Brainiac’s Mission To Feed Young Minds🧠

How do you tackle a challenge as vast as closing America’s brain nutrition gap? Mark Brooks, CEO and co-founder of Brainiac Foods, is answering that question by creating everyday foods packed with the nutrients kids (and adults) need for brain health and development. In this interview, he shares the brand’s science-first approach, its unique retail strategy, and the mission to make “brain food” accessible to every family.

Dave Knox: What inspired you and your co-founder, Jonathan Wolfson, to create Brainiac, and why did you want to focus on brain nutrition?

Mark Brooks: The credit goes to Jonathan. We’ve worked together for years. I joined his previous company, which focused on getting oil from algae to use as a new food source. After he took that company public and left, his third child was born and diagnosed with “failure to thrive”—he was losing weight despite being fed. From a parent’s perspective, this was terrifying.

Jonathan, being incredibly studious and science-based, researched what was happening and realized the critical role of nutrition in body and brain development. His father and brother-in-law are neurologists, so he immediately focused on helping his son get the developmental nutrition he needed. This sent him on an entrepreneurial journey.

He reached out to a slew of science and nutrition experts to ask what he should focus on. They assured him his son would be fine with formula. But then they asked the follow up question: if he understood the role of nutrition for his older kids and himself. “How are they doing eating things like salmon, trout, broccoli, and liver?” they asked. The answer was, of course, that they weren’t. Data from the Institute of Health shows that most of us don’t get enough of the critical nutrients our brains are made of. We need these nutrients from food to help our brains develop, stay healthy, and perform at their peak. That’s what led us to this journey. Jonathan called me, and we got to work.

Knox: What about your own experience as a dad shaped Brainiac’s mission

Brooks: Jonathan and I have three kids each. For both of us, it was important that the company was founded on science. I come from a background where creating opportunities for the next generation to move forward was always the goal. I have known families that sometimes had to choose between essentials like medicine or food, and that’s why food security and accessibility are at the heart of what I do.

This is why we set up Brainiac as a certified B Corp and a public benefit corporation. We make sure we put the critical nutrients that our brains need but we don’t get enough of, into foods that families can afford and can find easily where they shop. Brain nutrition shouldn’t be a treat for the affluent; we aspire to make it ubiquitous for all families.

Knox: You mentioned being “founded on science.” Many new CPG brands are based on “it” ingredients of the moment, not necessarily on science. How do you balance celebrating an ingredient while grounding it in science?

Brooks: My career has been non-linear, but the commonality has been introducing new ingredients to consumers and explaining why they matter. I helped launch stevia, which made a real difference for families with diabetic kids. With algae, the idea was a new food source with a low climate impact. In each case, you need to feel good about what you’re doing.

If I’m going to launch a brand called Brainiac with an implicit promise to parents, it has to start with science and end with efficacy. That has always guided us. Also, kids are brutally honest, so the product has to taste amazing. Lastly,parents need to look at our products and know what’s in there and why. That’s why we have a large and illustrious science and nutrition advisory board. They are the neurologists, nutritionists, and dietitians who tell us which nutrients matter, and these are often ones that people don’t get enough of. They ensure we put enough of those nutrients into foods that families love and can afford everyday.

Our Science and Nutrition Advisory Board also taught us an important lesson: food is not nutritious if the kids don’t eat it. Don’t try to be everything, like zero-calorie or no-sugar. Be “no-sugar added” but make sure kids want to eat the products. That’s how they’ll get these Omega-3s. And make sure you’re adding enough so it’s not just a marketing claim. We’re incredibly proud that each of our applesauce pouches contains the equivalent brain nutrition of a kid’s serving of salmon (Omega-3 DHA) and two cups of broccoli (choline). We’re making it easy to get these critical nutrients into kids’ daily diets.

Knox: With consumers and your own kids as judges, what products have you been led to launch?

Brooks: We’ve developed a toolbox of products for parents to offer their kids daily. We started with lunchbox snacks, as that’s a key opportunity during the week. We have applesauce, fruit and veggie pouches, new smoothies with oats, fruit juices and fruit snacks. They’re all shelf-stable and easy to integrate into a lunchbox.

A couple of years ago, we also launched our Little Brainiac line after listening to consumers. The need for these brain nutrients really begins when kids transition from breastfeeding or infant formula to trying foods. That’s when the gap starts to widen when kids simply aren’t getting the Omega-3 DHA and choline their brains require.Our Little Brainiac range comes in to provide the assist with fruit and veggie pouches, pouches with MFGM, an incredible nutrient found in breastmilk, and breakfast blends, all found in the baby aisle in a variety of flavors. We offer a variety because kids’ tastes are fickle. One week, they love strawberry banana; the next, they’ll hate it. We need to offer that choice.

Knox: With the recent explosion of new “categories” like protein, where do you think the cognitive nutrition category is headed?

Brooks: When Jonathan and I first discussed this in 2017-2018, the idea of food as brain nutrition was not a concept. We were quickly convinced it would be the next big trend. Looking at past trends, calcium for bones in the ’50s led to fortified products. Protein for muscles in the ’90s is still a soaring category today.

In the same way, the idea that our brains are made of these nutrients that we only get from the foods we eat makes total sense. It takes communication, but once you shed light on it, the conversation takes off. The stigma around mental health, brain fog, and cognition has gone away. After we launched our first products in 2020, we saw that Google searches for “cognitive” became the number one thing new parents were searching for, surpassing “speech,” “mobility,” and “dexterity.” We’re proud to have helped foster that conversation.

When you look at data, growth in the grocery store is coming from the better-for-you space, while conventional products are static. Cognition is the fastest-growing element of better-for-you. I believe this movement and momentum are here to stay.

Knox: How have you thought about your retail strategy, especially since you need to educate consumers on the importance of brain health?

Brooks: We had two main considerations. First, where would our consumer meet us? Second, where could we achieve our mission of making our products accessible to as many families as possible? As a public benefit corporation, impact is a key metric.

We decided to go to mass retailers early. At a trade show, Walmart asked if we could be on shelves in 150 stores in two months. We said yes. From that early start, we’re now in every Walmart and have over 30,000 distribution points with them alone. Walmart has been an awesome partner for better-for-you brands. This breadth allows us to scale within a system where unit economics can support an accessible price point. We’ve benefited from getting broad distribution rather than launching a premium product regionally, where the cost to serve can be very high.

This strategy puts a strong focus on a clear message at the shelf and the need to invest in layers of awareness. This includes working with everyone from local pediatricians to social media influencers. From a channel perspective, we’ve leaned in heavily to e-commerce. We realized people don’t want to shop from a separate website just for lunchbox snacks, so we partner with walmart.com and target.com to ensure our products are successful there. In a category like lunchbox snacks, I hear from buyers that 30-40% of sales originate online, even if it’s for in-store pickup, so that digital focus has been crucial.

Knox: You mentioned the importance of an attainable price point. How do you compete with legacy snack brands that are focused on price?

Brooks: We have to charge a premium because our products are more expensive to make while legacy brands have scale and often own their manufacturing. We want to enable parents to make a sustainable choice, not just a one-time purchase. We aim to be a low-double-digit premium, no more than 15-20% above the next best alternative.

To justify that price, our product must not only have our proprietary BrainPack of key brain nutrients, but also be the same or better on other parameters. We are no-sugar-added, Non-GMO Project Verified, and organic in the baby category. We believe that if we make a functional promise, we need to deliver on quality. We were one of the first to get Clean Label certification for our baby food. In recent months, many baby foods and similar products have come under scrutiny for the lack of FDA testing and the presence of heavy metals in their products. Clean Label certification means our Little Brainiac products are best-in-class from a testing and transparency perspective and the production facilities meet the strictest testing methods to ensure they are safe for little ones.

When we enter a category, we’re trying to help it grow. One national buyer described us as a “challenger brand,” and that mantle works for us. Our role is not to be number one, but to offer a functionally efficacious, better-for-you product that kids love. We want to deliver the equivalent of a kids’ serving of salmon’s worth of DHA into a lunchbox without them even knowing it.

Knox: How do you communicate a complex story about ingredients and impact on a box to a parent?

Brooks: I’ll use two examples. First, we all turn to people we trust. We’ve worked from day one with registered dietitians and pediatricians to ensure there is broad alignment that this is a real need. They were incredibly receptive, they had been trying to get families to eat more salmon, broccoli etc, but that’s not always possible. Being able to tell them, “Hey, there’s this applesauce in Walmart for less than a dollar that has the equivalent of a serving of salmon’s DHA” is important.

On the other end of the spectrum, when a parent is at the shelf, they need to quickly understand what the product is. We’ve named it pretty directly: Brainiac and Little Brainiac. We’ve gone through a lot of packaging iterations to simplify the message. We want people to know it contains key brain nutrients like Omega-3 DHA and choline.

As we get more distribution, we see a virtuous cycle. As we build awareness through pediatricians and dietitians, people are searching for “DHA” and even “choline.” This rising tide helps everyone. It’s a “layer cake” of awareness building. There’s no single easy answer.

Knox: What can consumers expect from the brand for the rest of this year and next year?

Brooks: We’re growing fast, which allows us to get our products in front of more people. You’ll find us in the baby and lunchbox aisles of Walmart and Target. By the end of the year, we’ll be in every Sam’s Club. We’re also in many Costco regions. These retailers offer great price points and are trusted for curating good products. We’ve invested in our scale to keep our prices tight, even as many grocery store prices are increasing.

You can also expect new innovation. We just launched the most advanced baby food pouch on the market, Neuro+ containing milk fat globule membrane, a critical component of breast milk that has been shown to increase cognition scores. It was previously only found in premium infant formula. You’ll continue to see us amplifying efficacy and offering products for different occasions, as we did recently with juice and fruit snacks.

Looking ahead, we believe cognitive nutrition is the next major health movement. Just as calcium fortified a generation of bones and protein powered a generation of muscles, brain food will define the next wave of “better-for-you” eating. The stigma around mental health and cognition is fading, awareness is rising, and parents are already searching for solutions. Brainiac is proud to be ahead of that curve, helping to build the category by making brain food accessible, delicious and part of everyday family routines.