Mafe Romer: Co-Founder of TOAST-IT

Episode 475

Mafe Romer, an entrepreneur with a deep passion for Latin American cuisine, wanted to build a company that was different. With her sister Coco, Mafe co-founded TOAST-IT and boy am I happy they did. We hear all about their story of bringing excellent Venezuelan food options with savoring flavors without the fuss to store shelves. You are going to love what she has to share and I am excited for you to hear all of her inspiration and lessons. Now on the #TheKaraGoldinShow.

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Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be, I want to be just want to make sure you will get knocked down but just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go Let’s go. Hi, everyone. It’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show and I’m super excited to have our next guest here we have Mafe Romer who is the co founder of TOAST-IT and if you have not tried TOAST-IT, you absolutely must. You may have caught an episode that she recently did on Shark Tank, which I can’t wait to hear more about that. But Mafe is an entrepreneur with a deep passion for Latin American cuisine. She actually is originally from Venezuela, and she decided with her sister Coco that they would co found a company bringing excellent venezuelan food options from savoring flavors, without the fuss to consumers, and ready to enjoy in just 10 minutes, and I’m super excited to have Mafe here with us today to share her story and all about her journey. And we’ll have all the info obviously in the show notes on how to get your hands on TOAST-IT but for now, let’s hear from Mafe. Welcome.

Mafe Romer 1:46
Hi, Kara, thank you so much for having me. Super, super

Kara Goldin 1:50
excited. And mafi actually also just delivered her first child a few weeks ago. So it’s so nice to be able to have you here and congratulations.

Mafe Romer 2:02
Thank you so much. Yes, it’s been a crazy, I would say a couple of months. But we’re super excited about what’s coming. And I’m very grateful. And that’s my husband says big Be careful what you wish for. Because you get you just might get it on the same week, our episode of Shark Tank aired and I gave birth on the same week. So that’s how crazy life is sometimes. That’s

Kara Goldin 2:25
so incredible. So two sisters decide that it’s time to bring great taste from their home of Venezuela to consumers. Fast forward to get on Shark Tank, you get a deal with a shark named Daniel. And can you start at the beginning and really share exactly how this all came about? Because I think I’m making it sound way too easy. Yes,

Mafe Romer 2:53
of course. So I’m originally from Venezuela, like you mentioned before, my sister and I moved to the States about eight years ago, to go to school basically and finding or to find better opportunities for ourselves because the company, the country was facing a big political and social crisis at the time. And so we moved here started, you know, studying and then eventually got jobs in corporate America, I started working at PepsiCo, which was a great job. And I stayed there for a few years and my sister got a job in the banking industry. I have always had a passion for food and Bev and for intrapreneurship. In general, our father was also an entrepreneur back home in Venezuela. And while we were, you know, having our you know, or working our full time jobs, my sister actually called me and was like, I have this great idea because we were sort of missing a little bit of the food that we grew up eating, or we were kind of immersing ourselves in the American culture so much and eating, you know, the American food, sort of like like bagels and toasted waffles and stuff like that, that were kind of missing the food that we grew up eating. And we both thought that this could be a good opportunity to solve a personal issue, but also an issue that we thought could be very common amongst immigrants or sons of immigrants and sons and daughters of immigrants that grew up eating food at home. And then while they had to move away from home, maybe they didn’t have the time to cook this food, right. So we started researching the market and seeing what was out there and we couldn’t find anything that was really similar to what we grew up eating, which was which was arepas. It’s a South American corn bread that you can eat throughout the day for you know, lunch, dinner, breakfast, whatever it is, you can fill it up with whatever you want or top it with your favorite feelings. And so while we discovered that there wasn’t anything really in the market that had that authentic flavor that we grew up eating or made with really great ingredients, which we as Latin Americans for are very used to in Latin America, a lot of people eat very organic food and food that’s made with really top shelf ingredients. And so, you know, we started researching the market and started, you know, experimenting with recipes in our own home. To make the story a little bit, you know, shorter, we both kept our jobs, but we started, you know, experiencing or experimenting with recipes, came up with the first, you know, iteration of the products and then launched from our own kitchen with just a website. We started promoting through social media, and, you know, sort of creating really creative content so that people, you know, would, you know, venture and try the product. As we started seeing that the product has was gaining a lot of traction. We decided to move to a commercial kitchen started applicate, you know, replicating to small retails in the south Florida area. And, you know, we kept getting traction and more traction and our repeat rates were really great. Especially I knew this, because coming from the CPG industry and working at PepsiCo was really noticing that our repeat rates and the traction that we were gaining, you know, we probably had something special in our hands. And then you know, started up replicating to larger retailers. And then got into Publix. They one day called us and said they wanted to introduce our products in over 500 stores. So we had to, you know, yes, we had to do that huge move from you know, operating out of a commercial kitchen, just hiring it for a few hours a week, to moving into a co packer and sort of industrializing the process somehow to be able to cope with the added volume. That’s when I decided to quit my full time job up until that time. Up until that point, it was pretty much working two jobs, crazy hours at night delivering boxed ourselves cooking a lot of it ourselves with some help. So that’s when I decided to quit and focus on the business full time. And you know, ever since we’ve started growing our retail footprint this year, we got into Shark Tank, we were selected to be you know, to pitch at Shark Tank amongst 1000s of entrepreneurs that apply every year, which was an incredible opportunity, we still can’t believe it happened. And that’s how it all happened we pitched in in June of this year and the episode air just just a few months ago.

Kara Goldin 7:29
That’s incredible. We’ll get back to that for sure. But I love that you made this decision to go and learn. I mean outside of university, obviously. But you went into Pepsi, I always tell people that going into any of these large companies, if you want to become an entrepreneur or not become an entrepreneur is such great training, what do you think was like kind of the number one thing you learned that really helped you to be able to go start your own company?

Mafe Romer 8:04
Well, I was actually very lucky because one of the jobs that I had at Pepsi was for a sort of a startup brand or a brand that they were trying to come up and trying to build from scratch. So it was a very special type of job because I was wearing several hats at the same time because it was operated sort of as a startup but with Pepsi funding and Pepsi processes, etc. and Pepsi talent, of course. So I was able to learn a lot of things from that position, just wearing different hats, what needs to be created, the processes and everything that needs to be in place since the beginning to be able to launch your product and scale when the time comes. where to spend your money and where not to spend your money as a small brand. And we’ll talk about that later too. But it’s from my experience, it takes a different skill set to grow brand with a lot of resources that say that versus building a brand from scratch with very limited resources but it’s still a you know, an important part of educating yourself in terms of what needs to come first where you need to spend your money first. And then you know, a lot of other things I grew I learned a lot from my co workers to be honest because I worked in finance and revenue management primarily but I’ve worked very closely with my co workers in marketing and PR and supply chain. I even was very lucky to go and visit co Packer so learned a lot of unit economics and working with CO packers, how marketing influences how you were able to grow brand, etc, etc.

Kara Goldin 9:44
That’s incredible. So how would you describe TOAST-IT to anyone who has not tried it? So

Mafe Romer 9:52
I would describe it as authentic Latin American food that’s really convenient that you can toast or heat up or just five minutes in your kitchen. So if you’re a Latin American of your or of any other nationality but are interested in Latin American food, but you would not venture to cook it yourself because maybe you don’t have the time or you don’t feel confident enough to cook it yourself. You can grab one of our products and just heat it up and five minutes and you’re ready to go. We have four products currently in our portfolio we offer at AFS, which is what I mentioned before corn, corn meal bread that Latin Americans usually eat throughout the day, and they’re great for filling up with anything you can think of are topping them. And it’s sort of like a substitute to bread only made with three ingredients like which are corn, water and salt. And then we have our cassava arepas, which are made with cassava, which is such a great ingredient, it’s very popular to states and that saves, and it’s also grain free. And on the bonus, which is South American cheese bread, made from tapioca flour, and South American white cheese, also made from really top shelf ingredients, and really good for

Kara Goldin 11:10
you. That’s incredible. And they’re super, super yummy. So I’ve tried all of them. And they’re, they’re quite excellent. So congratulations on the launch. And, and so when you were trying to figure out, you mentioned you had quit your job after you had gotten at launch, what was it that really gave you the confidence to know that this was going to work? Right, that you were had to just go give it a shot? Was there one thing? You know, obviously the metrics, but what what was it that kind of like made you think, Okay, I’ve, whatever, doubled sales, I’ve 10x That, you know, whatever it was that I’ve got consumers that are writing to me saying, Thank you, reorders, what was that one thing that said, you know, what, I have to go do this? Well,

Mafe Romer 12:03
it’s, it’s, it’s really a combination of things. It’s never an easy decision to make, as I’m sure you’re you can also, you know, relate to compute coming from a steady job with a steady pay, etc, benefits, and long launching into something that you don’t know how it might turn out, even with the you know, successful and versus failure rates that you see every every day for, you know, for startups. But what I saw was, first of all those repeat rates, we were seeing a lot of our cons of our consumers coming back and saying they love the products, rating them really high. We had this sort of like an app that you can install on your website so that people can rate your products, and they were all rating them very high, leaving us really good reviews. But also I was seeing from the retailer’s when we came and presented the brand. They were telling us to our face to buyers, you know, you have something really special in your hands. This is something that we’ve never seen before, it’s really refreshing. We’re sort of tired of seeing the same players come and pitch the same products to us. And I think you’ve really tapped into into something special and something that’s innovative. And so that sort of gave me confidence to say I think this can really work. I don’t think it ever in your head is like, yes, this will be an instant success. I’m 100% sure that this will work. But you sort of have a hint or I guess a hunch in your heart that it might work. If you put in if you put in the work and everything that’s needed.

Kara Goldin 13:40
Definitely. So you started in Publix? And and how did you ultimately get the expansion? Then what was the sort of driver behind that? Did you feel like you had to go out and and start pitching it more and more to other retailers? Or were you doing direct to consumer? Were you? Did you wait until you took it on Shark Tank? I mean, what what was it that kind of helped you to really expand the brand?

Mafe Romer 14:14
So I was we were very so my sister actually has a master’s in data science. So we from the beginning, we’re very much focusing a lot in consumer analytics. So pulling a lot of that from our DTC sales and also seeing, you know, from that first expansion of public scene, what was working and not in terms of in geographical terms, right and, and sort of trying to draw some demographic conclusions from that. And so we were sort of noticing and trying in drawing who our consumer was or target consumer was. When we were actually able to pin that out. We were like, Okay, let’s figure out from a geographical stand. Due geographical standpoint, where our target consumer is okay. In the US, and see where we can extend that theme that this is not a, you know, this is a sort of like an ethnic lash, you know, Latin American food, it’s not like we can go out and say we’re going to expand this nationally everywhere because it is sort of niche in that sense. So that is sort of the work that we did to understand, you know, where are your target consumer is from a, you know, geographical standpoint and where we can expand next. And that’s what then the doors that we started knocking basically. So, if we saw that, you know, our target consumer was very focused on Georgia, and I’m just making an example, we started knocking on the doors of retailers located there, and trying to introduce our product there, because we were like, you know, this product is gaining traction, consumers love it, but maybe they don’t have access to it yet. They don’t have easy access to it. So let’s just expand and make sure they’re able to find it wherever, wherever they are. You

Kara Goldin 15:57
mentioned that your product is frozen. And so can you explain to anyone who is not used to dealing with frozen items, how difficult is that from a not just manufacturing standpoint, but also from a supply chain overall, and shipping and all of those factors,

Mafe Romer 16:18
it is a little bit more challenging, I would say that something something that’s shelf stable for several reasons. So starting from production, it, it has added cost because you have to store a frozen, you know temperature, which add cost to your to your production, then when it comes to supply chain, of course, you have to move everything in frozen, fright or cargo. And that is that is of course more expensive than hiring a regular truck, right, that would move something that’s shelf stable. And then when you go to actually if you have distribution centers, or three bales that you work with that help you, you know, organizing all of your shipments on pallets, etc, to your different consumers. All of that is also more expensive, because it’s frozen storage, etc, etc. When it comes to at the store level. It there’s also more reduced paid space when it comes to frozen versus all the other categories. When you go to a regular supermarket, most of them at least, they have much more space in the shelf stable, let’s say categories versus frozen. So it is more competitive to get into those categories to start with because of the little bit limited space. And sometimes some retailers even charge more when it comes to margins, or whatever they charge for you to be able to sell there just because of that. So there there are a lot of challenges, adding, you know, when it comes to having a frozen product, but when we were starting, you know developing the product and thinking through where we wanted to introduce these, we wanted to make sure that the the product and the recipe stayed very true to the authentic recipes, we didn’t want to add any preservatives. So that’s why we decided to go with frozen in the first place. And also, you know, with the pandemic and everything that’s happened since the prod though categories of frozen categories have grown a lot. So there there is some opportunity there, even though there are added challenges. And a lot of people are buying more food in bulk and keeping them frozen at home, just have some additional, you know, options whenever they are at home. So, you know, challenges and opportunities. So

Kara Goldin 18:34
the first iteration of any product is different than what it is today. I hear this over and over again from entrepreneurs, some people say the product change significantly or maybe you know, this applies to services as well, where you do add on that just makes it better. Or maybe the packaging. We’ve heard that too. Can you share what comes to mind when I talk about this, like what has changed since you first launched in when you were making it in the kitchen and you launched it in public?

Mafe Romer 19:10
A lot has changed. I’m gonna say that I always tell the people that come come to me and say they want to start a company and you know if I have any piece of advice for them and I would say you know, MVP, which is a minimal viable product focused on just coming up with something that you think it’s good enough to to bring to the market and then start learning early on in terms of is this the right product? Am I targeting the right people? Is this the right branding to target these people? Is the messaging Correct? Is the place incorrect? Right? Is the places where I have my product available correct when it comes to your target demographic and are they able to find them they’re even starting with retail versus direct to consumer right if your target demographic is go Going to DTC or direct to consumer to buy these types of products, then that’s probably where you should be versus retail. And so with that, we started with our minimum viable product that was very, very manual or artisanal, let’s say, and a branding that was, you know, targeting a consumer, which we thought was our main consumer. As we started digging and doing some more consumer, you know, analytics, we reach, we realized that our consumer was actually a little bit different than what we have pictured, and started basically changing, changing our branding somehow to be able to speak to that consumer better and honor in a better way. And our product, of course, change because we also had to move or migrate into more automated processes to produce a product, of course, making sure that the quality always stay true to the original product, but it’s always going to change. And I’d say it’s really important to early on, listen, listen to your consumer and migrate and sort of merge or not merge, I’d say yes, like transition into something that more, or if it’s exactly what your consumer is looking for. Exactly,

Kara Goldin 21:17
I remember when we first launched, hence, the product that I had developed, we had a clear label on the product. So I wanted to show that flavor. You know, our, it was clear, the entire product was clear. So I thought I should have a clear label. And it was when we were actually dealing with bottle deposits in New York City. And we had to make a very fast change, or it was going to cost us a lot of money. And we weren’t going to have our bottles pulled off the shelf without this, this bottle deposit on the bottle that we had to go with, with white labels. And we 10x sales pretty much overnight when we had a white label as compared to a clear label. And of course, that was like such a major shift for us. But it was interesting because many experienced people loved the packaging, and and had seen it and never called attention to the fact that we didn’t control the lighting and the stores. And so when you had a clear package, it just got lost on the shelf. And also if in the beverage aisle, if you happen to be close to in our case, vitamin water, and it was bright pink, you couldn’t see our product at all. And so it was just it was fascinating to us. And I always feel like when I’m looking on the aisle, especially at new products, I’m always looking at that as a, you know, how much of of sales fluctuations could be changed just by one tiny little tweak? And I think the answer is a lot in many cases. But it’s, it’s really fascinating.

Mafe Romer 23:02
Yeah, we actually experienced something similar with one of our products. Since we’re also sitting in a frozen aisle, the one of our first I’d say like, packaging iterations had a window and not a picture. So I’m just gonna say that piece of information there. But it when you’re sitting in frozen, we were kind of like, we want to make it very, you know, or feel very organic, we want to be able to show to people that this product is made with really great ingredients and have that organic feel. When you translate that into the first category, what ends up happening is you can sort of see a little bit of the ice, the icing, or the ice inside the product. And that’s the whole reason why most of the products that sit in the frozen categories have pictures of a product. Because you know, it’s it’s easier to sell that way. So we made that change also and the change in sales or the increase in sales was pretty significant. So I echo what you just said. So

Kara Goldin 24:07
Shark Tank you get on Shark Tank and your experience obviously you they’ve they’ve showed the episode which does not always happen and that we’ve heard that from a number of different guests who have had experiences on the show and Daniel from kind bar Daniel Libecki ended up investing and you all and and your brand. So what has that experience been like overall? I mean, obviously a lot of people learned about it, I learned about your product through that. But how has that experience really changed your company.

Mafe Romer 24:51
So it’s such a great opportunity to be able to pitch your brand and in Shark Tank Of course, the added exposure to a brand that’s Um, direct to consumer, you could say it’s not direct to consumer, but it’s DTC. Right, it’s so it’s such a great opportunity for you to be able to add more visibility to your brand and, and be able to capture, you know, new consumers. Of course, we also got word very lucky in the sense that the news spread really quickly amongst the Latin American community, because, you know, a lot of people were able to empathize with the fact that we were, you know, two Venezuelan sisters that might emigrated to the US, not, you know, such a long time ago. And we were sort of pitching something that was really true to our culture. And we were really proud to showcase our part, our culture on national TV. So a lot of not Latin American media picked up on the news, and it’s sort of, you know, had a snowball effect. So it wasn’t only the show, it was also all the media that we got after the media exposure. Of course, it has a lot of impact in your sales, but also how many people know about your brand, which is so important, and with a minimum investment, right, because there, you’re basically basically given the opportunity to pitch your product to millions of people. And it’s not like having to invest millions of dollars for you to get a TV commercial or any of that. So, it’s such a great opportunity for small brands to be able to, to, to gain more people to know about them. And then, you know, working with Daniel and the team has been an invaluable experience so far. And we’re also so excited to keep working with them. They have so many years of experience in CPG, not only growing the kind the kind bar, which the con brand sorry, which which Daniel started from scratch and was able to grow into a multi billion dollar company. But also, you know, the added experience from his entire team. And in growing and scaling CPG brands, were, we were super excited to work with him from the beginning, since we heard he was going to be a guest shark, we were so excited. And he was actually our target shark, we wanted to go into business with him so bad. So we actually prepared some special questions around, you know, his businesses and how, what he did, could, you know, basically converge or maybe complement each other how we could complement each other with the businesses that he has. And so we were super excited that he was there, mainly because he’s a immigrant like us, he immigrated to the US when he was 15 years old, and created the kind brand from scratch. And like I mentioned before, I have a lot of mentors and gained a lot of knowledge from my time working in CPG. But growing a brand from scratch has unique, such a different skill set than what then what’s needed working at corporate. And that was one of the things that immediately caught our attention and why we wanted to work with someone like Daniel so bad. He’s

Kara Goldin 28:06
incredible. And he’s also just a good guy. So it’s, you’ve really, I think, hit the jackpot with him and his whole team over there. So So last question, I would love for you to share any success tip or nugget of inspiration for somebody who’s just getting started. I mean, what you’ve seen since starting this company, you know, maybe during the hardest days, things that you think back on that kind of gets you back up again,

Mafe Romer 28:38
I’d say, you know, from our experience with the brand since the beginning, one of the things that have helped have helped us a lot is to knock on as many doors as you can. Sometimes we would even knock on doors that we were 100% Sure weren’t going to, you know, reply to us. But you never know who’s gonna reply. And those opportunities, you know, the opportunities that we’ve gained from knocking on doors, we never thought we were able we were going to be able to get from, you know, Shark Tank is a great example of that we applied to Shark Tank with zero expectations of getting in. We also applied to Walmart open called event which is a event that Walmart launches to basically have intrapreneurs pitch their brands and their products, we also got a golden ticket there and gain distribution at Walmart. So you never know what you’re going to get if you’re you’re you know, I’d say courageous enough to to knock on as many doors as you can. And also asking for help. There has been much more people willing to help us than than not so just knocking as many doors as you can and you never know where you’re going to get.

Kara Goldin 29:51
I couldn’t agree more. So thank you so much my Fe for sharing your wisdom and everybody needs had to grab some TOAST-IT on your website or in retail locations as well. And we’ll have all the information in the show notes too. But thank you so much for creating this and for coming on and sharing your wisdom and good luck to all please tell Daniel we set high to next time you talk to him and very excited for all that you’re doing. So thanks again.

Mafe Romer 30:26
Thank you so much for having us, Kara. It was a pleasure to talk to you.

Kara Goldin 30:29
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my book on daunted which I share my journey, including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And thanks everyone for listening. Have a great rest of the week, and 2023 and goodbye for now. Before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara Goldin and let me know. And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at Kara Goldin. Thanks for listening

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