[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello friends, I'm Ray Latif, and you're listening to the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Andrew Benin, the co-founder and CEO of Graza, the olive oil brand and viral sensation known for its chef-inspired, squeezable green bottles. A claim, and there's been plenty, aside, Graza is sometimes mocked as, quote, the Instagram olive oil. But Derision is fine with co-founder and CEO Andrew Benin. Being aligned with one of the world's most popular social media platforms is a good thing, he says, and should be celebrated. Since its debut in 2022, Graza, which markets extra virgin olive oil sold in sizzle and drizzle varieties, has been a constant presence in the pantries and kitchens of Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok influencers. Virality has helped the brand generate millions of dollars in direct-to-consumer sales and supported the brand's presence at national retailers including Whole Foods, Target and Walmart. According to a recent CNBC report, Graza expects to bring in over $48 million in gross sales by the end of 2024. I sat down with Andrew for a conversation about how Graza has inspired authentic and fervent enthusiasm for its products on social media, how the company has maintained relationships with influencers, quote, at scale, and how taking a bet on the upside has guided its demand planning strategy. He also explains why he describes Graza as, quote, an early team-led company versus a founder-led one and shares his nuanced perspective on profitability. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with Andrew Benin, the co-founder and CEO of Graza. Andrew, great to see you.
[00:02:23] Andrew Benin: Great to see you too. I saw you at Expo West. You were on the move. You were interviewing people on the go, but now I see you in your nice little office.
[00:02:32] Ray Latif: I like it. It is our nice little office. I wish we had a studio set up at Expo West. It would make things a lot easier for us, but it's not that kind of show. You're always on the go.
[00:02:41] Andrew Benin: I'm sure you can get a brand to sponsor your studio at Expo West.
[00:02:46] Ray Latif: Are you offering us studio space, Andrew?
[00:02:50] Andrew Benin: I mean, I know a guy.
[00:02:51] Ray Latif: OK, well, let's connect after we hop off the mics on who that guy is, because I think our accounting department would love to hear more about that. So the last time we spoke, virtually anyway, was when Graza got off the ground, essentially. It was in March of 2022. You joined us for an episode of Elevator Talk, which is a series that highlights early stage and disruptive brands in the food and beverage business. I recall your hair was a little bit bigger. Your video was a little bit choppier. Things have changed. in terms of your AAV, but things have changed quite a bit just for Graza as a brand. And I want to talk about one thing in particular, which is The New York Times. A year ago or a few months back, you were, and Graza was in The New York Times because of a scribe that you posted on LinkedIn that was deemed by many, to be fair, as controversial. And The New York Times covered that controversy or what people deemed as controversial. But last week, The New York Times rated Graza or described Graza as the best overall olive oil that you can buy in a grocery store. So things have kind of come full circle in a way with The New York Times, which is kind of awesome.
[00:04:11] Andrew Benin: We love The New York Times. It's funny, it's hard to assess which rating systems or which ratings agencies are legitimate. You almost have to value which ones have the consumers trust and like The New York Times does. And we were unaware. If this was taking place, so at least there's some genuine curiosity on their behalf to procure products. That way, brands like Garazza, we don't actually have control over what they're testing, right? When a retailer asks you for a sample, you have some control over what you're sending them. But this was just, I guess, them picking up a product on the shelf and loving it meant a lot.
[00:04:51] Ray Latif: You had no idea your PR team did not send any product. It was nothing like that.
[00:04:55] Andrew Benin: No idea.
[00:04:56] Ray Latif: Outstanding. What's been the impact? I got to think your probably inventory is low at this point.
[00:05:02] Andrew Benin: We're stocked. Oh, good. Things have changed on the inventory side also. I think the impact is that kind of validation reverberates around the omnichannel business, right? Like they're linking out to our squeeze bottles to Amazon because I think the commission structure with Amazon carts is so aggressive, but then they're linking directly to our site for the refill cans. So we have seen an uptick in traffic. And then, I don't know, I think a retailer or our buyers feel empowered that they're carrying this product that is getting national recognition and recognition for what's inside the bottle, not just the beautiful brand that it is. So I don't know, it's all good.
[00:05:44] Ray Latif: What's inside the bottle you would think is the most important thing, but my first experience with Graza was as a very convenient option for olive oil that I didn't know I needed. And I think that's the experience a lot of people have. Clearly, and everyone knows this, you know, people have been using squeeze bottles for some time, but when did you think that there was going to be a big opportunity for a brand like Graza in the package that you have, the package that you're most known for?
[00:06:14] Andrew Benin: I actually worked in The New at restaurants used olive oil in squeeze bottles and it didn't click at that point, nor years later. The kind of founding story of the package that we decided to go in was a shower using a Dr. Bronner's bottle. Also shout out Dr. Bronner's for launching The New refills. We love them. I hope you like it.
[00:06:42] Ray Latif: They also use olive oil in their products too.
[00:06:46] Andrew Benin: I was just showering, squeezing their soap that takes forever to get off and had the moment ran out of the shower and just in a towel and washed out all the soap out of this Dr. Bronner's bottle, filled it up with olive oil. and squeezed it into a large cast iron pan. And then The New day, photoshopped Bobby Flay YouTube video and a Gordon Ramsey YouTube video, photoshopping this like obscure green object in their hand where there was a different branded olive oil, this squeeze bottle looking thing. And it just happened. It came to life. It was like, wow, like this is an opportunity here. And then as you're describing this initial experience with the vessel, like we definitely benefit as a company from having a tactile experience that is memorable. And I think other things that you open and use, it's hard to have a memorable tactile experience that is different from what you were used to in the past. So if I'm, you know, opening a bag of granola or cereal box. It's like it's there's nothing memorable about that right now. You just do it because you have to access what's inside. With Braza, there's a memorable action, which is squeezing it into a pan, squeezing it into a sheet pan. It's a tactile experience that didn't exist before in this category and it's resonating for sure. I think now everyone wants to talk about the functionality of it and the dosing and the control that you have and how it's superior to other things but I think fundamentally actually it's just this motion, like this squeeze and this motion has stuck with people and they enjoy it. And it feels empowering. And it's an emotional tactile experience in the kitchen.
[00:08:38] Ray Latif: I think a lot of entrepreneurs have that moment that you were describing, not necessarily in the shower, but have that moment where they were like, Hey, I could create a brand. I could create a product that people will love because I love this idea myself. However, not everyone knows they want to be an entrepreneur until maybe that light bulb moment has. Did you feel that way? Cause I looked through your resume, Andrew, you have one of the weirdest assortments. I don't know, weird is the wrong word, but you have one of the most diverse assortments of jobs I've ever seen. You worked at Warby Parker. You stodged at Grand Recipe Tavern. You worked at IKEA in Spain. You worked for Magic Spoon. You, I mean, you did all these different things. When did you realize, I mean, was it that moment you were in the shower that you realized you wanted to be an entrepreneur or was it well before that?
[00:09:23] Andrew Benin: No, I think it was well before that. I don't know if it was as much the desire to be an entrepreneur or the desire to actualize a vision, right? Like I've expressed in other interviews that I think entrepreneurs and artists and designers, we share and probably everyone actually shares this desire to express yourself. I think entrepreneurs use You know products or services to express themselves or express a branding vision that they they had. It's just it's just a medium. I think for me I'd always worked for. entrepreneurs and, and I think developed eventually a two-sided equation of it. One was appreciation for how much I was learning and the exposure that I had. And the other was envy, envy of, you know, them creating something, envy of, you know, them having a seat at the table for every decision, one that they earned. So combining this knowledge base and these experiences and channeling the energy from the envy, which became frustration, which eventually gets materialized as creating something, if you're lucky, is how it all happened for me. When I was getting started on this and pitching it, I didn't even like being referred to as a startup or even an entrepreneur because it felt like it minimized that there are millions of small business owners that are just trying to materialize their vision and there is Absolutely equal respect for, you know, a new landscaping business that puts up a website and hires a sales force to get clients like that's a startup. And that's someone that had a vision, whether for their life or for their brand or their business. And Graza was kind of the same way. It's just how I figured out how to express myself.
[00:11:24] Ray Latif: For sure, but starting a landscaping company and getting known for your business and finding clients in a small town might be as easy as taking out an ad in a newspaper. I'm just showing my age by saying something like that, but you know what I mean. It's like, it's finding ways to promote your brand and get your name out there and get clients. In CPG, in modern CPG in particular, it's a lot more difficult, especially when you have to use social media, you have to work within that system. to highlight what you're doing. And you did, and Graza has done, an amazing job on social media from the get-go. How did you think about that social strategy, working with micro-influencers early into the brand's development?
[00:12:10] Andrew Benin: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a prerequisite to having success and having a strategy for it is necessary. I think that you also can't fit a square peg into a round hole, no matter what your budget is, if the product is not right for the media that you're looking to distribute it upon. Garazzo wasn't engineered for social media, but through the experience, having a highly noticeable package that does not need to be the star of a video, but can be a best supporting actor in a variety of environments has worked very well for us. So olive oil as a category is a supporting actor in everything that people are doing at home. We don't need to have people say, I just discovered olive oil, and it's delicious. Our messaging is much more, I'm making homemade hummus, because that's so fun on my new food processor, and I'm topping it with grasa drizzle. And it's like, oh, great. I love cooking. I love hummus. I love drizzle. There's not like 18 macros that we need to be read off a script. Right.
[00:13:29] Ray Latif: Yeah. It's pretty intuitive on what olive oil is and how to use it. You don't need to teach people. But when I look at Instagram videos these days and I see cooking Instagram videos, whether it's a pro or just an at-home chef, I'm not even kidding. Like half the time, half the time or more, they're using Graza. Are you sending products to these folks? Or, I mean, do you have direct relationships with folks right now that are, is broad in its scope? Or, I mean, are people just buying your product and using it?
[00:13:58] Andrew Benin: I think all of it. I think some of it is a hat on the back of how ubiquitous we've become in such little time. And the rest of it obviously is incredibly hard work maintaining relationships with people directly at scale. And then, of course, they're on YouTube, for example, we have been investing in sponsored placement, because we believe in the audience that someone's able to garner, but I'd say paid versus unpaid for us product placement. We're probably talking about 99.5% organic placement, or we send product out to someone, or they asked for a re-up because it's just part of their routine, or 0.5% being paid placement that we procure and manage our own without agency support. So I don't know. I mean, I think if you're in a boardroom of a massive CPG conglomerate, social media is probably what is being spoken about the most besides the bottom line and EBITDA. I would think so. That's how important it is. But if it's not in your DNA and your brand's inception, I think, or in the early team that you built, I think it's going to be hard to feel natural for a bigger brand. For us, We've celebrated being called Instagram's olive oil and TikTok's olive oil. Some people would call it demeaning, right? To be like, you're just the olive oil of the internet. And we're like, well, do you understand the power of the internet? That is a massive compliment. great that we got a New York Times tastiest olive oil award, you know, sold at scale at grocery. We feel that way. That's how our internal team feels about our products that we create. But internet's olive oil, hopefully I want to keep that cap forever, you know?
[00:15:56] Ray Latif: I want to dive a bit deeper into social media. You were born as a social media brand, but how has your social media strategy, how has your team evolved since?
[00:16:09] Andrew Benin: Yeah, I mean, we have a big brand marketing team. How big is big for you? Brand marketers. I feel like we have five full-time brand marketers out of 12 full-time employees. So that's pretty big. Yeah. It's big for us. And how has it changed? Well, it's not it's not as much as changing like the the outreach strategy is consistent with how it's always been. I think it's the maintenance plus outreach piece and necessitates more resources. Like if you're just spewing out product seeding requests to everyone, that's how you're going to be interpreted as a business. The same as like if you're spewing out emails to hundreds of people a day asking for support. It's like eventually being a bit more thoughtful is going to be reciprocated. For us, investing in resources and personnel to continue maintaining relationships that we've built and other personnel that are responsible for procuring new relationships and new opportunities has been the biggest change. That's a commitment to the people that have helped us to date and the people that we think can help us moving forward. I think a lot of people in social media strategy, we'll view it as paying for someone's community, but multi-touchpoint marketing applies to building trust with a creator's community, so you have to have some longevity to your investment as well, which is scary for brands that can't miss, right? There are plenty of people, including us, that can't spend $100,000 and not have a return on it. Who's gonna write that off in these days, you know? So yeah, it's still scary. It's not easy.
[00:17:53] Ray Latif: Earlier, you alluded to the fact that you have your inventory strategy where you want it to be, or at least it seems like it's much more solidified than it had been when you started out. And I think this is part of growing up as a brand, growing up as a founder, is understanding that you're running a business, that there's an operation side to what you do that is as important, if not the most important thing that you do. How has that changed? I mean, how have you thought about what we need at the time that you launched? you know, how quickly you're growing, you know, how do you manage that process of rapid growth with, you know, the backend of we've got to do all this stuff to be prepared to sell as much as we expect we can sell.
[00:18:36] Andrew Benin: It's hard. You're always taking a bet on the upside, which is challenging for your cashflow and your cash conversion cycles, especially in a commodity marketplace, especially if you don't have a command model. but that provides a healthy pressure on us to deliver on our expectations. So it's a double-edged sword. And then how do we manage it? There is no silver bullet there. It is a lot of re-forecasting and re-forecasting and re-forecasting over and over and over again, especially once we have this much warehouse distribution at all the big distributors in the country, direct accounts that are picking up from our warehouse. I think it's a forcing function, because I think you know that once you get into, say, Walmart, there's less flexibility for a misstep. We've been told as CPG operators that if there's a mistake with an account like that, or if you don't succeed once you're in, then you're out and you're never getting back in. I actually don't think that's true, but it's part of the neuroses, I think, that forces us to invest in demand planning resources. So it's all just incredibly hard work. It really is.
[00:19:52] Ray Latif: Is sales forecasting, is demand planning, is that all happening internally or are you outsourcing to support that type of long-term business planning?
[00:20:04] Andrew Benin: All internal.
[00:20:06] Ray Latif: Is it a function of you hiring the right people or is it just you learning along the way, you and your team?
[00:20:11] Andrew Benin: I think those are the same thing. Actually, if you hire the right people in early stage that are motivated and nimble enough to evolve to the organization's needs, those become your lifers. And that's one of the most motivating parts of this is understanding that. it hasn't been a founder led company, it's been an early team led company. And a lot of people have developed to address what the business's needs are, both from an operations perspective and a marketing perspective, right? As shopper marketing gets, you know, as important as brand marketing, like, The first default for us is, do we have an internal resource that can learn quickly and learn in the context of Graza? And operations is the same way. Our operations and our finance team are quite overlapped and that works for us.
[00:21:07] Ray Latif: What about innovation? I think about this can that I have in my hand, which is your new or part of your new refill lineup of products. It's a 24.5 ounce can of your sizzle. And this was developed, I think it feels like, with the Whole Foods buyer team that you've been working with for some time. Is innovation a factor of what your retail buyers are asking for? How closely do you work with them when it comes to launching new products?
[00:21:35] Andrew Benin: I mean, they definitely didn't ask for a 750 ml. I mean, we work closely with them because I don't know, data talks, right? So once you're prosperous in the data, you've allowed yourself the opportunity to work hand in hand with the retailers, because there's less risk that the things that you put out. and that they accept aren't going to work. You have a proof point. So a refill solution is something that I think everyone wanted, retailer and online customer and the brand itself. Even our branding agency early on, you know, was really pressing us on, do you have an NPD schedule for refills? And we were like, guys, we don't even have a website yet. one step at a time here, but we did start working on the cans, you know, 16, 17 months ago, so pretty quick after launch. And it did hit what was at that time and still remains our product development formula for evergreen products, which is, you know, is it fun? Is it functional? Is it beloved? Is it new and exciting? Is it different? And most importantly, is it good for the oil? So this checked those boxes really quick. There are actually things that retailers have asked for that we don't feel are the best for the oil but might be a pure economic opportunity. And thus far, we've pushed back. You know, we didn't launch cans to hit a certain price point or to hit a certain sustainability metric. We launched cans because they were perfect for what is a refill for our bottles, which we believe it. And because there were people that were not buying Graza, because they didn't want to buy anything in PET, and now they can. So it was how many things can we address at once with this launch? And there were a lot.
[00:23:33] Ray Latif: Sales and velocity solve a lot of problems in buyer relationships and they enhance buyer relationships for sure. Are there any things, any other factors that have made your relationships with retailers and their teams better?
[00:23:52] Andrew Benin: Yeah, I mean, I think because of the way that we need to purchase our olive oil and how intimate we are in our supply chain, we get viewed as another resource for them to learn about the category and what's going on. There's been severe fluctuations in price of extra virgin olive oil and having that kind of direct line and dialogue to what Graz is seeing, what a retailer is seeing. Retailers have private label businesses that they're trying to plan around, has been a new level of partnership that we've been able to establish. But we're buying oil every single day. We're on the farms every single month. We're in our manufacturing facility every two weeks. At the end of the day, I think It's different than I produce my products, you know, at these two commands, and we qualify our components and our ingredients and its services and need, but just a different type of business. So with our buyers, that has gone a long way for our category.
[00:24:54] Ray Latif: You know, I read that Graza is at this point profitable. There's probably less than a 1% of all CPG companies that are profitable after two years in the market. You know, with all the fluctuations in terms of your supply and the inflationary pressures that you have and the desire to keep the cost of your end product at a reasonable price for consumers. How have you navigated all those different things, all those elements, to get to a point where you are in a position to be profitable?
[00:25:30] Andrew Benin: My perspective on this, I think, is a bit nuanced, Ray, if I'm going to be honest. Being profitable and being in control of your destiny are different things. I think there are plenty of businesses that don't need to use whether or not they were profitable in any given fiscal year as the main moniker of success. Graza could just as easily be unprofitable by choice because accelerated growth or market share that we wanted to capture was more important to us. So I don't think you should get too much credit for being profitable. The same way I don't think you should get completely bashed for being unprofitable. If there's longevity to your business, that should be weeded out rather than, you know, is it in the black or in the red? For us, you know, we don't spend that much on marketing. We, budget bottoms up and it works for us, but I don't know if it would work for somebody else.
[00:26:36] Ray Latif: Strangely, profitability has been one of the buzziest words in our industry for some time. And it's, it's investor driven. Have your investors been pushing you to be profitable?
[00:26:46] Andrew Benin: They have not. No, I think there's a cyclical panic right now and in five years things will change where when I was at Casper, you know, top line was everything that everyone was talking about. I think that it's, You should always be operating your business with profitability as a goal, but I think you should be able to make decisions that have a bit more longevity to them than do I need to. cut anything drastically just to prove to my investors that I'm profitable or minimize my growth. Like, Gross is a growing business. That's what's actually really important to us. Like, this is up and to the right.
[00:27:31] Ray Latif: You are definitely up and to the right. And there are so many amazing things that are going on with Graza. And I'm just so honored to have had this opportunity to sit down with you, Andrew. Thank you so much for taking the time. I feel like we need a part two pretty soon. So maybe later this year, we can make that happen.
[00:27:48] Andrew Benin: That's good. I'd be honored as well.
[00:27:53] Ray Latif: That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com, Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. you
