The Simple & Reliable Secret Behind Ithaca's Success & Guillermo's Hot Start

0:10Hello, friends. I'm Ray Latif, and you're tuned in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. A relentless focus on product quality and operational discipline helped Chris Kirby build Ithaca Hummus into one of the most successful CPG brands of the past decade. With Guillermo Salsa, he's putting that same playbook to work again, but at a notably faster rate of growth. In this conversation, Chris argues that lasting success in CPG is driven less by hype or marketing theatrics and more by getting the fundamentals right. He explains how Ithaca's strategic manufacturing partnerships enabled efficient, profitable scale, and why many founders still over-index on fundraising while underestimating the importance of unit economics.

1:05He also dives into the early trajectory of Guillermo's, examining both the acceleration and the complexity that comes with celebrity-backed brands, and shares what it really takes to build durable, repeatable velocity at retail in today's crowded CPG landscape.

1:25Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am supremely honored to be sitting down with Chris Kirby, who is the founder of Ithaca Hummus and co-founder of Guillermo's Salsa. Chris, it's wonderful to see you again. That's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, this is the last time we sat down for an interview here in the Boston area, at least was in 2019. You came to our Watertown office. We're here in Newton, just down the road. And our digs are a little bit nicer than they were in the Watertown days. Would you say so? Nicer, but I really liked that place. It was nice. It was nice.

2:02Cozy, a lot of natural wood, if I'm remembering correctly. You are remembering it. Yes, you have a good memory. It was super nice in there. Yeah. That was seven years ago. Crazy. Yeah. How many years were you in for Ithacomus at that point? That was probably, what, maybe seven or eight? Okay. Yeah. So you had started at Tacomas in 2013. Okay. And here we are 13 years later. The brand has grown by leaps and bounds. It's everywhere, which is amazing. I mean, that's an entrepreneur's dream. For one day, you know, to be in 10 stores and see how your brand's doing, resonating with consumers and small retailers, to be in tens of thousands of stores.

2:44It's amazing what you've accomplished. Well, the one thing that will never change is it always feels amazing to get good product feedback. You know, when you hear from somebody who really loves the product. Yeah. That's felt the same the whole time. Amazing. Yeah. It was, I believe in 2017 or 18 when I first was introduced to Ithaca Hummus and it was at Expo East, back when Expo East was still in Baltimore. And I remember tasting the hummus and thinking this was some of the freshest, most delicious hummus I've ever had in my life. And I posted on Instagram, don't walk, run to booth, whatever the booth number was, Ithaca hummus, because I was so impressed with what you were doing.

3:24And a lot of it had to do with your processing method and the fact that you were using premium ingredients. And we talked about that in 2019 in our interview. And one of the primary takeaways for me from that interview was how intentional you were about everything from the ingredients to the packaging, to the discipline and focus on profitability. And I think that philosophy has really set you on a course to the success that you've seen since. Has that been the path? Has it been a path carved by discipline? Well, maybe not as much as it appears, to be totally honest. You know, I'm glad Leo's in the room to hear this because, like, it's been a process of letting go slowly and intentionally.

4:11And just for our listeners, Leo is here with us. He's the president of Guillermo Salsa. Look in the part, if I may say so. A hundred percent. I'll just give you some context. You know, Leo is dressed like a corporate executive. if a corporate executive was working for the coolest company in America. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. You nailed it. I mean, Leo has always been a vibe since I knew him in his prior life at his last company, which is why when this idea for Guillermo's really came together, I knew there was one guy that I needed to call and it was him. And it kind of goes back to what you were saying, right?

4:49Like when you've never done something before, you don't know what's important. So it all has to be important. You have to be maniacal about all sorts of things that looking back, you didn't really need to be that crazy about, but you didn't know any better. So you just have to keep the whack-a-mole game going for long enough until you reach different levels of success and inflection points where you can backfill with resources to add more support and structure to a business that you're ultimately trying to build. So he's going through that very much in the thick of it with Guillermo's right now.

5:23So very appropriately timed question. You're not talking about micromanaging though, right? You weren't micromanaging the business. I, you know, I've definitely gotten micromanaging, you know, but try not to, you know, certainly intentionally try not to. I just try to act with a sense of urgency on a priority list of things that are like, this is the most important thing. And then we go down from there and just try to instill urgency in the most important thing at any given time. For me, if I were a founder, the most important thing would always be taste and quality. And Ithaca defines, for me anyway, taste and quality.

5:58Because if you don't have that, you have nothing. I've said that on the podcast a number of times. Is that always the top priority for you? No. I mean, yes, but no, no. because you work hard enough, long enough at something like building systems and processes and teams around things that are really important to you and your business. And eventually you get really good at them to the point where they become a core competency and they don't necessarily require as much attention as they once had, right? So that's also the fun part of being an entrepreneur is you can kind of go deep on things, but then move over into some other area that's totally new and refreshing and exciting.

6:36What's an example of a core competency that you have to get right for your business anyway? Well, no, you hit it on the head. First and foremost, it's product. It's product. Hands down for me. You have to have in whatever category you're entering, you must have the best in class product. You have to. It helps to have a brand that people are really excited naturally to talk about. And they just talk about it on their own without a lot of help or pushing. but first and foremost, you have to have the best product and best product means a lot of things. Quality is a lot of different taste, texture, specifications, food safety, shelf life, packaging.

7:16You want to have the best product. I've always stood by that. How do you know when you have the best product? As a chef, for me, taste. I mean, and I think consumers, you know, taste is number one. It's got to taste good. It's got to be craveable almost. You know, after that, food safety. Food safety arguably is really number one, but from a loyalty and repeat rate perspective, it's taste. And then, you know, something I didn't really even mention earlier, it's your ability to supply, you know, reliably, consistently. I don't think people realize and respect the importance of doing what you say you're going to do.

7:52And the fact that retail buyers complain about this all the time, which is you said you were going to do something. You said you were going to give me this and you didn't give it to me. And I remember talking to you about that and how important that was to you specifically. Yeah. It's important to me because it's been important to our chief operating officer at Ithaca, Frank Cavallaro. I mean, his last career before he joined me at Ithaca, one of the things that made him remarkable was the relationships that he cultivated with the vendor community in his business. And so we kind of inherited that from him, but it is absolutely a superpower when And, you know, a customer, whether it be Costco or Publix or Walmart or, you know, Green Star Food Co-op, if they know they can rely on you, it puts you in a little bit of a different class, which helps over time.

8:42Profitability, gross margin, where those fit into your hierarchy of importance. You have to have them, but I don't think you necessarily always have to target them directly. I think if you get the fundamentals right, those things will come. What are the fundamentals that you're talking about? best in class product, ability to drive trial and awareness, repeat rate, you know, because you've got the best product. When I asked you about micromanaging, it's because you are transitioning from Ithaca to focus specifically on Guillermo's. Now you're not starting back at step one of entrepreneurship, obviously, because you've had a lot of experience under your belt, but launching a new company, launching Guillermo Salsa is in essence, getting back to square one.

9:29And I would think that you're taking a lot of the lessons and a lot of the understanding of how a CPG business works and applying them to Guillermo's. Obviously best in class product. This time you've got a quasi celebrity. I'll call him a celebrity. Guillermo's a celebrity. Yes. He's half celebrity, half mascot. Okay. That's a good way of putting it. Helping you get the word out about the brand. At the end of the day, the product's going to come off shelf. And one of the themes of the last conversation we had about Ithaca was really about velocity and retail productivity before chasing massive distribution.

10:08You both, Leo, and you are here talking to a lot of retailers while you're in the Boston area. How cautious are you about growing too fast? How cautious are you about making sure that the product works first before chasing water distribution? Very, and so much so that we designed our launch around super simplicity, one product, 26 ounce, one customer, Costco, medium salsa, that was it. and the first better half of 15 weeks, basically, that's all we've done in two regions now in Northeast and Southeast. For Cinco de Mayo, we did launch with Topps, Price Chopper, and Wakefern. So we brought on about 400 doors in the more conventional channel.

10:53And so that took us from one product to now four, because we had to add a 14 ounce line to our 26 ounce club pack. we're now doing 14 ounce in three flavors hot medium and mild so it's started out as a very simple business it's still a very simple business and we took the leap of one to four very seriously because it was important to us up front to use this simple kind of like high volume great customer club channel it's like kind of a dream launch honestly to learn about where do we have holes in our system. Where do we need to work? Where do we need to get this set up, that set up? And then I feel like we're kind of at the next inflection point where we could probably handle 5 ,000 doors with the four products that we have now.

11:38And then it really becomes about team. Right now, it's just kind of Leo and I, but we desperately need to add to our small but mighty team. And we're working on that. But yeah, very intentional about how we launched and continue to scale. Where are those holes that you need to fill in in terms of staffing? We need someone to really run ops. We would love to have someone who can kind of sit on top of both sales and marketing join the team. The way Leo puts it, we're looking to put our best five out on the floor immediately. Sounds like you're wanting to grow a little bit faster than you did with Ithaca.

12:17Is it because the dynamics of CPG have changed? Well, it's because I have more money now. That's part of it. Oh, that's a fair answer? Yeah, I mean, I couldn't do it back then because I had a few thousand dollars, you know. Now I have more, you know, access to capital and relationships. I mean, access to manufacturing and capacity, that's huge. I have that. Guillermo's, just like Ithaca was a partner with Ledestri Foods, Guillermo's is, we launched in partnership with Giovanni Ledestri and his family. So, no, we've got it all set up to scale pretty quickly, actually. again this is something we talked about seven years ago but i think it's really important to reiterate which is that your co-manufacturing partner is perhaps your most important partner if you have someone that you can rely upon and they can rely on you you know the sky's the limit how have you cultivated that relationship such that it's been great since the beginning and great through your next brand well i'm glad i have another opportunity to talk with you about you know have the same conversation because last time i probably didn't even realize how special and unique and rare the relationship that i have with ledustry is and probably talked about it more like yeah just go find a co-packer to like get money from an investment and it's just not easy so i'm super grateful that that's a big part of my story and the ithaca story and now the guillermo story is ledustry foods it gives you all the benefits of owning manufacturing without actually needing to own the assets, which is an incredible advantage.

13:50Lidestri, correct me if I'm wrong, they have a stake in Ithaca. Yes. Yeah. And I think that's a question that some founders have to ask themselves how comfortable they are with a manufacturing partner as an equity partner in the brand. Clearly, it's worked out for you. Does having a chip in the game for Lidestri, does having that equity partnership, do you think that that gave them not only confidence, but even more motivation to support the brand and make sure that they're delivering on that quality and taste that you're known for? Yeah, for them, it did. You know, they're arguably some pretty unique and exceptional people with a pretty unique and exceptional business, just like us.

14:30So we got lucky to a degree. I don't know that that would be true in every manufacturer brand relationship. But yeah, for us, we got favorable terms that put us in a negative cash conversion cycle, basically way before a business of our size could have achieved that. You know, we can call them on a Sunday and say, hey, we got an opportunity to fill two times our orders next week. Can you add more shifts? And, you know, they could very well do that. We have all sorts of transparency to supply chain and ingredients, but we have all the benefits of basically turnkey manufacturing. So it's pretty awesome.

15:05It sounds pretty awesome. And it's needed for a category that you're in, which is refrigerated foods. It's kind of a dream partnership for any brand that's like sub 100 million, because until you get to that size, you really can't profitably operate your own manufacturing in most cases. Yeah. So we just got extremely lucky. But if founders and brands out there can aim for that, it is a very good place to be. What do you see in salsa that you thought could be disrupted? I mean, refrigerated salsa in particular, because again, refrigerated is tough and we were talking about this upstairs and spoilage and buybacks and all kinds of other stuff that can happen in that space that are not great outcomes for refrigerated brands.

15:49Yeah. Well, for me, small price to pay for the opportunity that I see here because salsa is almost a $3 billion category when you combine center store and refrigerated center Center store is like two thirds of that. A third of it is refrigerated. Center store is declining and refrigerated is growing. So there's this natural migration of consumers going from the center store for salsa to the refrigerated set and produce. And we see Guillermo's as a brand that's going to accelerate a trend that's already happening with consumers. So strategically, a lot of our messaging has that kind of find us in the cold set baked in because that's, you know, that's just where we see the tide turning and we want to get there and get as big as possible before anybody else does.

16:36There's a migration and there has been consistently of better for you going from Whole Foods to places like Costco, to Target, to Walmart, elsewhere. And I think this halo of better for you isn't specific to natural anymore. It's very much a broad term that can be applied to different parts of the store in a lot of retail channels. But better for you doesn't necessarily mean better tasting. And I think one of the best parts about Ithaca is that it was never really presented as a healthy brand. I mean, you could see it and you'd know it's a healthier brand, it's a healthier option. But the indulgence is what you were selling.

17:12And I think that was the secret power that a lot of better for you brands miss out on. How intentional were you about talking about the indulgence factor versus that this is healthier, this is better for you? Well, I think that's a great point. I think that we were intentional about what we didn't say. Like we're not here to make all these claims and say that when you eat our hummus, your skin is going to glow. And, you know, it's just, yeah, it's just a better product. It just tastes better. And I'm also a fan of just kind of keeping it simple and minimalist packaging. I think it makes it easier for consumers to create content that is about the flavor.

17:48You know, you go on TikTok, you go on Instagram. people aren't necessarily hyped about, this is so much better for me than the alternative product. This is gonna make my skin glow. They're talking about this tastes amazing. And you see them eating food and you see them crackers or celery or carrots dipping into the tub of Ithaca hummus and people's mouths are literally watering. And I think having an indulgent product, delivering on that indulgence helps with the marketing as much as it does with anything else. Totally. And that is what we want. That's what we want consumers to be excited about.

18:23The headline is this tastes amazing. It's indulgent. You're going to enjoy eating this. And, oh, by the way, you know, yeah, clean ingredients, super healthy, good for a well-balanced diet. But, yeah, headline is definitely taste. How does it work with Guillermo's? Is headline still going to be taste or is it going to be? It's a great question. Yeah, it's probably star power is probably the real headline. The real headline with retailers is, look, you know, what Guillermo's can do for this category and for your shelf is we can bring incrementality and excitement guaranteed. We've already gotten 350 million impressions on the brand in the first 15 weeks.

19:02We've done nearly 3 million in sales, which, you know. That's insane. It took years combined. combined, like three years combined. First three years of Ithaca, I didn't do the same amount of sales we've done in, you know, three months at Guillermo's. It's the same game. It's just at a different scale, faster. You get people excited by Guillermo and the fact that he's launching a product and a brand that seems to be in line with who he is as a celebrity, as a mascot, as you put it. Yeah. But then you got to deliver on the taste. You got to keep them coming back. You can get someone to try a product once and then they'll never come back unless it's delivering on everything that you say you're going to deliver on.

19:43I think all that being said, how do you keep this momentum going? How do you keep people excited? Is it important for the brand to keep Guillermo as popular as possible such that the brand is benefiting from his popularity, is benefiting from his celebrity? How does he fit into promotion of the brand? How does he help not just the brand at year one, but year five? Does it make a difference? Yeah, another really good question. I think what people don't give enough credit to celebrity brands done well is, yes, he's a megaphone. You know, his celebrity can bring awareness in real time to the brand.

20:26But the bigger benefit, I would argue, is that Guillermo's The Brand starts out with the brand story that already resonates with people and people are already excited to share because Guillermo is already a known entity. People know who he is. So from a storytelling and kind of brand perspective, it puts us on a starting line that's way out ahead of like where I was at Ithaca, for example. No one knows what that is. People know who Guillermo is. And so number one, yeah, best quality product, that's table stakes. and with enough time, that's a winning strategy alone. And you can see that with Ithaca.

21:04But if you can combine best in class, best quality product with a brand that people are really excited to talk about and tell their friends about, more importantly, now you've really got a formula for accelerated scale and growth. And you just, you know, at that point, it's just about, do we have the manufacturing supply to support that? And that's kind of the winning formula that we're batting on here.

21:57some founders who are not celebrities have a great story and they're able to share that story in a way that's compelling to an end consumer and helps them get acquainted with the brand try the brand try their products etc i think in your case your founder story came gradually and gradually to be incorporated into the brand but how much of an impact do you think your personal story and and the development of Ithaca had? Not a lot. And I don't really want it to. There are a lot of founders who do a really good job with that. And I think it can have massive impact and benefit. But no, I just like to be an operator, you know, and kind of stay in the weeds and more than be kind of central in the story of the brand.

22:41The founder as the brand, I feel like has been a theme over the last five years. And perhaps us in the media have been pushing that narrative a little bit too much. But, you know, you think about a Poppy and an Allison Ellsworth. She was front and center in all those TikTok videos. And I feel like it had an impact because she is the consumer as much as she is the founder. Yes. Yeah. But it doesn't, as you pointed out, it's not necessarily for everyone. And I think in the case of Poppy, the operations mattered as much as the marketing. Perhaps maybe one was a little bit more important than the other.

23:16In your case, it definitely feels like Like the business is the business. We're not necessarily selling hopes and dreams. We're selling hummus. Now you're selling salsa and we've got to sell it well. Yeah. And I think the allure of CPG and the magic of seeing your product on shelf and being in love with what you're selling can sometimes take away from the nuts and bolts of business. And it's important for, I think for our listeners to hear this because at the end of the day, you got to sell a product, you got to sell it profitably. And that seems to be something that is inherent in who you are as a founder.

23:51It is. I mean, I look at the business itself as a product that's being built. You know, is it good? Is it bad? Is it a good business? Is it one that I want to continue to work in or not? I look at the business as a product itself, and I have a lot of fun building that too. The business as a product, but who are you selling it to? Well, I mean, the shareholders or I guess the market, anybody who would put a value on it. And are those folks who are buying or investing, buying the business or are they buying the brand, would you say, especially in today's market? You could honestly do either one.

24:26In Ithaca's case, it was both. And do you think it's the same with Guillermo's? Because right now it feels like you're brand building more than your business building, but I could be wrong. No, we're definitely doing both. I mean, yeah. Leo, again, is like his work at King's of Wine with Irresistible Foods Group. He went through diligence with a lot of companies. He knows what a well-organized company organization looks like. He knows what, you know, a good P &L, even down to, you know, the actual fundamentals of the margins and things. You know, he's assessed a lot of these businesses. So he's setting up Guillermo's in a way that it's just going to be a well-run and well-organized business.

25:02Do you need to fundraise? No. No. Is that something that your perspective has come from? Is it kind of not wanting to fundraise because of your experience building that brand? Yeah. Yeah. Everybody who I want to have equity in Guillermo's already has it. Fortunately, between the shareholders that we've assembled, we can kind of fund it as needed. I'll ask it a different way, more provocative. Do investors sometimes get in the way of running a business? Absolutely. I mean, I would argue, I would argue a hundred percent of the time, a hundred percent of the time with the exception of, uh, Ledestry and Bush brothers, they've been great, but I've been really fortunate and have not had to bring like aggressive investors onto to the cap table of Ithaca or Guillermo's.

25:45I like it that way. It's just when two parties come together that really aren't aligned in what they're trying to accomplish and when and why, you know, it can be a recipe for disaster sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I've heard that. And I've heard of really terrible stories where founders get kicked out of their company, which is the worst case scenario, right? Yeah. But you need money, especially if you don't have money to begin with and you've got to pick well and hopefully you find people who are aligned with your vision and don't get in the way, but it's hard. If you were a founder today who did need capital, what would be your process?

26:20Having gone through what you've gone, what would be your first plan to raise money? Would it be debt financing? Would you be looking for one single investor versus multiple investors? How would you advise entrepreneurs today on how to raise money? I would advise them to spend more time with their unit economics, get those right, and then go sell stuff because that's how you want to raise money. You know, it's going to take longer, but if you can sell stuff profitably, you're bringing more capital into your business and you might have to grow a little bit slower, but that's always where I would recommend starting.

26:55And that's not always going to be possible to be fair, but generally it is to some degree. Focus on your unit economics. This is where like building a great business comes into play because if your margins are better, you raise less money. But then I would look for strategic partners who can bring more to your business than just money because they're going to bring more than money. They're going to have requirements and demands and you may have to set up a board. And now all of a sudden, precious time and resources get sucked into maintaining your relationships with people that you've raised money from.