Stay ConnectedBrand Builder brings you the people, stories, and lessons learned from the most innovative brands in the world. Presented by SnackNation. Hosted by Sean Kelly, Jordan Cohen, and Jeff Murphy.
Similar to How I Built This, The Dave Ramsey Show, and Seeking Wisdom by Drift.
CPG veteran and insights guru Mark Mallardi is taking on a new challenge: build a brand from the ground up...and save the rainforest in the process.
Mark has decades of experience helping emerging brands scale using data and insights. Today, he's channeling that knowledge into AMARUMAYU, a newly launched line of superfruit juices.
The stars of the show are Camu Camu and Buriti, two immunity-boosting antioxidant-rich superfoods found deep in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon.
AMARUMAYU relies on a bio-economic model of preservation. By creating a viable commercial market for the sustainable harvest of Camu Camu and Buriti, the brand helps ensure the survival of the surrounding ecosystem.
For this to work, AMARUMAYU must adhere to a set of "wild-harvest" best practices that include never harvesting from felled trees and leaving a percentage of fruit on the vine for the area's wild fauna.
Another key to the success of this model is the close cooperation of local indigenous communities. Mark and his Peruvian counterparts have marshaled an impressive network that includes Peru's Ministry of the Environment, local NGOs, and the Peruvian Indigenous People's Chamber of Commerce.
AMARUMAYU just launched exclusively on Amazon (where else?), and Mark walks us through they novel ways they're reaching customers at a time when sample and trial is so limited.
Mark also talked to us about how the survival of the Amazon rainforest is connected to the overall health of the planet, what it takes to harvest in a protected national park, and why this product was the right opportunity for him to become a true brand builder.
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Brand Builder is produced by Caroo.
This week we've got a guest who approaches brand building unlike anyone we've talked to yet.
In fact, he's less of a brand builder and more of a portfolio builder.
Our featured guest is Harrison Fugman, the CEO & co-founder of The Naked Market.
Our first question for Harrison was probably one you're asking now: what exactly is The Naked Market?
According to their site it's "an omni-channel food and beverage platform," but I'd argue that the portfolio analogy is the easiest way to understand what Harrison and the team are doing.
Rather than focus on one brand, they launch multiple brands with the goal of creating market leaders in a capital efficient manner.
As you'll hear, the approach borrows a bit from the worlds of tech and finance. Data is definitely king, and "fail-fast" is a foundational concept. Considering Harrison's seven years with Credit Suisse, it all makes sense.
At the risk of oversimplifying, The Naked Market approaches brand building like this:
Harrison walks us through what that looks like in practice with TNM's three flagship brands - Flock chicken chips, Avo Crazy, and Beach House bowls.
Harrison talks about the role of trends in this process (and the difference between true trends and fads), the potential downsides of this model and how they work to avoid them, and why the pandemic is the perfect time to double down on their strategy.
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Brand Builder is produced by Caroo.
It's a law of entrepreneurship that never fails:
No matter how much you prepare, nothing ever goes precisely to plan. There's always something that comes out of left field and forces you to adapt.
Sometimes, that thing is a typo on your packaging. Other times… it's the onset of a global pandemic.
The latter was the case for Clara Paye, the founder and CEO of UNiTE Food. After spending years on R&D and planning their March 2020 launch to a tee, COVID-19 changed everything.
Of course, what matters is how you adapt, and so far Clara and her small-but-mighty team have done that expertly. They quickly pivoted their retail-forward strategy, and UNiTE is rapidly building a DTC customer base, thanks in equal measure to media attention and a great product.
UNiTE's brand and mission has resonated with consumers by infusing the functional bar category with nostalgia and fun. Their bars are clean yet indulgent, with flavors inspired by cross-cultural comfort foods like Mexican Hot Chocolate, Churro, and PB&J.
Clara - who describes herself as a "fearlessly positive immigrant founder" - created UNiTE's signature product out of a desire to see more representation in the bar aisle.
With an MBA and years at the helm of the family's plumbing supply business, Clara is a seasoned business professional but a first-time CPG entrepreneur. We talk about the lessons she learned running the family business, and what convinced her to take the leap and launch a food brand.
We also discuss why she's crowdsourcing the next iteration of UNiTE Food, the neuroscience marketing principles behind their eye-catching packaging, as well as what it was like to share a magazine cover with Post Malone.
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Brand Builder is produced by Caroo.
If you want to understand what drives JanaBanana and its powerhouse founder Janaina Lopes, look no further than the JanaBanana soccer team.
Janaina (Jana for short) grew up in Vale do Ribeira, a small coastal community in the southern part of São Paulo Brazil, renowned for its lush Atlantic Forest and plentiful banana farms.
But amidst this idyllic scenery, certain troubling inequities persisted.
"In this village… the girls are being forgotten," Jana said. "I know because I was one of them."
One glaring example: sports. While the local boys soccer team traveled to play area clubs, girls weren't allowed to play the game at all.
To right this wrong, Jana launched the JanaBanana Girls Project, and the all-girls JanaBanana soccer team was born.
In this interview, we learn why making a positive impact is at the heart of everything JanaBanana does, both for its customers and for the communities it cares about.
Jana also shares why she left management consulting to launch her own company, the differences between Brazilian and American business culture, and why upcycling is such an important part of the JanaBanana brand.
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Brand Builder is produced by Caroo.
When you think about it, Salmon are a magical fish.
They famously swim upstream to the freshwater tributaries of their birth to spawn. Along the way, they become a vital food source for dozens of land animals. After they reproduce and die, their bodies fertilize trees hundreds of miles from the open ocean habitat where they spend most of their lives.
Without salmon, entire ecosystems would collapse. Yet their fate hangs in the balance.
Social entrepreneurs Justin Guilbert and Douglas Riboud came up with a radical idea to save them.
What if the best way to preserve this keystone species… is to eat it?
That's the idea behind GOODFISH, the first 100% traceable Wild Alaska Sockeye crispy salmon skins.
So how does this make any sense? GOODFISH sources their salmon skin from one of the most sustainable, well-regulated fisheries anywhere in the world in Bristol Bay, Alaska. The idea is to raise awareness and create a market that supports a sustainable supply chain.
And GOODFISH is poised to pull it off. They've created a modern, joyful brand around a great tasting innovative product. A serving of these crispy, snackable skins packs 7g of high quality protein, 2600mg marine collagen, and 800mg of omega 3 fatty acids.
GOODFISH is a brand new product, and the first of its kind. But it's also the flipside to Justin and Doug's other venture, Harmless Harvest, the beloved coconut water brand that saw major investment from Danone in 2018. The way Justin describes it, the two brands are part of one ongoing project inspired by deep ecology and constructive capitalism.
How many grammy winners can you name as investors?
If it's zero or one, Partake Foods has you beat. Because this great tasting, allergen-free cookie brand counts both Jay-Z and H.E.R. as marquee investors.
And it's not just celebrity investors who are taking notice. Today Partake is available in more than 2,700 stores (including major retailers like Whole Foods and Target), and has been featured everywhere from Forbes to the Today Show.
Not bad for a brand that launched out of an apartment barely three years ago.
So how did Partake do it? To find out, we sat down with Denise Woodard, the CEO and founder of Partake Foods.
One reason Partake has resonated so deeply is the idea of inclusion that's core to the Partake story. Denise's daughter suffers from a rare combination of food allergies, and her initial goal was simply to create a treat that her daughter, and kids like her, could actually enjoy.
Partake was also one of the inaugural brands in SnackNation's Amplify box, a special curation highlighting and celebrating BIPOC- and women-founded snack brands.
The idea of inclusion extends to Denise as a leader too. Like any founder, Denise feels the pressure to do right by her customers and investors. But she also describes a deeper responsibility she feels to pave the way for women founders and founders of color through Partake's success.
You can tell from speaking to and learning about Denise that she is a skilled leader, and she tells us about the leadership style that she's honed over the years, first as an executive at Coca-Cola, and now as the leader of a high-growth startup.
Denise also shares when it's time for your business to take venture money (and when not to), Partake's early re-brand, plus the mindset brand founders need to build their brand in a pandemic.
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Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
Before he launched Magic Spoon, Gabi Lewis had wondered why no one had disrupted the cereal space.
When he asked around, the experts all told him the same thing:
"Cereal is a dying category."
The truth is, while cereal might technically be declining slightly, it's still an $11 billion opportunity. And the conventional wisdom that led so many founders to avoid the space actually created major opportunity - opportunity that Gabi and his co-founder Greg Sewitz promptly seized by launching Magic Spoon in 2019.
Magic Spoon is a concept that's so brilliant, it seems almost obvious: cereal that looks and tastes like childhood favorites but is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. Their goal from day one was to be the Halo Top or Oatly of the cereal aisle.
So far that strategy has paid off with booming sales and glowing praise from consumers and media alike. The brand has been featured in WIRED, CNN, and Fast Company, and called "The Cereal of the Future" by Forbes. Eye-popping packaging and whimsical branding that appeals to nostalgic, health-conscious Millennials doesn't hurt either.
In this episode, we learn how Magic Spoon nailed product-market fit, their unconventional approach to influencer marketing, and the lessons learned from Gabi and Greg Serwitz's first venture, Exo, the cricket based protein bar that they sold to Aspire Food Group in 2018.
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Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
Recess is a CBD beverage brand that almost never talks about CBD.
How is this possible? Because founder and CEO Benjamin Witte knows that the best beverage brands don't focus on an ingredient… they convey a feeling.
Case in point: Redbull. You may have noticed that with all their talk of energy, action sports, and giving you "wings," Redbull never talks about caffeine. Because feeling is more powerful than the ingredient.
So why should the CBD category be any different?
Founded in 2017, Recess is a consumer wellness brand creating products and experiences designed to help people feel balanced, centered, and inspired so they can be their most productive and creative selves. They make sparkling water infused with calming hemp extract and adaptogens for balance and clarity.
Benjamin and the Recess team have their sights set on becoming the next Redbull. To do that, they're building their brand around the feeling of calm and tranquility - aka, "taking a recess."
Recess also recently did something pretty unexpected - they launched an apparel collection called "Reality Wear." In this episode, you'll learn how this all ties back to Ben's philosophy on brand marketing.
On top of that, you'll learn what every CPG brand should borrow from Silicon Valley, and why the era of building a brand by doing demos in Wegman's is over (plus what to do instead).
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Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
Until COVID, you could argue that Dan Gluck had seen it all in the CPG world.
Dan brings an impressive trifecta of related experience to the table. He's been an institutional investor with 15 years in the hedge fund space, an owner-operator with the wildly successful Health Warrior brand, and now a partner at one of the most innovative VC firms in CPG.
But COVID is an unprecedented challenge, forcing some brands to pivot on a dime and throw out the old playbook. Success in a pandemic requires founders to adopt a specific mindset and set of skills.
Fortunately, Dan's experience has given him a unique vantage point to guide emerging brands through this crisis. Even better, this week he shares that POV with Brand Builder.
Dan Gluck is a Managing Partner at PowerPlant Ventures, a firm that invests in emerging consumer food & beverage, foodservice and food-tech companies. Their mission is to "re-architect" the global food system by investing in world changing companies that deliver better nutrition in more sustainable and ethical ways.
Prior to PowerPlant, Dan founded Health Warrior, the plant-based superfood company that successfully exited to Pepsi in 2018.
This is a great conversation on Dan's experience with Health Warrior and PowerPlant - for starters, we learn the 5 powerful megatrends that drive PowerPlant's investment strategy.
But if that weren't enough, what we really found valuable was Dan's take on how COVID is affecting CPG. He talks in depth about how the best companies and leaders are reacting to the crisis, and what you should be doing right now to ensure your success during and after this challenging time.
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What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!
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Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
For the last few years, Jeff Martin has made the same New Year's Resolution –
"Speak up more."
The financial-analyst-turned-CPG-entrepreneur isn't talking about having a bigger hand in decision-making at Pipsnacks, the brand he co-founded with his sister Jen and wife Teresa. It goes deeper than that.
It means speak up and confront injustice, whenever he encounters it. Speak up as a founder of color in a space where that's a rarity. Speak up so that others may follow the example he and his co-founders have set.
We are in the midst of historic societal change. The tragic, senseless death of George Floyd has ignited protests across the U.S. and around the world, and heightened our collective awareness of systemic racism.
Many are learning what others have known for a long time – that racial injustice affects every aspect of society. The world of CPG is no exception.
This week we're bringing you a very special interview with Pipsnacks' Jeff Martin. While Pipsnacks is one of our absolute favorite brands, this episode is not really about their business. (Check out Episode 5 for that.) This is a conversation about race and identity, and how those forces shaped who Jeff is as an entrepreneur and as a human being.
We originally recorded this interview as part of SnackNation's internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programming during Black History Month. And while this conversation was pre-COVID and before the global Black Lives Matter protests, we ultimately felt that it spoke to the present moment. We are grateful that Jeff agreed, and gave us permission to share it with all of you.
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What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!
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Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.
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