Food entrepreneurs navigate internal crises everyday. But add in an economic climate that constantly accumulates new external pressures and political sucker punches flying from Washington, D.C. nearly every day, and identifying obstacles early and understanding the full context have become essential elements for keeping any upstart business alive. Tim McCollum – founder and CEO of single-origin chocolate and vanilla producer Beyond Good – understands that firsthand. President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs instigated a week-long rollercoaster for the brand, but left him inspired with a sense of strength and “skeptical optimism” in the business he’s built over the past 18 years. “I've never been more optimistic in my life about the business,” he told Nosh, two days after Trump backpedaled and paused all of the Liberation Day tariffs for the next 90 days, leaving only a 10% universal reciprocal tariff in effect, with the exception of China. Let’s rewind to April 3, when the slate of tariffs were first applied to every country across the globe. From that announcement, McCollum learned that Madagascar – the site of his company’s factory and source country of 100% of his chocolate and vanilla company’s products – would now be subject to a 47% tariff. This latest obstacle had McCollum questioning if the company should even be making chocolate and vanilla in Madagascar: “Has [the past] 18 years been a complete wild goose chase?” “COVID was the first [major] crisis, but that was an even playing field where everyone had to figure it out,” he said. “Then last year… we had the cocoa crisis where cocoa went up, for us, about 350%. I thought, Well, at least that's an ‘everyone-in-the-chocolate-category-crisis.’ And then with 47%, we realized, no, this is just an ‘us crisis.’ We are literally on an island by ourselves.” Read the full story on Nosh to hear about the lessons he’s learned and how the business is now hedging against uncertainty. | 
