Pikora

0:00Ana Lander: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.

0:44Ana Lander: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.

1:29Ana Lander: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 Anna Lander. She is the founder and CEO of Pecora, which is this very cool bone broth brand that has been on my radar and is the only brand I've been really genuinely open to trying in bone broth. And just from the packaging to her social, I think she's just doing a standout job. So Anna, I'm so happy to have you on the podcast today. You're making me blush. Thank you for having me. Doing an awesome, awesome job. And I'm excited to nerd out with you and just hearing more behind the scenes of how you've been building the brand.

2:20Ana Lander:But first, let's just jump right into Bone Broth. It's an interesting space because I feel like 10 years ago, I never heard of it. And now it's like super normal to have Bone Broth. And I lived in the East Village where there was a Bone Broth shop right on my corner. What did you see as the brand opportunity or what you wanted to do different in this space? So I'm originally from Venezuela. So I grew up eating and drinking bone broth. The backbone of Latin American cuisine is bone broth. So when I moved to the States for college, I found everything kind of blends, you know, a lots of sauces, lots of sodium to sort of disguise, the lack of flavor.

3:15And about three years ago, I was working at Condé Nast, and I got the nastiest of flu. And I was craving my mom's chicken soup. I was living, I'm still living, but by then I was in LA. And, you know, terribly homesick. And I asked my husband to go and get me some bone broth so I could cook my mom's chicken soup. And he literally brought the entire aisle. It was insane. Nothing was good. No shade or shame to my fellow competitors, but it was in my mom's bone broth. And, you know, I lived off soup for a week and I sort of reconnected with the idea that having bone broth on a daily basis is actually great for you.

4:02And I started making my own bone broth because I didn't like what I found on the market. And I didn't have the time to go to the farmer's market every other weekend. So I went to my butcher, I bought some bones, you know, leftover veggies, and I would cook bone broth for 20 plus hours. And then coincidentally, a cousin of ours is a food scientist and was visiting us in LA to attend Expo West. And I told him like, listen, why isn't there any bone broth out there that's actually like tasting good and that it's lower in sodium and that reminds me of Latin America, everything it's like so bland and he's like I don't know um and I and and I think that the operation of doing like a bone broth in liquid would be like very difficult and he's like well there's this process called freeze-drying you just you know make it in a powder form and so we played around with it and then we we hit like the aha moments and we were like oh my god I think there's something here so long story short I started doing like focus groups with friends getting some feedback bag was still working full-time and I hired a food scientist in Oregon we would ship back and forth samples until like I nailed the recipe a combination between you know the traditional bone broth with some Latin American hints like we have some ancho chile so because I needed a kick some heat, some, you know, herbs and aromatics.

5:34And then I got laid off. And we, yes. So everybody these days, they quit their jobs in private equity, but nobody talks about what about the people that we get laid off? What year was that that you got laid off? I got laid off in April of 2024.

5:56Ana Lander:Oh, okay. So that wasn't that long ago. No, I was by then, like, I think that I worked on Picora and at Conde. We interlap, we overlapped for like nine months. I was working, my team was in New York. I was in LA. I was working East Coast hours. So by two, three tops, I was done. And, you know, I could dedicate some time to develop the product, but product development is very time consuming so when I got that dreadful email from HR my husband sat me down and he was like listen you've been working on this side project for nine months now you've got some decent you know uh like a decent uh severance package you have some good savings because you've been working corporate 10 years this is your time like if you don't do this you'll regret it.

6:51And I was like, okay, let's do it. Nose dive, like head first. And we launched Bigora in January of 2025. So it's been nine months.

7:02Ana Lander:Another nine months. Okay. This is feeling very full circle. So you mentioned your background in editorial. What was the things that you wanted to take from your previous career into the brand, but also what were you learning hands-on first time? Because CPG, food and beverage, it's its own world. It's its own beast. So I would love to hear kind of how you took some of your background, but also what was on your radar to figure out. 100%. My background is in advertising growth and my first job out of college was married. So I was, and then I moved to an ad agency to work on the merit account. So I was very much into hospitality and food and bev.

7:55And I've always been a foodie. My mom was a great cook. She died when I was 21. So obviously been channeling a lot of her through like, you know, hosting and cooking and food for me is a binding agent. It brings people together.

8:10Ana Lander:And it also triggers memory of the smells. 100%. It really does something. Yeah. Nothing like the fall, you know, the fall leaves. And then we start smelling cinnamon pumpkin, you know, and we already were like holiday spirit. So I think that it was a combination between my curiosity, passion and love for food, my nostalgia from back home. you know the the flavors of Latin America and the traditions and that slowness of back home and adapted to this like new life that I made for myself in the United States I'm I became an American citizen in 2022 so I was like I need to blend what I know from food hospitality good design and marketing and let's just dive into this new industry that has nothing to do with anything that I learned and podcasts like yours um resources like you know startup cpg all of this like information that it's out there available for us like new founders was so useful oh well that makes me so happy that this podcast was helpful that's why this feels such like full circle.

9:30Who knew?

9:31Ana Lander:I love that. That really makes me happy because genuinely why I wanted to have this podcast is that first time founders, people just getting into CPG could hear stories from other founders or strategic partners to help them get that knowledge base and to think of new ideas or be inspired or really encouraged to of like, okay, I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing, but I'm going to figure it out. So I love hearing that. Yes. Thank you for making the space. I think that, you know, there's a ton of information and it could be, it's definitely overwhelming, but when you find that like right episode, that right article, you're like, you know what, I'll just do it.

10:17And that was my, that was my moment. I was like, if I don't do this right now with all of that, you know, all the information, the tools that I have in my hands, I'm gonna, you know, I will never forgive myself for trying, for not trying.

10:32Ana Lander:I feel that very much. So you officially launched January of 2025, nine months ago, which congratulations. You've been amazing job in nine months. What was your strategy? Maybe nine months ago, the same or different to what you're doing now to really get the brand out there and getting people to have Bacora on their radar and to try it. Because again, your flavors are a little bit different, which I really love. They stand out to me, but I would love to hear how you've been just getting the word out there. So we launched the week that the LA fire started, which was crazy. It was literally that week.

11:18Ana Lander:Were you in LA during that time? We were in LA. we had to evacuate my warehouse had to evacuate where my entire inventory was being stored and at that point when we evacuated I grabbed 16 boxes like a case and I was like you know if it all goes to hell then I have some good memories and it was a good run and I'll launch it was it was wild but it was amazing because I was planning to do an influencer event a cooking class with Italy in February. So I reached out to them and I was like, Hey guys, I know that you guys have a beautiful industrial kitchen. Can I borrow it? And instead of doing a launch party and using that product for PR gifting, can we cook for first responders?

12:07And they gave me, they gave me their kitchen. I invited some of my friends and we cooked 80 soups for firefighters and first responders. And that was the day that we launched Picora. And now I literally get goosebumps.

12:20Ana Lander:I got the goosebumps when you were saying that. Yeah, because Picora is exactly that. I feel that it's a brand and a product that should make you feel cared for. And it should make you feel homey. And it should bring people together and nurture people. We are so underfed. We love starving ourselves and going to cleanses and detoxes and yada, yada, yada. And food should be the opposite. It should be healing. So it felt like such a great moment to put the product out there and serve people, which was my number one focus. So to answer your question, I was in LA, which is a hub for CPG. And because we're self-funded at the time, I need to be strategic and not dilute myself.

13:12So I'm just focusing on strategic markets that I have community, that I understand the behaviors. So focusing right now in California, mainly SoCal, New York, and Florida, specifically in Miami. I lived in Miami seven years. I know a lot of people, a lot of stores. So the focus right now, we are a direct-to-consumer brand. And thanks to FAIR, which all founders should get into FAIR, it's such a great tool for wholesale and air goods. Thanks to FAIR and air goods, we are, I believe, in over 30 to 40 accounts across the country. Which is not much, but are the shoppy shops where our consumers are buying.

14:02And at this point, I'm building a brand. I know that I need to focus on sales and obviously get my, you know, cash flow going. But brands that don't make a connection with the consumers are brands that go extinct. I know that I know that the demand for bone broth is there cooking with bone broth is automatically better than cooking with water and now that now that we launched I'm discovering how people are using it but I think that the the demand is there bone broth is a millennial food it's been here forever even though if we've been listening on like in the past 10 years it's been it's been here.

14:44But a brand, that's what makes it stick. That's the memorable part. And there are no brands like Bigora out there. Bigora is, yes, bone broth. Yes, it's innovative because it's in a powder format. But it's light, it's fresh, it's bold, it has a Latin cultural lens. And, you know, the Latin American demo is the fastest growing demographic in the United States. Look at Siete. Look at all the brands that we are now seeing that we didn't pay attention to before. So that was my blank space. It is a crowded market in the sense that, you know, when you go and you step into the grocery store, it's overwhelming the amount of options, but there's still room.

15:30And if you connect with your consumer, they will come and find you once you're on the shelves.

15:37Ana Lander:that's a great point too of just culturally how your lived experience and your roots informed a product that people could be aware of and familiar with but it's unique and different because you're doing it and that's the types of brands that I love that sure bone broth is already on the market but not like how you're doing it and really telling that story. And literally from day one of launching, helping connect those dots in a way that makes people feel at home and, and like slow down and feel taken cared for. I think that's really cool how you're tying that into the brand. Yeah. And it's funny because Bicora, it's kind of, it's, It's like a funny coincidence.

16:29And I feel that Bicora is made for you to not spend so much time cooking and simmering. So you can spend more time out there. So it's like, and it's portable. So you can take it with you whenever, wherever you go. Because again, the pandemic is over. We're out there. We're traveling. We're going places. So I want the nutrition to always be available. Sometimes we make the worst decisions because we don't have access to good foods. We don't have time. So I thought, how can I make this fast, easy, approachable, accessible all in once? And again, I grew up with slow cooking. I grew up, you know, hours in the kitchen and seeing my mom cooking and making meals that would take forever.

17:15And that was a whole experience. We don't have time for that. We barely have time to catch a workout during the day. So I don't want the lack of time to become an obstacle for you to like feel nurtured and drink something, you know, nice. So hopefully, Picora will be the solution for people out there that are looking to take care of themselves, but live in a rush because we're trying to do everything.

17:45Ana Lander:So I mean, you're speaking my language. This is why I got on my radar. Like, yes, I need something like this. Could you tell us also about the cacao flavored skew that you have? That one, I haven't tried that yet. I'm like, I want, I'm like so curious, but I would love to hear from you first. And then I promise I will, but it just really stood out to me. I, again, I'm blushing. This is, so funny enough, the cocoa flavor was an accident. We were developing the chicken and the beef. And I grew up drinking this chocolatey tea, super sugary drink back home. It was like part of breakfast. So when we were developing the chicken and the beef, I was like, hmm, I don't have a sweet tooth, but I know folks out there do.

18:39And I know us girlies and ladies and women in different ages. The first thing that we do sometimes is have coffee on an empty stomach. and that's the worst thing that we can do. That's me. Yeah, me too.

18:52Ana Lander:Sometimes I have to say. So if I were to, you know, not do that, should like, am I opting and grabbing bone broth? Maybe because I have the habit, but what if I don't have the habit? Bone broth probably won't come across my mind. So how can we do an option that reminds of coffee or something sweet whenever you're craving that. So I was like, listen, I make this protein shake because I was working in corporate. I didn't have time. My protein shake was loaded with protein, peanut butter, and I would add spoonfuls of cocoa to make it extra dark. What if that cocoa has protein and collagen? Because I saw a trend for collagen.

19:42And then my food scientist was like, listen I don't think it's a good idea cocoa is really hard to get right now because there's a global shortage on the market there's an entire supply chain nightmare and I'm like no we're doing it I think this is gonna work and we developed this beautiful I'm so proud of our cocoa it's made with cinnamon and ancho chile some salt to elevate the cocoa profile and I was like this is what people are going to reach out to whenever they want a sweet in the afternoon, whenever they want a coffee replacement, whenever they want to spike up their coffee. So I drink my coffee with Bicora.

20:26Because yeah, if you pair caffeine with protein, and a little bit of fat with from the milk, that's a great pre workout. And like, like some, some almonds and or like a little rice cake, and then I go hit my gym first thing in the morning. It's such a great combination. And then at night, I'm always craving a little something, like either a square of dark chocolate. When I started making picora with warm milk at night before bed, it was such a soothing ritual. So I was like, we need to create a ritual more than a habit. We need to create a moment that people actually crave, not that they need.

21:09I need coffee to wake up. I need coffee to like survive the day. No, I want this to make me feel good and to make me feel like, like I'm treating myself to a nice thing that it's actually good for my body. Like my nails and my hair, I cut my hair short yesterday. Oh, thank you. But I used to have really long hair, luscious. Thanks to the college. I've been drinking bone broth for two years now my nails are great my hair is amazing I'm now I have a little bit of hives just because I'm allergic but it's like my allergies are crazy but you know my skin is beautiful like this is all bone broth doing the work so you know we need those type of nutrients okay asking for a friend aka how do I add it to my smoothie open the sachet put it inside your smoothie that's it that's it You don't need to mix it with water, not for the smoothie.

22:10Just treat it like if it's cocoa powder. Okay. That easy.

22:14Ana Lander:Try it. I'm very, I really wanted to talk to you about it. Cause again, this is all new world, but I want to try it because I think that would be so delicious. If you don't have samples that the ones that I sent you, I'll give you one tonight. Oh yeah. I'm going to see you. I love it. It's very, we are very full circle here on the Emerging Brands podcast. It's insane. I love it. Anything else that you have on your radar for closing out the year or the year ahead? We're working at the moment. Well, we sold out of our cocoa because the thing is that when you don't have historical data, you don't know how people are going to, you know, grab your product and behave with that product.

22:58Apparently people loved the cocoa so much that we sold out. So So we're dealing with a couple of nightmare things with the supply chain, but we will be back in stock in probably a week. But we're working on developing another product that we are hopefully launching in November that I think that people are going to love it. Hopefully by the time this episode is live, it's out there or about to launch. Working really hard on that. But I think that what's on my radar or on my horizon at the moment is nurturing my community. I need to continue finding that audience, listening and learning from them, hearing how they use the product.

23:45Because us founders, we have an idea of what our product is, and then the consumer has another different idea. They're like, oh, I use it very differently. And I'm like, interesting. I did not think about that. so just in this first year i wanna get to know my audience build the brand and yes continue working on landing those accounts because you need to be ready once you're in the shelves you need to be retail ready people need to know who you are and what you're all about so continue working on finding those specific key accounts that are where our audience and consumers are shopping

24:26Ana Lander:I am so excited for you. And just again, I'm thinking about how you just launched officially the beginning of this year, and what you have accomplished in the last nine months. Last question before I let you go, where can people shop Pecora? Pecora can be found on our website at it's holapicora.com. We are on Amazon as well. obviously if you want to support a brand buy direct you know we get we offer free shipping over 40 bucks you're gonna get some nice packaging and some we have a stockists on our website as well uh and hopefully you know you'll see us one day at home foods or at air one that would be the dream but in the meantime find us online perfect and i'll also connect the products in my shop my account and it will be linked to the thank you just click and shop and thank you again for coming on and for listening for the to the podcast and just sharing your story I know people will be listening to this and hearing your story now and feeling inspired and encouraged and I just really appreciate it thank you for having me and for listening of course of course thank you everyone for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.

25:51Ana Lander:This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator powered retail activations. They're 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.

26:40Ana Lander:And you want to make sure that is one that consumers love and retailers remember. 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 too. 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 with kelly bennett and you can follow the show at emerging brands podcast thank you again and i'll see you on the next episode