The Startup CPG Podcast

Stephanie Berwick
So we're in the natural category. All of our ingredients adhere to, like, the highest standards. And, you know, we keep everything very clean, very few ingredients as well. So that creates a better cost structure for us, all of those things. And so with that kind of helped us, you know, figure out we want to be in this natural category and therefore the natural, you know, stores. I really want to make sure that we do sell through and our velocities are good. And we're getting a community built around this new product because, you know, you can get discontinued very quickly. And it's so new that we have to make sure that people do understand what it is, drive trial, of course, and then drive reorders and people, you know, just loving this and buying it more often.

00:55
Grace Kennedy
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the startup CPT podcast. This is Grace, and today I'm talking to Stephanie Berwick, the founder of Past Desserts. Pastaserts is a dessert pasta company and the creator of the world's first chocolate ravioli. Combining the artistry of traditional pasta with the indulgence of chocolate to create an entirely new dessert category, Stephanie and I chat all about the challenges of Frozen, how a crowdfunding round set them up to scale, and how she sees Past Desserts making a name for itself in the dessert category. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and as always, let me know what you think. Hello, everyone. This is Grace, and I'm here today with Stephanie Berwick, the founder of Pastaserts. Welcome to the show, Stephanie.

01:50
Stephanie Berwick
Thank you so much, Grace. It's a pleasure to be here.

01:53
Grace Kennedy
Yes. I'm so excited to learn more about Past Desserts. This truly first of its kind, I think, at least I'm like, I've never heard of this before. Chocolate ravioli brand. Could you introduce what is Past Desserts to our listeners?

02:08
Stephanie Berwick
Absolutely. So Past Desserts is a chocolate ravioli company, and, you know, we basically make this innovative dessert that people are loving. So it's a lot of fun. I have a great story behind it and how I kind of came up with the idea, but Chocolate Ravioli is essentially fusing cocoa powder into pasta dough and creating what I call a vessel for sweet, creamy fillings. And right now we have a peanut butter and jelly, and we have a strawberry cheesecake, and we have some new flavors coming out soon.

02:41
Grace Kennedy
Oh, my God. So fun. Yes, it's such a fun idea that I can imagine so many, both kids and adults loving. But speaking of how you came up with this idea, how did you come up with this idea? Because like I said, I've never heard of anything like it.

02:56
Stephanie Berwick
Yeah, absolutely. So it is the world's first chocolate ravioli, I like to say. So I came up with the idea through amateur cooking competitions way back about 12 years ago. I was dabbling, just having fun with them. I actually won $15,000 on a quesadilla recipe. It was phenomenal and a great experience. And I was working in technology, 20 year career in fintech, so. So this was really just, you know, kind of on the side. Spending some time in the kitchen led me to a little bit of amateur cooking and amateur competitions. Winning that first competition was, you know, kind of, oh, I should do this more often. And so that led to winning my way into the World Food Championships. And at the time it was in Las Vegas. So my husband and I, he is a chef, a real chef.

03:49
Stephanie Berwick
We went out to Vegas two years in a row, 2013 and 2014. The format is a theme. The first year was pasta. The second year was dessert. So you had to do multiple dishes. And one of the dishes the first year I took was the chocolate ravioli. And it was a variation on a peppermint flavor filling. And, you know, we did like a strawberry compote as a sauce, whipped cream, and kind of served it nicely plated. And then I just took it again for the dessert theme. So it was a lot of fun. And that kind of led me to 10 years later. So, you know, just feeling a little complacent in tech and maybe thinking about a career change and thought maybe we could do something with this chocolate ravioli. Let's make it a thing.

04:35
Grace Kennedy
I love it. It's. That's so fun. And I didn't even know that, like, I mean, I know about like the Great British Baking show, but other than that, I don't think I really knew about a lot of these, like, amateur cooking competitions, but sounds like a really great opportunity and also a great way to, like, come up with new ideas such as this one. I'm curious when you know, 10 years later were kind of like, okay, maybe I should make this a thing, what were some of your first steps? Because it doesn't sound like you're coming from a CPG background. And so how did you sort of begin the process of turning this into a packaged good?

05:07
Stephanie Berwick
Yes, that's a great question. It's a journey. I'm sure, as you know, and most founders go through the same kind of process. And, you know, I was still working and, you know, full time in the tech career, and I just felt, let's start somewhere. And I was reading a book and that's kind of theme of that book. And it was, you know, okay, what can I do to just get off the ground? What's like the first step? And so I just got the tax ID number, I got the business incorporated, right? Just the basic legal pieces to start something. And then, you know, just testing in the kitchen, my home kitchen, what kind of recipe can we do and what kind of filling should we start with? Things along those lines.

05:49
Stephanie Berwick
And you know, that kind of led to what are the sales channels we want to go into? Is this going to be frozen? Or you know, what are the logistical pieces around it? And then pop up markets, right? That's kind of the best way to get customer feedback. And you know, this is a new product. Are people even going to like it? Is it going to be a viable thing? So those were kind of the first rounds of testing, if you will, and market research and the I'm in Rockaway beach in New York City and so we did a lot of pop ups here in our local community and honestly some of the customer feedback, it was all great, but we actually changed the recipe slightly. We were not baking them or cooking them in the production process.

06:33
Stephanie Berwick
And people were telling us we really want to just like grab this and bring it to a dinner party and not have to do anything with it, you know, so you can warm it up but you can also eat it cold. And so we changed kind of that process immediately, you know, so now it's something that you don't have to actually warm up if you don't want to. So that was really great feedback. And then that led to a commercial kitchen. And you know, my husband and I were self producing for about a year and that was a lot. It was, you know, hard work, but I felt like it was the right thing to do before jumping into contract manufacture or something like that.

07:10
Stephanie Berwick
And you know, still proving out the store is going to take this in and you know, what our sales channels are really going to be. And and then of course that led to more of a commercialization from there.

07:20
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I hear that from so many founders that they start with self manufacturing and starting at like small pop ups and getting that customer feedback to hone in on. Exactly what you're talking about is like, oh, people want to be able to just grab this and eat it immediately. They don't want to have to cook it. And that makes a lot of sense. I'm curious during that time Were you also trying out different flavors? And is that sort of how you came up to focus in on these two? For the beginning, yes and no.

07:46
Stephanie Berwick
I'm gonna say there were four flavors when we first started out. Actually, there were five. We had a pina colada filling, and, you know, we kind of discontinued that one, but maybe it'll make a comeback. And then we had our original, I call it the og the peppermint flavor that I had in the World Food Championship. The majority of our flavors, our fillings, are cream cheese based. So then it was just like a variation of what extracts or strawberry compotes can we add in? And then we have our peanut butter and jelly, which is obviously non dairy and a little different, you know, than everything else. We were really starting out with peppermint. We had a fig and cream, and then strawberry cheesecake and peanut butter and jelly. That pina colada kind of was out there in the beginning.

08:28
Stephanie Berwick
And then we saw some of the data from last year, right. The sales data and what's really resonating with customers, and it was very clear. The strawberry cheesecake and peanut butter and jelly were kind of the clear winners. And maybe the other two were more seasonal. So we basically went into retail with those two flavors, PBJ and strawberry cheesecake. And from here, we're going to probably push into a little bit more Italian branded. So Italian flavors, I don't want to say yet because we're going to announce those soon, but we're getting some feedback on the food service side from, like, Italian restaurants and chefs that's what they're looking for. A little bit more Italian branded. Since it is a ravioli.

09:08
Grace Kennedy
That's awesome. I'm excited to hear what those flavors are. I won't take guesses because I don't want to put you into a corner, But I'm curious. You were saying you started getting that data, and when did you decide you needed to move into a CO man to become a little bit more commercialized? Like, how did you know? I hear that question a lot. Like, how do you know you're ready to work with a CO man? And how did you make that decision?

09:32
Stephanie Berwick
Decision? Yeah, for us, it was pretty clear because we're a frozen item in the commercial kitchen. We had, you know, sort of a cage right in the freezer where we would store our inventory. And it became very clear when I can't fit a pallet at all into that cage. So it was a good stepping stone for us when we're doing kind of the smaller Direct to distribution, direct to retailer, fair sales, things like that. Drop ship. And we had, you know, really good kind of first chain store around New York that took us in last year. And it was difficult even to store that amount that they had ordered. So we actually broke up the order into two separate deliveries.

10:14
Stephanie Berwick
And that was kind of the aha moment of, well, if a distributor onboards us and orders a pallet, there's no way we could fit that into our commercial kitchen. So that was kind of the clarifying moment for us. And it took a long time to actually find the contract manufacturer. So were still, you know, self producing for quite some time, even after we knew that we had to scale up and move production elsewhere.

10:41
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. How did you find a co man? Cause again, it's a brand new product. A brand. I've also heard that a lot people who are creating brand new things, it can add an extra challenge in finding a co man who's willing to create the product in the way you want. And so how did you go about finding someone to actually make pasta desserts?

10:58
Stephanie Berwick
It's a great question. And for us it was a long journey and very questionable. In the beginning, I didn't know if we needed a pasta manufacturer or we needed a bakery, like a commercial bakery, because, you know, the product is adjacent to a pastry, but it is pasta. Right. We're basically adding cocoa powder to pasta dough. So weren't sure in the beginning. I was calling pasta manufacturers big and small and everywhere in between. You know, wasn't getting great results from that expedition. And then I reached out to a consultant that actually does, you know, co man searches and co packer searches and he found one very quickly and that's actually who we ended up going with.

11:42
Stephanie Berwick
But it did take, you know, six months from the introductory call to the first production run and a lot of testing and figuring things out in between that. So it was an interesting conversation. When, you know, if you think of a regular ravioli producer, they have this big machinery. They are usually putting through ricotta into their lines. Right. Things along those lines. And when I say I want peanut butter put through your lines, that reaction was interesting. Yeah. So we figured it out.

12:12
Grace Kennedy
And so is the co man a like more dessert focused co man or is it. Did you end up finding someone that was a pasta focused.

12:20
Stephanie Berwick
He is a pasta producer. So it's a family owned factory down in North Carolina who we're working with right now. And it is, you know, really a pasta producer. And they started out very small back in the 80s, you know, and now they have a 25,000 square foot facility and they make multiple types of pasta. What we really were looking for is someone who makes ravioli because dried pasta is not necessarily within the same wheelhouse of this filled type of pasta. So that's who went with. And, you know, they've been good to us so far.

12:53
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Well, I'm glad you found someone. And it sounds like. Would you recommend to other founders, like going the route of finding a consultant who can help you?

13:01
Stephanie Berwick
I think if you just can't figure it out on your own. There's a certain point where I just felt no one's really either calling me back or saying that they can take me in. So what do I do? I know for a fact that I can't stay in this commercial kitchen for us to score scale. So yeah, it was kind of a no brainer at, you know, one point to say I need help. Right. And this consultant was amazing. He, you know, had like a lower fee for emerging brands and we didn't really know how long it would take, but he found someone so quickly that it just worked out.

13:36
Grace Kennedy
That's awesome. And it's so important, I think, to know when you have to ask for help, when like you're just banging your head against the wall and there's nothing else you can do. And I think we can feel afraid of asking for help because like I should be able to do this, but at a certain point you just gotta. So I'm curious, now that you are in the coman, what has been your approach to like working with retailers or trying to scale past desserts now that you have more capacity to do so?

14:01
Stephanie Berwick
Yeah, for us on the frozen side, again, you know, it's kind of clear that we needed distribution. So that was the goal. And a lot of these pieces were all kind of the balls in the air around the same time. So figuring out distribution, figuring out the contract manufacturer, and figuring out our retail and even food service sales, you know, approach, our strategy all kind of culminated in, I would say the last quarter of 2024. So this is all fairly new, honestly. Right. We're only in April now and it's been a few months since everything has kind of come online.

14:39
Stephanie Berwick
So January is when went into distribution, January is when we had our first production run and January is really when we've went into our first retailers, you know, a few retailers we had last year, but really kind of pushing in a little bit larger scale. So it's all very new, and we're doing well, but it was a lot, you know, in last quarter, that's for sure.

15:00
Grace Kennedy
Totally. What did those conversations look like with buyers and distributors, given that, again, this is such a new product in the dessert category?

15:10
Stephanie Berwick
Yeah, it's tough because we don't really have, I guess, direct competition. Right. And you can't say we don't have competition ever. But, you know, when you're in the frozen section and you're thinking about dessert in a store, are you looking at us and then maybe adding ice cream as a complimentary item? So that's kind of how we're approaching things. We're not competing with ice cream. We're not really competing with, like, frozen pops. We're definitely a category creator, but at the end of the day, there's still choices. Right. And so I think our competition is really like, frozen cakes, maybe frozen cheesecakes particularly, and, you know, things along those lines, like even cream puffs, you know, something that's not ice cream, essentially. So those conversations are a little hard.

15:54
Stephanie Berwick
But, you know, most retailers do want innovation, and so they're willing to test this out maybe on a smaller scale. If it's a larger chain and they have, say, 100 stores, they'll probably bring us into 10, something like that. And then it's, you know, supporting them, obviously, with demos and promos and all of kind of those, you know, normal support systems that you put in place to sell off the shelf. And I think if talking to a retailer, you know, that you have those pieces in place and, you know, you kind of get that message across, then they're willing to take a chance on an innovative product. So far, so good.

16:31
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. What are you focused mostly on, like, the New York region right now or what's been your. What have been, like, your targets in the retail sector?

16:40
Stephanie Berwick
Yep. So we're in the natural category. All of our ingredients adhere to, like, the highest standards. And, you know, we keep everything very clean. Very few ingredients as well. So that creates a better cost structure for us, all of those things. And so with that kind of helped us, you know, figure out we want to be in this natural category and therefore the natural, you know, stores. And so I think in your backyard. Right. Is the best way to start where I can be visible. I can go visit stores, do the tours, do some demos myself, meet the teams in the stores as well. And so that's kind of our slow and controlled approach to growth. So basically, the radius of New York City and along the east coast is where we're pushing out to.

17:26
Stephanie Berwick
And that is probably going to keep us for the next, you know, several months at least, probably for the next year, for the rest of this year. And then we'll consider maybe going further out from that and going national next year. I really want to make sure that we do sell through and our velocities are good. And we're getting a community built around this new product because, you know, you can get discontinued very quickly. And it's so new that we have to make sure that people do understand what it is, drive trial, of course, and then drive reorders and people, you know, just loving this and buying it more often.

18:00
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. I'm curious, how are you making sure people understand what it is and building that community of pasta zerts lovers?

18:08
Stephanie Berwick
Yeah. A lot of social media, right. And getting, you know, the announcements out there and just shouting it from the rooftop, showing a lot of plating and how to actually serve the ravioli so that people understand there's options. It's very versatile. You can eat it frozen, you can let it defrost a little bit. You could also warm it up. And so those three experiences just themselves are very different in, you know, how the texture is and how people actually consume them. So we try to, you know, do a lot of those, like, plating ideas and here's, you know, a way to, like, consume it as a brownie sundae but replace the brownies. You know, things like that through social media.

18:50
Stephanie Berwick
I personally do, obviously, in store demos and, you know, we have some brand ambassadors that also kind of help out with that in respect. And then promos. Right. Making sure that once we go into a new retailer, we're actually on sale immediately and advertised, maybe in the retailer's flyer. Right. Their weekly circular or something along those lines. So kind of those three pieces between social media in store demos and promos seems to be working well. We're seeing very good velocities in larger chains.

19:21
Grace Kennedy
That's awesome. I'm curious how those conversations go with retailers when you're like, hey, we're in store, we want to do a promo immediately. How do those conversations go? Is there ever any pushback or is. Are they kind of like, great, sure. What does that look like?

19:34
Stephanie Berwick
I don't think we really get pushback. I mean, if we're on sale, I think the retailer's pretty happy because we're definitely driving some trial and probably a little bit lower cost to them as well. So I think that's been pretty solid, you know, as a strategy for Us. And that also creates kind of tags within the store. And think about frozen. Right. There's always so many layers of complexity as a frozen brand just logistically behind a door that can frost up right. As soon as you open it. So we have to stand out with packaging. And, you know, if there's a sale tag on the product behind that door that even, you know, that's even better. Right. So it just drives, you know, more trial. People will say, oh, what is that? Let me try it.

20:21
Stephanie Berwick
And it's, you know, kind of a low barrier to entry when it's a little bit lower cost for them.

20:26
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. And, yeah, it makes sense that the retailer would be like, sure, we like people to try things and buy things. I was thinking about how you make sure, like, where pasta zerts goes in the frozen aisle. And I'm curious, like, are you ever coming to the store and noticing it's, like, by the frozen raviolis that are savory or things like that? Is there ever any confusion about, like, where pasta zert should go?

20:49
Stephanie Berwick
That's a great question. And yes, that has happened. I think my distributor is amazing at that. They have a great sales and merchandising team. So, you know, the message has definitely gotten across from me and, you know, my team to the particular distributor that we work with. And so most of the stores I walk into, they are merchandise correctly, from what I see, in my opinion, I suppose. And that, to me, is desserts. Right. Frozen desserts. And I have walked into a couple of stores where they're sitting next to Savory Ravioli. Right. And I don't think we don't have enough data yet to say which is right. But I'm. My gut tells me it's gotta be with the desserts, because I'm thinking about it from a consumer perspective.

21:35
Stephanie Berwick
If I'm going into that freezer section and saying, I want dessert, then I'm probably gonna buy dessert. And if I'm going in there to say I want savory ravioli, I'm not thinking dessert. Right. So I think that's right. But the data will definitely tell us over time as well.

21:51
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm glad you love working with your distributor, because I often hear from frozen brands that is one of the biggest challenges is, like, finding a distributor and making sure everything stays frozen. But I'm curious how you have navigated some of the extra challenges that come with being a frozen brand.

22:08
Stephanie Berwick
Yeah. And I have to say, I think if I knew how challenging frozen was, I May have rethought some things in the beginning, but I don't know. The shelf life is great. Frozen, it's a year shelf life, so that really helps us in many ways, especially starting out. But you know, there's obviously added margin, added cost, you know, to frozen, we have to store it frozen. So all of those pieces. I have accounting finance background, so my spreadsheets are very well buttoned up. And you know, I just make sure all of those costs are embedded. Right. And that we are basically good on our margins. They're still thin, but, you know, there's definitely profitability there. So that's just something that's always on my mind. And I'm always trying to make sure that our costs are reduced enough.

22:56
Stephanie Berwick
But, you know, we still have a quality product so that we can absorb some of those extra frozen pieces into the costing that we have. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah.

23:05
Grace Kennedy
I feel like I've heard that so many times or people who have frozen brands, they're like, if I knew how hard frozen would be, I might have done it differently. But you're in it now and you know, you'll make it work.

23:15
Stephanie Berwick
Even sampling though, I mean, logistically, right? How do you carry around a frozen product? So I found a way. You always find a way, right? Get creative. I have a insulated backpack, right. And I just basically have like my samples in small cups that are lidded and ice packs in the backpack. And I just like trudge around everywhere with this insulated backpack on me to carry around samples.

23:41
Grace Kennedy
I love it. Make it work, as they say. You, you really do. I'm thinking about some of those added costs though, and how you are managing to keep your margins, like, sustainable. And I'm thinking about like, just costs in general. Coming from your background, how did you approach like funding this CPG brand? You know, are you guys bootstrapping? What's been your approach?

24:03
Stephanie Berwick
Bootstrapping for sure. You know, coming out of a 20 year career, it was a little bit easier for me to start out with some, you know, capital of my own. My husband and I, you know, basically put in a bit of our own money and that was early days. And that gets you only so far. And of course, especially around frozen, there are extra costs to that. I would say, you know, that brought us until probably the end of last year. And then I did a crowdfunding round that was actually a debt round. We could have gone equity, but I felt like getting my feet wet asking for money. It was a little bit easier for me at Least to ask for money knowing that it would be repaid. And so that's the approach that I took.

24:47
Stephanie Berwick
You know, going to friends and family, former bosses, things like that. And, you know, just your network, that was a really good experience. We were successful in that. It was a small raise. Definitely disappears like that. But it certainly got us through some crucial times. Right when were onboarding with that co man, onboarding with distribution, and, you know, there's a lot of like differential where I have to pay the co man, but not getting paid yet by, you know, my distributor. So kind of those cash flow pieces that are hard and, you know, that funding really helped us get through that crucial time.

25:21
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. What did you use, like a crowdfunding platform?

25:27
Stephanie Berwick
I did, I went with Honeycomb Credit. You know, like I said, they were really good to me. There were a couple reasons. One was because I liked that they had the debt option versus the equity option. Number two was, and maybe I should have rethought this, but weren't looking for too much. You know, we basically wanted like 25,000. And some of the other platforms are great, certainly through the research, but they had a little bit higher minimum. So that was the reason that we chose Honeycomb, essentially. And, you know, they were really good to us. They had a platform where they have investors as well. So I call them strangers, right, where as soon as I raised, I think it was 10% of the original goal, they opened up the offering to their investors as well.

26:11
Stephanie Berwick
So we had, you know, just new folks, right, that I didn't know at all come in and, you know, put a little money in as well. And, and that was lovely. So I sent them all samples and got them on board of the Chocolate Ravioli Train.

26:24
Grace Kennedy
I love that. How did you have to. It sounds like you did a lot of personal outreach, but did you do any, like, external advertising?

26:32
Stephanie Berwick
We did a little bit of social media advertising. You know, put a few dollars into some meta ads, I think a little bit on TikTok, but not too much. It was really, you know, pick up the phone, send emails. A lot of LinkedIn outreach as well. And I mean, it's helpful when you come off a 20 year career in a whole different industry, especially technology, where there's some deep pockets. We'll say it was just amazing to see former colleagues, like I said, some former bosses, even some people that worked for me, as you know, I was managing them, contributing. So it was just so great to see the support from kind of this other industry that I just left and it was just amazing. It was a fantastic opportunity to kind of re.

27:19
Stephanie Berwick
Engage with all these people and show them, you know, something that I'm building.

27:23
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's so exciting. Speaking of building, now that you are, you know, in this stage of growth, what do you hope to see for kind of the second half of 2025? What are your priorities for past desserts this year?

27:39
Stephanie Berwick
Yes. Yeah, priorities. And I do think like that. Right. And I kind of bucket, you know, these four or so priorities that I have right now. And as a solopreneur, my husband is part owner, but he works full time, so most of it's on me, let's be honest. Right. And I have a really good team around me in terms of some, you know, sort of freelancers that I've built. But everything really still does, you know, fall on my shoulders. So my buckets, my priorities are one sales. Pretty easy, right? But that breaks down to making sure that the stores that we are in on the east coast that I mentioned, you know, from our strategy this year, are performing right? And so that's where that piece comes in, of supporting, you know, velocities with the demos and the promos, et cetera.

28:27
Stephanie Berwick
So not going too fast, right. Not opening too many doors, but making sure that the stores that we are in, we are selling. Right. And we are building that community. And then two is going to be operational efficiency, so getting cost of goods sold down a little bit from the supply chain, so ensuring that my suppliers are the best price, the best quality of all the ingredients. And then from there, it's fundraising. So it was great to do a small round last year, but now I think we need to kind of put on our big girl pants and actually do a VC round or a seed round with some angel investors. And that's going to be kind of the big initiative coming into this second quarter, so planting those seeds. And then I think the fourth piece is food service for us.

29:17
Stephanie Berwick
We do love our CPG world. We do love the retailers. And it's. It's so cool to see your product on the shelf. It really is. What's even really cool is more cool is actually going into the store and someone watching someone purchase it without any prompt, no demo, you know, just like organically walking the aisle and someone opening that door and taking it off the shelf. I've seen that happen a few times, so that's great. And we love retail, but I think our product is really ripe for food service as well, so that's gonna be another priority. For me.

29:49
Grace Kennedy
So exciting. Yeah, I can definitely see that working out in some restaurants. And it sounds like, you know, your husband is in that field as well, so seems like perfect synergy. A question I also always love to ask that's a little bit bigger. Is thinking about a piece of advice you wish you'd known when you started out. Now that you're a few years in, I think maybe like two years. Yeah. What's a piece of advice you've now learned that you wish you'd known on day one?

30:17
Stephanie Berwick
Yeah, there's a few. Certainly, you know, for me, one is maybe rethink Frozen. I don't know. I mean there is a path to profitability in Frozen. I think it's fine. It's just, you know, harder. Right. And you have to really watch every dime that you spend, especially with the thinner margins and frozen. So I think that would be a lesson for myself, you know, my younger self a year and a half ago or so and I really went full time on this. And don't say spend too much too early. You really don't need to like over purchase things like packaging and even insulated cases, things like that to help logistics, packaging particularly.

30:55
Stephanie Berwick
You know, I do a just in time order every time we do a production run now because there's always tweaks still in this early days that I want to make on the packaging itself. Right. So that's another one. Don't over purchase. Right. I know that your cost of goods sold is very important and every cent right. Matters but if you purchase too much then you're going to be sitting on something that you're not going to use so it doesn't work out anyway. And I would just say make sure that you know your unit economics. Right. And even if they're not perfect day one, which they won't be, you know, make sure that there is kind of a line of sight to where you are profitable. Those unit economics. And if retail doesn't make sense right away. Right. Figure out another sales channel.

31:40
Stephanie Berwick
Maybe it's direct to consumer, maybe it's food service. Right. Whatever that looks like for you and your own brand and your own product.

31:48
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I love that. I think that's great advice. Well, my last question is just how can our startup CPG listeners support pasta zerts and follow along on the journey.

31:57
Stephanie Berwick
Thank you for that. Obviously we love the support. It's such a fun product. Right. So just try it, go out and buy some. We have a store locator on our website past desserts.com we have store locator. Also on our social media everything is ostesserts and you know, just come support us at trade shows right? Come try it. If we're sampling in store, come try it and follow us on social media as well.

32:22
Grace Kennedy
I love it. Well thanks so much for coming on the show, Stephanie. It was a pleasure to learn more about pasta, desserts and can't wait to see where you guys go next.

32:31
Stephanie Berwick
And thank you Grace. It was a pleasure to be here. I really appreciate it.

32:34
Grace Kennedy
Awesome. 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 Back. 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 partnershipstartupcpg.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.

33:23
Stephanie Berwick
Sat.