Forbes Under 30 alum Ashley Thompson, CEO of the overnight oats brand Mush, is bracing for taxes on key ingredients. So she’s doubling down on sourcing abroad and ready to tighten the corporate belts.
Ashley Thompson, CEO of the Chicago-based overnight oats brand Mush, is preparing for the day her key ingredient, the oats she’s sourced from Canada for years, will face extreme volatility in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s wave of global tariffs.
Her business, which also sources Canadian fruit (for the oatmeal’s flavors) and plastic (for containers), is expecting the tariffs–even though oats are currently protected by a free-trade loophole for now–to cut into profits at a critical time. And as Canada prepares to retaliate, Thompson says Mush is ready to eat the additional costs that might arise.
“Our gold-standard ideal would be that we absorb as much, if not all, and the tariffs do not have a great impact to our economics,” says the 34-year-old Thompson, a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2020. “It’s reinvigorated the procurement team and the manufacturing team to think about other ways where we could save.”
The volatility is a challenge that Thompson is luckily used to, after trading asset-backed securities at Goldman Sachs prior to starting Mush in 2015. And she predicts the uncertainty will drive more customers to affordable options, which she’s ready to supply. Her high-protein breakfast and snack business has risen since then to around $50 million in estimated annual revenue from distribution at 12,000 stores. Thompson notes that March 2025 sales were the most in the company’s history, on both metrics of revenue and units sold. Mush is projected to sell its 200 millionth cup of oatmeal by the end of this year.
“We have a lot of momentum,” says Thompson. “We’re at a crucial inflection point.” says Thompson.
Oat Meals: Mush’s newest launches—pouches and protein bars—are driving the business to reprioritize direct-to-consumer online sales.
MUSH
But the aftermath of economic shocks are here to break up the party. Thompson, Mush’s largest individual shareholder, is hoping her business is lean enough and that the profits she’s been able to retain over the years will sustain the business through the coming uncertainty.
Canada, she says, will remain where Mush purchases its oats. The North American country is the world’s second-largest producer of oats—behind Russia—responsible for some 15% of the total crop, or 3.3 million tons. America grows 4%, which amounts to just under one million tons. There’s simply not enough, she explains to sustain the industry: “If we were all sourcing in Canada and now we’re all trying to go to the U.S.,” Thomson notes, “it’s just supply and demand.”
Canada was exempt from the initial “reciprocal” tariffs announced on April 4, but Canada’s prime minister still vowed to strike back “with purpose and with force.” The Trump Administration’s 25% tariff on all Canadian goods–including cereal grains such as oats–was in effect for three days earlier this year before the Trump Administration revoked it. The trade organization Cereals Canada has said at the time that the tariffs “sever cross-border supply chains and damage the long-standing relationship between the U.S. and Canada.”
For now, cereals remain exempt, since they fall under the U.S.-Canada-Mexico free-trade agreement. But that could change, says Randy Strychar, the president of Oatinformation, which analyzes oat markets around the world. “Is it a concern hanging over the market? Yes,” says Strychar, who mentions that tariffs on other sources of oats from Europe, Australia and Chile also means that U.S. businesses have less options globally. “I’ve never seen so much unpredictability in the business.”
At the same time, Canada’s oat supply has been hitting record lows, and there’s a risk of a supply shortage until 2026. Americans are the largest oat consumers in the world, and Canada has a 98% share of the entire U.S. market.
“They don’t have any choice. They need them from Canada,” adds Strychar. “These food companies are caught in a hard place.”
The seeds of the idea for Mush were planted many years ago. When Thompson, one of five born to independent business owners in New Jersey, was in middle and high school, she liked to make her breakfast in advance–which meant she poured cereal and milk into a container, let it rest in the fridge overnight, and ate the soggy mush the next morning. “Cereal is cheap. It’s processed, it’s shelf-stable,” says Thompson. “I had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
Years later, Thompson gave the recipe she was nostalgic for a healthy makeover and got inspired to leave her post on the trading floor at Goldman to start an oatmeal business. After getting her third-year bonus, she moved to Southern California to start the brand and named it Mush, which she says stands for Mankind’s Ultimate Source of Health.
Her first sales happened at local farmers’ markets. The ease of grabbing a tub of overnight oats all ready in the fridge quickly became popular, especially among Whole Foods shoppers, many of whom turned to the brand looking for more convenient yet healthy breakfast options.
By 2019, Mush had relocated to Chicago and was pulling in $5 million in annual sales. Distribution hit 3,000 stores nationwide and Thompson secured $1.3 million from investors including Mark Cuban, Peter Rahal. That success landed Thompson a spot on the 2020 30 Under 30 Food & Drink list.
The last time this much uncertainty hit the industry, in 2020, Thompson steered the business with a contrarian strategy: When many food brands pivoted towards direct-to-consumer sales, Mush shut down its online business.
It proved successful, because it became harder and more expensive to secure customers online, while shipping rates for refrigerated boxes soared. All the while retailers were facing out-of-stocks on shelves, as Thompson was focusing on the in-person shopping experience. Thompson says her mentality at the time was, “Let’s narrow the focus and double down on what we know works really well.” But now that Mush has expanded its line to oat-based protein bars and pouches of overnight oats, and those products ship easier than individual cups, she is now relaunching the business’s e-commerce.
As Mush–which contains no added sugar, artificial flavors or colors, and preservatives–has landed shelf space at Costco, Target, Kroger and Sprouts, Thompson has reinvested profits back into the business. She has also raised $18 million raised from outside investors.
Mush has become the leading overnight oats brand, which Thompson credits to refusing to pay another manufacturer to make the product. That’s why much of Mush’s profits have gone to building out the company’s two production facilities in Salt Lake City. There’s now a combined 60,000 square feet of space dedicated to making oatmeal, filling that oatmeal into individual cups, sealing it, and shipping it to grocers nationwide.
“She has a real manufacturing edge,” says Quincy Fennebresque, an investor since 2021, who notes that most of Mush’s key competitors are more expensive or lower quality. “Ashley will be able to handle [tariffs] better than any competitor. Ashley focuses on cost more than anyone. She’s never taken the easy way out.”
And as prices at grocery stores have been exploding, Thompson has pushed Mush to cut prices. Prices are up to the retailer, but Mush has dropped the wholesale rate of its core cups from $2.49 to $1.99 each. That also means there’s less cushion as the aftermath of tariffs hitting the global economy.
Oats are the cornerstone of the production, and quality has been a priority for Thompson over the years. One of the biggest reasons she sourced oats from Canada, she says, is that it’s verified to be free of the herbicide glyphosate. The opposite is true of the oats farmed in America, unless they are organic-certified, which comes with a price differential that Thompson is not ready to commit to, in addition to a smaller overall supply.
“No one wants to be ingesting glyphosate,” says Thompson. “We don’t want what we’re putting into the product to be affecting people’s metabolic function at the cellular level. We really want a clean, wholesome product.”
Thompson adds that her deep focus will help her get through any coming uncertainty. She says she’s got her eyes on the horizon: “My dream would be that when I’m a grandmother walking through the aisles of grocery stores, Mush is still a brand on shelves that Americans love and trust.”
MORE FROM FORBES
Read the full article here