Founder Feature: Aman Blana, Growee Foods

Join Grace Kennedy as she delves into the world of healthy vegetarian delights with Aman Blana, the founder of Growee Foods, in this bonus episode of the Startup CPG Podcast. Aman shares the journey behind Growee Foods, inspired by his Indian heritage and a quest for fresh, plant-based options in the US. From battling the challenges of working with co-packers to navigating distribution channels, Aman reveals how mentor communities like Startup CPG have been pivotal in guiding his path.

Discover Aman's innovative marketing strategies, including engaging farmers market demos and strategic brand collaborations. Learn how Growee Foods leverages email marketing and region-focused ads to drive sales growth on a bootstrap budget, all while prioritizing quality and taste above everything else.

What’s more, get a sneak peek into upcoming spicy flavors and product lines that will leave you salivating.

Tune in now and embark on a flavorful adventure with Growee Foods!

Listen in as Aman shares about:

• Founder Story
• Challenges in Starting Up
• Marketing Strategies Employed by Growee Foods
• Distribution and Growth Strategy
• Challenges as a Founder
• Post-Expo West Follow-Up
• Growee Foods Product Development
• Motivation and Community Support
• Advice for New Entrepreneurs
• Growee Foods Availability

Episode Links:

Growee Foods Website

Aman Blana’s LinkedIn

Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.

Show Links:

• Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)
• Join the Startup CPG Slack community (15K+ members and growing!)
• Follow @startupcpg
• Visit host Daniel's Linkedin 
• Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at [e-mail]
• Episode music by Super Fantastics

Creators & Guests

Host

Grace Kennedy

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

A podcast from Startup CPG - highlighting stories from founders working towards a better food system and industry insights from experts to give you a better chance at success.

Aman Blana
We make some awesome creamy dips and spreads from fresh vegetables, seeds and spices. Our products are shelf stable, so the easiest way to explain them would be an elevated salsa, but made from curry powder and zucchini and then some red bell peppers with some apple cider vinegar and then a spiced mango. So something to indulge on without the high calorie count or anything that would make you feel guilty after you finish the whole job. But most part that I borrow from my heritage is about the way the products are made. So we don't use any preservatives, we don't process them overly, even the vegetables that are put in our fresh. So yes, it's still a convenient way. It comes in a packaged product form, but at the same time when you eat it, you wouldn't feel like it wasn't made fresh.

00:56
Grace Kennedy
Hi everyone, Grace here, the startup CPG editor. And we are back with another founder Friday bonus episode this week featuring Growy Foods. Growy Foods has been with our community since the very beginning, back in 2020. They make delicious all occasion dips and spreads from real plant based ingredients like fresh veggies, sunflower seeds and spices. And they are delicious. So hope you enjoy the show. Hello and welcome back to the startup CPG podcast. My name is Grace. I'm here with another episode of the founder Friday bonuses. We're really excited to be featuring Aman and his brand, Growy Foods today. Many members of the certifcBG team are big fans of growy foods and their delicious plant based dips and spreads. But I will let Aman introduce himself more eloquently.

01:52
Aman Blana
Hey everyone that's graciously explained, I'm founder of Growy Foods. We make some awesome creamy dips and spreads from fresh vegetables, seeds, and spices. Our products are shelf stable, so the easiest way to explain them would be an elevated salsa, but made from curry powder and zucchini, and then some red bell peppers with some apple cider vinegar and then a spiced mango. So something to indulge on without the high calorie count or anything that would make you feel guilty after you finish the whole jar.

02:21
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I haven't tried all of them, but I've tried the red pepper dip and it is in fact delicious. So highly recommend to anyone listening here, but so, Aman, I'd love to hear. Just to start, why did you found growy foods? What sort of inspired this idea and your mission? And yeah, just give us the founder story.

02:43
Aman Blana
Of course. Yeah, I'm originally actually from India and I've grown up eating vegetarian foods, food for the majority of my life. Moving to the US, I kind of had a little bit of difficult onboarding trying to eat vegetarian every day. So I briefly switched over to, like, eating meat and stuff, but then wasn't like, the best way to function for myself. So, you know, I switched to then veganism and all of those products. But then, hey, I was like, why am I going through this journey? Like, it turns out the only thing that keeps you healthy and feeling good, in a way, at least as a vegetarian, is when you cook products fresh and with just like you would make in your kitchen at home. And I always wanted to have a product that I could indulge on like that.

03:27
Aman Blana
So borrowing a little bit from the flavors from, you know, India, like the curry flavors from India. But most part that I borrow from my heritage is about the way the products are made. So we don't use any preservatives, we don't process them overly, even the vegetables that are put in our fresh. So yes, it's still a convenient way. It comes in a packaged product form, but at the same time, when you eat it, you wouldn't feel like it wasn't made fresh. And that's like the whole thing about growing you, whatever you eat, it's almost like you just made it in your kitchen. There wouldn't be overly processed products. There would be things you would actually feel good about eating, like apple cider vinegar. Even our starches are super healthy. And, like, we use this gum called acacia gum, an acacia fiber.

04:10
Aman Blana
Traditionally, india, it's used to regulate your body temperatures in the wintertime. So even to that minute detail of paid attention, like, whatever that goes in your mouth has to promote health. And that's kind of like the whole thing about our dips as an indulgent, healthy product. Yeah, I've always wanted to be in food, and with a brief stint in the distribution industry before I dive into the brand building thing, that's how the transition was.

04:35
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I love that. And I think that's definitely a common sort of issue people have when they decide they want to be eating plant based or vegetarian or vegan or anything, is you are going to the store and you see like, oh, that's plant based. And then you go and look at the ingredient and you're like, what is this random thing that I got gum with another start, you know, like, it's all very confusing. Yeah, I love that you can, like, understand every ingredient, really, that's in grow each dip. So once you sort of came up with this idea that you wanted to create this sort of indulgent, plant based dip that really had ingredients that were fresh and really let the vegetables shine. What was your sort of first step when you were like, okay, I want to create this thing.

05:18
Grace Kennedy
How did you get started?

05:19
Aman Blana
Oh, my God, I am the most inexperienced founder ever. I thought I could get the product out in like two months, no problem. It took us like almost a year as something changed in the months. But the process, I think, common for every new CPC founder. I had some great mentors too, in the way, like Rachel from revival foods. And just, even Patricia was super helpful along the way. We connected early on, but the process early on was finding a chef and sort of, I don't even know, like, I went to manufacturers thinking, oh, they do all the work, we just have to pay them. I was like, oh, can you create a recipe? Like, no, that's what you do.

06:00
Aman Blana
So we started with the chef, sort of went in thinking everything would be, you know, I can just buy off the vegetables from, I don't know, wholesale supplier. And that's what it. And then, no, that's not how it works. And then connected with a co packer. The good and bad thing for us was early on, I connected with a co packer, thinking, because I had no food skills, like, as such, right? No culinary skills. I can tell what tastes great. I can tell the nutrition side of it. When it comes to actual cooking. That's not me. So I knew that I won't be able to do this in, like, a commercial kitchen. We started off with a co packer. It was very expensive in the beginning, just because as smaller scales, it was always the chicken and egg problem. Distribution.

06:44
Aman Blana
Or like, I would say the distributor, even the manufacturer do have distribution. And like, no distributors. Like, do you have stores? No. And the store is like, do you have distributors? Like, But finally, I think that's a common thing for every founder. You start off with an expensive run. That's what happened. We wasted a bunch of product because we didn't know were doing. Thankfully, after a couple iterations, great mentors. I really have to point out how monumental startup CPG has been for me. Just because I joined when, you know, there was this platform audio, even forgot the name of that. When startup CPT was on that platform, they used to do like, conferences and stuff.

07:21
Grace Kennedy
Oh, clubhouse.

07:22
Aman Blana
Yes.

07:22
Grace Kennedy
Yes.

07:23
Aman Blana
That's how I found startup CPG. Ever since, this has been, like, my mentor community. Like, the response rate is so high. You guys have done such a great job to like hold community together. So, yeah, like super honor, honorable mentioners at CPG for helping in the process. And, yeah, now here we are distributing on both coasts so far. Still in the growth stage, still trying to tread very carefully as a small brand, making a lot of changes just because there's so much that I don't know.

07:51
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. And I think that's such a common thing. I think I've said this in the last interview I did, but I genuinely don't know if I've talked to a founder who's been like, yeah, when I started my brand, I knew everything and I was ready to go and I did everything right. You know, everybody has a story where they messed up in the beginning and continue to get things wrong and figure it out as they go. And so I think it's always useful for people near that and be reminded that it happens to everybody.

08:17
Aman Blana
It's the best thing about meeting other founders. I mean, kind of like, oh, you're not the only one who is like making these f ups.

08:24
Grace Kennedy
Absolutely. And sort of in that vein, how did you sort of take the learnings from these f ups, if you will, and sort of propel them forward so you weren't just like, well, that was a screw up and beat yourself up, but how do you actually take that learning and keep going forward?

08:41
Aman Blana
I think the biggest thing was, I can tell you from the little, few incidents I've had, again, I tread very carefully in terms of distribution. For example, like we launched, we're trying to make a flavor change, and I won't say until that's finalized, but the one thing that really helped me and if anybody else could use this is also like whenever we launch a flavor profile. The first run I did just based off of my own judgment, but then the next few times, like working on a couple more flavors, took it straight to the farmers markets. They let every farmers market, let's experiment with new flavors without any problem. Obviously it has to be safe to consume, but I learned so much from that.

09:19
Aman Blana
Like just from the few, couple weekends of data, you can tell, like, which flavors is going to do well, what people are expecting. So I was going to launch a flavor based on carrot, which I was so, you know, it sounded so cool. Everybody, I told, oh, Chipotle carrots. Like, yeah, bring it on. But then we tested it in the market and a couple of variations. It turns out that's not the best way to go, just cause carrots cannot be as creamy and pureed, at least in the jarred. Format as other vegetables. So just that was one of the things. The other one was co packer. So that was just like an expensive mistake, I guess. So again, sought a bunch of guidance from startup CPG members. At this point there weren't so many of them.

09:58
Aman Blana
And it was actually to startup CPG that I found another co packer in Kentucky that we're currently working with. So how I didn't know we had to sign a contract with a co packer. I was like, oh, what could go wrong? So much so things like that.

10:14
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, no, I think that's a great advice too, though, is get the feedback when it's still sort of new and fresh and in these like early stages where you haven't thrown the full weight behind it. And also just ask questions, ask people for help if something goes wrong, ask for help. As you've been growing growy, if you will, over the last few years, what sort of has been your strategy of getting growie into people's hands and getting it into stores? And I mean, now you're on both coasts. So what has been your strategy of rolling it out from, you know, just you aman to both coasts and in many customers hands, of course.

10:55
Aman Blana
I think it kind of works differently for different category of products, at least for us. What I've realized is, again, sampling is the best method, but for my product, just because it's a condiment, the repeat rate is super high, but you do have to put money behind demos. It's expensive. But sadly, I think I've spoken to so many other successful condiment company founders, listen to some podcasts. Everybody had to go through the rut of kind of demoing. That's the biggest, at least for us. And then the other things that has worked really well for me is displaying like end cap displays. Those are also super helpful, doing a scan back and really working closely with the category manager or even the store managers. If you have the stores in the arm's land, that has done wonders.

11:42
Aman Blana
And Amazon has been pretty good for me as well. Like for example, California. We get a ton of orders through California on Amazon from California. And that just has sort of created a snowball effect for our launch in California stores. Just because I don't know, I mean, it could be wrong, but from looking at you have that you're not able to like see aggregate data, but when you go in your Amazon, fool for whoever's on Amazon, you're able to see the location of the buyer. And if you see enough of them, sometimes that gives you like an idea of where your product is actually getting bought from the most. It takes a little while to get that data, but yeah, that's been great. Amazon is, with my heavy glass jars.

12:23
Aman Blana
It's not made us any money at all, but it's been a great marketing channel for us. Downside FC.

12:28
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, sort of Amazon more is like a brand recognition building situation. And when you are doing your demos, do you work with like an outside partner who like, runs demos for you, or do you go and personally do these demos yourself?

12:44
Aman Blana
I mean, I wish I could, but it's just like at this point, I would be spending more money in flights and then we actually end up making anyway. But even that, those demos aren't inexpensive. But what I do that's been really helpful is sharing demos. And a lot of times, if you push a little bit, the stores are also willing to do like, for example, with Gelsen's and trying really hard to split our demos. That would slash our costs really in half. The in house team would be able to do it. They have like 27 stores at this point, and it's not possible for me to drive all the, you know, the entire coast of California to do it even if I went there.

13:20
Aman Blana
So we can do gal swans doesn't allow this with the agencies, but I'm pretty sure wherever, whichever store or in whichever area or region you are there, like, at this point, so many demo companies just ask to split demos and that way you split your cause and, you know, like, you know, you get to pick the brand which you're going with. For example, we use crackers and chips. Anyway, so I just reached out to a couple of cracker brands, like, hey, would you like to share demos? And that was, we both are getting our marketing there. They're like tasting, oh, what kind of cracker is that? Hey, what kind of dip is that? And so that's been helpful for me.

13:52
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's great advice. And I think definitely demos are a way, I've personally discovered so many fun brands, so I definitely can and see how, though expensive, they make a huge impact. Now that you are on two coasts and lots of stores, are you sort of more focused on the stores you're in or are you still pushing for further retail expansion?

14:16
Aman Blana
That's a really great question. And for me, as I said, I'm really treading carefully. I just want to open one more account on the west coast so we can make use of our distribution center costs and optimize them per unit very nicely. But after that, I think I'm just going to focus more on breadth and kind of like increasing ourselves through just because I've seen like, you know, I think as any new founder or unless you're super smart, I'm not. We get into some stores in the beginning and then you don't know what you're doing. The, we thought like, oh, just getting in the stores and the product would fly off the shelves. Not always that happens. Ended up getting out from a lot of stores in the beginning, which is kind of fine.

14:57
Aman Blana
We didn't even have a good packaging at this I don't even know about right now, but that's what I'm going to do at this point. I think a good some stores in the middle atlantic region where I'm from and some stores in California where actually a lot of consumers are looking for and then just push for self rules in this increase velocities until I'm actually confident. And it's not even about finances. Right. I mean, thankfully I'm able to make more product even if we launch nationally, but I just don't think we will be able to scale our marketing enough at the point and actually support the stores.

15:32
Aman Blana
I've heard so many horror stories of, you know, greatest founders who've, and everybody has their own journey, right, who've expanded nationally and then it turns out even though they've been in the business for so long, just have to go through those sometimes it's too virality of the marketing.

15:47
Grace Kennedy
So yeah, through this growth and you're saying, you know, scaling your marketing, what are some of the like, tactics you're using in terms of your marketing? Have you been, you know, using social media or focusing primarily, as you said, on these like in person events? But how have you been approaching marketing as a small brand?

16:06
Aman Blana
Yeah, as a small brand, that's, I'm so happy you added that. Again, kind of new into this. But what I've realized is email marketing does a lot for you. Again, being focused on a specific region then going nationally, that's again one of the reasons that I want to focus our marketing efforts, even if we currently are launching targeted ads very carefully. But the intention is not just to generate sales out of it, but kind of like do both from the same thing in the way that target that specific region with sales so that people see the ads and then like for example, philly is a great region for us. We are in a ton of stores in that area. So once someone has tried it, I feel like the conversion rate might be higher.

16:48
Aman Blana
And in store marketing has been like, kind of also really helpful. As I said, demo and displays. Again, this forms part of the marketing. Now, I try to focus a lot more on festivities where a product could be relevant. For example, the Memorial Day weekend is coming, so we're trying to, like, push out some coupons in stores. We've scheduled a lot of demos around that time, displays in some regions. So kind of like occasion, right? These are, you kind of discover products more on occasion. I feel just cause nowadays there are so many brands, once you've liked the product, the use case scenario is kind of pretty much set. So unless they're like an occasion to experiment. And I felt that's been great for us, trying to partner with gifting agencies and gift box companies, so helps a lot.

17:36
Grace Kennedy
Cool. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm in Philadelphia, actually, as I saw you guys are in all the debris brothers, which is a big Philly retailer for those who are not based in Philadelphia. But I'm excited to go check that out here in Philly. So, yeah, marketing as a small brand is very hard. And sometimes you don't want to throw all your money into these, like, paid social media ads that you have no idea if they're actually going to go anywhere. So I think your strategy makes a lot of sense, and a lot of times, too, it's just trying to see what sticks and what works. So that makes a lot of sense.

18:09
Grace Kennedy
So sort of thinking more broadly, as you have been growing again over these last few years, what has been one of the biggest challenges that you faced as a founder?

18:22
Aman Blana
I think copactor was still, I'm working on my cogs. I think cogs has been one of the biggest. Again, just because we want to keep the ingredients. I think it's just like a personal preference, I would say, or personal arrogance I have about my product. Like, nope, there's no way I'm changing it at this point. A lot of co packers have mentioned and a lot of food service and R and D people have also mentioned that, oh, you could just go for a processed puree that is pre made and that saves us a lot of costs.

18:53
Aman Blana
I don't think that's the way, just because the way I want to present my product, the way that we want to keep, again, the whole idea behind grow is like kind of keeping that heritage and of, you know, my eating habits from back home india, I want to keep that intact. And I see the difference, right. Whenever people chase the product, they're like, how is this so fresh in a shelf stable farmer. Oh, well, that is because we actually use the diced vegetables. We don't use purees, we don't use pastes or anything. So that's. The cogs have been really difficult and kind of like really a big challenge. We're always on a very squeezed margin. I'm trying to move production to Mexico. We'll see how that works.

19:34
Aman Blana
Just because anyway, most of the vegetables, at least for manufacturing, are coming from California and Mexico at that scale. So maybe going to closer to the source might help. And, you know, that's one of the biggest things. And. Yeah, just kind of figuring out, the other challenge is kind of figuring out how do you maximize your impact as a bootstrap brand without blowing a lot of money. That's been the other challenge with kind of. In the terms of marketing.

20:03
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, the bootstrapping brand is such a challenge. And how do you manage having enough inventory and enough product to fill all your retailers, but also have money and not flow through everything?

20:19
Aman Blana
But I wouldn't like give everybody who's able to this at this point some techniques and sort of support companies and organizations that I've used and they've been super helpful. Like for example, we always look at states where, you know, my business is still based out of Georgia. And so Georgia grown has been a monumental organization for us. They give you a lot of marketing subsidies in the terms of the trade shows that you're going for. And then so along with startup cpgs, amazing discounts. If you can stack another discount with your state's agricultural organization, they actually end up paying for a lot of your trade show costs. Then SAsta is another one for the southeast people. I think for the northeast it's Nasta.

21:08
Aman Blana
And then it's like a consortium of states that have come together to, it's more oriented towards exports, but they also give you marketing budgets for national trade shows like national products Expo. And even to the point that if you're starting to export to Canada or anywhere else, they would pay for the packaging cost of your packaging changes. So like the cost you would pay to a designer, they would even reimburse you. I would highly recommend looking at these, you know, organizations wherever you are.

21:39
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. No, I love those shout outs. And speaking of trade shows, I was just remembering actually that you guys grow foods were at Expo west this year. Was that your first time at Expo west? Yeah. How was that? How was your first?

21:52
Aman Blana
Overwhelming over. So overwhelming. Oh, my God. There were. The brands were like so flashy and I wish were more prepared, but we think I did. We did our best, but it was crazy. And a lot of. Again, having distribution on California was super helpful. A lot of interest. As any other trade show, you have to like the actual conversions happen in the next like 3456 months. So we're still to see. It's only been a month since the trade show, but I'm really positive, but with super overwhelming with the number of people I've only walked, but I was never behind the table and this was crazy.

22:29
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. And how have you been post expo? And speaking of some of those conversions, have you been in conversations or how have you been sort of trying to approach taking some of those contacts or people you met or had interest from at expo and then turning them into real life conversions?

22:45
Aman Blana
Of course, I would just share a little bit about my outreach strategy. Everybody has their own. We always just. Cause, you know, the first week after the expo, everybody's inboxes are slammed through the roof. So what I do is I send an email the same day we met at the expo. So sometimes people come up to me say, I saw your email. That was quick, like, yeah, now you will remember me. And then I kind of give like a little bit of gap, like week to ten days before I start to outreach again. And, you know, that was. I can also gather everything together and yeah, it's a long game. I think even the outreach is basically just a connection, sadly for our shows, unlike other industry shows where conversions happen on site.

23:28
Aman Blana
But I think it takes a good three months just because the stores that, at least in national products, Expo west, it was the kind of stores we saw were mostly chains and conversion with them takes a good six, four, I would say three to six months unless they have an urgent need. So just stay at it. I think at six month point mark, if you're feeling like, okay, this is not converting, it's for you to let them go. But otherwise, I think don't leave hope unless they explicitly say no. Yeah, that's kind of about it.

23:58
Grace Kennedy
Absolutely. I've definitely heard that from other brands that it takes a long time. And I too was overwhelmed when I got back from expo this year. I think I slept like 12 hours a night for. So I think everybody probably appreciates your week window of break. So that makes a lot of sense. So looking more towards the future, what is coming up for growy and in these a retail expansions, but also with the product and what does the next year or so kind of look like for growy foods?

24:34
Aman Blana
Yeah, a lot of brewing happening backstage. New flavor, kind of a spicy one. Everybody has asked us, like, which one's the most spiciest. I was like, really? I thought, but I guess that's the industry trend too right now, right? With all the chili crisps and chili oil. Everybody wants spicy. So one of the new flavors working on is going to be a spicy one and then a new product line in the works too, within the same realm. Don't want to give a lot of details, but hoping that it's something. What I try to do as a brand is, you know, at least have some uniqueness in the product. Like, we don't want to be, you know, nothing against the beverage brands, but I don't want to be another, like, ready to drink, like functional sort or those kind of things.

25:18
Aman Blana
So just I look at different product categories. What unique can I bring for other cultures? I've traveled a lot, so, you know, other countries and unique ingredients, especially as a plant based brand. And being from India, I want to experiment so much with the lentils that have grown up eating. You know, puree a lentil into a dip. Why wouldn't you have like a high protein lentil dip at some point when it's hundred percent natural? It's like 20 grams of protein there. I gave it away a little bit.

25:45
Grace Kennedy
We won't tell. Yeah, that sounds delicious. I love all things lentils. So I am very excited. Product that's not totally not happening, but yeah, very exciting to have some new products. And how is the development process been for those? Has it been like equally as sort of like long and arduous as it was the first time or do you feel like it's been a little bit easier this time around?

26:10
Aman Blana
Process is easier, but I would say it's longer and more focused now. And I didn't really know anything when I started, so if it tasted great, sure. But now that I know so much, it's actually taking longer because we know what we want to optimize from the get go and not face the same challenges and kind of improve way more texture even. Look at our cogs this time, unlike last time, so it's taking a little longer. And then the new product development for the new product line, I think that's a whole different challenge just because once you have a set of products that are doing great, people are liking it. Like, your expectations kind of only go up from there. So a little longer, more complicated, but we also have more experience.

26:54
Grace Kennedy
So, yeah, that's all very exciting. Again, in that vein, a little bit what's something that as you are pushing forward all very exciting things and also very challenging things. What's a moment or a feeling that sort of helps you keep going when things are challenging or things take longer than you were expecting them to? What sort of helps you keep going and know that this is worth the challenge?

27:22
Aman Blana
Well, immediate solution is sign up for farmers markets. Nothing helps you more than customer appreciation. If you see people are actually happy, they're buying, they're paying like $910 for like a twelve ounce jar at the farmers markets. And without even asking for, I don't know, like without a hitch. That motivates you a lot. Meeting and coming to all the trade shows, meeting with fellow founders, actually from Expo west. You know, at this point we've all been to the same trade show. So many. I have like a little community of all the startup CPG friends. We just all were discussing like how every week each of us kind of feels like, oh man, we should just shut down the business because I don't know how it's going to, I don't know how much money is going to burn.

28:04
Aman Blana
But speaking with friends and knowing that this industry is this way and it's hard, but also seeing like when you actually make it, where can this take you? So both sides are super empowering it. That's why I always try to make an effort to come to these trade shows at this point and every single one of them. That's kind of my thing about getting motivated.

28:25
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I love that. And I think, you know, just talking to other people, hearing other people's stories, knowing you're not alone, and then also seeing people appreciate your product is so useful. My last sort of question is just what piece of advice would you give to a listener who is where you were a few years ago when you were just starting growing, what would, and they were coming to you and they were saying, aman, I really want to start a brand. What should I do? What advice would you give them? And I know that's a big question, but what would you say?

28:54
Aman Blana
Talk to a lot of more people. I feel like I did less, even though I thought I did enough. But talk to a lot of people and make a lot of people taste your products. Nothing triumphs taste in the food industry, no matter how much like funding we have. Even if you're a bootstrap or even if you're a funded brand, like if your product doesn't taste too good, nothing's going to help you on the shelf. We're going to get on. If you have money, you're probably going to get on with that money. And as if, like, as in kind of pay to play model, if it doesn't taste great, it's not going to stick. So just once you know your product tastes good, nothing can stop. Then it's all about just tweaking, right?

29:27
Aman Blana
So talk to a lot of people, make your actual product taste great. And then there you go. You have the recipe.

29:33
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. And that is how you become successful. So this is so much fun. Aman, where can people find growie if they want to try it?

29:42
Aman Blana
Horace, if you're listening from California, especially La, San Diego, we are in Gelson's. We just got in there. So if you're listening, please support us and that would be awesome. Then Amazon. And as Grace already said, the Brono is in the Philly area, Kimberton Whole Foods in the Philly area, and our website. If you love us too much, then please come by. Yes, we'll include some goodies.

30:07
Grace Kennedy
I love it. And how can the startup CPG community support you beyond going to all your stores and buying every single jar of growing foods?

30:14
Aman Blana
Yeah. Don't just, whenever you see a jar on the shelf, if you could just shoot me a photo, I think it takes a second. That helps without, again, having a lot of foot on the floor, having a lot of merchandising team people or a big budget to do the marketing. If friends send pictures of her product, I know how its product was it priced at, how it's placed in the store, you know, just a simple click.

30:38
Grace Kennedy
I love that. That's, that's wonderful. And probably very exciting too, to get to see the product in all these different stores. Well, this is so much fun. Aman. Everybody should check out growy Foods on their website or on instagram or in any of their retail locations. Or just message aman on our startup CPG slack. I'm sure he would love to chat with you. Yeah, thanks for listening and thanks for talking him on.

31:04
Speaker 3
All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast today, it would really help us out. If you can leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I am Daniel Scharff. I'm the host and founder of Startup CPG. Please feel free to reach out or add me on LinkedIn. If you're a potential sponsor would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipstartupcpg.com and reminder to all of you out there, we would love to have you join the community. You can sign up at our website, startupcpg.com to learn about our webinars, events and Slack channel. If you enjoyed today's music, you can check out my band it's the super fantastics on Spotify Music. On behalf of the entire startup CPG team, thank you so much for listening and your support. See you next time.