hello and welcome to food put in our tasty tales of climbing up and down the gor me food chain and i'm really thrilled to have our new segment here with tisha agger ball who is the chief founder chef and runner of three pm bites so it's great to have you here with us today and to tell all of our viewers about literally your journey your path your road as a runner of how you've come to be so far with the success of your company so welcome to food when our welcome here in being here thanks for having me oh it's such a pleasure and as you know i've had a chance to work with you a bit with your products and see some of your progress and have a sense of where your future lies so it's very exciting to bring your story today so why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about what was your inspiration for starting three pm bites how they came to be and when i met my husband ok and how many years ago was that ten years or ten years ago and you know i was never an athlete i could barely run a mile i know i would  is i don't know how to run a mile and then i'm like you and i'm like oh god i have run this in for months and it was really you know i really wanted to prove a point to him because he used to rub it in my face and i'm like all right you know i'm going to  this so anyway it started from there and i'm sorry i have four months good with timelines like many people i joined running groups i joined fitness commune right then that's when i met a i just could not give up for was chocolates ok that's a lot of packets of chocolate so there's a lot of people in that boat you know i mean you know i grew up in a large indian family and be celebrated everything with like sweets chocolates cakes cookies guys like you name it we you know it's it's just something that i could not give up any i knew if i kept on eating like that it would not do any row with my i i was a non practicing chef that's what i would call my eyes but i thought all right you know i have this issue i have this problem where i just cannot give up my chocolates let me do something about it on my kitchen put my chef eat it not bad helping yourself first and then and then you know i had this opportunity to share this with a fitness community ok my friend and i were of and they opened doors for me they said that you know could you make these but our members they will appreciate it and then i started making it for them and it literally you know it just it just started from that and grew from there you know then i running again in march i mean i've had a little bit of a gap so i want to get back into them running two more in march good for you and i'm sure you're going to be feeling yourself with three pm bytes so  tell me was it always the shape that you wanted a bite size or were there other renditions or kind of the what was a process as you've kind of gotten now to this beautifully package product you know how did you incorporate the feedback that you got from some of your early adapters and and to know the right ingredient profile that really works not just for you but for others yeah you know it's been a process and you know one is customer feedback i've spoken to hundreds and hundreds of customers who were the past so many months and this has come to be now what it is after you know a lot of testing trial and testing with customers and getting their feedback it was always around shape because i right and yeah i mean over time you know i started with the peanut butter flavor because that is the most popular flea were you know it's it's more it's almost like a craving you know you it's a childhood memory  and yeah i know and just talking to more and more customers i would just ask people you know i'm going to i'm going to give you a bag can you do you have fifteen minutes to talk to me about what do you like about it why do you buy you know we  about the name three pm bites i mean you're talking about cravings in the afternoon but you get a lot of comments about the why did you call three pm bite me did you know any time of day or night really so i want people to hear you know three pm it's funny because a lot of people ask me it's not three pm like at three pm cell where true is three pm somewhere in the world yeah and the name really came about because three pm is the time when you crave when you have that craving you know right after lunch your energy tends to drop in and you have that creeping in that's when typically we don't make very good decisions you know we would  machine he would go for that cookie or the pounding of the chocolate and oftentimes we don't make that great decision then what happens is when it will be eat something that determines our productivities our focus for the rest already and three pm is a great time because you still have four five solid hours of things you can do whatever whether it's at work or home you do so many things and especially as an athlete you're training in the mornings you're training later in the evenings and you need that constant fuel whenever you drop correct and then it whatever you off the wagon once it becomes you know it becomes difficult so interesting so what are the flavors that you brought you said it's coffee peanut butter for our viewers let me put this in this direction so they get a frontal view so we've got three different types here i've had them all looking forward to little bite kind of like a trouble so and they're just really a perfect size to pop into one's mouth now what are some of the other key ingredients that are giving it that luscious texture as well really it's pretty much things that you can really find in a healthy pantry and you know a lot of a lot of customers told me that this is something that the used to make at home but then the they don't get the time and a lot of times you know it doesn't taste as good because just and say you know so i think it's interesting again it's a very nutrient rich nutrient dense just a couple kind of you know kind of take the bite off of hunger  and give you a little bit of energy and the other thing that is kind of really need about them is the portability of it and one of the things that we discovered you know originally you were taking these how to be refrigerated but honestly they don't need to be they have a good shelf life i think twelve months you said so yeah it was with corn of food lab and you know there were there were two there that amazing they're very helpful initially when  started selling them to customers i would tell them that this has to be refrigerated you know it's for the shelf life of two weeks and that's that's in my initial conversations with cornell that's what they thought as well but then when they did the testing they were like this is you know this is crazy this show steber and you don't really have to add anything because a lot of products out there that are like this that are shelf stable you have to add a president to it right the country and one of the things that they do for products is they do shelf life they do stabilisation tests they provide a variety of services for people who are creating food and beverage products to just find out you know how long will the product last its stability do they have to worry about microorganisms all sorts of things and in so working with clients it's actually one of the a very important step along the process when one is doing a food product is to make sure that you really understand what the shelf life this has caught forbid you don't want to get your customers sick you want to make sure you've got enough of a shelf life to give you some flexibility to as to where you're able to  place it into your product so maybe you could share with the audience just a little bit of your journey of being able to do that like some of the you know creating a food product there's a lot of moving parts to it a lot of things you had a literally run around and accomplish and you know everything from you know you did a whole revamp on your packaging and i was a little bit involved in that of orders that you chose to do that you know what was the right size getting to the right price point whatever it is some of the things you could share with our audience about some of your own trials and tribulations size of getting this product launches out the door well you know it's it's a journey it's always  always is as an entrepreneur or you just have to i think the key is really to listen to your customers mind who are your customers and who are the ones who appreciate your products right you almost have to keep your ego aside to just be so open about you know and there will be people who will come and see that you know i don't like this and you should be and you have to you know it's a hard decision sometimes because when people come to you and say you know there's something missing here maybe you should be a little more sweet and maybe a sugar or something should go in it and you have to go back to the bases why did you do this for zachary what was the color of your article and find the customers who are going to appreciate the products and not the ones that are ok with eating products and not looking at the ingredients in them because it's not for them you know especially for this product for me when i created this and the customers that i worked with to create this they were the ones who looked for all clean ingredients are again a great ingredient profile  the wanted to know where these ingredients where this product is coming from and that's obviously that it should taste amazing right and you will find the people who may not be as involved in when they pick something from a wending machine the and they are the ones who would not like you brought so anyways over time you figure out who your target market is who it who your customers are who's going to appreciate the products and yeah you know i think the key thing is one just really really talk to customers and you know that's one thing that i i try to do even now on a on a regular basis people who order your products can i get on a fifteen minute call i'm going to send you a box as a thank  you and just you know understand where did you what do you like about it you know well i think you're very smart that you've targeted your first core group of fellow athletes going to you know trusted by athletes across for l a fitness orange theory you know gold's gym like and i'm sure others have joined this listing already and to really kind of get a good sense that that's your core group and then from there you can do concentric circles kind of you know going out  so maybe you know the the look too it's really a very strong look you know the way you're packaging is with the the black the bold colors i mean your audience can see this here and then just take a look just really beautiful with wonderful call outs for all the things that you're talking about you know six grams of protein per bag have she had flax came up plant based gluten free organic it's got you know it's kosher so it's got wonderful actor buttes that although it's geared towards very healthy people want to very healthy diet it's got so many things that will start to appeal to those concentric circles growing them but yeah a lot of our customers that stately at these who want to eat exactly yeah exactly so tell us some more about some of the places that you have you actually never venturing beyond gems we actually were together at a tremendous trade show which is called expo east and of baltimore that was back in september and you participated in basically like a sub trade show that was part of it as well as the main trade show with the together and honestly i was i wasn't surprised by the amount of interest that you got from a number of key players in the industry everything from small companies individual shops to change that are interested and seeing that this really could fit a category of customers that they have and they service so maybe you could share a little bit of your experience of doing a trade show that a trade shows a lot of work and a big thing to do and honestly now it's leading you to some other opportunities that you're working on yeah you know i think when i when i started this our you know because our were people who go to james who are atlantic initially we just wanted to expand within the gym space and then what we learned was a lot of our customers started talking about when to get into stores you know it's just easier because at that time you would drop shipping yeah we really were literally driving around and taking these bags to them at five am in the morning and  show made a lot of people read a lot of interest so there are some opportunities i'm pursuing now we got into a few stores in the midwest green acres is one of them i'm also in a lot of specialty organic stores in new york city great chelsea tribeca talking to two distributers here in the north and now who have shown interest in the product and there are two more stores that the grocery chains type of stores that i'm posing but yeah i mean it really was you know getting into retail was really a very natural transition for us because you know our customers are people who are going to stores are buying you know vegetables and fruits and they would pick up those so to yeah you know retail is something that initially i hadn't planned but it's a natural transition and then recently got online because until we get into retail stores it's an easier way to do a nationwide distribution through amazon so we got on amazon rain at the market with customers because there were a lot of people i met at those trade shows and they were like oh we live in california and like you know we should to get a phone yeah we can but then it's so much easier because people are so used to buying stuff from amazon you're you're buying things like all right you know i want to buy three pm bytes and then you can just add a to your card and you know write directly to your home so that's why i lot of questions that i have taken it's just it's just a gradual natural transition based on the feedback that i received so yes so now you have like this kind of multi channel approach that you're starting to branch out into so what would you share with her audience about some of the i guess if you had to do it over again if there was anything you would change you know or think you know lessons or tidbits for  i don't know if i change anything ok i think one of the key things that i have learned in all the it over the past ten years and you know starting with this was the scott he's the owner of max of west windsor and you know talking to him i met him at a friend's place and and we started talking about this product and he was like you know want to something that our members would love ok can you can you bring it so it started from there and because i had that place to distribute this it was great because you know one i had customer write that i did a natural platform it was a natural product from the something to do so those were the people who appreciated something like this and you know i got to talk to a lot of people i would initially in the beginning it was like i would be there for four here could be as simple as making sure you connect with the right people at the farmer's market to have a booth that were there or it could be a store it could be a local specialty store in your town and just go ask them you know can i bring my products  having a distribution channel and when i say channel doesn't have to be a huge challenge it can be just that one store or that one channel one farmer's market where you can go talk to customers because a lot of this process this entire journey is very i treat them the more feedback you get the better you become you know where your product fits and why your customers would buy your product so i think that that's that's key and i don't think i would do anything different  and the reason i did that is the reason i had this approach now is all the failures of had in the past all the trials like you've read all the trials and things that i have done in  endgame for you what would be like for you the finish line you know of where you could truly you know you're you're running you're creating the skiff craze this company you're starting to see the growth happen starting to get some traction but you know it's a little bit down the road or eventually what would what would be like to dream of what you're able to do with the three pm bites if you thought of that yet so so so a couple of things you know i  to that community ok who who made me the runaround i am who made me fall in love with running rather and you know just i meet so many of them on a daily basis and it's  what i wanted to do was you know is even before i don't want to wait until i get big to be able to get back to what i started doing was currently we support five local athletes ok to have them are training for olympics twenty