If you’re reading this and you grew up in the 80s, 90s, or early 2000s, Kraft Mac & Cheese was almost certainly one of your favorite meals. I know this will offend and disgust some people, but I preferred my Kraft Mac & Cheese with a dollop of ketchup and peas mixed in.
What wasn’t to love about that bright orange, milky-cheesy-buttery pasta? And for parents, it was insanely easy to make. In under 10 minutes, a huge bowl of Mac & Cheese was ready to be consumed by a hungry child.
Fast-forward to the present, and Kraft is still going strong. But the mac-and-cheese aisle has changed dramatically. A new generation of brands, most notably Annie’s and Goodles, has convinced millions of consumers to pay a premium for versions that promise better ingredients and more nutritional value.
Admittedly, before sitting down to write this article, I assumed the Kraft Mac & Cheese of my childhood had basically no nutritional redeeming value, and that opened the door for newer brands to, pardon my pun, eat Kraft’s lunch by offering higher-protein, higher-fiber alternatives.
As it turns out, that’s only partially true.
I can’t give you an authoritative nutritional breakdown of a box of Kraft from the 1980s because the standardized Nutrition Facts label we know today wasn’t required until the 1990s. But I was able to track down nutritional information for Kraft Mac & Cheese from the early 2000s. And when you compare it with a box of Goodles Cheddy Mac today, the results are interesting:
- Identical calories
- Nearly identical carbohydrates
- Nearly identical sodium
Where Goodles really separates itself is protein, fiber, and sugar. Goodles has about 30% less sugar (5 grams versus 7), seven times the fiber (7 grams versus 1), and 27% more protein (14 grams versus 11).
Goodles also deliberately engineered its noodles to deliver more nutritional punch, incorporating ingredients that provide nutrients derived from broccoli, spinach, kale, pumpkin, sweet potato, sunflower seeds, cranberries, chlorella, and mushrooms.
Why am I telling you about the current state of the mac and cheese industry on CelebrityNetWorth.com? Because, as it turns out, one of Goodles’ earliest backers was former IDF soldier turned model turned actress turned celebrity “Imagine” song coordinator… Gal Gadot.
And today, it was announced that Goodles is being acquired by the gigantic Italian pasta conglomerate Barilla for a presumably very large amount of money. So, pull up a chair and a big bowl of Goodles, and let’s talk about how much Goodles was likely just acquired for and how much Gal may make off the sale…
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How Goodles Became A Mac-And-Cheese Powerhouse
Goodles is not actually that old. It was founded during the darkest days of the pandemic by entrepreneur Jen Zeszut, who connected early on with branding expert and Northwestern professor Paul Earle. The company was incorporated in 2020 under the decidedly less catchy name Gooder Foods.
Zeszut and Earle assembled a pretty impressive founding team, including Deb Luster, the former president of Annie’s, and food-development expert Molly Michet. Gal Gadot joined as a founding partner after Zeszut learned that, somewhat surprisingly for someone who grew up in Israel, mac and cheese was one of Gal’s lifelong favorite foods. Perhaps prophetically, the founding team included Deb Luster, the former president of Annie’s — another healthier mac-and-cheese disruptor that would eventually sell to General Mills for $820 million.
Gal wasn’t merely hired to pose with a box for Instagram. She has said she was involved from essentially ground zero, taste-testing recipes as the team tried to perfect the product. Goodles has said it went through more than 1,000 versions before settling on its original recipes. Gal also participated in fundraising, retailer relationships, business development, media, and brand building.
Goodles officially launched online in late 2021 with four varieties. The company produced enough inventory to last around four months. It sold out in roughly two weeks.
Five months after launch, Goodles landed in more than 1,900 Target stores. It subsequently expanded into Whole Foods, Walmart, Costco, Publix, H-E-B, Wegmans, Sprouts, and other major retailers.
The numbers that followed are almost absurd for a packaged-food startup.
Goodles said sales grew 33-fold in 2022. Sales then tripled in 2023 and doubled again in 2024. In 2024 alone, Goodles generated around $70 million in “cash register sales” and, importantly, became profitable for the first time.
Along the way, investors started piling in. Goodles raised $6.4 million in its early funding rounds. In 2023, consumer-focused private equity giant L Catterton led a $13 million Series A round that valued the company at $88 million. Other investors over the years have included athletes, celebrities, and entrepreneurs such as Klay Thompson, Khris Middleton, DK Metcalf, and Christina Aguilera.
And then the growth continued.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Goodles accounted for just 0.8% of American consumer spending on shelf-stable mac and cheese three years ago. Today, that figure is 7.8%.
Meanwhile, Kraft’s share dropped from 42.2% to 36.6%, while Velveeta fell from 21.6% to 18.9%.
Today, Goodles says it moves roughly three boxes every second.
Apparently, Barilla noticed.
Barilla had been watching Goodles’ growth for several years and formally approached the company about an acquisition in June 2026. A few months later, the two sides reached an agreement.
Barilla intends to keep Goodles headquartered in Santa Cruz, operate it as a stand-alone brand, and retain all 73 employees. Jen Zeszut will continue running the company.
Unfortunately for nosy people like me, Barilla and Goodles did not disclose the purchase price. So let’s try to figure it out ourselves.
How Much Did Goodles Sell For?
Let me emphasize right up front that what follows is napkin math. Neither company has disclosed Goodles’ current revenue, purchase price, or the financial structure of the transaction.
But we have enough breadcrumbs to make what I think is a pretty reasonable estimate.
Let’s start with market share.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the American shelf-stable mac-and-cheese market generates roughly $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion in annual consumer spending. Goodles now controls 7.8% of spending in that category.
Using the midpoint of $2.2 billion:
$2.2 billion × 7.8% = $171.6 million
That would imply roughly $170 million of annual retail spending on Goodles mac and cheese alone.
And that’s not necessarily the whole company. Goodles now sells protein pasta, microwaveable cups, and other products outside the specific shelf-stable mac-and-cheese category. The market-share data also excludes direct-to-consumer purchases.
Depending on retailer margins, distributors, promotions, and channel mix, Goodles obviously receives substantially less than the full retail price. If we conservatively assume the company ultimately recognizes something like 60% to 75% of that retail value — while also accounting for its newer pasta lines and other products not captured by the mac-and-cheese data — annual company revenue somewhere around $110 million to $150 million feels reasonable. I’ll use $140 million as my rough midpoint.
Now we need a valuation multiple.
Fortunately, there are some extremely useful acquisition comparisons.
- In 2014, General Mills bought Annie’s for $820 million. Annie’s had generated $204 million in annual revenue. That’s almost exactly 4x revenue.
- In 2025, Flowers Foods paid $795 million for better-for-you snack company Simple Mills, which was generating around $240 million in annual sales. That’s 3.3x revenue.
- And Campbell paid $2.7 billion for Sovos Brands, the company behind Rao’s pasta sauce, when Sovos was generating approximately $837 million in annual sales. That’s about 3.2x revenue.
Fun fact: Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-wife Vanessa Trump is the heiress to the Rao’s pasta sauce empire. In 1992, her stepfather, Charles Haydon, invested $1 million in Rao’s restaurant’s commercial pasta sauce business, receiving a 30% stake in return. After Haydon’s death in 1995, this stake was divided equally between Vanessa and her mother. In 2017, Rao’s was acquired (for the first time) for $415 million. Vanessa’s 15% share translated to approximately $62 million pre-tax.
So let’s run a few scenarios using my estimated $140 million in annual company revenue:
- 2.5x revenue = $350 million
- 3x revenue = $420 million
- 3.25x revenue = $455 million
- 3.5x revenue = $490 million
- 4x revenue = $560 million
Based on everything we know, I would estimate that Barilla paid somewhere between $350 million and $600 million for Goodles.
If you forced me to put one number on a check, my best guess would be:
$450 million
That’s a huge increase from Goodles’ $88 million valuation in 2023, but consider what happened after that valuation. The company became profitable. Sales continued exploding. Its market share surged. It expanded into new product categories. And one of the world’s largest pasta companies decided it would rather own Goodles than compete with it.
Now for the more interesting question.
How Much Might Gal Gadot Make?
Unfortunately, Goodles has never publicly disclosed Gal Gadot’s ownership percentage. But there are some fascinating clues:
First, Goodles has consistently described Gal as a founding partner, not simply a celebrity investor or spokesperson.
Second, Gal was involved before the product ever launched. She worked on recipes, fundraising, retailer relationships, business development, and marketing.
And third, Gooder Foods’ SEC filings list an entity called GGVGoodles, LLC as a “Founder” and “Promoter” of the company alongside Jen Zeszut and Paul Earle. The filing doesn’t tell us who owns GGVGoodles, LLC, so I don’t want to state anything as fact. But Gal’s initials are “GG,” her married name is Gal Gadot-Varsano, and Goodles publicly calls her a founding partner. Do with those breadcrumbs what you will.
My guess is that her original founder stake was in the 10% to 20% range.
Goodles raised several rounds of outside capital. By 2022, the company had already raised $6.4 million. Then came the $13 million Series A in 2023.
At an $88 million post-money valuation, that $13 million Series A alone represented about 14.8% of the company.
And the SEC filing for that round specifically notes that the $13 million figure did not include the conversion of outstanding SAFEs, or Simple Agreements for Future Equity. Those conversions would have caused additional dilution.
Goodles also says its parent company ultimately accumulated more than 125 owners, including all of its employees.
So if Gal started with, say, 15%, I could easily imagine that stake being diluted down to roughly 8% to 10% by the time Barilla arrived.
My reasonable range for their current combined ownership would therefore be 7% to 12%. And my best guess would be 10%.
Now let’s combine that with my estimated acquisition price.
If Barilla paid $450 million and Gal owned 10%:
$450 million × 10% = $45 million
Here’s the wider range:
- 7% of a $350 million sale = $24.5 million
- 8% of a $400 million sale = $32 million
- 10% of a $450 million sale = $45 million
- 10% of a $500 million sale = $50 million
- 12% of a $600 million sale = $72 million
- 20% of $600 million sale = $120 million
Bottom line: In my opinion, it’s reasonable to speculate that Gal Gadot’s Goodles pre-tax windfall could be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million to $60 million, with approximately $45 million as my best napkin-math estimate. Imagine how much mac and cheese you could buy with $45 million. It’s easy if you try.
