Pastazerts

0:00Stephanie Berwick:Welcome to the Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. This is the podcast to discover stories behind your new favorite CPG brands. Each episode brings you behind the scenes of the brand and founder story, learn what sets them apart in the marketplace, and their strategy going to market. We talk about plans for growth, practical advice for an emerging brand founder, and where to shop products that are making waves in food, beverage, wellness, beauty, and beyond. You'll also hear from industry experts, brand builders, investors, and operators you should absolutely have on your radar if you're building a CPG brand today.

0:44Stephanie Berwick:I'm your host, Kelly Bennett, a Brooklyn-based brand strategist with a front row seat of what makes an emerging CPG brand stand out. Whether you're building a brand of your own or love supporting what's next, you're in the right place. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator-powered retail activations. They are connecting everyday creators with CPG brands to generate shelf-level awareness, drive in-store momentum, and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most. Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you.

1:30Stephanie Berwick:Now, let's dive into the new episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. Today, I have Stephanie Berwick. She is the founder of Pastaserts, which is this really cool product that I've been wanting to know more about. So Stephanie is on the podcast today. And hi, I'm so happy you're here. Oh, thank you so much, Kelly. It's great to be here. Of course. I'm excited to tell you all about chocolate ravioli and pasta desserts. I mean, chocolate ravioli, let's just start there. What was the concept or what did you want to do different in this space in merging pasta and desserts?

2:12Stephanie Berwick:Let's start with that. Yeah, let's start there. So there's a really fun story about how all of this started. Reversed back about a decade and I was in corporate world I had a long career in fintech. You know, I like to dabble in multiple things. That's just, you know, a lot of founders personalities anyway. And I was doing like some amateur competitive cooking. And I won my way into the World Food Championships out in Las Vegas at the time. I think they've moved around a bit. Two years in a row, I went out there with my husband, who is an actual chef. And he was my sous chef. Very nice of him.

2:54And we had a theme. And so the theme first year was pasta. Second year was dessert. And I brought the chocolate ravioli with me both years. It was a variation of some of our flavors today. We had a peppermint, you know, kind of in the filling and, and we did like a strawberry compote and a nice whipped cream, how we plated it. And it was just fun. And so fast forward, I was getting a little, you know, stagnant maybe and a little bored in corporate world. And I wanted to see what we could do in food. And, you know, that's kind of what I thought about was it kept going back to the chocolate ravioli.

3:29So here we are. So your husband is a chef.

3:33Stephanie Berwick:He is a chef. And you were in financial technology. That's right. And you then got into food too. Yeah. Also, I love that you put yourself in food competitions. That's cool. And that definitely shows your entrepreneurial spirit, right? Where are the people who are like, you know what, I've never done this before. So let me do it and go all in. Right. And so when did it start becoming a brand and a product that you're like, I think we could make this a business. Yeah, I mean, I started slowly. You know, some people kind of go out of the gate really fast. And I was still working full time. So I figured, first and foremost, this is a new concept.

4:20Let's test the market. Let's get customer feedback. Yes. And I did that by way of I live in Rockaway Beach in Queens. And so we have kind of a smaller community here, you know, versus like big city Manhattan. And it was a really good testing ground with pop up markets and that kind of thing. So that's where I started in 2023 is, you know, just figuring out, do people like this concept? And then, you know, did a little bit of website build on Shopify, a little bit of direct to consumer, just again, testing the market, getting some feedback. And actually through that process, we did change our formulation a little bit.

4:57In the early days, we were not baking them. We were actually just creating the dough, filling them like a regular ravioli, and then putting them into trays and packaging them. And so they were uncooked. And we recommended baking them for a few minutes. the feedback we got at a lot of those markets was we want to bring this to dinner parties and so we want it ready to go and so we changed that process a bit we had some control because we were self producing in a commercial kitchen since then we moved to a manufacturer so they actually boil the ravioli now in the production process and then go right to the freeze tunnel so that was a good kind of segue to it's all ready to go and you can eat it cold, you can warm it up and very versatile.

5:44So that was a really good feedback.

5:46Stephanie Berwick:That's also a really great point of testing, experimenting, getting real feedback from real people who would actually buy your product when especially you're doing something that most people haven't heard of or something that you created yourself of like, Like, ooh, these two things I really love. Let's put them together and see what people say. I love how you iterated fairly quickly so that you were able to really meet people where they wanted to take your product, even if it wasn't originally on your radar or something that you originally thought to do. So once you started doing your pop-ups in Queens, getting feedback, what then helped you take the jump just in your own career and saying, okay, this is something I really want to pursue and this has some legs.

6:44Stephanie Berwick:What did that look like? Yeah, I would say 2023, officially like incorporated in March, so early that year. And again, still working full time. By December, I was like, okay, I think I really want to do this, you know, really go hard and maybe leave the corporate setting and the stability of all of that. Very scary. But I took a retail ready course. I learned a lot of the industry terms. Cut out to retail ready. I love Alleyball. Okay, cool. So that helped you feel more confident in taking that? Yeah, just emerge yourself in the new industry, right? It's very new to me. I come with a lot of corporate experience, but in technology, some of those skills are transferable for sure.

7:33And I actually did a lot of business development and sales and partnerships and relationship management. And so those pieces I knew were good, you know, to bring into an entrepreneurial setting. But I didn't know a lot of the industry terms in CPG.

7:48Stephanie Berwick:I didn't know what buyers are looking for. Yeah, all of those things. It really is. And then, you know, kind of the writing was on the wall with this company I was working for, my last tech company. And I just knew I didn't want to be there much longer. So I kind of geared myself up, set myself up as best as I could financially and, you know, structurally and, you know, just hit the ground running and kind of reaching out to buyers early to 2024 last year. So is that when you officially went all in? Yes, all in in February of last year. Amazing. Amazing. So February of 2024, we're recording in March of 2025, which probably feels like 10 years in entrepreneurial years, right?

8:38Stephanie Berwick:Because every day is so intense. What has been your strategy of building the brand now that you're all in? Right. You know, doing my own outreach, right? Again, learning kind of the buyer signals, what they're looking for. Starting small backyard of New York City is amazing to do that, right? We have a lot of independent grocers. We have places. I started with Butterfield Market was one of my first, you know, so-called chain accounts, if you will. But, you know, if you live here, you know, they're a great flagship destination, right? For great foods and foodies. So that was a really great experience working with them and just kind of getting my feet wet.

9:17And then we We were self-producing, my husband and I, he was, he's still working full time. So he was putting this in on the weekends and at night in the commercial kitchen with me. And Stu Leonard's came along and said, we want to order like a hundred cases. And we had no readiness for that, but you get that kind of claim to fame, you get on the radar and that was, you know, that projected us pretty far, especially last year when we were just starting out and we learned a lot going through that process. And who did you get on their radar? Honestly, LinkedIn. I did outreach on LinkedIn, just looked up who potentially the buyers were.

9:58And that company, a lot of the corporate folks have been there for 20 plus years. And within the first outreach response, I think I got a response within a couple of days. I had a purchase order by maybe 10 days later. So it moved very quickly. Yeah.

10:18Stephanie Berwick:And we didn't even have enough packaging to fill it. That was sorry. What's that? It was a hundred cases right off the bat. A hundred cases, a hundred cases off the bat. And at the time we were doing 12 units per case. So right now we're back down to six and, you know, lesson learned 12 units per case gets you a nice purchase order, but a lot of, a lot of production. And so we had to order packaging and I actually got creative and had to split up the order to be able to deliver, produce, get packaging in the door and be able to deliver 100 cases within, you know, basically a month. It was a lot.

11:01Stephanie Berwick:Yeah. That is a cool story. Yeah. I love that. And shout out to LinkedIn. You know, there's so much you could be doing on LinkedIn. and I just personally have used it so much to build my business, especially the podcast. It's those things that I really love that you could be doing proactively as you're learning, or maybe as you're still at your nine to five and wanting to make the leap, just doing that networking. Even if you're watching Netflix, you could be actively looking for the right people to get in front of. It's so true. LinkedIn is a great tool. And it's funny to me and ironic that coming from, you know, fintech and corporate worlds, of course, you're a user of LinkedIn.

11:44But to the degree of moving to a food business, I had no idea it was such a great ground for those contacts, for that outreach, for that networking and thought leadership and all of those things. I use LinkedIn much more now today as an entrepreneur than I did in the corporate setting, which is just ironic to me. So interesting.

12:07Stephanie Berwick:what else has been part of your strategy? I know you're working in food service as well. I would love to hear just how all of those aspects are working together. Yes. It's, you know, it's, it's hard, especially when you're starting out to focus, you know, too broadly, right. And, and different channels and that kind of thing. But, so obviously we started in retail last year was a good proving ground for retail for us. And now we're in about 200 or so stores. Yeah, it's great. You know, that's huge. Yeah, we have some really great chains that we're working with, especially the independents as well.

12:44But someone's all shout out. But food service, this particular product, and again, listening to customers listening to, you know, my husband's a chef. So we have some good connections in the restaurant industry. other chefs, you know, giving us feedback, this is a great food service product. And so it's low labor, all of those kinds of things you want to hit on, you know, when you're talking to restaurants and caterers and the like. So I've been developing that side of the business. And, you know, we have some interest from some big names, but we're also right now just focused on selling into some single, maybe, you know, two restaurant operators and, you know, that's Long Island, New York City, kind of close to home.

13:31So we can really be close to that feedback and understand how they're serving and plating. But I do see this as a, you know, really great channel for us to push into. And so that's, that's exciting. We had in Philadelphia, I guess there's this Italian restaurant. That's the oldest American Italian restaurant in the country. And they ordered from us just recently. So very exciting things happening there. Yeah.

13:57Stephanie Berwick:That's some cool credentials, right? I really love how you are moving into food service a bit about me. I was a partner of a restaurant for years. And it's so true. You're pressed for time, you're pressed for labor, you want to keep your margins at a really, really good space because talk about cogs and all of that, like in the restaurant business that can make or break you. I love how this product is such an easy play here that totally makes sense for a restaurant, a cafe, add to their bottom line also of higher ticket average. That's a fairly low lift. It totally makes sense. And I'll be honest, when you were, I was first learning about your product, I wouldn't even have thought food service, but knowing now a bit more, it's, yeah, that's a cool channel.

14:54It's also, you know, it's a different, different game, but also different value proposition, a different sales technique, you know, and you can't just assume the same, you know, the same value props for both channels in retail and food service. So to your point, You know, we're talking about low labor, but also we're telling them to prep it a little bit differently than at home. So if you're buying it off the shelf, most people don't have a full size or, you know, a real fryer, deep fryer, you know, at home. Some people do, but air fryers, right? Typically you find an air fryer in someone's kitchen.

15:31So we recommend on our packaging and the store level to air fry or oven or, you know, pan fried. but air fry preferred in the restaurant setting deep fry. Um, and it's actually only one minute. We've tested this over and over again, probably so good. Yeah, it's so good. And so a little different, right. Then what I can really kind of, you know, push the consumer to do at home and that's in their own setting, but it turns out great and it's very quick and simple. And then they could add like powdered sugar onto it. So it becomes almost like a fried dough with a really great filling. And, you know, like I said, just really simple, right, really quick to plate.

16:11So totally different messaging.

16:14Stephanie Berwick:Absolutely. Is there anything else on your radar that you're excited about with the brand? Yes, we have a new flavor coming out. Okay. It's very exciting. We have, you know, we've done kind of these nostalgic flavorings and the fillings, but really the sky's the limit. We can pretty much put any filling into the chocolate bevoli we would like to um so then it becomes what's the priority and we've listened to some italian chefs and food service and the like and they're looking for more italian themed you know type of flavors and so peanut butter and jelly is great it's nostalgic kids seem to really love it that's our you know one of our legacy skews and our strawberry cheesecake as well but cannoli has come to mind.

17:02Cannoli with some chocolate flakes in there. So a little texture and to kind of boost that chocolate flavor as well. And we're going to push that out into food service first and then into retail in the coming probably four to six weeks.

17:17Stephanie Berwick:Amazing. That sounds so good. I could totally see my family, my very Italian New York family, loving that like Christmas Eve and like having a whole spread brilliant yeah and from a marketing perspective cannoli ravioli I mean it just cannoli ravioli I can't believe this isn't already a thing I mean like a perfect marriage of two delicious things um so I would love to ask you also where can people shop your products and follow along your ravioli dessert that you're building here? Absolutely. So, you know, New York based, of course, my backyard is kind of where we started from. And, you know, the radius sort of outside of that up and down the East coast is typically where we're selling along with our distributor, you know, their kind of lines into the East Coast.

18:13So our biggest, our best, I would say our best retailers are DeChico's, you know, found in typically Westchester in New York and then ShopRights. We have Citarella that just came online in June and all Citarella stores, including the Hamptons, which was great in the summer, of course. And we were in Fairway in the city and Gourmet Garage and many others. We have a store locator, of course, on our website. But yeah, we're down to, I think, North Carolina and all the way up to Maine. And now we're starting to push into the Midwest and, you know, on the West Coast as well. TBD, you know, some new announcements coming soon.

18:55Stephanie Berwick:Incredible. Well, congratulations, Stephanie. And I just love how this all started from a personal passion and you just taking it that next step, next step, next step to hear now where you've built the business in still a relatively short time. I'm really excited to hear where it all goes next. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure being here and talking with you today. And thank you. You're so welcome. Thank you everyone for listening and I'll see you on the next episode. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator powered retail activations.

19:33Stephanie Berwick:They are connecting everyday creators with CPG brands to generate shelf level awareness, drive in-store momentum, and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most. Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you. If you're new here, hi, I'm Kelly Bennett, a Brooklyn-based brand strategist working with first-time CPG food and beverage founders. I have a front row seat of what makes an emerging CPG brand stand out because you're not just building a product, you are building a brand. And you want to make sure that is one that consumers love and retailers remember.

20:18Stephanie Berwick:That's where I come in. I've recently advised brands like Frankly Good Coffee, She's the Sauce, a new non-alcoholic cocktail line that's coming to market soon, and a hormone-conscious deodorant because food adjacent brands count to. If you are bringing a new product to market, please reach out at withkellybennett.com. Thank you so much for listening and sharing. You can follow me on Instagram at withkellybennett and you can follow the show at Emerging Brands Podcast. Thank you again and I'll see you on the next episode.