The Quality Makers: Jeni Britton of Floura

Jeni Britton has always been creative. Her parents encouraged her artistic side from an early age. When she combined creativity with her love for food, Jeni’s Ice Cream was born in 2002. Since then, Britton has picked up national recognition and a James Beard Award for her whimsical, constantly evolving portfolio of ice creams. If you don’t live near a scoop shop, you can find Jeni’s pints in supermarkets nationwide. 

But these days, Britton is replacing scooping and flavor mixing with a new product: fiber-filled fruit bars. Britton launched Floura in January 2025 to help close the “fiber gap” in the standard American diet. Don’t worry, she still gets her daily fill of ice cream, but now, she never misses her daily fiber goal. 

How did your upbringing influence your career choices? 

I was always interested in art and storytelling. I was raised in a very alternative way by people who were into art. And I’ve always looked through that lens. I was always into food and scent, and I associate those with color and all kinds of expression. To me, these are all methods of storytelling and transportation.

You’ve had a lot of success with Jeni’s Ice Cream. Are you still involved in the business?

I still eat it every day. Right now, I’m really obsessed with the ice cream sandwiches. I was able to step away from the company, but I’m still there for them whenever they need me. I love getting their calls, and I’m their biggest cheerleader and supporter. 

What made you want to pivot away from ice cream?

Honestly, nothing. I never want to pivot away from ice cream. It's in my DNA. It's in my blood, it's in my skin. It's everything to me. It's the way I see the world, but I did that for 26 years. We built an awesome company, and as a founder, I always want to make things better. I hate to say it, but I look for the defects. I started to notice that it was more disruptive when I was there than when I wasn't.  And so when COVID happened and I wasn't there the same way I had been, I saw that they were thriving. I realized that maybe I needed to pivot to something else. If COVID hadn't happened, I probably never would have had that realization. 

Did you know you wanted your next chapter to also be in food?

No, in fact, I had no idea. I didn't have time to think about it.  I didn't have any plans at all. It was very challenging for me, and that's why I started to learn about health. I ended up just focusing on myself. I realized I had never done that my entire life. I had never really been healthy. Even as a kid, I was very sick.  So from early 2020 until early 2022, I was focused on my health, and when I started to feel the benefits, I never wanted to let it go. That was the first time I felt good in all realms of being at once. I was always inspired. I was always on an adventure. I was always pushing forward, driving forward. I was always full of adrenaline and excited about things, and I had a great time. But in terms of just feeling really good in myself, I never had that.

Did that health focus lead you to care more about fiber?

It did. It led me to the question, “Why is it so hard to be healthy in America?” I started to look around and realize that nobody's healthy in America. It is a real problem that most of us, even if we look like we’re in peak health, are not healthy. And why are we okay with that? It’s hard to know what to do. It's hard to know what to eat. We don't have old cultures of food. We're not growing our food and eating the entire rind because of scarcity. Through those questions, I realized the best thing I can do on this front can't solve everything, but I can do a lot by getting people to eat fiber.

What’s your definition of health?

It’s not just what you're projecting to the world. I see people who seem to be doing all the right things, but they're so anxious that it almost negates all of the good they might have done in the gym or whatever. For me, health is when you feel like you. I now know what it feels like to be me, when what you project to the world and what you are inside are aligned. I had gotten very lost in that, because as Jeni’s started to grow, even good people in my life were expecting different things from me, and I was trying to be a good Midwestern person and be everything to everybody. I lost connection to who I was on the inside.

Has Floura helped you find that?

The reason that Floura came to be is because of fruit. I love fruit so much. When I left Jeni’s, I was eating a ton of fruit, like a pint or two of blueberries a day. I feel so much gratitude when I eat it. And I thought it was not great for me, because you read about fruit being high in sugar. I was talking to my business partner, Mark, telling him that I feel so good eating so much fruit and I'm losing weight without trying. And he told me that you process sugar differently when it comes from fruit because you get the fiber and it slows down digestion. 

I started reading about fiber, and I credit fiber with giving me that first spark of energy. Then I started walking a lot, and it gave me clarity, and I started to learn about the microbiome. I'm not a big health guru. I don't like working out in gyms. I don't like taking pills and supplements. The only thing I changed is that I was eating a ton of fruit and I started to feel more emotionally regulated. 

Do you have a dietary philosophy?

I make sure to get 25 to 30 grams of fiber, but I eat whatever I'm craving. I know that when I have PMS in the month, I have a sweet tooth, and I don't beat myself up about it. I go and get my beautiful Japanese cakes, and I eat my ice cream. But I also know that when I consistently get enough fiber, I crave more healthy things. 

Tell me about what’s inside a Floura bar.

It all happens inside this massive produce facility. They take fresh produce, like apples from upstate New York or watermelons in the summer from Pennsylvania. They’re processing salads and cut fruit for massive grocery stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Then we harvest the leftover apple cores, for instance. We turn them into paste to use as the base of our bars. Our bars are not date-based, which is sticky, very sweet, high in sugar, and has a different flavor. Ours taste like apples, which is a very light flavor. 

Then we take watermelon, pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe, and mango skins and dehydrate them to mill into flour. Those prebiotic fibers are really good for you. 95% of people are deficient in fiber by 50%, so we knew that if we could make something that covers that 50% fiber gap every day, we’d make a difference. 

Where do you find inspiration for your flavors?

I'm inspired by everything from color to art and pop culture. I like to listen to what people are eating right now. I see what people love and what I like. For this first round, I wanted to do a bar that tasted like a smoothie versus a heavy dessert, which is what most bars are. But we are going to make a chocolate one because my daughter said she wants it to eat after dinner. We’re continuing to make new flavors regularly. 

When most people think about bars, they think about protein. Was that a consideration with Floura?

It was a consideration. When we started looking into protein I walked away with the understanding that you might need protein in your diet. Some people do. But everyone needs fiber. When I look at it like that, the fiber market is huge. Those of us who need additional protein know how to get it. None of us know how to get fiber right now. We don't have time to process all the ingredients and do all the cooking to get 30 plants into our week right now. And that probably won’t reverse maybe ever. So we decided to be really clear about fiber. Because the industrial food system removes so much fiber from our diet, the lack of fiber is leading to a lot of chronic illnesses in America, including neurodegenerative disorders and cancers among young people. So we felt like this is a big enough problem to solve and to begin to really chip away at.

Get your fill of fiber with Floura’s delicious flavors.