Mayoras to Become CEO of Cool Beans

No beans about it, the frozen category is gaining interest from retailers, brands and investors. Hoping to capitalize on this momentum, this week Tyler Mayoras, a former principal at Advantage Capital, announced he has joined frozen wrap startup Cool Beans as CEO.

Founded in 2018, Cool Beans is a frozen food line that offers globally inspired, plant-based wraps in Morocan Gold, Spicy Chipotle and Tikka Masala. The line arrived in stores this past January, and is now sold in 600 stores including Hy-Vee, Sprouts and Dierbergs. The company has raised $1.5 million to date from angel investors and its distribution partner World Finer Foods.

The line is part of the rising plant-based meals category, which SPINS and the Good Food Institute peg as a $377 million opportunity. Across frozen and refrigerated sets, the category has already seen dollar sales of plant-based meals grow at a rate of 25% over 2018 and 2019.

Mayoras, an angel investor, was one of the frozen brand’s original seed investors and co-founders, but at the time was working full time for Advantage Capital’s food and agribusiness fund, which invested in food, beverage and agricultural companies located in rural locations. As the fund hit five years, and no longer could invest in new companies, Mayoras was faced with deciding what to do next, ultimately deciding to move away from Advantage’s model and join a startup he felt passionate about.

“I didn’t want to do another rural fund,” Mayoras said. “I went vegan four years ago and realized there’s a lot of vegan junk food out there but there’s not a lot of…whole food plant-based products that are very minimally processed.”

Mayoras said he originally conceptualized the idea of a prepared foods, “whole foods,” plant-based company several years ago. After approaching management organization Beyond Brands about launching the company, the founding team grew to include marketer Caryn Rowe Africk and former Peapod COO Mike Brennan as additional co-founders.

Until now the company has been run by members of company incubator Beyond Brands, including co-founders Mark Doskow and Eric Schnell, with no full-time employees dedicated to the company.

But as the brand started to see distribution growth, and “stronger then expected” velocities, it was time to bring in a full-time CEO, Mayoras said. In the near term, Mayoras expects to hire one to two more full-time employees, while he will primarily focus on expanding distribution, continuing to build velocities and “really focusing on the consumer and making sure they like the product and understand the message,” he said.

Though distribution will expand, the brand plans to stay within natural and specialty channels for the near future, avoiding entering mass and club stores for at least a year. Despite already being approached by such retailers, Mayoras said he feels this move would be a mistake.

“Having been an investor in this space, I got to see a lot of things people did right and a lot of things that people did wrong,” Mayoras said. “I think expanding into large national mass [retailers] too early is a big mistake when you don’t have brand awareness… it won’t turn because no one knows who you are.”

Product expansion will also follow a measured pace. The brand plans to launch one to two more flavors in 2021 and then will look to expand into more dayparts, likely breakfast, in 2022. All will follow the same model of using whole foods, such as grain and legumes, rather than “highly processed” meat and cheese alternatives, Mayoras said.

Ultimately though, Mayoras said, he knows this is a temporary role, with the brand eventually needing a more experienced CPG veteran at the helm. A move that will likely happen in the next 18 to 24 months, sometime after the brand closes its Series A next year.

“I understand fully that I am not the long term CEO for this company,” Mayoras said. “My philosophy is that I’ll stay as long as the company needs me, but ultimately I think the company will be better off with someone with ‘been there done this taken a company to $100 million before’ experience.”