Pitch Slam 11 Finals - Marco Sweets & Spices

Speaker 1 [00:18] All right. Our next finalist for this round or this part is Avery Henderson, who's the co-founder of Marco Sweets and Spices. Come on up. Thank you. How are you?

Avery Henderson [00:28] Good. Awesome. Hey, so my name is Avery Henderson, and I'm the co-founder and CMO at Marco Sweets and Spices. At Marco we create culinary inspired international ice cream that echoes a love for travel and honors the diversity of ingredients from around the world, taking dishes from plate to pint. The idea for Marco came from a perfect marriage of what I'm passionate about and what we see as a hole in the market. I'm an avid foodie and an avid traveler. I spend more time and money on both than my bank account would like to admit, and. Uh, I'd say my favorite thing to do really is to go someplace, anyplace, and eat and drink like as the locals do, entrenching myself as much as I can in the local cuisine, and although I may be on one end of the spectrum with this, I'm certainly not unique. There's been a widely publicized foodie revolution in America with more people eating foods from around the world, with more of an emphasis on cultural and culinary expressions. In so many words, I like to refer to it as the Anthony Bourdainization of America. In addition, an increasingly diverse consumer set is expecting and craving foods that represent them and what they take home from the grocery store. Yet when we look at the ice cream aisle, the big major brands are still offering the same 6 to 10 flavor profiles they always have. They mix and match these flavors any which way and call that innovation, but at the end of the day, the flavors are really still all the same. Or where there has been innovation in the category, it's to make ice cream, well, a little bit less like ice cream. Such as non-dairy and low sugar offerings. And although there are great reasons for these products to exist, we want to instead first focus on the full dairy core of the category, which is still the lion's share of the of the ice cream aisle and sales, and, but it's by far the most least innovative in sector. So our goal is to pioneer and own the international flavor segment of the category similar to what Talenti did with premium gelato and what Halo Top did with low sugar. In order to do that, we think it comes down to two key factors what you do with the product and what you do with the brand. On the product side, what we do is find flavor profiles that work, uh, in other walks of life and recreate them into ice cream. For example, we have our Thai cocoa lime flavor, which is a spin on a traditional Thai coconut curry flavor profile. On the other end of the spectrum, we have something like, uh, Turkish mocha, which is a play on a sort of a mocha version of a classic Turkish coffee, so fresh ground espresso and cardamom. Our SRP is now at 649 to 699, and we have a clear path to achieve a price point on par with mainstream premium brands like Haagen-Dazs and Talenti as we scale. Now, on the brand side, going back to what I said of eating and drinking like a local, we've built Marco around the persona of the affable local you meet while traveling, the one that introduces you to new flavors and experiences that you might not know how to look for yourself. We think this is especially important in the ice cream category is it's an area where people shop off of nostalgia. You probably don't eat chicken nuggets every night like you did when you were 6, maybe new parents notwithstanding, but you probably still have the same ice cream flavor you did back then. And it's probably tied to a memory like summertime with your grandparents. What we wanna do is be the inviting guide to a world of flavor beyond ice cream's traditional favorites, making new memories there. Fortunately, the product and the brand have really resonated with consumers, the press, and trade alike, garnering features from notable publications such as The New York Times, Forbes, Boston Globe, and even being in an Apple keynote presentation. What we feel though is the most exciting opportunity with Marco is how it can grow the overall ice cream category. We've seen sub-segmentation across many categories in the grocery store, and ice cream is no exception to this as consumer preferences and habits have deepened. First there was the corset, then the introduction of gelato was introduced, followed by dairy alternatives, low sugar, diet, and so on. What we feel is the next major segment of growth is that of international flavors, which is where we aim to champion. We've been fortunate enough to work with some amazing retailers, uh, retail partners across the US such as Central Market, Harman's, Clark's, Citarella, Bristol Farms, and with luck, many more on the way. My co-founder Luke couldn't join me today. He's pitching Kroger King Super like right now, uh, back in Colorado, so send us some good luck, uh. As everyone in the industry will tell you though, the real work starts once you get into a retailer, and we take this point to heart in a big way. We understand that we can never rely on our branding alone to drive trial. We've raised initial friends and family around with the expressed interest of ensuring that when we get into a new retailer, we have the working capital to support it diligently. We also. Oh, there we go. We also recognize that although the ice cream, uh, category is notoriously difficult for product logistics, we need to take an omni-channel approach to consumer acquisition. We've diversified our sales channel beyond retail via running a large amount of virtual, uh, uh, corporate events with partners such as Marco Experiences, Kapao, and Boombox, enabling delivery, uh, locally with Fast AF. I used it yesterday here and had ice cream in 30 minutes. It was amazing. Uh, our own direct to consumer channel and personal gifting with the On Goodie app, as driving trial is paramount for new brands, especially in indulgent categories, we feel that's especially important factor for growth with us. So in summary with Marco, we can have an ice cream category that better reflects the diversity of the consumers that shop it. Thank you.

Speaker 1 [05:17] Excellent. Come on, tell me. All right. Uh, Carol Avery mentioned that, uh, he doesn't think that the ice cream category has kept up with evolving plates. Uh, do you see it that way? And what are your thoughts on, uh, Marco as a brand, as a position, position in the way it is?

Speaker 3 [05:37] I mean, uh, I agree there is room for creativity. We talked about this a little bit in our breakout yesterday though at the same time there's a reason why some of these flavors are the top sellers because it does evoke that sense of nostalgia and it's what consumers are looking for. I think of someone like Three twins, um, who had these really creative flavors but needed to make sure the business could support it and there was enough revenue in it. I guess one of my questions though is just making sure you know it doesn't come off as a bit of cultural appropriation and also just you know I love the idea of the flavors but who are the people where that are making them where are you sourcing these ingredients from? um I think of someone like a diaspora spice or a burlap and barrel they do a great job of taking these flavors and then saying here's who's making them and I. I wonder about the Marco cat um character and maybe also highlighting like what's behind it. Yeah,

Avery Henderson [06:36] absolutely. There's a ton to unpack there, I think. First off with regards to approachability of flavors within the category, we wanted to make sure that we identified what are the core segments of the familiar flavors, flavors of ice cream, such as vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, etc. and then we did sort of what is our take on each of those areas so we're able to anchor in the familiar and then sort of expand off of that. At Root, we wanna be a brand that celebrates cultures and cuisines from around the world, not claim them as our own. So in addition to this, we source locally the ingredients wherever we can. Um, in each individual pint, sort of where it makes sense from those areas, um, just to make sure that we're telling a unique story there with Marco, Marco is really supposed to be an idea as opposed to a patented person. He's supposed to be the idea of the local you meet, that person that asks you to pull up a chair, share a story, share something, which is something that's so amazing about food in general. I'm sure it's why most of the people here are involved in the food category because it's this amazing connector and that's really what we wanna do with the brand.

Speaker 1 [07:31] Uh, yesterday, the judging panel, I, I asked the judging panel about, uh, Marco's ability to bring new sales to the ice cream category as Avery discussed. Gavin, do you see that opportunity? Do you see it that way?

Speaker 4 [07:42] Uh, with ice cream there has been a lot of innovation. I mean, you go back, uh, quite a few years with Halo Top and most recently with some keto flavors and things like that, so there has been innovation there. Um, specialty skews like this do become very tricky, um, because they don't turn at the velocity that a vanilla and chocolate and a lot of those established brands do. So there would be concern there from a retailer's perspective, but I will say the flavor profile of these, if you do get that in the consumer's mouth, some of those flavors do pop, and that that is a good selling point. Uh, but there is, uh, there, there could be some, uh, tricky situations with some of the specialty skews.

Avery Henderson [08:19] Yeah, I think ice cream is an interesting category. It's a $10 billion industry. The, the reported average amount of pints an individual eats in here is something staggering like 30. So we just wanna make sure that an individual trades up, or what we're aiming to do rather, is have it so an individual trades up a certain portion of those pints a year for a more. Adventurous experience or sort of a more cultural culinary experience we know that not everyone's gonna trade every single vanilla pint that they're ever going for for this. We wanna make sure that it allows an ice cream aisle at a grocery store to reflect sort of the growing diversity of the consumers that are shopping it, um, yeah.

Speaker 1 [08:53] And Heidi, um, well, if, if it tastes great, maybe you'll sell a lot more ice cream. How do these products taste to you? Yeah,

Speaker 5 [08:59] um, I thought the taste was really good actually. I think, um, it could be a little more, uh, like, um, uh, fatter, right? Like I think of indulgent ice creams. This tasted a little more skewed a little more on the side of like, um. Uh, sorbet, right, it had that lighter taste like a sorbet, but in terms of like the actual flavoring like the van vanilla chai, I'm a total chai person, and I thought the, the, the aftertaste so that you could taste those higher end spices coming out, it tasted like a higher end chai. Same thing with the Thai cocoa lime, um, had those chilies on the back end. I, I just wanted to say also I noticed that your range me profile said that you have social responsibility. I didn't see anything about that, uh, anywhere in the packaging on your website.

Avery Henderson [09:42] Oh yeah, so we recently. Partnered with the one acre fund, uh, which does sort of micro loans to farmers in a lot of the regions where we source our ingredients from. It is candidly something we haven't yet advertised on PAC or on our website, but it's something we're looking to do so in the future as well, um, and I think just to the point that you mentioned before with sort of lingering on the tongue, a lot of what we're really aiming to do is like how can we add depth of flavor that isn't just how many brownies can I shove into this, which is candidly delicious, but we wanna make sure that we're able to sort of have an experience that's a little bit more elevated and and allows for that depth of flavor as well.

Speaker 1 [10:13] Eugene, we're out of time, but, uh, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the business strategy outlined by Avery.

Speaker 6 [10:18] Yeah, I mean, look, I think the idea of international flavors within the ice cream set is a really cool concept. I think to Gavin's point, you know, velocity is always gonna be a tricky piece because as we all know, like even in our category, like the teriyakis and the originals always do the best and no matter how. Uh, innovative we get from a flavor perspective. Consumers always go back to vanilla. So maybe just having an incrementality story ready on hand when you talk to these retail partners of saying, hey, like, we're never gonna replace vanilla, but we're gonna bring in this incrementality to the basket size, which is always what retailers are seeking. So maybe having that type of incrementality story going in might be helpful.

Speaker 1 [10:58] Unfortunately, we're out of time. We gotta move on. Thank you so much. Well done, great feedback.