The Startup CPG Podcast

Ariel
We really tried to just speak to as many people as we could that we knew in Brazil. We got connected to researchers and chocolate like executives and chefs and lawyers and like chocolate makers. And everyone that we spoke to basically said, good luck, you're never going to make this taste good and you're never going to figure out the supplement supply chain. And it wasn't until we met our chocolate maker. And I'll never forget the first conversation that we had with her. She was like, this is the future of chocolate. I've always wanted to work with Kupua Sue. We're going to make this taste good.

00:47
Caitlin Bricker
Hey, everybody. This is Kaitlyn Bricker, editor at startup cpg. We are back with another founder feature. Ever wonder what a chocolate bar would taste like if it was made from a Brazilian superfruit instead of good old cacao or. Well, today we're talking with Ariel Altman and Ronnie Berger, co founders of Figa Foods. They're life partners who became business partners after discovering Cupuacu. Say it with me. Cupua Su Kupuasu is Brazil's national fruit that most Brazilians don't even know about. Using just three ingredients, they've created bars that might not even make you miss your favorite cacao based bar. From getting told, good luck, you'll never make this taste good to landing Food Network and Bon Appetit coverage. Pre launch, Vega has lessons many found may want to take notes on.

01:34
Caitlin Bricker
I've become completely obsessed with these bars, so fair warning, this conversation might make you immediately place an order. Enjoy. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin and today I'm here with Arielle Altman and Rani Berger, co founders of Figa Foods. Arielle, Rani, welcome to the show. Thank you.

01:58
Ronny
This is so fun.

01:59
Ariel
We're so excited to be here.

02:00
Caitlin Bricker
I am so happy to have you here. Your product is such a standout product for me. It's easily become one of my favorite things on the market. You're just doing everything so well. So right. It's so delicious. I am so stoked to have you here and talk about your products and introduce everyone to Figa.

02:19
Ariel
Love it. We're so excited to be here too. It's definitely a challenge to not want to eat our bars all the time. And every time we crave it and want it, we need to remind ourselves we need to sell them.

02:30
Caitlin Bricker
I've said this before, but I love a founder who gets high on their own supply. That's a really good sign. My personal stash keeps dwindling and I'M like, okay, John, my husband, where the hell my Figa bars go? But it's fine. I don't mind sharing.

02:44
Ariel
Don't worry. We do have a lot in our apartment, so this hit us off so cool.

02:50
Caitlin Bricker
All right, so anybody who's listening right now and doesn't know what Figa is. Arielle, you want to walk us through what Figa is?

02:57
Ariel
I would love to. And I can even start with the name because some people think that it's figs. It's not about figs. So I'm American, Ronnie's Brazilian. And our whole goal with Figa Foods is to make Brazilian superfoods really fun and accessible and interesting for the modern American palate. And to Fazer Figa. And if anyone's watching me, you'll see I'm crossing my fingers. To Fazer figa means to bring in good luck or ward off bad energy, Almost like the Brazilian symbol for an evil eye. And when were brainstorming what we wanted our company to be and what we wanted it to feel like, the name Figa Foods just really felt special and important and really just real to us. I remember coming back from a yoga class one day, walking in the door, and I said to Ronnie, I'm like, we're doing Figa foods.

03:43
Ariel
Like, it just like it's calling to me. Like, I just feel like that's the right name. But as you were mentioning, we make bars that are kind of like chocolate reimagined. Instead of using the cocoa beans, which you're going to find in your typical chocolate bars, we use the seeds of a Brazilian superfood that's related to cacao, called cupuacu. So cupuacu and cacao are actually in the same larger family. So very similar to how apples are to pears oranges are to tangerines, Kupuasu is to cacao. And what we do is we take the seeds of the kupuasu fruit and take them through a very similar process to how cocoa beans turn into chocolate.

04:24
Ariel
And what you get at the end is our bars, which are super creamy, like a milk chocolate, but then really complex and fruity and tropical and very similar to, like, what you'll find in a very high end craft chocolate bar. And what's also really cool about our bars is they're only three ingredients. So it's just kupuasu sweetened with dates and then a little bit of cocoa butter, which actually gives it the nice texture and snap that you find from maybe your favorite chocolate bar. We have Three different flavors. So the first is our pure bar, so just the three ingredients. The second is our salty bar. So those three ingredients plus sea salt flakes blended in, which was the favorite of the farmer's market this weekend.

05:02
Ariel
And then our last is the fruity, which I think is Ronnie and I's like, secret favorite, even though we love all of them because the fruity is really unique, because we actually take the pulp of the kupu fruit, which kind of tastes like a tropical sour patch, but it's completely clean and natural and we actually put it on top of the bar. So my dad calls it a Raisinet. I think it's a much better, cooler version of a Raisinet. But for the 60, 70 year old crowd, that's what it seems to remind them of. And the other thing that I'll say that I think make what we're doing pretty special is we kupua su is the national fruit of Brazil, but it's often kind of seen as this afterthought crop. Many Brazilians probably know kupua su, maybe have tried it. A dessert.

05:45
Ariel
The main use for kupuasu now is in desserts, but also the cosmetic industry uses the seeds. If you ever bought a Rhode lip gloss from Healy Bieber or use body cream from Sol de Janeiro, you've actually experienced kupuasu, but in a cosmetic form, because the seeds are pressed for the oil, because they're super high in antioxidants and great for moisture absorption. But, you know, no one is making chocolate, quote, unquote, or what we call the figa bar out of the seeds of the kupuasu in the US we did, when we started on this journey, try bars made out of kupua su in Brazil from small batch makers. They were all pretty bad. I'm not going to lie. They kind of tasted like rotten, really cheap, like Hanukkah gelt, if anyone's ever had that. Or really cheap old chocolate.

06:33
Ariel
And what's interesting about cupua su in general, and I could probably talk about this for a long time, so if we want to switch, that's okay. It grows next to cacao and bananas and coconuts and acai. So all these other plants that we Americans all love and eat and enjoy from Brazil, but no one really knows about kupua su. And the farms that we work with often don't even harvest their cupuacu or don't have use for it. If they are harvesting it, they're selling it at a much lower price to the cosmetic industry. So what we're able to do is pay our farmers a much higher price for something that they would normally throw away or be, again, sold at a much lower price.

07:12
Ariel
So we're able to, what we call, like, upcycle the seeds and give new life to something that would go to waste.

07:18
Caitlin Bricker
So many good things in there that I want touch on. So many good things. I will say fruity is my personal favorite. That's the one that I gravitate towards because your bars were my first ever experience with kupuasu. I had never heard of it before, and when I tasted it, my mind was just blown. So to be able to actually see the fruit and then obviously have it mixed into the bar, very cool experience. Rani, I am very interested to hear your perspective. Because you're from Brazil. What was your first experience with kupuasu?

07:51
Ronny
I think it was exactly the first experience we had with figa. I don't think I had kupuasu before that. Kupuasu is the national food of Brazil, as Ariel said, but I didn't know that. And I'm sure that if you ask 10 Brazilians, I think that seven or eight of them are gonna say the same. They did not know it's a national fruit of Brazil. And probably the same eight or nine are gonna say, I never tried it. It's very popular in the north and the northeast. So the fruit is originally from the Amazon, but it's not that popular in the southeast, which is where I am from. And even in the north and northeast, the pulp is really common. They use it for juices and smoothies and ice cream and things like that.

08:30
Ronny
And as Ariel said, they don't use the same seeds for pretty much anything other than some use cases in the cosmetic industry or even, like, animal food. So it's kind of embarrassing for me to say as a Brazilian, but my first experience with it was with figa.

08:44
Caitlin Bricker
Food that's actually really cool. And I think that adds, like, another exciting layer to the brand, that not only are you introducing a product to many people that they probably never heard of, but you're also introducing this fruit that people have probably never heard of, but you're having that experience simultaneously with your consumer, and you're able to enjoy it together. So, Arielle, I gotta know, what was your first experience with kupuasu? How are you introduced to it?

09:10
Ariel
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, the kind of starting point of why Ronnie and I wanted to do this was because every time I went to Brazil, I was always so inspired by all the amazing natural superfoods that existed. And I come from my dad was an entrepreneur and had a small business. I've been obsessed with food and health and wellness my entire life and always had this dream of starting something. And I've had in the past did like superfood nut butters before they were a thing. And I would bring them into my work team and everyone would be like this is gross.

09:43
Ariel
I tried to do healthy ice cream and all that to be said, I started to do more research on Brazilian superfoods and it literally was from like asking AI in a Google search where I came across Kupua Su and the fact that it could be a chocolate alternative. And I love dark chocolate. I always have a stash of like fancy dark chocolate bars everywhere I travel. I love always buying new interesting chocolate makers creations. And we literally found it on Google. And then we found a video on YouTube of this woman in the Amazon. We actually posted about it on Instagram. Making basically taking the seeds of the Kupua sou fruit and hand grinding them and turning them into what looked like a chocolate bar. And there was like roosters in the background of her video.

10:25
Ariel
I don't even think she had like full time electricity. And we both looked at each other and were like, if this woman can do it, like we can do this. Like let's figure this out. So that was my first experience with Kupuasu. I did a lot of research on it before I actually even got to try it. And then we really tried to just speak to as many people as we could that we knew in Brazil. And it's funny, you know, Brazil is a really big country, but I feel like it's a very small world in a lot of ways. And we got connected to researchers and chocolate like executives and chefs and lawyers and like chocolate makers. And everyone that we spoke to basically said, good luck.

11:06
Ariel
You're never going to make this taste good and you're never going to figure out the supply chain. And it wasn't until we met our chocolate maker that we're working with now. Her name is Louisa Abram. She's amazing. She actually has her own chocolate line. She's in places like Erewhon because she works with local indigenous communities on the Amazon river and harvests Wild's cacao. But she also does R and D and recipe development and manufacturing for small brands in Brazil. She'll. She does also like the chocolate behind Baccio D Latte, which is a huge ice cream brand in Brazil. But we got introduced to her from, again, a crazy connection. Ronnie's uncle's wife, brother. No joke. This is like, I'm. I'm not kidding. Had a restaurant and Louisa was, like, training as the pastry chef, like, 15 years ago.

11:53
Ariel
And we randomly got connected to her. And I'll never forget the first conversation that we had with her. She was like, this is the future of chocolate. I've always wanted to work with Kupla Sue. We're going to make this taste good. And kind of from there, it was like just figuring it out as we go and testing different recipes, testing different ratios, testing different roasting profiles, machinery, and really getting, like, just having people bring stuff back from us from Brazil, sitting at our table, giving friends samples, numbering all the samples, and then also giving it to really prominent chefs. Because I felt like it was really important for not just us to think it tasted really good, but really get expert opinions. So I brought it to the pastry chef at eleven Madison Park. I brought it to the pastry chefs at Google.

12:40
Ariel
I brought it to the pastry chefs who do R and D at Jose Andresses restaurant groups to really get their feedback on how could this work in a recipe? Does this taste good to you? And that really shaped the recipe that we're at today, which we're so excited about and recently debuted.

12:57
Caitlin Bricker
So, so cool. It's. There's just so much to be discussed when it comes to Kupuasu and your journeys, and I would love to just take a quick pause and understand. A, I have two big questions. A, how did you guys meet? And then B, tell us a little bit about your background. So who wants to go first and tell us how you guys met?

13:20
Ariel
Oh, man. I mean, this is hilarious, because actually, not at all. We met on Hinge. Ronnie and I are getting married September 6th. It is now July 21st. So we are business partners and life partners. And it's also, you know, kind of how I mentioned the world is so small. Ronnie grew up in Sao Paulo. I grew up in New York. Ronnie actually grew up with a very close friend of mine from my corporate job in Brazil. They literally, when Ronnie and I first met, he started sending me pictures of my very close friend who I went to go visit in Brazil a year prior to Ronnie and us even meeting, because she has my job, but me in Brazil. And so that I knew Ronnie wasn't a serial killer.

13:57
Caitlin Bricker
We love that. Thank you.

13:59
Ariel
That's actually how we met. But in terms of my background, I've been in big tech for the last 10 years and kind of various different roles from ad sales to business development to partnerships and kind of have always seen how to make unsexy messages cool and interesting using creators, using interesting, you know, video formats. And that has always really inspired me to think beyond how do you tell a story or how do you tell a message? And yeah, that's. And I would say like there's always been this thread of health and wellness throughout my entire life. My dad had a pharmacy growing up, but like not the normal pharmacy vibe that you would think. Like I was taking echinacea, you know, when I was like 5 or 6 years old. Like were taking probiotics in the 90s before anyone knew about gut health.

14:52
Ariel
So I've always kind of looked at health and wellness through a really different lens. I think that also has inspired me to start this and get to where we are. Because even if you look at the back of beautifully made, beautifully sourced, high end chocolate bars, there's lecithins in them or even chocolate bars or sweets that are claiming to be healthy, quote unquote. There's weird sugar, alcohols or like weird things that you can't pronounce. And I knew that whatever I wanted to dedicate my time and energy to had to be good for you and had to be something that is going to help your health, not make it worse. So anyway, Ronnie, I'm going to turn it to you.

15:31
Ronny
My background is in finance, so I did banking for almost 10 years and then more recently moved to tech, still in finance. So pretty much Excel spreadsheets are my comfort zone. I'm like deep dive into numbers all day long. And, and it's funny because when we started this journey, of course we started the business together because we're life partners, right? But we often say this to ourselves, that if were to go out and look for business partners out in the world, right. They would pretty much my ideal business partner would be pretty someone very similar to Ariel. And I'll. I think she would say the same thing, right? So I'm finance, I'm in the numbers. I do all the Brazilian side of the operation, you know, relationship with farmers, stakeholders, labs and everything in Brazil. She does all the marketing and sales part here.

16:19
Ronny
So I think it's very like complementary.

16:21
Ariel
And we talk about this all the time, like very similar things that you look for in a business partner, you look for in a life partner, which is the sense of like blind trust in some ways, you know, ability to communicate and this idea of also laughing and having fun at Things that maybe are really stressful and hard. And I think, you know, one thing that we always say to each other is, like, we're not going to have all the answers. Or, like, we know things are going to get hard, but we also know that we will figure it out. And I think just knowing that we will figure it out is what gets us through some of these really complicated problems that we're trying to solve. We also always laugh. We're like, we really should have done something easier.

16:57
Ariel
But then at the same time, you know, when you're bringing something completely new to market and you're building a supply chain from scratch and you're introducing a brand new ingredient, it's hard, but it's also so exciting and fun at the same time because it's also what almost sells it for us because we're so unique and because no one has Kupuasu on their shelves and because no one knows what it is. In some ways it's hard, but then in a lot of ways it makes it easier.

17:21
Ronny
I also think that it's also easier from a routine point of view because, like, sometimes we're like having dinner and then at 9pm something related to the business pops up, right? And it's so easy to go and tackle it together as opposed to working with a business partner that's like, not your life partner. And then you'll have to call them. Maybe they disconnected for the day. You know, we are right there living together almost 24 7.

17:44
Caitlin Bricker
So I think it's really cool that you two have not only found partners for life and each other, but you are also able to apply everything to your business. It seems like you're having a lot of fun. I love how your dad even was brought into this, Ariel. I wish I got the chance to talk to him at Fancy Food because you had me cracking up at that video that you posted on your Instagram. I must have watched it 50 times. And every time it just got better.

18:09
Ariel
I mean, he also did go through an interview process to be our unpaid intern for the time, and he now knows how to say Koopa sue and sometimes gets to stand behind us and talk. But I will say, like, seeing my dad his whole life be so passionate about what he did and have a small business and see the amount of grit and perseverance and passion that it takes to be successful definitely always inspired me throughout my career. And he always said, like, his work never felt like a job. And that's how I always have tried to live my life. And I'm grateful that I got to learn from him, even though some of his sales tips are a little outdated. But, you know, it's good. I'll take it.

18:48
Caitlin Bricker
I love that. Rania, how about you? How has your family reacted to you working with Kupuasu and creating a Kupuasu bar line?

18:56
Ronny
Yeah, honestly, in the beginning, I don't think any of them took it very seriously. They were like, yeah, you're gonna what, like pretend you're making chocolate and you are the Brazilian Willy Wonka. Yeah, like, let's see where it goes. Right? And I think it was only when we like went to Fancy food and they saw that it was becoming like a tangible people business with some press coverage and sales and actual numbers and, you know, all of that I said, oh, wow, you're really doing this. So they've been very supportive. Like my mom goes back and forth to Brazil, she lives in Florida, so we always ask her to like, can you bring this sample to someone? There are, can you bring back a new package design that we need to bring to the US So they've been very supportive.

19:35
Ronny
But I feel like it became the only started taking us seriously like recently when we started traction.

19:41
Caitlin Bricker
I'm sure they were probably pretty impressed to see. Refresh my memory, but we are only, what, three weeks out of fancy food right now? A month out of fancy food. You got press coverage just for anybody who's listening who wasn't there at fancy food. Figo won the free booth, the free tabletop that we gave out to be in the startup CPG section. This was your debut and correct me if I'm wrong, but you got coverage from Food Network, named as one of the editor's top 10 brands out of 2000 plus exhibitors. And you also got coverage from Bon Appetit.

20:15
Ariel
Yeah, it was crazy.

20:16
Caitlin Bricker
And so is it still a joke or is this for.

20:20
Ariel
No, I don't think it's a joke anymore, but kind of similar to Ronnie. I remember telling my family and even my 85 year old grandma being like, what? What are you doing? Like, I don't understand, like, what is going on? Because you know, both Ronnie and I have had very serious like corporate careers for the last 10, to Ronnie's case, almost 15 years and doing something, it's like, yeah, we're going to Brazil to like go in the middle of nowhere and meet farmers and like, you know, make sure that they're growing their crops in the right way. And everyone's like, what are you doing? Like, I don't understand. And I think it's been so fun to have also just so much love and support from our family, our friends, our co workers and it's felt like a village.

21:02
Caitlin Bricker
Totally. I mean as an outside. And it feels like not only are you getting the validation from each other, working as business partners and life partners, you're now getting the validation from your family and the public, the press. Everybody is validating your brand. So what does it feel like to be in this moment right now where you said, hey, we're going to start this brand, we're going to introduce Kupuasu, we're going to launch the brand, we're going to go to fancy food and then see your name in publications like that. What does it feel like?

21:33
Ariel
Yeah, I mean now it's, I guess now you're saying it feels like really real. I think like what was also really cool about fancy food and even just a lot of the pop ups that we're doing now is people who are trying our bars and then they're sending their friends over to like go try and buy. Like even at the farmer's market this weekend, multiple people are like, oh, my friends sent me here or my mom sent me here. You know, it feels amazing. I mean it feels like very much like people really catching on to the things that we've been so excited about over the last year.

22:05
Ariel
Plus, and I don't know, I think we're just really trying to enjoy the ride and be present and like as anyone in CPG or anyone that starts their own business knows, there's so many highs and lows and like, how can you bottle up this excitement and remind yourself that when it's really hard and you've barely slept and things feel like everything's about to crumble, that we know like we're here for a reason and that people really love it. So I think trying to remind myself nothing is permanent for good or for bad and like really enjoying this moment and I don't know, it feels crazy. Like, I don't know, like I, I really didn't think about it as much until you were saying this to us right now. I don't know, Ronnie, how do you feel for.

22:47
Ronny
It's that confident boosted with spoke last time. Right. And we keep getting more of it. So were at the farmer's market this Saturday last weekend and we had like people that when were there like two, three weeks ago, they got one bar, they came back and got four just because were not there the week in between, right? So they wanted to make sure they got enough bars restock so they could enjoy them. Another thing was like people that came, tried our bars, got one and then they came for a second lap and got another one. So all this content boost, like, it's really nice to see what we've been excited for a year, excited people out there and a lot of people saying like, oh, it's my new favorite chocolate bar or I can't have convention of chocolate or. Exactly, exactly.

23:31
Ronny
And now they're like bigger customers making recurring purchases. I guess, like all those things that keep happening, there are those little validations that give you a really good confident boost to keep going.

23:42
Ariel
But like, I'm going to be very honest here, right. Like I. There was definitely times before we launched, I'm like, is anyone gonna buy this except like our friends and family, like, are we gonna get like orders from people that we don't know? Because this is like, it's scary, it's. And you know, I think that like seeing people that we have no idea order from us is like also one of the coolest things. And even just understanding how people found out about us and you know, we're still the ones packing all the boxes ourselves. And like, yes, it's physically tiring, but it feels really cool that we're giving something of ourselves to someone else. And I think TPG is not for the faint of heart. It's not so easy to scale.

24:18
Ariel
Like it is maybe a software, but I also think that there's nothing more validating or even like special to see someone choose to buy your product and put it in their body, which is your most sacred thing. And to know that you impacted someone in that way, I think is like truly one of the coolest things ever. So we're just so grateful to be able to be doing this and we hope we can do it for a really long time.

24:43
Caitlin Bricker
I have a feeling you will be. I think that's a really good segue because looking into the future right now, you know, maybe our audience doesn't know there is a cocoa crisis right now, which I think your use of Kupuasu is so intriguing, so smart, so forward thinking. Talk to me about the cocoa crisis and why Kupuasu is a great alternative. Yeah, because that is really something that stuck out to me because we live in a world where resources are finite.

25:15
Ariel
Totally, totally. So if anyone listening has not known about what's happening in the cocoa world, just type in Cocoa Crisis and you'll see many articles talking about how not only the price of cocoa has shot up, but the supply of cocoa has obviously decreased significantly over the last few years. And the main reasons behind that is one, most cocoa in our world is grown in Africa. And because of climate change, but also because of the way that the soil and the farming practices have been, it puts the plants at a disadvantage to not be able to grow as quickly. And then there's also been a lot of disease that have wiped out the cocoa plants.

25:52
Ariel
And I saw a crazy piece of research when I first, you know, when we first started to do this, that eating a piece of dark chocolate actually has a higher carbon footprint than eating most meat because of the amount of deforestation that happens specifically in Africa around growing cocoa. So I don't say that to scare anyone or shame anyone into eating dark chocolate, but I say that with. It's kind of like this thing that is really important, but no one's really, like people are talking about it, but I don't think it's top of mind. And I also think what's important to call out is there's a bunch of chocolate alternatives out on the market, which I think is great. And everyone's trying to, you know, attack the problem in all different ways.

26:34
Ariel
But if you look at the labels and the nutrition facts of those chocolate alternatives who are maybe claiming that they're clean ingredient or high in such and such, it's because a lot of it's added. And you look at the lecithins or again, like weird things that are derivatives of. Derivatives of derivatives that are used to make these types of chocolates are not actually better for you. And a lot of reasons why people love chocolate is because not only does it taste really good, but it is also good for you. So kupuasu is a natural plant like cocoa. So, you know, it is subject to climate fluctuations and changes. But what we see as the really interesting thing is we're not here to make you feel bad about eating chocolate.

27:13
Ariel
We're not here to, you know, say chocolate should never exist, but almost how mezcal is to tequila or how oat milk is to almond milk. You know, we're here to be a fun complement and alternative, very similar to how natural wine came on the scene after conventional wine to make the supply chain less strained on cocoa and chocolate. Because, you know, consumer habits should change given what's happening in the world right now. And even crazy things like price of Halloween candy or the price of Valentine's Day, you know, chocolate has skyrocketed. And if you look at the back of, you know, a conventional chocolate bar. The amount of cocoa that's actually in it is so small, and no one's really talking about that either.

27:53
Ariel
And that's because big companies are so strained for cocoa prices that they're putting in additives or trying to do alternative flavors to match, mask the amount of cocoa that they have to use. So it's a thing. And we're trying to be, you know, I think our approach is not to shame or make people feel bad about their choices, because, look, I love dark chocolate, and I think there's a lot of people in the chocolate world who are doing the right thing, but we want to be the cool, fun cousin that can help the world, help you, and be next to your favorite chocolate bar. For people who do taste our bars, you'll realize it is like how mezcal is to tequila, where it's like, similar, but actually quite different and, like, fruity and a little bit more complex.

28:37
Ariel
And the texture is really creamy, very like, you know, not what you're going to find in your typical dark chocolate. So we see that there's space for both.

28:45
Caitlin Bricker
I totally agree with that. And my ears kind of perked up when you were talking about the filler ingredients and not maybe your chocolate bars aren't actually all chocolate. And it's something that you're not expecting, because I have studied herbalism. Huge fan of American Botanical Council. Shouts out. But I see all the time about the adulteration that happens in supplements, and to think about it happening in our food is just crazy. I really want to hear from you, Ronnie, about the partnerships that you have with your farmers in Brazil, because I think that is such a huge point for consumers to know and for retailers to know alike, because it does make your products a standout product even further, in my opinion.

29:25
Ronny
So the farmers that we work with in Brazil, what's really cool about them is that they grow their crops in what we call an agroforest. So their land looks like a forest. They grow different species next to each other. So their kupua su grows next to banana trees that grows next to acai trees and cocoa trees. And they all help each other. So one tree needs more shade, one tree needs more sunlight. That's also better for the environment because they exchange nutrients in the soil. But one really cool thing about kupua su, touching on the sustainability point that you. That you mentioned a minute ago, kupua su, when it's ready to go, it falls on the ground. So if you cut the pot out of the tree, you're kind of ruining it, right? There's no use to it. Kupuasu.

30:09
Ronny
When it's ready, it falls on the ground, which is a really good sustainability angle because there's no way you can intensively, you know, harvest the tree because, you know, like cacao, when you cut the pot out of the tree too early, you are damaging the tree. When it's ready, it falls on the ground. So there's really no way to like overdo it.

30:28
Caitlin Bricker
I like that a lot. Arielle, anything from your perspective being from New York and then traveling to Brazil to meet with the farmers, what has that experience been like for you? I would imagine given your background, this is your first time doing anything like this, going to another country and meeting with people in a supply chain. But maybe I'm raw.

30:48
Ariel
I mean, I will say I definitely have a fantasy of having my own farm one day. And I love traveling and I love going to farms in my spare time. So it's not that crazy, which does sound weird, but I. I really do love this stuff. So I think for us though, what I love is how much care and thought goes into the land that the farmers that we work with care about. Often these are family pass down farm where they're actually fighting against monocropping and like farms around them are closing in and getting bigger and bigger who are just planting one crop and spraying and you know, or doing quote unquote, more efficient ways of farming.

31:33
Ariel
And I think it's really important for us to support these people so that they can maintain and grow the things that are actually helping reforest Brazil and help the birds chirp and the monkeys come. But you know, I love going to the farms. I am learning Portuguese, was taking classes. I stopped because life got too crazy. But I do want to be fluent one day. But I think even though I don't speak the language, the feeling that you get from these farmers and the land that they take care of, it really does feel like magic when you're like walking through and it feels like the earth is so alive and it's just so cool to make something from that and actually help these types of people and the people that work for them and the communities that they support be able to exist.

32:20
Caitlin Bricker
So, so cool. I am so excited to see Figa grow some legs and get into more places. So can you just talk a little bit about what your experience has been since launching only a few weeks ago? You launched on July 8, correct?

32:35
Ariel
We launched on July 8 on our website which was super fun and crazy. We packed a lot of boxes and we still are. So keep the orders coming everyone. But we are live on our website and then we're also in a bunch of really thoughtfully curated, like minded stores in Brooklyn, in the city and in the Hamptons. And we're excited to expand our footprint in New York and really work with like minded partners on really interesting pop ups. We're in Pop Up Grocer in the city, so definitely check us out there. We're in 16 mil, which is in my opinion the best gluten free bakery that ever was in Gowanus. We're in Electric beach in Park Slope. We are in Deponyure in Williamsburg which is a really cute curated shop. We're in Local Provisions and Sound Body, the Pilates Studio in West Hampton.

33:27
Ariel
We're in Berryville General in Southampton and talking to a lot of other stores that we're really excited to be in. I think for us like the context of where our bars are really important because we're not just another chocolate bar and we want to, you know, when I think about who is a Figa customer, it's really someone who's curious and curious about their own health, curious about the world, curious about discovering new flavors, curious about regenerative farming and like thoughtfully curated beautiful things. And that is where we want to be, whether that's at a really interesting coffee shop or a bakery or a, you know, movement studio or at you know, specialty grocer. And I think, you know, we, I'm showing up to the stores, you know, meeting the people, dropping off the samples.

34:12
Ariel
So that experience has also been so fun to see because so many people who are attracted to what we're doing are also like minded and taking those same types of principles and applying it to their stores or their businesses. So you know, being able to meet and partner with these types of people are really fun and we're excited for some flavor collaborations and pop ups that are going to be happening in the next few months. So definitely follow along with us at Figa Foods and if you have ideas or if you want us in your favorite store, DM us, DM them. We'd love to meet them and really going from there.

34:44
Ariel
And I think I come from like the digital tech world and understand how important it is to understand your customer and use your DTC site as this ground to not only understand your customer really well but test out new things. So I think I get really excited about, you know, nerding out on the Metrics, but also testing out new flavors or new flavor drops or new collaborations and using our customer base that we build online as a way to really experiment that. And like everyone who's placing an order now, I'm personally sending an email to make sure that our bars got there and that they have if they have any feedback. And I think that having that customer touch point is something that I would never want to lose.

35:21
Caitlin Bricker
It's so important. And even more important, I think is the advice that you guys could probably give other first time founders. So you're taking in that feedback from your customers, you're applying it to your business. Ronnie, is there anything that you would say to a first time founder that would be maybe your hot tip or your biggest piece of advice that you'd want to give?

35:43
Ronny
Honestly, I feel like my advice would be don't stop believing there are going to be a rough day that you feel like the world is falling apart and you're not going to make it and all that, but just have that persistency and keep your faith and it's going to work out in the end. It's a lot of hard work, a lot of grind and all that, but it does pay off in the long term.

36:03
Ariel
Yeah, I think I can. I have another good story that might be helpful for people like that we actually went through which was were going to launch with four flavors, not I had this grain.

36:12
Caitlin Bricker
I gotta say, I was like, did I have a fever dream? Did I try like a crunchy one at X?

36:17
Ariel
You tried a crunchy. The crunchy died rip. I had this idea, I remember I was on a run one day and I was like, I want to make like a Brazilian crunchy bar. Because a big thing about what we're doing and as I think about our larger vision of how do we bring Brazilian superfoods and Brazilian flavors to the American palate? You know, like Siete is a brand that we're super inspired by what they've done for Mexican flavors. How do we do that for Brazilian flavors? I really want to make sure that the toppings and the flavors that we have in our set really reflect Brazilian flavors and culture. So tapioca is a huge staple of Brazilian cuisine. As someone being gluten free every time I go to Brazil, I really appreciate and love how tapioca is just about in everything.

36:57
Ariel
And I had this idea of what if we used tapioca flakes in our bar and use that as the crunch. And for months were trying to test different methods of making The Tapioca Crunchy. And we brought samples that you tried at Expo west and we gave it to friends. Everyone kept on saying, like, it's good, but it's not great. It's good, but it's not like the other three flavors. And we kept on, you know, we designed beautiful packaging. We loved the color that we picked for it. Like, we'll use it one day. And we actually went through our first production run making hundreds of, I think, thousands of crunchy bars.

37:32
Ariel
And what happened was the crunchy bar tasted crunchy when they came off the line, but you know, when they sit to actually cool and dry over a longer period of time than we did with our test samples, they get soggy and they get like sticky and not crunchy. So we decided before we officially launched and before went to fancy foods that like, crunchy is just not where it needs to be. And I say all this with someone who's thinking about launching a product which is like, really listen to your customer and think about if you're not sure about something, how would you feel if you gave it to, like, a celebrity and you were looking at them in the eyes of the level of confidence that you would have, that it's freaking amazing.

38:12
Ariel
And I just remember thinking to myself, like, I can't go to fancy foods and look at a journalist or look at a buyer in the eyes and give them this crunchy bar and say that it's as amazing as our other flavors. And we had a heart to heart with our chocolate maker because she also, like, we all kind of came to the same conclusion on our own, but it took a lot of months of us, like, really battling with it. And I think that sometimes less is more. And that, like, if you have utmost confidence in one product, then just go with the one product because you don't want to water down what you have. And you can always grow from there.

38:47
Ariel
My advice also for other founders is like, I'll say, I think Nikki Seaman from Freestyle Olives said this too, so I will probably quote this to her. But it's like Ronnie and I said this to each other probably a year ago. Like, as long as we are making progress every single day and we are learning and getting better, like, that's what's most important. Because you just need to, like, push yourself to do something and grow every day to get to the point, like, Rome wasn't built overnight. Figa Foods was not built overnight. Even though maybe some people think it has, like, it's been a year of weekends. Early mornings, late nights. It's really kind of an all consuming experience for us, which we wouldn't give up and we absolutely love. But sometimes it feels like, what are we doing?

39:30
Ariel
And you just have to realize, like, as long as every day you are making progress and getting somewhere, that's what's most important. And don't let people tell you no. Like, I can't tell you how many people, experts, chefs, like very well respected people told us, you're never going to be able to do this. And if you feel like you can do this and you know deep inside that you can make it work, like you can, you just need to push through and like, I don't know. I think I'm the type of person that when someone tells me no, that actually doesn't mean no. That just means how can I prove you wrong? So, like, I'm programmed in a weird way, I guess, but just don't give up and like, make progress every day and go from there.

40:08
Ariel
And I think also, like, there's gonna be a lot of consultants, quote unquote, out there who try to sell you a bill of goods and say, oh, I'm going to fix all your problems and it's going to be all like, do not, do not go near them. Like, if you need real advice and it's like a somewhat legal issue, go find a trusted lawyer who's worked with other CPG companies. I think we had a lot of hard lessons on our side trying to figure out really hard problems that no one's figured out before because we're using a new ingredient.

40:36
Ariel
And looking back, I wish I just would have asked someone who had a trusted lawyer contact, because the second we just spoke to a helpful lawyer who gave us the truth, or at least like, I think a problem that I often find with consultants is their incentive is to cover their ass, right? Like, they're not there to really give you a clear answer. And in the food world and starting a business, there's such a wide spectrum of what you can do, what you should do, what's right, what's wrong. And I think just getting like clear, clean advice from a lawyer who can actually guide you on the laws is much helpful than hire a consultant who's going to just translate things that you can probably just read on your own. So that would be my other advice.

41:17
Ronny
Leverage the start of CPG Slack channel. As much as, like all of your problems, someone probably went through them or many people did before you, right? So just don't be shy, feel free to post there, ask questions, you know, check the historical. See if anyone had the same question. I'm sure they did. And they give great advice there.

41:37
Caitlin Bricker
So much good advice you two. And for sure, Ronnie, that is why we exist. We exist for founders. We exist for brands to go in and not be scared to ask questions, not be afraid to fail and get the answers that you need without the gatekeeping.

41:51
Ariel
Yeah.

41:51
Caitlin Bricker
And Arielle, I love what you're saying about don't let people tell you no. In my heart, as you were saying that I'm like, they just told you no because they are mad they didn't do it first and they wanted to do it.

42:02
Ariel
Look, I think like some people say no because they've never done it before or like they've actually never seen or you know, kupuasu for example, like is so much less known and less researched than cocoa. And frankly we never had it taste good before we created it ourselves. So like I get why people said you couldn't do it right? Like, but that doesn't, like, just don't listen.

42:27
Caitlin Bricker
All right, you guys, I have really loved talking to you. You know, I'm such a big fan. I'm like die hard for figuring out for anybody else out there who wants to be the next big fan, get in line. But where can they find you online and follow along?

42:41
Ariel
Well, I will say it's going to be hard to be Caitlin's fanship or fandom, so you're going to have a hard number one customer to be. You can follow us at Vega Foods on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. You can buy from us on our website@feafoods.com and if you want to support your local businesses and you live in New York, you can check us out on our website as well because we list all the amazing retail partners that we're working with right now.

43:07
Caitlin Bricker
Amazing. Thank you guys so much for being here. I'm so excited for other people to discover Figa. This has been such a great time chatting with you.

43:16
Ariel
I love it. Thank you so much for having us.

43:18
Caitlin Bricker
See you later. All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, do us a solid and leave us a five star review on ratethispodcast.com startup cpg I'm Caitlin Bricker, the host of the founder feature series and editor at Startup CPG. Feel free to find me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack and get on my radar. I'm always keeping my eyes peeled for new and emerging brands to spotlight. If you're a potential sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnerships@startupcpg.com and finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our free CPG community on Slack. You can sign up via our website@startupcpg.com see you around.