Pitch Slam 12 - Finals : RUANI

Speaker 1 [00:13] And I'm excited to hear from our first presenter today, that's Anirudh uh Mamtora, the founder and pastry chef of Ruani. Come on up. So, once again, please keep an eye on your timer.

Speaker 2 [00:31] Hi, everyone. Uh, anyone who doesn't know me from yesterday, I'll just let you know, I'm a pastry chef, and, uh, I'm the founder of Roani, and we are on a mission of creating, uh, better for you desserts. And high-quality scrumptious desserts that are made with, uh, uh, high-quality ingredients that are a joy to your taste buds while focusing on gut health. I'm so sorry about that. Um, we are here to create a taste revolution, by the way. Um. So I've been a pastry chef for the better part of a decade now. I've worked across several different continents, different locations. I worked on cruise ships, fine dining restaurants. I worked in a lot of different organizations to hone my pastry skills. I've made from the smallest of the pettifos to the biggest of the wedding cakes, and that wedding cake is, by the way, made by me for my wedding, and the flowers are real, just for your information. Um, so I have deep knowledge of pastry, and so I wanted to take it a step further from here. What do you, what does Roani mean, you might ask. So Ruani literally means from the soul, and it's actually me and my wife's name. You have the wedding picture there. It's me and my wife on the wedding day. And, uh, I just wanted to have both of us on the brand itself because we both have, uh, contributed towards, you know, what I am today. And so I just wanted to have like a symbolic gesture towards that. Uh, the pain points and the biggest inspiration for me was, over the years, I've consumed so much of sugar and junk, uh, in my pastry career as being part of Pastry Chef, the, the perks of it. Um, I started developing this gut issue. I used to get skin reactions. Anytime I ate something with a high amount of sugar, I would get 90 seconds of bliss and 90 minutes of excruciating pain. So, I wanted to address that, you know, headaches, skin reactions, bloated stomach. So the challenge and the concept was to create an irresistible, gut-friendly dessert that was yummy and good for your tummy. Make it adaptogenic by adding ashwagandha, which is an ancient Ayurvedic rejuvenator that helps relieve stress for anyone who doesn't know that, and also which should be free from dairy, refined sugar, gluten, grain, soy, and should be non-GMO. So this was the premise that I built my R&D for the product. Building the product, I had 4 main cornerstones in my head when I wanted to create it. It was uncompromising quality, clean, simple, organic ingredients, catering to the conscious consumers and creating gut-healthy deliciousness in every single bite. So I'm proud to present the 1st 3 offerings from Rouhani. Decadent coffee, uh, decadent coffee, dashing dark chocolate, and delightful peanut butter. We are actively bridging the gap between healthy eating and sinful snacking. Just for comparison's sake, the brownies that we've been all eating since our childhood. We know what all goes inside. We wanted to change something in that. We replaced all the bad ingredients with the good ones. So we use low glycemic, coconut sugar, non-GMO almond flour, ashwagandha for relaxation, hyoaic acid, avocado oil, and does not have any gluten or no added junk. Who are our core consumers? Anyone who reads the package, who wants to know what they're putting into their system. Any active family, it's good for your friends, families, kids, elders, everyone, and the gen next who's always looking for that next big thing, you know, something to cheer on, to root for. Our business model is pretty simple. Uh, we're online D2C. We just recently launched a month back. Uh, we're into, uh, other online retailers. Uh, we are also distributing via a regional distributor in the DMV area, and we are also trying to make a mark into the brick and mortar stores slowly. Um, along with all this, we also wanted to keep in mind that we give something back, so we always. Whenever I wanted to create something of my own, I thought, you know, what if I could make a mark by doing something for the betterment. So I reached out to the sources. So we are in direct contact with, uh, farmers in the Southeast Asian continent, and we are trying to, uh, like, you know, source all our ingredients from there and, uh, build a healthy relationship, trying to get them a better fair trade. We're into, um, you know, online, we're into Union Kitchen stores. We're also part of their accelerator program. Uh, we would love to get into the specialty stores and for 2023, we want to go into the rainforest. Um, our roadmap here looks like this. We want to get investment. We want to get more flavors in. We want to get a blondie and replace eggs. Our brownies are so nice, you'll want them twice.

Speaker 1 [05:40] Oh yeah, I need you to step up here to these. There you go, perfect. Um, well, yesterday our semifinal round judges were raving about the flavor of these products. Um, Mia, what's your thoughts?

Speaker 3 [05:51] Uh, they taste awesome. I, I will say they were really, really delicious.

Speaker 1 [05:56] Yeah, and Carol, also, you know, a point that came up yesterday was about this idea of more and more better for you sweets, functional sweets coming to market. I think about elite Sus which won this competition. Uh, last year or a couple of years ago, um, how do you think Ronnie kind of fits into that growing interest,

Speaker 4 [06:10] um, you know, you mentioned Elite Sweets. I think one of the interesting things is that you say, you know, low sugar, and for a lot of consumers like an elite sweets consumer, they associate that with alt sugars and the compromises you have to make on taste in an alt sugar. So I think it's hard to sometimes explain, um, yes, we're low sugar, but we're not like Xylitol or monk fruit. Um, and the other thing too is that, you know, your packaging is very adult and when you showed the Little Debbie bars, I was sort of thinking like is there a way to make it more fun because a lot of these other sweets are kind of trying to have more playfulness in them.

Speaker 1 [06:50] Ibrahim, uh, we talked about, uh, how to, you know, create a premium tier for categories that people know well, uh, a lot about or are pretty familiar to most people. Um, you know, you've done that. How do you think Ronnie kind of has, does, does Ruani have the ability to do that as well?

Speaker 5 [07:06] Yeah, for sure. First of all, I think the product was great, so kudos to you for the development work. I think it's delicious. I think building on something that, um, that she just mentioned. I would just play with the positioning a little bit so seeing like the full family and the comparison to Little Debbie actually doesn't feel like the sweet spot of this to me, right? Like I think playing with flavors and going after that adult premium consumer more wholeheartedly feels like the right move and I know you had a few consumers on the on the page, but to answer your question I think the the key to kind of developing a premium tier would be to make sure you're going after consumers who are willing to pay and and see the value in it.

Speaker 1 [07:40] Sure, and Holly, you know, I think there was a question yesterday about where these fit into the store. Um, you know, what are your thoughts? How does this, how does this product, does it fit into stores like Kroger's?

Speaker 6 [07:49] Yeah, um, absolutely that I don't think it's only, I mean, I think it's fantastic, great mention you start, what a great area to start. I think it's, uh, not limited to that. Obviously we meet Kroger meets the needs of various shoppers, including natural organic. That's why I'm here. But, um, can I ask a question related to that for in-store placement? Do you need to be refrigerated?

Speaker 2 [08:08] Yes and no, both. So it's better refrigerated, but it is shelf stable for 45 days, right? OK.

Speaker 1 [08:16] Yeah, and Mia, you know, I think that's, that's one of those questions is about like, well, how do you get into stores most efficiently, um, how do you create an easier sell for that retail buyer? Did you hear what you wanted to hear? I mean, it's, let's say it puts you in the retail buyer's shoes. Did you hear what you would want to typically hear um from the presentation today?

Speaker 3 [08:34] Yeah, I think the, the concept is there. I do see where, you know, there is a niche for that for the, for the gut healthy piece of it. I think one of the questions that I had was around sort of listing the functionality of Ashwagandha listed, but not everybody really necessarily knows what that is or what what is going to make it gut healthy. Um, the other concern that I had was when we, we spoke actually before, so I know that the SRP on this is gonna be around that 449, which I think can, it might be just a bit high. So those were, you know, that was some of my, my questions around that. Can I add

Speaker 4 [09:08] something to that as well?

Speaker 1 [09:09] I'm sorry. Did you want to address

Speaker 4 [09:10] that? OK, just, you know, I think hearing about Kroger as well as selling, you have to think about your packaging and where it's gonna be on shelf, and right now you're kind of wide, whereas a lot of the other refrigerated bars are vertical and a lot skinnier. And so a retailer is gonna have to say, well, I'm gonna give you more. Space on shelves, so they might just give you like one facing so you kind of need to think about that as well

Speaker 6 [09:33] and it's a great point. It seems like you had room in your packaging and what looks nice, it definitely seems like it could be leaner or positioned differently. Uh, one more comment along with that is we love the call that you made. I think there can be some concerns at times if you use the word gut health or gut friendly and what it really means, and it seemed like as you explained it. It clean or the challenges you had with sugar, but to others being gut friendly or gut health might mean prebiotics, probiotics. So I think there could be some terminology to think of on your packaging that could help explain you even further.

Speaker 1 [10:06] Um, Ibrahim, we have about 30 seconds left, you know, uh, we heard about the story behind the brand, and, you know, telling the story is really, really important. Um, do you think it has, Roni has like the foundations to tell that story really effectively and in a way that's gonna move consumers to buy the product?

Speaker 5 [10:21] Um, for sure, I thought it was really cool to hear the story about you and your wife and, um, kind of your own experience. I think there's just something interesting about a pastry chef who's trying to avoid sugar, right? And so like I think bringing that story forward even more, I think would be compelling.

Speaker 2 [10:34] Sure, yeah, that was, that was my main point, like trying to avoid sugar and trying to get rid of gluten, the main two things.

Speaker 1 [10:41] Fantastic, we're out of time. Well done. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 [10:43] Thank you.