Pitch Slam 11 Finals - munchrooms

Speaker 1 [00:18] All right. Our last finalist for this part of the final round is Gina Shi, who's the founder and CEO of Munchrooms. Gina, come on up.

Gina Shi [00:32] Hi everyone, my name is Gina, and I'm the founder of Munchrooms, a 100% mushroom jerky company based in San Francisco. Growing up I have always loved snacking, especially with any snack that had the label of junk food on it. However, as I've gotten older, I've definitely felt the immediate effects of eating that entire bag of flaming hot Cheetos in one go, not to mention that accompanying guilt that comes right along. Back in 2019 on my quarterly business trip to Asia, I still remember going down to that local convenience store and trying mushroom snacks for the very first time. I was blown away that something so healthy could also be so delicious, and the further that I dived into this journey, I discovered that mushrooms weren't just good for your body but also for the environment as a plant alternative protein. Eating a plant-based diet is one of the most effective ways to battle climate change. Unlike beef products, mushrooms use 1000 times less resources based on water usage alone. We here at Munchrooms wish to make healthier snacking more achievable and sustainable with our delicious plant-based meat alternative snacks. We currently have 4 delicious flavors. We have an original 5 spice, a cracked black pepper, hot and spicy chili pepper, and a smoked teriyaki. Our current micro price is 6.99 a pack, which falls well in line with other plant-based as well as meat-based jerkies. Mushrooms themselves have been used for thousands of years for both their medicinal and general health benefits. One bag of mushrooms will give you 16 g of fiber, 6 g of protein, 50% of your daily vitamin D needs, and unlike beef that actually raises the bad cholesterol, mushrooms have the capabilities to lower that bad cholesterol in your body. The plant-based stock market is huge and continues to grow. It's expected to reach $73 billion by 2028. And not just that, consumer mindsets are shifting. 94% of all US, not all US sorry, um, of people surveyed have mentioned their desire to eat more plant-based foods and not just that, but to eat more plant-based meat substitutes. Munchrooms fits into this category perfectly, and we hope to capture part of that market. Our target consumers are millennials who are stuck behind a desk in front of their laptops in a Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting. They're constantly grazing, but at the same time they want to have snack options that are healthy and also in a better impact for the environment. Our customers love us and they let us know. In fact, just this week we had Katie reach out in our DMs with the following message. You guys are on another level. I love how you can get that stringy bits with this jerky. I will never be able to eat another vegan jerky again, knowing that this exists. I used to eat beef jerky all the time, and it's taken 10 years before I found a suitable substitute. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This makes me feel like a kid again. In addition to our 4 delicious flavors, we have 4 adorable mascots that we want to use as a platform in the future to help educate children and adults alike about sustainability efforts as well as about the wonderful world of mushrooms. Since we launched last summer, we have been growing tremendously. We are currently available in over 40 specialty shops across the nation. In fact, one of our best selling shops is a jerky shop that has over 100 different types of meat jerky. This goes to show that people are looking for more plant-based options even in a sea of meat products. In addition to wholesale, we also sell direct to consumer both on our own website and Amazon.com. We sell through online B2B channels like Hive Brands and SnackMagic, which have been great tools of discovery. In fact, Yelp discovered us on SnackMagic, and Yelp decided that they liked our products so much that they wanted all of their employees to try us. Since COVID started, we haven't really been able to do sampling. However, as of the summer we've been able to do more pop-ups as well as farmers' markets, and this has been a great way for people to try our product right away and give us that immediate feedback where they are blown away that our product is in fact 100% vegan and 0% meat. Right now we are focused on making our product even better. We want to reformulate to make sure that we have lower sugar content as well as to make it preservative free. In addition to expanding our line of jerky flavors, we want to increase our product portfolio to include other mushroom snacks, sauces, beverages, and so much more. Thank you. Well done.

Speaker 1 [05:38] All right, you can just slide up here with me. Uh, let's just get this out of the way. Eugene, how are you? Good to see you. Uh, mushrooms, what are your thoughts?

Speaker 3 [05:49] Well, I mean, listen, we love plant-based and mushroom jerkies, and we launched one globally with Whole Foods and Sprouts, you know, just two months ago. Our base is obviously not shiitake, it's uh oyster mushrooms, but, you know, we're a believer in sort of, um, this movement. I mean, we looked at the data and we knew that plant-based was trending as a category. So, um, I did love the product, um. I thought that it was just it ate just like jerky, uh, you know, the texture was great. I thought the packaging probably could use some work as it goes to sort of a more broader appeal, um, you know, obviously, you know, I think the clear film sticker label is obviously good at the size, but I think as you sort of scale that business out it's probably gonna be harder to scale. So, um, but no, I thought the product was great.

Speaker 1 [06:34] Carol, I'm sorry, did you wanna say something, Gina? thank you. OK. Uh, Carol, a lot more plant-based, uh, plant-based jerky coming to market. Um, did you see a strong point of filtration, uh, in munhrooms than what we're already seeing?

Speaker 4 [06:48] Yeah, I really like the product as well, and um I thought it was interesting that it tasted like a beef jerky but didn't have a lot of the ingredients that you see products that also really mimic the flavor of beef jerky tend to lean on um that you are seeing discourse around and. With consumers about is this actually better for me, you know, how does it taste? Um, how will it actually be sustainable? I think the only thing that worried me a little was when you listed all the categories you want to enter, um, that's a lot and that's a lot of buyers you have and I would just focus on what's your point of differentiation in in one before you start going abroad.

Speaker 1 [07:31] Yeah, uh, Gavin, let's talk about the retail strategy that Gina outlined. Um, do you think she's on the right track?

Speaker 5 [07:36] Uh, so first and foremost, once you, uh, once you reformulate and get preservative free, please call us first. Uh, it is an amazing product. Uh, it has really good texture, really good taste. It will be a game changer, um, so I'll leave it at that. I think I answered that. That is good. Uh, keep on that track but get preservative fee free as fast as you can.

Speaker 1 [07:56] And Heidi, you get the last word. Um, Gina touched earlier on in your slides about, um, the benefits of plant-based eating, plant-based diets. Um, how much of that do you think is going to move the needle for mushrooms as a brand?

Speaker 6 [08:09] Yeah, definitely, um, plant-based jerky is a, a trend. It trends high for NCG. Our shopper definitely is in that space, and I think with flexitarians looking for, um, more alternatives in that traditionally meat space that you definitely have that going for you, and I just wanted to throw into. On the packaging, I think, um, you know, your label is really small and I think about the jerky set and I think about the really bold, bright packaging that you see in a jerky set, and I would be a little concerned that you could get a little lost in the jerky set. So I just want to give you that feedback as well.

Speaker 1 [08:43] Gina, did you want to address the packaging or

Gina Shi [08:45] that's definitely top of our to do list, but in terms of I guess packaging, we were actually trying to reformulate before like dealing with all the packaging updates and the website updates just so that we didn't have to go back in time and do the same thing but I totally agree with everything that you guys had to share and thank you so much.

Speaker 5 [09:01] Yes, Gavin, on the packaging, so I, I. I kind of like it a little bit because it does make it look more authentic. It looks like it's more made like almost in-house if you will, um, but the see-through is critical because I think on a lot of jerkies you can't actually see what you're buying and I do really like that about this specific product.

Speaker 4 [09:20] Carol, I also love the little characters you showed, and I think that there's not a lot of that whimsy and fun in the jerky category and you know, keeping that and, and perhaps even some of the color scheme could bring in a new consumer who maybe feels alienated by kind of the, the brighter, bolder masculine energy that comes from a lot of the packaging that's out there.

Speaker 1 [09:43] All right, we're out of time, but well done. Great feedback, great job, Gina.