The Startup CPG Podcast

Sashi Kumar
Tamarind is a fruit. It grows on a tree. And, you know, one of the reasons we really push forward with this product and idea is that tamarind is actually extremely popular and common in the majority of the world. I interacted with it from my background growing up in South Asia and being a part of that community. Brittany can mention she grew up in the Southeast Asia community with her mother, and we're familiar with that. Jim came across it with his work across the Caribbean and Mexico as part of the food community. And those are just a couple of the areas in the world where it's actually extremely popular and used in a variety of ways. And so the three of us really got together to figure out, why is it not popular here yet? Exactly like your question.

00:53
Sashi Kumar
You know, people are like, what is it? What do I do with it? And so, you know, that was a lot of the work that went into us figuring out what is the best way to take this really beloved fruit around the world into the american market so that people can really enjoy it and get the best out of it.

01:11
Grace Kennedy
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the startup CPG podcast. Today I am here with another founder feature. I'm talking to Sashi, Brittany, and Jim, the three co founders of Tamarind Heads. Tamarind Heads makes a line of tamarind based barbecue and hot sauces. Their products are so deliciously tangy, smoky, spicy, and sweet, and they recently won a Sofi gold award in the barbecue sauce category. I also learned in this conversation what tamarind. The ingredient actually is, which.

01:44
Brittney Davidson
Who knew?

01:45
Grace Kennedy
It's a fruit that grows on trees. I loved this conversation. So I hope you enjoyed this episode, and as always, let me know what you think. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the startup CPG podcast. This is Grace, and today I am joined by the three co founders of Tamarind Heads, Brittany, Sashi, and Jim. Tamarind Heads is a tamarind based barbecue and hot sauce brand, and I've tried their barbecue sauce, and it's really yummy and different and tangy and just such a unique barbecue sauce. Not like anything I've ever tried before. But welcome to the show, guys. Super excited to chat with you all. So, Sashi, I'll start with you. Could you give us a little bit of the origin story of why the three of you decided to start this brand?

02:36
Sashi Kumar
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Grace. I really appreciate being here. I know Jim and Brittany are. We're all excited to be a part of the podcast. So I think the origin story of this brand goes back many a year. Jim, Brittany and I actually connected when I was at the Tuck School of Business up in New Hampshire and Hanover. I had a couple of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial food ideas, and then the school gives us an opportunity to really test them out. And then Jim was the head of the dining department there, and him and I connected, and we started kind of getting into some sauces and some recipes, and what really stood out, I mean, Jim can jump in, too, is the sauce that were working on had a lot of legs.

03:14
Sashi Kumar
People really liked it as were trialing and testing, and so we decided to kind of give it a. Give it a go, give it a good college try. And then Brittany really jumped in for us to figure out after I left the school, you know, how do we actually enter the market? How do we position it the right way? And then Jim and I really worked on the operational front to figure out, well, how do you actually make something that people are going to like? And it tastes pretty good? And so it's been a labor of love. It started, I guess, six, seven, eight years ago now. So here we are. But it's really been a tremendous team effort to get to this point.

03:46
Grace Kennedy
Wow. Yeah. I love that you guys all met back in New Hampshire business school. So when you were first developing sauces, just playing around a business school, did you guys start with this idea of a tamarind based sauce, or were you doing something completely different?

04:01
Jim Giberson
Yeah, I was just saying I can give you just briefly. So one of the things that I did while I was there was each candidate, if you will, for an MBA, has a first year project in FYP. So there were so many food driven initiatives that were coming our way. The dean at the time spoke to me about giving them some time and some effort against some of these projects that would rival, whether it be venture capitalism or I, investment banking, and so forth. So this one just really became very popular. So, Sashi, make a long story short, had a tamarind product that when were tasting a number of things, including some rubs that his mother had developed and roasted and toasted herself, that kind of caught my attention.

04:35
Jim Giberson
And having not being super familiar with Tamron at the time, I started to say to him at that time, I think this is a direction we may want to go in. I think we have something. So glad, Sashi from there, you can.

04:46
Sashi Kumar
That's exactly right. I mean, Jim nailed it on the head. We had an initial version of a project, and I say it was very much a 1.0, so. And then kind of progressed it. Since then.

04:58
Grace Kennedy
They often are 1.0s when you first start, but what can you do? So I'd love to hear a little bit about what is tamarind, because I know you guys have a kind of unique approach to. To how you use the whole tamarind, but really also, what is tamarind? And definitely someone like me. I am not as well versed in that plant or vegetable or I don't even know technically what it would be called. I just know that it's delicious. So can you tell me, tell our listeners, what is tamarind?

05:28
Sashi Kumar
Yeah, I can start, and I'm sure these guys can jump in, but tamarind is a fruit. It grows on a tree.

05:35
Brittney Davidson
Wow.

05:35
Sashi Kumar
And one of the reasons really pushed forward with this product and idea is that tamarind is actually extremely popular and common in the majority of the world. I interacted with it from my background growing up in South Asia and being a part of that community. Brittany can mention she grew up in the southeast Asia community with her mother, and we're familiar with that. Jim came across it with his work across the Caribbean and Mexico as part of the food community. And those are just a couple of the areas in the world where it's actually extremely popular and used in a variety of ways. And so the three of us really got together to figure out a, why is it not popular here yet? Like, yeah, like your question, you know, people are like, what is it? What do I do with it?

06:20
Sashi Kumar
And so, you know, that was a lot of the work that went into us figuring out what is the best way to take this really beloved fruit around the world into the american market so that people can really enjoy it and get the best out of it.

06:34
Brittney Davidson
And there was a lot of work that went into that because, like you said, you're not the only one who's unfamiliar with Amarind. I think it's really interesting. You either know it really well, because maybe you come from a latin american background or an african background or southeast asian or Indian Latashi, and you grew up with it, or you might have never heard of it before. We hear people confuse it with, they think it's a lagoon or something like that. And so we thought about bringing it to Margo and saying why a lot right now about trying to have global flavors more really into the sweet, spicy wafer profile right now. But Tierrand hasn't quite taken off in the same way as we've seen other global flavors. And as we thought about, we thought it's because of a few things.

07:15
Brittney Davidson
And you look at how Tarowand is sold at use right now. That typically comes in either a piece or a concentrate. And I always thought of those as very kind of back of the fridge items. Often, certainly my mother has used it, Sasha's mother has used it. I have tried, but as more of a novice cook, it's one of those things that I've used for like a breast in one time, and then it sat in the back of my fridge. And so when were developing the sauce, we said, how do we make something that tastes really good and then is really accessible, easy to be for folks, and really honors the real flow? Play your profile of Taryn, which you lose a bit in the processing of the paste and the concentrate.

07:55
Brittney Davidson
So Jim that spends is kind of a pairing of Jim really pushing us to think about how we go from hot bottles, skipping the concentrates, skipping all that processing so you can call the good stuff in the recipe really clean. While Sasha really thought about what is the format it needs to take for folks to be able to grab and go and know how to use it, because that's how we came to. Let's take tamarind, let's get at the very highest quality, and let's put it into a barbecue sauce, which looks from all traditions and cultures.

08:26
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. I love the kind of mashup of the two ideas of this, something that's maybe more unfamiliar to a lot of people in the States, but with something that is so deeply familiar to pretty much every single person who lives in America. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about, because you're exactly right. That's the only way I'd ever seen tamarind is in a paste. And I, too, have had felt intimidated by using it in a recipe because I'm like, where do I find it? And what am I going to do with it after this one recipe? So I'd love to hear a little bit more about, like, what is the process to take it from a fruit on a tree to barbecue sauce?

09:03
Brittney Davidson
That's all gym, Evan.

09:04
Jim Giberson
Well, yeah, it's. There's actually, Sasha can give you that, too. But to your point in exactly, you touched on something very like, what do I use it? How do I use it? So, first and foremost, if you look at barbecue sauces in America, and upwards of 80% to 85% of them are tomato based, so that's going to give that flavor profile, no matter which one you buy is going to be prominent. Right? So by entering tavern into a familiar name like barbecue sauce, and it does so well because it has all those classic things that you want when you roast with it, or you slather it on something that's grilled. And the caramelization that takes place is really wonderful, what it does to the actual tamarind fruit.

09:38
Jim Giberson
But the piece that I wanted to tip one of the things that was very important to me was understanding the ability to use this sauce in a multitude of ways for people so they're not stuck with something that is only considered. Oh, I'm going to put it on chicken. I'm going to put on the barbecue. That's it. So this sauce and tamarind interacts extremely well with things you would find in your pantry. So I've worked on a number of recipes. One, even if you're at the show, you probably tried, which was an aioli, which does very well on sandwiches and grilled items and so forth. But additionally, bloody Mary mix cocktail sauce. There's a multitude of things you can do in marinades and whatnot.

10:09
Jim Giberson
So our sauce is not only by itself, which you've tasted something that's very unique, but it gives you the ability to be, I would, let's say, adventurous in your home with common pantry item, and it marries extremely well with citrus, oranges, grapefruit, lime, things of that nature. And I think that has a lot to do with the origins of tamarind. But I'll let sashi speak more to how we actually produced the product, which I think was a big part of your question.

10:34
Sashi Kumar
No, Jim, thanks for kind of giving that. Absolutely. It's important for us to have kept that end use case in mind when were developing it. And, Grace, I think that is such a really important differentiator for us, which is we go directly to farms and pull this fruit is really important to keep that quality as high as possible. And a part of the journey that I mentioned and quickly voiced over eight years, nine years worth of effort, was to figure out what are the exact steps that have been done before, but we know do not deliver a quality or a product that is. That works for us.

11:07
Sashi Kumar
And then how can we interject it with different pieces of the puzzle, whether it's prepping some of the fruit, whether it's trying out the right machinery, whether it's bringing in different kind of elements to update and make it a flavor profile that works within the barbecue sauce category. There's been a lot of work that we had to put in to make sure that, number one, it is a barbecue sauce, because one of the things you'll find in the industry is really easy to make a product that's very thin, add in some additives and make it really thick. And we don't do that. And it took us, you know, like I said, years to figure out the process through multiple stages, multiple pieces of equipment to make sure that we're getting it. And it's 100% tamarind that's in there.

11:52
Sashi Kumar
And so it's a lot of work to get it done right. But, you know, with the award and people's reception, I think it's paying off.

11:58
Brittney Davidson
Yeah. Things sashi tends to talk about, too, is we really source the tamarind. We had a specific tamarind blend, so people ask us often where the tamarind is coming from. So through your question, in terms of how does it get from pods bottle? It starts in pods, kind of around the world, and we pick high quality tamarind. And then, as Fasci alluded to, a lot of the work and figure out the machinery and the process was in. I don't know this where video. Have you ever seen a tamarind potential? The reason it's so fun to work with, and you split it open as the seeds, and there's kind of these stringy things in it.

12:30
Brittney Davidson
And so a lot of our work was in figuring out how do you take that and how do you separate out some of the stuff that you need to process out of the sauce and but then still keep in all of the nutrients. And so we have proprietary process that we use machinery that doesn't necessarily. What they typically do is they'll just kind of throw a lot of high pressure water on it, so the concentrates and stuff are used. That's not what we do. It's a lot more of a delicate process to get that pod delicately sourced and delicately processed so it gets into our sauce a little bit more whole.

13:00
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. No, that's awesome. And you definitely can taste the tanginess in the sauce. You know, it's felt by the consumer. Which does lead me to another question I have, which is, what has been sort of consumer customer response to this sauce? And have you found you've had to do, you know, a good amount of education around what it is and what tamarind is and how people should use it? Or has the name barbecue kind of done a lot of the work for you?

13:24
Brittney Davidson
I think it's a little bit of a both. And so I think there are, what's great about tamarind is like I said, some of the populations that are familiar with it also happen to be a lot of the folks who are the fastest growing demographics in the United States today. As of those folks, even at the Nancy Food show, we had them coming up and saying, it's really exciting to see this in a product. Like, I grew up with this. I had a tamarind tree in my backyard. So for that group, is this something familiar, but it's being put into a format that feels fresh and something they can use more easily in their kitchens. I think one of the things that's a tailwind for us this year in particular is McCormick and company named Tamarind the 2024 Flavor of the year.

14:05
Brittney Davidson
And so luckily, what's great is McCormick is doing some of that education for us broader public as we roll product out. So that's been really great as well. And then we found as we're rolling out the product into stores and tasting it, they're learning about Tamwidge through our product and that because we think we've done a really great job of making sure the tamarind tastes like tamarind in it. And so they're gaining an appreciation for it in that way.

14:30
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I've learned about tamarind even in the, you know, 14 minutes we've been talking. So I can imagine that when you're doing demos or anything like that, people are learning a lot. And I did get to see you guys at Fancy Foods as well, obviously. And that brings me to the Question, too, of the retailer response. So you're mentioning, you know, getting into some retailers. I imagine there were conversations being had at fancy Foods and other things like that. But what is been your approach to a pitching tamarind heads to retailers and then also, how have you been expanding into retailers, you know, as you've grown over these last few years? I guess.

15:03
Brittney Davidson
Well, our launch is really at the Fancy food show, and so this is kind of us making our big debut into a lot of retailers. And so what was great about, I think one of the things that we're really proud of is we won this year's Sophie Award for the barbecue sauce category. So that organic major of a lot of folks to reach out to us and become cs, which was amazing. But as we're thinking about our growth strategy going forward, we're definitely thinking a lot about where are the retailers that are super focused on quality. That tends to be a lot of your more independent specialty stores, folks that are no grocery stores that tend to have products, barbecue, sauces, on it. We've talked a lot with those retailers.

15:43
Brittney Davidson
There's a little bit of education that has to happen there, too, because Cameron is nothing specific to any ethnicity or region. They often ask us, like, where do we put the product? And we've been pushing a lot for, say, you know, this belongs on just regular barbecue shells as an alternative to corn syrup based, tomato vinegar based barbecues, and not necessarily with one specific ethnicity because it is really local.

16:05
Grace Kennedy
Yeah.

16:05
Brittney Davidson
So we are focusing on that. We're focusing on a lot of regions where we're seeing folks who do have some familiarity with Taramount already. We've had some traction in Texas and California, for example, and then, of course, we are based in the northeast, and so we've been working with a lot of independent specialty stores and grocery here as well.

16:24
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's awesome. And it's so funny. I literally thought you guys had been around for, like, a few years, and you're like, no, we just launched.

16:30
Brittney Davidson
We just launched. We spent a lot of time, like, Sashi and Jim's point on the research and development process and then getting the manufacturing right, because we wanted to make sure that when we launched, we could do it at scale.

16:41
Grace Kennedy
Yeah.

16:42
Brittney Davidson
So that's why we held off for a little bit. For real.

16:44
Jim Giberson
And we had a period, too, obviously, during that. So many people, I think, especially in the food service industry, had issues with the being able to get things delivered and procurement of items. And that was, like, right in a period when we had pretty much got the sauce to where we wanted it to be, flavor profile wise. But then that became another whole other piece of logistics that had to be managed. Only recently in the last year, I would say. Sasha, Bertie, have we really worked all of that out? Because I think things are starting to become more back to normal and the ways that you can transport product and the availability of product. That was even an issue, too, when we decided on bottles, we decided on labels. Yeah.

17:21
Jim Giberson
There was this whole piece that is normally something that's done most with a second thought. You had to really be creative to get to where you needed to be.

17:28
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. I know so many brands had to struggle with that over these last few years since the pandemic and something you mentioned, Brittany, and, you know, maybe Sasha will talk about this, or you, but setting yourselves up so you could manufacture to scale, I think, is something a lot of brands don't necessarily think about before they begin or before they launch. So I'd love to hear a little bit about how you did that and how you're making sure you are prepared to scale on your manufacturing side.

17:54
Sashi Kumar
Yeah, Grace, I can jump into that and maybe put you off of the last answer. Our products that we have released to the market were actually coming off of the manufacturing line last. At the end of last year, the same day Jim and I were in the facility, and we heard that McCormick had declared Tamarind as the flavor of the year. So some really good serendipity that comes into play here, you know, that's best you could ask for. But, yeah, I mean, we had spent a lot of years trying to figure out, look, if we can make a good, solid, quality product, but we can't get it to the country.

18:25
Sashi Kumar
And so we had to figure out a process, and this is set up through multiple stages, where if we want, we have all of the consumers, and we have all of the supply chain set up so that we can ask for the next order. And we have started to do a lot of demand planning, because, again, this is a crop that we work with. There's particular life cycles within, there's particular order windows, there's storage into consider. So a lot of that comes into just planning and preparing for knowing, like, if we want to go this year or second year or third year, what can we expect and how do we build that supply chain back?

19:00
Sashi Kumar
And it's been a lot about setting ourselves up to scale this year, but then knowing, depending on how well the second half of this year's goes, we are ready already to look into 2025 and 2026, because we have that pipeline already built and ready to go. It's just a matter of turning it on.

19:16
Grace Kennedy
Yeah.

19:17
Sashi Kumar
And that was so critical to us. I can't emphasize how many times Jim and I had a convo being like, you know, Sashi, are we ready? Jim, are we ready? And we're like, we. Not there yet. Not there yet. And so much about the scale is not just the production, but we did numerous runs to figure out, well, if we did this at this quantity, does the flavor stay the same? And that is really critical, because we can deliver one case to you, but if the second case doesn't taste the same, you know, what are we doing? So it's been a lot of years of work, and I put that attest that to the team, really just being so focused on making sure we get to this point. And this is a starting point, not the end.

19:55
Grace Kennedy
Absolutely.

19:56
Jim Giberson
I had numerous conversations with Sashi, with two of us late at night, you know, with interest from people, with our product as they tasted it, and the communities tasted it, where we both just would say to each other, are we ready? What happens? Me, coming from the contract food service world, I know what it's like if a buyer likes something and they say, okay, I need 10,000 cases. So that's a very real scenario that you could run into. So the other piece to that, too, is we've been able to fall back on some consultants who are very valuable to us that helped us in making the decision, who's going to make our sauce? Who's going to co pack our sauce? How are we going to ship our sauce?

20:28
Jim Giberson
We were very fortunate to have that type of connections so that we can do just what sashi described and what Freddie said. I mean, there's nothing worse than you love the sauce. Grace, we have to say, well, it's six months before we can get you another bow. That's never.

20:40
Grace Kennedy
In six months, I'll have forgotten that the sauce exists. Yeah. I have to get something else then. Sorry, it's the summer. I need my barbecue.

20:48
Jim Giberson
That's right.

20:49
Grace Kennedy
Speaking of getting these sauces to customers, how have you guys been approaching marketing and getting tamarind heads out there? Obviously, winning the Sofi award is awesome in terms of being getting tamarind heads out there and in front of retail buyers and things like that. But I feel like your average consumer customer is maybe less aware of these, like, industry awards. So how have you been making consumers aware of tamarind heads?

21:14
Brittney Davidson
Yeah, so it's a little bit of a, we're getting some of the retail stores, but also doing a lot of work on our GTC. So we are right now, at this moment, really building up some of our social media presence. And we have a website, we have our Shopify storefront. And so doing some updates to that and really rolling out with some of the messages that we know from our consumer testing early on really worked. And we know that there are people who like our sauce, who know tamarind already. There are people who have really liked our sauce, actually come from the conscious eater group.

21:43
Brittney Davidson
And so these are folks who, interestingly, you think barbecue, you don't necessarily think vegan vegetarian, but it's actually resonated with a lot of those folks as well in our testing, want to prove that you can make vegetables taste just as good as something you don't, as well as folks who are looking for a cleaner barbecue sauce that doesn't use corn syrup. And of course, we've had a lot of resonance with your barbecue as a sheena. So folks who are grill masters best on their blog. And so as we think about our marketing, our messaging, we've had content and we've been starting to put out a lot of messaging around those three themes.

22:14
Brittney Davidson
So showing recipes from each of the major cultures that tamarind is from, mentoring those out there, getting some of the user generated content from some of our early fans at the sauce. We've also been working with influencers and other folks who are in the vegetarian world and the kind of conscious eating, clean movement, and then finally working with some folks who are familiar with the barbecue sauce space, the hot sauce space, and are really good at putting out great content on that. But certainly, I think the startup CBG community has been really helpful as we start to ramp that effort because we have a lot of addition, but are really turning to folks in that group, help to almost be a sherpa for us as we start to ramp a lot more of that.

22:54
Brittney Davidson
And I've been on some discussion boards, I've talked to a lot of really useful, like I mentioned, consultants who are helping us to continue to ramp that as well.

23:01
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. And how have you been finding influencers or just lovers of tamarind heads who are willing to post content or, you know, make user generated content for you about this? How have you been finding them and how is that, you know, sort of collaboration been working?

23:16
Brittney Davidson
Sasha, do you want to start on that one and then I can jump in?

23:18
Sashi Kumar
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say one of the funniest things, Grace, we found is we really start these discussions by engaging with our follower base. We try to do a really good job of understanding every single person who's followed us, whether they liked a post, whether they commented, whether it's on Instagram, TikTok, it's like, what have you, whether they saw an ad and then they responded. At the end of the day, it always starts with talking to our customers. And one of the benefits that we work with and realize is that having won this award, having such a unique and differentiated product, it kind of automatically piqued some interest. And at the very least, it piques the interest enough to have a second conversation. And that's where it really begins.

24:00
Sashi Kumar
You know, it's if we put out the right content and as Brittany mentioned to the right people who are resonating with the product, and we just talked to them a little bit, we found that they're really interested in trying it out. Luckily for us, a lot of times when people try it out, they have usually a good, positive impression about it, and they ask us the questions that everybody else has. It's like, oh, what is it? What do I do with it? How do I get more? And that's kind of how we go down the road. And so it really hasn't been too much further than just kind of engaging with our current set of follower base and current people who have already indicated that they like what we're doing.

24:32
Grace Kennedy
Oh, did you have anything to add, Brittany?

24:34
Brittney Davidson
I think Sasha covered most of it. I think that's where we're starting. And certainly some of those folks are, do have their own influencer base themselves. So we've been working them to push things out, of course, doing some occasional paid advertising and things like that through the platforms. But right now, I think we've got our strategy down and we're at the place where we will be hiring and looking for more of a social media manager as we scale up and continue to take. I think what we have is a good foundation and oil and solid follower base. And if you sort of evangelists of the product and then using that really scale, a lot more of our marketing agency efforts.

25:08
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned paid advertising and maybe hiring, which all require a little bit of cash. So another question I have, and I do think is always important to talk about as founders, being transparent, things like that. How have you guys approached funding? Are you bootstrapping? Have you done any investor rounds? Where's the cash coming from?

25:27
Brittney Davidson
I guess, yeah.

25:29
Sashi Kumar
I mean, look, this is a very good question. You know, it all kind of starts and ends with that. You know, you don't have a business if you can't prove some of this. So far, we're all bootstrapped. You know, luckily, between myself, Brittany, and Jim, and kind of our support systems, we've been able to get this far just putting in some blood, sweat, and tears and a little bit of cash on our own. So that's been really nice. But I would say, grace, I think you're right on the money that are coming off of this show and some of the growth we're looking for, especially going into 25 and beyond, we've started to have some more interesting conversation with whether they be investors from more of the venture capitalist side or the private equity side. But I think we're definitely right there.

26:08
Sashi Kumar
And some of that is going to come from us being really understanding of what the customer looks like, where we want to grow, and how we want to grow. So having those items buttoned up really opens up some of the conversations. And thankfully, coming out of the show, we met such a cross section of folks. I think we have a really good idea of how we want to scale this product and scale this brand. And that's kind of resonated in some of the finance conversations that we've been having.

26:36
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. And exciting. And if anybody wants to invest in tamarind heads, who's listening? Reach out, please. Yeah, exactly. Another question I had regarding the fancy foods show and trade shows in general. I don't know if you guys are planning to do more this year or planning to do some in 2025, but I'd love to hear a little bit about your strategy for doing fancy foods, for doing a trade show in general. What's been your strategy to make it worth the investment? Because it is an investment. Right. So how have you been making sure that you are prepared for that investment and make it worth your money?

27:14
Jim Giberson
Well, the first part I can tell you, ill take that part is as far as ROI on investment. The golden award was a pretty solid piece of hardware to take away with us. So theres really no monetary subject you can apply to that. I mean, when you look at Sofi awards, its like the Academy Award of smoothen. So that was an easy one, but ill let these guys take over after that. But I, coming from the contract food service world for so many years and working at institutions and academia and whatnot, private companies with the larger as we grow, UFIs, Ciscos, PFGs, things of that broadline providers, they have a multitude of food shows and opportunities that theyll entice you to come to, which really isnt a lot of cash layout. So were going to be looking and exploring that soon.

27:56
Jim Giberson
But some of the other shows, Sashi probably can speak to it better. We'll start to determine when is the right time to go to the midwest or go to Florida or go to another New England show. I think that's going to happen almost organically as we start to see a need for more information on our product and better opportunities or market share. As we get a market share, I mean, we're negotiating now. I think Brittany had mentioned with a pretty high end retailer in Texas market that might drive us as a decision maker. When you were saying dollars to results, thinking about what's next in Dallas or Houston or something like that?

28:26
Sashi Kumar
Yeah, that's totally right, Jim. I think that's exactly right. I don't have much to add maybe that nothing coming out of the show. I think what was really resonated with me is just the wide variety of people from the ecosystem that attend them. And so to me, I look at it as putting yourself and the brand and your team in a position to interact with people in a one, two, three day window that you never would be able to do if it were otherwise, and understanding how big the ecosystem is, but also quite small. It really comes down to who can you pick up and who can you call? When can you call? How tight is that relationship then? That only comes, really, from attending shows like this. But no, you're totally right, grace costs are definitely a big factor.

29:13
Sashi Kumar
But to me, you know, I really look at it as, like, expanding the relationships you can build for the brand, which is really key.

29:19
Grace Kennedy
Totally. There's people you would never get to see face to face at these shows and getting to even meet potential new customers who might just walk by and try it and love it and then go buy it when it's on retail shelves. So, thinking a little bit more broadly, another question that I always like to ask every founder, or co founders in this case, is what has been one of your biggest challenges in being a founder running a CPG business? I know there are many, but maybe. Let's start with you, Brittany. What's been one of your biggest challenges and how have you worked to overcome it?

29:49
Brittney Davidson
Yeah, I mean, I feel like the interesting thing about this question is, like, the biggest challenge always just feels like the one you're facing at the present moment.

29:55
Grace Kennedy
Of course.

29:56
Brittney Davidson
But I think one of the bigger challenges that we started with was just as we've talked about before, the manufacturing process and really asking ourselves, can we do this? You do this at high quality and at scale. But getting past that, I feel like for me, the big thing on my mind now are some of the things that you talked about earlier. So we're thinking about, we have a product that is high quality, that is made from a base superfood, that is trending right now in terms of global flavors. We've had a lot of momentum and a lot of asks, I think, from different retailers, from different distributors and brokers.

30:27
Brittney Davidson
It's been a lot of drinking from a fire hose as we've come off of the launch, just because so important, everything, it's a lot, I think, for new founders to take in, and it's. It's more, quite honestly, than we expected. And so for us, I think it's right now, it's coming up the learning curve and being really thoughtful and intentional about, like you asked about, who are the SB pillars that we want to go after? What is the d two C strategy and who do we need to hire underneath us and to work with us to really make sure that we hit that out of the park going forward. You know, we know the soul of our brand.

30:58
Brittney Davidson
We've done a lot of work on understanding our consumer, but now we're at that point, I think, as many founders find themselves needing extra hands, extra expertise, really understand social media, who really understands d two c to help to shepherd us through this next really big launch phase. And so being able to understand that act with intentionality when we are so excited and want to say yes to everything is the next challenge, right? Because I think this is where the rubber hits the road. It's so much a strategy is not just what we're saying yes to, but what we're also saying. You know, maybe that's not quite for us or maybe that's for a little bit later down the line, and those are challenging calls to make.

31:39
Brittney Davidson
And again, I think I thank the startup CBG community for being such a great source of information and guidance for us on that because I know I personally am learning so much from just folks in the message boards, other conversations I'm looking at about some of the minefields that new brands like us have to look out for as we're thinking about our costs, as we're thinking about which investors might be the right fit, as we're thinking about which retailers will. All these things about slotting fees and whatnot, the hidden costs, it's really great to have other veterans in this field who are willing to help you out and give you some of that boost of the learning curve.

32:18
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. You need help from other people is just the resounding thing I hear from other. Every founder I talk to is like, you cannot do this on your own. You will not know everything on your own. And you need to ask questions and ask for help because it's simply inevitable. Sashi, what about for you, what's been one of your biggest challenges?

32:35
Sashi Kumar
Definitely to piggyback off of Brittany's comment there, you know, the startup CBG community is doing something right when instead of asking Google, I asked Brittany or Jim's, like, hey, did we slack this yet to the community? So, you know, we're in the right place because it's such a wealth of information. And I'm glad, you know, I'm glad were able to be a part of it and be a part of this podcast and so on. But going back to some of the challenges, to me, it was. We kind of talked about it, but it was getting ready to scale. That, to me, has always been kind of the guiding goal post on whatever quality of product were going toward because at the end of the day, if we can't sell more than a couple of bottles, there's no business.

33:16
Sashi Kumar
And so it has always been that focus on we have something we really like, but how can we make so many more of this? How can we make this in a volume that can make it a business? How can we make this in a volume that gets the flavor out to people in the right way? And, you know, I think we're finally there. It's great to have some tremendous tailwinds. You know, serendipity is always good to have, but to me that has been biggest challenge. Its funny, I think about, I ask somebody like, what were you doing in 2019 or 2020? And theyll tell you something and ill be like, well, you know what? I was focused on this bump.

33:50
Sashi Kumar
I can tell you that five years ago I had these specific questions about the bottle and the product and our facility and our plant finally got some answers. But it was a few years of thinking about it and trialing and training. So, Jim? Yeah. I dont know some challenges you have had, but kind of for me, yeah.

34:08
Jim Giberson
I mean, I can speak to that grace if you want. I mean, I think it's kind of unique having the partnership that I have and how this whole thing started with Sashi and Brittany and being at the time just so happening to be at talk at the business school at Dartmouth. I think the thing that I think the most about it is I feel so confident and so blessed that we've got this product that we can consistently make and we're very proud of. And I know Colin early, it's a very strong, excellent product. We're reaching a point now where we have to start to welcome other people into our universe and who are those people going to be? Right?

34:37
Jim Giberson
And I had a friend who's developed, he's developed some very high end vegan products and he's helped us in some of the co packing and things of that nature. And he said to me, he said, jim, where you guys are at now, 95% of startups wish they could get to, let alone where you are at. And being debt free is phenomenal and having people come to you and asking, how do we get involved with your product? I think when you say what is the challenge? I think the challenge is as we start to surround ourselves with the people that are going to help us make decisions, are they going to be as cohesive as myself, Sashi, and Britain? So that's something that I think is a challenge.

35:11
Grace Kennedy
Absolutely. You have such a lovely trio. It's like, scary. I'm sure to bring in someone else or someone new and what if they don't have the same vision and have the same ideas? And, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But speaking of vision and the future, tamarind heads, as we wrap up, I'd love to hear a little bit about what you guys are most excited about as you end this year and as you head into 2025. And where can everybody, like, learn more about what's coming for Tamarind Heads?

35:41
Sashi Kumar
I can start with that, and any of Brittany and Jim can jump in. I would say that we have so much coming down the pipeline. We're going to really push on our d two c side, getting our name across top line awareness, like BrittaNy mentioned, we're going to make some critical hires that I think will be really helpful in supporting of the brand and our growth. You're going to find us in a few Retail outlets around the country, but we're being very strategic about it. Like Bernie MenTiOned, you know, so much of this conversations that we're having is who's to say yes to, but, you know, who to say no to, and that's really hard. But I think that's probably going to be the right way for us to go.

36:14
Sashi Kumar
So you're going to find us in some really strong RetAil PlacEs in areas that I think are probably the right areas to be. And then we have some really awesome R and D that is in the pipeline. I know Jim and I have been talking about some Skus we might work on releasing. I know we have one SkU that's a hot sauce sku dedicated line that's supposed to come out later. Q three, Q four. So we're really excited about that one, but that one could probably go into next year. And then we have a few others as well that I think the beauty of the tamarind product and the tamarind profile is that it's so versatile and we can really work with a lot of different categories of food. So you'll see that coming down the road.

36:50
Sashi Kumar
But, you know, right now really focused on getting the barbecue sauce in the right markets to the right people. And you can find us and keep pace with us online on our website, tamarindheads.com. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Amren heads, and yeah, please sign up for our email, follow us, engage with us. We try to do a really good job of kind of reaching out to everybody who engages with us. So wherever you find us, say hello and we'll say hello back.

37:14
Grace Kennedy
I love it. And that's the perfect note to end on. And this was so much fun. To learn more about tamarind heads and tamarind the fruit and tamarind the product. And I've got an education today as well as learning about your product itself. I now know that tamarind is a fruit and it comes from a tree, so I'm gonna take that with me. It's so much fun to chat with you guys. And yeah, can't wait to see where tamarind heads goes next.

37:41
Brittney Davidson
Thank you so much.

37:41
Sashi Kumar
Thank you so much, Grace.

37:42
Jim Giberson
Thank you.

37:47
Grace Kennedy
All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, it would help us out so much if you left a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I am Grace Kennedy, the editor for startup CPG, so feel free to add me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on slack. I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting brands to feature, and if you're a potential sponsor that would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnerships at Startupsville. And finally, as a reminder for anyone listening if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our community on Slack and you can sign up via our website, startupcpg.com.