What Happened To Souper Cubes After Shark Tank?
With each new season, "Shark Tank" offers a new coterie of hopeful entrepreneurs a chance at entering the big leagues. Contestants present their ideas to a panel of "sharks" — big-time investors who could make or break these budding entrepreneurs' dreams with a single word (via ABC). The sharks in question are a rotating panel, which always includes a selection from the core group of judges: Kevin O'Leary, Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, Robert Herjavec, Mark Cuban (who joined in season two), and Lori Greiner, who joined in season three. Five of these investors are joined by guest investors, who in the past have included Stitch Fix founder Katrina Lake, tech investor and billionaire Chris Sacca, mega-producer Steve Tisch, and comedian and entrepreneur Kevin Hart (via All Shark Tank Products).
With the show's season premiere right around the corner on September 23, longtime viewers are inevitably wondering how things turned out for past hopefuls, like The Yard Milkshake Bar, a chain focused on complex milkshakes, or vegan chicken company Atlas Monroe. Let's take a look at how things shook out for Season 12's Souper Cubes.
What they brought to the table
"Shark Tank" Season 12 Episode 14 (which aired in 2021) introduced us to Jake and Michelle Sendowski, the team behind Souper Cubes (via Shark Tank Recap). This husband and wife team had come up with a solution for the messy, often wasteful process of freezing and storing leftovers. Glass containers can break in the freezer, plastic storage bags are a mess with liquids, and big plastic tubs often make it difficult to defrost smaller portions, resulting in a lot of food waste. Plus, there's the problem of how you store these containers, a problem especially true with weirdly-shaped bags of frozen liquids or semi-solids like the leftovers from your favorite lemon hummus recipe.
Souper Cubes aims to make all those worries a thing of the past. The silicone trays, which resemble ice cube trays, allow you to pop out exactly how much you want, just as you would pop out an ice cube. The trays pitched on the show come in two cup, one cup, half-cup, and two tablespoon sizes, allowing home cooks to freeze foods by portion. The trays come with hard plastic tops to allow for easy stacking and to prevent anything from falling in, like those frozen peas that always seem to be escaping the bag. It's important to note that a steel rim in the trays means that they are not microwave safe — Souper Cubes' website says you technically can microwave them, but it's not encouraged and will void the product's warranty.
Swimming with the sharks
On Season 12 of "Shark Tank," the founders of Souper Cubes asked for $400,000 in exchange for a 5% stake in their company (via Shark Tank Recap). An ambitious offer, but married entrepreneurs Jake and Michelle Sendowski had the sales to back it up. They'd made nearly a million in sales in their first full year and had already netted $1.6 million in the year they appeared on "Shark Tank" up to the point of taping (via YouTube). The couple also had already thought to patent their product at the 1 cup size and had patents pending on their other sizes.
With a clearly-outlined solution to an everyday problem, prepared prototypes, ready patents, and more than $2 million in sales, the Sendowskis had every reason to be confident. Ultimately, their pun-laden pitch landed them a backer in Lori Greiner, who took the couple up on their asking price without further negotiation after receiving offers from all the sharks except Mark Cuban. Greiner also awarded the couple her "Golden Ticket," meaning she felt it was the "hero product," or the best item and pitch she'd seen that season. While freezing broth in a standard ice cube tray may be one of the 25 cool ice cube hacks you should try, Greiner's backing may have helped make this DIY fix a thing of the past.
Where are they now?
In the little over a year since their 2021 episode aired, Souper Cubes have sold like hot cakes. In the first 24 hours after airing alone, Shark Tank Recap notes that Souper Cubes sold $938,000 worth of inventory, which could have continued if they hadn't ran out of stock. Since leaving the show, Souper Cubes is reporting lifetime sales of over $14 million as of 2022. The cubes are now available at major retailers like Crate + Barrel and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, as well as Williams-Sonoma and Sur la Table, where they were already available pre-"Shark Tank." The food storage devices can also still be found on Amazon — the Sendowskis reported to the sharks that the company did most of their sales there at the time of the show — the Souper Cubes website, and have deals with a variety of smaller retailers including Weight Watchers (via Google Shopping)
With the help of "Shark Tank," Lori Greiner, and her golden ticket, Souper Cubes has branched out. Not only does the company now offer more sizes and options than when Jake and Michelle Sendowski appeared on the show, including a recent "sprinkles" drop featuring color-flecked patterned 1-cup trays, but they've also branched out into other types of items, like stoneware baking dishes that look well-suited for a creamy homestyle mac and cheese recipe and MyMilk breast milk freezing trays. The brand has even spawned knock-offs (via World Market). That's when you know you've arrived.