The Startup CPG Podcast

Khalil Kamis
One of our core values is kaizen. It's the Japanese term for continuous improvement. We are never satisfied. We're always looking to figure out how do we make the product better, the packaging better. And what's interesting is. Same thing with applying that in a restaurant is easy. You can iterate daily, but in the world of retail and cpg, you can't just change your SKU every few months. So being super pragmatic about how we apply kaizen is a more long term vision in retail than it would be in a restaurant.

00:41
Caitlin Bricker
Hey, everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, managing editor at startup cpg. We've got a special episode for you today. I'm sitting down with Khalil Kamis, CEO of Crafty Ramen, a brand reimagining ramen by bringing restaurant quality frozen ramen to the freezer aisle. No water, no assembly, just heat and eat in seven minutes. Crafty Ramen just took second place in the pitch competition with Advantage Solutions at Expo West. And Khalil's ready to share the wild journey from a 24 seat ramen shop in Canada to nearly 3,000 retail doors and an upcoming U.S. launch. We're diving into what it's like scaling a manufacturing business while building a brand and why they refuse to put their product in plastic trays, and of course, how they choose their flavor lineup. As always, enjoy. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast.

01:33
Caitlin Bricker
This is Caitlin and today I'm here with Khalil Kammes, CEO of Crafty Ramen. Khalil, it is so good to have you here. Before we dive into all things Crafty Ramen, I just want to say congratulations on placing second in the pitch competition with Advantage Solutions at Expo West. That is a huge feat. I know there were a ton of brands that applied to join the pitch competition, so to be able to take home second place is huge. How did that feel for you?

02:02
Khalil Kamis
Yeah, thanks so much. It was just an honor to be able to tell the Crafty Ramen story to a room full of new people that are all CPG industry folks. So we're just excited anytime we get to tell its story.

02:15
Caitlin Bricker
I love it. And before we get deeper into all things Crafty Ramen, maybe you can tell the audience what Crafty Ramen is.

02:21
Khalil Kamis
Yeah. We are reimagining ramen by bringing restaurant quality frozen ramen to the freezer aisle with no water, no assembly. You just heat it up at home and it's ready in seven minutes.

02:32
Caitlin Bricker
I love it. I'm a toddler mom. Everybody who tunes in probably already knows this about me. But when I got samples of your products, I was like, this is perfect. The ingredients are great. It tastes great, which is huge. And it was so easy. I literally just had to pop this frozen puck of ramen with all these fresh ingredients. Frozen, but fresh ingredients into a pot and just wait seven minutes. And then my dinner or my lunch was ready to go. I was amazed by the quality.

03:03
Khalil Kamis
Thank you. We're super lucky. Jared, one of our co founders, is a red seal chef. Him and Mickey, husband and wife duo that founded Crafty Ramen. They actually studied at the Yamato School of Ramen in Tokyo before opening their first restaurant. So they're the real deal.

03:17
Caitlin Bricker
I did not realize that there was a school of ramen, but I guess it makes sense. There's a school for everything. And thankfully they attended because the products really do just speak for themselves.

03:27
Khalil Kamis
Yeah, exactly. I think I need to go. Eventually.

03:29
Caitlin Bricker
You probably feel like you're taking the courses by eating the food.

03:33
Khalil Kamis
For sure. That's one of the perks of the job. Trying all the new R and D,.

03:37
Caitlin Bricker
I can only imagine. Literally every single flavor was delicious. I personally really liked the spicy chicken one. That was my favorite. Do you have a favorite skew?

03:46
Khalil Kamis
That is our number one seller. I like a little bit lighter of a broth, so the pork shoyu is my favorite one, the shiitake pork shoyu. And then our new innovation, the brisket birria. Ramen is wild. Jared actually put a little bit of corn flour in the noodle so it smells like a taco when you're eating it. So good.

04:05
Caitlin Bricker
That was a really interesting skew. I had brisket before, but I had never had brisket and ramen, so it was cool to see those worlds colliding in my bowl and then, of course, eating it too. All right, tell me about your journey with Crafty Ramen. Because you are not a founder, you're not a co founder, you're the CEO. So tell us how you started with Crafty Ramen and where are you today with the company?

04:28
Khalil Kamis
Yeah. So I joined Crafty Ramen about eight years ago, and what a journey it's been since then. It was founded as a 24 seater ramen shop, 8 minute walk from my house by Jared and Mickey Farrell. And I just fell in love with the food and the brand, and I was so excited that there was good ramen super close to my house. Sitting at the bar after work, a long day, I just got to know Jared and Mickey and loved what they were doing. My Background's in franchise restaurants. So we just decided to partner and open more restaurants. We opened our second restaurant four months before the pandemic and we built a big restaurant cause we put a commissary kitchen in it. One of the bright spots of the pandemic was that sense of community that came together.

05:10
Khalil Kamis
And were talking to our restaurant neighbors. Somebody's like, I'm doing a cocktail k doing a pizza kit where like let people make real ramen at home. So we spun up a meal kit for local pickup and caught a bunch of virality online. We had people from all over the world saying like, can you ship this? Can you ship this? So we started E commerce and then we had independent retailers reach out and say, this is really cool. Nobody's doing this in retail. We want to sell your product. And that was when the light bulb went off. There's instant ramen. There's better for you. Instant ramen. You have a couple broth and noodle kits, but there's nobody giving you like the full restaurant bowl in a super convenient format. Ready at home in minutes.

05:46
Khalil Kamis
That was when I joined full time as CEO in 2021 and said, let's take a stab and see if we can be the leaders of restaurant quality rum and retail.

05:56
Caitlin Bricker
And where are you today when it comes to retail? From when you started to now, what does your footprint look like?

06:02
Khalil Kamis
Yeah. So three years ago we started with UNFI in Canada for national distribution. Since then we've grown to about 2,700 retail doors in Canada, partnerships with every major retailer. So we started with a meal kit. Now it's a frozen puck. So you get a layer of broth, noodles, protein toppings, real bone broth. We make the noodles from scratch. It is very Canadian of us calling it a puck. Right. But we actually brought the meal kit back for hellofresh. So hellofresh approach fast and zed. We've been trying to do ramen for a while. We can't make it taste as good as yours. Like, would you like to be the first branded product on our marketplace? No way. So the main format is the frozen puck.

06:39
Khalil Kamis
And then we also do have a meal kit for the meal kit E comms and we've just started our sales cycles in the US Exhibited at Expo west for the first time. It's like only been four weeks. It feels like it's been months. And the response was astounding. So we'll be hitting shelves in the US late December, early into the fall, potentially nationwide.

07:00
Caitlin Bricker
Wow, what a journey. And I Am just taken aback by the fact that you are really getting things off the ground during the pandemic. It's really cool to see that you've had this successful growth and you've been able to create this product that really is stand out in the market. I've never seen anything like it in the frozen aisle before. I'm curious, what is it like operating a business from Canada and introducing it to the US market? What does that look like? Tell us everything.

07:28
Khalil Kamis
It's a little bit of an outer body experience, to be honest with you. Obviously, there's some political stuff that's been going on with tariffs and I think when you watch the news, you think the world is ending. Right. But as I meet people from all over the US as we tour grocery stores, we meet buyers, that politicalness has never come up once. There's a little bit of risk to our business because tariffs can change overnight. So we will look to set up manufacturing in the US long term. But it's just so cool to say, hey, we are a small startup that's now going to be selling food internationally. All the regulatory stuff is not fun. It's a very heavy lift to go through that.

08:08
Khalil Kamis
But we feel very proud to be able to share the comfort of a bowl of ramen in the world right now.

08:14
Caitlin Bricker
I think that is so cool and I would be totally missing if I didn't bring this up, but I don't know if you remember the show Last Comic Standing? Do you remember that?

08:25
Khalil Kamis
Oh, I don't know if I've seen that one.

08:26
Caitlin Bricker
It was on years ago. It must have been 20 plus years ago at this point. But there was a comedian on there and she described Canada. She's like, when I go from the US to Canada, it's like the attic. Like, whoa, look at all this cool stuff up here. So it's interesting to hear from your perspective what it's like because maybe this sounds so naive of me, but I really don't consider Canada to be international because you're like, you're our neighbors, you know, Real close. Yeah, I could drive up to Quebec if I wanted to.

08:58
Caitlin Bricker
So it's interesting hearing your perspective of being an international brand when we're so close and all the red tape and the political climate too that you're mentioning, I think that speaks a lot to the community that yes, there is this political tension with tariffs and exchanges law, etc. But having that face to face, human interaction with the retailers and other brands and the political tension not showing up in those places. I think says a lot. Where do you find community most as a brand?

09:30
Khalil Kamis
I think that's my favorite thing about food, though, because everybody's differences aside, when you sit down to have a meal, like eating family style is my favorite. Right. Just put a whole bunch of food in the middle of the table and let's eat. A lot of that stuff gets stripped away. And I think that sense of community really comes from sharing what we call the comfort of a bowl of ramen. And especially in a very tense world right now, when we go through our marketing, we're going to start exporting to the U.S. how is our Canadian community going to respond with that? And our response is just that we all just need really good food that makes us feel great and comfortable. So.

10:06
Caitlin Bricker
Absolutely agree. Every day I'm seeing new flavors from around the world that are hitting the market via cpg. And I'm so thankful for it because I'm beholden to my toddler. I don't see any international travel in my future anytime soon. So to be able to experience other cultures through flavor and food, it really is a travel experience in front of you without having to go anywhere.

10:33
Khalil Kamis
So true. Yeah, well said.

10:34
Caitlin Bricker
Hopefully I don't consider myself the most eloquent person, but here we are. Can you tell us a little bit about manufacturing and what that looks like? Because I was so impressed. Again, like, I described your product as being fresh, but was frozen when it got to me. But when it's in my bowl, it looks like somebody was literally making it from scratch in my kitchen. So tell us about your manufacturing process and what that looks like for Crafty Ramen.

11:00
Khalil Kamis
We do call it fresh frozen because we are taking fresh ingredients and blast freezing them into something frozen. But building any business is a journey. When you're building a manufacturing business as well as building a brand. We're building two claims as we're flying them. And we've made the conscious decision not to put our product in a plastic tray or a tray that's been lined with some chemical liner. We believe that long term, people do not want to put plastic in the microwave. You can heat up our product on the stove or the microwave, but we believe folks do not want to put plastic in their microwave long term. And because of that format, trying to find manufacturing partners is not simple.

11:43
Khalil Kamis
Most contract manufacturers are set up to make products and deposit them in those trays and wrap them up and put them in a box. So it's a little bit of a differentiator. Could call it a slight barrier to entry and it does raise that quality bar. So our production speed is a little bit slower than mass single serve frozen meals that are going into those trays. But it really does speak to the quality that we are trying to deliver in that product. So as we look to set up manufacturing in the US when we do find the right partner, we will need to invest alongside it. It won't be as simple as, here's the recipe, here are the suppliers, let's start making product. So that, I believe is a strength, but also an Achilles heel of the business.

12:26
Khalil Kamis
As we have all this really great opportunity in front of us in the US we have to be pragmatic in figuring out who are the right partners to say yes to as we scale up our manufacturing capabilities.

12:38
Caitlin Bricker
It is interesting hearing this perspective a, because I do hear from brands who don't want to compromise with their standards and they know there's a coman out there that will work with them. It's kind of like finding a needle in the haystack. And I love hearing from you about not compromising on the plastics. As you were saying that. I was like, I don't think I've used a microwave since college. 20 Years ago. We don't have a microwave in our house. We just used the stovetop in the oven. And that was an exceptional experience as a consumer because, yes, it is wrapped in plastic, but I didn't have to cook my food in the plastic. I just had to put it right into the pot and cook it that way.

13:20
Khalil Kamis
And the long term goal would be to change out that plastic for a biodegradable one. So as we have a little bit more purchasing power that goes to biodegradable, then all the packaging is environmentally friendly. And another really interesting challenge was taking a restaurant recipe and then developing it into something that can scale from making a hundred a day to 10,000 a day. How does that need to change? Jared's background is in Michelin star restaurants. He worked for Groton Ramsay on Ducast. So the restaurant process was very labor intensive. So we needed to reformulate, but keeping the same taste, flavor and quality, but simplifying the process. And we made a lot of mistakes on the way as went through that. But we all do in startup life, right?

14:07
Caitlin Bricker
Of course. I hear that all the time. And it is great to hear that you really are sticking by your standards and that you are not looking to take a step back from your standards, but you're also looking to take a step further and figure out, okay, how do we take this product that's already good and make it that much better. And packaging is huge. I think a lot of consumers and a lot of brands don't consider that flavor, of course, is always going to be king or queen, depending on who you ask. But that packaging is speaking to your consumers too.

14:38
Caitlin Bricker
And if you have that experience where you're unwrapping the package and you're kind of being forced to cook it in the plastic versus just put it in a pot, are latching onto people like me who don't own a microwave, or people who are just health conscious consumers in the first place, or even just a general consumer who doesn't really care about it. And you're able to capture all three of those audiences into one. So it's pretty impressive.

15:02
Khalil Kamis
Yeah. One of our core values is kaizen. It's the Japanese term for continuous improvement. We are never satisfied. We're always looking to figure out how do we make the product better, the packaging better. And what's interesting is same thing with applying that in a restaurant is easy. You can iterate daily. But in the world of retail and cpg, you can't just change your sku every few months. So being super pragmatic about how we apply kaizen is a more long term vision in retail than it would be in a restaurant.

15:32
Caitlin Bricker
I learned something new today. I appreciate that. I've seen kaizen on packaging. Maybe I've seen a brand that's named Kaizen. I'm blanking right now, but I didn't know the meaning behind it.

15:42
Khalil Kamis
You'll start to see it everywhere now that I've said the word.

15:46
Caitlin Bricker
So piggybacking off of that. I am curious how you choose your flavors and your skus, because I think I received four different SKUs or flavors. Maybe six. Five. Okay. Happy medium. I didn't get that like flavor fatigue or this decision fatigue of oh my God, which one do I choose? They all just spoke to me individually and it wasn't overwhelming. So how do you curate that skew selection where you're not overwhelming your consumer?

16:18
Khalil Kamis
Thank you for that. We started with what sells really well in the restaurant. So what are top sellers? So that's the cool part about having the restaurant is we can throw different innovation there, see how the consumer reacts to it, and then decide if it makes sense to try to make that a future innovation in retail. And then we said, okay, how do we have a little bit of something for everyone? So in the skew lineup you have a spicy pork, non spicy pork. The spicy pork is more rich and creamy. And then the non spicy is a little bit more of that classic soy sauce style broth. And then similarly on chicken, you got a spicy, creamy, a classic non spicy light chicken. And then we like, we need to have fun too.

16:58
Khalil Kamis
So we have like the roots of more authentic traditional ramen and miso and shoyu. And then we're like, we all just love tacos on the team. So we're like, jared, you gotta make Iberia ramen for us. Like, let's just try it. And he was a little bit hesitant at first. And then once he got into the R and D kitchen, he just had so much fun with it. Gave it to his neighbor who's Mexican, and he's like, just try this. Before he shared it with the team, she was blown away. So we got really excited and was like, okay, I think we got the innovation and we're bringing that to market right now. We'll be selling it for the first time ever on a Costco Roadshow here in Canada next week.

17:34
Caitlin Bricker
Very cool. What other big stuff do you have coming down the pipeline for Crafty Ramen? Can you share?

17:40
Khalil Kamis
Yeah. Right now focusing on our US rollout, so getting our supply and manufacturing ramped up, there's a lot of puzzle pieces that need to come together in a short amount of time for us. So that is our main focus and super exciting. And we're wrapping up our first Costco roadshow here in Canada. That has been really cool. There is nowhere else where you can hand out 2000 plus samples per day to consumers and get that many people to try our product. Because for us, as you alluded to, trying the product is everything. Like when a consumer tried that, they're like, okay, wow, this is really cool. Great. I'm going to continue to buy this so the more people we can get to try it, that's the ultimate goal.

18:24
Caitlin Bricker
I think you are going to be very successful with the Costco Roadshow. I truly think that is an excellent product. I mean, I said it before, I have not seen a product like yours in the frozen aisle. But when I would see something like that in a Costco, I would for sure be loading up my cart.

18:44
Khalil Kamis
Thank you.

18:45
Caitlin Bricker
Of course, I do like seeing these better for you products in Costco. I feel like my experience with Costco previously, I wasn't necessarily looking for it or it wasn't jumping out at me. And now I actually enjoy browsing the aisles in Costco because there are so many organic and better for you options that I don't remember seeing. 15, 20 Years ago.

19:07
Khalil Kamis
I think that's one of the really cool things about Costco. The speed at which they bring in new products and switch things out from a consumer perspective is so cool because there's always something new. They're very good at keeping up with the trends. From a business perspective, that can be really challenging because your revenue and supply chain can move in a bit of a yo as you partner with Costco and go in and out of their 13 week rotations. So it can be very great. Or businesses like ours, they can also be really scary.

19:39
Caitlin Bricker
Interesting. I don't think I knew that about the 13 week rotation. So if you make it on shelf with them, do they choose to refresh a contract with you or just not move forward depending on the speed of your products moving?

19:54
Khalil Kamis
Yeah, a little bit of both. We haven't got to the stage of getting into a 13 week rotation. We're proving ourselves on the roadshow right now. But because their SKU selection is so slim, they have very high targets on how much you need to sell per week per warehouse. And then even if you continue to hit those, you might move out of rotation for us. For example, in Canada in August, it's beautiful, it's warm. Costco likely wants that freezer space or backyard barbecue stuff and might not want to sell ramen in the summer. So there's a lot of puts and takes and there are brands that have year long listings. So that does happen at Costco as well. But we've heard some firsthand experience of I was on for three months and then went off and then went on again.

20:40
Khalil Kamis
So that becomes tough from a supply chain perspective.

20:44
Caitlin Bricker
I could see that because how are you supposed to predict without totally tying up your cash and product that you were expecting to give to Costco but maybe not giving to Costco anymore? So.

20:55
Khalil Kamis
That's right.

20:55
Caitlin Bricker
Taking that loss. All right. You've had a very cool journey with Crafty Ramen. I'd love to know if you have any tidbits of information or advice that you'd love to throw out to any other CPG entrepreneurs that are listening. Because I know they are.

21:11
Khalil Kamis
I think one of the reasons why where we are. Where we are is just trying to seek out people who have done it before and learn from others experience and mistakes. Part of our culture is it's okay to make a mistake as long as you're learning from it and you're moving forward from it. So we've actively seeked out different people across the industry in different finance and supply chain, whatever the vertical of the business is, and really try to learn from them. And I think the really interesting thing is when you approach somebody and say, hey, can I have a little bit of your time to learn from you? Whether you're egotistical or not, all of our little egos and center like, oh, somebody wants to learn from me? Yeah, I will happily meet with you and share that.

21:49
Khalil Kamis
So we haven't had a no so far, and I think that's been one of our superpowers.

21:54
Caitlin Bricker
I love it. And I think that also speaks a lot to this community as a whole, too. Of course there's going to be some gatekeeping, but generally I feel like people are very open and interested in doing that information swap and helping each other out because it's a community. At the end of the day, yes, it's an industry, but if you create competition where there is none, it kind of just strips all the fun away.

22:17
Khalil Kamis
From it a hundred percent. We believe in community over competition. We believe if you are paying too much attention to your competition, you're losing sight of what you're doing, of what makes you different and of your business. And we're super grateful for groups like Startup CPG that really bring that together. And we've been part of the community for a short amount of time, but have already been able to leverage so much that you have to offer, and we're just scratching the surface. So we appreciate what you guys do.

22:44
Caitlin Bricker
We're glad you're part of the community because you all help make the engine keep running and so do our great partners like advantage. So I want to congratulate you again on the pitch competition.

22:55
Khalil Kamis
Thank you.

22:56
Caitlin Bricker
I can only imagine the pressure and stress that you must feel getting up there and pitching in front of a bunch of people, but you did it, so congrats.

23:05
Khalil Kamis
Yeah. Luckily, were on the Canadian version of Shark Tank Dragon's Den a few years ago, so I think after that really was a shot to the nerves. So that helped train all the future pitches thereafter.

23:18
Caitlin Bricker
Gave you a nice little primer.

23:20
Khalil Kamis
Yeah, exactly.

23:21
Caitlin Bricker
And now that we've given everybody a primer on Crafty Ramen, if anybody hasn't tried it yet, where can they find you? I want you to drop your website and your social handle so everyone can go find out where they can find you.

23:34
Khalil Kamis
Yeah. craftyramen.com Like I said, we'll be hitting shelves later this summer, so keep an eye on the website, Sign up for the email list. We will have some cool coupons and offers when we launch. And then socials are at craftyramen Perfect.

23:50
Caitlin Bricker
Khalil, this has been so fun talking to you again. I probably said it five times at this point. Products are excellent. I'm so excited for other people to get their hands on them. And best of luck with your Costco Roadshow.

24:03
Khalil Kamis
Thank you so much. Really appreciate being here and really pumped to bring the Ramen to the us.

24:08
Caitlin Bricker
I'm pumped too. Hopefully I'll see you on shelves near me soon. Shout out to Costco. We need you in Massachusetts, so just putting that out there. All right, we'll see you later. CPG BFFs we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG Podcast. As you may know, we're not just the top globally ranked CPG podcast, we're a community of tens of thousands of CPG foundations and experts and you should join us. If you haven't already, head to startupcpg.com to sign up. You'll get an invite to our Slack community, hear about events near you, and get access to opportunities that connect you with buyers, investors and other brands. It's free, so what are you waiting for? I'll see you in Slack and in real life. Thanks for listening.