#57 - Zack Gazzaniga @ Zack’s Mighty

Episode Recap:

ReGen Brands Recap #57 - Mighty Tortilla Chips Powered By Regenerative Corn - (RECAP LINK)

Episode Transcript:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated with AI and is not 100% accurate.

Kyle Krull - 00:00:15
Welcome to The ReGen Brands Podcast. This is a place for consumers, operators and investors to learn about the consumer brands, supporting regenerative agriculture and how they're changing the world. This is your host, Kyle, joined by my co-host, AC, who's going to take us into the episode.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:00:33
On this episode, we have Zack Gazzaniga who is the founder of Zack's Mighty Zack's Mighty is supporting regenerative agriculture with its tortilla chip products made with certified regenerative corn. In this episode, we learn about Zack's journey in CPG, helping to build and scale Sir Kensington's why he was compelled to make chips that don't break in dip and the Wild Ride building Zack's Mighty supply chain that included everything from importing an heirloom variety of corn into the US. Setting up supply direct trade relationships with farms, investing in proprietary manufacturing processes and certifying their regenerative claims through a greener world, Zack Oozes with CBG Intel. And this episode was fun and crazy packed with insights about building a compelling modern day snack brand powered by regenerative agriculture. Let's go. What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Regen Brands podcast. Very excited today to have our friend Zack from Zack's Mighty joining us.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:01:25
So welcome

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:01:38
Zack. Hey guys, thanks for having me.

Kyle Krull - 00:01:41
We're super pumped. I'm personally super pumped. I've been consuming Zack's money since I first found it on shelves. I think it natural grocers. Um And I think I was mostly intrigued by the weightlifting cob of corn on the front of the bag. And I was like, you know, is this chip really that strong? And I was not disappointed and I'm sure we're gonna get into a lot of that in this podcast. But for those who are unfamiliar with Zack's money, give us a quick lay of the land. What do you produce? What sort of flavors you have? Where can people find your products today?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:02:11
Sure. Um We are a tortilla chip company that launched in 2020. So relatively new. Um We have three skews of organic tortilla chips that are made with certified regenerative corn, a sea salt lime and Nacho Chip sold nationally at Whole Foods. Uh They're in Publix. We just got into Publix a few months ago as our sort of our largest conventional retailer. Um We're, we're in a lot of the usual suspects in the natural world. So kind of your local co op we probably there. Um And we are about to have our first rotation at Costco um in January, which is super excited. So that's the, that's the tortilla chips. That's been our core line. That's what we launched with.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:02:42
That's where how kind of I started the mission of the mission of my company is to create delicious tortilla chips that don't break in guaca. So this, this line very much is uh in the service of that mission. But uh we, we also just launched this fall, a new product line which I'm really excited about um called rolled and what they are rolled tortilla chips. Um where basically you make a little tortilla chip, roll them up into. Um I mean, it kind of looks like a cigarette. I should think of some other uh other shame to tell people, but it's kind of like a little tortilla cigarette that is heavily seasoned with spicy and provocative flavoring. Um And that launched nationally in Whole Foods.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:03:18
It's also in the fresh market fried market, uh places like that,

Anthony Corsaro - 00:03:41
that chili lime. It goes crazy that chili lime with some guac on the rolled skew is, is definitely my favorite. Um So yeah, man, excited to have you with us today and excited to dive in. I think this is our first, I think this is for sure, our first um a greener world certified brand. So we're excited to talk about that. So to talk some corn, you have a really cool background in CPG. So all the things are on the table today. Um But Zack maybe take us back and, and maybe start with some of that CBG background even before we get to the brand but kind of just your background in the space and how Zack's Mighty got started.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:04:17
Sure. I, uh I, when I went to college I had a degree in economics and most people with an economics degree on the east coast go into finance in New York. And, and I really didn't want to do that. I wanted to, it was important to me for some reason that I was able to physically touch whatever I was interacting with. Um And so my first job out of college was working at an organic granola company in San Francisco where I was literally delivering granola. Um and you know, down to offices and, and in the financial district and uh and, and you know, when, when I would deliver a £25 bulk box of granola at the loading dock and we'd sign a bill of lading. I was just in heaven because it was all these economic concepts I had learned about actually happening in physical form. Um And I wasn't particularly wanting to go into food or natural food. III I would have gone into any physical item, I would sell moccasins or you know what, whatever it was. And it just happened to be, this was the job I got.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:05:13
And in the process of working at this small granola company where it was the founder, one other guy and me, I, I fell in love with the food industry. I got my first of working with brokers figuring out the kind of crazy review cycle, figuring out how grocery stores work, how co packer works. Um And I was there for about two years and then I, uh my, my, my now wife, actually, we were friends at the time. Uh She sent me a posting that these two guys from Brown had started a ketchup company and they were looking make their first hire in New York and that was Sir Kensington's. Um, and so I left and moved across country to join Mark and Scott as their first employee. And from day one, they kind of just gave me, hey, you're in charge of all supply chain and all of retail sales.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:05:55
Uh, which, which is totally

Anthony Corsaro - 00:06:11
just a little bit out the game.

Kyle Krull - 00:06:13
Yeah,

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:06:14
that's, that's like, that's fine at a small company because it's so small, right? And it's easy to manage all your sales when you have two skews and no customers. So, uh, uh, it, it, it, it definitely like it, it, it grew and grew into something that ultimately wasn't possible to do everything. But for, for a period of about five years, six years, I was managing all retail sales, all operations. Um, and it was incredible. It was such a cool experience to see the full life cycle of a product from thinking of what to launch, sourcing the raw materials, finding a co pack or getting it made, getting it sent to a warehouse and then going in to meet with a buyer to pitch a promo plan. Um And I didn't really realize it at the time, but it was really setting me up well, to start my own company because I knew how to create and launch products. Um And Sir Kensington's was an amazing experience. Uh We ultimately sold the Unilever.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:06:52
I stayed on with Unilever for a year. Um And then decided I really needed to get back to the entrepreneurial space. So I left to start my own company without having any idea of what I was gonna launch. And then it took me like to me that, that was about a year of figuring out what I was gonna do.

Kyle Krull - 00:07:23
What, what did that year look like? Are you just like walking around grocery stores looking for steel categories, looking for opportunities to innovate, trying to find the white space? Like what were some of the concepts that you had kind of kicked around before settling on Zack s mighty

Anthony Corsaro - 00:07:35
breaking a bunch of wheat tortilla chips? Yeah. Yeah.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:07:38
Well, tortilla chips was uh it's interesting. Tortilla chips was sort of my original idea for, for many years. And um like the joke at Sir Kensington's was about how I was always going to start a tortilla chip company because they're my favorite food. I would eat them all the time. Um But then when I left, sometimes you get so in your head with these things and especially at that time in 2018, there were so many new trends happening where any idea that wasn't a trend just sounded dumb at first. And so at first I was like, well, tortilla chips sound dumb. Let me take a step back and figure out what's the right business to launch. And so I bought sales data and I was reading all the trends and I was trying to figure out what's hot. And at that time, it pointed me directly to adapt gems turmeric ashwagandha. I started working with a guy in Siberia to source CgA mushrooms.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:08:23
And I was like, well, maybe if I take some cha mushrooms and Sprinkle them on a lotus chip and it was like, it was cool and, and I know like a lot of people, people and a lot of cultures believe and swear by adaptogen and they're great and they work for a lot of people. I just don't care about them and I don't use them. And so, you know, as I'm like, tinkering with these Ashwagandha formulas, I was like, wait a minute, this is totally soulless. I don't care about this stuff. If I'm going to start a company, it can't just be because the spins trends report says it's a good idea. Uh And so that was maybe like, honestly, like five months of the year and, and, and, and I, and I was actually working on it with a buddy and then we decided to kind of that. This, this isn't the idea and we parted ways.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:09:06
So then I'm starting to feel like super insecure because, uh I was, I left Unilever, I'm gonna start my own company and this first idea was terrible. So then I was like, all right, I need to look outside of food. So I, I rented a house in upstate New York and brought a couple of my sisters there and, and some other people and I did like a shark tank pitch to them where I had all these ideas of what I was gonna do. One of them was like a furniture company where I was like, all right, with furniture, the problem is the last mile. But if I can convert the empty trash trucks that come into New York City to be able to carry furniture that could be efficient. I had like a cell phone that didn't track your location. I was gonna call burner. It was way up. I would have no ability launching.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:09:52
And then the last idea was tortilla chips and it just kept coming back to tortilla chips where ultimately I was like, ok, launching a business is hard and, and no matter what it is, it's gonna be hard. Every idea sounds stupid in the beginning. And I was getting a little too worried that just the idea was stupid. But then I realized, well, every idea is stupid because it's just an idea and, and it's so easy for people to poke holes in your ideas early on. So I said if I'm going to do it, it has to be something I love. Tortilla chips are my favorite food. I don't care if the data says this makes sense. I'm launching a tortilla chip company.

Kyle Krull - 00:10:36
Amazing. Um What, what about the data was telling you not to do tortilla chips was the category still? Was it just not a lot of growth? Like what you see there those trying to steer you away from where you eventually landed.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:10:48
It's interesting because, because I, I actually look at the, looked at the data and fell in love with it compared to where I was coming from in condiments. And what I mean by that was what we experienced at Sir Kensington's was natural condiments are a very small category. Um And, and so we had times where we would launch a tartar sauce for example, and quickly become the number one tartar sauce in the store. But then that's just not a big business and we had to skew rationalize it. And so at Sir Kensington's as we wanted to grow, that meant more and more and more and more skews because each individual category wasn't that big. And so at the time, we sold the Unilever, we had like 60 skews and, and what I imme yeah, and what I immediately noticed at, when I looked at the tortilla chip data, I was like, wait a minute, the number 10 ranked Tortilla chip outsells the number one ketchup like this is, this is great. There's a lot more size here and maybe it doesn't need to be about having so many skews and there's plenty of examples of really successful single skew brands in tortilla chips. So like have a chip. Is this great chip from the west coast?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:11:42
Um That's just been around for decades and has one skew and crushes it. And so I was very attracted to the size of it and it was growing. Um But it's, it's funny because like anyone will have, I I if you like take category data to like any outside person just giving you advice, they're gonna find a, a bad, like something negative about it. And so like when you, when I tell people below, I'm going into the salty stack category. It's like uh it's competitive and uh and it's like, well, no shit, it's competitive, it's competitive, it's such a big category. Everyone wants to be in it.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:12:20
And then if you, if you tell someone, well, you're, I'm in, I'm gonna start to catch up. They're like a small category like, oh man, so um II I love the data when I saw it, but at a high level, the number one point of feedback I get early on was just saying, oh, that's a crowded category which it was and is and always has and always will be so kind of how are you going to stand out?

Kyle Krull - 00:12:54
Mhm Right. Makes sense.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:12:56
Yeah, super, it's super interesting. And um you know, I'm, I'm kind of cheating on the test here, Zack because you and I have talked before. But uh I want you to tell the story about like why you chose the type of corn you did and the whole international sourcing journey there because I think it speaks really to the, to the problem you're trying to solve on kind of the the strength of the chip, right? So like there's a consumer angle and a sourcing slash region angle there. So take us through kind of how you stood up the initial products and supply chain.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:13:25
Cool. Well, yeah, just going back to tortilla chips being my favorite food. Uh One thing that really bothered me was when you get a weak tortilla chip chip that breaks because like to me, tortilla chip is a food and a tool. So if it breaks in guacamole, it's not serving its primary purpose. So uh I got really frustrated by that. So, so I'm not joking when I say the mission of our business is to create delicious and sturdy tortilla chips, flavor and strength. That's the pillars of this business. And so when I was like, OK, I, I've got a background in supply chain. If I'm going to create a delicious tortilla chip, I need delicious corn. And so I just start noodling online trying to look up and find and educate myself about corn.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:13:56
And I just fell down the rabbit hole of the 10,000 year history of corn. And what I learned was that there used to be this really delicious flavorful type of corn that had migrated by, by trade from Mexico. What, what, what's now Mexico? But from Mexico up to the northeast at about 1000 ad and when it got to the north east, at least, you know, the winters were longer, it wasn't as warm. It, it morphed into something else. And what it morphed into was flint corn.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:14:28
Uh Flint and flint corn is these long narrow cobs with big fat kernels and they come in lots of different colors and they're beautiful. Um And everything I read about it was how flavorful and delicious it was. Um And so I got really excited about that, but the problem with flint corn over time is that it has low yields. So in the mid 18 hundreds, kind of through the mid 19 hundreds corn production in America started to move to a modern hybrid dent corn in the Midwest where there's great growing conditions, certainly superior to the northeast for corn. Um And the yield and the output kept getting higher and higher, more bushels per acre in these sort of more modern varieties. And the northeast farmers couldn't keep up with their flint corn. So flint corn started to die out. Um But luckily 300 years ago by trade.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:15:22
Flint corn came from New England over to southern Europe. And since uh uh New England and southern Europe are on the same latitude, it was comparable growing conditions and it started to take off. So flint corn grew across southern Europe, North Africa and Asia. And as I was reading this as a, as a guy from Vermont, I was sort of blown away that New England corn had this big impact on world culinary history because you just think of corn as a Midwest thing being a modern American. Um And so uh uh all this was super cool but, but uh you know, the reason I was interested in the corn was because it's supposed to taste really good and, and I can't find it anywhere. Uh I eventually found that there's like this underground corn resistance community of a couple of New England Yankee farmers that uh are growing certain varieties like the

Kyle Krull - 00:16:31
Star Wars, Rebels of Corn. As you like the way you're describing this, you know, which is like the little Oxymoronic, you know, analogy. There is like space corn but you know, either way, sorry to interrupt,

Anthony Corsaro - 00:16:45
I'm picturing a doomsday bunker on like a picturesque Vermont farm just filled with corn. Yeah,

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:16:51
there probably is one of those. But, but what it's these families that for multiple generations have kept certain varieties of flint corn alive. And so I got my hands on, on a small amount of five varieties of flint corn. I said I need to try this stuff to figure out. Does it even make a difference if I fry it in oil to make a chip or is frying in oil? The great equalizer. Um, so I hired a chef, um from Union Square Hospitality who had gone into Oaxaca and learned the whole process of next ball and making tortillas and I had to make, uh tortilla chips exactly the same way with my flint corn and Standard control corn. Um, and I was blown away by the flavor and it just, the main thing it tasted like was more like cornier, kind of like how an heirloom mushroom in the middle of the summer. Sorry, an heirloom tomato in the middle of summer tastes more tomatoey.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:17:27
It was just kind of more corn and it was really pleasant. And my favorite flavor was this one from this or my favorite corn from this one family in Rhode Island. It's called Longfellow yellow. And as far as I can tell, they're the only people left in the world growing Long Fellow yellow. And so I called these guys up and I said, I love the corn. I want to use it. How much I want to buy it all.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:17:50
How much can you sell me? And they're like, well, we've got about £2000 of grain and about, you know, £20 of seed. And that's not nearly enough to either use the seed to grow myself or to start a company. Um And so I felt a little dejected because I was like, God damn it. I spent five months working on, you know, Ashwagandha and CgA mushrooms. I just spent six months trying to start a flint corn chip company and there's no flint corn.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:18:15
And, and so, uh I was, I, I didn't call a buddy of mine, Glenn Roberts from Anson Mills who's the guy for land race heirloom and ancient grains. Um And he, this is when he told me he was like, you know, flint corn might not be that big here, but it traveled to Italy. It was so delicious. It created polenta. The Italians have kept it alive. They call it Otto f.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:18:38
Um And so I booked a plane ticket to Piedmont. I went seed hunting for 10 days in Italy. Uh eventually found a family that's a biodynamic certifier and a seed supplier. And they uh they went and got me £2000 of certified seed grade corn. I became a corn importer of USDA. Brought it back in and partnered with two organic farms in New York. Oh, yeah.

Kyle Krull - 00:19:18
So, so now you're growing your current Flint supply back in the States using that seed from? Sure.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:19:25
Yeah, the original seed the first year came from Italy. But what's great about open pollinated heirloom things? Unlike a hybrid, modern corn is we can save our seed from each crop to use this seed. So, so we only needed to buy from Italy once and now we use our own seed uh every year grown in the US to, to grow our US acres.

Kyle Krull - 00:19:48
Amazing.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:19:50
Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal Kyle's thunder here because he usually kind of ask this question. But Zack, where were you at in the whole, like organic or regenerative uh perspective at that point? Like was that something you for sure wanted to do with the company? Were you thinking about sustainability at that point in terms of the growing practices? Like, how was that conversation as you brought the seed over here and you tried to set up the actual farming of it?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:20:13
I definitely from the beginning wanted to have an organic tortilla chip. I, I've always um really appreciated organic farming practices. Um I think for me, the, the conversations around organic are there's great debate among them the same with non GMO and, and particularly how much better is it for you? And, and I, I it, it's, it's hard to know, right? Because you can find data and reports on both sides. Um But for me, I think when you trace it back up to the farm, um, organic farming practices always made more sense to me, certainly non GMO farming practices than conventional farming. Um And, and that's where I think the best case is made for non GMO and organic and, and now regenerative. Um so, and I knew I wanted to be close to the farm and my sourcing, meaning I didn't want to just buy ingredients from a broker.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:20:54
I wanted to have a relationship with the farm. Um And so I so organic from the beginning I wanted to be organic at and so this is now 2019 when I'm building the supply chain. I had never heard of regenerative. I had no idea about. And so I uh I was emailing with the buyer ahead of our meeting and he was like, uh he was like, oh, it would be cool if, if you know, if you're regenerative, I was like, yeah, totally. And then I was like, wait, what is regenerative?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:21:23
Uh And so I lucked out where the first year I partnered with two farms in New York, one in um in Hudson Valley and one up in the Buffalo area. And, and I lucked out in the sense that these are uh family organic farms. Um but they themselves happened to be big on the regenerative movement. So they educated me on what regenerative means, why it's important, why it's valuable. And, and kind of my first lesson was with um Ben Dobson of Stone House Grain. Um And now the Hudson Carbon Institute, he was my, my first grower and, and he and I went to Italy together to talk with the farmers to kind of learn how to grow this corn.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:22:10
Um And he's great and he's, he's uh he's a great person to learn from for the benefits of regenerative agricultural practices. And so the very first thing he taught me was cover cropping and he shows me fields that had cover cropping, ones that did and ones that didn't ta taught me about the carbon cycle. Talk to me about the need for organic matter in the soil and what, how that's beneficial and, and I was just hooked because it makes so much sense. And, and, and so from that point, I said, ok, if we're going to be growing our own corn and, and when I say growing our own corn, I mean, partnering closely with growers to grow our corn. Um We want to make a commitment that when we grow corn, it's going to be regenerative. And, and so this was 2019 and, and that's kind of how we decided to do that.

Kyle Krull - 00:23:08
That's incredible. And what I love about this story is, II, I don't hope this doesn't come off as a negative, but it's almost like accidentally regenerative and regenerative has, you know, three really primary attributes, right? It tastes better, it's better for your human health and it's better for the planet and in your absolute insane pursuit of taste and deliciousness, it led you towards regenerative. Um And I think that's really compelling because we talk a lot about, you know, how do we get people to understand what regenerative is and why are they going to care and if it doesn't taste good, it doesn't really matter. So the fact that that pursuit led you towards a an heirloom variety that is grown in a regenerative fashion is just really, really cool and I really appreciate that side of the story. Um I don't know where I was going to go from there. I just wanted to comment on that, to be honest, totally lost. It's a

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:23:56
good point because I, I feel strongly kind of in the positioning of our products and our brand. Like I, I very much want to support the regenerative movement and regenerative agriculture, but I don't want to ever trick myself into thinking as like that's the reason why someone will or should buy my product and my product needs to taste good. It needs to perform in guacamole, it needs to be priced appropriately, it needs to deliver on all these core things and be regenerative. But, but, but it's a trick sometimes to think if you think too much we generative is the thing. You might let these other things slip and it's just hard to like then have to put the burden all on the consumer to say, well, sacrifice these three things to get this. And it's like, no, no, no, no. The standard is we all have to incorporate regenerative into excellent products. Um And, and so, you know, on our packaging, it's like, iii I don't know, we don't make a huge fuss about being regenerative.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:24:44
Maybe, maybe some folks would say we do but, but it's certainly not like the primary reason to buy it on our packaging and then our messaging because, uh, because I don't think that is the primary reason to buy, for most consumers. There's certainly some, but for most,

Kyle Krull - 00:25:11
I think you spot on and I was actually planning to talk about the branding. Sorry. Ac um, but yeah, it's a really approachable brand and it's not like it's, it's, you know, these colors that are designed to look like the or it's about saving the planet. It's about like a fun, really tasty chip brand. Um I'm also, as you're describing like you keep referencing this like guacamole like it has to perform in guacamole. And I'm thinking about like the sales comparison chart that you like bring in a slide deck to a retailer guacamole performance column on the left and you're like, you know, can, can hold like x amount of weight like my chick is here and everybody else is here. Um I need to see that chart. I think it'd be so good and somebody who grew up eating Tostitos restaurant style um very thin, very large breaks every day. My dad literally used to open the bag the night before we would eat them.

Kyle Krull - 00:25:45
So they'd be one day stale. So they'd be a little bit stronger, but not that it was that level of strategic chip you need in my house. So uh appreciate, yeah, appreciate your commitment to making sure that the gu the chip performs a walk and I can certainly say that it does.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:26:14
That's great. That's great. I

Anthony Corsaro - 00:26:16
think, I think we need to trademark the Chip strength Index and have that on somewhere or something. Um, but I have like, I have a personal story that just totally validates the whole conversation of like my brother, you know, works in food and he's like in a sustainability but nowhere near like where I'm at. And I think the first return of product that him and his family bought was Zack's mighty just because like they were at the fresh market, they looked good, they tasted good and he like sent me a picture. He's like, hey, dude, uh we bought like a return of product and we eat them regularly. I'm like, hell, yeah. Um So it just goes to show like that. Yeah, and that's the ticket for the mass market.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:26:41
Like we're not going to scale, especially into the mass market, like leading with regenerative, regenerative has to follow all the amazing attributes and be tied to it as the reason for it or as kind of like a enhancer of it. Um So, yeah, I totally agree there. We talk about that a lot, but I think it's really hard with all the purchase intent, data and the rhetoric around sustainability and regenerative to like get people to focus on that. And stay disciplined to that because there's a lot of bright shiny objects. I think that lie to you and tell you that you can lead with it. Um So I have, I have empathy for founders and, and brands in terms of just kind of get lost there.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:27:18
Um And now the forgetting is becoming a contagious because I had a, I had a segue there and I forgot what it was,

Kyle Krull - 00:27:37
you

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:27:38
know, re regenerative. Definitely. Right now, I, I think can in certain retailers like can help you win out getting through the first, the first door of sales, which is you got to get on the shelf and you got to get through the buyer. And so in a competitive category, if a buyer is looking at a bunch of items, there's certain retailers where it's kind of even and one's regenerative that very much will win out and that will get you on the shelf. But then you got to sell because if you don't sell these, these regenerative commitments might not be as strong at the next review that the retailer has because, you know, it's got everything is a business. So, uh regenerative, I think at this stage right now is, and, and in a good way because a lot of retailers are making this commitment and they're saying, wait a minute, we'll be leaders, we'll start to add regenerative to our shelf. And, and so it's almost like if we can get more regenerative products and have them interact with consumers like your brother, where they're buying them for a different reason, but they happen to be regenerative. That's, that's the movement growing in addition to having products for the early adopters who are seeking regenerative.

Kyle Krull - 00:28:46
Amen. And I think that that's a great pivot. Let's talk a little bit about the brand story and the journey at retail specifically. So I think you mentioned like 2019, 2020. It sounds like it's when the brand launched. You know, what was your first account you landed? What did you know your performance look like relative to the category? Um What did expansion look like? Why did you choose to expand the way you did walk us through that journey?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:29:09
Sure. So um my first meeting was I pitched Whole Foods in April of 2019 for the reset that was gonna happen in January of 2020. And I wanted to pitch to Whole Foods because I really enjoy working with them. Um I had a great experience with them at C Kinsey Dens. I felt like I knew how UN F I worked, how their promos work. I felt comfortable with them as an account. Um And when I was at Sir Kensington's, it was still at that time when I first joined in 2011, 2012, the playbook was very much grabbed one or two regions of Whole Foods and then work your way regionally. And you're presenting to every regional buyer and it started to morph to, you can still be regional, but it started to morph to a situation where you could also be global from the beginning. Um And so that's what I wanted to do.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:29:49
I wanted to launch with scale and I wanted to be national. Uh And so I pitched them in April. And so now I had my seed hunting trip in Italy in February. I can't plant the corn in America until May June. I can't harvest it until September and I can't really make the chips. So I'm kind of a little cart before the horse, but I presented the Whole Foods in April.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:30:16
And uh

Kyle Krull - 00:30:25
how did you get samples if you, if your manufacturing supply chain wasn't totally set off? Are you just doing like custom one offs for samples for the meeting or what did that look like?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:30:33
II, I bought enough grain that I could do a small factory trial and, and get enough sealed bags. So, so I had the product. It's just, I luckily the alignment of the whole foods cycle matched harvest. So I could, I could have been go plant it and decide whether or not to put a down payment with all these growers in May based off of my April meeting. Um So I presented to Whole Foods and I really wanted to work with them and I thought we had a cool product. I thought it was unique. And so I gave them a one year exclusive offer to go national and they accepted it. So we launched nationally um in January of 2020 and, and it was really exciting, you know, to see a pro your product on the shelf. And, and we also had a really great Super Bowl in February of 2020.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:31:08
Um And Super Bowl is the number one chip holiday of the year. So there is and demos were working great and it was really encouraging and then COVID hit and it was like awful like we did so bad in 2020 and you know, a big part of that is because like by they, so they even took away promos for a bit. Uh demos were gone the whole year, which was going to be super important for my business because I, I'm not, I never aligned with the specific diet. I just had a great tasting chip. So I wanted people to try it and uh buying behaviors and COVID was very much people going in and out buying what they want and not discovering so famously in Whole Foods. And John Mackey even said this like items that launched new in 2020 didn't do well and we did not do well and it was really discouraging.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:32:03
Um And luckily we had a lot of support from Whole Foods, the buyer um and their head of grocery, they were committed to regenerative, they thought what we were doing was cool. And so, and they also understood that the pandemic was nuts and had a big impact on new brands launching. Um So they were uh uh they, they gave us time to kind of get back on track in 2021. In 2021 we also had the wrong bag size at the beginning. We resize our bag. Um And in 2021 demos came back. So basically from 2021 till now we've been constantly growing in the account uh which, which has been great, but 2020 was awful and terrified.

Kyle Krull - 00:33:02
Tell us a little bit about like specifically, we, we haven't touched on this yet. But from a manufacturing perspective, you, your company actually makes a real tortilla that you cut into chips that you then I, I don't know if it's bake or fry, but walk us through like why that is unique to the category and how that changes the profile of the chip because to your point on demos, like for anybody who hasn't tried a Zack's Mighty tortilla chip, it is. So I mean, you could blindfold me and give me nine different chips and I can tell you which one is, Zack's Mighty easily. Is that different of an experience? So tell us about that. Why that's important to you, how that affects the chip, strength and the flavor and so on and so forth.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:33:37
Cool. So going back to the pillars of this business being strength and flavor. Everything we've talked about with corn is related to flavor on the strength side. That's all in the process and how you make the chip. And probably the biggest discovery I had when I started working on tortilla chips was learning that most tortilla chips on the market are not made from tortillas. And I just thought kind of as a consumer that that's how you make a tortilla chip from a tortilla. But that's not the common practice for what you buy in a grocery store. So the authentic way of making a tortilla chip is making tortillas, stacking those tortillas, letting them rest for a period of time and then chopping them, frying them and seasoning them. That's what most restaurants do. So that's why you might have wondered how come I can always get such great chips at a random hole in the wall restaurant. That's much better than what I can buy in the store.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:34:21
A big part of that is the process where most packaged food tortilla chip companies have moved to. This

Kyle Krull - 00:34:38
is the, this is the, the chip tortilla like people. Oh the siren. They were coming for you because they didn't want you to reveal their secrets. They're on their way.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:34:50
Yeah. Big, big big tortilla is definitely after me. Um, but so the way that most companies make their tortilla chips is they sheet out a big piece of masa, the dough like think about a big sheet of pasta basically. And then right there from the wet dough, they stamp out the shape of the chip they want. So it would be a triangle of strip or circle then that goes to the oven and bakes and then it fries immediately. And, and so that's called a continuous process. And the benefit of it is it requires fewer bodies on the line. So labor costs are less, it takes less time to produce. So output is higher.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:35:21
And when you spread the overhead cost over a shift, and it's just a much more efficient in a cost effective way of making a chip. The problem with that process is it loses the magic of what happens when you make a bake a tortilla, let it equilibrate and rest under pressure of other tortillas and then chop it. There's some aesthetic things such as when you slice a baked tortilla, you get those sharp corners. So you can kind of tell just by looking at a chip if it it was made from a tortilla or not. But the more important thing is I initially thought that what makes a strong chip versus a wheat chip was just the thickness, but it is entirely determined by, did it come from a tortilla or not? Because when it stacks and rest that moisture equilibrates before going into the fryer and that creates a much harder bite a much sturdier chip.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:36:10
So I I kind of learned this when I went to my first co packer, I brought them all of my favorite tortilla chips on the market. And I said I like these and then I had four that I liked and eight I didn't like because I wanted to get a line of flavors and they quickly looked at it and they said, well, you like all these you like were made from tortillas and all these ones you don't like were made in line. Um And so that's when I said, OK, shit, I gotta, I have to make these from tortillas and, but the problem is is if 98% of what's on the market is made in this in line process, most co packers are made for that process. So it has been this major journey for us and we've had to invest in our own production uh and our, and, and partner with co packers to build dedicated lines so that we can scale this tortilla first process. And so it's, it's on the mass scale. Doing that is rare but it's not completely rare. There's other companies that do this as well that I want to shout out because I think they're awesome chips. Mi Nina out of Boston is a fantastic chip. They do it the right way.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:37:13
Tortilla first vista, Hermosa out of New York does it that way. There's donkey chips in the Midwest, there's Casa Sanchez and California, there's uh have a chip So every kind of region has its amazing tortilla first chip. But we're trying to build a nationally distributed tortilla first supply chain made with Weirdo lost flint corn while also being regenerative. And it's just, it's a lot of things that kind of keep us up at night.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:37:51
Yeah. It's, it's amazing the parallels after doing so many of these episodes and you're making it sound very simple. Zack, but like all these regenerative brands that are basically doing direct sourcing are really involved with the actual production of the, the raw ingredients. There's, there's usually massive processing differences and, and an investment there, whether it's actually hardcore Capex or just, you know, intellectual and, and sweat equity. Uh but it really matters in terms of like how the, how the product ends up becoming what it becomes. Um I, I want to pivot back to the regent piece just for, just to marry the commercial story with the regenerative claims of now on the, on the main big chip bags, there's a little kind of button copy on the front that talks about regally farm corn. I believe there's something on the back and you have the A GW uh seal on the back if I'm remembering correctly. When, when did a GW come into the picture? You know, how for, how long have you been making any sort of regenerative claim like on pack in terms of romance copy?

Anthony Corsaro - 00:38:43
And you made a comment to me in a previous conversation that I just want to double click on or have, you know, give you the opportunity to talk more about, which was you really didn't want to make claims, I believe until you had some sort of third party validation. So just walk us through that whole order of operations of the supply chain work, married to the commercial kind of claims piece.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:39:08
Absolutely. Um I felt very strongly from the beginning. I don't want to make any regenerative claim until we have a third party certifying body certify us as such. And I felt that way because as I was learning about regenerative and the landscape, what you kind of experience is, there's a little bit of Murks here and, and some of the Murks is just folks making the claim without going through the process of certifying or having auditors come and inspect. Then there's a bit of Murks where there's multiple agencies you can choose from that have a lot of mostly alignment but little differences. Um And then you have kind of the, the, it's always interesting when new certs get codified and then you try to go back and tell the grower who's been doing it for generations, like why something should be a certain way. And so for all of this, I said, OK, for, for our position is let's hold off on making any regenerative claims until we get a certification because that's, I think that's fairest to the consumer is, is not, is us saying we're certified by a greener world then, as opposed to just, we're saying we're, we're regenerative. Um And so our journey to, to, to choose a greener world was so in 2019, when we first started growing, you know, when you, when you look up regenerative at that time, the first thing that comes up is the ro A um and at that time, the pilot was closed and the cert wasn't open. And so we were, we were like, ok, well, we want to go down the process of getting certified, but we're kind of in the in between of once they finish their pilot, they, they had a period of kind of uh reviewing the data and, and talking it through and, and so just wasn't ready for brands to apply.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:40:44
So we, what we did was we hired two separate consultants to build our own regenerative standards internally. And the reason we did that is because early on in the first few years, we started uh every year adding additional farmers to our network because we were very nervous about this heirloom corn we were growing and wanted to keep growing it at different uh different parts of the US, test out different climates, but also be uh have backup plans if one farm fell failed. Uh because we had that happen. First year one farm lost its entire crop and that put us in a bind. Um And So we said, ok, if we're gonna be internally, if we want to have a regenerative standard, let's hire a consultant. Let's make a regenerative standard.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:41:35
And we'll use that for now in 2020 as we're getting new farms until we're certified third party. Um, and then a greener world. I can't, honestly, I can't remember who sent it to me. Originally, someone sent it to me, but uh a greener world was doing was a few years behind Roaroc and they were starting their pilot program. So when I talked to my growers about, hey, we can wait for ro A or we can join this pilot program. They were very eager to join the pilot program because they wanted a voice in this new movement because as I alluded to earlier, like a lot of regenerative practices that are now being kind of set are just common sense, things that organic growers have been doing for many years.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:42:15
And, and there they were a little skeptical of some of the stuff that was being said or exactly what is reduced tillage mean and what's the benefit of that? And that might mean something different in northern California than it does in the northeast. And so they wanted to participate in the conversation as did we and uh and there was really nowhere you could apply at that time. So we did it. So we, we were part of the pilot program for Greener world. Um I think, you know, some one nuance from them is that they don't require you to be organic.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:42:58
Um which I think makes sense from a standpoint of trying to get more uh acreage starting to do things like cover cropping, even if it's not organic, that could have a huge impact. So I thought the scalability of that was interesting. Um So yeah, we are in the pilot program of Greener world. Um And uh and that's who certified our corn as being regenerative

Kyle Krull - 00:43:30
super, appreciate that share. And it's interesting to hear like you are organic, but you chose to go with a certification agency that doesn't require organic because you believe that in order to scale regenerative acreage, like we need to have that accessibility point, right? Um So I thought that was really interesting to share. I'm curious and, and this is really interesting ac and I are like totally role reversal on today's podcast. I'm flipping it back away from region, but you mentioned like the different, you have a relatively, you know, call it. I don't want to use the term vulnerable, but you're, you're concerned about this heirloom variety of flint corn. You're working with very specific farmers, you're growing like crazy. You have a very unique manufacturing process. How do you juggle the supply side with like your first Costco rotation?

Kyle Krull - 00:43:57
How are you maintaining the growth you're seeing while at the same time checking to make sure that your regenerative supply stays healthy and not, you know, at, at risk of, you know, running out of stock. Great question.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:44:25
Yeah. The so my intention in 2019 was to have a 100% Flint corn chip. Um And that year we grew with two farms in New York and one of the farms had a complete failure. And what I mean by that is they, what we learned is that Flint corn, the, the husk wraps much more tightly around the cob. And so normal practice with growing corn is you leave corn in the field to let it dry down before you harvest it. But our tightly sealed husks weren't drying down. And therefore, when the frost came, they developed mold. And so we lost an entire uh one of our farms, we lost everything. And so we couldn't do a 100% flint corn chip because there's nowhere else I can buy flint corn, right? And I was, I was thinking I was like, well, wait a minute, do I need to do? I need to set up a second farm in Uruguay.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:45:13
So I'm on alternating hemispheres and I can have two harvests a year and, and that not complicated. Um And so what we did was we said, OK, where, how can we blend organic regenerative flint corn with organic regenerative dent corn into a place where the flavor of the flint still comes through. But we've got a blend window. We're comfortable with that can help us ebb and flow versus either demand or yields in the future. Um And so, so, so our, our chip is a blend of flint corn and dent corn. Both of them are organic. Both of them are regenerative.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:45:49
Um But it's a blend of those two. And, and so the answer to the question of how do we manage all this now is it's really simple. We're just very long on corn. So we got a lot of corn.

Kyle Krull - 00:46:16
What, what does the regenerative dent corn market look like in the US right now? I wasn't aware that there were a lot of people growing regenerative dent. I thought it was all heirloom variety that shows you my level of ignorance in the corn world. Um But what was it like finding those suppliers? And as as you continue to grow and you mentioned you being long on corn, is that like ample supply or are you actively trying to find new farmers who want to transition towards regenerative practices?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:46:40
It's, it's our same farmer. So we have the same. Uh so I, I alluded to at one point, we started sprinkling our demand out among lots of different growers and, and we did that for 23 years. And then, then once we kind of learned more about the best way to grow the flint or the dent, what the best nutrient package is, what the best um uh climate is for it. We centralized we realized, ok, having all these small decentralized amounts of corn is killing us in freight. Let's centralize to our grower that has, that we're kind of closest with that has uh the most robust practices and that has plenty of capacity, plenty of acreage. Um And where the yields are good. And so that is a grower in Iowa. Um His name is, uh Bryce, Earl Beck. He's sort of a famous organic grower in Iowa and, and so he grows our flint corn and our dent corn on his regenerative certified farm.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:47:24
Um, so, so we've, we've centralized everything with one guy. Um, I don't believe there was any certified dent corn, be certified regenerative dent corn before we did it. I'm, I'm pretty sure Arrow and Mills has a, a certified popcorn if I'm not mistaken. Um, but, but I, I don't think there was. So, I, I think I, I, we were certainly the first flint corn because we're the only ones growing flint corn. Um, but I, I think we were the first to have a certified regenerative flint and debt.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:47:55
So it's not readily available. It's just easier to grow.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:48:10
Yeah. Got you. So, it's so interesting to learn about like the plumbing of how all this gets done, right? Because you see that in product on the shelf and it's in the shiny bag and it looks cool and like there's just so much stuff that goes into to getting there. Um, and that's, that's kind of a good segue, Zack. And it's something I'd love to have you talk to is why the new rolled skews. Like, where did that come from? What, what opportunity did you see there? Um, you know, the three main hero Tortilla Chip skews make a ton of sense. Right. Sea salt. Nacho and lime.

Anthony Corsaro - 00:48:29
I love the lime. That's, that's personally my favorite. But why did you, why did you add these two new additional kind of skews in this new product line with the rolled piece?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:48:51
Yeah, the so, so we started first as a single skew tortilla chip company. So we just had sea salt and when you're a tortilla chip company and you start thinking about other things you can do, there's kind of different paths you can go down. So a lot of if you go look at uh in a whole foods or any account, you'll see a lot of tortilla chip brands then have their salsa. So you can kind of be a chip and salsa brand and, and we thought, well, maybe that makes sense for us because, you know, we we are built for dipping and, and that would be a good idea, but we, I I felt like the best salsas are the refrigerated ones and, and that's a very complicated supply chain and, and probably not something we were well positioned to do

Anthony Corsaro - 00:49:34
and you like better than salsa. Anyway. So

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:49:41
I also like uh dipping them in Hummus too. That's probably my like daily snack. Um But so we said ok, I I think it makes we're more excited about being a snack company then maybe uh you know, because the other question people ask us is, well, if you're making these great tortillas to make your chips, why don't you launch tortillas? And so you could have tortillas and salsa and I and and so we decided we want to be a snack company. So we came out first with the additional flavors um which glad you glad you like them. Um And then, so when it came to roll, so, so an important point here is our role chips are not regenerative and they're not organic. And so, and so the question is, well, why, why are we OK doing that? Um The I was OK with them not being organic, they're non GMO and they're the first non GMO certified rolled chip on the market.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:50:25
And so we were ok with them not being organic because we were brainstorming this skew with the whole foods buyer and we were very cognizant of price point. And the tricky thing about a rolled chip is that the point of the rolled chip is that it's very intense and you get that intensity through lots of seasoning and seasoning is so expensive and organic seasoning is even more expensive. And so to have an organic seasoned roll chip is absolutely possible. But our bag that's 499 would be more like 899 with the amount of organic seasoning and the organic oil. And so we thought that that probably just, that doesn't make sense. Like that doesn't make sense for someone to pay that much.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:51:18
Just, just so people

Anthony Corsaro - 00:51:22
understand we're talking about more like a single serve bag here on the road. It's not a big tortilla chip bag. So that's, that, that'd be a crazy price for this. Like this is more of like a typical laced potato chip size bag. Just wanna add that.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:51:34
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's still, it's seven ounces. You know, the rolls are more compact. So the bag is always going to be smaller. But, but, but yes, it visually, it would be insane for this bag to be that expensive. Um So, so then when it came to regenerative, we very much wanted to use our regenerative corn. Um, and I still hope to be able to switch this eventually and I don't want to nerd out too much on the differences. But basically we grow corn at our farms and we send the corn that is shelled and dried and cleaned whole corn, cornel, go into our tortilla manufacturing facility and we cook whole corn kernels the night before every cook. And so that's very easy to use to make the rolled chips. We have to start with a masa flour that because it's a lot more uniform and that's required for us to be able to roll it, which is a delicate process. The way to turn corn into masa flour is more complicated. And there's like three massive companies that do it. And we just don't have a good way right now of taking our corn and turning it into masa flour.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:52:31
So we had to say, ok, interesting

Anthony Corsaro - 00:52:47
man. Super.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:52:50
And so, and, and furthermore, being able to make rolled chips is very difficult. There's basically Takis which owns their own production facility. There's Frito Lay which has Dinamita and then there's one co packer in the US that can make rolled tortilla chips that we're working with. And so it's not a common practice at all. And so we couldn't make it. Uh We didn't, we decided not to make it organic for price point. I couldn't make it regenerative to start which I was OK with. And so the question you asked me was why launch the ro the answer is because they're delicious and exciting and I wanted to do it and, and, and that's, that's kind of, that's all it is, is, is like, I think rolled chips are so much fun. I wanted to have it. We had an opportunity to do it. Whole Foods was excited about it because Takis, they're the number three ranked tortilla chip brand in the US behind Doritos and Tostitos. And so to have been around forever.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:53:37
But a place like Whole Foods has never been able to sell them because they have banned ingredients, same with fresh market, same with fried market. And so for us to have the first clean label, non GMO certified rolled chip, that was exciting to a lot of folks on the buyer side. It was exciting to us internally and it's just a, it's just a fun product and we had fun doing it. Um It is interesting though, being a regenerative brand first and then doing a non regenerative item because I it seems like that triggers a lot of questions. Um which is interesting because there's a lot of non regenerative brands that launch a single regenerative item. And then that's like a high five. And it's, it's funny because it's because, you know, like III I don't think we betrayed our values by launching a non regenerative item, but I guess, I guess the uh consumer will let us know.

Kyle Krull - 00:54:48
I think it's a really great point. And it reminds me of when, um gosh, what was the original brand name? Cos Cosmic Bliss or they rebranded, it was a vegan ice cream company that decided they want to add a Grass Fed Dairy line and people went ballistic. They were like, we're boycotting forever. We hate you and really like, they're just trying to understand and realize like, hey Grass Fed Dairy can be really good and it's a, it's a different consumer segment and it allows us to grow our company and enter a new category. And it feels like that's what you're doing. And at the same time, not only are you just doing it from a market perspective, you're allowing you, you're taking that role, chip category in a healthier direction. Um So I think, I think it's really great work and I, I think it's a valuable observation you made that like to be regenerative. First, you can't launch something that's non regenerative. And I think that's interesting. We've never had a brand on the pod before. We've done that.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:55:40
Yeah. Well, first for everything, glad I could uh glad I could provide that for you guys. It

Anthony Corsaro - 00:55:45
also goes back to a lot of the commentary earlier in the episode about just like how do we leverage uh commercial Tail Winds as Trojan Horses for regenerative? And when you understand that full context that Zack just gave, it's like, OK, that makes perfect sense. And if anyone's ever gonna do a regenerative world chip, it would be y'all. So why don't you get started with this thing? That is already an improvement that can take advantage of these awesome market trends where like there is no tay equivalent in, in natural like available and then eventually we can make it regenerative. Like it makes me think a lot about the last episode with Kyle from Wild Way where he talks about like, look, we were a bootstrap brand for 11 years and had to really get to scale nail our own manufacturing and get all these fundamentals in order to then be able to make the reserve impact we want to make on the wrong ingredient side. So there's not, there's not one right path. And I think that's actually the biggest impediment to the regenerative movement is all the conversations where we make things about either ors and we make things about this perfect utopian path instead of just working our asses off to make improvement and kind of embrace that progress of perfection.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:56:50
Yeah, I think that's well said,

Kyle Krull - 00:56:52
totally agree. Um Zack, you mentioned the talk is the roll chip. You've got the three skews of original. I don't know what you want to call that line. Um Flint Corn, but whatever the line might be called, what else is in the future for Zack's Money? You mentioned a s snack company. Does that potentially mean venturing outside of corn at some point in time? Like what's the grand vision? You know, Zack's Money is a great name because it doesn't pigeonhole you. It's not Zack's tortilla chips, you know. So where do you want to go with this thing?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:57:18
Um I don't want to come across as a vision was founder, but uh my, my vision is that I need to get through this upcoming Costco rotation and execute that properly and uh and, and get through 2020 get through 2024. I always find it so funny when we do these three year forecasts. Uh it's like the rate at which stuff changes. The three year forecast is just one example on paper of what's not gonna happen. And so I like, I, I think in terms of here's what I can say about our vision and, and we do, we already have the um the, the next product line which we're super excited about that. We will be presenting in the next few months for distribution. Uh and the probably Q three of uh 24 This still has corn in it. Um It's still a snack.

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:58:14
Um But I, I think what, where we have decided is where we want our position to be is to innovate and, and obviously everyone says that but, but what I mean specifically is, you know, the tortilla chips are probably our most renovation item where tortilla chips existed and we came in with a tortilla chip we thought was better. But at the same time, we're the only chip with flint corn where the we're tortilla first, which is unique and we're the first and only chip made with certified regenerative corn. So there is some newness to that. Um The talkies are the ta the world chip is a good example because they are a non like this literally doesn't exist in the accounts we're going in. And so that shape and form factor not existing is really attractive to me as, as we think ahead. And, and so I guess the point I'm getting at is, um you know, would we jump over and launch a regenerative potato chip?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:59:10
You know, that excites me less than trying to hold our, our, our feet to the fire a little bit more and try to bring the buyers things that literally don't exist in their, in their set. And that's what we've got for next year. Um And, and I, and, and so what, what happens beyond that? I don't know. Could we do something crazy and jump into another random category? II, I think ultimately, like if I'm trying to balance the business factors with core values and, and strategy, I, I think it's always going to come down to it. Do I do? I think this is awesome and, and am I excited about it?

Zack Gazzaniga - 00:59:43
Is it, is it fun will probably Trump a lot of other things so I can see us doing something stupid in the future of launching, you know, some frozen pizza because we thought we made some cool cornmeal flint, corn crusted pizza and it makes total sense to me and maybe it would be an epic failure. But um II, I don't know, I don't really have a great answer because it's evolving.

Kyle Krull - 01:00:24
I love the answer. And I think that part of your innovation checklist is like, does it work with Guac? And if the answer is no, I say, you know,

Anthony Corsaro - 01:00:33
before, before he started talking about new innovations that aren't on shelf yet, I was like, what are all the salty snacks that are too weak that we need to make strong? That's, that's a big uh there's, I wanna just say a couple of comments too about the whole like vision list versus like focus and discipline. And I actually think it's really important to highlight this and as someone that is uh is an investor in the space, like we ask every founder to put together this grand vision and to put together a financial model and all you know about it really is that it's gonna be wrong. You do still need to make the team do that. So you can see that they're gonna be able to do that exercise and do it continually as the brand grows. But I was talking to a very seasoned CPG investor that's had a ton of success the other day who I who I won't name. But he basically just said, focus and discipline are the number one and two things he looks for in founders because there's always a chance to basically grow that hero product line or kind of grow the like the, the the hero business you already have, whether that's like growing your A CV and natural or you know, when you get above that kind of $100 million mark, you do that in moo.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:01:16
And he's like the number one mistake everyone has ever made in our portfolio is just being on focussed. And like the Bright Object syndrome. And he, I thought it was really interesting because he talked about basically that same disease exists at the really early stage when everything's fun and new and there's all this white space. And when you have a misperception, once you've really scaled that, like there's nothing else to do with this core line. And he thinks, and he, he was basically like a lot of times that's just not true. So, just interesting insights there that I thought were were compelling.

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:02:07
Yeah, I, I find that sentiment very true with my experience at Zack's Mighty and Sir Kensington's where it's, it's kind of counterintuitive or sometimes opportunity can be the thing that's most lethal to your survival and, and you got to put blinders on sometimes and, and stay focused,

Kyle Krull - 01:02:24
do more with core as they say. Yeah, I

Anthony Corsaro - 01:02:28
like setups. Chris Chris told that yardstick was on a, on a podcast the other day. They're a soil carbon measurement agtech tool. And he said that this quote just like slapped me in the face. Uh start up, don't starve, they drown. And I was like, damn, that is, that is true, man. It's really true.

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:02:47
That's great. Well, luckily we're in a drought in the uh a lot of areas.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:02:53
So Zack, this has been uh unreal conversation, man. Super, super insightful. Just appreciate the work you're doing and, and sharing so transparently with our audience. Um I'm gonna take us home with our final question that we asked everybody, which is, how do we get Regen brands that 50% market share by 2050?

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:03:12
I think there is, there's, there's push and pull where consumer awareness is always going to be helpful, of course, and people vote with their dollars. Um But I think, I think policy is really exciting. I think government investment in subsidies and cover cropping just as a start because a cover crop even has a huge impact, positive impacts on conventional uh farming as well. Um And, and I think if there's ways that we can sort of sneak regenerative in to the ingredient supply chain almost. So it's, it's not, it's we you if there's a way to remove the challenge from convincing everyone who's at the grocery store and everyone that's making decisions on sourcing at big food companies to buy into regenerative. But if instead you could start to fill the streams that they participate in with regenerative items, I think that can, you know, 50% is a big number. So I think something like that would need to happen. Um So I'd love to see more policy, more support, more uh uh more dollars invested in that for growers.

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:04:18
Um And I think a lot of it, it's a lot of commitment from the, the other gatekeepers like the buyers, I think a lot of buyers are doing a really good job right now, like I said, like there are absolutely buyers right. Now that in a tie between new items will favor regenerative and that helps um,

Anthony Corsaro - 01:04:40
question. I want to pause you there, Zack, because the question I have for that is, that's absolutely true. But is it enough? Like, should they be doing more, is my question to ask the retailers? And I've asked a couple of them specifically, some very prominent important ones and they kind of said no, like they really feel like that access to shelf is enough. But it seems like from a lot of our conversations, it might not be from the brand side, but that's obviously maybe biased. But like, what do you think about that? Sorry to cut you off, but more of that.

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:05:06
Absolutely. That's enough. Like, what more can you ask for from a retailer than brand space? I mean, it's so hard to get a meeting. It's so hard to get a yes. If they put you on the shelf, like that's their, their job's done, it's not your job to make sure it's success. And so it's like, I mean, what more do you want from a retailer than putting you on the shelf? It's absolutely enough. And that's a huge commitment from the retailers. And I think the fact that they, that they'll be patient or they'll give maybe a longer leash to regenerative brands to get their act together. But I see this with many start ups.

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:05:29
So they don't truly realize that once you get on the shelf. It is your responsibility to sell it, not the, not the retailers. Um And so, uh yeah, I think absolutely that's enough on retailers getting it on the shelf and then it switches over to uh groups like yours who are trying to build consumer awareness. Um It, it switches to the uh it switches to the brands trying to get it to sell but it, but it kind of goes back to like I like having a regenerative corn tortilla chip, but that's not what, what was the time period you said? What, what time period are we? 20?

Kyle Krull - 01:06:16
2050?

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:06:17
Ok. So we got some time. Uh but uh uh but like over the next few years, at least next five years being regenerative is not gonna be why people buy my product. And so I think realizing that is, and that regenerative is a standard that you have as part of what you sell, but not necessarily the reason that will help I think grow the movement as well. But

Kyle Krull - 01:06:42
I think it's great insight and especially for your category, like nobody's buying tortilla chips because they're wanting to be healthier, make healthier choices, right? So the fact that you can be a healthier choice within that category, I think is a really great option, but it's not like, oh man, like New Year, New Me January, like I need to up my tortilla chip in intake, right? Like nobody's doing it. It's your point like that's not, that's not going to be the pole to get them to buy your brand. So I think that's a really great call out. Um I had another question but man, today really is the day of like making a comment. Lose your question.

Kyle Krull - 01:06:59
I don't know what the deal is.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:07:12
You're leaving a speechless Zack. You. I mean, so, so good.

Kyle Krull - 01:07:16
You know, I will say that was the the most epic new item innovation tease we've ever had on the podcast. I am so curious as to what this thing is that you're going to make and we won't force you to share it on the pod if you don't want to. Um But I do want to say thank you for your time. Super interesting story. I love the work you're doing for anybody listening. The website is Zaks Z A, sorry Z AC Ks mighty.com. Um Check it out. There's some beautiful videos there. I actually like the tortillas being cut on the line. Um I love that transparency. I think that's really cool.

Kyle Krull - 01:07:32
Um So yeah, thanks. Thanks for being here. Thanks for making these chips. They're fantastic.

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:07:53
Awesome. Thanks guys. Thanks for trying them. Thanks for having me and thanks for uh your spotlight on Regen.

Anthony Corsaro - 01:07:59
Absolutely. Thanks brother. Appreciate you man.

Kyle Krull - 01:08:01
All right.

Zack Gazzaniga - 01:08:02
Bye

Anthony Corsaro - 01:08:06
for show notes, episode transcripts and more information on our guests and what we discussed on the show. Check out our website Regen-brands.com. That is Regen-brands.com. You can also find our Regen recaps on the website. Regen recaps. Take less than five minutes to read and cover all the key points of the full hour long conversations. You can check out our youtube channel Regen brands podcast for all of our episodes with both video and audience. The best way to support our work is to give us a five star rating on your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to future episodes and share the show with your friends. Thanks for tuning in to the Regen brands podcast brought to you by the Regen Coalition and Outlaw Ventures. We hope you learn something new in this episode and it empowers you to use your voice, your time and your dollars to help us build a better and more regenerative food system. Love you guys.