"Focus on doing what you love, and everything else will fall into place"
What: NuMilk is a revolutionary dairy-free milk machine used by grocery stores and coffee shops arounds the country. Customers grab an empty bottle, press a button, and in about 30 seconds, they have fresh, clean plant-based milk with no chemicals, gums or preservatives. NuMilk is Ari’s second entrepreneurial food and beverage venture; prior to that, he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Duke.
Where: Ari grew up in Oak Park, Michigan, attended Darchei Torah yeshivah and Yeshiva Gedolah Ateres Mordechai, and currently lives in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
Why: Ari made international news a few weeks ago, when NuMilk was featured on Shark Tank and Ari struck a $2 million deal with billionaire Mark Cuban (who is Jewish as well). That piqued my interest. I was impressed to see how Ari makes a kiddush Hashem in his professional endeavors, weaves Torah sources into his conversations, and is channeling his entrepreneurial spirit to transform plant-based milk into something nutritious and delicious, and fresher and healthier than standard products. And while NuMilk’s store machines do not have a hechsher (it is produced fresh in the store where there’s no supervision, although all ingredients are raw and plant-based), their soon-to-be-released home countertop machine’s milk packets will have one.
My older brother Chaim has always been very conscientious, connected to nature, with a strong drive for self-sufficiency. In 2013, while working as a consultant at McKinsey in NYC, I visited him and his family in the Catskills. He was making maple syrup from the maple trees on his property that he had tapped. I had no idea how real maple syrup was made, so he explained to me that we insert a tap — visualize a small metal straw — into the maple tree, collect the slightly sweet water that flows up its roots and through its trunk, and then… wait, there’s water in a maple tree? Can we drink it? “Of course,” Chaim said. “Native Americans drank it as a health tonic, as do people today in South Korea.” From there, my first foray into food and beverage began, with the creation of my maple water brand. While maple water has not enjoyed significant commercial success, it’s one of nature’s amazing products and maybe one day it will have its day.
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