773: Banza's Brian Rudolph Spent Years Avoiding Wheat. Then He Put It in Banza.

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1:05And ultimately, I think what has been super helpful is I'm gluten-free, right? So they feel like they have a man on the inside who is legitimately very concerned and is not comfortable with cross-contamination. I think that has actually helped quite a bit. This is Taste.

1:19Brian Rudolph:I'm your host, Matt Rothbard.

1:32Brian Rudolph:Brian Rudolph co-founded Bonza in a Detroit kitchen in 2014 with a wine bottle, some chickpea flour, and a gluten sensitivity. Twelve years later, Bonza is the country's number one better-for-you pasta brand, and this month it launched its first-ever pasta with wheat. On this episode, Brian returns to the studio to catch us up on all things Bonza, including the brand's continued growth and how launching a non-gluten-free pasta required the company to dig deep and listen to their fans. I love catching up with food founders, and Brian is one of my favorites in the game. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

2:14Brian Rudolph:Brian Rudolph, welcome back to This Is Taste. How are you? I am good. How are you? I'm great. I have to say, like, I have the Bonza boy in the house. You always feel, like, second time you've had that look on your face. Like, back during the pandemic, I was introduced to your product and I started cooking with it. I think I got it in Blue Apron originally and then Hungry Root later. And I'm a huge fan of Bonza. That's why you're here. This is not paid. And honestly, I was like posting like, Bonza boys. And people were like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's very kind of you to say. And I do remember you saying something similar last time we spoke and feeling a little bit uncomfortable, but also very grateful.

2:52So thank you for that. and yeah, feelings mutual. I feel like before we started recording, I was talking, we were talking about how it feels like you're prolific in the amount of content you've been creating and some really awesome guests. Thanks, Brian. I appreciate it. Mutual props. Yeah, we love talking to founders and I've been following the Bonza journey. I mean, you've grown to be the fifth largest pasta brand in America and the four above you are the Blue Box guys who have been around for 100 years. You have your new Blue Box. Yeah. Yeah. Purply blue. Purply blue, but there's no blue and there's a reason for it.

3:26And we're going to get to that. You have a brand new kind of evolution of Bonza and I'm super excited for you guys. Before that, I like to ask it, like you live in New York, you're obsessive about pasta, but also, you know, just food in general. Restaurants you've been visiting recently. Do you have any favorites? Yeah, well, I'm gluten free, which does lead to a very specific restaurant that I fall in love with. But then once I fall in love, I go a lot. So I'll always be loyal to any of the Union Square restaurants. So Danny Meyer and the EHI team, they're actually investors in Bonza, which made me even more loyal.

4:06But Union Square Cafe, anytime there's a special occasion, I love going there. And then there are just like some spots right near me that are really good with allergens also. And yeah, once you have my loyalty, I'm there like a lot. Do you have a gluten-free pizza place in New York? Gluten-free pizza is really hard. It's one of the foods that has the highest risk of cross-contamination because flour is just flying around the oven. So the only places that can do it are usually ones that have a dedicated oven as well. And that's just so hard to do in New York City. So it's not something I've found a lot of luck with.

4:47But it is, I guess, maybe one of the benefits of having a company that makes pizza is I have plenty of pizza at home. No, exactly. It's maybe not what you're going to have to eat. And we'll talk about the evolution of your pizza business when you pivoted away from just boxed pasta. Yeah. So we last spoke in December 2023. And at that point, you know, Bonzo was the fifth largest company and you really had presence. But, you know, gluten-free, chickpea-based pastas and protein were really not part of the conversation. I mean, since then, most of the brands have created a SKU that is very similar to Bonzo.

5:27I think imitation is the highest form of flattery except for in CPG when you're hacking it out. Uh, catch us up on, on what it's like as a founder to see your innovation truly ripped off. Oh, geez. I wouldn't go that far. I know. Is it? Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to be dramatic pods. Um, I think what's interesting is, um, even if things end up in somewhat similar positioning, right, around protein, around fiber, uh, each one of these products tends to have its own swim lane. So like within the world of bean-based pastas of whether it's chickpea pasta, we're something like 76, 77 percent of chickpea pasta sales.

6:12So it is still within our swim lane. We're gratefully, you know, doing very well. I think what we've seen, though, is this trend towards protein is just unbelievable in so many ways. And it's one of the only trends that I can see and be like, at least that makes sense because protein is so filling. Right. So there is some logic to it. And I think that has grouped us in with some products that are approaching the problem from a different angle, which admittedly is sort of what we're doing with this new product, which I assume we'll have time to get to it. but there are many different ways to, I think, solve problems for the customer.

6:58And I'm super proud that our chickpea pasta has really succeeded in its own lane. And now we're looking at opportunities outside of it. I see. So it actually was a benefit because you could open this new lane for you and the new protein-based SKU. And you're in 26 ,000 stores right now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, gratefully our pasta deserves to be on the shelf and earns its keep. And it's a competitive world out there. But because it has such a distinctive positioning of really being the most resonant of the bean-based pastas, I think that has allowed us to sort of build from there. Yeah, it's really cool.

7:42So, Brian, I mean, do you watch people shop for pasta in the pasta aisle when you're out? Yes.

7:48Brian Rudolph:What's that like? It is one of the best ways to learn, I think. Recently, I did a bit of a rogue packaging experiment in my local Whole Foods. And I worked with the team, right? I made sure that they were okay with it. But after basically taking what was a potential new design and putting it on the shelf, I just sat there and watched and saw what people did. And if someone picked up the box, I'd talk to them immediately. And you can learn so much from people just by seeing how they look at different items, what they choose to pick up. If they pick up a competitor, sometimes if I'm feeling bold, I'll even talk to them about that too and just be like, what made you pick that over that?

8:35And it's, yeah, it's all just like part of the fun. I think sometimes as, you know, you spend time in the office, you get further and further away from like where the action is. And it's super important to be close to it and see at the end of the day, like you can come up with a million theories for why someone makes a decision, but you'll never learn more than talking to someone in the actual aisle. Did you catch anyone who had never actually tried the product, who had picked it up off the shelf? Yeah, well, this was an experiment for a different product. We launched a product that's a blend of brown rice and chickpeas last year.

9:12and were working on a packaging experiment. And it was crazy. The second I put, I think it was like five minutes after I put the new packaging design on the shelf, someone picked it up. And so I went over to them immediately and I was like, what's going on? Like, what made you pick that up? And she was like, you know, I've heard about this product. I never saw it before. And that to me said, okay, this new packaging design is probably going to do us a lot of favors because the old one is a little recessive. It's a little bit like it's trying to be kind of cool, but that means that as it's trying to be quiet, people might not see it.

9:47And this new version is much louder and bold, which is more of like a long road. I mean, you guys have always been really a brand that was innovative and doing the type of branding that kind of strikes a chord. I mean, did you work with Gander? We did. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Gander is like, I mean, it's all over. I mean, it's Gander. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they are really talented on the design side. They have such an incredible sense for aesthetic. And I think that's kind of, it's so hard to quantify, right? Because you start getting into this like very subjective territory of what is good, what looks good.

10:25But I think they have a lot of talent. And so we are very grateful to them for helping us get things started. That's cool about brown rice and chickpea blend. So what is the feedback from that? And I guess like why are consumers looking for a blend? So we recognize that our chickpea pasta from a positioning standpoint is I think it's one of the healthiest foods you can eat just like full stop, which is I'm obviously biased. But it's people do not eat enough beans. They're one of the best ingredients for human and environmental health. Americans eat like a third of the recommended daily value. But truthfully, it's one of those things where regardless of the recommended daily value, the more you eat, the better.

11:08And we always looked at it from that lens of if we could just get people to eat more chickpeas, that would be amazing. Yeah. And we also started to realize, man, we've gotten really good at making pasta. It's really, really hard to make a good chickpea pasta. And you just learn so much trying to make that a little bit better every year. and we could also solve different problems for people by doing these blends so our brown rice and chickpea blend which we launched launched last year is we think the best tasting gluten-free pasta just like full stop it happens to be made with brown rice and chickpeas but if you were to put it head to head against another pasta there's no other as far as i know gluten-free pasta that you can use as a leftover leave it in soup overnight and it doesn't uh like disintegrate So that's the key is the structure for these different cooking techniques that sometimes the chickpea only doesn't quite hold up.

12:05Yeah. I mean, it does on a relative basis to other like bean based pastas. I think it's, you know, quite strong. But you start to hit the limits with all the protein, all the fiber without the gluten. Right. There's only so far that you not that we're, you know, we're going to continue to push to try to make it better and better. Um, but this is a way to, whether it's on the brown rice side, um, create and solve a real problem for people who are gluten-free like myself, like it is really hard to get a gluten-free pasta that is good for leftovers. And you want to cook pasta in bulk. You want to have it the next day, the next day, the next day.

12:44Um, so I think we just, we just saw that we could solve a problem for people and that it was sort of like, let's put our, um, you know, ambitions around our mission as like, keep that in mind, right? Make sure there are chickpeas in there, but also help solve a problem for people. So you are the fifth largest brand in the pasta aisle. And I mentioned the heritage of the others. Can you leapfrog one of them? Next time I have you in a couple of years, are you going to tell me you're in the three position? I mean, you never know. I think there's always opportunity to continue to reach more people.

13:18And I think as we start to sort of expand out with solving different problems for different need states, it gets even more likely. But the truth is, like, the majority of people still have no idea that our chickpea pasta exists. Even if we've been at it for 11 years now, we still have to sort of like, yes, I've been living in this every day for a really long time, and it's super, super familiar to me. But taking my, like, bias out of it, also recognizing there's a lot more that we can do within our chickpea pasta and just reaching more people. So thank you for having me on the podcast. No, absolutely.

13:56Reach more people.

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14:38Brian Rudolph:That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. We spend a lot of time on the show thinking about what we put into our bodies. The perfect olive oil to saute those farmer's market vegetables, or the latest cult yogurt brand that promises optimal gut health. We think deeply about what we consume, but often ignore something completely. Our mental health. Rula fixes this. They're a healthcare company that works with over 100 insurance plans, so the average copay is just$15 a session. $15. They match you with licensed therapists based on your actual goals and needs, not just whoever's available.

15:19Brian Rudolph:And appointments can happen as soon as tomorrow. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit Rula.com slash taste to get started. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash taste. You deserve mental health care that works for you, not against your budget. And let's talk about just the, you know, the customer acquisition side of it, because, you know, you've got, of course, your presence on shelves, but that only goes so far. As I mentioned, I was introduced to you through Blue Apron originally, I believe. How are you acquiring new customers, you know, through creative means?

16:01We're always testing learning. And I think that's the only way that we can remain like a company that is cutting edge. Right. And so the thing that works a year ago often doesn't work today. And that's always the case. We had a period of time where we were all in on one tactic and then we revisited it a year later and we're like, geez, this thing doesn't work at all anymore. What was it? In the beginning of the pandemic, we could recognize that a lot of shopping behavior was moving to some of these online only platforms. And I won't name them since I'm now saying that we're spending a little bit less energy there.

16:43But it was unbelievable to see the shift from people buying a grocery store to buying online. And a lot of the bigger players, it took them a while to recognize that that was a great place to spend to build trial. And so we just went all in on those platforms and got a ton of trial. And when we revisited it, you know, after two years, we looked at the ROI. We cut it off completely just to see what would happen to sales. and we saw that it didn't really impact sales at all to just completely stop spending. So something had happened. The costs had gone up because all the big players had recognized this is a good area to spend.

17:22And also it wasn't growing as significantly as it was when we first started investing. Like it was reaching a lot of similar customers. So I think that's just how it goes though. It's like we have to be an early adopter. then the big brands will come in spend like crazy once they find something that works and then we have to go to the next thing where we can be an early adopter again it's so crazy to think about retail media spends and like a lot of listeners may not know but like when you are slotting um in a digital sense you have to pay for that and and like retail media is massive business for these brands and and and just like with tastes changing so quickly yeah it's hard Yeah.

18:04I mean, the retail media landscape is very interesting and we could probably have a very long conversation about that. I think it's a little bit less straightforward of a way of looking at the ROI because also your buyer wants you to do it, right? Wants you to spend there. So it's not as straightforward as, you know, this is going to be the best ROAS. Sometimes it's also this is important for the relationship. Yeah, of course. Which is you just have to start thinking about it differently. Yeah, we could go long on retail media. Maybe we'll do an episode. It'd be really fun. Okay. I have to make sure I don't get myself into trouble by saying the wrong thing.

18:38I know. I mean, it is definitely, you have to have that really special relationship with your buyers and some of the major retailers. And we'll have some buyers on too. Maybe we'll go to their side. I have to talk to you about Generation Startup, but I forgot you were in it until last night when I screened some of it. It was a terrific documentary about startup culture in Detroit. You starred in it. Have you gone back and watched it?

19:05Oh, there's a part of me that cringes from that documentary. I bet. I mean, you really were a founder in an era in Detroit. It was like an energy and you were all in. Yeah. The only parts that I've rewatched are the parts where sometimes for onboarding new team members, we use some clips from it. Selective clips. Selective clips. Exactly. The ones that show us demoing at the farmer's market to say, like, look, we've always been a scrappy business. We're always going to be doing demos. Yeah. I think that documentary is sort of representative of just how we used to and try to still operate, which is we'll do anything.

19:49Right. Like we need to be comfortable, whether it's embarrassing ourselves or just putting ourselves out there in order to hopefully spread the word. That's something we've made. We're really proud of. So if it's going on a podcast and being a little nervous and uncomfortable, though, you've done a great job. OK, you feel comfortable. You can get nervous because that always makes good. OK. All right. All right. All right. I'll let you know if you ask me something that puts me on. OK, OK. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, uh, that participating in that in part was just a recognition that you never know who's going to see this thing.

20:24Right. And if they feel more connected to our early story, maybe they'll feel more connected to the brand. Maybe that is, allows us to build a more enduring business. Yeah. But the cringe moments though, like when you think about that, is it just kind of being like all in, in this like tech culture that maybe hasn't aged that well? No, I mean. Now we're getting comfortable. Yeah, I'm thinking about which parts of it are most – I am very grateful to have been a part of it. I need to be a little bit diplomatic in this conversation. I can't just completely blab. But I think there's just some elements when I look back on it where, you know, it is just a different time in my life.

21:11Yeah, it's like founder's journey, aggressive tactics, kind of like all in that maybe feels a little like now that you've matured and have like real success, it might feel a little cringe. No, because I still feel the same way. I still feel like there's a lot of stuff. All right. And, you know, I look back. Maybe cringe is the wrong way. Is it the hoodies? I mean, what? The hoodies. Is it the fashion? I think, first of all, I haven't watched it in a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's at least one scene where they talked me into not wearing a shirt. And I think there's that element where I'm just like, why did I do that?

21:45I mean, they wanted Thirst Trap before we even called Thirst Trap. I think there was – so maybe there are just elements of it where I'm like, I don't even know what I was thinking at the time. All right. But there was – no, there are a lot of things I look back on in that time actually quite fondly. like living with, you know, seven people in a house that my friends bought for$10 ,000 in Detroit and my rent was$500 a month. And, you know, that same house was our office. I look back on that and I say like, amazing, right? Like that was such a cool life experience and got to be around some of my still best friends.

22:25And, you know, I look back on that time fondly. So I should contextualize Yeah, yeah. And honestly, you just had a child. And like when your child grows up and can watch TV and to be able to share the documentary, I think that's really special. I think so. It'll be cool to have. It'll be cool. It's like a memento. It's as cringe as it may be. I think in 20 years, it'll feel nostalgic. Yeah. And probably my sense of cringe has diminished over time. So we can put the word cringe to a side. Well, let's talk about the new product. It just was released a few weeks ago and it's getting out there in stores.

23:04It is a wheat pasta with protein at the center. Brian, you mentioned you're gluten free. So this was like a big, big change for you. The narrative is not necessarily about your journey. It's about thinking about new customers. What's it like to go wheat and pivot that way? And just from a production point of view too, it must have had some challenges. is multiple questions let me let me sit with each one um so uh yeah i this was not the most intuitive product for me to launch right uh this is one of those situations where we had to talk to our customers and learn from them and realize what they might want and uh what we kept coming back to was even though i'm gluten-free most of our customers are not gluten-free they buy the product because it's got a lot of protein, it's fiber, it's a vegetable, all these things that make it super healthy.

24:00But if we made a product that was not gluten-free, it wouldn't change how they think about us. Now, there is an early adopter who is gluten-free like myself, and we had to be super mindful of how we communicated with those people because they're the best, right? They're the reason that we exist. So, um, that felt like a really delicate balance in launching this product to make sure that we did it and did it right. No one ever buys it by mistake. Um, but yeah, this, this product, we're, we're super proud of it. It's a basically like a traditional pasta plus chickpeas. So it's made with semolina flour.