Gloria Shito's Blueprint For Building a Bootstrapped Food Brand From Scratch

0:00Hey, business festies. Welcome back to the Female Founder World Podcast. I'm Jasmine. I'm the host of the show and the creator of the Female Founder World Universe. And today I'm chatting with Gloria Alorbi. She's the founder of Gloria's She Talk. Welcome. You are now entering Female Founder World with your host, Jasmine Garnsworthy. Thank you so much for having me here today on your podcast. For people that don't know your business, what are you building? I am building recognition to the cuisine of Ghana, the taste of Ghana. and so my brand is Glorious Chateau. Chateau means spicy, pepper, or hot.

0:36So the translation is Glorious Pepe, Glorious Spicy Stuff, Glorious Hot Stuff. Ghanaian cuisine is spicy. Glorious Hot Stuff. Yeah. Ghanaian cuisine is spicy. If it's not spicy enough, you want to add more spice to it. So Chateau is the condiment that everyone has in their pantries, restaurants, street food, and it's just used to garnish everything and anything and I would describe Chateau as the taste of Ghana in terms of the flavor profile. You started the business in 2020 you started exploring this what was the kind of like first steps that you took to get this business off the ground because you're really just creating something that doesn't exist here so I imagine it was hard to find manufacturers to explain to people what it was that you were doing what did you do to get started?

1:19I believe what made sense was sharing on social media. I wanted to mainly bring recognition. So I wanted to talk about it. So I wanted to put it in people's faces and see how they would respond to it. Oftentimes, West African cuisine or African cuisine is not celebrated. It's not recognized. Many people at their wedding will not say I have West African cuisine on the menu. It's always Italian or French. No one's recognizing or wanting to go out for West African cuisine. And so that pride was not there. Outside my mom's kitchen, I couldn't access that taste of home. And so that was my ambition to put it on the pedestal just so the world can see that Ghanaian cuisine, West African cuisine is desirable and it's tasty and it's bold and flavorful.

2:14there's so much amazing opportunity at the moment for founders who come from cultures that are not the dominant culture in the United States to bring their culture through products and through businesses and we're seeing it a lot in beauty and now we're seeing it in food as well and I think it's a really exciting space and a lot of the people that we have on the podcast are bringing their culture through their businesses to the US and so I think it's a very interesting opportunity and when I speak to investors as well like they're often looking for brands that are like filling that gap as well.

2:45Have you bootstrapped this? Have you found investors? How have you been funding the business to get started? I've bootstrapped the business since day one because I didn't intend on launching a business. I intended to share something and then wanting to go to the farmer's market, I was forced to register the business. So it's credible. So step one, you're making it for yourself and your siblings, right? Correct. So I started making it for myself and then I offered it to my siblings. So they would Venmo me. I would make it. They live. I hope you put a mock up on it. Yeah, they live in Detroit, New Jersey.

3:22So I was able to make it, pack it and ship it successfully. And that gave me the idea. I can do this. I can make this and ship it successfully to other people. So then I extended to my cousins and then my siblings, friends and people just word of mouth. And then also on social media, people will DM me and tell me they were interested. Venmo me and I'll make it and ship it out to them. So it went from one customer, five customers, 50 customers, 100 customers. And then the farmer's market happened. And then I saw the idea of putting it on grocery shelves. And that was when I was like, OK, if we have to go on this path, then we have to register the business.

4:06So I started investing back the money that I was making from my friends and family and web of mouth. So everything just went back into the business. I had a side hustle. So I've always worked. I had a full-time job until the beginning of this year. I worked as a cosmetic chemist, working for brands like L 'Oreal, John Paul Mitchell Systems. Which is also, you would think if you're going to start a business, it would be a beauty business. And I thought I would start a beauty business, having all that knowledge from industry experts and just being in the industry and having to have formulated hair care products.

4:42I thought eventually I would start a hair care brand. However, I felt like the food was more of my calling because it was something that I connected to. It was something that made me feel proud about who I was. And so I decided to just move forward with that. But yeah, bootstrapped it. every dollar that I got went back into the business reinvesting into buying more jars or shipping components or collateral like making decisions until this year or last year I was featured on a tv show called we're gonna get to that we're gonna get to that I've had so many questions about that I want to stay in this like first couple of years because I'm I love hearing these stories where businesses are just growing so organically and you're like following the demand and businesses I think especially for businesses when you start at a market or a farmer's market you're getting that customer feedback in real time all the time and then it it can help really quickly build that's that founder intuition that helps you make decisions as you're building because you've got this really clear idea of who your customer is because you're interacting with them all the time.

5:54You're now in Erewhon. When did that happen? Did they find you at the farmer's market? Between farmer's market to Erewhon, I had the product stocked at they call shoppy shops or specialty grocery stores around LA. And this was me going in person, pitching the product, giving it to them, asking them to try it and then put it out there and then pitching them from a standpoint where I'm pointing out to them that there's a lack of accessibility to the taste or the cuisine of Ghana, West Africa, and it's missing from their retail spaces and it needs to be included. And so just from that standpoint, they are open to, okay, we need to include something new because for years, the grocery stores have only had cuisine, European cuisine, Latin cuisine, Asian cuisine, but the cuisine of Africa, West Africa has always been missing.

6:54So pointing that out to grocery stores, they recognize that and they're more open to exploring that new type of cultural cuisine. Are you still in these like indie kind of stores as well? That's still part of your wholesale strategy? Yeah. I would love to talk about this a little bit more. We have a program that we do called Retail Bootcamp and I think the next one is happening in early January for the Female Founder World community. And that program is all about indie stockers and growing through those independent stockers and like boutique chains before you start thinking about the mass retailers.

7:33And also you can use that time to perfect your pricing, figure out all the back-end operation stuff, make sure that when you launch into a big retailer, you have the customer base and like people know you and will buy from you when that happens. you mentioned that your approach has been like physically going in stores meeting people I want to learn a little bit more about the stuff that you need to like close those accounts yeah what documentation do you have what are you going in with is it just samples do you have a line sheet what is it that you're going in with and have you like systemized it or used platforms as you've been growing so definitely having your finished product information properly labeled so customers are picking up something that it's not a blank label and then having samples to share with the store owners so they can touch the product to see if it fits their consumer needs and then having a sell sheet call outs what's what's the value proposition of the product is it vegan gluten free preservative free dye free so what positions your product or what makes it different from what they already carry in store and then understanding your cost of goods and what is the profit margin to the stores because obviously they have to pay rent they're selling your product so what is the margin that they're able to turn around and make a profit on that product and then what's your profit margin.

9:06So having a clear understanding of those key points, you should be able to go in there, have a conversation, sell them the product. And if it's a great product, that's an easy sell. You just have to know your product very well, talk to them about it, share it, make it very easy for the store owners to want to put this product on your shelf. And then another easy sell is offering to go in and do in-store tasting. A lot of store owners love that. So once you launch with them, you'll say, we'll do some kind of like community event when people are tasting. So I always make sure I do in-store tasting, go in there, talk about the product.

9:51The customers want to meet the brand owners. They want to know the face, who's behind the product tell your story to the customers and they buy into your product and you're connecting you're building that connection and also a community being in person it's like the farmer's market but taking it into a store absolutely yeah amazing okay business besties let's switch gears for a second real quick i want to talk to you about this season presenting sponsor Vistaprint. They are sponsoring this entire season of the Female Founder World podcast and we love a supportive sponsor. So much so that we're actually working with Vistaprint ourselves to create the merch and all of those beautiful event perks that you know and love from our in real life Female Founder World events.

10:40If you haven't heard of Vistaprint, here's what you need to know. Vistaprint helps all kinds of business owners print all kinds of marketing products like super professional business cards, fun merch, eye-catching flyers and brochures, and a whole bunch more. And it's all completely custom. So you can do whatever you want. Whatever you're imagining right now, Vistaprint can print it. And if you're wondering if you're ready to be a designer girly, their easy to use website makes it super simple. Plus they have designers on hand to help you if you really need it. Right now, Vistaprint is giving all female founder world podcast listeners a little something 25 % off your first order at vistaprint.com use the code ffw25 at checkout and step up your branding game we put a link in the show notes if you want to learn more erwan you did ask me yeah how i got into erwan i simply submitted via the vendor portal and it was the second time i actually submitted which is just It's like on their website.

11:44You can navigate through the footer of their website. Yeah. There are two ways you can go about getting into stores, going through a broker who has already established relationship with retail buyers. And so they will present your... Have you worked with a broker before? Because it's cost and I'm trying to bootstrap and I'm not paying myself. So I am not trying to pay someone a lot of money. I found out often broker fee could range between$2 ,000 to$6 ,000. to pitch your brand for you and then they take a cut I think they should like 15 percent right so like a couple of percent up to 15 percent depending if they're like walking your hand through the whole process which I think when you first learn that for the first time you're like oh okay it starts cutting down yeah um the profit margin so I decided to submit on the vendor portal just to submit and see how that goes and I think how I got into air one is just luck being there the right right place at the right time no it's not luck you've got an amazing product that fills a really important gap and you've positioned the brand beautifully so it is an amazing it is an amazing product 100 100 but the story of how I get into Ewan is just simply the vice president of purchasing she randomly came across the product sitting somewhere She told me she found it in a bin and she was attracted to the label.

13:12So she took it to see what this product was and she fell in love with it. So then she turned around, went back and reorder it so she can bring it to show it to her team to have her team bring it in store. That's the short version of the story. You never know where someone's going to find you. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. So yeah, so I got in there and it's been great going in store and doing in store demos. That's been helping move the product and helping keep me in the top five when it comes to hot sauce category. So it's been helping a lot. You did the Target Accelerator program. You got it in 2023.

13:59first of all lessons on getting into that program because so many of the women listening are going to be like I want to get into the Target Accelerator program how did you do it what do you think stood out about your application I got in after applying three times important to know yeah yeah keep trying guys yeah keep trying I think the first year when I applied I knew about the program and I didn't understand what the program was for. And it's for businesses that are registered as a legit business. The first time I applied, I was in a legit business. Yeah, you were just just side hustling. And then the second time I was rejected, I wasn't set up in terms of being store ready or having a label that communicates product information or having the nutritional panel on my label.

14:52What's the stuff that you learned about going into retail with packaging that you were like, OK, we weren't doing this when we were just at the farmer's market? So when I the second time I applied to Target, I didn't have the nutritional panel. And then also who's the manufacturer, the address of where it's being manufactured, who is the distributor and then just brand information. The program was really valuable in terms of creating a roadmap as to how to get into retail and what you, the brand, have to do. And what are some of the things when they're saying, are you ready to do that? Is that kind of like having, so obviously having a manufacturer or co-manufacturer that is doing this for you and can scale.

15:38But also, is it like having multiple suppliers available for the same ingredient or what's the, is it like supply chain stuff? How do you make sure all of that stuff's ready? So all of that supply chain for raw materials or supply chain for packaging. Who's managing that? Are you managing that? We've all run out of packaging or ingredients or something. Thankfully, my co-packer is a turnkey. The only thing I send to him are my labels. I have the labels printed, shipped to him. In addition to supply chain and source, financial. What are your financials looking at? Are you able to afford 50 ,000 units?

16:18Because Target is not giving you that money up front for you to place that order. It is coming out of your bank account. And then Target is paying you after 60 days or 90 days. So you're going 90 days with no money. So you have to make sure you can afford a 50 ,000 unit purchase order. And not only that, when you are in a Target, Target is not promoting your product. And so don't rely on Target to sell the product for you. You still have to sell the product. So what is your market and budget? Which can be like paid ads, your buying space in there, all of that. Yep. If you're on an end cap, because that's also a different thing.

17:02Which is the display at the end of the aisle. Yep. Or you're running social media ads. So to drive people into Target and even being on the Target circle, you have to pay Target for them to show your product. So there's a lot of cost into having a successful retail launch. I want to talk about some of these other opportunities that have come up for you because you've done some amazing things. But I want to go back to 2021 first and talk about this opportunity that you had with Trader Joe's like pretty early on. Like you just launched to private label the product, which actually is probably great.

17:36That didn't happen, right? Because you want to, you've got this amazing brand now that you fully own. But what was that opportunity? How did it come out? And then how did it fall through? So till this day, I wonder how they found, Trader Joe's found me. In this market, probably. Probably. But I received an email in October 2021 and it was a product developer from Trader Joe's saying that they came across my brand and they were interested in trying it. And I was like, wait, is this real? And at that time, I was not even I was not even thinking of scaling. I thought at that time, the farmer's market was where I belong.

18:17Yeah, I'm I'm here. This is where we are at. And so when that email came in from Trader Joe's, I was like, wait, what? Like, how? And so I sent in the product. They did an internal taste in and everyone loved it. So now we're doing due diligence in terms of how am I set up. I'm so excited. I was excited and I was like, oh, my God, this is as a small business. this is an opportunity for me to, I guess my mission goal was to create accessibility. And with Trader Joe's, I was going to be able to create that accessibility for my culture cuisine. So I was 100 % committed in seeing this go through. So the conversation now is, okay, if we place an order, what that would look like would be$40 ,000 to$60 ,000 for the first purchase order.

19:15And so between October or from October, I am scouting the whole of the United States. I even hired a consulting company to help me look for co-packers to scale the product. And it was the most challenging part of trying to get a co-packer to help me produce this product because it's a newish kind of product in terms of the process that I wanted them to use. So seven months back and forth, sending product, sitting on meetings, telling them about the product, describing it to them, and then them saying no. Eventually, I did find a manufacturer and Trader Joe's gave me a letter of intent. That was the only way this manufacturer would even talk to me.

20:06Eventually, they made test samples. I gave it to Trader Joe's. And then it was sketchy in the end where they came back and said that they felt that the past 12 months they've been developing product that they felt was too similar. Which I was like, what do you mean you've been developing product that is too similar? But anyway, I... Have they launched a product like this? No, not yet. But they do have a Trader Joe's Chili Crunch or Onion Crunch, which they said that would cannibalize that product. I just felt because what they said was we've been working on product development and we feel like we have something.

20:52So I'm like the only reason you would be developing a product similar is because you've had access to my product. You've tasted it. You've done internal, internal tasting and you're familiar with my product. And now you're trying to cut me out. But I softly threatened them and said, I'm going to keep an eye out for every product launch that hits your shelf. So don't try me. But I was disheartened, but it gave me the confidence to actually think bigger. And because I had already done the search around the country looking for a co-packer, I decided to move forward and scale and do it on my own. And that was the motivation.

21:37So I think if Trader Joe's had not emailed me back in 2021, I don't know if I would have gotten as fast as I did. And you kept your full-time job until quite a few years in. When did you leave your job and when did that happen? So left my job January of this year. I actually was laid off. And when that happened, I was already struggling to make a decision to go full time because. The universe had a plan for you. Yeah. And I was speaking to the universe. I remember the week I got laid off. I kept saying something had to give and I knew what had to give. Oh my God, chills. Yeah. And I just was not quick to make the decision.

22:22And then that same week in January, the Today Show featured my product and it was like a three minute segment. So many orders came in that day. And at that time, I was still shipping every product myself. And I think a hundred orders came in that week and I'm like, I cannot do this. and then two days later I got laid off and I was like okay you know what I have gotten so many opportunities I said I wasn't going to cheat myself and look for a job I was just going to commit and see this through good for you do you do any like consulting work or are you paying yourself from like salary like what's your how are you supporting yourself as you're building the business because fruit strapped and consumer products are expensive like we've talked about So I'm done spending my savings and now I am tapping into my 401k.

23:17Yeah. So I'm currently not paying myself. Yeah. Everything goes back into the business. So the business account is separate from my personal account. So yeah, currently I think I have about 10 months left of money to afford 11 and I'm just hoping for a miracle. I don't think you need a miracle. I think you've been very strategic and you'll get there. Is the plan that you want to fundraise or you want the business to get to a point where you can self-sustain for yourself. If the business can self-sustain, amazing. But I think I would need to start raising money. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the support that you'll get because also you have been on the Hello Sunshine program, Side Hustlers.

24:00Tell me how that happened. That happened through DMs. I got a DM and it was, we are looking for women-owned businesses based in Los Angeles operated as a side hustle to be part of a documentary I was like oh that's me my business is a side hustle I'm a woman yeah I'm based here in LA so yeah I'm interested and so I did an interview like a zoom kind of video casting and they were like okay we are going to present you to the production company and if they like you you will hear back from us And I was like, OK, cool. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Honestly, I thought it was a documentary about me telling my story about how I'm doing it, how I'm operating my business to inspire other women to do the same.

24:50So that's what I thought I signed up for. I didn't realize I was signing up to pitch my business to Emma Greed and Ashley Graham for an opportunity for a mentorship and an investment opportunity. so it was I went in there just hoping for the best gave it my best and the rest is history I guess amazing yeah good for you before we wrap up one of the things I want to talk about is your like DTC business and marketing we've spoken so much about wholesale but I'm really keen to understand how are you moving product on your website what's working for you I follow you guys on Instagram I think your content's awesome is there anything else that you're doing so until this last november it was just simply me showing up you mean like last month yeah last november um just showing up on social media yeah promoting the product you're pretty forward-facing yeah yeah just putting it in front of customers telling my story and just showing an insight as to how i'm building this business it is difficult especially operating this on my own finding time to shoot content just been an order here and there I've solely relied on in-person farmer's market where I am able to quickly make money and put that back into the business the website was more so a storefront for people to see and gather information about the business.

26:24It wasn't until this November where I was introduced to an ad agency from another founder who I met through the Target Accelerator program. And they had encouraged me to use this ad agency because it had been working very well for them. And so just this past November, I started paying to run ads. And it's been going really well, surprisingly. So, yeah. So before November, it was just me showing up and talking about the product as much as I can every day. And then we just started running ads to reach a wider audience. Can you recommend the ad agency? No pressure. Their call, I think, Venture Results.

27:07I would look it up. We'll put it in the group chat. Yeah, for sure. Let me show you the episode as well. Yeah, so it's a husband and wife and they're very much like it's boutique. It's not like a huge agency, but they are very personable. And it's you can like just get on Slack and share information or what you don't like. And yeah, I would recommend them. I said it was the last thing. One more thing, though. We haven't really touched on this yet, but like PR and press, you guys have had some amazing press. today's show obviously you're also featured in food and wine magazine how did those opportunities come up because one woman show do you have a PR agency no hell okay today's show because I remember manifesting it yeah I found a world we need to get on I remember when the first time someone asked me who was my PR I was like Jesus Christ because I don't have a PR because I don't even know how so I manifested seeing it in food and wine and I kid you not I launched or my website went live January 4th 2021 at midnight January 5th 2021 I got an email from an editor from food and wine magazine wow asking to try my product because she's working on a content about condiments from around the world.

28:31The website went live. My cousin knew about Pop-Up Grocer and wanted to get my product into Pop-Up Grocer. And so she tagged, I believe, Emily, the owner, and then IG posts. So Emily shared my website in her story. And I believe the editor of Food and Wine magazine was following her and so that's how she saw her story and then came to my page and then sent me an email and that's how I got into Food and Wine magazine literally a day after launching my website. With the Today Show I guess the algorithm pulled an article from the Today Show and the title was I tried seven condiments or seven chili oils and this is what I think.

29:25So it was like a personal opinion of an editor or a food writer talking about chili oils. So I pulled up the article to read it and look at all the list of chili oils and I recognized that all of the ones he had tried were Asian. And so I felt a type of way. I felt upset, annoyed. And so I looked up the name of the writer. I was like, who wrote this article? So I found them on IG and I DMed them and said, hey, I just read your article, but I think there's another one you need to try, which is mine. And it's from West Africa. I would love to send it to you. And to my surprise, he replied and said, I would love to try it.

30:08And I was like, okay, great. So then I sent it to him. This was November of 2023. And two weeks after he received it, he sent me a message and said, hey, I have a segment coming up in the new year featuring small businesses. And I would love to include you. Laura, I love your story. I'm so excited about 2025 for you. I think it's going to be really big. You're someone who just has like such a clear vision, such a clear mission, just like really pure I think alignment between what you're creating and why and like the way that you're communicating that to a really clear customer and so I just think you've done all the things to set up for a really big year is there a resource that you have that you can share with us I'd love to end the show with a resource recommendation yeah a lot of people sleep on chat GPT oh yeah get on it but don't because if you're trying to write a quick email it will just help you and then you can edit it and then 2025 I started to think of raising money in terms of pitching so I started reading a book actually audiobook and it's it's called the secrets of Sandhill Roads venture capital and how to get it we'll put a link in the show as well but it's helping me to understand who raises money and why and how friends and family so I come from a culture where I was not born in this country I immigrated with my family and so we're all starting a new life here and so we don't already have like wealth established in this country so we're just starting to build it and so oftentimes people have a network where they can tap in and ask for money and support whereas one my culture is not set up in the way where you are comfortable asking other people for money so I have to shift the mindset of yes I have this great idea and I can do it all by myself or can I go further along the journey by bringing other people in on it I also think like you're not asking someone for money you're giving them an opportunity to be a part of this amazing thing that you're building and genuinely that's what you're doing you're not asking for money, you're offering them an opportunity.

32:32Yeah. Gloria, thank you so much for coming on Female Founder World and congratulations on everything you're creating. It's amazing. Thank you so much. I just wanted to jump in and end the show with a quick thank you and shout out to all of our paid Business Besties subscribers. For$9 a month, Business Besties bypass literally years of networking by getting access to all of the people that you need to build your dream business. Besties get access to exclusive in-person meetups in cities all across the US, Australia, and the UK. You get access to our group chat and you get to bypass the waitlist.

33:08You also get invited to exclusive monthly group business coaching call sessions where you can speak to experts and founders and ask them all of those questions that you just can't Google. It's$9 a month. You can cancel anytime. Head to bestie.femalefounderworld.com or click the link in the show notes for more.