How Ripi Landed Whole Foods & Target In Its First 15 Months

0:10Hello, dear friends, I'm Ray Lateef and you're tuned into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. Breaking into a crowded grocery category takes more than a great product. It takes a brand that shoppers can't ignore. In this episode, Rippy Foods founder Ian Tecklin explains how the chef-driven frozen pasta brand secured nationwide launches at Whole Foods and Target within its first 15 months. He also talks about why he made brand identity and packaging a core investment from day one and what emerging CPG companies can learn about modernizing legacy categories with a clear point of view.

1:02Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am honored to be sitting down with Ian Tecklin, who is the founder of Rippy Foods. Ian, it's great to see you. Great to see you. Thanks for having me on. Congratulations. Rippy just closed the$2.4 million funding round that we wrote about on Nosh.com. How long did that take to put together? Yeah, you know, really exciting moment for us, you know, as a company. That was a few months in the making, as anyone knows who's looking to raise money from the initial outreach to investors to preliminary diligence processes to getting really into the diligence process in depth and getting into long form documentation.

1:39It takes several months. I'd say we kicked off the process towards the end of last year with the holiday season. We had a little bit of a lull, but I'd say all in all, it took about three or so months, three or four months, and got a deal done and couldn't be happier to have Cutting Horse on the cap table in addition to Great Circle Ventures and Paperboy Ventures and Super Angel Fund and a number of other folks as well. Pretty impressive for a brand that started or launched in February of 2025. and before we hopped in the mics, we were talking about this and you have, this is going to sound bad, no experience in the food industry or you had no experience when you started this company.

2:19Yeah. You were a talent guy for a number of years. So I worked, it's interesting. I worked at a talent agency, but I wasn't a talent guy. Right before starting RIPI, I worked at a family office doing early stage investing in new incubations. And then before that worked at a big talent agency, UTA, doing corp dev, so focused on M &A and growth equity investing and strategy-related initiatives across sports and entertainment and media. Okay. So you were around a lot of talent. Absolutely. You didn't manage talent. I think that actually is better for you. I think managing talent could be a pretty hectic job.

2:54It wasn't as glamorous, but it was a lot of fun, you know, working on the deals that we looked at. What really propelled you? What got you interested and excited about starting your own brand? Yeah. You know, for me and starting my own company, It was, and I say this humbly, I always told myself I wouldn't leave a comfortable situation and dive into this crazy world of entrepreneurship, let alone, you know, CPG entrepreneurship, unless I had a high level of conviction around whatever idea I came up with. And Rippy happened to be that idea. And to me, it's about taking an idea and going through the motions of manifesting it and ultimately having it culminate into a physical product that elevates people's weeknight meals and whatnot.

3:36But it was a long path to get here. Obviously, happy to get into the origin. But what was helpful at the experience at Maximus Ventures was working with founders and early stage operators. And really, for the first time in my career, being able to get exposure and rolling up my sleeves and seeing what it takes to bring, you know, a business from ideation to execution, whether it's at, you know, the pre-launch stage or pre-seed or seed stage, regardless of the category that, you know, you're entering, the industry or sector that you're entering. It's a very similar process. And that was something that really interested me as someone who always felt like I had this entrepreneurial bug.

4:13Did you always feel like you were going to be a ravioli entrepreneur? If you put this on my bingo card 10, 20 years ago, I would have said you're absolutely crazy. But it's funny how life happens. So I first saw Rippy in Miami. I was down there for a meetup that we held, a Taste Radio meetup, where if you're not familiar, listeners, I don't know how you are, aren't at this point. It's a live podcast networking event that we hold in various cities across the country. And I did a Whole Foods check-in, and I saw this beautiful brand that I had never encountered before in the frozen section. I immediately grabbed it and took a picture and put it on Instagram.

4:54A lot of people responded with emojis or said, what is that? Where did you find that? So on and so forth. And clearly you did something right on the branding front. We launched last February, as you mentioned, but we spent all of 2024 building behind the scenes, focused on really two things. One was product development, R &D with our co-packer to take the recipes that Joe, my partner and chef in this venture, that he developed on a small scale and going through dozens of iterations to commercialize them and make them feasible at scale. But second was branding work with our agency. We worked with a fantastic agency, Truffle, in terms of brand strategy, visual identity, logo, packaging design, web design.

5:33For me, it was really important, arguably one of the most important things. Obviously, we have to have a great tasting product, but branding was so important to me because, you know, it's everything that people see, you know, on shelves. And it was important to come to market with a polished brand and to have packaging, most importantly, that popped because that's your billboard. You know, and we're dealing with really deep preconceived notions, you know, entrenched biases that people have around frozen food. When people think frozen pasta, they think Stouffer's and Lean Cuisine, for example. And I'm not knocking it.

6:07There's always going to be a market for brands like that. But to be able to flip those preconceived notions on their head and convince people that, you know, the freezer aisle can be a destination for delicious food and Rippy is that go-to premium brand to help you elevate your weeknight meals, that has to be communicated on the box first and foremost because that's our most important billboard. And so, you know, I can't tell you how much that means to me, the fact that you came across us on shelves and we're like, whoa, this is interesting. That's exactly, you know, the moment that we're trying to create.

6:36And then obviously, once people try it, they'll become a recurring buyer and become a ravioli evangelist, as I like to say. But, you know, branding, first and foremost, was so important. And we spent all the time in the world to make that happen. Yeah, listeners, if you have an opportunity, definitely check out the branding for Rippy because it screams premium. It screams delicious. It screams convenient. Everything I think that you wanted to, I'm assuming that you wanted to communicate on front of PAC does that. I want to stay on the branding front for a sec because you mentioned this agency Truffle.

7:10And when I think of Truffle, I think of expensive. And it is an investment. Absolutely. You do have to spend typically to get great brand, identity, strategy, et cetera. And a lot of folks don't have the money to do that, especially at the outset. But for you, it was worth every penny. Absolutely. And look, every founder situation is different. And, you know, there are folks who raise a ton of money out of the gate and go, you know, nationwide in a major blue chip retailer out of the gate. There are people who are bootstrapping it and creating their own labels and starting in farmer's market. Like either approach, you know, works.

7:48Every situation, every founder situation, every company is different. And so I'm never going to knock one approach or the other. for me, branding was so important. I needed to come to market with a polished brand. And I was willing to make that investment. I was very clear up front with my existing investors at the time. You know, we had raised about one, 1.1 million pre-launch. And I was very clear with my investors that this expense for branding was going to be the most expensive bucket, but it was 100 % worth it. Because my opinion was, if we come to market with weak branding, weak packaging design, weak storytelling from a brand perspective, weak webs, everything that goes into making a brand, we're DOA.

8:33That was one of the things that I took very seriously. And we spent the money, we spent the investment, again, nearly 12 months bringing that brand from what I thought it could be into my head to fruition. And I thought it was worth every penny. And as you mentioned, of course, if the food doesn't match the premium visual identity of the package. Exactly. You're not going to have that customer come back for a second time. First and foremost, the product has to taste great. You know, there's a lot of brands that I see, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners, I'm sure you know a lot of brands that they have fantastic branding and fantastic packaging and fantastic socials.

9:11And you try the product and you're like, what? You know, how is that sustainable? And for me to build a sustainable business, you know, a lot of things obviously have to go right. But first and foremost, your product has to taste great and your branding has to resonate. And I had a lot of confidence in the product that we had developed and wanted the brand to carry that messaging and peak interest. How do you connect with Joe? Because Joe, pretty well-known guy in the food community, top chef, alum. He's known as the pasta guy. He is the pasta guy. Yeah, yeah. He's the pasta guy. He hates when I say he's the pasta guy because he's very humble by nature.

9:44I met him in summer of 2020. This little thing called COVID was going on. Restaurants were shut down. People were cooking at home more than ever before. I was living in LA, working at the talent agency that we're talking about. Our deal flow stopped. I had so much more free time now. And I one day was walking the aisles of the grocery store by me and had this light bulb moment, a genuine light bulb moment, looking at some of the frozen pasta options and thought of Rippy right then and there and started to diligence the market and, you know, figured there's something here. But I'm not a pasta guy.

10:18I love tasting pasta. I love eating pasta. I don't make pasta, though. And so I just DM Joe on Instagram. You know, at the time he, we debate this, but I could have sworn he had about 10 ,000 followers, you know, and now he is close to a million, if not higher across Instagram and TikTok and YouTube. And I DM him and said, hey, I'm a huge fan. You know, I'd seen him on Top Chef, you know, the year or two prior when he was on it and made it pretty far and was following him and following all of his pasta content and DM'd him and said, hey, I'm a huge fan. I have a crazy idea for a pasta venture.

10:50Can I tell you more about it? And coincidentally, he lived five blocks away from me in L.A. at the time. And so during COVID, every week for the next six to eight months, he would drop off a different pasta, you know, a different filling, a different shape, a different dough. I got to back up and pause here because this doesn't sound like a normal connection. No. What about your approach resonated with Joe? I think it was the pitch, and this is a similar pitch that we give to retailers as well, but it was an opportunity to bring the restaurant to your freezer at home. Joe, from a content perspective on social, has done a great job in creating pasta content and other types of content and connecting with people and showing people how to elevate their, you know, meals at home.

11:35Same thing he did, you know, in the restaurant game as well. This was taking the quality that he, you know, had really perfected in restaurants and that he perfected in his own kitchen and was sharing, you know, on social. This created an opportunity to bring that quality to the masses. And that really resonated with him. And he has a very focused business mind. You know, he left the restaurant game, I think it was 2019, to really be an entrepreneur and bet on himself and become a full-time content creator and write books and be featured in TV shows and do paid collabs and partnerships and events.

12:10And so this plugged into, you know, his pasta universe, if you will. Yeah, he's been involved in CPG prior to Rippy. Tantos, I believe is the name. Tantos is his pasta chip brand. Yes. So he must have seen the horror stories about commercializing products. I mean, a pasta chip is a crazy idea, but I remember tasting it. I was like, OK, this actually kind of works. Frozen ravioli, the ones you make at home, you have all the great ingredients that you want to use. It tastes great. I'm sure you put in your freezer, you take it out. Ah, this is exactly what I was expecting. You go to a co-packer, a co-manufacturer, and you say, hey, this is our recipe.

12:43And they produce it for you, and it comes out, and you're like, wow, this is just not what we expected. Again, going from concept to commercialization can be very tricky. Absolutely. What was your experience? You know, it took us nearly 12 months to finalize these recipes and commercialize them. For me, really, when you asked that, it sort of triggered two thoughts in my head. One was how methodical I was in the approach, you know, and this is where I think my background as an investor has really suited me in that I spoke to 18 co-packers prior to selecting the one that we work with now. Now, if there's someone who makes frozen pasta at scale, I've spoken to them.

13:19And so it was really important to find that right commercial partner, which brings me to the next piece is I feel like I'm very good at identifying the right talent to help get to where we need to be, whether it's Joe in developing the initial recipes and being a value add from a promotional perspective, bringing on Truffle from a brand agency perspective, bringing on our current co-packer who worked with us for nearly a year to commercialize the recipes and make them feel better. Well, at scale, that's pretty rare, but they saw what we saw, which was this was an area that was ripe for disruption and they wanted to be along for the ride.

13:53And so we went through dozens and dozens of iterations to bring our initial three SKUs to market and did all of that in 2024 in parallel with all of the branding work. You know, so again, 2024 is just a big behind the scenes build year for us. And then again, launched in 2025 in February of last year. how do you not fall in love with your product because you could think and joe could think that this is delicious product that's really going to work well in a particular retailer with a particular consumer who will be looking for a premium pasta like this and then that consumer says this isn't for me how do you make sure that you are delivering on the flavor and value that your consumer your target consumer wants yeah it's such a good question and the answer is there's no perfect answer.

14:42There's no data that you can look at that says this is a winning product. There's so many variables. I trusted my palette. I trusted Joe's palette. I trusted the R &D team that we assembled and my friends and family and my wife's palette. We had a very close insular circle of folks who tried the initial batches, but ultimately it was really Joe and I. And we complement each other very well and, again, just have very good palates. And I knew what good pasta, and Joe obviously knows what good pasta can taste like. And we went off of that. We didn't do any customer surveys or pay for third-party sampling and feedback and whatnot.

15:22We just trusted our gut. And, again, going back to just having this high level of conviction around the opportunity, I knew that the customer was there because I would talk to people, and just anecdotally myself, but also just talking to friends and family, I didn't eat frozen pasta. And I would talk to friends and people, do you eat frozen? They'll say, no, I don't eat frozen pasta. And I'll say, oh, do you eat pasta? Oh, I love pasta. Which told me that there is a branding and product issue in the market today, which is what we're solving for. And so I, again, just had a high level of conviction, trusted my instincts, my palate, and obviously in partnership with Joe, we created products that have resonated so far.

16:01Price point, however, is not for everyone. Let's call it what it is. I mean,$10 at Whole Foods for a box, nine ounces, and it's a meal for two people. Which for me, I would buy that in a heartbeat because that speaks to me in a way that's very clear and, again, delivers on the value that I want out of a product like this. But it's not necessarily something, at least at this point, that can go far and wide across America in every retailer, in every channel. When it came to pricing strategy, what was your thinking? How did you determine that you could deliver on the value that you wanted at the price point that a consumer would be willing to pay?

16:42Yeah, it's a great question. And the thinking around pricing is the same thinking that we had around overall branding and most importantly in product. It's always about striking that right balance between being sophisticated and elevated, but accessible at the same time from an ingredient and from a pricing perspective as well. We are a premium brand. We're meant to elevate your weeknight meals. Our flavor profiles are elevated. We're meant to empower you as a home chef or for people who are full-time working professionals or busy parents or just appreciate good food and are looking for a quick, convenient indulgence and don't mind paying a premium but also don't want to compromise on the quality or the convenience that they're used to.

17:25I think it's a terrible strategy personally to try to be all things for all people. You know, we want to be a national brand embraced in the majority of households. But I also recognize that$9.99 is not palatable for everyone. I think it's good value in that for$10, you get to feed two peoples. So it's$5 of value per person, which is fantastic compared to the restaurant quality that you're getting for a pasta entree for one in a restaurant anywhere you are. It's$22 to$34. And so comparing that, there's certainly price value there. But I also recognize when people see the more conventional legacy brands in the space today, they're$3,$4,$5.

18:09And so, yes, we are twice as much, but I think that we're worth the premium for the quality that you're getting, for the clean label that you're getting. But I also recognize, you know, it's not for everyone. Finding a co-packer that you can rely on is a huge, huge key to successful brands. Arguably one of the biggest. Yeah. So how did you find the partners that you needed that you could count on? Yeah, well, it was one of my criteria when I was talking to these co-packers in 2024. I had really four non-starters. You know, look, you're never going to find a co-packer that checks every single box you're looking for, but it's about finding the right partner that checks, at the very least, the non-starters for you.

18:50One of them for me was they had to have a large enough facility that we could grow into, but also not so large at the outset where the MOQs are so high and, you know, it's really intensive from a working capital perspective. We found the right partner where we can grow into it. I know we have a great dynamic right now. I know we're nationwide in Whole Foods right now. We're launching nationwide in Target in about a week. And these guys can support what we're looking to do there. And so for me, it was always about, again, just the word of the day is being methodical in the approach and not only understanding what your non-starters are, what are the key criteria that you need in a co-packer to bring this concept from ideation to execution, but also making sure that you have a partner who's willing to invest the time and resources to help get your recipes to where you need to be.

19:46Find a partner where the margins, most importantly, make sense. You know, we talked before about if your branding really isn't resonating out of the gate, you're sort of DOA even with a good product. I would argue if your margins don't work out of the gate or at the very least, you don't have a clear path, you know, to scaling margins to a sustainable way, then you're DOA. So there's so many criteria. And that's why, obviously, the co-packer, if you decide to go that route, is so important. And you're basically in bed, theoretically, with that partner for the first couple of years at a minimum, if all goes according to plan.

20:18Did you feel like you had any leeway to work on pricing with your co-packer? I don't know if you had had any kind of retail deals at that point. I don't know if you'd already spoken with Whole Foods. I mean, it's kind of like that chicken and egg situation. 100%. Yeah. We didn't start talking to retailers until we had commercialized samples. So 2024 from January, February of 2024 to October. So it was almost 10 months of product development work that it took to commercialize our recipes and get true, call it retail ready products or commercialized samples, if you will. Once we had those towards the tail end, then we started talking to retailers.

20:56Because retailers, they'll always ask really for two things at a bare minimum. digital renderings of the packaging design, if you don't have physical packaging, and also commercial samples. It doesn't have to be retail ready in a box, but at the very least, benchtop samples, so they can see directionally what this looks like. It really is a chicken or the egg, but to be considered by any retailer, my POV is, you need to have those two things. And so we've had those two items covered in October or so of 2024, started talking to retailers around that time, and then launched into retail for the first time in February.

21:30of last year with a handful of more independent regional players that took us on early. So with your co-packer, they must have seen opportunity. They must have seen that you were focused on creating a brand and filling a white space that existed out there and that it could fit into a Whole Foods. It could fit into a Target at some point. What gave them confidence, though? What really made them feel like they wanted to work with you and that they felt excited about the opportunity for the long-term future of RIPPY. Yeah, it's rare that you get a co-packer that really leans in, but when you have it, it's a special partnership.

22:09I think, and not I think, I spoke to, I mentioned 18 co-packers, every single one of these pasta manufacturers. It's a very old school way of life. And I say that with all the respect in the world. These are primarily family-run businesses, passed down generation to generation. They've been in the pasta game for decades. It's the Copac and really all the ones that we spoke to, but the Copac we're working with now. I think what resonated was they've seen the industry for the last several decades. They've been in this world and they've seen what we've seen, which is it's long been dominated by more conventional value brands from legacy companies.

22:45and it was time for a new emerging brand like ours to really disrupt things in a meaningful way by leaning into true chef-driven elevated flavor profiles that were differentiated to have branding that really pops and is modern and bringing energy to the stale category. That's an argument on the product and brand side that I think really resonates well in both a natural and a conventional setting, both at a local and nationalized level that they saw and wanted to be a part of. It's exciting when you have your branding right, when you have your co-packer locked up, when you have a partner like Joe Sasto, and then you walk into that retail buyer's office and you've really got to prove yourself and you really got to let them know that this is something that's going to bring incremental value to their stores.

23:37They're there to make money. They want to make more money. I mean, this is capitalism for you. And if you're going to be on shelf, you're replacing something else that wasn't making as much money. Is that the story? I mean, did you essentially just say, look, you're going to make more money if you bring our product in? Or how does that conversation go? Yeah. And even getting to that point, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of decisions that have to be made across every facet of the business. And so just hearing you describe that process, I'm like, wow, it really is that easy. But I will say there are a ton of steps along the way to even get to that point.

24:12and so many variables, so many things that could go wrong. It wasn't smooth sailing, but again, aligning yourself with the right partners, I think is a huge unlock. Now, the pitch that we've been giving to retailers since the outset, before we even had a retailer, was really twofold. One is, we'll say something along the lines of, look at your existing frozen pasta set. It's a lot of sameness. You know, it's the same conventional value brands from legacy companies, not knocking that at all, But take out your lowest performing non-private label brand, replace it with Rippy. Existing customers who like that conventional lower-priced option will go to another lower-priced brand or your private label, or they'll trade up for Rippy.

24:55And so it's an incremental margin opportunity for you. But given also, most importantly, given our branding, our brand positioning, given our flavor profiles, we're bringing a new type of buyer to the freezer aisle today. that historically doesn't buy frozen pasta. And so it's that two-pronged argument of an incremental margin opportunity for you, but also a new type of buyer that we're bringing to the aisle, that has really resonated. And, you know, you look at the frozen pasta set in every single one of these retailers, and it's the same situation, which is why I think we've had so much success, you know, bringing on, you know, these large and small retail partners at the same time.

25:35Getting into Whole Foods is one thing. And congratulations again on you as quickly as you did. Actually, how did you go national as quickly as you did? Because typically you go a couple of regions here, a couple of regions there, and then eventually you get to national. But you guys got there so quickly. Yeah. You know, it's a bit of luck. It's a bit of just having a great dynamic and relationship with the Whole Foods buyers. But really, it's credit to their belief in us and them seeing the white space opportunity and looking at their frozen pasta set and saying, look, this pasta tastes great.