Jeni Britton Bauer

Would you quit college because some ice cream set your throat on fire? Well, she did... and built an ice cream empire sold in 3,000 stores.

In the mid-90s, Jeni Britton Bauer was an art student at Ohio State, experimenting with essential oils and dreaming of becoming a perfumer.

She worked at a French bakery and became obsessed with one question: what if flavor could carry scent?

One day, she added cayenne oil to a batch of chocolate ice cream.

Cold. Sweet. Fire.

She dropped out of college two weeks later.

At 22, she opened her first ice cream shop: Scream, a small stand inside Columbus’ North Market.

After four years, she shut it down.

Not to quit but to get better.

She enrolled in Penn State’s ice cream short course, then returned to Columbus and launched Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in 2002, back at the North Market.

This time, she was ready.

She wanted to make ice cream for grownups.

Ice cream that made you feel something. That tasted like memory and surprise at once. That celebrated scent, season, story, and people.

Because that’s the thing: every Jeni’s flavor can be traced back to a human.

Her Brambleberry Crisp? A tribute to her grandmother’s wild berry jam.

Brown Butter Almond Brittle? Inspired by Roald Dahl and the flavors of the Midwest.

Every ingredient, from Ohio cream to Ugandan vanilla, was sourced from someone she believed in.

By 2022, Jeni had 1,800 employees.

Today, Jeni’s ice creams are sold in 80+ scoop shops, over 3,000 grocery stores, and shipped to all 50 states.

The company brought in $95.7M in 2021, and it’s still growing.

Jeni wrote three bestselling cookbooks, including Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, dubbed the “homemade-ice cream-making Bible” by The Wall Street Journal.

It won her a James Beard Award.

But in 2020, after more than two decades, Jeni stepped back from the business.

She was burned out. Going through a divorce. And realizing she didn’t know who she was outside of her brand.

So she disappeared into the forests of Ohio.

And began studying gut health.

She learned about America’s fiber crisis and saw untapped magic in the produce parts we throw away: rinds, cores, peels.

So she launched Floura.

A fiber bar company made from fruit trimmings, built with the same creative rebellion that fueled Jeni’s.

Each bar contains 12 plants. Covers half your weekly fiber diversity.

And tastes like joy: Brambleberry Lavender. Blueberry Matcha.

She started it with a Kickstarter campaign ($60K from 1,000+ backers), raised a few million in investment, and partnered with a massive NJ facility to turn produce scraps into products.

By March 2025, they were already selling hundreds of thousands of bars a month.