BURLINGTON, Vt. –
Sunsoil, a certified organic hemp farm and top-five CBD brand, announced the appointment of Bharat Ayyar as CEO. Ayyar succeeds the company’s co-founder Alejandro Bergad, who will remain on Sunsoil’s leadership team as its Chief Vision Officer and member of the Board of Directors.
Ayyar first came across Sunsoil in 2018, when he made his first purchase from the company (then called Green Mountain CBD). Five years later, he takes over as the company’s CEO, as Sunsoil sets its sights on becoming the market leader in CBD.
“Sunsoil is uniquely positioned to serve consumers,” says Ayyar. “We’re vertically integrated with our farms in Vermont. We have a uniquely efficient and natural process for making CBD oil. This means we can offer certified organic CBD oil at half the cost of what other brands sell for — all while being profitable.”
Since joining the company in 2020, Ayyar has seen the CBD industry face a number of challenges — from the uncertain regulatory environment to the pandemic’s impact on Sunsoil’s retail partners.
Still, Sunsoil has found success. The company has doubled the size of its ecommerce business and signed major distribution deals, including most recently in 2023 a partnership with Sprouts Farmers Market.
Ayyar plans to grow Sunsoil by leaning into the company’s core strength and mission: making the highest-quality, organic CBD at the lowest prices in the industry.
“At today’s prices, CBD is a luxury product — but it has the potential to help millions of people,” says Ayyar. “CBD is going to be on your pharmacy’s shelf one day right next Advil — but prices have to come way down without sacrificing quality. We’re going to make that happen.”
Bergad, who previously served as CEO since founding Sunsoil in 2015, will transition to his new role as the company’s Chief Vision Officer. In that role, he’ll focus on innovations in agriculture, processing and manufacturing that will allow Sunsoil to further reduce its prices over time.
“This is an exciting new chapter for Sunsoil,” says Bergad. “We’ve been at this for eight years, but in many ways we are still at the beginning of our story — our mission to bring great CBD to the people.”
Ayyar is an experienced leader with a background in marketing, ecommerce, and strategy. Prior to Sunsoil, he was the General Manager of Simple Contacts, a direct-to-consumer telemedicine startup, and the CEO and co-founder of Conductor, a mobile transportation app startup. He is a graduate of Yale University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
ABOUT SUNSOIL
Sunsoil is a vertically integrated, organic CBD brand based in Vermont. Sunsoil is on a mission to create affordable access to the highest-quality CBD products through its innovative farming and manufacturing practices. One of the top five CBD brands in the country, Sunsoil offers organic CBD tinctures, capsules and gummies. Sunsoil pioneered a better way to make CBD oil called “whole-plant infusion” — departing from the standard industry practice of CO2 or alcohol extraction — because it involves minimal processing of the plant and is naturally cost-effective. For more information, visit, sunsoil.com and follow along on instagram.com/sunsoil.
