Founder Feature: Erica Groussman of Trubar

0:02A few years back when I ran a beverage company we had to launch using those plastic sleeves to put our designs on the cans. but they looked bad. The sleeves get stretched out. They don't cover the full can and overall, they just look and feel low quality. Lucky for you, digital can printing technology has come so far over the last few years that now you can launch your beverage brand or new SKUs with a fully printed look and it's at similar pricing to those plastic sleeves. Our friends at CanWorks, which is the largest US-based digital can printer, are happy to work with our community at very low minimums, even one pallet.

0:32They've got locations in the East Coast, the West Coast, Texas. Get in touch with them through our contact form. It's at canworksprinting.com slash startupcpg.

0:59You just need to go out there. You need to use who you know. If there's a retailer that you want to get into and you really like, who do you know? Who knows someone who works there and just try to like maneuver because we know people for a reason and people really like to help. If you reach out to someone who's already been there or already done that, like they want to help you. That's our nature of who we are. We were all there at one point. So I think that reaching out to people who you might be either know of that retailer or someone who just recently got in, I think that's really a quick and easy, helpful way to get yourself in the door.

1:37Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, Managing Editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today we're talking with Erica Grousman, founder of True Bar, a vegan protein bar company in almost 25 ,000 locations doing nearly$100 million in gross revenue. After going door-to-door with laminated signs and brown boxes, Erica built a brand by focusing on what women actually want. High protein and fiber without sugar alcohols or seed oils that still deliver decadent dessert flavors. From hand repacking four count boxes for hours to launching True Bar Kids nationwide to partnering with Universal for a wicked collaboration, she's proving that you don't have to take yourself too seriously to build something massive.

2:22Actually, she recommends not taking yourself too seriously. And yes, she's still on the ground putting together shippers and heels. Enjoy.

2:35Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin. And today I'm here with Erica Grossman, founder of True Bar. Erica, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Caitlin, for having me. Thanks for being here. You are running a booming business. So it's kind of surreal for me to be sitting here having this conversation with you. We're also big fans of True Bar in our household. Well, Startup CPG has been a big fan on my radar for a long time. You guys have, with all the groups and everything that you guys offer. So to be here, a part of it on this side is really exciting. It's kind of a pinch me moment for myself.

3:13I'm super curious. How did you discover Startup CPG? I don't even know how I started. Maybe like LinkedIn, you guys are huge on LinkedIn. Or someone had told me, you know, founders, we all try to tell each other tips and tricks. But I remember going into your chats on Slack, and it was so overwhelming for me because I was like, Oh my god, where do I fit in? There's so many to choose from. And then you could go into multiple, but not too many. And you could ask questions. so I don't know if it was LinkedIn or a friend but I remember filling out all the paperwork to get on there and it was like an honor to get in and I know that you've had a podcast for a while and it was like oh you asked me to be on it like are you kidding me so definitely excited to be here.

3:59We are very happy you're here so happy you're a part of the community too. Before we get too deep into the conversation for anybody who's listening right now can you explain very briefly what True bar is? Of course, they are protein bars. They're vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, no sugar, alcohol, no seed oil, indulgent, nutritious protein bars with 12 grams of protein. They're high in fiber, all under 200 calories. And they really are that bar that tastes good. Like you enjoy it going down, but then you feel good afterwards. You don't get that bloating or uncomfortable tummy-ish situation. So they're the perfect pick me up.

4:40I can confirm. I know everybody has heard about protein. Protein was so hot in 2025. But fiber, I think is going to be the it girl for 2026. And you are nailing it with the protein and the fiber. I think it's very impressive to see a bar that's so high in protein, but also so high in fiber, because I don't think that that's something we see often in the protein category? It's not. It originated without high fiber. I reformulated a couple of years ago to get more fiber because I saw that it's a need that we all need and we're not getting enough of. Between that and the seed oils, seed oils are another thing that's huge that if you're not aware yet, which I'm sure most of you are who are listening, they just wreak havoc on your body and they create inflammation.

5:30And I really feel it the next day if I ate seed oils before, because we all, we all do it, right? We're not going to like live under a shelf. And so I reformulated them to take the seed oils out. And those two things are just huge game changers within the protein space. For a brand that's in almost, correct me if I'm wrong, 25 ,000 locations and almost$100 million in gross revenue. What did that journey look like for you? I imagine at one point you were a startup and now you're here having to reformulate your products, bringing them to market. What does this look like? I'm sure there's a lot to be said here, but what comes to mind for you?

6:12I mean, it was a really long journey. The journey started, you know, going door to door and just trying to get anyone to try it. Like forget, buy it, just try it and tell me you like it and enjoy it. So I really did. I started going door to door to anyone and everyone who would listen and getting it on their counter. I would offer them a mixed batch in like a beautiful Bed Bath & Beyond brown box, like the brown little bathroom, like, and with a little laminated sign. And I'd be like, here, sell it to your yogis, your patrons who are coming in for the salon or anything and everything and I'll be back and then you can buy some.

6:50And so that's what I started doing. And as we evolved, I mean, I've worn every hat. I was buying ingredients as we got larger because I wanted to control the ingredients. So myself with no background in this was negotiating huge quantities of ingredients, of packaging, of anything that I could leverage to get a better deal, to have more shorter lead times. Unfortunately, we got an order and we didn't have the funds to make it. And it was in a four count. And so I had to open 12 count boxes up and repack it. And this was for a really big line. So for hours and hours and hours, and I had like my friend, my friend's kids helping me, my housekeeper, and we were repackaging it.

7:35So I think people say like, wow, you did it. You're so lucky. Lucky? No. Like this has been a really long journey that has been amazing fun, but also a lot of work and just wearing every hat. How long have you been in business for from concept to now about how long has that been? Around 2018. So it's been extremely long time. I'm like what year is it right now how many years is it if my math is serving me correctly I think we're about at seven soon eight yeah it's a big portion of my life what did your retail strategy look like when you first started getting into retail doors compared to now I don't know if I'd call it a strategy right it's more like who are we getting into how can we get in so Whole Foods was obviously like their gatekeeper.

8:30That was like the biggest la creme. Like, how are we getting in there? And I bothered someone on LinkedIn to get on. So someone finally responded to me, a very nice gentleman. He let me send him samples and he allowed us to come into one region. And that's how we got started truly in retail. But otherwise it was just knocking on any door, anyone who would listen. And once they started selling in stores, that's when it just took off. People would try it, buy it, tell their friends. And there was no like strategy or marketing or anything though. And it was just keep pounding away, right? Keep trying hard work.

9:12If I'm being honest with you, I had seen True Bar on the shelves at Whole Foods before, but there's so many protein bars on the shelves that it gets very overwhelming. My official introduction to True Bar was actually at Costco because there weren't very many protein bar options. And when I did look at the options, yours was the best by a landslide. Yes. And I'm not just saying that because I'm talking to you. It is the truth. You're hitting on the low sugar. You're hitting on the protein. You're hitting on the fiber and just clean ingredients in general. So how do you come up with the idea for True Bar?

9:49And how did you decide on these ingredients? What inspired you to create this product? Yeah, it was really all about like what a woman wants. Like there was a lot of bars on the market that were geared towards men with high protein and all these crazy ingredients that just like you couldn't read or understand. So this was really driven for like what a woman wants to put in her body. We don't want sugar alcohols because they make us bloat, right? Even if you're starving yourself, if you're sticking sugar alcohols and your stomach's going to be out to here and that doesn't feel good, right? So regardless if it's not good for you or it is, which it's not, but it just makes you not feel good.

10:27I wanted like under 200 calories, 200 calories and above just seems a little more frightening than under 200. It's like a freebie. And then 12 grams of protein is like a nice middle ground for protein. We don't need so much. Well, now they're saying over the years that we need more protein. But 12 grams as a snack is a perfect snack to just have in the morning on the way to work. Or a lot of people eat these as dessert, like they'll have their lunch and then they'll have it as dessert or after dinner as a dessert or their three o 'clock coffee eating it with that. So really, it was designed for what a woman wanted.

11:04I don't know if it was necessarily something that I needed in my life, but when I saw the packaging and saw the flavors, it was definitely something that I wanted. And it's true, like the flavors are very decadent, but you're not weighed down after you eat them. It's a really great product. Yeah, but it still keeps you full. So flavors, we have 12 flavors and all of our flavors are dessert flavors. They're all dessert inspired and they have really fun names like O-O cookie dough or smother fudger peanut butter. So we keep it really fun and light. if you follow me or you follow True Bar, you'll see like everything about the company.

11:45I want it to be, we don't take ourselves too seriously. Like it's fun. We're having fun with it. I might be a CEO, but like, I also am like putting together a shipper. Like someone just sent me a picture that I'm on the ground trying to put the shipper together and like laughing and dancing with it. Because if you take yourself too seriously, it just becomes like, we got to have fun. And so that's what the brand is all about. Levity is everything. I think people who take themselves too seriously are totally missing out on the fun. Totally. I agree. And it's nice to hear that even somebody like yourself with such a thriving business who's taking off and you're basically everywhere now, you're still in the day to day, it sounds like.

12:28Deeply in the day to day. Yeah. I'm a part of all of it and I love it. I can't see it any other way. I love that for you. And And I'm sure your team probably appreciates that too. I think it is very nice to be on a team where the founder is involved and actually cares about what's going on. Yeah. Makes employees feel like they're not just a number two. So I'm sure you probably feel that from your team. And the fact that like I'll do it. Like I'll do anything. We have to go to UPS. Something needs to get out tomorrow. Like I'll be the first to tape that puppy up and run to the UPS in heels and all, whatever it is.

13:03So my team knows that I'll do whatever it is that needs to get done. And I think that makes them feel like, oh, we will too. Because first, if I was like, then maybe they wouldn't have the same excitement to do whatever is needed. Totally agree with that. I do want to touch base on two things that you were mentioning previously. One of them is looking at the bars and the calories. You mentioned that the bars are under 200 calories. Thank you, by the way. I noticed something the other day I'm not going to name any names but I bought kids bars for my daughter they're refrigerated bars and it hits on no added sugar whole food ingredients my daughter's two I'm not looking at calorie counts necessarily when I'm looking at food for her it's basically whatever a toddler is going to eat great I looked at this bar I think it had 230 calories in it or maybe like 280.

14:00It was over 200. And I was shocked. And what I did was I pulled the True Bar out of our little storage area for all of our snacks. And I was like, this adult product and this kid's product, the calorie count was crazy to me. So talk to me about launching your kids line, because that for me was a very, it was a shocking moment for me as a mom to see that on my child's product when it's marketed to kids. And then also just having that moment of, wait a second, I'm eating less calories than she is. She's certainly eating throughout the day, but what does this all mean? Yeah, no, of course I agree.

14:39So we recently launched True Kids, not because kids weren't eating our regular bar because they're a huge fan, but we learned that they couldn't go to school with them because all of our bars have nuts in them. So a lot of moms were like, oh, I wish I could send them to school or I send them to school anyways. So we were like, oh, got to come up with a bar line that the kids can take to school. They can go to soccer practice. They can be at the after school sports and piano lessons, whatever the case is. So True Bar Kids was launched just recently. We launched in Nationwide and Sprouts and in Hy-Vee, coming soon to more.

15:19So they're also on our website and Amazon, but they are, they're next to me, so I can show you, but they're eight grams of protein. They're 140 calories with four grams of sugar. And they're really cute. They're a little bit smaller than our current size bar, but it's like the perfect size for the children and they finish it. They're happy and they're getting everything that they need. The fiber, low in calories, low in sugar to your point, and then protein because children need it also. And some sprinkles depending on the flavor. I know, yeah. This is the sprinkle one, Pop Goes Confetti. Also a super cute name.

15:56I don't know if you guys can see it gets a little blurry. So they're Pop Goes Confetti, Iced Oatmeal Glass, and Fudgetastic Brownie Bar. So these just recently launched. These are the 12 counts that literally went out the door like two weeks ago. So by the time this airs, we'll be in three weeks. and they're right now a huge success across children and no I'm really excited to see this come to life and we'll evolve and get some more flavors in the future but they're getting a great review from moms from children I just sent it actually on the school bus with my son who's 12 for a basketball game away basketball game at school there you go and you're like tell your friends.

16:38Yeah, I was like, oh, this is nice. Instead of dropping off some other snack, I was like, I can actually send snacks to school. So it was great. I love it. And my daughter loved it too. We got a little sneak preview and she was all about it. She loved going into the little snack box and picking out her bar in the morning for which one she was going to bring to school. No, it's great for the lunch boxes. It's perfect. Perfect size too. It fits in her bento very nicely. Yeah, it does. We looked at the bento actually when we were like doing it. So thank you. Very smart. All right. So another thing that I want to touch on, you created these bars with what women want in mind.

17:17What has your journey as a female entrepreneur looked like? And what advice can you give to other female founders for your recipe to success? Yeah, I would say obviously we live in a male dominated world. It is how it is and it's okay. I think being a woman, you need to be strong, but also feminine. And I think some women get caught up with like, oh, I need to be strong and a bulldog. And then the men call them bad words because men are allowed to be like that, but not women. I think that we need to be straight to the point and be strong, but do it with that smile and that charisma. and I think you'll win every time because my biggest thing is really staying strong, being direct, not giving up, but also doing it with like a really gentle feminine angle.

18:09And I think that you always, if you say something with a smile versus being very serious, back to being serious, it just doesn't come across the same. I think that people resonate a lot better with a smile, with that gentle gesture. All of that really does resonate with me. I find myself to be a direct person. It's something I like kind of pride myself on. But I also think I have a pretty good sense of humor. Definitely like a dry humor, dark humor sort of person. But the delivery, being direct and doing it with the smile, maybe I need to work on the smile part. But I resonate with what you're saying big time.

18:46And what happens if the other person doesn't get your sense of humor? That's what I always think is funny. Are they quick enough to like pick up on it? I mean, me personally, I'm probably going to judge you if you can't pick up on the sarcasm. Right? Yeah, that's a good question. I guess I don't know what to do when people don't get my sense of humor or my sarcasm. I'm just like, okay, moving on. I'm never going to do that again. Yeah, that's fun. 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.

19:23We 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. I'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.

19:56I have another question for you. Since you've scaled through so many doors, what has the process looked like for you from going door-to-door, basically being a door-to-door saleswoman, to then getting into retail, getting into the club channel? Can you give any pieces of advice to brands who are just starting out now and who are looking to scale. You just need to go out there. You need to use who you know. I think like if there's a retailer that you want to get into and you really like, who do you know? Who knows someone who works there? And just try to like maneuver because we know people for a reason and people really like to help.

20:35If you reach out to someone who's already been there or already done that, like they want to help you. That's our nature of who we are. We were all there at one point. So I think that reaching out to people who you might be either know of that retailer or someone who just recently got in. I think that's really a quick and easy, helpful way to get yourself in the door, get your foot in the door. Yeah, I would say that that's probably like the best advice as far as that goes. I think it's great advice. I mean, we hear that all the time when it comes to applying to jobs, like reach out to your network.

21:07It's all about what we know. But I feel like the more and more that we are in CPG, the more and more this world gets so much smaller. So small. It's true. It is true. I was just talking to a founder recently where I was like, oh, hey, by the way, you're one of your operations coordinators. I went to college with him. I guess we'll see you in a couple of weeks at our event. Yeah. No, it is. It's really small. Like when we go to the big events, Expo West, or it's like you see the same people, you know, everyone, you become family. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm curious about collaborations, speaking about people you know.

21:43I hear that you have a new collaboration. Can you talk to me a little bit about that and how you go about working on these collaborations? Are you talking about Wicked? I am. Yes. So we did collaboration with a partnership, really, I'd call it more than a collaboration with Universal. And with that, we have Wicked as well as some other ones that we'll find out soon. How did we get into it? I wanted to do something with them. And we really just like reached out. They had already known of us and were excited at the possibility, started the conversation, took a little while as all things do. But we got it.

22:24And they were awesome to work with. We launched that in every single target across America, as well as some other safe ways. And so that was amazing. It was like a dream. By the way, did you grow up with Wizard of Oz? I did. So did I. And I just saw Wicked a couple of years ago. And it blew my mind. I haven't seen it yet. It's going to blow your mind. I still, I tell guys all the time because I'm like, don't you remember Wizard of Oz? Like you have to go see Wicked. They're like, what? No, I'm like, don't you remember like how they threw water on her and she died? Well, that's not what happened.

23:02You got to watch Wicked. Like Wicked's adorable and it's exciting to see it come out. And so it was great to work with them and it really gets you in the door of other retailers and it's incremental. So we did a shipper and the shipper went into all these doors. So it was incremental. in addition to where we are placed inside of the typical walls of the stores. So it was great to have that. And I love collaborations. We're working on a lot of other collaborations with other big brands that you guys would know. But I think it cross markets you. So you get to have all of whoever has eyes on them.

23:39And so it's a great tool. It's a really great tool. If you know people who are in similar spaces where you have some demographics that cross over, it's phenomenal to get partnered with them and do whatever you could do even as small as email marketing to as big as like a real proper in-store display very cool it just seems so massive i mean i feel like we see the actresses from wicked all over the place online and then to be able to associate it with the cpg brand that's the household name for us rather than the actresses in the movie but it's really cool to see the two come together. Yeah, it's very magical.

24:20It is. And I think it shows the possibility for other brands that you don't have to think on a small scale when it comes to collaborations, like truly anything is possible. Yeah, I agree. I agree. That was a good one. Since anything is possible, what is one piece of advice that you would give to CPG brands just starting out? If you're just starting out, I would say, A, don't take yourself too seriously. Like you've got to do all the things. Just because you're the founder, the owner, big boss, whatever you are, you've got to do it all. You've got to learn it all. You've got to understand it all.

24:58And don't act as though anything is too small for you. I would say just keep going. Don't get discouraged. It's so easy to get discouraged, but you just got to keep going and fight through it and be true to yourself because if you really believe you can do it, that conquers anything. And transparency. I would say be honest with all of your vendors, all of anyone, your manufacturers. The more honest you are, the more credibility you get, even if it is that you can't pay today or tomorrow, just be honest and be like, listen, this is what the situation, this is where I'm at, but I'm going to pay you in eight days or whatever it is and then do it.

25:40You can't like say it and then not do it. But just whatever the situation is, the honesty really does give you more results later. And then with a smile, always a smile. I don't think I have heard that from a founder yet about the transparency when it comes to payments. I've worked for a company in the past where we, I say we, it wasn't me. I wasn't paying. I was not personally paying vendors, but that lack of communication with your vendors who are helping make your brand possible, I feel like is so disrespectful. Just answer them. Just give them something. Even if it's a sorry, we'll get back to you.