As I go through every region in the country, like, we're kind of 40, 50% growth to 150% growth still at this point, you know, getting that distribution, and I think the consumer is really picking it up. And now I'm starting to see an acceleration. In the last 15 months, we've grown at an average of 154,000 households. Fifteen months straight, that has not slowed. 00:33 Daniel Scharff Welcome to the Startup CPG podcast. Today welcome back Eric Skay of Carbone Fine Foods. We lasted an episode with him in February of 2024, and at that time, it was so clear that Carbone was on its way to disrupting the category. Now they've really broken through in a major way, hitting 100 million in sales, continuing to grow, door count, their velocity, adding new SKUs, and we wanted to invite Eric back to talk about what that road has been like getting to 100, so. So on today's episode, we talk about how they've managed that growth, how they continue to innovate, and tons of advice from Eric for emerging entrepreneurs. Enjoy. All right, Eric, my friend, it is so good to have you back here on the Startup CPG podcast. 01:17 Daniel Scharff I really love the first episode that we did just because, you know, you're somebody whose career I have watched. And it was really exciting to see you getting started with Carbone, because Carbone is a restaurant that I know and really like, and just to see the approach you were taking with the brand and, you know, just driving really fast into the sauce category, it's been awesome to see. And so it's been a while since we spoke, and I just wanted to bring you back onto the podcast and talk a lot about what's happened since then. I mean, you guys have gotten to some crazy number of doors, your retail sales are absolutely astronomical, and so I would love for everyone just to get to hear what that journey has been. 01:58 Daniel Scharff Been like and get to learn from you a little bit, especially because you've done this a bunch of times before. But every time you have new lessons, new things that you can share, you know, the path is always a little bit different. So super happy to have you back here. So the last time, yeah, when we spoke, you guys were really getting a very fast start to everything, but can you just catch us up? What is all the stuff that's happened since then at a high level? 02:22 Eric Skae Sure. First off, thanks for having me. I really appreciate you having me on the. On the podcast, but I read somewhere years ago that you. You tend to overestimate what you can do. In a year. And we underestimate what you can do in five. And we're not quite at five. We're four and a half on the shelves. I signed my agreement with Major food Group on October 29th of 2020. So we are actually coming right up on five. And you tend to underestimate what you know, in a big way, what you get done in five. And I think that's been the case here. Right. Like, I probably did overestimate the first year because I knew Carbone from New York, like, you know, Carbone from New York. And I assumed everybody knew Carbone. Like, everybody knows Carbone. Lovely name. Right. 03:02 Eric Skae It's a little bit of a heavier lift from a standpoint of building awareness for the brand as we scaled. But the approach I took is the approach I've taken with every brand I've ever worked with. It's a distribution first approach because I hate to market to empty shelves. And I know we live in a world like when I started, you know, back in this 1990, there was no such thing as online sales. Right. That didn't happen. You have that today. But I'm in a heavy type of product. It's hard to do. You get breakage, very hard to make money online. So, like, you really need to drive in a brick and mortar with this type of product. Other products were different. So that was the first approach. 03:39 Eric Skae And we managed to get to, you know, call it 25, 26,000 Doors is where we are right now in that period of time. But you know, the thing that excites me, it's not really the number of doors. It's as I go through spins, or as I go spins in particular, as I go through every single account in food, you know, we're not down in any of them. We're double and triple digit in all of them. Right. As I go through every region in the country, same thing. Like we're kind of 40, 50% growth to 150% growth still at this point getting, you know, getting that distribution. And I think the consumer is really picking it up. And now I'm starting to see an acceleration. In the last 15 months, we've grown at an average of 150, 54,000 households a month. 04:22 Eric Skae Fifteen months straight, that has not slowed. And again, I see an acceleration of that as we continue to get more space, as we continue to get more awareness, as we continue to take that social drives, event drives brand. Right. You know, that's where went. 04:38 Daniel Scharff So can you tell me a little bit about that growth because you're saying you're looking across spins and you're just seeing it grow everywhere, like triple digits, velocity, growth. But you also mentioned not everybody actually knows Carbone. I mean, people who go to New York and Miami and Vegas, like, they know it, they love it's so good, but not everybody does. So what is actually making it clear off the shelves in all of these stores as you're getting all of this distribution, I mean, 25, 30,000 points of distribute, that's a huge number. You're all over the place. And it's turning in all those places. So what's making that actually happen? 05:12 Eric Skae You know, I think the consumer is just getting awareness of the brand because of all the social and the events that we're driving. Like, I wake up every day grateful that Mario Carbone trusted me to take this Carbone brand and take that feeling that you get in a restaurant. It's not that, just a taste, right? You go to that restaurant, it's kind of timeless. There's a feel, there's a look. Like, you know, I went for lunch yesterday, and at 11:30 in the morning, there was a line outside for lunch. Like, you know, so there's lines for a couple of different places. But to see a line for a restaurant that's, you know, over 10 years old, and that's anytime you get the carbon, you get there before opening, there's a line. Mario did something special there. He's also very involved in the brand. 05:52 Eric Skae So, like, this is a modern chef brand. So whatever he's doing to build the Carbone franchise, he's got restaurants he's opening up in London two weeks, the 15th. So they're. They're opening up in London. But anything he's doing to drive that restaurant does have a halo effect on what we do. And then he brings us opportunities that help drive the brand as well. So, like the spicy rigatoni truck that we did at two Post Malone concerts that was bought in by Mario. Right? Like, who gets those type of opportunities? So I wake up every day grateful, and it's those type of opportunities that drive this brand. It's not going to be tv. Like, I did a CTV thing a couple of years back, and I didn't see awareness growth. Right. I didn't see the growth the way I would've expected yet. 06:34 Eric Skae I do an event or just like most recently, the collaboration we did with Melon and Getz. Right. I want to say that's gotten a billion impressions in the last couple of weeks. 06:43 Daniel Scharff Okay. That makes Sense to me as especially now, you guys are a bigger brand. You've got, you know, very heavy retail sales overall, which means you have probably the budget then to do those kind of events that if you're an early brand listening to this, you're like, yeah, of course I would love to. To get to do a food truck, you know, post Malone big kind of thing. But, like, I'm years away from having that kind of budget. But if you think back then, even in the early days, though, you guys were doing well. Do you think that was just all about the strength of the brand and immediately doing well? Just. I mean, if you taste the product, it's amazing. People are going to keep buying it, but just to really get people to start picking it up off the shelf at first. 07:19 Daniel Scharff In the early days, looking back, what do you think was the key there versus what you're doing now? 07:23 Eric Skae You know, look, it's just a continued push. Mario and I talk about this, and we equate it back to boxing. You got to keep on hitting the body, right? Like, you just got to keep on hitting the body, and eventually you'll get them there. So, look, the way we started, we did start in the Northeast, and if you look at what's happening in the Northeast now, where we had an awareness. So I was able to build the data story, and I will always tell, or at least startup, you know, companies find a data story. I don't care if it's one store. Get me one store that's got velocity. Don't go out and get a hundred stores that are doing one unit. Get one store that's doing 100, right? And build that data story and then push the hell out of that data story. 07:59 Eric Skae You know, like, if you look at Carbone, it's not just the promotion. It was getting started in the Northeast. Stop and shop, like, took a big risk and gave me a shot. And the reason I say that, when I signed my agreement on October 29th, I had a call with them on November 2nd, and they put it in based on a picture because of the background that I had, like, startup companies may not get that benefit. I did, you know what, And I took it after 35 years, I should get a benefit every now and again. But we built that data story. And if you look at it now, like, there's times where I've been number four and stop and shop where I passed some of the major brands, right now I'm sitting at number three in Weikman's, right? 08:35 Eric Skae And I do believe I will go to number two in white. And this is like a crossover conventional supermarket. This is not like, you know, you get a lot of the data stories that come out of natural. Right. This is now starting to hit me in mainstream. You know, I've been number two in natural for the last couple of years and my goal is to be number one. And I really wanted to get there this year. We're going to get there next year. Right. You know, but it's like continued pressure at every part of the business. It's not just the PR and the marketing. It's at the shelf, you know, making sure your sales team knows who a receiver is and they're getting in stores like we just built the survey. 09:08 Eric Skae Our person Rick, who runs grocery for me, built the survey and he's got his team going to X number of stores a month talking to consumers that shell even our VIP coupons. I do it. I'm in stores all the time. Like that's where everything begins and ends there, as my head of sales to Morano says. So that's it. It's just pressure on every part of the business. You can, while you're still trying to work cogs and you still try to do all the other, have a success. 09:32 Daniel Scharff Yeah, that's awesome. And I love the idea of there is a partner on the other side who's building the brand while you're doing all that work as well. And they are increasing even awareness now of the restaurant which will have this trickle effect. And yeah, you can. It's very hard to get a table at Carbone, but you can get a jar of Carbone sauce at your house. On that note, that is actually exactly what I have in front of me here. So, Eric, you are kind enough to send a lovely set of samples here which I will now pull in front of me. And I noticed you also have some new SKUs. 10:04 Daniel Scharff I think the one that I am most interested in being somebody who has, I'd say very nostalgic or kind of basic taste buds, is this Mac and cheese Alfredo sauce, which I don't know if it's weird, but I'm just going to sit here and keep eating it with a spoon because it just tastes like Mac and cheese. It's so good. Can you like talk me through a tasting of this as you would if I were a high powered buyer? 10:25 Eric Skae As you taste it, you get that full cheddar taste. 10:28 Daniel Scharff Absolutely. 10:29 Eric Skae And that was the goal. Right. So as I looked at it and as we thought through the category, the Alfredo category, I said, okay, what can we do that's different but that the consumer will immediately get? Like, there's not a lot of thinking here as to what that is. And we have put it out on the shelves and it's going really well. Now that's one where when I went to my chefs who are arguably like top Italian chefs in the world, right? Like, I could say that with these guys, they're like Mac and cheese Alfredo, Eric, if you want to run that one's on you. Right? We figure that out, right? Because you know, that's not something they would develop themselves in the restaurant. But I wanted to do something that kind of set us apart part on that shelf. And this clearly has. 11:12 Eric Skae What's interesting about it is like it's too early to tell where it's going to go. I mean, where it is, it's going very well. The units for store per week are holding up, but you know, it's early. So it's only been on the shelf, call it four to six months. You know, that said, the social that's coming out of that, I can tell the consumers resonating, right? We've had, you know, I won't say who, but we had a celebrity approach this and say, I love the Mac and cheese so much. I want to do something forward facing. We can't move on the opportunity, which is why I won't, you know, kind of get into it once. But like, never in my life have I gotten someone reach out to me going, I want to do something forward facing with this Mac and cheese. 11:49 Eric Skae So seems to be going really well. You know, where it is and it's probably got maybe 10% distribution compared to say, where marinara is. 11:58 Daniel Scharff I love it, Eric. I also want to do something forward facing with Mac and cheese. It's so good. But I am not a major celebrity, unfortunately. But it's cool that actually, you know. 12:07 Eric Skae I just, I'm gonna do it with you. There's no, you know, let's go, whatever. 12:12 Daniel Scharff Keeps the samples coming, you know. But I did actually just post a story on our startup CPG Instagram, showing all the bottles and it was because of the Mac and cheese that made me like, oh, I gotta show this. People need to see this thing. It's so cool. So I believe that it will be really effective in just some incrementality for the brand also. And I've talked to pasta sauce buyers at some of the national retailers that everybody listening to this probably wants to get into. And it's exactly that they're saying to me. They're like, yeah, I mean, it's a getting to be a crowded space in the pasta sauce world. There are a lot of people who are coming in with really innovative stuff. And when I look at the lineups of stuff, I'm asking myself, what are you doing that's different? 12:49 Daniel Scharff You know, are you just throwing another kind of standard marinara or whatever? Are you doing some really interesting innovation? So I feel like that kind of innovation, like the Mac and cheese Alfredo that really hits and is delicious and can be a home run with consumers, will definitely help get you into even some of the doors you haven't managed to get yet, or just lots of additional shelf space. And also make consumers really take note who haven't looked at your brand yet. 13:13 Eric Skae Yeah, I mean, look, when it comes to innovation, you know, I don't know if the world needs a teriyaki marinara sauce. Right. Like, I just don't know if the world really needs it. And at some point, there may be an ollipop or poppy of the pasta sauce category. Who knows? Right? That's not where we're going. That's not who Carbone is. Like, you're not going to see that. So if you see stuff from us, it's going to be kind of, like, tried and true to a degree. Like, Mac and cheese is someone everybody knows. I'm not going to go out on a limb and try to create some flavor and hope not doing that. Right. It doesn't make sense to do it for this brand. It's not who this brand is. 13:48 Eric Skae But I see a lot of innovation coming into the category, and I'm happy about it. Right. Because I look at it, that's going to bring in a new consumer, it's going to bring in a younger consumer. That consumer is going to buy X, Y, Z brand. But then they may graduate to my brand. Right. Because they're premium pasta sauce buyers. So it used to be Rao's just pushing on the premium end of the category. Then it was Rao's and me, you know, now you got a lot of people pushing on that premium side of the category, in a category that happens to be premiumized. And, you know, at Carbone, like, the way I look at it, I'm delivering more growth than the five fastest growing brands behind me, which is pretty good. 14:22 Daniel Scharff That's what the buyers want to hear. I know that. So, yeah, I mean, you guys have the, you know, right. To play in that premium segment, because of the branding because of the quality of the product that I think gives you a pretty big advantage over a lot of brands that are probably trying to come in, grow as well. So that, I mean, I think you guys probably had a little bit of an easier time at it, but then also taking these bets on innovation, but innovation, that feels really classic at the same time, that probably means it also has a pretty big addressable market. So, okay, in my hand, I have one of the more classic flavors I think, that you guys have. So I have the tomato basil, which I think maybe is my favorite. 14:57 Daniel Scharff I always go back and forth on which one it is. But do you. Can you talk me through a tasting of it as I have a lovely spoonful? 15:03 Eric Skae What are you. What are you eating again? Is that. Did you say you. You flip marinara? Is that the tomato basil? 15:08 Daniel Scharff Tomato basil, yeah. 15:09 Eric Skae So look, I mean, the difference between our brand and any other brand that's out there. And Daniel, you're going to see me, because of tariffs, like, I'll go there. You may, at some point, you're going to see me start pushing on ingredients in a very big way, because I think it's what sets us apart from anybody else that's out there. So that product that you're eating right now, There's a number 10 can of tomatoes being opened up to make that product. There's 29 to 31 Pilates in each can. High speed can opener, doing it. We're not doing drum tomatoes. We're not do. If someone gets me a drum without citric acid that tastes as good As a number 10 can, I'm all over it. We're chopping onions right on site. We're mincing garlic right on site. 15:49 Eric Skae But for our basil, we're hand stripping basil right on site. That's what's going into that product. You know, a couple other people that are doing it in the category, but very few, like you have the cleanest, closest thing that you're going to get to what you would make at home. 16:04 Daniel Scharff That's what it tastes like. It just, it's so tomato forward, but in the way that reminds you of eating, you know, actual fresh tomatoes. That, that it's really cool. 16:15 Eric Skae One thing I really want to do, and I just haven't had the opportunity to do it yet, I want to get a video of Mario cooking his sauce in the carbon kitchen and then a video of our sauce being made in our production facility. And you are really going to see pretty much the same thing like you were going to See, my dog behind me is doing a little cameo. I'm sorry. 16:35 Daniel Scharff That's okay. 16:36 Eric Skae My. 16:36 Daniel Scharff My dog is also next to me and watching me with this tray full of Carbone jars as well. She's really interested. And if I might leave it unattended for a second. 16:45 Eric Skae This is a really fresh process, and it takes over an hour to cook. So, like, onions are cooked in olive oil for 18 months before you see, onions are cooked, you know, for 18 minutes before tomatoes hit. And those tomatoes are being opened up in number 10 cans, and they're being poured into a very small kettle compared to, like, a ragu Bertoli, you know, some of the other what I call processed sauces, they have a completely different type of cook process. So it takes a long time. It takes an hour to make this product. Like, you know, and honestly, it saves you an hour and a half. That's what it does. And if you were to go out and buy every ingredient to make your own sauce, you're probably pretty close on price. 17:24 Daniel Scharff This, the four cheese one that I'm having now, it tastes like if I had really good pasta, put the sauce on and put on a bunch of cheese on top of that. Like, I loved having it, like, when I was. 17:34 Eric Skae That was. That was. Now, when you're eating that right out of the jar, it's probably a little grainy. When you actually cook that down and you add the pasta, you have something really special with that sauce, just because then the cheese kind of melts and it, you know, melts together the different. You know, the different types of cheeses that are in there and end up with a really special meal that makes you feel like you cooked for a long time to get there. 17:57 Daniel Scharff Okay. So I've also. I've got the pizza sauce, and then I tried the spicy piece pizza sauce, which is pretty spicy. 18:03 Eric Skae A little hot. 18:05 Daniel Scharff Yeah, it is. It gets you. And then I've got the spicy vodka sauce, because my favorite dish at Carbone is the spicy vodka penne. Right. 18:13 Eric Skae Yeah. So we work hard on that. Right. And I think, you know, I could probably say we're the first brand to ever say, hey, you got to add your own cream and butter to get there. But it was because we had. That recipe in particular, has been written about more than any other recipe in Carbone. It's been tried. You know, everybody's tried to knock it off. Like, you've got everybody's version online. And it's interesting. This is kind of what made me do this. I put spicy rigatoni in the search engine before I signed my agreement on October 29th of 2020. So five years ago, I'm like, the first five pages on Google were Carbone. I didn't mention Carbone. I just wrote spicy rigatoni. Right. You know, so they're known for that dish. It's photographed. 18:51 Eric Skae So we really had to get as close to that restaurant taste as we possibly could. And the only way I could do that it was you got to add your own cream and butter. 18:59 Daniel Scharff Well, that seems fair. And also, I just love that dish. And also, when you go to the restaurant, it definitely. It does not break the bank to get it. Also, so you can go and experience the goodness of Carbone, Most importantly, get the focaccia bread as well. And also it's one of the more affordable dishes. So if you have basic taste buds like me and you're going to Carbone, you're in luck, because there are way more expensive things that you could order there. But it's just a simple classic. And, yes, I love going there. So back to the business side a little bit, now that we've done the. The full dive into these delicious jars. So can you tell me a little bit about how you've been scaling the business to keep up with all of the increased demand? 19:37 Daniel Scharff So how are you growing your team and your infrastructure to support all the growth? 19:42 Eric Skae You know, round pegs and round holes is the way I look at it. We're at 35 people. I never wanted to be at 35 people. I like running small, lean teams. That's. That's what I like to do. But having the right people in place and a good mix of someone you know, and trust versus new energy that you don't know and trust that's bringing in, you know, you don't know, and you don't know them well enough to trust them yet, but you develop that trust. But they bring in different ideas and they bring. Bring in a different energy. So. So I've got a core team that kind of knows me, knows how to work with me, and they know how to scale, which is important. 20:13 Eric Skae And then I've got a lot of, you know, other folks that have come in and bought in new ideas and energy and so on and so forth. So the balance is there. We're constantly trialing co Packers. We want to make sure that we have the capacity, you know, we're qualified in multiple places where we have the ability to. We have a primary, but we have secondaries that are qualified, you know, kind of went down the same Ramp. We have one with Alfredo and we like them. And I believe that's where we'll stay. But I will trial a couple other people in case because you need some redundancy. You just never know what happens. So staying on top of that is very important for a long time. And it was very hard to get ahead of it. 20:48 Eric Skae Like thinking about it now, I got like 10 weeks inventory on the floor. I remember in the beginning where I'd be calling the packer going, I need you to switch from marinara to arrabbiata, because I'm out of stock on that. Like, and that was every week. The juggle was happening constantly. The juggle's not happening as much anymore. Where it happens is when I get like a special order, like a Costco order, for example, and I've got to assemble two packs and now all of a sudden I'm taking some line time for a few days. You know, that's where it gets tough. And we've got to be really planned. But like, we seem to be very ahead of it from the production and sourcing standpoint right now. 21:21 Daniel Scharff And so as obviously you're not going to be doing all of the hiring by yourself for every role. You know, you're building out teams. But do you have any approach to hiring about like specific qualities that you really like to see and just about anybody or a specific kind of culture you want to build, or do you really just go with tried and true people that come through your network and, you know, they've been crushing this for a long time? 21:44 Eric Skae No, no, I love bringing in people. I love like hiring gratitude and training skills. I really do. You get the right person and they come in, they bring energy, they bring ideas, they'll make mistakes. Who cares? You know, that mean like the way it goes. I like energy. I like people who, you know, are focused and you know, when you meet someone, you can kind of tell, you know, what kind of energy they're giving off when you're, you know, when you're interviewing them and so on and so forth. And I just like people who are driven is really what it comes down to. And that's important. Like, I'm a growth junkie, I'll admit it, right? Like, you know, I had the good fortune of starting my career working for someone. 22:21 Eric Skae I was a distributor, sold that business and went to work for Arizona at a time where it went from zero to 500 million. And I like never wanted to leave growth after that. I just wanted to be involved in high growth companies. And was like, that's been my career. So love growth. So I need people who can run and they have to have a certain energy to do that. A lot of people can't survive in growth companies. 22:41 Daniel Scharff I like how you say that. And I think that's definitely something that I always like with people because I mean if somebody just has good energy and a lot of it, yeah, they can go make mistakes, but they're going to be trying their hardest and coming up with cool stuff. And they're very wonderful to work with and try to also coach them and train them to use their energy in the right way. And these are the kind of people who will just, you know, run through a brick wall for what you're working on if they really believe in it. And that kind of energy you can grow a brand with, right? 23:11 Eric Skae No, and that's like I read a post from John Porker recently about, you know, kind of developing that level underneath your direct reports. And like I took that to heart and I tried to like take our top priorities to six the other day and I stopped at 31 and I know I can, I know I can consolidate and collapse at 31. I want kind of stream of consciousness to get everything down on paper. One of my opportunities is I suck at process, right. So, and I have a great team. So tactically we just get stuff done but like there's no deadlines being set and things that I know I need to do to go from where I am today to be the billion dollar brand that I know we are. Right. So that's starting to happen now. 23:50 Eric Skae So I've got these down things down on a paper and I did take the first like kind of five most important ones and I assigned teams and I put my. Every leader of those teams is not a direct report for me. I want them learning. And these are things about how are we dealing with tariffs. You know, there's some opportunity in warehousing because of our size now. Right. Like what, how do we look at that? What can we do? You know, those type of things. So those are projects that I'm putting my non reports on because I really want them to learn. I want them to be involved in that process. 24:21 Daniel Scharff And can you talk to me a little bit about how you're funding all this crazy growth that you guys have? I mean obviously capitally and capital intensive. It sounds like you're being pretty smart on the inventory, but how do you make sure you have all the money you need to support all of this inventory and all the accounts, you know. 24:35 Eric Skae Between our initial raises, which were, you know, all in, we have one outside investor that from the beginning, from day one, between them, major food group. We funded the business ourselves to this point with a credit line. And I don't anticipate having to go out. It's been a highly efficient use of capital at this point. For every dollar that's been invested, we're getting like four bucks out of right now, which I think is all. That's a major win. But I don't believe I'll have to raise any more money unless we determine if my board ever said, eric, can we grow even faster than a hundred percent? We can because we're in 25, 26,000 doors. And this is an awareness game now, right? It's an awareness and convert is where it's at. 25:16 Eric Skae So I could make a case that we could go spend a bunch of marketing. Marketing and grow faster. But sure, you build the right consumers and I'm not sure you build the right brand with that. So I don't see myself doing that. But, you know, could be the case. But, you know, I think that's the gift that I had. I had a great brand in the carbon brand. I had great investors in the fact that, you know, I don't. It's a family office and it's major food group. They're all younger than me. I'm the oldest. I'm the oldest guy here. I'm turning 60 do in October. I have the energy that I have in a third in my 30s, but I actually am working harder than I did in my 30s still. It's just. But I'm the oldest guy here. 25:51 Eric Skae No one's in a rush, which I think is great because it gives me opportunity to see this through. And like, when I took over the RAO's position, I had a goal of being number one in pasta sauce and unfortunately was forced to sell that company because of a shareholder. I was bought in because of a shareholder battle. It's number one. I wasn't there when it happened. That's. That's sad, right? This brand has that type of feel to me that this can be the number one brand in the category just going to take years. That's not something you make happen in a day. 26:20 Daniel Scharff I love hearing that. And congrats on staying so efficient. I'm sure that your one outside investor is very happy and maybe even wants to keep it that way. So I doubt they'll come too fast asking for a lot more growth than you guys already have at the pace that you are. So what is your day to day then? Like at this point you guys are growing fast. You obviously have built out all these different points of distribution but you have to look at all the different parts of the business. And I really relate to you being not so process oriented because I'm naturally not that way either. But I'm trying to get better at it. So what are you doing at this point in the stage of the business on a day to day basis? 26:53 Eric Skae It's something different every day. I'm involved in every aspect of this business. Probably to a fault, right. I probably have to kind of back off in some areas. But you know, two weeks ago I was in Chicago to see KE and Arkansas to see Walmart, flew to New York to see, you know, Nassau Candy. And you know, I was at those calls. I'm going to a meeting in the Midwest next week because there's some cooking involved and our chef is preoccupied with something else. And I know I'm one of the best cooks out of my group. I don't know if I'm the best, right. There's other cooks that work with us that are good. But like this is a big customer, we have to cook. So I'm going to be there and I'm going to be in my apron. 27:33 Eric Skae So I'm in the production facility at times like Daniel for the first year I taped it every batch before it was allowed to go in a job. And we did 187,000 cases. And I would tell all your startup people have that level of commitment in the beginning at your co packer, really have that. Don't just say it, don't make it a story, no bs. And you will find things, you will catch things. In the beginning you might be with a smaller co packer that's going to try to cut corners, right. And if you're not there to watch that, they will cut corners. So be there, be on top of it, make sure your product is the best. 28:08 Eric Skae And it's what you, what you said it was going to because at the end of the day it's going to a consumer and a brand is all about trust and you need to have that trust. Right. And that's I think what we've delivered on. And you asked earlier why we're growing. I think that's why I think people are starting to really trust us as a brand. 28:25 Daniel Scharff I really like that comment about being so active with the coman, being there for a lot of the runs, trying the product. I just don't have as much experience doing that, do you? Have you seen ways specifically where they could cut corners, like things that you could really watch out for steps in the process or the ingredients or like how they batch things. What, what are some of the ways that they could actually do that? 28:47 Eric Skae You know, I mean, just. I'll give you an example of a packer that I don't work with anymore, just to give you an idea. So you had a. He had a line go down when he was running my product. He had onions already chopped. He put them into a barrel. They went into a cooler. Well, the next day when he went to run and he tried to use those onions, if I was not there, I would not have caught that. What happens when those onions are sitting there? Well, all of that kind of onion water, for lack of a better understanding way to say it, is going to the bottom so that onion doesn't have the flavor that it would. Right. And just that little thing would make your product, like, would it taste bad? 29:22 Eric Skae No, but it'd be a little flat compared to what it would be. And I don't want a consumer to get something a little flat. So, you know, if I wasn't there, that would have happened. So that's just one small example. You know, there's probably a million other examples and every product's different, so I'd have to do it. But it is an around ingredient, you know. Do people like hand stripping my basil? No, but if I'm not inspect, and if I'm not inspecting, are they going to try to use iqf? Maybe. Right. And I'm not. I'm not anti iqf, you know, in. In that tomato basil. It's the one I use a little IQF in because. Because I couldn't be kosher if I didn't. There's a limit of fresh basil, believe it or not, with the orthodox unit. 29:56 Daniel Scharff I gotcha. And I. I mean, I really appreciate the commitment to it just being the best that it possibly can be. And as good as it should be all the time. Because if it's one of those things, like loyalty, Right. It takes a long time to build up, but it can be lost immediately. And it really just takes one person getting a jar once where they're like, oh, this, like, maybe isn't as good as I remember. And they don't understand that there are different batches of things and that the product if even like longer shelf life, if it's older and that it could taste a little bit different. Consumers don't know that they're just like, is what the product tastes like. And, oh, okay, maybe, like, maybe I don't need this as badly as I thought I needed it. Something like that, Right. 30:29 Daniel Scharff Which I feel like a coman is not going to be as preoccupied with as you, the brand owner who is absolutely obsessed with the consumer experience every time. 30:38 Eric Skae Right. And, like, if you think, you know, I mean, just layer on that about how seriously we take this every single month. I meet with Mario Carbone and Rich Tuisi, and we taste our marinara every month against a controlled sample. That's the perfect marinara to make sure that we're on specific. Like, I want them to do it because they've got a different palette than me. Right. Rich will taste things that I couldn't taste. In particular, he's, you know, I spent a lot of time with Rich Teresi Development, who's Mario Carbone's partner. And. And, you know, we'll pick something up and I'll go, wow, I did. You know, once he says it, I'll pick it up, but not until he says it. 31:11 Eric Skae So we're constantly tasting that, and it's a really an R and D meeting every month where the three of us get together, we go through whatever we're developing, taste it, see if it's there. But we always make it a point to taste a marinara, and generally, we'll taste a competitor's marinara as well, at the same time, just to see, you know, what. What's out there. We'll pick a different one most times. Sometimes it's always the number one, because that's who I'm pushing against. 31:35 Daniel Scharff One thing you were talking about before, just when you're talking about how you got the idea to do this, how you approach the Carbone team and got it going, it just seems like such a good idea, you know, like. And I mean, I know that's not all it takes, right. It takes somebody like you who knows how to then actually go and grow the brand and execute it and get it into the distribution and scale with the right partners, all of that stuff. But I did kind of wonder, did you have any other ideas like that, or if there's a brand out there wondering, oh, like, should I look at some, you know, whether it's restaurant or an athletic brand or anything like that? 32:07 Daniel Scharff Do you have any suggestions for people for how they could even dream up some of those kind of partnerships or any even that you kind of think like, hey, you're not going to do them, but somebody else should Maybe take a look at it. Anything you can. Give some, give people some ideas. 32:18 Eric Skae Well, to tell you the truth, I'd love to say I was so brilliant that I came up with the idea of doing carbon. And I'm not. Jordan Gaspar from itself actually introduced me to Mario and I had never thought about doing another pasta sauce. Like I just been. But I think there's a lot of categories out there. I think you gotta be very smart and I think you gotta be strategic about how you do it. So like, is the category premium really important? Unless you're a lower end brand and that's what you intend to be. So I think you just got to look category by category. Like if I had time and I don't. Time is not something I have, I would go through every single aisle in the store and I would say to myself, what needs disruption? 32:58 Eric Skae There are a lot, I mean there are a lot of categories that still have not been disrupted, right? So I'd start there and then if you wanted to team with a brand because you didn't want to go down the brand thing, then look at who's doing something really interesting there. That's got a hollow right. You need to have that follow. But no matter what, there's no such thing as like instant success. I remember calling you on a phi when I was launching this and I'll call them out and the buyer knew me, right? Like this is someone who knew me from rails. And they said to me, eric, I've got seven restaurant brands sitting on my desk right now. Why do I want to take yours? Like, but in a negative, like, you ain't getting in here. 33:36 Eric Skae And I literally had to go, and I never do this. And early on I had to go above that buyer that when it's nor the buyer said, and go to some relationships I have and say, look, I'm not being treated fairly here. I've got a background that you should at least have a conversation with me. Don't just tell me you got seven restaurant brands. So you know that's where it's going to be no matter what concept you come up with, right? Because not everybody's going to know Carbone or whatever one you pick. But you know, you're seeing it in ice cream. You're seeing a lot of ice cream concepts come to life, you know, and grow. I don't know if it's at the scale, but there are definitely categories where you can go out and pick someone's name and kind of build it. 34:15 Eric Skae I mean, you know, the one that's going to be coming to the US pretty soon. I think that interests me because of the category is Jim Khanna, your buddy. That's one that was smart, right? That was a smart play. You know, who knows what Indian's going to scale to in the us but we know it's going to scale to something. It's not just going to, not going to decline. 34:31 Daniel Scharff Yes, that's, he's doing a great job. I saw he just got into all the Sainsbury's, I think across the UK also. So that brand is definitely going to be coming into the U.S. i'm sure in a major way at some point. 34:43 Eric Skae At some point. Like I don't know what his plans are, but I'm just saying, like that was just a, you know, you asked for an example. That's a very smart play. Yeah. 34:50 Daniel Scharff So. And, and you mentioned about going over the buyer's head. I've done that in different scenarios as well, which sometimes actually is enough to get it kind of jump started. But also it can be a little tricky then to manage the relationship back again with that buyer who's like, you did what? Like you went over my head. They don't always love when you do it, but sometimes, honestly I really know I would. 35:11 Eric Skae You know, for your startup CPG people, I would advise, never do it, work with your buyer. This was a particular case I was launching and I needed to get into DCs and I was like, all right, I got to move on this, you know, and I didn't have that big anchor that this particular distributor was looking for yet, you know, knew I'd get there eventually, but I didn't have them yet. But you know how that goes. 35:32 Daniel Scharff I know what you're saying and I kind of agree, like, yeah, don't do it unless you have to look, if. 35:38 Eric Skae You absolutely have to, because you hit a stone wall, you got to do it right. What could break at that point. But then you're right, you got to go navigate back to that fire. So, you know, we're at a point where we are having some meetings with folks that are above our buyer, but now it's because we've built to that point. Yeah. And then, and then we're not pushing for them. They're coming to us saying, hey, let's look at a three year strap plan type of situation because they're seeing significant growth. 36:05 Daniel Scharff That is great. But then you also never know that buyer, in, like, 10 years is now the final boss buyer at that desperate account you're trying to get into. 36:13 Eric Skae I'll use one person's name, and I won't use the other. But there's a guy outdoor, his name Chris Pajuc. Chris and I work together at both Fresh Samantha and Naked Juice. And at Naked Juice, he got upside down with a buyer at a chain, I won't say what. And that buyer just stonewalled them every which way. All of a sudden, that buyer was on the other side. And I got a call from Chris, and this had to be 10 years after were working with each other, and he's like, you would never guess who had to sit across the desk with me. You know, it was. I think Chris ended up taking it in, but I think he made it hard for me. 36:45 Daniel Scharff It's so funny. And I think you really. The longer you're in this industry, which, okay, I've been in CPG now for 12, 13 years. The more you appreciate that. Well, things change a lot. And relationships here are everything, and they last a lifetime. And people who are doing something today may be doing something very different later. And you never know when it's like, oh, my gosh, like, that person who I treated really well is actually now, like, in a major buying position, or hopefully not the opposite, where you're like, oh, I did not give that person a lot of time. And now they actually are very influential in a way that, you know, can impact me. But I'm sure I know you've seen that through your career. 37:19 Eric Skae Like. Like a buddy of mine used to say to me, CPG is like a deck of carts. Same cards, it just getting shuffled around. And some people go from being, you know, the two to the king. So you just got it. You got to be careful. 37:33 Daniel Scharff All right, well, on that note, I am going to wish royal flushes for everybody and that the cards line up the way that you will. And just one, I guess, one question just to close on. So, you know, you. You obviously have done this a bunch of times, and you have a great playbook and a lot of instincts, and you just have a probably more sophisticated understanding of how to grow a brand and how the distribution game really works. But just if you can give a little bit of advice, let's say, to an early brand who doesn't have the benefit of all your relationships and experience, you know, I suspect you'd say, yeah, if you're growing without as much to go with as. 38:10 Daniel Scharff As you guys had to start, you it sounds like you might still recommend a similar kind of playbook, which is focus on a region. Make sure you're doing really well in those accounts. But any other tips that you would give to people in terms of channel strategy or where to focus your team or sales efforts or marketing in just those early years? 38:26 Eric Skae Yes. Stay single, channel if you can. If you've got to go dual because you're online, go dual. Make sure it's in your own backyard. Be able to walk into the stores that you're working on. I see too many people going, I live in Peoria, but I'm going to launch in L. A. Yeah, good. Good idea. Right. You know, that to me would tell me, like, when, early stage, say, would you invest in me? Well, what's your plan? Well, I live here and I'm going to launch over there. No, I'm not that. Stay in your own backyard as much as you possibly can or as close to your production facility where you're willing to spend the time where you can be and keep your costs as low as you possibly can. So as close to the production facility to me makes a lot of sense. 39:02 Eric Skae Keep your freight costs low, keep everything low so you have that money to put back in. And really try to build a data story and don't BS yourself. Like, honestly, just don't. Don't tell yourself stories. You have to really look at the mirror and have an honest conversation with yourself about how your brand is doing all the time. Because we tend to be ourselves. Find people around you who are honest with you. I have a couple of innovation items coming out. I send one to my brother because guess what? He will beat the hell out of me if he doesn't like it. He's a good home cook. But I'll hear real, and that's what I want to hear. I want to hear real. I don't want people telling me, you know, I got the greatest thing in the world. 39:39 Eric Skae So you just got to like, really be truthful with yourself as to where you are. I've done it once and I. And it cost me. When you have that success, like, and things are going and you've got the units per store per week and you're ready to ramp. Don't ramp until you have the checkbook to ramp. Right. I've done it and I've said, oh, I'll be able to continue to ramp. And then 08 happens. You never know what's around the corner. So just make sure that you're really confident that you've got the capital to continue to scale once you have that little bit of success. 40:09 Daniel Scharff I love that all of that resonates with me. And I've been at those kind of companies also that everyone's just rallying around this story of growth. And the same story you're trying to tell to investors about this unlimited up into the right kind of trajectory, you're also just convincing yourselves that it's happening internally as well. And if there is a reasonable naysayer, they get pushed out and that's the person who actually had the right production forecast, you know. So I really appreciate it. Okay, Eric, well, thank you so much for coming back on. I look forward to doing the next episode when you're at a billion and have some more lessons. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. 40:49 Daniel Scharff I really appreciate just your willingness to come and share all of your experience with the community and it is really a joy to watch all of your success and get to enjoy these products. So thank you again from me and the whole team. 41:03 Eric Skae Appreciate you having me here. And if it's the one thing I miss, being so full on and kind of in the lifestyle right now of what I'm building is helping earlier stage companies is one of my favorite things to do and I just don't have the time that I did in the past. So hopefully this does help and reach a lot of people. 41:19 Daniel Scharff I appreciate that about you and it really is true because I was one of those people who just reached out to you. That's how you and I got to know each other. Is. I just heard up on LinkedIn once like, hey, you have a cool career. Do you think. Could you just tell me a little bit about it? Because that's the kind of thing that I want to have and you were really nice and we're happy to get on a call with me. 41:35 Eric Skae Yeah, hard for me to do as much these days, but. But it's good. 41:39 Daniel Scharff Yes, I, I can definitely appreciate that. You got to be busy doing the thing, not telling everyone about how you're doing it. 41:45 Eric Skae Exactly. All right, well, listen, thank you. 41:47 Daniel Scharff All right, thank you. Bye, everyone. All right, everyone, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. If you loved it, I would so appreciate it if you could leave us a review. You could do it right now. If you're an Apple podcast, you can scroll to the bottom of our startup CPG podcast page and click on write a review. Leave your company name in there. I will try to read it out. If you're in Spotify, you can click on about and then the star rating icon. 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