Founder Feature: Alyssa Fernandez of Ollin

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0:59So I really, really, really love flavor. And I'm the type of person, if I'm getting into coffee, if I'm getting into really grains, I want to know more about how do I make the most out of what I'm making without having to really do any extra work. At least that's how I rationalize it to myself. And I mean, it really is just that. I'm a pretty simple baker. Like I don't make extravagant flavors. I don't make extravagant cakes. I keep it as bare bones as possible. Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today we're talking with Alyssa Fernandez, founder of Allin.

1:44Allin is a gluten company that utilizes cake mix to challenge the narrative around the misunderstood wheat protein. Through working with Texas farmers and preserving traditional milling techniques, Olin offers heritage grain products focused on wheat quality rather than avoidance. In a world filled with gluten-free options, it's refreshing to see Alyssa going against the grain and glorifying gluten. In this episode, you'll hear about Alyssa's journey as a first-time CPG founder, how Olin came to be, hint it has to do with wedding cake, and how Olin is making its mark in the world of baking mixes.

2:19I hope you love this episode as much as I love how Alin is shaping up the baking aisle. Enjoy.

2:29Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin, and today I'm here with Alyssa Fernandez, founder of Alin. Alyssa, welcome to the show. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. We're really happy to have you here, especially fresh off of a launch. Can you tell me what it's been like being a brand new CPG founder and being so fresh off of a launch? It is honestly a bit of a relief. I don't do well living in this abstract planning sort of daylight dream. And so just to actually have something tangible to really even show my family going, I haven't been just baking cakes like for fun.

3:08Like it's been serious. They can actually see it and go, oh, this is what you meant? this is that oh it makes sense I'm like yes yes it's manifesting so Alen is here Alen is alive tell us what is Alen so Alen it's actually a noato or Aztec word that means to come back full circle or movement and when I discovered that it was just like an instant yes this represents a little bit of everything that I've been looking for, it just really represents what I want Allin to be. And really, more than anything, I think of it as a gluten company that just happens to make a cake mix. I love that. And I also love that Allin is full circle because I feel like you and I are having a full circle moment right now because we initially connected over a year ago online after being laid off from our jobs.

4:04And we found each other through a CPG space. And we're like, hey, here's me. Here's you. And then when you reached out and said, you're actually founding a CPG company, I was like, well, wait, now I'm an editor. Let's talk. I know. It's like when we were chatting, like you were talking to me about death, CPG, and just kind of commiserating. So it's really like, ah, it's all coming in. But I don't know, for me, it felt like I was so shy to even like tell people outside of immediate friends and family what I was like really plotting and wanting to do that it's nice to be out in the open. You are not the first founder that I've spoken to that has kind of kept things under wraps.

4:44I spoke to another founder whose parents had no idea that she had founded a brand and I can only imagine the weight that lifts off your shoulders when you can unleash your brand to the world and especially to your own circle. So tell us how the idea of Aulin came about. What is the magic behind Aulin? So more than anything, I'll start about five-ish years ago. It was just kind of two things coinciding that they were parallel in my life. And then one day they just intersected and the intersection is what became Aulin. So it started with me being in my data journalist job going, wow, this is fun, but I should not be here.

5:25And on the other hand, it's me going through my own health journey. I had really severe cystic acne for years and just tried everything under the sun to try to help it, cure it, whatever you want to call it. And that led me down this rabbit hole of just trying all these different diets. I mean, I went from vegan to carnivore and just everything else in between. So when people talk about these diet spaces, and especially right now with protein, I'm like almost cringing because I'm just thinking to myself, I remember being like in so deep on these groups and such. But really what that all taught me is that I shouldn't be afraid of food and I shouldn't be afraid of food groups.

6:08So when I started to rethink how I was eating, I really went down this local rabbit hole. I started to develop a philosophy where maybe it's not so much what I'm eating, but where I'm getting it from. So and again, all this is happening with me feeling dissatisfied with my job and trying to figure out where am I trying to go with my next career steps. So eventually those two things just intersected and I finally said, okay, I know for sure food is something I want to work with. And then I started to go through a process of elimination of what I didn't want to do. Like I didn't want to get some sort of like new, like nutritionist degree or be a functional therapist, whatever they call them and coach people through it.

6:54That wasn't for me. I didn't want to work long hours in the kitchen. I didn't necessarily want to farm and didn't want to do advocacy work. So it was just like slowly going down and just really having an open mind and exploring these spaces. So I even did spend some time working at a food policy nonprofit. One of my best friends is a farmer in the Hudson Valley. So I'd always visit her and kind of shadow her with army practices. So it's not like I haven't trucked. Like I really earnestly do try before I go. Not for me. And at what point in this process did you say cake mix, baking mix is for me?

7:34It was making my wedding cake. By then I was like so in like I'm eating local. I'm eating like the best quality ingredients that I can afford and when it came down to that and just going through what am I going to spend money on for vendors I knew for a fact I was like I am not going to spend a couple hundred dollars on a cake where I know the inside is just like I cannot in good conscience give that to the people I love like that was I drew the line and by then I had started doing sourdough baking getting into like different grain combinations and had so much fun doing there with my bread. And I was just stubborn.

8:09I was like, okay, I'm going to make an einkorn wedding cake. No matter what, I'm going to use einkorn and I'm going to use extra virgin olive oil. And it literally took me like months. Like I think I finally perfected the recipe like a few weeks before the wedding. And even then it was still a bit of a hot mess. But you know, I served it like just comparing it to the iteration it is now. It was a hot mess. But my friends and family loved it. They're like, this is so flavorful. Like, what did you put inside it? What is this? And I'm like, guys, that's the flour. That's the grain. You're tasting the grain.

8:42That's all the flavor. And yeah, just as time went on and I was crossing things off the list, it just became more and more obvious that this was the thing I had to do. Like I describe it as, I don't know, it's like I didn't look for it. It found me and I knew in my bones someone was going to do this. So it may as well be me. Talk about a love story. Seriously. I can totally relate with what you're saying because we did things at our wedding which were totally us and not like anything anybody else would probably do. Like we had a fragrance free wedding for example. We are not cake people so we did pie.

9:23But if Allen was an option, I would have heavily considered it. So I recently made the everyday chocolate. We made cupcakes for my mother-in-law's birthday. And I do really love the flavor profile of it. I think everyday chocolate is very fitting because it definitely tastes like something I could eat every single day. It's not decadent. It's not overly sweet. it's very I don't even know the word like it's just very accessible is that a good way to say it yeah talk to us about the flavor profiles and your products so I really really really love flavor and I'm the type of person if I'm getting into coffee if I'm getting into really grains I want to know more about how do I make the most out of what I'm making without having to really do any extra work.

10:15At least that's how I rationalize it to myself. And I mean, it really is just that. I'm a pretty simple baker. Like I don't make extravagant flavors. I don't make extravagant cakes. I keep it as bare bones as possible. So I was thinking about this like about a year ago, I developed the idea for something called a grain tasting. And this was something I was doing like alongside my farmer's market work to try to educate and talk to people more about grains. and I made a flavor wheel for this. Like it was a whole ordeal thinking about matching stuff. Like I had baked all these different like shortbreads with different flours, tasting, like trying to find what are the notes and aromas and complimentary flavors that could go with it and what has already matched and compared to chocolate charts, coffee charts, et cetera.

11:04So at that point, I had known already, like rye was the thing. No one needed to tell me anything. Rye pairs really well with cocoa and it's not supposed to overpower cocoa. It's actually the top note. And then cocoa is in the back. And for me, that's the chocolate that I enjoy the most. And when I was thinking even about naming it, I thought, well, this isn't going to be rich. This isn't decadent, kind of like you're saying. It's any day. So you can have this whenever. You can make it more decadent. You could emphasize it less. And a lot of how I designed the flavor of this is for it to be a baker's paradise.

11:38Dice. It's designed for people to mix and match, add other flavors, add more complexity to it, and to just grow while having a, what I consider to be a very wonderful taste on its own. I would totally agree with that. We'll be right back. What's up, friends? Years ago, I opened an account with one of the old banks, but they were stuck in the past. The online banking was terrible. The customer support it was worse and I basically had to go into an actual bank to deposit any check. It drove me nuts. That's why I'm so excited to tell you about our new partner for business banking, Rowe. They are in it with us.

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13:27I think it has this flavor profile that could be a morning treat if somebody wanted to make like a savory muffin with it even or a dessert. Like it's it's a hitter. I'm excited to try the golden hour, too. I'll probably be baking something with it this week. Yeah, that's my personal favorite. we ended up swapping the einkorn for spelt with the golden hour because one of the biggest pieces of feedback I received on the original recipe that had einkorn was is this banana bread and it turns out just like the base flour blend that he added the einkorn with just somehow made this banana-y aftertaste and I had to go no like as much as I like this I can't have people thinking that they're eating banana bread.

14:14So we swapped it for spelt. Banana bread, sourdough, sounding very COVID-era baking. It is. But there was never any bananas in it. That's what was crazy to me. But it tastes so much like it. But like, that's how powerful flour is as the flavor in the baked good. It's just been so undermined. And for me, it just drives me bonkers where I see all these different cake combinations and flavors and I'm going, y 'all, it can be so much better with y 'all having to add extra things. It doesn't have to be this complicated. The ingredient list is so simple. I feel like I typically when I bake, I make things from scratch because I would just assume buying a box mix is going to have a massive list of ingredients.

14:59I was shocked when I saw how minimal the ingredient list was when I got your samples. I was simply amazed. I will say the most difficult part of it is getting the ratios of the flowers correct. And I think anyone that's ever gotten like really deep into sourdough knows this. The recipe development spreadsheet that we have is just full of all these different formulas, all this different math. And if you're off by even like 20 grams of one flower over the other. You can just have a hot mess of a cake that sinks whenever it bakes or it's like super hard or mushy. And that's really the, I guess, the secret sauce of it.

15:41It's the actual ratio of the flowers that we've put together. I cannot even imagine what it looks like to become a formulator for a product. That is just so beyond my comprehension. So I applaud you for even having a spreadsheet, for even attempting this feat of creating a product, especially as a first time CPG founder. Well, that's part of what made me feel or all this relief that I have now of having a tangible product, because I felt like I was this mad scientist that people just didn't understand. Like I would talk to friends and I just go, this iteration, it didn't work. I'm trying to figure it out and I've been reading this textbook and this.

16:23I would even contact different grain professors in the country and just ask them their input about these varieties. How are they grown? How do they bake? What are the things I need to consider? Because when it comes to heritage and ancient grains, as much baking science blogs there are out there, they're all only made for conventional roller mill flour. If you want to step outside that, it's a wild, wild west. There are only minimal suggestions to not get a botched product. And everything else is good luck. No one's tried it. Very interesting. This is a world that I am so far removed from. But I did go to Whole Foods this morning.

17:03And I was just curious. I was like, talking to Alyssa today, I just want to see what the baking aisle looks like. Your branding doesn't touch anything in the baking aisle. Sorry to any other brands who are in the Whole Foods aisle and are hearing this right now. Sure, your products are amazing, but the branding, unreal. It doesn't look like anything that's on the shelves right now. So talk to me about your branding. You just mentioned the Wild West, your packaging, very Wild West vibes. So I've always been a theatrical person at heart. I have theater kid energy without ever having been an actual theater kid.

17:40so i knew like from the get-go i wanted some sort of theming because again like the list of what am i not going to do with my career i had a big list and even a why could you pull it out to show you even adding in some movement here i even have this giant binder a packaging that i would collect and then annotate just so I can see what do I like, what do I not like, comparing it to their social media, comparing it to their websites, and also going reasonably, what can one person manage? And I can't go by vibes alone. I'm not cool enough for that. Like straight up, again, the theater kid energy, you know, you're not, you have to have something else to kind of base yourself on.

18:29So it just, for me, it made sense to go a little more Western, and a little more Maverick because I am from Texas. I was born and raised here. I use grains from here. So I thought, well, may as well showcase that. May as well make it a little campy. I'm going to turn on Cowboy Carter and just get all the inspiration from there. And the designer I worked with was just like a dream. I would just send her these very long Google documents with pictures from my binder, other pictures of inspiration. It would literally even say, Riverdance, Cowboy Carter. I kind of like this. The circuit, the rodeo, let's just play into this.

19:06And if it doesn't work, just toss it. And she would listen. She'd go, okay, I understand the assignment. 10 days, I'll get you your assets. And then 10 days later, I'd see something. I'd go, how did she do it? Like, how did she visually capture all this verbal nonsense into something visually cohesive? How did you find your designer? I don't remember. I would go through Instagram, find one like big agency and just go through this like telephone game of going suggested for you clicking on one creator clicking on the other creator and just slowly siphoning out to i found her wow now it sounds like we just need to get some all in in beyonce's hands and blow her mind she is texas there you go so i have another thing that i noticed walking up and down the whole foods baking aisle today.

19:54I did not see a single brand who was glorifying gluten in the way that you do. Why did you choose to go this route of not just including gluten in your recipe, but glorifying it on your packaging? So that came as I was recipe developing. The other big hurdle I had was messaging. So I spent a while just thinking about that, reading different books on branding strategy and it was not obvious to me like it seems like that way now after the fact but during the time I mean this was several months of me anguishing being at the farmer's market like trying to describe and sell like making gluten appealing or making these grains appealing at least that's how I was thinking of it then and I was really struggling with it without I feel like I couldn't summarize things in one sentence I had to take like a five minute podium pro flower heritage grade stance and then you would lose people like that they go oh okay I'm actually just going to go to this stand over here I'll talk to you later so one day I was just scrolling online and it hit me that my competitors aren't ever going to be Duncan Hines Betty Crocker or Pillsbury it's going to be other gluten-free companies because we're the only ones who have a similar price point.

21:16We're on similar shelves and we have similar customers with similar needs. It's just which approach are they going to take? Are they going to take the gluten-free or are they going to take better gluten? And once that hit me, I just knew that that's the messaging that I need to run on because I love the baking sphere. I've continuing my little pastry school escapade on the side. But one of the things is that when you're really in deep in this subject is that it's a riddle with so much jargon. And it's very unfriendly for folks who are curious, but don't want to have to do multiplication before they bake something.

21:55No math here, please. Numbers make me sweat. It's not for me. That's why I really appreciate your box mix like a thousand percent. We'll be right back. Are you going to crush it on Amazon this year? It's such an important channel, but it's so hard to do alone. And most agencies are a total ripoff. We can't afford$5 ,000 a month and a commission on our sales. They just don't get it. That's why I love our partners at Daybreak. They are full service, meaning they do the creative work, the listings, the logistics, and of course, all the ads, all with the most reasonable retainer out there. I work with them personally.

22:28I'm so grateful we have such a good partner to recommend out to you, our community. They do evaluate your product first to see if it might be a fit. So if you want them to have a look, email them. Startupcpg at daybreak.agency and they'll do a free audit for you. Good luck, everyone.

22:47So I have something that I want to share with you. And I'd love your opinion on this. New Hope Network sent out an email a few months ago and it really caught my eye because it was talking about the gluten-free boom. And in their email, they said, By 2030, gluten-free demand will surge dramatically, with celiac disease expected to affect 3 % of the population. Beyond medical necessity, 51 % of consumers now choose gluten-free options for lifestyle reasons. How do you plan to capture the attention of that 49 % of consumers who are not choosing to go gluten-free? I think it's one of the things that I've noticed when online and looking into people's digital behavior habits is while gluten-free from the company perspective seems very fun, seems very accessible, driven with lifestyle, it's just regular baking content, but the product is gluten-free.

23:43there is an inverse side to it. If you start going on forums with people who are eating gluten-free, you see a lot of negative sentiment. You see a lot of posts talking about how they don't feel a part of their community, that they can't participate in being part of these social groups or social outings, how they feel like a burden by having this dietary restriction that holds and back from participating in these activities that makes you feel closer to people. I even saw like a few months ago a viral video about someone having a gluten funeral after she was diagnosed with celiacs. And just even from personal anecdotes, when folks, what I've noticed when folks talk to me is just how much they miss being a part of things, how much they miss being able to enjoy something that they grew up with.

24:36And so I don't think that Allin's job is to educate people. I think what Allin's responsibility is, is to create a celebratory space for an ingredient that's been villainized. And that's why even with on the packaging, on the very front, I say, don't give up on gluten, celebrate with it. It's, I was very intentionally staying away from these health markers. Like, sure, I could have put it has more fiber because it does, has more protein, these grains do, but like a health benefit can only go so far. What really rallies people behind is messaging. So I think that's what I see as kind of our big hurdle for that is how do we execute this messaging?

25:21How do we execute an identity around it? And how do we give certain folks of the population, not celiacs, but maybe people who are gluten intolerant, an opportunity to participate again in these cultural events who don't have to feel like they're different? I feel like you kind of just triggered an emotional response with that answer. That was like so deep and motivational and I was not expecting that. So thank you. I've spent a lot of time thinking about gluten. Like it's not a I say that, but I'm like, this is really what like 2024 was for me is just looming over this. It's wonderful. I think you really just hit the nail on the head.

26:04And honestly, it was something that never even crossed my mind about that feeling of missing out or having nostalgia for something that you used to have as a part of your life, but now isn't something that you can have. And yeah, I didn't know gluten would be part of the inclusivity conversation, but here we are. You're doing it. I would love to switch gears a little bit and talk to you about your entrepreneurial journey. Since Allen is a very young company, you launched in May of 2025. I would love to learn how you as an outsider to the CPG industry were able to take your resources and then join as a founder.

26:50It was about 18 months, almost two years of being a very weird wallflower. Like I've been sneaking into these spaces, joining, like I think I was part of the Startup CPG Slack group under my like farmer's market handle for one point. But like I would never post. I was just a lurker, just lurking around these spaces, listening, going to different webinars that were out for free, just never turning on my mic, never turning on my camera and paying attention. There is a great book called Ramping Your Brand by Dr. James Richardson, and that has been my CPG Bible. So with anyone who wants to start a CPG company, that's where I'd recommend starting or grabbing because he lays out the expectations and the work that's needed to achieve growth.