With millions of people embracing the vegan lifestyle every year, plant-based meat products are in high demand. Atlas Monroe created a vegan fried chicken, founders Deborah and Jonathan Torres pitched the business on Shark Tank. Rohan Oza and Mark Cuban offered to buy the business but their offer was rejected. Atlas Monroe is worth $0 as they went out of business in 2024. At its peak, Atlas Monroe was worth $7 million.
The Founders
Deborah and Jonathan Torres are from San Diego. Although the married couple pitched the business together, Deborah invented the product. She grew up in Silicon Valley and her parents emigrated to the United States. Her father is from Guyana, and her mom lived in the UK.
Because of this, she was raised eating a range of international cuisine. Her two grandmothers were also restaurant owners, and fried chicken was a significant part of their family tradition.
Founding Atlas Monroe
Deborah’s father had to change his diet once he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. As a concerned daughter, she took matters into her own hands. Deborah watched “Simply Raw”, a documentary where people with diabetes tried a raw vegan diet for a month and got positive results. So, Deborah learned how to cook vegan food.
As her dad’s health improved, she experimented with making plant-based meat. This was how she invented the Atlas Monroe vegan fried chicken, which she entered into the VegFest competition and got the Best Dish award.
Shark Tank Appearance
With her husband, Deborah took her creation to Shark Tank in 2019. They offered 10% of the business in exchange for $500,000. The pair handed out samples to the Sharks who all liked the product.
As valuations and numbers were tossed around, the conversation quickly turned tense. Barbara Corcoran believed the company was too early to be investable. However, Mark Cuban, who is a vegetarian, was intrigued.
Cuban offered $500,000 for a 30% stake but later persuaded guest Shark, Rohan Oza to make a bid for the company. They offered $1 million, plus a 10% royalty on sales to the founders, but the Torres’ rejected the deal.
After Shark Tank
Turning down a million dollar offer was a tough decision but the founders believed they made the right decision! The rise in sales after Shark Tank led to Atlas Monroe opening a manufacturing facility in San Diego. Reportedly the company generated $350,000 in online sales within two hours.
At one point, they claimed to be the “largest manufacturer of plant-based fried chicken” in the world. To fund the facility they took a lot of pre-orders and fulfilled the orders a few months later. Thankfully, customers were patient and wanted to support them.
By the end of 2021, the company was producing one million pounds of chicken. Under Deborah’s leadership, the company has done over $2 million in sales since appearing on Shark Tank and were on track to make $5 million in 2021. Since then, the company hasn’t released any recent sales figures but were supplying over 50 restaurants nationwide.
In 2024, the business filed for bankruptcy under the corporate name JD Torres LLC. Its assets were auctioned off, and its standalone restaurant in San Diego has closed. While the company’s website remains online, orders are no longer being accepted, and social media activity ceased in late 2023.
Deborah revealed in an interview, she wasn’t happy with how she was portrayed on the show. The edits were misleading and made it appear that she didn’t understand the numbers.
