Alum Talks about Diving into the Shark Tank and His Career in Entrepreneurship

From attending the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business to founding a spice company, appearing on Shark Tank and many stops in between, Ori Zohar ’07 is the definition of a well-seasoned entrepreneur.

As the co-founder and co-CEO of Burlap & Barrel, the first comprehensive single-origin spice company in the United States, Zohar is taking on inequality and exploitation in food systems that disenfranchise skilled farmers. His company connects them to high-value markets and brings unique and sustainably-grown products to tables around the world.

The idea was spawned when Ethan Frisch, his friend and co-founder, returned from a long overseas trip and shared a collection of spices he collected– wild cumin from Afghanistan, cardamom from a vertically integrated farmer in Guatemala and other spices from a farmer’s cooperative in Zanzibar.

During a restaurant sales meeting with friends and chefs not long after that, Frisch and Zohar noted how the restauranteurs reacted to seeing the spices. Then came the thought: if chefs with access to the best ingredients in the world were still this excited about these spices, how might it impact home cooks?

“I think everyone deserves better spices and should treat themselves to better-tasting food. Our spices can be your secret ingredient to upgrading your cooking and eating better while knowing that there’s a well-sourced and sustainable supply chain behind any product you get from us.”

The company is the latest endeavor in Zohar’s long history as an entrepreneur, one which dates back to his family’s immigration to the U.S. from Israel when he was five years old. He remembers sitting in the back of the car reading billboards and wandering around during trips to the grocery store to read labels and look at product layouts.

At age 16, Zohar launched a DJing business with a three-CD changer his parents gifted him. “It went poorly, but it was a great experience,” he says. And when his studies led him to enroll at Maryland Smith as a marketing student, he carried on by starting a cap and gown business in which he bought the apparel from graduating seniors, dry cleaned it and then sold it to the next class because “who needs it for anything beyond your graduation?”

Meanwhile, in the classroom, Zohar was focused on learning how to become a better entrepreneur. As a member of the UMD University Honors and QUEST (Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams) Honors programs, he took advantage of every opportunity to get his hands dirty and gain real-world experience.

"What I loved about QUEST was that we weren't working in a theoretical sense, we were working in a real practical sense toward solving problems, understanding manufacturing, learning product development and building from there. I loved my time at UMD because it drew a connection between academic learning and the real-world application of business."

After graduating, Zohar moved to New York to work for ad agencies and assist on accounts for companies like ExxonMobil, Mastercard, Intel, Dyson and Applebee’s, among others. He says it was an interesting look behind the curtain of major companies where he observed how they engaged customers and gained a sense of how they operate.

However, the entrepreneurial path beckoned, and Zohar knew that’s where he belonged. In 2010, he and Frisch founded Guerilla Ice Cream, a pop-up ice cream cart business that the two of them pushed around the streets of New York City. For six months, they sold flavors inspired by political movements and revolutions from around the world.

“We were just trying to have a little bit of fun and tell a new story about ice cream while connecting it to something larger. That was us cutting our teeth as social entrepreneurs working on our first business together,” Zohar says.

Three years later, he created Sindeo, a venture-backed mortgage lending start-up that raised more than $32 million in funding and eventually sold in 2017.

“We handed the reigns over to the new owners and I needed a little bit of time to get my head back on my shoulders. I learned a lot about what not to do, but also what it takes to run a company and what a venture capital-backed company looks like.”

Cue the inception of Burlap & Barrel. Zohar and Frisch reconnected, launched the company and worked their way toward an appearance on Shark Tank – airing on April 7, 2023. Over a five-month period, Zohar and Frisch met with show producers and spent countless hours refining and rehearsing their pitch to make the most of their meeting with the sharks.

“After all of the intense preparation, you walk onto the stage and it's just quiet. You're staring at the Sharks, they're staring back at you and then it's showtime,” says Zohar. “They were all really wonderful and nice, it was such a pleasure to be in front of them.”

His appearance on the show is the culmination of his years grinding as an entrepreneur, diving into different industries and learning from every experience. To Zohar, entrepreneurship is so much more than just the ‘a-ha moments’, it’s also about execution and bringing an idea to life no matter the scope or scale.

He says consumers and their purchasing decisions are a much bigger part of the entrepreneurial equation than they realize. Where they choose to spend their money and the companies they decide to support on a day-to-day basis is huge, especially as it pertains to enabling socially responsible companies like Burlap and Barrell to exist moving forward.

“People can sometimes think that what they buy doesn't really matter, but it really can create entire companies, build entire industries that shape our food systems and impact the way that our world works.”