337: Banza

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. We've changed our formula so many times now. And at each juncture, it's very subtle. So a lot of times people don't know. But if you were to try a version of our product from 2016 and compare it to today, there's like no similarity. They're entirely different.

0:52This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

0:59Bonza is a chickpea pasta with the bright orange boxes that have become nothing short of a phenomenon, changing the way we think about gluten-free pasta night forever. I am a legit fan of the Rotini and Penne, as well as the brand's expansion into pizza, and invited Bonza's founder, Brian Rudolph, into the studio. We talk about the founding of the company, how he landed on the iconic branding, and what makes a great pasta sauce. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:34Brian Rudolph, welcome to This Is Taste. Thanks for having me. It's so cool. I get to finally meet a Bonza boy. Okay. You're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Okay, so this is an inside joke with my wife. During the pandemic, and probably in 19, I kept buying Bonza because I loved the packaging. I loved the product. But I kept putting on Instagram stories. I was like in this like, let's show what I'm cooking thing. And I was always like hanging with the bonds of boys. And it like literally drove my wife nuts because it's kind of corny. But you are one of them. Wow. Wow. Thank you. And, you know, appreciate the support.

2:08It means a lot. No, I really do want to ask you a lot about the brand and about your journey here to over 25 ,000 stores and growing even more. It's a remarkable story, mostly because gluten-free pasta was terrible forever. And no one really gave it the serious shake, but in food and food media or wherever. But you were able to break through with a product. But I want to ask you the first question is when you're thinking about creating a chickpea pasta, is it texture first or is it flavor first? Oh, my God. It's both. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to pick one or the other. I feel like there are actually two camps in our company.

2:48Some people who think that texture is most important. Some people who think that flavor is most important. And I probably lean a little bit flavor, but you can't have one without the other. And sometimes one affects the perception of the other. So both. Yeah. OK, so both. But but still getting them both right. There's always a challenge in making gluten free pasta. And certainly you don't lead with the term gluten free. It's called chickpea pasta bonza. So why don't you tell me a little bit about how did you get it to actually not dissolve in hot water? It's been a journey. So originally I was making the product in my kitchen.

3:23And at that point, I tried so many different things to get it to hold together. The first version, I think, was chickpeas and eggs. And then I wanted to figure out if there was a way to make it vegan. And so I started playing around with different egg substitutes. And it was so many different trials and eventually got to something that's actually pretty similar to what we sell today. and that said, it is still a journey. I mean, I was just trying a version of our product that is an improved version or an attempt to be an improved version two days ago. And our hope is to consistently improve the product every six months to a year because the journey just never ends.

4:06Yeah, you're always iterating. You have a bunch of new products too. It's not just dried pasta. Pasta is so fundamental. Dry pasta, it's like in our diets, we make so much of it all the time. But when you launched it, you realized there was a big hurdle, right? And I kept saying, like, gluten-free had a reputation. How did you realize that you could change the narrative right away? Yeah, a few things. But I think the primary one was we started at farmer's markets. We used to do a farmer's market called Eastern Market in Detroit. And it was amazing. It was like the best possible way to get a ton of feedback really quickly.

4:44And in that process, we would try different narratives, try to see what we could say to get people to try the product, just come over and try a sample. And if we said the words gluten-free, most people ran away. If we said the words high protein, that would get more people to come in. If we said high fiber, that would also be interesting, especially for a pasta product. So it was really just a function of trial and error. And you're right. I mean, when we did it in 2015, where we didn't put gluten free on the front of our packaging, a lot of people told us it was really dumb. Really? Pretty consistently, we would hear from retailers and be like, nobody's ever going to know what your product is.

5:26Like, how is anyone ever going to know to buy this? And we had to have a level of trust that the word chickpeas to a person who is looking for an allergen friendly product would say what it needed to say without explicitly saying the words gluten free. And then for everyone else who would see a product labeled as gluten-free as inferior, they would realize, oh, actually, this wasn't designed purely to be allergen-friendly. It's designed for all these other reasons. And it might be for me. It tastes good for one. And also be high in protein. I think that was like a big draw for me personally. I was like, that's pretty cool.

6:00And Easter Market is a great market. I love it. I've been there a bunch of times. And, you know, when you're selling it, what was the branding like? Because I know we'll get into Gander and your launch and this orange box. It's like, holy shit, amazing. But like what was the branding like initially? Yeah, it was directionally similar to what we have now, but like way worse. Way worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that was always our thought process is to just get something out into the world and very quickly get feedback and then iterate on it. So the first version of our packaging had similar messaging, but maybe the hierarchy was a little bit off.

6:44There was a mix of colors as opposed to right now we have this just very loud, bright orange. It was more like sunset tones and a little bit of white. I think what we landed on has made a huge difference for the trajectory of our business. I heard that you switched the formula midstream in the middle of launching this company. What is that like? I mean, what was missing that you were able to course correct? Yeah, I mean, we've changed our formula so many times now. And at each juncture, it's very subtle. So a lot of times people don't know. But if you were to try a version of our product from 2016 and compare it to today, there's like no similarity.

7:27They're entirely different. And at each iteration, it's something subtle. But it has, in some, made a huge difference on particularly texture but also taste. Yeah. I mean, texture is why I love the texture. It really takes me to a place that I'm like I'm not missing much from traditional gluten pasta. But I do want to ask you about that orange because at this point it's Bonza orange. It's its own color. And you worked with an agency called Gander. I'm going to link to a story in the show notes. We profiled a couple of the founders there. And Gander's done a bunch of CPG and really made a name for themselves with Bonza, with your brand.

8:08How the hell did you come up with this packaging that became so iconic? Yeah, it was a partnership. we had learned so much from Eastern Market and the things that we were finding would cause people to be interested in the product. And we basically said, if we're not there to sell it in person, if we're not at the farmer's market in people's purview, what do we wish the packaging would say if we're not there? And that ended up being the same hierarchy we have today where the most prominent thing is the brand. It's very minimal. And it has this bright orange, which is a huge contrast to pasta, which is just the sea of blue.

8:54So and then protein and fiber. So I think that it was a combination of our understanding of what needed to be said and their unbelievable ability to have a taste and a sense for aesthetic. And I think when combining those two, it ended up where we are. Yeah, I mean, it's remarkable that when you thought about the pasta, the dry pasta section previous to Manza, it was blue. All blue, yeah. Like what was up with that? I don't know. Yeah. I think Blue was working for one company and then another company just said, well, if it works for them, we should try it too. There's a lot of following in food.

9:37And it's funny because like so much of what we do is the opposite of that. We're like, well, we really need to stand out. Right, right. If anything, like we're trying to do the exact opposite. It seems pretty simple to like stand out on a shelf. But I guess, did you take into account that there were buyers at major retailers and major grocery stores who maybe wouldn't take a shot and like an orange pasta? Orange box pasta? Yeah, I think that the decision tree was always consumer first. And then assuming that what we were doing was serving the people who are actually buying our products, then the retailer would follow suit.

10:13And it happened to be that, you know, we had some good initial traction and we were always able to leverage that to get more opportunities. but yeah it was also like we had a ton of rejection we had a ton of um retailers who said yeah maybe i'll carry it but you know i'm only taking one item and it'll be you know maybe rotini i'll put it on the bottom shelf and then we'd have to walk away from those opportunities because we knew immediately that that would fail uh like in order to stand out it can't just be an orange package it has to be a brand block um multiple items placed next to other items that are similar.

10:48And so, yeah, it's been a journey. But yeah, and then even when a retailer accepts you, the work is just beginning. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's so much, so much rejection. But a company that didn't reject you was Meijer. And I have to, you know, I got a lot of love from Meijer. It's my grocery store growing up. Right. You said Kalamazoo, right? Kalamazoo, Michigan. Yeah, it's my guy. And they took the shot. What was that call like? Yeah. So we had a pretty crazy early journey. So September of 2013, I started making the product in my kitchen. October 2013, I did a crowdfunding campaign similar to Kickstarter.

11:29And in that month, convinced my brother to join me on this journey. So we're actually co-founders, which has been amazing. And then crowdfunding campaign finished in December. That's 10 years ago you launched it. Literally, wow. Holy cow. Yeah, I was 23 at the time. And yeah, so it's been a journey. So yeah, 10 years ago, December, we finished the crowdfunding campaign. January, we formed the business, like officially. We were like, okay, crowdfunding campaign went well enough. Let's do this thing. Two days later, we heard from a reality TV show that was a lot like Shark Tank. We filmed for the reality TV show in March and it went well to the point where we were able to leverage the momentum from that.

12:18And I was just doing literally anything and everything to get the word out. I did like four or five pitch competitions. Holy cow. Yeah, just like nonstop. Because if it wasn't gonna work, I think I just wanted to know, right? And so it was very, in retrospect, like totally fearless, which I don't know if I have that same level of fearless now. Right. But it was, I guess, you know, 23 felt like I guess I had nothing to lose. And and not you didn't have a cap table. You had like friends and family crowdfunders. Just just that TV show at that point. You literally didn't have much to lose. I mean, yeah.

12:57Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so we did a pitch competition and one of the judges had a connection at Meyer because it was in Michigan where I was based. And Meyer loves to support local businesses. They connected us. And I feel like it was the most embarrassing thing that I just like completely misunderstood so many of his emails because I knew nothing about grocery. Were you like literally Googling terms in the email? I was Googling, but I guess I should have Googled more because he said, let's do a call. And I don't know, maybe a call. And when I think about it, I'm like, there must have been phrased in a way where call somehow meant actually be there in person.

13:42So, which as I think about it, like how? You assumed it was a telephone call. I assumed it was a telephone call. And I called him. He's like, you're supposed to be here. I was like, okay. So anyway, showed up the next day. He was nice enough to fit me in. And then in that meeting, we still didn't have packaging. I brought pasta in a plastic bag. And I was like, hey, here's our story. We just went on this TV show. We would be so excited to work with you in like two or three stores just to test it out, see how it goes maybe learn a little bit along the way and he's like that's great i'm really excited about this i'm gonna carry it in all my stores and i was like well what if we didn't do that he's like no no the only way this is happening it's all stores he he knew what he needed for his customers and that's probably what how many like 30 stores uh no my myers 200 was 215 at the time oh my god i'm i'm so sorry myer i had no idea yeah uh well yeah and and so it was uh a little scary.

14:39We had to very quickly figure out how to scale the product beyond what we were doing, which was mostly in my kitchen. And we had a ton of, which we can talk about, a ton of issues trying to scale. But yeah, a lot of it was just like leveraging momentum constantly in order to get in front of people. How did you fill that order in terms of the capital? Like, did you have to actually go to an investor group or did you go to the bank? Did you go to institutions? So we were fortunate to have raised between the crowdfunding campaign and on the TV show enough money to get started. That's cool. But it was tight.

15:18And when we had production issues, because the product didn't scale very nicely from kitchen to scale, it got really, really scary. And there were definitely moments where I thought the company might not survive because we had burned through basically all that money very quickly in bad production runs. So yeah, that summer was absolutely awful. But gratefully, we figured it out. That TV show aired August 5th of 2014. We were in Meijer a few days after that. And in part of the TV show, one of the investors was also a part owner in Eataly and was able to get us into Eataly. So we launched two very different stores, Meijer and Eataly.

16:03You can make it in both. You can make it in America. That was the thought. Yeah, totally. That was the hope because it was like we want to be everywhere pasta is. So if if we can be in Meijer and Eataly, like that's the most premium and the most mass. So, you know, maybe it's true. Brian, we're here in 2023 and you are in 25 ,000 stores and over 10 million customers consider Banzo their guy, I'll say. And also you're the top five pasta companies. There's four of them. They probably have blue boxes. they're over all of them are over 100 years old and then there's you and so this journey to that is remarkable and we're not doing like a six-hour podcast it probably could be um but i want to like fast forward to now and let me ask you this pointed question you know how do you keep growing because it seems like that is something that's essential for a food company right now.

16:58Yeah. Is it possible? Yeah. As you get larger, I think it does get harder to grow the same percentage year over year. You know, it growing 100 % year over year was doable when we were smaller. But yeah, I think at this point, you know, it's not like growth at all costs either. We are really particular about building our business the right way and not sacrificing on the things that we care about. So, you know, going back to the mission of inspiring people to eat more beans, you know, they're one of the best ingredients for human health and the environment, and we just don't eat enough of them. And if we were to be obsessed with growth at all costs, there are plenty of ways you could spin that mission and, you know, sacrifice on human health or the environment in one way or another.

17:47You know, we could grow our pizza line by making a pepperoni pizza, but ethically we made the call to not use meat. And so yes, growth is important, but I think doing it responsibly and ultimately thinking about what will set ourselves up to be a hopefully thriving business in 20 to 30 years, not just a fast growing business today, I think is going to be the right strategy. Yeah. And you talk about the mix of products. You have pizza, which I like a lot. You have waffles for breakfast. So you're in like all meals of the day, which is cool. But back to the pasta, like the shapes, that's essential, right?

18:30So you have like ruttini, you have cavatelli. How do you like think about the growth of pasta shapes? You know, we talked to cookbook authors about obscure pasta shapes. They're the most fun. Isn't that fun? So how do you actually come up with the new pasta shapes to be presented on shelves? Yeah, a few different things come to mind. One, I love obscure pasta shapes. They're the most fun. Second, the top pasta shapes do drive the disproportionate amount of volume. But it's the long tail that I think helps us really build the narrative that we are a true player on the shelf, right? And I think it is so exciting for people with food allergies to have access to some of these shapes.

19:15Like we made the first commercially available Bucatini recently, and that is a really fun shape. People love Bucatini. There was like an obsession with the Bucatini shortage in 2020. And I think it's really special that we self-manufacture. We have the ability to make shapes that otherwise a lot of companies would probably look at their P &L and say, well, that's not going to drive a lot of volume. And, you know, it's not a good use of line time. But I think with this broader thought process around what it means to have a true position on shelf and an opportunity to sit next to the traditional blue box with every single shape that they have to, there's a lot more work to do.

19:59Even though Bucatini might feel like an obscure shape, there's a long list. well you also create mini buzz moments when you release products and that's that's part of the special sauce for for cbg right now and it's like having that big moment on social instagram stories needs to blow up somehow you need to have like that buzz moment on like in like the places like you know air one and a foxtrot and like those kind of indie cooler retailers you got to like have a little pop there right so it's like you're thinking about um these moments these buzz moments And I think the obscure pasta shape is like the best way to do that.

20:32Yeah. I'm totally with you. And for so long, we could not keep up with demand, which is like the better problem to have than the other one. But we were unable to do a lot of those obscure pasta shapes just because our plant couldn't keep up. Right. But now, gratefully, we're in a position to be able to experiment more, try more playful shapes. And I would just say stay on the lookout. You know, we'll hopefully be doing more soon. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a cool trajectory, and I just want to see that orange wave take over. And, you know, not to get personal, but I'm not gluten intolerant. I love pasta.

21:07I eat a ton of pasta. But for me, Bonza just represents kind of a different style of pasta, meaning that I can just eat a lot of it and feel a little better. This is not paid. Let's be clear. I should have said that at the start. I just like this product. So I wanted to have you in. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, that means a lot. I mean, we I think of all the things that we do, product is the number one. Right. That's that's the thing that we're people are actually consuming. So it's we take it very seriously and it's it's very high on the priority list. And I'm really happy to hear that you're enjoying it.

21:43That's awesome. Absolutely. So let's talk about QSR, quick service restaurants. I just have to think that there is a way to do a Bonza QSR. That'd be so fun. I mean, Mark Ladner tried it. You know, it would be fun. Mark Ladner tried it with Pasta Flyer, and, you know, I wish that would have worked because I think of QSR and pasta being so great. Like I think of like Fazoli's, this great brand for the Midwest. But have you done the deck? Is there like a Bonza store QSR opportunity? Maybe in our dreams. I think it's also a really hard business. Of course. And I have so much respect for the restaurant industry, especially everything that's gone on in these last few years.

22:20But it's an interesting opportunity at some point. I mean, we could, in theory, have breakfast with waffles, have lunch and dinner with pizza and pasta, a little mac and cheese in the middle. But I think for now, we really have to stay focused on what we're doing and doing well and let the experts in that space really take it on. We've also had people who have reached out to us who want to do a QSR centered around Bonza. But I think it's really hard to do. And a lot of them I haven't seen actually come to fruition. So I think for now, staying focused, but also continuing to partner with people who are seeing success on the food service landscape.

23:07Like we have a few partners who carry us as - You do food service. Yeah, yeah. Where it's not our brand at the door, but we're an item on the menu. and I think that's super exciting and we're very grateful for the folks who have already started to carry us. Yeah, I feel like I would love to see that iteration, like a live version of Bonza come to life. It'd be really cool. Is there a pasta shape that doesn't work with your formula? It used to be Bucatini. Really, that was the grail? Yeah, that actually was. I used to troll our head of manufacturing and be like, oh, we sold Bucatini into Whole Foods.

23:43You got to figure out how to make it right now. And he would like flip out. He'd be like, you did what? Oh my gosh. Yeah. But no, it was always just like a funny joke. And then at some point, you know, we figured it out, which was like such a cool moment internally, right? Like just to feel like we had made so much progress in understanding manufacturing. So yeah, I think that was the hardest one. And I think it's - So you can do some, you do lasagna sheets, right? Yeah. Yes. Stay tuned. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there might be some. I thought for some reason you had it already. We did in the past. It was a pain to make.

24:23And we had to, especially with some of the challenges of keeping up with demand, it was one of the ones that we had to put on hold. But it's going to make a comeback. I mean, there's so many different products we could talk about. I feel like, you know, it's such a fun conversation. I mean. I'll talk pasta shapes all day. Yeah, we can all day. Let me ask you, though, about Blue Apron. I feel like Blue Apron, some of the boxes, like that's how Bonza got into the hands of people. Yeah. Talk about those. I mean, Blue Apron is like kind of nothing now, unfortunately. It's kind of gone to zero. But, I mean, it's unfortunate because it helped a lot of brands.

24:57And I think your brand was probably really helped by Blue Apron. So you're totally right. And I think that's one of the benefits of, you know, our product is it's shelf stable. It's easy to ship. It's easy to work with. But some of those partners that took a chance on us, you know, just like in food service, like it's a de facto endorsement to be in Blue Apron, to be in Hungry Root, which I love. That's my guy. I had the founder on the show. I listened to it. I heard Ben give me a shout out. I was like, oh, my God, Ben, thank you. Yeah. I'm still describing I like Hungry Root a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

25:39And some, I mean, some of those boxes have had, you know, a really positive impact on our business in ways that are not always revenue, but just like, again, that de facto endorsement, what it means to be in those boxes. So we're very grateful. It's cool that you say that. I think we will have a moment when we remember Blue Apron in a way that I think is positive. You know, it sucks that it ended up like this. And I mean, they were just sold to another company. So we'll see if they can pull it out there. But yeah, I think I like I like this idea of it being like a cosine. And, you know, what do you think about like grocery media is bigger than ever?

26:19It seems it feels like, you know, like guys, you know, newsletters like snack shot from Andrea. And oh, yeah, they're like very like it's big. It's awesome. People read that stuff now. I read it. I mean, I think it's great. And for me personally, to have more content to consume is very fun because I think in the past it was, you know, no knock on like supermarket news, but, you know, it's definitely oriented towards the retailer. And it's like very inside baseball. These are more consumer facing. And I just I think the language, especially Andrea's, very fun. Yeah. So I'm all for it. Yeah, I'm all for it, too.