The Startup CPG Podcast

In this bonus episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, Grace Kennedy chats with Gloria Allorbi, CEO and founder of Gloria’s Shito®️, a spicy chili oil brand inspired by Ghana’s traditional condiment, Shito. Gloria shares her entrepreneurial journey, from creating her product for personal use to scaling it into a thriving business in U.S. grocery stores. 

They dive into the challenges of maintaining authenticity while adapting the recipe to be vegan and the process of getting her product into retailers like Erewhon. Gloria also talks about her mission to introduce Ghanaian cuisine to the U.S. market and how she educates customers through in-store demonstrations, pairing Shito with familiar dishes like pizza and avocado toast. She reflects on the financial hurdles of bootstrapping her business and her experience with capital raising, all while building a strong community around her brand.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation about culture, food, and entrepreneurship! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, and connect with us to stay updated on more exciting founder stories.

Listen in as they share about:
  • Origin Story of Gloria's Shito®️
  • Vision and Mission of Gloria's Shito®️
  • Transition to Business and Retail Expansion
  • Challenges with Manufacturing
  • Flavor Adjustments
  • Introducing Shito to New Markets
  • Customer Feedback, Funding and Business Growth
  • Cultural and Personal Challenges
  • Networking and Resources


Episode Links:
Gloria Allorbi LinkedIn
Gloria’s Shito®️ Website

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)

Creators & Guests

Host
Grace Kennedy

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Gloria Allorbi
When you look at shelf spaces, you're always seeing european cuisine, asian cuisine, latin cuisine. And I keep asking the question, where is the taste of Africa? Where is the taste of West Africa? Where is the taste of Ghana? On retail spaces. If no one's putting it out there, then people won't have access to it. Hello.

00:31
Grace Kennedy
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the startup CPG podcast. This is Grace, and I'm back with another founder feature. Today I'm talking to Gloria Lorbe. Gloria is the founder of Gloria's Shitto. They make a delicious ghanaian chili oil that is truly unlike any other chili oil I've had before. Gloria's mission is to bring representation of ghanaian food to mainstream grocery shelves in America, and she has big plans to take her chili oil nationwide over the next year. I loved chatting with Gloria and learning more all about ghanaian food and culture, and also talking about her just delicious chili oil. I hope you enjoy this episode, and as always, let me know what you think. Hello, everyone. So excited to be joined by Gloria Lorbe, the founder of Gloria's shitor. I think I'm saying it right.

01:28
Grace Kennedy
We were just doing some pronunciation lessons before we started recording. But welcome to the podcast, Gloria, and I'd love for you to introduce yourself and your brand to our listeners.

01:38
Gloria Allorbi
Hi, everyone. My name is Gloria Lourbie, and I'm the founder of Gloria's Shito. Shito means spicy pepper or hot, and it's simply the ketchup of Ghana. And this is what you put on anything and everything to make it taste delicious and spicy. So it's my homage to Ghana, where I'm from, to celebrate the taste and create accessibility of the taste of Ghana and mainstream grocery shops where I live in the United States. So that's my brand, and that's my mission.

02:10
Grace Kennedy
I love it. And I will say I had the opportunity to try the chateau, and it's so good. It's honestly unlike any chili oil I've had before. It has this really depth of flavor. Like, it's not just spicy, it has a lot of, like, that umami, that smokiness that is so delicious. So just want to give that a plug, that it's truly a really unique chili oil, because I know there are so many chili oils on the market, and yours is truly one. I've not tasted anything like it before. So excited to learn more about it. But so, before we dive in, I'd love to just start with the origin story. Why did you decide to create this, and what were you doing before you decided to dive into the CPG world.

02:56
Gloria Allorbi
So I started making Laura Chateau or shit off for myself. So I was born in Ghana, left Ghana with my family, and we moved to the UK. And then at the age of 18, I moved to the United States. Everywhere I moved to, I found myself assimilating and kind of absorbing the cultures of the places I have moved to. And the only time I would experience my cultural cuisine was in my mom's kitchen at home, never outside that space. The older I got and having lack of access to my mom's kitchen because my mom lives in a different state, I had to figure out a way to create that accessibility for myself. So I started making chateau. And then I started asking the question, why can't I go grocery shopping and buy this? Why isn't it accessible to me?

03:52
Gloria Allorbi
And to answer the question, I figured someone has to put it out there, someone has to talk about it, someone has to share it, because grocery stores are not going to put something on shelf when no one knows about it and there's no demand for it. So I figured I wanted to create that demand. I wanted to create that accessibility by talking about it and then also taking note from other cultures, like european cuisine, asian cuisine, latin cuisine, how? Or they celebrate in their culture cuisine. And so I took note, and I wanted to celebrate my culture cuisine the same way other cultures have been doing it, and proudly speak about it and put it out there and tell people, this is delicious, and I want you to try it. This is my culture cuisine.

04:38
Gloria Allorbi
So that was mainly the driving force to start sharing about it. Initially, it wasn't a business idea. It was an idea to share. And then I saw that for me to be able to create accessibility, it had to become a business. So then I had to figure out, how do I put this in grocery stores? How do I get this commercialized? And slowly found myself pivoting to creating and starting this business. Prior to this, I have been a cosmetic chemist for the past 15 years. I've worked for brands like L'Oreal USA, John Paul Mitchell system, Jafra Cosmetics recently. And so that had been my. My career. That was my life. And I love creating products like skincare, hair care products. So I was already familiar with what it takes to create a product and commercialize it. Take an ideation, understanding, packaging design.

05:43
Gloria Allorbi
What was the steps of taking something from the kitchen to a commercial space? So it was a transferable skill that I applied to getting glorious shuttle to a commercial space. I have since pivoted from being a cosmetic chemist to full time work on glorious chateau to really be the driving force to make sure that I'm creating that accessibility and putting it in everywhere it needs to be. Grocery spaces, restaurants. So that's been now my mission.

06:21
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. Wow. And that definitely makes sense that coming from that cosmetic chemist working on skincare, beauty, it's not the same as food, obviously, but it's sort of a similar process of figuring out the right ingredients, what needs to go with what, and how do you get it then into a package and get it to consumers. So that makes a lot of sense. So when did you feel like it was time to really make this a business? And what spurred you to really take that first step? To say, okay, I'm not just going to make this in my home kitchen anymore. I'm going to bring it to the masses? And how did you have to adjust your recipe? Or did you have to adjust your recipe at all to take it out of the home kitchen?

07:03
Gloria Allorbi
It was the vision I've always been driven by. What was, how did I see the world in terms of, like, food and include in my culture, cuisine. And so having that vision board of I want to see this on the grocery shelf. And so for me to be able to do that, I wasn't going to be able to achieve that, making it in my home kitchen. And so then the question came, I need to find someone to help me mass produce this. I was adamant that I wanted to keep the authenticity of the flavors. I didn't want to water it down because going from home kitchen to commercialization sometimes could mean you have to use cheaper ingredients. You have to meet the equipment availability of the manufacturer to make it work.

07:58
Gloria Allorbi
So this product has a biphase separation, meaning there is the solid and then there's the oil. And it's not homogeneous, like mayonnaise or tomato paste. And so it requires a type of equipment to make sure you get an equal feel. And a lot of manufacturers in the beginning told me we can't produce this because it's not homogeneous. And so I would have to add a thickener to bind it, which would mean I would have to change the recipe completely. And I did not want to budge. I was like, if I had to add a foreign ingredient that has never been in this product traditionally, then it's not what I'm trying to introduce people to. And if this is the first thing I'm introducing people outside Ghana to, I want it to be as authentic as possible. And so that was that challenge.

08:54
Gloria Allorbi
But I was adamant. And so coming from the cosmetic world, where I've developed products before I knew it was possible. I just needed to find that one person that would believe in my ingenuity that we can do this. And so, thank God, I did find a manufacturer who was able to help me maintain that authenticity, meaning that changing the formula and adapting the formula to something else so it would work in that commercial space. Initially, when I was doing this, I was handmaking it. Handmaking it and reaching audience at farmers market. And because I had a nine to five, this truly was my side hustle, meaning I did this on the nights and weekends. And so creating a product, I didn't have the bandwidth or the capacity to initially create different skus. A medium, a spicy, a mild, and a lot.

09:58
Gloria Allorbi
A lot goes into why. Because when you are creating different skus and being a brand new business or a brand new product on the market, I have not yet targeted my audience. I knew who my targeted audience were. But when it comes to food, and especially spicy food, there are different depending on, like, how some, like someone's cultural exposure spice is interpreted differently. My spicy could be your mild and vice versa. And so when I first started, I had the one sku, which I had always described it as mediums or high side of medium, meaning if someone who enjoys spicy food will still appreciate it, and someone who enjoys medium will also appreciate it. And I was trying to get people from both end of the scale.

10:59
Gloria Allorbi
But to go into retail, I learned from my mentors that you have to take up shelf space, and in doing so, you have to create multiple skus to meet the different targeted audience so well that appreciate mild, medium and spicy. So the driving force was adding additional Sku was reaching more people and meeting the needs of the consumer. I think when I started the brand, I started it for myself. I was making this for myself. And so I led with what I like. But I think to be successful in retail spaces, you have to meet the needs, the target audience. And so I was able to additional skus. So the medium, the spicy, and then another skus. I recently also added a chili honey and then a dry form of the chili oil.

12:03
Gloria Allorbi
So it's simply all the ingredients in the chili oil without the oil. And you can just sprinkle it on anything.

12:10
Grace Kennedy
Mmm, that sounds delicious. And I noticed too that they're all vegan, but you didn't originally start with them. Vegan. Correct.

12:19
Gloria Allorbi
Authentically. Ghana sits. So Ghana sits on the Gulf of Guinea. So it's a coastal. We have a coastal region. And shito, it's actually from the coastal part of Ghana. The cuisine in Ghana is umami, spicy, sweet. So it is always going to be seafood. Tomatoes, onion, ginger, pepper. That's the description of ghanaian cuisine. So authentically, shito is made with dry seafood. When I first created this recipe, it was authentically made with seafood. However, going to scale, I learned that it was more challenging to produce food that has any form of allergen. So seafood allergen, shellfish allergen. And a lot of manufacturers will shy away from ingredients that have allergens. And this is to minimize contamination. Not only that, the FDA has stricter regulations when it comes to ingredients that are allergen based, and we'll audit facilities that are producing such products.

13:32
Gloria Allorbi
So it was much harder to find a manufacturer that was able to meet those FDA standards when producing seafood allergens. And being a small producer, not a lot of people wanted to work with me because I was coming in with the 50,000 unit minimum quantity orders. And so a lot of manufacturers did not want to work with me. And not only that, it was during the pandemic where supply chain demand was just out of whack. Manufacturers were not getting ingredients to produce for the clients that they had on the roster for the year. And so no one was taking on new companies to produce for them.

14:22
Gloria Allorbi
But the manufacturer, I found, who was able to meet the technique and the process that I wanted to maintain, yes, he was able to successfully help me do it, but he did not want to make anything that had allergens in it. So by default, I had to move forward with a vegan recipe versus a seafood recipe. And in the way, I think it worked out of, because having the recipe be vegan, more people are able to experience it without eliminating someone who would have a shellfish allergy or a seafood allergy.

15:03
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And did you have to kind of adjust for the flavor then? Because obviously, a dried, you know, seafood is going to have so much flavor in it. So how did you adjust to make sure it still had that umami ness that you get from something like that?

15:19
Gloria Allorbi
Well, luckily, umami can also be achieved from ingredients like tomatoes and onions. And so having to take out the seafood, I then had to push forward more of the tomatoes and the onions to be able to achieve. Still achieve umami from those ingredients. So maximizing the use of the other ingredients that have umami to compensate for that umami bomb, that would have been achieved with the seafood.

15:53
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. And that. I've definitely had that umami from something like a really caramelized onion or something like that, and it's delicious. And like I said, your vegan chili oil still has such that you really achieved that depth of flavor. And it is impressive that there's no dried seafood in it because it has that kind of umami flavor. So clearly, I mean, I know you're a chemist, so you are kind of a wizard, but clearly you're also not just a cosmetic wizard, you're also a food wizard. But you also mentioned, you know, as you were figuring out how to grow into retail, and I know that you are in, you know, quite a few different retailers, including Erewhon, which I think for so many of our listeners, for our CPG founders out there is kind of like a dream retailer in many ways.

16:37
Grace Kennedy
So could you talk a little bit about your process of getting into these retailers and what it was like to get into a place like Erewhon?

16:46
Gloria Allorbi
Yeah. I always led with delusion, meaning that, yes, like, it can be here. And I always go back to that vision, where do I want to see my cultural cuisine? I always, from day one, had these visions of, I want to see it in media where food is celebrated. So Food and Wine magazine, I want to see it in there. Thankfully, the year I launched, Gloria Chateau was featured in food and white magazine. So it was always been, where do I want to take this? And my illusion tells me, yes, we are going to put this in food and Wine magazine. Yes, retail spaces, so it can be accessible. So we're going to put this at air one. We're going to put this at sprouts. So it's been that vision board of this is where I want to go.

17:44
Gloria Allorbi
And I've always matched with that, like, vision. So besides that, how did I get into air one? I simply went on the website to the air one portal and submitted as a new vendor, and it goes through the review. The team reviewed it and they agreed with me that it's delicious and it needs to be on their shelves. And so it got approved to be on shelf, and it was simply us submitted it, sending it there. They reviewed it and they agreed with me that it's delicious. Wow.

18:18
Grace Kennedy
That's honestly a real testament to the fact that it is delicious, because I've honestly probably never heard a seamless retail story like that where it just, you just submit, they say yes and you're in.

18:31
Gloria Allorbi
It's just that driving force and believing in something, believing that this needs to be in retail spaces and include, because I think it makes sense that why shouldn't this be on the shelf at air one, because when you look at shelf spaces, you're always seeing a plethora of european cuisine, asian cuisine, latin cuisine. And I keep asking the question, where is the taste of Africa? Where is the taste of West Africa? Where is the taste of Ghana on retail spaces? And if no one's putting it out there, then people won't have access to it. So it was my mission, and in terms of, like, the application process, I made these mission and these visions known to the team that this is the reason for my brand. The food of West Africa is delicious. The food of Ghana is delicious. And they agreed.

19:30
Grace Kennedy
So I love it, and it's so true. And I love that's a part of your mission, to bring the taste of Ghana and West Africa and Africa to the states, because you're so right in that it's such an underrepresented cuisine on our shelves. You know, there are certainly some african restaurants, especially here on the east coast, Philadelphia, where I am, and also in New York and places like that. But you really don't see it that much at the retail shelf itself. So once you got into erewhon sprouts, these other places, how did you communicate to customers what she tore is, and also, how did you get them to really come into the store and buy it and take a chance on a product that they've maybe never heard of before?

20:15
Gloria Allorbi
Yes. So, most importantly, when you're introducing customers to something new, demoing in store is a must. You have to meet the customer where they are and almost educate them about what the food is and what it is. But also, I think what continues to work for me is letting the customer recognize what it is that they have in front of them, so it's not so foreign. I think in Ghana, if I was to give Shita to someone in Ghana, they would pair it with so many other food that is not accessible here in the United States. And so I could not tell the customer here in the United States how to pair Shitok, what to use it for. Yes.

21:05
Gloria Allorbi
I will encourage them to enjoy with everything that they already love to eat and not have to worry about, oh, what do I eat this with? So it's like, what do you have for breakfast in the morning? Albatoast. Okay, put that on your. Albatoast your eggs, put this on your rice. Put this on your pizza. So meeting the customer where what's already in the pantry. What could they pair this with in the opine tree and not having it to be something foreign. And very earlier on, when I went to Chateau on social media, I saw that a lot of my customers were pairing it with things I would have never paired it with or someone from Ghana would have never paired it with a community favorite. Became savory oatmeal. And growing up in Ghana, I had oatmeal eaten sweet with milk.

21:58
Gloria Allorbi
I never had savory oatmeal. And no one in Ghana has ever had savory oatmeal. But my customers were coming and were like, yes, I paired it with my savory oatmeal and I loved it. And I'm like, okay, I need to go make myself savory oatmeal and find out, like, how are they experiencing it? And so definitely meeting the customer where they are at, what they're familiar with, and what they know they have in their pantry, and they're already eating the chili oil with. So store demos. Being in the store, when I do a store demo, I'm simply adding it to cheese and crackers. And cheese and crackers is as simple as bare minimum as, yes, put this in cheese and crackers, and then they see how delicious it is.

22:47
Gloria Allorbi
And then they can now walk away thinking, okay, this is delicious and cheese and crackers. I bet this would be as delicious on pizza, which is cheese and bread, or this will be delicious on my avatos. So definitely store demo. And educating the customer to know that this is something that they can pair it with what they already have in their pantry, it doesn't have to be something different. They don't have to pair it the same way it's paired in Ghana or the type of food it would be used to enjoy it with in Ghana. A poploid dish in Ghana is jollof rice, which a lot of people are starting to learn about jollof rice, but not everyone knows how to make it. So I'm not going to tell them, oh, you have to pair this with jollof rice.

23:36
Gloria Allorbi
I have to allow the customer to experience it and interpret it on their own terms. And this way, it's much easier for them to pick it up and be like, yes, I'm going to put this on my charcuterie board. I'm going to add this to my hummus. I'm going to add this to pizza eggs, avoid toast, savory oatmeal. So I think that freedom of allowing the customer to interpret the food, however, best they see it.

24:04
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. I've certainly put it on many different things. I think I had it with some. Most recently, we had, like, we made some fish, and we just, like, drizzled it on top, and it was delicious. And so I can. I haven't had it with savory oatmeal, but I also don't really make savory oatmeal, but maybe I should start. So if anybody has a good savory oatmeal recipe, let me know.

24:23
Gloria Allorbi
I actually do. I have it on my website.

24:25
Grace Kennedy
Oh, my God. Well, then, perfect. I'll go check it out after we talked, and I'll make it for breakfast tomorrow. So another thing I wanted to talk about, which is kind of a question I ask a lot of founders because everybody struggles with it, which is funding. How are you funding Gloria Shithor? Are you seeking outside investment? Are you bootstrapping? What's been your approach to, you know, keeping the lights on, if you will?

24:53
Gloria Allorbi
Going into starting this business was a wake up call that I did not. I was not prepared for. I don't come from a background of business. No one in my family has ever started a business. I moved to this country at the age of 18 with my parents, who are also immigrants, and we're trying to figure it out. And so there was not even a savings. We're just starting from, like, scratch. So the education behind how to start a business with funding from family and friends, that was even foreign for me. So I've been bootstrapping since day one, tapping into my savings. What really helped me was that I didn't start this business as I'm launching. Like, I didn't plan it out. Like, I didn't have a launch date. I wasn't like, okay, we're gonna launch with 10,000 units.

25:51
Gloria Allorbi
The first launch, it was simply me calling my siblings and my cousins and telling them, hey, I made chateau, and it's delicious. Would you like me to make you some and just pay me and I'll make it and ship it to you? And my siblings agreed to send me money, and I shipped it. And so I started doing that where I started creating that customer list of, hey, who wants me to make shit off for them? And so it started off with two customers, and then 15 customers, 30 customers, 50 customers, and then growing that customer base. And then it came to a point where I was able to take the money that the business was starting to make to reinvest that money back into the business.

26:37
Gloria Allorbi
And so starting small and not having to plan out a launch date and a targeted business strategy and just starting small has allowed me to just tap into one, my own savings, and then putting money back into the business from the money that the business has made. Well, now that I'm growing and now that I'm talking to retailers and wanting to be in national retail spaces requires, now I need to start asking for money. And that's something that's daunting to me because I don't have knowledge and education on raising capital or how to ask someone for money and what equity am I giving back. So I think for me, it's a learning process.

27:31
Gloria Allorbi
And I don't want to say whether or not if it's like a cultural thing where I feel like if you grew up in the United States or if you grew up having money, you understand that it requires money to make money. And so it's easy to ask someone or take someone's money and then believe that you make that money back and pay them back that money. Whereas where I'm coming from, it's not that easy to even ask or take someone's money. And so for me, it's been a difficult challenge. I was recently featured on a docu series. This was produced by hello Sunshine and it's Heroku original. The series is called side Hustlers. And the premise of the show is what will it take for you to quit your day job and work on your side hustle full time?

28:30
Gloria Allorbi
And so you get to pitch your business to entrepreneurs mentors. The mentors on the show are Emma Greed, who is a successful entrepreneur. She's launched brands like Skim Good, American safely. And so these women are the driving force and mentoring women owned businesses like myself and then investing in their business. So I am starting to educate myself and accept the notion of, okay, yes, believing in this business and believing that it will be successful and taking money and then figuring out the pie, I think one thing I've accepted is, yes, I can go far or I can get somewhere on my own, but to go further, you have to take the support or the help of other people. So that would mean taking other people's money and having the ability to put in a purchase order for 50,000 units.

29:40
Gloria Allorbi
Because oftentimes when retailers put a purchase order, there are payment terms of net 30, net 60, net 30 90, meaning I'm not getting that money upfront. So I have to be able to afford that inventory with capital to then wait for the retailer to pay me after 90 days. And so if I don't have the money, it means I cannot deliver that inventory. But if I can take someone's money believing that I can place that purchase order and then get paid and then give someone else a share of that money, then I think it's worth it. But honestly, for me, it is something that I'm not comfortable with because I wasn't raised and the culture of taking money. But I'm starting to understand like what it requires to run a successful business and that is having cash flow on the hand.

30:40
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, unfortunately, you're exactly correct. It takes money to make money. And I think it's a really important point you're bringing up, though, like, especially on a cultural level, how uncomfortable it can be for so many people and from different cultures to ask for money, and how there is that kind of hesitation and fear around even just asking at all, let alone whether or not someone will say yes or no. The ask in and of itself can be scary and can feel weird to just ask for someone else's money. Especially, like you said, if you weren't raised in this culture or if you just weren't raised in a family or community where that was a norm. So I think that's a really important point to bring up. So you mentioned too, you know, having to educate yourself about these business decisions.

31:28
Grace Kennedy
Are there any resources or, you know, you mentioned some mentors in that show. But what's been really helpful for you as you've been educating yourself about the CPT business and the CPT world?

31:39
Gloria Allorbi
Networking. Yeah, honestly, networking and talking to other founders and how they're doing it. And you'd be surprised. Most founders and most business or entrepreneurs are willing to share their journey and how they're doing it. And always given tips as to how to even start a pitch deck and angel investment versus a VC investment. So definitely network. I think for me, in the beginning, I felt like I was in a silo. I was just by myself trying to figure out and using the resources that I had. And then later on when I joined platforms like startup CPG and networking with other founders and showing up to community events has been instrumental in one building my confidence because I'm able to see myself reflected in like other founders. So definitely show up in the community and I network because that is like, for myself, I'm learning.

32:49
Gloria Allorbi
So in terms of like resources, I am educating myself in terms of like, where do I start with a pitch deck? What I should put in a pitch deck? What is the ask? Educating myself about like different types of equity. So what's a safe note? Or what is money that translates to equity? So educating yourself on that, but also show up in the community network with other founders because how are they doing it? And most founders are always open to share and lead you to the path that you're wanting to go. So definitely network and show up in the community and definitely set up. CPG is a great outlet for new founders to tap into other founders.

33:43
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. And that's, you know, half our mission is just bringing founders together and putting that question into slack just so you can quickly get answer. When you are so often as a founder working by yourself or working with maybe a one co founder or, you know, one mentor. And it's so nice to have, and so important to have other founders you can talk to who understand what you're going through and might have the answers to questions that you can't as easily Google. Because it's not all on Google. Unfortunately, most things are, but it's not all on Google. So as we get towards the end, I'd love to hear what's been one of your proudest moments thus far in running Gloria Shitor. And yeah, what's been one of your proudest moments for me, I think, is.

34:29
Gloria Allorbi
The community that I'm building, customer base that is showing up for me. And it's very authentic in the way where we're meeting at the farmer's market, we're meeting at the in store demos, customers are emailing me and telling me I am ghanaian. I was born in Chicago and my family has lived here for however long. And now I can order Shitta from your website and share it with my family. It is those stories that really is the driving force of my why, my mission in creating that accessibility. So I think my most proudest of this mission is the community that I'm building and the customers that are showing up for me and believing in that same mission. So that's what I'm mostly proud of.

35:30
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. And that is so special to be able to bring that and to be able to, like you said, even bring it to just your own family, I'm sure they feel very grateful that they have access to this delicious condiment. Delicious and beloved condiment, as you said, the ketchup of Ghana, which I love that catchphrase as well. It just goes to show how truly versatile your sauce or oil is. So my last question is just what's next for Gloria Shito in the final, you know, few months of this year and looking forward to 2025. What's coming up for Gloria Shito?

36:06
Gloria Allorbi
A lot, a lot less of my ambitions of what's coming out. Definitely being in national retail. So right now we have local chain retail. And now I have my ambition set on national retail, and I think we are on our way to that. And I'm very excited for the year to close out.

36:33
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's the next thing on your vision board. Or as you said, that's your next delusion. But I think it's more like manifesting. It's not delusion, it's manifesting. And you've clearly been successful in your manifestation thus far, so keep it going.

36:47
Gloria Allorbi
Yeah, and definitely a combination of manifestation and working in delusion to make that manifestation happen. Because first you have to manifest it and see it happen, and then delusional enough to actually go and get it done.

37:04
Grace Kennedy
Totally. I think that's the perfect note to end on to all our founders. Be delusional enough to actually get it done. And if people want to learn more about Gloria Chateau, where can they do that?

37:16
Gloria Allorbi
They can find me on Instagram Laurier Chateau. They can also go to the website glorious chateau.com. Glorious Chateau is spelled gloriasshito.com.

37:33
Grace Kennedy
Perfect. Well, everyone, go check it out. Like I said, it's truly delicious, and I'm probably gonna have some tonight with my dinner. So, so nice to chat with you, Gloria and everyone. Thanks for listening. All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, it would help us out so much if you left a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I am Grace Kennedy, the editor for startup CPG, so feel free to add me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on social Slack. I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting brands to feature. And if you're a potential sponsor that would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipstartupcpg.com.

38:16
Grace Kennedy
And finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our community on Slack and you can sign up via our website, startupcpg.com.