10 Small Businesses Catering to Students

8. Sonu Beverages
Approximately 90% of Sonu Beverages' business is selling its organic, fruit-flavored, vitamin-enhanced water beverage to public schools.

The product is one of the top-selling items in the vending machines of New York City Public Schools, which launched a program last year to promote healthier beverage and snack options for kids.

The company wasn't always so kid-focused. It originally sold a 16-ounce product with more calories marketed to adults, but after focus groups and meeting with school officials, Sonu came up with a kid-friendly line of products.

Focusing on schools "really lends itself to a captured audience, and it limits the financial investment required," says Kara Monteiro, chief operating officer at Sonu. "We learned about nutritional guidelines and altered the product to make it student friendly. We completely revamped our line to cater to students, and as a result we're getting requests from public schools because a lot of them are being required to follow strict nutritional guidelines."

The company started in New York and now sells to more than 8,000 schools there and in New Jersey, North Carolina, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and Ohio, she says. One challenge is that nutritional guidelines differ among school districts.

"We're getting requests for lot more. We're basically trying to keep up," Monteiro says.