welcome to fukin no r and another episode where i am really happy to have on board to amazing guests to share their story i have the founders of a natural vert with me an amazing granola with  some delicious twist which we're going to learn about so today i have wilczek a vil variant better known as chef v which is a lot easier to say who is the founder of natural vert as well as his partner  crime i should say sean crawford who joined the company shortly thereafter so welcome to supernova are and looking forward to having your share your story with our viewers today and learn a little bit more about your success your trousers and tribulations as well as what the future holds for you so welcome on board so thank you yes so i've had the pleasure vets getting to know you actually to the small business development center where you came to get some support and help at kind of a critical juncture for the company so what would you tell us a little bit about your journey i mean you're a chef by training and then you came up with this great idea and just to share a little and you know i you know work around certain foods and you know after graduating i decided to create a trade for myself which eventually turned into natural good so since then i've been you know on i would say  quest you know further explored the food industry and so far has been you know positive and hopefully i will continue to you know find different ways to consume food and you know enjoy it wonderful so why natural for so why granola so that's the big question here naturally i can said originated from you know the wanting to create a tree for myself so i noticed  that the food industry was very limited on options that were available and you know after you know doing extensive research i realized that it would be good to keep a balance between  you know it was more but challenging beginning because you know not having too much experience in the industry but you know going to school i was able to realize that signing great is put together and deftly create some competitive industry and we've spoken about that and that all the different factors that come into play that doesn't make it an easy task to succeed but you were playing your very methodical and you're very thorough in your approach that is putting you on a good footing so so you know while we talk a little bit about what you brought to the table today the different flavors and skews and kind of why why these flavors and all that kind of a stuff and then word and then audience we're going to get to sample this stuff and munch and then we're all hell also share some of the places that you can find it you know not only online but  right currently one must talk about now you have a whole entree or array of farmers markets that you've used as a good platform and we do as well as some stores maybe talk a little bit even now about where folks can find you well typically we do t farmers markets ok or of a spring summer fall right sort of thing so being a winner right now we're pretty much just gearing up for that hit a number of markets through north central and south jersey off the top my had hoboken mation everywhere that were available so if you really wanted to create a pro and just check out our website our i would be the best way to go about that ok now it's also interesting you're doing the retail so i went to and also i want to touch base because this is interesting for viewers to you're doing a strategy that's not just a pure retail play with your product but you're also doing food service course and in some ways that potentially could be a larger revenue stream for you at some point then the retail because each one has their pros and cons and difficulties your challenges but let's first talk before we jump into that a little bit about i mean look at this beautiful packaging you actually recently did a revamp on your packaging  maybe want to talk a little bit about that because you even ventured so far as getting your packaging done in china and india for various reasons for cost efficiencies and things like that so maybe you could talk about a bit about the process that you knew you had a great product but you needed to dress it up better because like the visuals on products is about half the battle when it comes to selling something correct if you have you know bag with a big sticker right at the front that had all their relevant information right whole or coded based on whatever flavor you were getting and while that was good it wasn't doing the job entirely so we looked at expanding  but lettering the bright colors and we came to after many many iterations this current design that we have right now it's really beautiful really pops i really love your audience if you could take a look so why don't you tell sample and see what it will say what it tastes like so you know therefore we really need flavor profiles that you've chosen that can definitely a pill to a wide variety of folks and what i think it's airlines particularly everyone it have beautiful this packaging has with the circle kind of being very distinctive and so you can actually see what you're buying and then they have really have a nice story about what they're about on the back for me to be able to understand more of what the goodness inside of here and it's organic it's also certified organic so this is the retail and you know retail and we talked about this with other cast retail requires a lot of time and energy and often more marketing and sales support to be able to land the business so maybe you could talk a little bit about how that journey has been and then i want to segue into your food service and v are both food people so you know everything about making the little one but then we would have to teach ourselves a whole lot about you know the business side of retail and i find that the hardest part when it comes the retail operations trying to actually find spots me envy have spent many many days sitting in my car just driving around the just finding bagel shops convenience stores supermarkets which anywhere that using food and  stopping by and talking to them personally i find like keeping track of these companies and you know further follow up to decently easy but it's getting their foot in the door that's the tough part especially if i think there's a lot of other companies out there that aren't necessarily doing you know organically for granola but they are peddling their own you know version yes it is a competitive very competitive product line so let's segue into the food service because i think for you you're actually seeing some very nice early success with that and kind of being you know being able to create really a groundswell of business there as well as give you maybe some good ongoing revenue that can you some of the stuff that you're doing on the retail side and do some heavy whatever you want to share about that with the food service and potential clients or how you're approaching that and you know what does that mean from the food service because there's all these you know the yogurt shops or whatever you want to here and the thing is that's actually on trend very much so you're growing only in trend with this whole big growth of these say shops yogurt shops you  know there's an increasing number of exotic fruit that's coming to yad states and people are eating them up and we're actually a conference not to want to go in pennsylvania it was up and coming food oriented up in a start up conference and we met a fruits that i've never even heard of ok and yeah people just they want new stuff everything's been around for a while and they like that feeling of seeing something new and not knowing not much about it and just finding out you know basically  everything that you need to know about exactly so you're selling now i mean in bulk i mean that's a very different business models maybe explain to our audience a little bit about that because you've got the beautiful banks but then to sell these places and i say  the other superfoods in these stores are retail location and retail stores on the food service side it's a very different approach it is different distributors to you recently started to work with a  would have to we have to be a little delicate as far as how we go towards these restaurants because usually they have more direct relations with their suppliers and you know i was being you know coming it's a little distribution like you mentioned and you know those changes we're not too familiar with me as far as retail as we have a basic understanding of how you know the process goes with more before services seems that it's more on a macro things ok interesting personally i actually prefer both self the retail sales ok if only just because both sales i get to do what i do best and that's talk to people all right and i can go in there and i'm very good at extolling the virtues of our granola company why you should buy from us why we do what we do better than the competition ok when it comes to retail sales and operations i find that a lot more people are concerned more about the bottom line so how much we can get our product through and how much they can market out so they sort of just see the product whereas the people doing bulk operations they also see the product but they see the quality of the product and i think the quality as well as have applications and how to put to use in various recipes and things right and the format of that given establishment and you probably dealing more with people of your towards healthier eating and you know myself being twenty four or twenty seven you know we're encountering all these people that are at the same age group where in better believing sort of the same things that wear it and then it's sort of just like those two things are you know two feet right in the door already x so tell us you know let's segue a little bit so you know your story you know you've got these two ends of those business so for the next year or so where else you know what are you kind of looking for with your journey here or maybe maybe some the things that you've learned so far like les what are some of the key lessons learned and things that you know you need to do differently or better to kind of get to the next steps w and we use it as a pure air now and hence the flavor of the product so as a result it gives it a nice flavor nice texture which is a good thing and people find you know many uses for such as cereal ice cream w you're purchase an ingredient i notice that when you're when you're in a full production you have to be able to commit to a larger value and you know somebody agrees that we are using in our product it's when i first developed that particular flavor really wasn't ready to commit to dad i'm out so you know i actually had to you know go to retailers buy mangoes and you know take a short cut basically right afterwards which where we're at really you know if you waste too much when you're well you don't want telling your heart a whole lot of money tied up in a great while thing that we're facing exactly so that's one of the one things that i learned and you know not over purchase on especially if you don't have the demand yeah for the product yeah but besides that as far as operations we are in the process of expanding and you know these things that are  correlated with you know expansion as far as getting equipment funding and labor these things we're now used to in this part of the business owner these are things that we're learning from the day to day operation ok but as far as sells i'm sure sean can give us and put on the biggest thing that i think i've learned from doing sales is you can't take getting turned down personally because when i was first the more i can do it the more i realize like these people as much as they're saying no to me they have their own story that their own perspective that you know is influencing the decisions that they're making so it's like i could get mad or to be like well you know that happens but i just sort of rechannel into dana whatever feeling i might feel about getting turned down you know i got to put it right in the hitting another place right you know right know it's not for the faint of heart or you have to have a thick skin for sales and if you do and understand there's all these different factors that go into play by why someone says yes or no and then if they say yes then the real work begins to stay on that say the sales and the turns that are needed so actually this is one of things we talked about you know your vision so where you know you've got a good foundation and a good story but where do you see natural out for the packaging happened yeah well actually trying to be original began it didn't actually start off being what it is now it started off just as the idea of wanting to make something that would specifically pertain to vegan lifestyle right you know being organic free my partner itself is vegetarian i you know my skirt the line a little bit but there is a massive population that is be good and they don't really  expect with our evidence from our farmers markets that's like the number one question that we get is you know is our product weak and there actually is a huge argument going on from what i've seen anecdotally whether or not honey is because there are people out there that say you know it's not an animal product and as long as it's sustainably sourced and you know the be the mistreated then they could see it and then there are other people that just say ok you know honey knowing none of them and you know we can see the point to both sides so we were looking around trying to find how we could flavor  cannes taste exactly like i actually like a basic or no i'm not saying that i don't like our flavors but i do like to experiment a whole lot and i feel that the maple or the original be going to flavor with a bit of maple at the end does i had a sweetness leads into what i was going to say sure we would love eventually to start upgrading our product line we have plans for bars and cookies as well that we want to add and of course we have another twenty or so flavors in the workshops right now we're just waiting for the proper time to bring them out interesting and also when i say about the regional flavor is actually my personal favorite now because you know when i first or as i said when we first developed this recipe all of our products available on there and luckily we managed to get into amazon recently so writing a very product catalog and ongoing products had a lot of their to ok wonderful well i have to say it was a real pleasure to have you on our show today fuken or and being able to tell us a little bit about your successes trials and tribulations and i really say this sincerely i think you guys have a great future ahead of you you've been doing things in a very you know methodical well thought out manner and you're too smart young man with i think a really great future ahead of you so i'm so thrilled i was able to bring your story