Business Observer honors six Top Entrepreneurs

The Business Observer held its 2022 Top Entrepreneurs luncheon May 12. The event was held at Grove in Lakewood Ranch. The event included three panelists, moderated by Business Observer Managing Editor Mark Gordon, with three videos of the other honorees.

To see the stories and videos click here.

The six winners included:

• Cammie Chatterton: Chatterton blazed a trail for female entrepreneurs when she founded Bay Food Brokerage, which processes transactions between food manufacturers and retail outlets, in 1993. Revenue at the Tampa-based firm has more than doubled since 2018, from $4.17 million to $9.2 million in 2021.  
• Brandon Duke: Duke has been CEO of Fort Myers-based Juniper Landscaping since 2016 — when he bought out the shares his father held in the then $40-million business. Under Duke’s leadership, Juniper has become a statewide landscaping powerhouse, with 17 locations, 1,700 employees and $140 million in annual revenue.
• Pete Maldonado: Co-founder of Chomps, maker of healthy meat sticks, which recently received an $80 million minority investment from a private equity firm. Its products are sold in 19,000 stores nationwide and is projected to do $115 million in sales in 2022.
• Erin Meagher: CEO and founder of coconut oil manufacturer Beneficial Blends, a Tampa-based company that does more than $20 million in annual revenue. A onetime high school accounting and entrepreneurship teacher, Meagher, over the past decade, has become a nationally known leader in manufacturing private-label organic and conventional edible oils.
• Jim Miller: CEO of JMX Brands and DutchCrafters, an Amish furniture and home décor retailer in Sarasota. Miller has overseen the company’s growth from an online reseller to one that combines e-commerce with a growing brick-and-mortar component. JMX had nearly $24 million in revenue in 2021, double what it did in 2019. 
• Willy Nunn: Nunn is president and CEO of Tampa-based Homes by WestBay. The 160-employee firm is one of the largest locally based homebuilders in the region, with $391 million in revenue in 2021.