Melanie Breitner

Passionate about food, and with a technical education and 40 years’ experience in many aspects of the food and beverage processing industry from concept to commercialization Melanie focuses on collaborating with founders, emerging brands, and brands within incubators and accelerators to help make their dream a reality. She enjoys helping others and offering solutions and connections to any challenge the brand holder may have. With a solid background in product development, processing, QA, regulatory/food safety and microbiology, and ops, Melanie is presently the Director of Business Development for PROVA, a certified Woman-owned Business specializing in Extracts and natural flavors. Outside of work, Melanie enjoys the outdoors, including hiking, gardening, and swimming.

What area(s) of focus would you most like to address with your mentees?

Scaling, product development, investor decks. Any area in which I can be of help. If I don’t know the answer, I can usually reach out and fid someone who does.

How do you plan to structure your monthly meetings?

I tend to work free-form with the mentees based on their needs. We can set a meeting time, for open items that need to be addressed, or questions the mentee has. I can generally find a little time each week if the need, and can respond to emails as well.

Who is an ideal mentee for you?

Open to those that have more than an idea, have some traction with their product, may need to improve it, or assistance with scaling. Again, I am pretty open to whatever the needs are.