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Dig In is your go to source for insights innovation. It's for anyone with a genuine interest in fostering brand and product growth, exploring groundbreaking innovations, and embracing the dynamic world of expanding businesses and brands.
Jess Gaedeke (00:35)
Hi everybody. Welcome to the Dig In podcast. I have been so excited to talk to this guest. I've known Tracey for a few years now and I'm always super inspired by her. So today I am lucky to be joined by Tracey Halama She is CEO at SuperGut, a business we're gonna hear a lot about. Tracey thank you so much for joining me today.
Tracey Halama (00:52)
Thanks for having me, Jess. Excited to be here and talk to you again.
Jess Gaedeke (00:55)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm going to throw an impromptu question at you. You haven't seen this one coming, but I love to going. something you are irrationally loyal to?
Tracey Halama (01:03)
Yoga, like yoga is such a big part of my life. And if I don't do yoga times a week, I can feel it in my bones. can feel it mentally. So to who I am. And I feel like as I'm going through this menopause phase, it's just done wonders to help ground me and kind of bring me back into focus.
Jess Gaedeke (01:04)
Thank
I love that. That's a good thing to be loyal to, for I thought you were gonna give me a guilty pleasure there.
Okay, well, let's hear about you and your background. If you can give us an intro, that would be wonderful place to start.
Tracey Halama (01:36)
Sure. Tracey Halema, currently the CEO of Supercut, formerly the CEO of brand called Vital Proteins, part of the founding team of Vital Proteins and started that company in 2014 and it from zero to 700 million. And it was there when we acquired by Nestle Health Science.
very passionate about health and many years previously in technology, and it never was a really great fit for me. was good at tech sales and obviously relations, but it never really felt like ⁓ a good fit. And as soon as I got into CPG and specifically being an entrepreneur, I knew that I had found my calling because I like to shop.
And it was all about, you know, going to Target and seeing what's on the shelf at Target, what's coming into my feed at Instagram. And I knew that it was what I was meant to be. I was meant to be an entrepreneur. I wasn't meant work a corporate job at IBM as much as, you know, those IBM and EMC days fueled, you know, some of the passion and some of the purpose that I have now.
I feel like truly health and wellness and being an entrepreneur is what I was always intended to do.
Jess Gaedeke (02:54)
I love that. And that's one of my favorite things about CPG is we are all consumers of these products and we see them in our daily lives throughout the day. And I just it makes it so personal. So I'm with you. I love CPG. And that's a that's a good place to be.
So let's dig in because part of that health and wellness background really is key to where you are now. And so our listeners crave inspiration from other leaders. And one of the best ways to inspire is to tell a story. And you and I have talked about the story of you joining SuperGut as CEO, which happened I think January of 2025. And the origin of that joining is a really cool story. So take us back to the beginning before you joined SuperGut, what are some of the things that led you there?
Tracey Halama (03:34)
I was still at vital Proteins. It was my 50th birthday. So big milestone birthday. brought 25 of my closest friends with me and we flew to Sonoma and we had this, I mean, there were a couple of guys there too, but it was like a girls it was all about, you know,
family, joy, friendships, forever friendships, some of my friendships going back as early as middle school. And it was in a place that is very near and dear to my I love one country. it was a time that really should have been super joyous and very celebratory. we were there for five days. And from
Day one until day I never And every day that passed, my friends would come in and they were like, did it happen? Did it happen? Did you go? I'm like, no, I didn't go. So every time I look at those pictures from my 50th, I can see on my face, I felt inflamed. I felt kind of panicked a little bit, if you will.
And why am I so constipated? So, certainly the memories with my friends were great, but I felt like I wasn't myself and I wasn't showing up as my best self on a day on a long weekend that I really wanted to be my best self for all of my friends and guests there. So that was a little bit of the impetus that I said, okay, like, what am I missing out here?
And clearly I was consuming a lot of collagen and I was very much up on my supplement game. So I was taking probiotics, I was taking vitamin D, I was using magnesium to empower better But I was not taking prebiotic fiber. And the more research I did, and certainly at that point in time being CEO of Vital Proteins,
I was very much involved in our R &D there's an ingredient that we started to use in the Vital Proteins Daily Greens that was a green banana fiber. And I remember I asked the R &D team for just a sample of that to kind of incorporate into my day-to-day that wasn't with all of the other actives. And all of a sudden I noticed I was becoming a bit more regular.
Jess Gaedeke (05:44)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Halama (05:54)
it's so funny that regularity can either empower your day and give you that glow up and that focus and that energy, or it can completely debilitate you to a certain level. And you're uber constipated and can't go, a panic that you carry with you day in and day out. So was really the beginning of me understanding
power of fiber and prebiotic fiber. And up until then, I always thought fiber was a product that my parents and my grandparents used. And it wasn't something that I really needed to like lean into as a 50 year old. But what I realized is that it is a foundation for health. It is a macronutrient, just like protein is a macronutrient. And it's protein.
Jess Gaedeke (06:41)
Right. So you learned all this because you are you're someone that nerds out on the science, right? You really went deep on it. then how did that lead to, you know, actually joining this brand?
Tracey Halama (06:51)
Yeah. So, I had a three year kind of transition, from the first part of the acquisition to Nestle Health Science with Vital Proteins. And I knew after three years, like my heart and soul is building brands and being an entrepreneur and solving problems and really kind of having that growth mindset. And there's a lot of great things I can say about Nestle.
I just know that like working for a big organization and maybe taking on, ownership of another brand wasn't really what I wanted to do. I wanted to go and like build another brand similar to how we built vital proteins. and I also realized I needed to take some time off too, because I had been working really, really hard, at this whole brand building thing. And obviously, you know, CPG
Companies change every 60 days, so you're always faced with another set of problems and you've got to continually work towards solutions. And I feel like the thing that makes me really good with entrepreneurship and just kind of building brands is, one, I have like great bias to action. I'm not afraid to jump into the deep end, even if I don't exactly know what I'm doing roll up my sleeves and figure it out as I go. And I think...
know, there's a lot of folks that, you know, would rather sit back and make sure that if they're going to make a move, it's going to be perfect. And for me, it's progress over perfection, bias to action, just get in and do. And even if it's not the right strategy, it helps point you in into the right strategy eventually. So that's number one. know, number two, it's really being resilient and being able to handle a no, whether that's a no from
you know, a venture capital growth capital partner, whether that's a no from a retailer, whether that's a no from an influencer or a celebrity, like having the wherewithal to keep on going. I know that those were my two greatest skills
and I really needed to find a way to harness that again after taking some time off. So, I looked at a lot of brands to invest in. I invested in.
several female because I feel like women don't get the venture capital that we need. We're still only getting 2 % of venture And yet when I look at the industry, we're controlling 85 % of the purchasing power. So why are we getting 2 % of the funding? product that is marketed is really marketed to a woman who's making that decision on behalf of herself and or her household.
I invested in a few brands, I'm advising those brands. And then I just kind of got the itch a team again, because being a solo entrepreneur, being an investor, working a lot from your home and it's not that same level of building and partnership together. So again, had a lot of interviews, talked about a lot of different CPG roles.
it needed to be something on brand for me. There's a lot of young brands, great brands that I talk to the non-alcoholic in the protein as an additive on a food in the grocery space.
none of them really felt like, yeah, this is a really great fit for me personally. And then I met the team at by a great entrepreneur, Mark Washington, who really set the company in motion because his sister unfortunately passed away from metabolic the initial premise behind the company was really about
diabetes and metabolic health. And obviously that's how we came into our lead that we're known for, which is the GLP-1 daily everything that was included in the offering was very prebiotic fiber resistant starch. So again, went down the rabbit hole in science and found a power of resistant starch and how it makes butyrate in your body. And certainly anyone that's been on a GLP-1
medication has like figured out that resistant starch and butyrate helped that journey. So all of it seemed to be very much on trend with what was happening in categories and just, you know, the marketplace, notoriety of GLP ones becoming more accessible. We're going into a phase where now it's going to be in pill the next couple of So GLP ones are not going anywhere terms of fiber.
Jess Gaedeke (11:14)
Yeah.
Tracey Halama (11:17)
Certainly I saw the benefit of fiber in my own And I know that there's been a big rush on prebiotic fiber sodas. And you look at Poppy being acquired for almost two billion, Ollipop building another billion dollar plus brand. so many players in this space and the big...
like Pepsi and Coca-Cola and General Mills are taking notice of fiber. So it all seemed to be layering up in a very organic, natural way of a company that could really use my skillset and a category that I really believed in and something that I felt like I could continue to build and scale out as an organization.
Jess Gaedeke (12:00)
Yeah.
And that's one of the things I just love when I get to talk to you is that it's so personal to you. And that's why I think you are so successful in large part is that it matters to you. You're not just selling a product. You're not just the CEO of a company that you're trying to drive profitable growth. You really care about the product itself and what it does for the human beings that you serve. Is that fair or is that too fan girl of me to say? Because I just it's so clear.
Tracey Halama (12:24)
Yeah. No, that's
totally fair. I always think about is it on brand for me? You know, like, is it something that I believe like, this is something that I deeply believe in.
Jess Gaedeke (12:34)
Yeah. what are some of the unique ways that SuperGut either takes products to market, interacts with the retailers? Like what's some of the secret sauce of why this is very likely going to be the next brand that is acquired by one of those big guys if I had a guess, if I was a vetting gal? would you say are some of unique go-to-market strategies?
Tracey Halama (12:47)
all.
Well, think I'm very passionate about innovation. you know, that was something think if you're bringing a brand to market, there's a lot of products out there that fundamentally don't taste great. You know, there's gummies on the market that you take them and you're like, ⁓ this is like too sweet, too chalky, too something. And, you know, you could say the same thing about like
Soda, could say the same thing about, you know, better for you potato chips. but fundamentally I feel like people are going to be loyal to a product that a works and B tastes good. I think the power with super gut is that you don't have to wait six weeks or eight weeks to see the effects. So collagen as much as, know, for 10 years.
talking about benefits of collagen and I still use vital proteins every day. It goes into my coffee every single day. But normally it would take at least a month to see the difference, And generally speaking, I think people didn't realize the benefit of collagen until they actually stopped taking it daily. And they're like, ⁓ my joints feel a little creaky. know, things feel a little bit off. And that's the aha moment.
So it's amazing that we built the level of brand loyalty that we did because the felt state wasn't there day one or day two. The great news about SuperGut is the felt state is there on day one, day two, day three. In fact, we just did this study Tiny Health and we had 55 participants. it was a 30 day challenge and they took SuperGut consistently for 30 days.
And we did a microbiome test on, well, before they started taking it. the pre day zero test, and then after 30 days of usage, they took another followup tests and across the board. People's microbiome score raised 10 points. And Jess, I don't know if you wear an aura ring, but like anytime you can get a 10 point raise on your sleep score, your resilience score, you know, like it's a day to celebrate.
So like that's just a proof point of this does work. This does heal your microbiome. This does fuel, just regularity. We talk a lot about regularity, but realistically having resistance starch, helps from a cognitive point of view. It helps from a skin health point of view. Many, many times I've heard, my daughter's age, I've got a...
19 year old or a 22 year old, that when they're consistently taking prebiotic fiber, their skin looks better, right? There's a glow about your skin because your gut is balanced. So there's there's focus benefits, there's skin benefits, there's regularity benefits, there's cholesterol and heart health benefits, there's certainly satiation benefits as it relates you fuller longer.
So there's so many benefits above and beyond just the regularity aspect.
Jess Gaedeke (15:53)
Yeah, so if people weren't sold on the resistance starch fiber, now I think you have to be because the benefits far. mean, there's just too many benefits to list, which actually might come into a little bit of the challenge. So it says something about my personality that I love to hear where things are tricky and like where things go wrong.
So what are some of the challenges you face, either in how to communicate the benefits of the product or in how to awareness or to get distribution? What are some of the things that you find most challenging as CEO at SuperGut?
Tracey Halama (16:23)
So I think education is a challenge, right? Because people are hearing about fiber, but they're not exactly sure what fiber can do for them. Right? hear the word butyrate and, you know, I always talk about like the hierarchy of messaging, right? Butyrate is a 401 Terminology, people don't necessarily know what butyrate is. And even if you try to explain it, it still feels a little bit esoteric.
if you talk about regular poops, that's a one-on-one level message. And a lot of what you have to do as a brand is pair, what is the messaging with my channel of distribution? So if I think about TikTok shop, we can't talk about butyrate resistant starch. That's too complicated for that channel. You can talk about like better skin health. You can talk about better poops, better regularity. ⁓
Jess Gaedeke (17:05)
on the left. Yeah.
Tracey Halama (17:16)
know, I would say the same thing. Like if we were talking about like resistance, starch, butyrate, that's probably a healthcare practitioner channel. So having, with registered dietitians, having them talk about the power of resistance starch, they're probably already advising their clients about it because you think about it. know, you can make rice or potatoes on one day.
cool it down, stick it in the it back up or cook it again the second day. And the resistant starch is so much higher and it's so much better for your gut. like you're not absorbing the carbohydrates like you would on day one. So it is something that folks that have a registered dietitian as a health partner, they're probably hearing the benefits of resistant starch. They just don't
how that transcends into the world of supplementation. And if they have a registered dietitian they're probably hearing about nuts, beans, legumes, seeds, raspberries and avocados being rich in fiber. thing with kiwis, especially if you leave the skin on. So there's a level of education that needs to take place. But as we think about a go-to-market strategy,
You know, we've got distribution at Target, we've got distribution at Walmart. So that means that we really need to kind of focus on that 101, 201 level messaging. we can't like necessarily the higher level messaging because what makes our product really unique is that we use four types of So, got the resistant potato starch, we've got the green banana fiber, we've got gore bean fiber, which is called sun fiber that's been studied.
for 20 years has great claims associated with it. And then we also use oat beta-glucan, comes from oats. It's still And the power of four different types of fibers coming together means that you're getting more blend than you would if you were just taking psyllium husk alone. And I'm not dissing on psyllium husk because certainly any fiber is good fiber, but just as you wouldn't sit down and eat
three avocados for the day to hit your fiber goals of 30 grams. Most people want different sources of fiber in their food and in their And Americans right now are getting on average 10 to 12 grams of fiber a day. Women need 30 grams, men need 38 grams. So this is just an easy solution, scoop of powder in your coffee first thing in the morning, and it helps get you to that overall 30
Jess Gaedeke (19:48)
lot of what you're saying right now, Tracey is just really resonating with me as a leader at dig because within our portfolio, we do a lot of things. We have like very strategic future focus work and we have technology that where you can do real agile testing.
And so sometimes it becomes a challenge. It's similar to what you're talking about in terms of channel that you need to deliver different messages based on in your case channel. In our case, it might be more of like buyer segment, but there still is this anchor point of what you are as a brand that is your, you is the top of the hierarchy, right? So do you find that that there's like still there's a North Star in what SuperGut is and then you communicate it differently based on the How important is it?
have that anchored North Star like lead the way for all your marketing activity. does that resonate with you?
Tracey Halama (20:31)
Yeah, incredibly important, right? So like
the daily 30 grams is our North Star. is what, you know, a healthy microbiome looks like. It's a macronutrient, just as you were getting 100 grams of protein a day or, you know, 80 ounces of water a day. It's just as important as those it really is important to get that 30 grams a day. So daily usage is something if you went to our website,
we say daily usage. just didn't audit on this. say 39 times on our front page, because our products are called daily as well. So we get a little bit of a bump because you look at the, the skew and you see daily, but it's mentioned 39 it is definitely a drum beat that this is, this should be part of your daily regimen.
Jess Gaedeke (21:20)
Yeah, definitely. I love that drum So how do you measure success beyond just the financials and hitting growth targets? What are some of your milestones where you know that commercially you're succeeding?
Tracey Halama (21:30)
Well, I think, and this kind of goes back to my leadership style, you know, there is a passion and a and lead with passion, purpose and people. So I want to make sure that the team is like, there's an aspect of stretching to grow. with all, you know, kind of startup companies, you probably have less resources than you like to have. So you're in a position where you have the ability to
You know, take some of these and maybe they're young knowledge workers or maybe they're, you know, maybe they've been in their careers a while longer, but really stretch them to grow, whether that's, you know, from a mindset perspective, whether that's from, a role and a responsibility and just things to tap into. I know we spoke before about AI and we're all trying to figure out AI and we're all AI. So I feel like that is something really, really important for any.
brand that is trying to grow. Like how can you do more with less? How can you stretch to grow? And how do you empower your team to willing to use their voices and speak up for what's important to them? You know, I'm not 100 % right. I make mistakes every day. And I think it's really important to lead with vulnerability. And you know, when I do make a mistake, I definitely
it. We've had kind of a thing called Failure Fridays where we share our failures. And the goal is to learn from those failures. It's not to criticize in any way. It's to say, like, hey, didn't contracted with an influencer in September, big name influencer, and it was an expensive And the CPMs were
really, really high and the sales that came out of it were really, really was a strategy that didn't work. But as I said before, you know, with startups, your company is evolving every 60 days, 60 to 90 days. So even though it didn't work in, you know, September of 25, doesn't mean that it wouldn't work in September of 26. just, at a different inflection So, I mean, these are all, I think, foundational.
pillars that make a company stronger. When you know that you're in the boat rowing together and that your team your back in case you do fail, like everyone is here to pick up the pieces and to get to the solution a little easier, et cetera. these are all, I think, the soft building brands. It really is about the people.
You know, your greatest asset or liability as an organization, as a CEO, as a founder is the team around to quote both Shem Beckler, I went to Michigan, so go team, the team, the team, it's so critical.
Jess Gaedeke (24:23)
Yeah. my gosh. There's something really refreshing about in a startup environment that your company changes or evolves every 60 to 90 days. And that's not for everybody, you know, in terms of that amount of turbulence. And so I'm sure you can only do epic things with epic people. And I'm sure that that talent compilation is so important to moving into the future. So great story, great lessons for anyone with brands big and you for sharing that. I'd love to turn now to one of your
kind of passionate points of view, or maybe it's one of my favorite things about you that selfishly I want to dig into. But that is the fact that you started as a sales professional, right? So you've always been highly revenue motivated, revenue driven, commercially driven. And I love what that does for you as a CEO. And I would love to just for you to talk about that. Like how does that origin of sales or revenue, how does that influence how you lead as a CEO?
What are some of the things that it really sets you up well for? Does it set up any blind spots for you? I would love for you to just talk about what means for you as a leader.
Tracey Halama (25:26)
Yeah. interesting. Like I think you're the only one that's ever asked me this question. I'm like sales is very near and dear to my heart. dad was in sales. My oldest daughter is in sales. And I feel like it's so much a core of who I am. I feel like if you spend a lot of time in sales, you're
Jess Gaedeke (25:30)
No.
Tracey Halama (25:47)
constantly trying to isolate what the objection is. You're always trying to find a way to yes, right? And I think in this day and age, when you hear no, again, going back to that whole notion of venture capital funding, got this great business idea and I need $500,000 to get it off the ground for co-manufacturing or whatever the rationale is on
however much you're asking and you hear the word no, it can be debilitating. But if you have kind of a background in sales and way back when I went to Dale Carnegie and I mean, I was fortunate enough to work for big brands like IBM, that became Dell that spent a lot of time really investing in the training of us as sellers.
Again, it's not being disrespectful. It's just finding a way to yes. So what is it exactly that, you know, doesn't meet your requirements? Is it that we don't have enough measures of success yet as a brand? it that our velocities are unproven? Is it the branding doesn't look as good as you think it ought to look like? What is it? Is it because we don't have enough, you know, advisors with beverage experience or
center grocery experience. And the more you dig in, not to like reiterate the name of the show, but the more you dig in, the more information you find out. And I feel like if we all were to do that in real life, whether we're talking about having conversations with our, I just got my tire replaced at discount tire, like really understanding
why, how is there another offering that makes more sense? we're having conversations with healthcare providers, like why do I need to come every three months for a skincare check? Like I think if we just isolate the world becomes so much more productive in general. I feel like there's a hesitancy to...
lean in and really have those direct conversations. And that's one thing that I love about sales that I me up well to become an executive leader and a CEO is that I'm not afraid to have direct conversations. And it's not personal. It usually is, you know, like, let's find a way to a common ground and a mutual And, you know, of course, sometimes you're talking to a buyer and
you know, their category is oversaturated. They've got too many products on shelf. But if you came back to me with a capsule or a chew or some other format, we'd be interested. So like just really understanding and isolating the problem and trying to find path to yes, I think is so incredibly important. I think too,
You know, when you have that onus of revenue responsibility and, you know, success or failure for any startup always like starts and ends with revenue. Profitability has become more important the past few years as the cost of capital has become higher. know, taking the company from zero to 700 million, a lot of inflection points along the way. Do we go into club? Do we not go into club?
What's our mass strategy? What's our natural strategy? How do we ensure that we're having these new points of distribution without pissing off our other partners? So there's always like kind of a fine risk reward that you have to as a seller and as a revenue producer. And I think that too, that critical thinking really sets you up well for executive roles, whether that's COO, whether that's...
I've yet to see a chief sales officer go into a CFO role, but I have seen sales or chief revenue officers go into COO, general management, president, obviously CEO too.
Jess Gaedeke (29:50)
of the things that just really feels right to me is that what you described in terms of, asking, getting to yes and asking all the right questions to understand the needs and then the revenue accountability piece, that's exactly how I described sales. And I know sales as a term can have all sorts know, connotations that people don't love.
But when I first was plucked, I call it for sales, someone, my first sales manager, he said, you are going to be in sales. And at first I was like, ew. And I realized very quickly, sales for me was about solving client problems, which I love doing and happen to be pretty decent at, along with the financial accountability that I just thrive in. And it's not for everyone, right, to take on that level of responsibility and visibility and pressure. But some of us love it, you know, we're like addicted to it.
And when you combine those two things, but it's so important that it starts with the and that same manager, he was a long time mentor, Norm Galvin, but his definition of sales was empathetically understanding the needs of the buyer and then aligning your products or services to those needs. I mean, that's what it is. And so then sales becomes a much less dirty word because don't people want the products and services that they need? And they understand there's a financial transaction that comes with it.
And I think really good sales leaders don't shy away from that you're providing something of value. So anyway, you could tell I could talk about this all day long. It's probably something you and I could spitball forever on. But it's so important to start understanding of the buyer, your customer, and being highly empathetic to what their needs and motivations are and then meeting them there along with a It just happens to be part of Yeah.
Tracey Halama (31:20)
Yeah. I love that.
Jess Gaedeke (31:22)
So I would love this because you started this conversation talking about how you've always been in love with CPG. What is your hot take on the future of the CPG industry?
Tracey Halama (31:30)
I feel like the cost of capital has been very high the past few years and it's been a challenging time to start CPG brands. And I feel like, you know, we're still in a little bit of the hangover post COVID. you know, fundamentally people are so focused on longevity. They're so focused on, you know, like the human potential, know, no matter where you look.
know, there's these cold houses and hot houses that are popping up in every market know sound as cold plunge red light therapy a new a mortal Offering that is really like getting to your mitochondrial health. So like with longevity being you know now a trillion dollar market, I feel like
we're going to be at a CPG renaissance because people want to not just make it to 80 or 90, but they want to do it in a healthy way. They want to know that if they fall down, they can get back up. so longevity and health looks so much different than it did before. we've been in the better for you phase of CPG for the past.
you know, probably 15 years. And now I think that we're really moving into food as medicine. And, we're making much better decisions. When I grew up, I grew up in Michigan. So of course we thought that, you know, anything that Kellogg's produced was healthy because it was a Michigan brand. And, no one looked at the back of No one looked at the ingredients. And now
You know, my teenage daughter, the first thing she does is turn around a package and looks at the ingredients and she makes a decision if there's, you know, red dye number three or seed oils or any other ingredient. She makes a decision real time because she's educated. So I think there is going to be another renaissance of CPG. the cost of capital comes down because I think it does really.
impact the ability for young entrepreneurs to come into market with great And if you have a great idea, again, if it's, you know, a great idea, great tasting, efficacious, you generally have a really good recipe for building a brand. So I hope that this is where we're headed. have to think that all of the other factors around us that are outside of what's in
know, your grocery store will positively impact and progress that along.
Jess Gaedeke (34:03)
I love that optimistic viewpoint of the future of CPG. That's wonderful. We're going to move to the final dig. So this is a little bit of like a rapid fire question situation. So we're going to get going here.
So what's the last product or service you bought on impulse?
Tracey Halama (34:16)
go nanas, red velvet banana bread, grew up tasting red velvet cake all the time and I'd rather have a better for you option. And I love those balance too.
Jess Gaedeke (34:23)
my gosh,
I cannot wait to try that product, honestly. So can I find it in Target or where can I get it?
Tracey Halama (34:30)
at Target. I know it's at Walmart. They've got gonanas.com.
Jess Gaedeke (34:34)
Okay, cool. I'll definitely be on the outlook for that
So what is a product or a brand or a category that you could rationalize any price point for? You just have to have it in your life.
Tracey Halama (34:43)
I love Tower 23. think every product that they make it's clean, it's ethically sourced, and it works. I really, really love the antibacterial spray.
I feel like as soon as you put any type of makeup or even sunscreen on, you're continually being affected by the elements around you, whether that's sweat in yoga class or Pilates class or just running really love that brand.
Jess Gaedeke (35:14)
Yeah, okay. So that's found its way into your daily. I love this question. Brands have distinct personalities. So what's a brand that you would like to date and a brand that you would like to marry? They don't have to be the same brand.
Tracey Halama (35:26)
date, egg life I am gluten free, gluten six months ago. And I swear by them, I don't know if you've ever had them, but you know, they're 10 to 12 grams of protein made from egg whites and they taste like a tortilla.
pretty much have one every single day.
Jess Gaedeke (35:47)
Yeah, okay.
That's a good one to date. Is there another one that you commit yourself to long term that you would marry?
Tracey Halama (35:54)
bone I have it in my pantry. it's just like so healing. such great quality.
Jess Gaedeke (35:55)
this product.
Tracey Halama (36:03)
I love and live for brodo. use it in my cooking. I sip bone broth in the afternoon as a pick me up. I know how great like the glycine and arginine and proline is from bone broth. Obviously it kind of sits in the space of collagen, but it's just so nourishing to your gut lining, to your skin, your energy. It's filling.
It's just dumb.
Jess Gaedeke (36:31)
does all the things. I'm laughing because, so my husband is a total science nerd and if you ask anything about the weather, he will unpack like all of the information that you never needed to know. Do your friends and family feel like, okay, I don't need to understand every nutritional information piece about this product or do they love it? Like, do they make fun of you for it?
Tracey Halama (36:50)
my kids totally make fun of me for it. They're like, great, like what amino acid are you going to tell us about today? So they make fun of me. But I also think that I've got a cohort of friends that will come to me and say, hey, what do you think of this product? Should I buy this product on Amazon or not? Do you recommend something else? So it's kind of fun being the resident expert on supplements or health and my group of girlfriends.
Jess Gaedeke (37:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, you're the guru for the thought leader that you think I should interview on this podcast?
Tracey Halama (37:22)
that you should talk to the GoNanas girls. I'm calling them girls, they're young women, have built a profitable company and that is to be profitable and obviously I'm not going to share what they're at from a revenue perspective, but I think to start a brand in your dorm room and after a few years get it to profitability,
Jess Gaedeke (37:24)
Mmm, that'd be fun. I'd love to do it.
Tracey Halama (37:48)
that's something really interesting. I think your would love to hear more about it.
Jess Gaedeke (37:52)
That's something to dig into for sure. I love it. Thank you for that recommendation. finally, as we wrap up here, I mean, there's so many lessons and I always get inspired by you. What keeps you inspired in your work life?
Tracey Halama (38:04)
Creativity keeps me inspired. Right now, like I just designed.
Jess Gaedeke (38:11)
Ooh, I like that.
Tracey Halama (38:11)
a bomber jacket
for our Expo West. So we're going to get these designed. you know, like I love, I know this isn't something that most CEOs obsess over, but I love color. I love branding. Vital Proteins Blue was something that I ideated.
inspired by the Apple Store, the iPhone 6 silicone, first silicone phone holders. So, you know, if there's a creative bend building a CPG brand, that is just something that fills my heart.
Jess Gaedeke (38:48)
I absolutely love Well, thank you so much. I really mean it. You mean a lot in my professional world. I sort of have a professional crush on you and I just keep my eye on you. And it's so exciting to see all the great things that you're doing with these brands. We learn a lot from you. So I appreciate you taking the time.
Tracey Halama (39:01)
Well, thank you, Jess. Like, I mean, you've been such a great ally. think in this world of women entrepreneurs, it's hard to go from sales to CEO. aren't that many of us who have done it. And quite frankly, there's a lot of naysayers and tractors. And I think it's so important that we all stick together.
And we really find paths forward for female entrepreneurs, female, know, venture capitalists, know, female insight leaders, category leaders, you know, people that are really shaping the future of CPG. And, you know, I hate to make it all about women, but because we control 80, 85 % of purchasing power, it really needs to have more female influence. So thank you for being there.
and having this forum and speaking about entrepreneurship, women, sales, insights, everything that we need.
Jess Gaedeke (40:01)
All topics I could talk all day about. So thank you so much for joining. Really appreciate it.