Susan Buckwalter Hartman

Susan Buckwalter Hartman is the co-founder of Recoup Beverage, Inc., a functional beverage company that in 2023 became the first beverage brand to achieve Regenerative Organic Certification across its entire product portfolio.^[8] She co-founded the company in 2019 with Siwat Siengsanaoh, a childhood illness survivor whose mother's ginger-based home remedies became the basis for the brand's formulations.^[1] Recoup won back-to-back industry pitch competitions in 2024 and 2025 — the BevNET New Beverage Showdown 28 and the Natural Products Expo West Pitch Slam — and is distributed nationally at Sprouts Farmers Market, Wegmans, Target, and other retailers across more than 800 store locations.^[3][1][4]

Before founding Recoup, Hartman spent nearly a decade in consumer packaged goods brand management. She held multiple roles at Unilever, rising to brand manager for the Dove Masterbrand, and later served as global marketing and innovation manager at eos Products.^[20] She holds an MBA from Cornell University's SC Johnson Graduate School of Management and a B.A. from Gettysburg College, where she competed in the heptathlon as a varsity athlete.^[4]

Recoup's prebiotic sparkling beverages are made with maple tree water sourced from upstate New York, prebiotic fiber, electrolytes, and pressed ginger juice, with no added sugar or sweeteners.^[3][13] The brand sold through 80% of its initial three-month Sprouts order in the first two and a half weeks, and reports repeat customer rates of 30–50% based on Instacart data.^[4][1]

Hartman graduated from Gettysburg College in 2004, where she competed in the heptathlon — a seven-event track and field discipline — as a varsity athlete.^[4] During college she studied abroad twice: a Semester at Sea program in 2001 and a semester at the IAU Institute for American Universities in Aix-en-Provence, France, in 2003.^[20] Gettysburg later featured her in an alumni profile on entrepreneurship and the application of a liberal arts education.^[4]

After college, Hartman spent two years in international sales at Readak Educational Services, then four years as marketing and communications director at YMCA Camp Hi-Rock, an outdoor retreat center in Massachusetts.^[20] She entered the SC Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University in 2010 and earned her MBA in 2012.^[4] During the program she interned at Campbell Soup Company on the V8 Beverages brand team — her first direct exposure to the functional beverage category.^[20]

Unilever (2012–2016)

After completing her MBA, Hartman joined Unilever in 2012 as an associate brand manager in personal care, with a focus on multicultural and Hispanic marketing.^[20] She moved to the Dove Men+Care global brand development team in 2014 and was promoted to brand manager for the Dove Masterbrand in 2015.^[20] The role gave her training in large-scale brand strategy on mission-driven consumer brands, experience she has cited as foundational to her approach at Recoup.^[4]

eos Products (2016–2019)

Hartman joined eos Products as innovation manager in 2016 and was promoted to global marketing and innovation manager in 2018.^[20] At eos she worked on natural product lines including eos Organics, deepening her experience in the clean-label consumer goods space.^[20] She left eos in February 2019 to co-found Recoup.^[20]

Recoup Beverage (2019–present)

The idea for Recoup began with Siwat Siengsanaoh, who was born with gut-health issues and underwent ten major surgeries before the age of twelve.^[1] His mother's ginger-based home remedies played a central role in his recoveries, and he eventually began developing a ginger-based hydration drink in his kitchen.^[1] Hartman was introduced to Siengsanaoh through a mutual Cornell MBA classmate and spent roughly a year advising him informally before formally co-founding the company in February 2019.^[20] Her role was to take what Siengsanaoh had created and give it a commercial formula, a brand identity, and a scalable structure.^[4]

Hartman's own motivation was personal. As a former heptathlete, she had been frustrated by functional drinks loaded with sugar and artificial ingredients and wanted a clean-label alternative she could drink after a workout or surf session.^[4] The company launched its first products — non-carbonated ginger-powered hydration beverages — in early 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted retail distribution channels.^[11] Recoup was named a finalist in BevNET's New Beverage Showdown that year, an early industry validation.^[11]

A pivotal reformulation came after Hartman and Siengsanaoh noticed that consumers were adding sparkling water to the original formula.^[4] The company redesigned the product as a prebiotic sparkling beverage, combining maple tree water — sourced from Regenerative Organic Certified farms in upstate New York — with three grams of prebiotic fiber from agave inulin, electrolytes, and pressed ginger juice.^[3][13] The reformulated line contained no added sugar, stevia, or monk fruit, a distinction Hartman has described as rare in the functional beverage category.^[14][18]

In 2023, Recoup became the first beverage brand to achieve Regenerative Organic Certification across its entire portfolio, certified at the gold level by the Regenerative Organic Alliance.^[8] The company sources 95% of its raw materials from ROC-certified agriculture suppliers.^[2]

Retail distribution expanded in 2024. In June, Recoup launched in 96 Wegmans stores and debuted at the Specialty Food Association's Summer Fancy Food Show.^[13] In October, the brand entered all 420 Sprouts Farmers Market locations through the retailer's New-For-You innovation set program, selling through 80% of its three-month inventory order in the first two and a half weeks.^[2][4][12] BevNET reported that Recoup was selling six to twelve units per store per week without promotions and thirty units per store per week with promotions, at a suggested retail price of $2.99 per twelve-ounce can.^[3] The brand also expanded into 296 select Target stores and retailers including Erewhon, Jimbo's, and Mom's Organic Market.^[4][11]

In December 2024, Hartman won the BevNET New Beverage Showdown 28 at BevNET Live Winter 2024 in Marina del Rey, California.^[3][5] During her pitch, she argued that maple tree water is as hydrating as coconut water with half the calories and a lower climate impact.^[3] Three months later, in March 2025, she won the Natural Products Expo West Pitch Slam at the Anaheim Convention Center, besting a field of ten emerging brands.^[1][9] The grand prize included a booth at Expo West 2026 and more than $30,000 in New Hope Network services.^[1] Clarkston Consulting cited Recoup's Showdown win as one of the key takeaways from BevNET Live Winter 2024.^[17]

In April 2025, the company disclosed it was raising $1.3 million to expand distribution and scale marketing, and had been named a semi-finalist at the San Diego Angel Conference, ranking in the top twelve of 129 companies.^[11] Hartman and Siengsanaoh are participants in the :INCLUDED ACCESS program, which supports founders from underrepresented populations, and Recoup is certified minority-owned and female-founded.^[10][11]

In July 2026, Recoup announced a full brand, formula, and packaging refresh, repositioning as "sparkling hydration with benefits" and transitioning to printed cans projected to eliminate approximately one million plastic sleeve labels.^[15] In September 2026, the company was named a top-twenty finalist in the $3 million Grow-NY food innovation competition, a program run by Empire State Development and Cornell University, with a chance to win up to $1 million.^[19] Hartman appeared as a speaker at BevNET Live L.A. 2025 on the "Brands in Motion: Founders in the Marketplace" panel alongside other New Beverage Showdown winners.^[7][6]

Recoup won the Specialty Food Association's sofi Award for best new product in the Functional Beverage category in 2022, selected from nearly 2,000 entries across 53 categories through anonymous blind tastings at the Rutgers Food Innovation Center.^[14] The brand was named a finalist for the NEXTY Award in the Regenerative category at Expo West 2024.^[16] Recoup's Lemon Lime Ginger flavor was a finalist in the Startup CPG 2023 Shelfie Awards.^[11]

In 2024 and 2025, Hartman won back-to-back pitch competitions: the BevNET New Beverage Showdown 28 in December 2024 and the Natural Products Expo West Pitch Slam in March 2025.^[3][1] In September 2026, Recoup was selected as a top-twenty finalist in the $3 million Grow-NY business competition.^[19]

Hartman lives in Encinitas, California, a coastal suburb of San Diego.^[11] She has been described in trade press as a mother, and her husband Scott Hartman serves as VP of brand strategy at Recoup.^[20] She is an avid surfer and yoga practitioner, interests she has cited as part of her motivation for building a clean-label hydration brand.^[4]