Pitch Slam Volume 12 - Finals : Farmer Foodie Everything Cheeze

Speaker 1 [00:13] Our final presenter for the morning session of the Pitch Slam is Alison Elliott, who's the CEO of Farmer Foodie Everything Cheeze, and there she is. Come on up. I use, I use one of the my microphones and your timer's right over there. We're an overachiever. uh, this one right here.

Allie [00:34] Yep Thank you so much for having me here today. Hello everyone, my name is Allie and I'm the founder and CEO of the Farmer Foodie, and I'm here to talk to you about my delicious Everything Cheeze product. I'm a product and recipe developer and I just recently graduated from Brandeis University with my MBA in social impact. I have industry experience as the education manager on an organic farm for nearly 4 years. My social media network has actively contributed and supported the development of Everything Cheeze. I'm also a social entrepreneur. The Farmer Foodie values the triple bottom line people, planet, product and puts sustainability at the forefront of all business decisions. We aim to provide consumers with the most delicious, healthy, sustainable, convenient, multi-use plant-based dairy alternatives possible like our delicious Everything Cheeze product. Everything Cheeze is filling a need in the marketplace right now. All plant-based and even traditional animal-based cheeses have to be refrigerated. Well, Everything Cheeze is primarily a plant-based cashew Parmesan alternative. It's raw vegan, gluten-free, and soy-free, and it's shelf stable, inherently sustainable, and made with organic fair trade cashews. It's also a multi-use product. You can use it like a Parmesan cheese on your favorite dishes like pizza or pasta or risotto, or you can hydrate it with boiling water and blend it into a creamy umami, queso, ricotta, or mac and cheese sauce in 30 seconds. Across the board, Everything Cheeze is the gold standard. In 1 tablespoon, there's 2 g of protein and 1 g of fiber. It's made with 7 simple, healthy, delicious ingredients that are all recognizable to the consumer, and of course it's delicious. Right now, one pack of Everything Cheeze is 7 ounces and it's sold for $14. It has 1224, 25 servings of um Parmesan in each bag. The opportunity is clear. In the United States, the plant-based cheese industry has increased from $190 million in 2019 to $270 million in 2020, which is a 42% increase in the plant-based cheese market, which the Farmer Foodie Everything Cheeze is strategically positioned to take advantage of. In the United States, 6% of the consumers identify with a vegan diet. This number has actually increased by 500% since 2014. More than half of the United States population have been eating more plant-based foods. Dietary restrictions are people who, you know, have issues with lactose intolerance, which actually in 2018 was over a third of the United States population. Additionally, a third of the population also identify with special diets like vegan, soy-free, and gluten-free, all of which our product identifies. Right now we're selling at 7 farmers' markets in the Massachusetts area and we're strategically doing this so that we can market test our product packaging, pricing, and really chat with the consumers about what they think about our product identity as well as of course the flavor and branding. Right now we're leveraging our social media network with the launch of Everything cheese direct to consumer in recent months. We actually developed this idea in March and um we're also planning on hitting the. Uh, direct to consumer e-commerce Amazon channel as well we'll be in some specialty stores and in 2023 we're gonna introduce everything cheese to the natural channel specialty channel, and then down the line in 2024, the grocery channel. We've received a lot of press to date we've been. On a lot of podcasts and articles, and we have a lot of support through winning the 1st place prize in the WeWork Plus Oatley sustainability Changemakers pitch competition, which was in April where we won a free private WeWork office for 1 year and mentorship from the top 7 Oatley executives for an entire year. Thank you so much. Everything Cheeze is filling the gap in the rapidly growing plant-based industry, and we hope to receive some similar positive feedback today.

Speaker 1 [05:32] Well done. Uh, Mia, Ali talks about how the opportunity for plant-based cheese is clear and that Farmer Foodie is strategically positioned to meet that opportunity. Do you agree?

Speaker 3 [05:43] I, I will say, uh, yes, and that it's a growing category. I think that, um, and I know you heard this yesterday as well, but I think the the use case for this is totally lost on the packaging. Um, that it, it was not clear sort of how to make the certain things, but I didn't necessarily see it as a Parmesan alternative. That being said, it tasted amazing. I really, really enjoyed the flavor, so I think if you know you could somehow make that more clear on the packaging of, you know, these are the things that you can do with it, and this is how you can do with it, how you can make that out of it.

Allie [06:18] Yeah, I really love that suggestion, and I'm actually currently working with my graphic designer, and we're creating a mockup of of what a pre-printed on bag would look like, and we're gonna be bringing that to the farmers' market, most likely 3 different versions, and market test that with our consumers so that we can really get a feel for what they want and what will succeed. In retail and going off of that, I think I might include queso, one of our best recipes, you know, an example, and then scan for more recipes and right now we do have the images of the mac and cheese pizza with ricotta and chips and dips sort of to get consumers, you know, thinking about it.

Speaker 1 [06:55] Yeah. Um, Carol, as, uh, as consumers are willing to pay a premium price for plant-based cheese, I mean, do you think the pricing for Farmer Foodie is in line with that sort of premium pricing?

Speaker 4 [07:07] I definitely think you need a product that drives more trial initially. That's like, that's a lot of. Parmesan cheese alternative in a bag and so I don't think you, you need to put that much in, um, as well as kind of like what if I just wanna try it one off. I would almost wonder, could you do like a clip strip of little pouches in the pasta section for mac and cheese or clip strip it in, um, chips and salsa though I know everyone wants to clip strip, uh, products, so that's, that's hard to get into retail.

Allie [07:38] Yeah, that's a great idea. I'm actually thinking of moving away from the stand up craft bag into a cylinder shaker container so your mind automatically thinks, oh, OK, this is a shelf stable Parmesan. You can just simply shake it out on whatever you're eating, or you can hydrate it. Like I said, we'll have more straightforward messaging on that packaging. I really value your feedback and of course I'm gonna take this into consideration and. Hopefully with the nosh Live marketing money move forward with some of these things.

Speaker 4 [08:04] I do think there you go. I do think also with the premium price point, just, um, you know, we just saw with Miyoko's they pulled out some of the products that they felt weren't clean label enough and couldn't carry that price point. So making sure you explain why you're more premium than some of the other options.

Speaker 1 [08:22] Ibrahim, uh, Ali talked a lot about versatility, the versatility of this type of product, and again, you know, your products represent. A versatile way of making dishes for entrees or side uh side dishes as well. It feels like that's a key point for this brand, um, you know, how much do you need to highlight that? How much do consumers really care about that part of the business though?

Speaker 5 [08:43] Yeah, I think it's a really tricky balance right between giving people too many options so that they don't know what to do with it and giving them like, hey, here's the three things people love when they're trying the product, um, and to that point I actually have two just general comments. Number one, I'm not sure why you're anchored so strongly on Parmesan. Like to me it doesn't, that's not the core taste or maybe. Even the strongest use of it and so the thing that's most compelling to me is the, the, the wet applications that you can do and so like I'd even play around with like if you mix this with almond milk or oat milk or people use this in lasagna like I try to play with where are the pain points for the you know vegan cheese market. It feels more like the melty wet. Applications are are actually maybe stronger than the Parmesan ones, so that's just something to think about, right, of like how do you, how do you create a little sandbox for people to play in that's not too expensive.

Allie [09:30] Yeah, so we're gonna be introducing 4 more skews. One's gonna be a buffalo, a caua pepe, a truffle, and a taco, all of which of course cater to adult palates. Um, we have received a lot of positive feedback about the products being mixed with milk for children actually who, you know, now they eat their vegetables because everything queso is the solution for that. Um, so yeah, I really appreciate what you're saying.

Speaker 1 [09:52] Paul, you get the last word. I saw Kroger, Kroger's label, or logo on the, uh, last slide there. Um, do you think Ellie's on the right track when it comes to her retail strategy?

Speaker 6 [10:00] I think that's great because, one, I just wanna say congratulations on winning that opportunity. I think that could be truly massive for you to have 7 brains of executives at Oly thinking. Um, that year should be a great easier time for everything that was said because again it had a great flavor, but there's all these questions that we had. Um, and if you're going that direction of other, other flavors and sustainability is so important, maybe it's not a shaker. I mean, I love the idea of maybe moving from a bag, but if you think about that profile and, and the usage of it and those great comments that you just made, that could even dictate, um, it's a glass jar that's pretty or something else that is still in the right framework of where you wanna be and maybe on a plastic shaker.