We had the good fortune of connecting with Amy Cohn and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amy, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Early in my career, I worked in the tech innovation space, heading up digital groups at Disney, Oprah, Sony and Dapper Labs.

In the summer of 2020, I was diagnosed with colon cancer which clearly changed the trajectory of where I wanted to focus on my career.  When you go through a health crisis, you become astutely aware of the inequities and lack of accessibility there is for most people who are going through something.  Unfortunately, a higher concentration of chronic conditions like diabetes more prominently in food deserts and underserved communities the most.  Alot of this is due to lack of healthy foods on shelves in these areas.  Food is the first step habit change for someone wanting to start to take charge of their health. For me, I need to eat in a way that is blood sugar balanced, as it helps prevent recurrence of cancer.
With 51% of the US population currently having prediabetes or diabetes, as well as many chronic conditions stemming from blood sugar imbalance, it’s the largest epidemic of our time. It was shocking to me that the only things you can grab to go are things like Glucerna – which is incredibly embarrassing and ‘otherizing’ to have sit on your desk.  We polled people with diabetes asking them what they missed most, and the first answer was cookies.
 I strongly believe that there is going to be a shift from general “healthy consumption” to solving for specific medical and health concerns. We have so much food innovation in the better-you-space being more centered around marketing claims that have no real function. For this specific health vertical, our food has actual function and you can see on your monitor that it doesn’t spike your blood sugar.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We are very differentiated from most ‘better for you’ food brands because 1) we’re focused on very specific health verticals that haven’t been disrupted in a long time 2) we are focused on going after the mainstream consumer vs just the metro areas that often have more access to new better for you brands. Right now, the better for you food categories are very general with some marketing on an ingredient that may be good for you. We believe food is and should move to solve for specific medical and health concerns. These are still very large verticals, and we can bring food with actual function. Plus these aren’t ‘sexy’ areas, so us going after them gives us a large wedge to be a leader in the market. Everything is challenging in creating a food business – more than I realized. I am humbled by it all. I’ve created large digital business and communities, so I figured a cookie would be easy. I was very wrong about that. It’s one of the more challenging things I’ve done. It’s a constant jigsaw puzzle/ Tetris game almost every day. I’ve learned to find the experts in their field and reach out with questions. Everyone is incredibly kind on giving advice or intros. The food industry in particular are some of the most generous people with their time and support.
As for story, we are on a mission to ensure that no one with a chronic condition ever feels ‘otherized’. And by ‘otherization’, I mean some marketers’s idea of what should be created for you. No one wants a medicinal looking product sitting on your desk – it screams to the world that you have something wrong with your health. It’s not who you are, it’s just something you happen to have – that’s extremely inconvenient. No one ever wants to be labeled.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oooh, my favorite thing is to recommend places! I live on the eastside, which feels far away for a lot of people. So I would recommend: the small cozy wine bar at All Time in Los Feliz (which also has a restaurant with amazing food)
get to Courage Bagels at 6:45am to beat the line – it’s worth it
shop at Cookbook in Echo Park or Highland Park and grab flowers and provisions for a picnic
take your picnic to the little lake in Deb’s Park, a hidden little gem or take the picnic to the Cedar Grove in Griffith Park which feels like a hidden forest
go at 3pm and have day drinks and oysters at Found Oyster as it’s no reservations, and makes for the best boozy best food afternoon – one of the best places for seafood
go to a reading at Skylight books, then grab some amazing French food at Loupiotte down the street
grab a pibil taco at Yuca’s, a tiny taco stand that won a James Beard award
take the metro to Little Tokyo and have a Japanese breakfast at Azay
Go on estatesales.com, and find the best estate sales – best spots to get good designer things are Pasadena and Woodland Hills

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Early leadership mentors for me were my bosses at Disney – Vickie DeNicola and Albert Cheng. One showed me how to celebrate being unique, compassionate leadership and giving people a lot of rope – the other showed me how you introduce calm rigor and analysis in teams and one of the best quotes “Show people one, then again, and then again” which was to say things sink in at different times for different team members and you can’t get frustrated when you’ve said something once and it may not be done or completed. It’s appreciating the uniqueness of individuals, learning styles and constantly re-iterating strategy which helps set structure and reminders of the ‘true north’.

Website: www.getjoydays.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getjoydays/

Image Credits
Joydays

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutLA is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.