Brazi Bites Expands to Breakfast & Launches Pizza’nadas
To further build their customer base, frozen food brand Brazi Bites is looking to breakfast. The company, which produces frozen versions of the classic Brazilian cheese bread Pao de Queijo as well as empanadas will launch gluten-free breakfast sandwiches this Spring in Target.
Available in Turkey Bacon, Egg and Cheddar; Double Egg and Cheddar; Turkey Sausage, Egg and Cheddar; and Bacon, Egg and Cheddar, each sandwich will retail for $4.49. Unlike the brand’s previous innovations, the sandwiches are microwavable, sold with a “microwave crisping sleeve.”
Founded in 2011 by Junea Rocha and Cameron MacMullin, San Francisco Equity Partners (SFEP) acquired a majority of the company in July 2018, with Brazi subsequently adding former Justin’s President Michael Guanella as CEO later that year. The brand’s products are sold in over 15,000 stores nationwide including Target, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Kroger, Costco, Wegmans and Publix.
Guanella said the company expects to make more than $30 million in sales for 2021.
The main goal of the breakfast launch, Guanella said, is to help the brand expand beyond snacking. With the sandwiches, Rocha said, Brazi can move to the center of the plate and add a new eating occasion. Though the brand is pulling from the cuisine of Rocha’s former home of Brazil, the goal was to also create a product type that was perhaps more recognizable to the average consumer then cheese bread and empanadas.
“If we are hyper-authentic we’re going to struggle to be approachable,” Rocha said. “We believe that some people will be introduced to the brand for the first time through the breakfast sandwich…[and] breakfast could be a way into the brand.”
Though the team initially considered baked breakfast empanadas, researchers found that consumers wanted a product that was faster to prepare, as Brazi’s other items require a 20 minute cook time in an oven or toaster oven. For breakfast, Guanella said, shoppers want options that can be prepared more quickly.
Though the Covid-19 pandemic has led to more consumers eating breakfast at home, and encouraged a rise in frozen food sales, Rocha said Brazi has been working on this concept since 2019 and pandemic shopping habits simply validated the company’s existing thesis. Guanella added that the past year has been a “mixed bag” for the brand with increased sales but unforeseen hurdles in working remotely both as a team and with time-strapped retailers.
Still, the company has been focusing on growth, preparing for its next stage of expansion. Originally produced near its headquarters in the Pacific Northwest, Brazi has brought online three more manufacturing partners and added two logistics providers, working to shorten transportation distances.
“There’s been a tremendous amount of change and there’s still more change to come,” Guanella said. “The operative word has been ‘scale.’”
Rocha added that the company has also further refined its product offerings over the last year and a half, transitioning out lower performing flavors. Pepper Jack Cheese Bread has been swapped for a Three Cheese option, Bacon Cheese Bread was replaced with Cinnamon Churro and its Pizza Cheese Bread will transform to a “Pizza’nada.”
The Pizza’nada, along with a new flavor of Ranch Cheese Bread, are also examples of how the brand is working to help Americans understand the classic Brazillian snacks.
“From the start we [decided] we were going to succeed by making Brazillian cheese bread approachable and easy to understand,” Rocha said. “I am a believer that that is one of the reasons for our success, especially since we were not one of the first brands to bring the cheese bread to the U.S. market — but we sure were one of the first ones and the only ones to succeed and make it at scale.”
