The Startup CPG Podcast

Damiano Messineo
Now that I started this company, obviously I was talking to my mom a couple of days ago and she remind me something that I obviously I didn't recall, which was when I was a kid, my mom couldn't say the word pizza. Like for example, he was talking with my father like, oh, should we get pizza tonight? She couldn't say that because if I had pizza, I would start, you know, I wanted pizza, pizza. So she used to spell pizza to my father, oh, should we get P I, Z A Z, I, A tonight? And another fun fact it was, we had a cat and one day, you know, now I eat the crust, the leftover probably.

00:46
Damiano Messineo
I don't know, my mother didn't that night and so she gave it to the cat and she found me later eating with the cat and stealing the crust from the cat's bowl. So that's how I love pizza, you know.

01:00
Grace Kennedy
Hello Startup CPG listeners. This is Grace and I'm here with another founder feature. Today I am so excited to be interviewing Damiano Messineo, the founder of Lupini. Lupini makes healthy, protein packed premium pizza. Their hero ingredient, the lupini bean, a staple of Italian cuisine for centuries. As a born and raised Italian and now a resident of New York City, Damiano is an expert in delicious pizza. In this episode, he not only tells us all about what makes Lupini pizza so unique, but he also gives us a pizza history lesson that goes all the way back to Christopher Columbus. I hope you enjoy this episode and as always, let me know what you think. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Grace and today I'm so excited to be joined by Damiano Messineo, the founder of Lupini.

02:05
Grace Kennedy
Welcome to the show.

02:07
Damiano Messineo
Thank you. Thank you so much. I've been looking forward to speak at this amazing show. I mean, basically it's the only podcast that I listen to.

02:14
Grace Kennedy
Oh my God, I'm so honored. Well, we're thrilled to have you and we're big fans of Lupini over at startup cpg. You've been in many of our sections for different trade shows and I've gotten to try your delicious pizza and it was like a lifesaver during fancy foods. I remember last year. But I would love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about Lupini and what makes your pizza so special.

02:36
Damiano Messineo
You know, living in New York as an Italian, I always loved pizza and I fell in love even more with what New York has to offer in terms of pizza. So while I Was studying here, living here, I start eating pizza every day. And so I was like, can't be possible that we cannot innovate pizza anymore. And so I started digging into it and found a way in to improve pizza in the outside. So it's the most loved food in the world. Why can we make it better, healthy so people can enjoy it every day and have a feeling like oh, I'm eating a chicken salad today. Oh, I'm eating a pizza today. I want to stay healthy.

03:14
Grace Kennedy
So.

03:14
Damiano Messineo
So that's what the goal. And we ended up with this product that is delicious. Made in Italy, super high in protein, more than 50 grams for the old pie. 20 gram of fiber, low glycemic index and less calorie than a chicken salad, 560 for the whole pizza.

03:30
Grace Kennedy
It's crazy. It feels like some sort of magic that you guys have created with that. It's like so has such an amazing panel like you just said, but it's also really delicious and just tastes like pizza. It doesn't taste like some healthified version of it. Can you share a little bit about how you were able to achieve that amazing balance between the like healthy ingredient panel plus delicious flavor?

03:53
Damiano Messineo
Yeah. So let me tell you about the bean, you know, that's been quietly feeding empires, eating land and now powering a new kind of pizza. So in Italy we've been eating lupini for centuries. You find them at street fairs, on Christmas Eve, at the beach, in bars. And those are, these little beans are yellow but they're superfood. You know, they're super nutrient dense between around 40% of their weight. It's protein. So it's more than chickpea, more than lentils, even more. Some kind of meats. And they've got all nine of amino acids. So you know, there is this saying that the plant based protein are not the same as meat. In this case it's wrong with lupini beans because the all the nine amino acids. So it's a complete protein.

04:36
Damiano Messineo
It's low in carbs, zero starch and they have almost 30% of fiber packed with folate, manganese, manassium, copper, iron. So it's perfectly, it's amazing. And it took us almost a year to develop a recipe in order to let's say to hide the flavor of lupini, which is more of a nutty flavor. And obviously, I mean I don't want to reveal the secrets but. But yes, our pizza is completely different than the other one and it's good for you. It's also good for the planet because lupini beans have long roots that take nitrogen from the air and put it in the soil. So once you plant it, the soil is more fertile than before. And the Romans knew it because they used to plant lupini beans instead of manure. Plinio the elder called it marvelous because of that.

05:29
Damiano Messineo
And they are also naturally planting pest resistance because they're bitter alkaloids, and so it's something that repel insects. But once you suck them out, they are not alkaloids anymore, so they're safe to eat.

05:42
Grace Kennedy
Wow, that's crazy. That. Yeah, it sounds like there's so many amazing benefits from the lupini bean. Like, I don't feel like there we talk about that bean that often. At least in America it sounds like in Italy it's all the rage, but in America it doesn't. I don't see that popping up on like menus or. Or things like that.

05:59
Damiano Messineo
Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, also in Italy, we eat it, we know them, but it's not the famous. You just eat them sometimes pickled. And so doing start doing research, I learned a lot about lupini beans and lots of secrets. So for example, it was used by the Romans. They used to feed their army. Because if you think about it, I mean, I don't know if at the time they called it protein, but they knew it was good for the muscle, it was easy to carry, shelf stable. And so it was used by the Romans. It was also found in the Egyptian tombs in the pharaohs.

06:33
Grace Kennedy
Oh, my God.

06:34
Damiano Messineo
And wait, also the Mayans, they used to call it chocho. So I developed this theory, something an hidden rule of history, that for a civilization to thrive, you need to consume lupini beans. That's a personal theory that I have after studying lupini beans.

06:52
Grace Kennedy
Oh my God. Even more reason to eat lupini pizza then. Because we definitely need some civilization thriving happening here.

06:59
Damiano Messineo
Absolutely. That's right. Point in history. I think we need lupini beans to save us all.

07:05
Grace Kennedy
Yes, exactly. Can you talk a little bit about the other ingredients you guys source outside of the lupini beans? Obviously there's many other elements to pizza. And yeah, how do you source those ingredients?

07:17
Damiano Messineo
Wonderful. Love this question. So, yes, I mean, obviously our pizza as of now is not gluten free, even though lupini beans is gluten free. This is because we mix italian flour, like wheat flour. And we don't use the typical one, the double zero, which is more refined. We use the type one. So you have, let's say, double 001. And we use type one because it still contains bran and the germ of the wheat. So it has more fiber, more minerals. Minerals, more flavor. And it's more rustic, you know, it's more honest, we like to say. And I mean, there is something people don't often think about it, which is also glyphosate, which obviously, using Italian flour, we don't have that one because it's banned in Europe.

08:02
Grace Kennedy
Wow.

08:03
Damiano Messineo
So it's clean. Clean. But what I like to talk about, it's more of the tomato sauce and the mozzarella cheese because we are producing the pizza in Naples, which is basically on the valley of the Vesuvius volcano. And because of the volcano, we use this tomato sauce. It's called San Marzano, and it's dop. We use the original one. So it's not grown overseas or in any other region, except that exact region, which is. I think it's 12 little towns around that number that can grow that tomato. And it's very sweet, rich, naturally low in acidity. So it's the perfect tomato. And they say it's the best tomato in the world. Another amazing ingredients that we use with which recently, in our second production run, we used first a milk from Italian milk to make our mozzarella.

08:58
Damiano Messineo
Then I tried, when I went to Italy, I tried this mozzarella cheese from the Montilatari, which is, if you translate, it's called Milky Mountains. And it's called Milky Mountains because there is this, the saying that Romans start crafting mozzarella. It wasn't mozzarella. It was ancient version of the mozzarella. So basically, they discovered that you can create this kind of cheese by putting the milk next to the fire. And so tradition of crafting rich mozzarella come from that milky mountains. That's why it's called Milky Mountains. And that's where now we source our tomato, mozzarella cheese. So this is between 5 km. So we have 2 km away. We are right in the middle, 2 km away. From one side, we got the best tomato sauce in the world, and from the other side, we got the best mozzarella cheese in the world.

09:52
Damiano Messineo
And we are right in the middle.

09:54
Grace Kennedy
That's amazing. You're really using so many kind of ancient and respected ingredients, including the lupini beans. And I remember there's the famous Italian cookbook author, Marcella Hazan. And she's in all her cookbooks, she's like, the only tomato you can use is the San Marzano tomato. Don't even think about using another type of tomato. So that's awesome and definitely must contribute to, you know, the fresh flavor and deliciousness that Lupini has on your pizza.

10:23
Damiano Messineo
Yes, definitely. I mean, when were thinking about the pizza, obviously we wanted to improve the outside, the macronutrition, so basically the back of the box. But we knew it has to taste good, not just because we want to sell it, because I wouldn't justify myself selling something that I personally wouldn't say that is almost perfect or super good. And yes. So I like to say that Lupini pizza is a pizza. A super good pizza that happened to be healthy.

10:55
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. I'd love to hear too. It's. Well, right before we started recording, were talking a little bit about how, you know, you live in New York now, but you're from Italy. And so really for anyone who wants to get their major studies, PhD in pizza, you've lived in the right places. But I'd love to hear a little bit more about, you know, why you chose pizza and how you think about bringing pizza to the market.

11:20
Damiano Messineo
Yeah. So now that I started this company, obviously I was talking my mom a couple of days ago and she remind me something that I obviously I didn't recall, which was when I was a kid, very little, my mom couldn't say the word pizza. Like for example, he was talking with my father, like, oh, should we get pizza tonight? She couldn't say that because if I heard pizza, I would start, you know, I wanted pizza, pizza. So she used to spell pizza to my father, like, oh, should we get P I Z Z tonight? And another fun fact it was we had a cat and one day, you know, now I eat the crust, the leftover.

11:58
Damiano Messineo
But probably, I don't know, my mother didn't that night and so she gave it to the cat and she found me later eating with the cat and stealing the crust from the cat's bowl. So that's how I love pizza.

12:12
Grace Kennedy
You know, you're a real fanatic. A real pizza fanatic.

12:16
Damiano Messineo
Exactly. And also, as you mentioned, I was born in Italy and moved to New York. So I basically got the PhD and obviously studying more pizza, getting more into it, I developed my theory. And sometimes you think of pizza as a modern food something, as a Friday night thing, something you order on an app. But pizza is really ancient and like all beautiful things, it took time. So as you know, as I think pizza is basically the fruit, the sun of two beautiful glands which is Italy and America. You know why? Because everything started with Cristoforo Colombo, which discovered America, right?

12:57
Grace Kennedy
Yeah.

12:57
Damiano Messineo
1492, Discover America. Couple of years later, somehow the Spanish start conquering as well. And they brought back something very important for us Italians, tomato, which in Italy we call pomodoro, which is basically two word, pomo, which come from Latin, it's called fruit. And doro, which is golden. So a golden fruit because it was yellow. And it was around 1548 that in Tuscany it was a gift to the Medici, the powerful family. But they didn't eat it. They thought it was toxic at the beginning, was strange but beautiful. And so they used to plant it in their garden. The magic happens when from the house of the rich, it arrives to the, let's say to the more humble households. And so, I don't know, maybe out of necessity, maybe out of curiosity, they start cooking with it.

13:51
Damiano Messineo
And that's where magic happen, you know, for pizza. So the first version actually was without. Was a very rustic pizza and was without the tomato sauce. But then tomato sauce came and it was the pizza marinara. It was very simple. Some dough oil, some garlic, some salt, some oregano. Then when the tomatoes of scheme changed everything. And it's called marinara. Marinara means sailor. It's because the sailors were poor at the time. So it was consumed by the sailors that sometimes if the catch was good, they used to put some leftover anchovies on top. That's what we consume today as the marinara, you know. And it was completely different from what's going on the court, because at the time Italy was conquered by the French and the royal family.

14:38
Damiano Messineo
And so in the courts they had completely different cuisine, very more rich with protein based meat. But there is this funny story where the king at the time, they say, used to go in disguise, dressed as a person of the population, as a normal one, and went downstairs to get a slice of pizza.

14:57
Grace Kennedy
Oh my God.

14:58
Damiano Messineo
Yeah. So pizza doesn't care if you're rich or if you're poor. It belongs to everyone. It's round, it doesn't have corners. That's going back to the story about, you know, Italy and America. So pizza was born thanks to the tomato, because of an Italian discover America. But then it's late 1800s, so millions of southern Italians left to America. And what they bring their hands, their dreams and their recipes. And so they start crafting pizzas. We have the first pizza in 1905, you know, with the, with Lombardi in Little Italy. And then thanks To New York. Pizza gets exported all over the world and is well known. So that is why I say it's not just Italian, it's a combination of the two. And this brings us today where we believe we're not reinventing the pizza, we are continuing a journey.

15:51
Damiano Messineo
As you see, it's a journey of evolution. So Lupini, which is an American company founded by born and raised Italian that are evolving pizza. So its history doesn't always repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes and continues. And so that will be, we believe we are doing here at Lupino.

16:10
Grace Kennedy
I love that. And wow, I love getting a little pizza history lesson here on the podcast. It's so fun to hear about. I always love like old myths, like, or like maybe it's totally true. Like the king dressing up to go get his slice of pizza. And I get it, pizza's delicious, one of the best foods. So I'm curious, once you develop the recipe, right, like you spent all this time figuring out how to make lupini beans, work in the recipe and like where to source all your ingredients, how did you start? You know, you have to bring it, you make the pizza in Italy, right? And you have to bring it to the States. Like how did you start actually getting the pizza out of the development stage and like into the hands of consumers in the States?

16:52
Damiano Messineo
So I mean we basically before doing full scale production and all of these, we did a little test. So we developed the recipe. And then because I did some accelerator program with the university where they teach you, if you're going to spend five years, 10 years of your life working on something, make sure to test it before. Because then you go into the journey, people don't like the product or it's not the right idea. So you might ended up wasting five or 10 years of your life. And so because of that, we did the little test, thanks to you, to startup cpg. We participated at the Fancy food and basically we faked that we have the whole company up and running. Instead we just had 100 pizzas that we made. And this was a test.

17:39
Damiano Messineo
This was a test to see if retailers like the product and want to order it. And so they did. We got some orders. But then we say, look, this was a test. Now we know that you want it. So we're going to go back and try to see how we can scale it and produce it at scale. This was June last year. So I went to Italy, we started sourcing all the ingredients that we'll talk about and we finally did our first production in October and we launched in January. I mean, we start doing the production in October and. And then it was ready by December and then by the shipping time, were ready to launch a Popa Grocer January 16th.

18:19
Grace Kennedy
Wow. So exciting. And that's a pretty quick turnaround from like a test run of a hundred pies to a production run in October, especially knowing that, you know, you're bringing it over from Italy. And I also will say I had no idea at Fancy Foods last year, that was a test like I thought you guys were. You did your performance very well. Cause I thought you guys were a complete up and running brand. No idea. And it, they were delicious, as I said before. But that's really exciting. So now that you have, you know, officially launched into Popup Grocer earlier this year, what has been your strategy like since this launch a few months ago of getting Lupini out there and connecting with buyers and customers?

18:56
Damiano Messineo
Yeah. So obviously in this phase we want to do, we are running tests. So as you might understand, we like to do tests because we want to perfect our messaging and get feedback from people to improve as well our pizzas. So that's what we're doing right now. We are expanding in. We are in about 20 plus stores right now in New York City. And in every stores we try to do something different. Maybe in one store we position the pizza vertically, in another horizontally, in another, in the top of the shelf, in another in the middle, in another on the lower. So we try to get data and try to analyze. Obviously we know if you're in the middle, you sell more pizza.

19:37
Damiano Messineo
But what we want to understand is how many more and is it worth later on to pay a premium in order to be there. So that's our phase right now. We're getting tons of data. So once we're ready to invest more money, we perfectly know how and on what to invest those money in order to increase, let's say, the spending, the power of purchase that the money can gave us.

19:59
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that totally makes sense. I meant to ask too. Even though it was just a test at Fancy Foods, like what was the reaction you got from the buyers that you were talking to? I mean, it seems like you got a green light and that they were interested. But can you say a little bit more about sort of the buyer's reaction?

20:14
Damiano Messineo
I remember this particular one probably Mato Santos, which is one of the biggest player in the frozen section in all America. It's a Puerto Rican company. They do frozen fruit. They were trying to expand into frozen pizza. And she was like, I've been going into expos and trade show for a whole year and I never tasted a frozen pizza so good. And we wanted to have pizza that is better for you and stuff like that, but the taste was never there. And I remember she was like astonished, like she was shocked, like, oh my God, this is amazing. We need to bring you in guys and stuff like that. But they wanted with a label, so we turned down the offer because we believe in the product. And I want to develop a community around lupini, around the Italianity, authenticity and comfort.

21:07
Damiano Messineo
Italian food made healthy, basically healthier. I would say.

21:11
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's so exciting though, even to just get that validation that this is something that people are looking for. And I, as you're naming the frozen aspect of it, I wanted to ask how do you keep it tasting fresh and delicious from a frozen product? Because I do think sometimes we expect frozen. We're just kind of like our expectations are on frozen food or that they're like not going to be as good and that we're just kind of like, well, it's easy. So. So. And that's not the experience I had when I tasted lupini. So how do you do that if you can say, yeah, definitely.

21:41
Damiano Messineo
So I mean, there are many innovation that we're doing with lupini. One of these is, for example, delivery pizza, my opinion, sucks. It gets cold. It's not the same. Imagine that in Naples, especially in the beginning of the 1900, the best seats in the pizzeria was not by the window, but right next to the oven. Because, you know, we say that pizza changes as soon as it leaves the fire. It's different 1 meter from the oven or 10 meter from the oven because pizza is alive. It's air, steam, aroma. And so you have those bubbles, when you puff those bubbles, you get that aroma that it's different. It gets to your mouth later because, you know, the crust soften the toppings settle the moisture of the crust absorbed from the tomato sauce and the oil.

22:28
Damiano Messineo
And so freezing is the best option because we basically half baked our pizza. And so you can finish in your oven. So you get those best seats like you are in Naples sitting next to the oven because it's in your own. And the secret is flush freezing. I mean, obviously we're not inventing it, we're just bringing it to the pizza world. You'll also have obviously other frozen pizza, but they're mostly not cooked.

22:54
Grace Kennedy
So.

22:54
Damiano Messineo
So our is half baked. So it's already cooked in those Neapolitan oven. We pull it off just right before so you can finish at home and have the sensation. And it's done in fruit world, in the fish world. For example, I'm from Sicily, right, And I got inspired by the fishermen. We have a zone, it's called Mazzara del Vallo, where they have the best red shrimp in the world. So it was a problem because you need to ship the fish as soon as possible because it gets bad after three days. So they invented basically ships where you flush flash fast froze the fish on board and so you can ship it tokyo, to New York or Paris and without losing the quality. It's all about the temperature because if the lower the time to freeze, you don't create those crystals. And that's preserved quality.

23:48
Damiano Messineo
That's why also, what do you find in fruits now? You know, they say, scientists that you got more nutrients in the flesh froze fruit rather than the one that gets to stay in the shelf. And the enzymes reduce the quantity of vitamin C and other nutrients. So yes, flash frozen pizza, I would say it's not better than the one you got in the pizzeria, but if you want to eat at home, it's the e easiest and the one with most quality, the most authentic one.

24:17
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. I mean, yeah, nothing beats the fresh pizza for, you know, from the pizzeria, from the professionals. But if you can have something close to it at home, that sounds pretty nice. I would, I would definitely like that. And for one, that's healthier and better for you. Another thing I was thinking about is, you know, you're in, you know, 20 stores in the New York area right now. And I'm curious, you know, obviously you're testing things out, but where do you see Lupini thriving? Like, where do you hope to see Lupini going in terms of retail locations and presence on the shelf?

24:52
Damiano Messineo
So for pricing, obviously, you know, we said all these beautiful things and quality and healthiness. And so Lupin is a premium product. We are at the, I would say the highest price on the frozen pizza aisle. So that's our strategy because first of all, because we have margin to respect. Second of all, if you're talking about all this beautiful thing, you also need to deliver on price, otherwise it doesn't make sense. You know, if it's too good to be true in terms of retailer, obviously health oriented grocery stores, sprouts market all food. Those are the one that we are aiming for at the beginning. Obviously for the future with economy of scale, we would like to lower the price and become an household item. And so to get lupini more accessible to the masses because everyone should deserve to eat healthier.

25:42
Damiano Messineo
Yes, that's where we think about lupini.

25:45
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. I can definitely see that. And I hear that so often with early brands where they're figuring out the price. Like there's only so much wiggle you have with how the price and you have to get bigger in order to be able to lower it. So that makes a lot of sense and hopefully there's some buyers listening. I just said this in another recording because I, I only interview brands that I personally love and so I always am telling buyers who are listening like, please bring these to the stores near me, AKA Whole Foods and Sprouts, because I want to be able to buy these brands easily.

26:18
Grace Kennedy
Another question I was thinking about while you were talking about retail and I my guess is that your answer is going to be no, but since you're a frozen brand, but do you guys try to do DTC at all or you just kind of like leave that off because you're frozen?

26:31
Damiano Messineo
We're trying right now just because I get obsessed with statistics and numbers and so with ordering online you can see if people are reordering, when are they reordering. And so we are basically breakeven if not losing some money in some orders. But basically we're just buying the data. So that's a short term. For the long term I'm trying to get in touch with 3Pls 3rd party logistics to see if makes sense. But yeah, we're working on it. Let's see in the future if we're going to do D2C or not. Not decided yet.

27:03
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that makes sense. Still testing things out, but yeah, definitely a challenge. I know in terms of just shipping costs and those sorts of things. So as you were talking about frozen shipping costs, I was thinking about challenges and I do always like to ask like, what has been one of the biggest challenges you've faced since founding this brand, either while in development or since launch or that you think even might be coming?

27:28
Damiano Messineo
Yeah, no, definitely. It's a supply chain. Frozen, it's already difficult. Frozen from the other side of the ocean, it's even more difficult. So obviously we need to be prepared in times because you know, we need to gather all the ingredients, manufacture the pizza in Italy and then ship it. So the first production, we ship it by air. So from Fiumicino airport to jfk, Boom. One day. Beautiful. Perfect. But it was super expensive. Just because we needed the pizza right there. We ship it with dry ice and so that was easy, but obviously that is not feasible. So we got with the ship container, it's a refrigerated referee container, but it takes about 25 days to arrive here. So we always need to account for 40 days before we want to have the product here.

28:18
Damiano Messineo
And that's obviously a challenge not just in term of organization, but also cash flow because you need to pay all the stuff and wait 40 days to come here and then wait another 60 days for the supermarket to pay you. So obviously that's the challenge, but that's the price we are paying for having top notch quality ingredients.

28:41
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. And it sounds like even though it's hard, you're committed to this process.

28:46
Damiano Messineo
I mean, obviously a scary thing would be a tariff. But. But let's see. I mean we are a young company. I guess we can pivot. We have to think about it. It's difficult, obviously we don't want to potentially to move production to the US and to import all the ingredients just because you would have also tariffs on those ingredients. So at this point, I don't have answer for that. We'll see. We'll try to do our best to keep quality and stay true to our values and authenticity.

29:16
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. And I guess if you keep production in Italy, it gives you a good excuse to go home too, because you gotta go visit your business.

29:24
Damiano Messineo
Exactly, exactly. That's why I'm going now in April 14, April 13, I'm going to go watching our production and then I'm going to go to my home in Sicily because we got Easter and so, you know, it's a good excuse to go back.

29:37
Grace Kennedy
Yes, yes. I'm sure your family's very happy.

29:40
Damiano Messineo
Yes. Yeah.

29:41
Grace Kennedy
Another question I like to ask is thinking about like any piece of advice or resources that you found particularly really helpful as you've been on this journey of founding a brand like this could be one piece of advice that mentor gave you or just a slew of resources that has been really helpful for other founders who might be early on in their startup journey as well.

30:01
Damiano Messineo
Get into the slack startup cpg. Slack, definitely. I mean, I told to Daniel when I started all of this, I didn't know anything about it. Drew, founder of Resist Bar through NYU Connection. Refer me. Obviously she was a mentor at the beginning. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Drew. And she introduced me to the startup CPG community and from there I discovered these beautiful communities with people that are Willing to support you and it's amazing. Consider that a fancy food. I met Simon from Axley and Simon was like, I really love your pro. You love your product, but I think you need an help with the packaging. And I knew it because you know, as I told you, it was a test. I did it on my own. So Simon decided to help me and put work without asking for anything in return.

30:49
Damiano Messineo
So that's the kind of help that you get being in the community. Not only just reading the slack every day and get information, but also get to meet people and help each other. So it's really a super healthy and useful resource and community that you guys have built. And that's my biggest advice for real.

31:07
Grace Kennedy
That's so awesome. And I love that story about Simon from Huxley. So shout out to him. And another great product, a natural energy drink that's also delicious and innovative. And it is so exciting to see all the innovative brands that are in the community. And I love going to the grocery store these days because I'm just like, oh my God, that's the start of CPG brand. That's so good.

31:24
Damiano Messineo
Yeah.

31:25
Grace Kennedy
So it's a fun treat and we are really cheering you all on. So I love that it's been supportive for you. So my final question is just how can the startup CPG community and our listeners support Lupini and follow along on your journey as you continue to grow and expand?

31:41
Damiano Messineo
Well, I mean you guys invited me for a podcast which is top 0.5% in the world. So I think that's a huge up that you're doing and continue doing, especially with trade shows. I've seen other friends that have done trade show not in the startup CPG and obviously you don't get the buyers to come to you and it's pre organized. You get to fill forms in order to meet them. So keep doing what you're doing. That's how you guys help us and in this space. So I really appreciate what you guys are doing. I don't have advice for you guys because every time there is a new event like the grocery run right now, I love that. I mean, I'm shocked every time these guys are doing all the job for us.

32:23
Damiano Messineo
What I would suggest is doing a lot more in the east coast, but I've seen there is one in Boston soon in April and so hopefully I'll see you there. Guys. You guys are doing everything already.

32:35
Grace Kennedy
I love it. Oh my God. Well, if Daniel or anyone is listening to this I'll let them know you have more stuff on the east coast. I'm on the east coast too so I agree. But that's awesome and I'm so glad and it was so much fun to chat with you Damiano. And what's your drop your like website and Instagram handle so people can follow Lupini?

32:53
Damiano Messineo
Yes. So our handle is Lupini L double O P I N. I shout out to my girlfriend who came up with the name which I think is genius because you create with the loop. Loop pizza is a circle. It's a loop and it's Lupini from our ingredients and the website it's eatlupini.com and yes, try our pizzas. Let me know what you think. We will listen to you because we're pretty new and so whatever you think about it with implementing in the next production like couple of customer wanted more basil and we are providing more basil for the next production.

33:25
Grace Kennedy
I love it. Always more basil. Well, thanks so much for coming on and such a pleasure to chat Damiano.

33:31
Damiano Messineo
Thank you so much Grace.

33:34
Grace Kennedy
All right everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it would help us out so much if you left a 5 star review on ratethispodcast.com startupcpg I am Grace Kennedy, the host of the Founder Feature series. So feel free to add me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack. I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting brands to feature and 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 community on Slack. You can sign up via our website startupcpg.com.