Peepal People

0:00Welcome 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.

0:44I'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 episode was made possible by our sponsor, Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is a platform that connects everyday small creators with brands that drive user-generated content, build buzz at specific retailers, and captures competitive market share. It's a tool that I recommend to all of my clients that you should absolutely check out. Head to hummingbirds.com for all the details.

1:28Now, 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 a founder on who I've been genuinely looking forward to having on the podcast. We have been in touch for over a year. Ever since they've launched, they've been on my radar, and they've, more importantly, been in my pantry, my refrigerator, using it on my products. Elise Rizvi is here. She is the co-founder and CEO of People People. And I'm so happy to finally have you on the show.

2:04Alyzeh Rizvi:Thank you for having me, Kelly. And first, that really sweet intro. It's true. I've been pouring your sauce on everything. It's delicious. Absolutely delicious. us. Before we dive too much into your background, because I always love to hear how someone made the leap and the jump into becoming a CPG founder and all that good stuff. I would first love to kick things off with bringing people behind the scenes of People People and what exactly is the brand and what are your products? Just giving us a good overview to start the convo. Absolutely. Yeah. So People People is a South Asian pantry brand.

2:42Alyzeh Rizvi:We say that it's a new kind of South Asian pantry brand. And the reason for that is because, you know, with our products are really highlighting the nuances and how South Asians today in the diaspora here in the US, immigrants, how they eat, how they incorporate those flavors into their day-to-day meals. So our first line of products is three hot sauces that use techniques that are used back in Pakistan and India, like fermentation, in order to keep sodium levels down, which again is something that, you know, we're genetically predisposed to have a lot of issues related to diabetes, hypertension.

3:21Alyzeh Rizvi:So our focus was like, how do we deliver a product that is a condiment that we love and everybody gets to enjoy, but focusing on the health aspects as well. Love it. So just something that you touched upon, a few things that I was just at fancy food. we were at Expo West a few things that are really hot right now South Asian pantry items super cool seeing they get into really the mainstream two is hot sauces that was such a big trend even at summer fancy food and three is fermentation it's personally something that I've been looking forward in products and I love that your brand checks all three boxes and I would love to hear how you came about hot sauce and fermentation to start off with.

4:16Like what was about that type of product, but also the process that really made you say, okay, this is how we're going to launch and this is where we're going to start off.

4:29Alyzeh Rizvi:Absolutely. So our journey really started in New York. I moved from Pakistan directly to New York. So that for me was, you know, when I moved there, I was like, oh, this is the place I want to be. And, you know, there were obviously a lot of spaces that we would frequent, such as Smorgasburg, the market there, right, we would come across all these small batch makers and farmers. And around that same time was the time when we started noticing this is about this like 2018, 2017, we started noticing that there was a huge movement for fermentation. And for us who come from like, you know, hotter climate in Pakistan where it's really hot out there we use techniques like that to preserve our food and I think that was the point where we kind of hit us that we were like oh these are techniques that we use and they're they're being adopted by you know the western society now and maybe there is something there that we can do about it and fast forward to 2019 when we actually started we had a huge backyard in Texas where we had you know kind of moved for a little while and that's where we grew our peppers, all the peppers are obviously the ones that we grow here, are consumed here, like jalapenos, habaneros, and things like that.

5:43Alyzeh Rizvi:But we really turned, when we started thinking about what kind of hot sauce we wanted to make, we turned to fermentation. It was something that we knew. We've always done this in our own kitchens. We make chutneys in a char, ferment a bunch of vegetables with oil and things like that. So I think the question at that point was, okay, do we want to make an HR? Do we want to make a chutney? And what we turned to was we wanted to make something that was kind of for ourselves too, because my husband and I both together, he has diabetes, hypertension, and I have high cholesterol. all and so we automatically turned to something that we said it was going to be a chutney we wanted the texture the kind of makings of a chutney so you don't strain the peppers for instance or the produce you let the salt be in there so the textural qualities were of a chutney but I think we also started then thinking about we wanted people to try those flavors and over But here in the US, the hot sauce culture was just picking up at that point.

6:46Alyzeh Rizvi:And that's when we said, OK, we're going to do this. And that's how it really started. And how was it to turn, say, a chutney into a hot sauce? Or was there stuff that you had to adjust in the formulation or even to yourself and your family of like, wait, what are you doing with our chutney? I would love to hear that connection. in? You know, it really is just a play on words, right? A chutney is essentially the format of a chutney, the way that it's made. It is a bunch of vegetables that are put together, a bunch of spices. And you can kind of, you know, it's almost like a salsa. If you put it in a grinder, or you figure out something where you make it a little bit mushy and pulpish, and that's how you serve it.

7:38Alyzeh Rizvi:But I think that the format for us at that point was, we wanted to stick to that format, but we wanted to present it in a way that was a relatable format for the American market. And so if you think about it now too, we got featured in this article in Eater recently, and the article is actually called The Best Chutneys Out There. And we're in actually in that article. And it's interesting because the writer for that article, basically she mentions that you know this appears to be a hot sauce but it tastes like a chutney because it has all of those the way a chutney is made it's actually that's how our sauce is made most hot sauces if you walk into an aisle today they're strained you know you can I don't want to take names but they're basically strained all the pulp is taken out and you have essentially the liquid right this is a chunkier sauce you'll see the seed you'll see the fresh produce in there you're going to taste it you might bite into it it's there the consistency is very similar to a chutney if that makes sense absolutely and I really love the consistency of your sauces because it's not super watery and to me it just makes the dish it feels like an ingredient versus something that is just kind of melting off of it it feels more intentional and that's something that really struck me when I tried it.

8:58I was like, whoa. And also the flavors, it was just really great, like a really cool pop of flavor on almost anything. So walk me through what was your career prior to starting People People? What were you doing before all of this?

9:17Alyzeh Rizvi:So by profession, I'm an architect and a industrial designer. People People actually started while I was in grad school. I was at RISD, Rhode Island School of Design, and I was getting my master's degree there, and I was taking some classes at Brown as well. And I think what I realized, the realization I had in grad school was essentially that all the projects that were studio projects that were given to me, or the prompts that we were given, they were all, I took them all and I converted them into very cultural projects. And they were all essentially a reflection of who I am as a designer, as a creative thinker, as an artist.

9:59Alyzeh Rizvi:And I think that was a moment for me when, you know, my husband at that time was in Texas, he was planting peppers, I actually took a bunch of sauce back to my class, which was 27 folks out of which 19 were different nationalities. And we did like a kind of table testing and everybody tried them. And it was like a really communal effort how the business really started um and you know when it finally happened that was when I graduated and I was in my final rounds at Microsoft um they they told me that you know they're no longer hiring and at that point I was like okay you know what I am going to take this that I something that everybody's enjoying asking for more in seconds and I'm going to turn this into something.

10:44Alyzeh Rizvi:And so I think I just took that as an opportunity to kind of move away from what my career was going to be in tech and design and talk about my story, talk about the roots, talk about the community and do it in a way that, you know, that was authentic to who I am as a person. I'm a product of the West and the East. And so I wanted to do it in a way where I didn't want to move away from the roots too much, but at the same time, acknowledging that I'm a part of this society and the way we eat here in the US, we're no longer having a desi meal every day. Like I love my tacos. I love my, you know, pastas, but we do go, I do go and grab that hot sauce on a table.

11:27Alyzeh Rizvi:So I think I really wanted to kind of think about how we eat today and then introduce pantry items that are more for people over here in the US. You've done a great job of incorporating both. And like I said, before I hit record today, I was just on a call with two different founders who want to bring in their culture, their heritage, their traditional techniques, but then bring that into a modern product for the US market that feels approachable and people can wrap their head around and it's an easy, oh yeah, I'll try that. And it's not a simple thing to go about. So I would love to hear what was your strategy connecting those dots?

12:14Again, having a clear point of view, making sure that the brand paid respect to the heritage and your roots and also bring it into a more modern interpretation of say the hot sauce.

12:29Alyzeh Rizvi:Absolutely. I think, you know, for, I mean, as a designer, I think I've always been, I've always thought of people first, because, you know, for, as an artist, you always kind of put forth your own perspective. But as a designer, you're trained to think about what people want, right? Like, and what are the needs that we're trying to solve here? I think for me, the larger goal with People People was that I am on a mission to bring a diversified pantry brand to the market. Maybe we'll do different things in the future. I don't necessarily know what those products look like, but I always wanted to create a space for South Asians in a way that we are nuanced people.

13:12Alyzeh Rizvi:And we eat a lot of things that are like a fusion food that we create ourselves. So I wanted to be in that space. And so having said that, I think for me, the first thing that I did was I signed this up for farmers markets. I think that the local community, wherever you are, is the best, is going to give you the best, most honest response. And that was kind of my testing ground, if that makes sense. Our sauces there, our sauces, I don't know if you know this, but last year before we did our rebrand, our sauces were named in Urdu. and that is the native language that I speak and a lot of it was homage to the my language and I mean if you have to think about the fact that this was a pandemic brand and I could know my parents were in Pakistan I couldn't visit them I did not know when I would visit them and so when I created this brand I was like okay let's say I can never go back there are lots of us who can never go back and visit or whatever and so what is what what am I trying to create here who am I representing and so even the name of the brand is called people people it means um the first people is essentially a tree that you find in India Pakistan it's a beautiful tree a huge tree from the time of you know Budan even beyond that and uh it has beautiful hardship hardship leaves and you know growing up in Pakistan I had these memories of when the electricity would go out and we'd sit under the tree have tea play on the swings on the from the tree so I was trying to always create this sense that we are the people from the land of the people tree.

14:52And so it was

14:53Alyzeh Rizvi:always going to be a community-based initiative, whatever I was going to bring to the market. And so having said that, it pushed us into the farmer's market kind of space. And we did a lot of festivals. We still do in Atlanta. And those festivals are really testing grounds where you are testing, okay, does the sauce, does the product resonate? Are people enjoying the sauce? And, you know, we would always kind of find that people would buy all three. So they were really enjoying the sauces. But then what happened was when they would come back for seconds, they didn't know how to pronounce the names of the sauces.

15:29And so that for me was like a kind of like a learning there.

15:34Alyzeh Rizvi:And so when I did the rebrand and I had like enough, you know, kind of funds to kind of do that rebrand, it was focused on. All right. So now we know that people love the sauce. but if they don't know how to pronounce it or read it on a shelf then that's a blocker so we need to fix this so that's kind of how we went into the rebrand also thinking about the retail space you know how does a brand stand out how does the bottle stand out and so that rebrand was kind of focused was very strategic focusing on the kind of how do we fly off the shelves when we're in retail. And you made a good point of when you have an innovative product, especially a product or a flavor profile that is new to the U.S.

16:16market, finding that balance of bringing culture, story, messaging, and also something that feels familiar. And I think sometimes people try too many things at the same time and then it's really great product. But like you said, Maybe people don't know how to say it or ask for it, right? Because it just was too out of the box at some points of the brand. So I like that you took a pause to recognize that and saying, well, we have all these aspects that tell our story. But a really, really important thing also, logistically and just strategically, is that people know how to say the name of the sauces and request it.

17:09And so when you're moving from farmer's market to retail, that's a huge, huge piece of the puzzle. Was there anything that really was hard for you to maybe let go or change or something that you didn't expect to stay? Like, what did that look like in that relaunch or rebrand?

17:30Alyzeh Rizvi:I think for to be honest I think it's funny like a lot of people have actually asked me this question and my brain is so wired in thinking that whatever I do as part of people people is in service of people and in service of you know whoever is consuming my my product that I've almost always never had that lens or like view so you know And I think as a designer too, when you do research, you realize that after a certain point, you start hearing the same information again and again. And that's kind of how you know that, you know, this is actually a problem and this is not working in my favor. So I think in terms of the compromise I made when I was bringing forth the new vision for the brand, letting go of the names, right?

18:24Alyzeh Rizvi:Right. There were actually really funny names for the sauces that, you know, a lot of the people from one who would write to me, they'd be like, oh, my God, we believe you actually have a product that's named in Urdu in the US. How are you doing that? How is it selling? Things like that. So, you know, a lot of people email me later. Oh, the names are gone. But I think, you know, my response to them would always be that I know the names are gone. but think about the fact that I want to introduce these flavors that are ours our culture our history our roots and our stories to people and I want to make them accessible I don't want to alienate you know my my when I named them in Urdu my my thought was never to alienate but I think in the process I kind of did and so I wanted it to be an inclusive brand if you're building a community you have to think about all the members of that community.

19:18Alyzeh Rizvi:And, you know, while South Asians advocate for us and our brand, I have a huge audience that's not South Asian. So, you know, that's kind of what I was thinking about always. Like, how do we keep solving problems, right? Like, and this was a huge blocker. So we held on to the little notes and the name of the brand, People People. And we held on to a lot of these different things about the brand, but we let go of those names because they were just not working. Thank you for sharing that because I'm sure I could think of people right off the top of my head who will be listening to this who've kind of been going in circles around how to find that balance.

19:56So I really appreciate you sharing that because I know it will be of value to quite a few emerging brand founders who are trying to strike that balance. something else that you were talking about with your rebrand just the visuals the the names of the SKUs was there anything else as far as the visual branding or even the form factor of the bottles that you really wanted to make sure was communicating the overall perspective of the brand to make sure that in those times where you're not in front of the brand right at the farmer's market you're standing with your product when it goes into retail it's like all on its own and your bottle becomes the salesperson right you're not standing next to it all the time was there anything else you wanted to make sure was being communicated absolutely I mean there were I did a lot of

20:49Alyzeh Rizvi:studies that were in person like I walked into every large store and kind of saw what they had on shelves and one of the things that I realized immediately was you know for within the hot sauce aisle, there were no hot sauces that were calling out lower sodium, which is something that, you know, we are doing. And it's interesting. It's definitely something that, you know, if you compare, if you pick up, I don't want to take names of brands, but if you're leading hot sauce brands have a good amount of sodium, I'm talking like 300 milligrams per teaspoon, which is the serving size. You know, ours is between 30 milligram to 50 milligram between all three sources, and it's significant significantly like lesser sodium.

21:31Alyzeh Rizvi:It's, it's definitely something that, you know, I had to worry about when I always have to worry about anyway, but I have to worry about specifically, like when I was pregnant with my son, you know, how much sodium that I was taking, because I was taking supplements and stuff. I know that a lot of people have hypertension, diabetes, it's actually the second most common issue that Americans face. And so, you know, I wanted those markers, those kind of call outs to be there front and center. So that's something we've done in the packaging, which you'll not find in the hot sauce aisle. And secondly, I think even the flavor descriptors, right?

22:06Alyzeh Rizvi:Our sauces, actually, I thought a lot about what we should name our sauces and the new, obviously, names of the sauces. And the sauces are all named after, one, the highlighted ingredient that we really want to highlight. So, you know, there's mango, jalapeno, there is habanero. So that one's a turmeric, habanero, garlic ghost. And the thought over there was after doing a bunch of research, I found that today's customer in the US knows the profiles and flavor profiles of jalapenos, habaneros, how those taste. So if they are somebody who actually enjoy that flavor, they are going to gravitate towards that immediately and they want to grab it.

22:48Alyzeh Rizvi:so the thought process even naming them like I could have named them like a silly name right which a lot of hot talkers do right or I could have called it an original or something like that but I think for me what was important was to kind of can weigh if you're grabbing something and if you're somebody who's walking down the aisle you have like less than you know 10 seconds to look at things right if you're somebody who likes mango if you're not somebody who likes jalapeno you know, bam, you can grab it. If you like turmeric and habanero, you know, you grab that. So I think it was a lot of it was kind of studying how people shop and what do they have available and in the market and kind of responding to what wasn't in the market at the time.

23:29I like how you broke that down because again, sometimes founders in the really early days overcomplicate different factors of having someone understand what their product is because they want to get really creative and they are excited and they're doing something different, but then they go way too far in making everything kind of a puzzle piece that a consumer needs to put together. And so thank you for sharing that transparency and that shift that you made strategically because again, I'm sure that's going to be really helpful for a founder who is thinking about the name of their product SKUs and maybe want to have a fun creative name, but also at the same time needing to consider how someone needs to understand what it is clearly to be able to pick it up and add it to their cart.

24:27So thank you for breaking that down. I really appreciate it.

24:30Alyzeh Rizvi:Yeah, I'm glad that helps. So what is your goals for the year ahead? I mean, you are a year in. it sounds like it's going awesome again you have incredible products what is on your radar now yeah i mean we are working on new products which is super exciting we're working on a few retail launches uh in 2026 so not this year but 2026 and then um we're also you know working on kind of end of the year gift boxes so really fun gift boxes for the sauces are coming up which i'm super excited about. I designed them myself, which I don't think many founders can say that, but I did design them myself. It took me a while.

25:13Alyzeh Rizvi:That's incredible. Especially your background as a founder. That's really, really a powerhouse combo. Thank you. Yeah. And so I'm excited about that. And yeah, let's see. I mean, 2025 has been a blur between all the training folks. Right. You know, so let's see where 2026 takes us. I'm excited to see any last piece of advice you would share with an emerging brand founder oh um I think the best piece of advice I can give you is that you know no and everybody entering this if you are not from the CPG industry um I would say find find people around you and don't be afraid to ask questions and be curious.

26:04Alyzeh Rizvi:So I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to keep asking questions, going back to the drawing board if it's necessary. At the end of the day, you know, customer is very important, what they want from you and from your brand and from the products. So keep them always in mind. And yeah, that's kind of what I would say. So just keep reaching out and building community through your brand. That's been the most helpful thing that I've done for myself. That was going to be one of the big takeaways that came from this conversation of your awareness of people and community and incorporating people and having that in the fabric of your brand.

26:45Something that I admire in a brand and how I approach brands. and I love how you've connected those dots in such a beautiful way.

26:56Alyzeh Rizvi:Thank you so much. You're so kind. Of course. Okay, last question before I let you go. Where can people shop People People? Yeah, so obviously on our website, which is peoplepeople.com and we're in about 160 stores across the country and in a bunch of restaurants where we're also doing collaborations. So if you're in New York, like there's a restaurant called Lemkin, which is currently doing like a sandwich collaboration. Go check it out. It's been a great response. Amazing. I am putting that on my list. Yes, it's in Brooklyn. And they also have a few outlets, I think, in New Jersey. But the one in Brooklyn and Bedford, I think, is a good one.