is now available in Whole Foods stores in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah, New Mexico, Kansas and Arkansas.

    But first Hurt and Iler had some more learning to do. In July 2011, they visited an orphanage, after-school program and health clinic in Honduras. To hear them talk, this was the real turning point.

    “One of the amazing things for me about Honduras was, at that point, we were still really, really small,” Iler says. “This was sort of a side project for us, something we knew we wanted to put some time and effort behind, but we were really rounding out our learning of the problem and our business and how we could go about solving the problem with the business.”

    During the trip to Honduras, the business model clicked.

    “That completely rounded out the story — both the inspiration, why we are running a business the way we are, and the tactics of how that might be carried out,” Iler says.

    Part of that education included seeing piles of rice and beans and other foods, donated by well-meaning organization, sitting unused because there was no clean water, heating source or person to cook it.

    “We knew there had to be a better way to deliver food to these types of communities, where there wasn’t infrastructure in place,” Hurt says. Their research into a ready-to-use product led to a partnership with the World Food Program.

    “We don’t want to be the company that writes a check and never thinks about it. That’s the exact opposite reason why we started Impact Foods,” Hurt says.

    Buy a bag, feed a child
    Among other initiatives, the WFP has a program focused on the first 1,000 days of life, so the organization developed a series of ready-to-use products, either chickpea or peanut based, packed with micro and macronutrients to nourish children during those first few critical years.

    “The packs can be opened up and consumed, and they are medically designed to treat malnutrition,” Hurt says. “Gone are the piles of rice and beans.”

    Hurt says that the big takeaway from the trip to Honduras was a commitment to knowing how the giving process worked, down to the last detail.

    “Any time we say, ‘You buy a bag of granola, and we feed a school meal,’ we know what school, what they’re being fed and the red cups they get their meals in — all of it.

    “We don’t want to be the company that writes a check and never thinks about it. That’s the exact opposite reason why we started Impact Foods. Until you see it, you don’t know what’s important.”

    Speaking of what’s important, Hurt and Iler credit their parents — not for passing along the entrepreneurial genes, but for instilling values.

    They learned the importance of giving and volunteering from their families. Hurt was an Eagle Scout; Iler was a volunteer EMT.

    “Our families are almost anti-entrepreneurial, but both sets of parents made sacrifices” Hurt says. “They had the steady jobs so we could have the education. Now what are we going to go do with it? How do we make the world a better place?

    “There’s a sense of responsibility. It’s not lost on us what they did.”

    There’s no doubt these two take that responsibility seriously. This past October, Hurt and Iler traveled to Washington, D.C., to make a donation of 20,000 meals to the World Food Program. It was their biggest donation to date, and they finally got to meet their partners in this endeavor.

    “It was a proud moment,” Iler says.

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    Dallas ranks No. 1 city in U.S. for corporate HQ relocations

    John Egan, InnovationMap
    Jun 20, 2025 | 2:32 pm
    Dallas skyline
    Photo by Erin Hervey on Unsplash
    Dallas' inflation has cooled off after it was last saddled with the highest inflation rate nationally in January 2024.

    More corporations are choosing to relocate their headquarters to Dallas-Fort Worth than any other place in the United States.

    A recent analysis by commercial real estate services company CBRE reveals DFW was the No. 1 metro for corporate headquarters relocations from 2018 to 2024. In those six years, the area attracted 100 new corporate headquarters.

    DFW is followed by Austin (81 relocations), Nashville (35), Houston and Phoenix (31 each), and Denver (23).

    CBRE’s list encompasses public announcements from companies across various sizes and industries about relocating their corporate headquarters within the U.S. According to the study, reasons cited by companies for moving their headquarters include:

    • Access to lower taxes
    • Availability of tax incentives
    • Proximity to key markets
    • Ability to support hybrid work

    “Corporations now view headquarters locations as strategic assets, allowing for adaptability and faster reaction to market changes,” said CBRE.

    Among the high-profile companies that moved their headquarters to the Dallas area from 2018 to 2024 are:

    • Charles Schwab financial services company
    • AECOM construction firm
    • McKesson healthcare company

    Notably, CBRE itself moved its global HQ from San Francisco to Dallas in 2020.

    In February, Yum! Brands revealed it would relocate the global fried chicken chain KFC from its current headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky to Plano. The latest relocation announcement came June 19, when California-based hair care brand John Paul Mitchell Systems said it would move its headquarters to the Dallas area.

    According to CBRE, California (particularly the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles areas) lost the most corporate HQs in 2024, with 17 companies announcing relocations — 12 of them to Texas. Also last year, Texas gained nearly half of all state-to-state relocations.

    In March, Site Selection magazine awarded Texas its 2024 Governor’s Cup, resulting in 13 consecutive wins for the state with the most corporate relocations and expansions.

    CBRE explained that the trend of corporate HQ relocations reflects the desire of companies to seek new environments to support their goals and workforce needs.

    “Ultimately, companies are seeking to establish themselves in locations with potential for long-term success and profitability,” CBRE said.

    ---

    This story originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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