Our Founder

BEN PASTERNAK

CEO/Founder

Nourishing people is in Ben Pasternak’s blood. Ben’s grandparents made it their mission to feed and care for their community; that was their response to having survived nearly being starved to death during the Holocaust. Olek and Ruth ran a small grocery store in Richmond, and they created a garden and an apple orchard to feed their family and their community. Olek would pick the produce he harvested and give it to nursing home residents and the homeless. Rather than keeping the fruits of his labor for himself and his own family, he wanted everyone to enjoy the nutritious and delicious foods he had cultivated. 

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Like his parents, Ben’s dad Jack nourishes the people around him. He spends his free time cooking and taking meals to those in need. 

Over the past twenty years, Ben has broadened that family legacy by working with the most innovative leaders in the food industry to change the way we nourish the world. He has built close-knit relationships with the best chefs, food scientists and business leaders, who have become his family and his community. Together Ben and his colleagues are changing the paradigm. Over the next twenty years, the ways in which we process food will continue to change dramatically. Through both Defiant Foods and AuraPea, Ben is helping lead this change by developing more sustainable products that provide the most nutritional impact to consumers. 

Throughout his childhood and young adulthood, Ben watched his grandparents make their community better by nourishing the people around them, both through food and through their loving kindness. He would think to himself, “My grandparents are capable of doing all this. What am I capable of?” 

As the awards and accolades on Ben’s CV reveal, he is capable of great things, particularly when given the opportunity to collaborate with so many great minds in the food industry. Through these collaborations, Ben is fulfilling his own life’s mission to grow his family’s legacy and provide access foods with the highest possible levels of nutrition. Ben knows that having access to better nutrition improves lives. 

Ben has found his True North, and he strives to lead through compassion, vulnerability, and a drive to nourish the world. In seeing the love and compassion his grandparents brought to life every day, Ben has learned that the truth always wins. Love always wins. 

We can all work together to make the best of the one life we’re given. And we can improve the lives of everyone around us through creativity, hard work, and a desire to do good.

Meet the Team

  • Mark Auernheimer

    Chief Innovation & Manufacturing Strategist

  • Ami Clarke

    Vice President of Finance

  • Todd Runey

    Director of Sales Operations

  • Sylvia Mace

    Director of Logistics

  • Alec Anderez

    Chief Culinary Innovator

  • Ted Perkinson

    R&D Manager

  • Rebecca Warner

    Executive Assistant & Growth Manager