Banza: Brian Rudolph. The Chickpea Pasta That Nearly Turned to Mush

Introduction

0:00Building a business means being 10 people at once. The strategist, the spreadsheet person, the one fixing the office sink. U.S. Bank made a card for exactly that kind of hustle. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. Okay. So, our sales went down 30% week over week. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Honestly,

0:35I was more concerned with people's fear and trying to figure out how to address that. I had someone call me crying because they were so scared. And they love Bonza and they give it to their kids all the time. Yeah. And, you know, it's like, maybe more than I wanted to admit, my identity had been wrapped up in this idea of I create healthy food and to then be told and get messages from people on the internet who don't even know you that are accusing you of... That you're trying to kill them. Exactly.

From Detroit tech to chickpea experiments

1:04Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Brian Rudolph built Bonza into one of the biggest pasta brands in the country, all based on one ingredient, chickpeas.

1:41If you've spent any time in a grocery store lately, you've probably noticed that protein is everywhere. It's in chips and snacks, in bread, breakfast cereal, candy, ice cream, soda, even water. And all that's becoming pretty normal now. But not that long ago, if you wander down the pasta aisle and saw a box of high-protein pasta, you might have been confused, right? Because pasta is supposed to be carbs. The protein is the stuff you put on the pasta, like meat sauce or clams or

2:14cheese. But of course, the pasta aisle, just like almost every other aisle, is now filled with products promising more protein, including the brand we're going to talk about today, Bonza. Bonza was the first pasta on the market made from chickpeas, which, as you probably know, are packed with protein. But when Bonza's co-founder, Brian Rudolph, started tinkering with the recipe back in 2013, protein wasn't really the point. Brian was sensitive to wheat, and he was trying to find foods that made

2:46him feel better. And along the way, he started experimenting with an ingredient he already loved, chickpeas. And chickpeas, it turned out, had almost everything going for them. Yes, they were high in protein, but they were also high in fiber, low in fat, and naturally gluten-free. What they were not was easy to turn into pasta. And as you'll hear, it took Brian a long time and a lot of really terrible batches to figure out how to turn chickpea flour into pasta that people would actually want to

3:20eat. But eventually, he did. And just five years after Bonza launched, it had become the fastest growing pasta brand in the United States. But then 10 years after launch, Bonza faced a public relations crisis that threatened everything Brian and his team had built. And we'll get to that a little later. Today, Bonza is sold in more than 25,000 stores across the U.S. As for Brian, he and his older brother and co-founder Scott Rudolph grew up in Westchester County, New York. Their mom was an

3:52audiologist and their dad was an orthodontist. And after Brian graduated from college in 2012, he moved to Detroit to join Venture for America. It was a fellowship started by Andrew Yang to bring young entrepreneurs to cities that were trying to rebuild their economies. A lot of people now know it as the thing that Andrew Yang did before running for president. He started this nonprofit with the idea of creating jobs in cities that had lost jobs and doing it through entrepreneurship. And, you know,

4:24I think for someone just graduating from college, I get to have this opportunity to be a part of a small company and join a really great community of people who are also part of the program. And yeah, that's what brought me to Detroit, getting to be the first employee at a tech startup. And what was the name of the company? The company's name is Quickly. Okay. And they're actually still around. The idea was to basically create a feeling of Black Friday, but on other days of the year where you could create excitement and urgency around offers for big brands. And I was doing everything right. Customer service, reaching out to at one point

5:0160 people a day cold just to get our product on their radar. And it was an incredible way to learn. So you were there, you would be there for two years, but during your time there, I guess from what I've read, you started to think about, I mean, understandably, like, hey, what could I do? What could be interesting to me? Because the fellowship was really designed to expose you to startup culture. And with the idea, I imagine, of encouraging people to start their own thing. And clearly tech was not the thing you were going to do because you didn't. But you kind

Elimination diets and inventing a recipe

5:36of started to think about food. Before we talk about what you were doing, let's talk about food for a minute. I mean, was there a deeper interest in food? Like, were you a good cook? Were you somebody who people were like, oh, Brian, you got to go to his house for dinner? Definitely not. Okay. So tell me about how you started to think about food as something you might be interested in pursuing? Yeah. In college, I had a drawer of chewy bars. I had Chipotle one time 20 days in a row and hummus in the fridge.

6:07Totally solid pick. Chipotle? No doubt. You know, healthy, solid pick. Okay. But when I reflect on my feelings around food, it was, you know, honestly just fuel, right? And at some point I was also dealing with some sinus infections and was constantly going through this cycle of antibiotics, steroids. And I was a candidate for getting surgery, like very clearly based on how things were trending. And my dad, of all people, recommended I try an elimination diet.

6:43But my dad was just like, I've read this book. You should try it, see what happens. And cut out certain foods, reintroduce certain foods, and recognize for whatever reason, wheat-based foods were causing a reaction that led to sinus inflammation. How did you figure that out? You just, how long did it take before eliminating all wheat from your diet before you started to see changes? I mean, it was like a month maybe of removing it. And then I remember reintroducing it in the form

7:16of beer. And the next day I was like, I can't breathe. My nose is fully stuffed. So I think there's actually been a little bit more research in that connection now than there was then. I remember speaking with the ENT and he was like, listen, I don't know what you're talking about, but if it works for you, stick with it. Right. But how quickly did it, did the kind of food thing turn to, you know, maybe there's something here. Like maybe this is the thing that I could start to think about for a business. Because you were what, 22, 23 years old.

7:48Yeah, 22. Not that quickly. It took me maybe a year to work through a bunch of other things that I didn't care about as much. You know, subscription box ideas were also huge at that time. And I remember working through a subscription, a subscription to subscription boxes, like all these ideas that I remember having a conversation with someone who was in that space. And she asked me, if you were to work on this for 10 years, do you think that you'd still be excited about it 10

8:21years from now? And I think that's really when it flipped to food, where I do care a lot about food after having gone through that experience. Um, I was making all sorts of things in my kitchen. Um, I was experimenting with high protein breads and ice creams and really just anything I could get my hands on. And one of the things that I was already interested in because I wasn't happy with gluten-free pastas was what other ingredients could it be made from? So I was experimenting with

8:53that too. And when she asked me that question, it was sort of like, uh, a shift on a dime. Like it dawned on me that you can actually build a meaningful food business, um, and have it be healthy. I looked to what, uh, Chobani did in yogurt, creating Greek yogurt. And it kind of clicked. I was like, I want to do in pasta what Chobani did in yogurt. That would be the dream. Hmm. Okay. There were tons of gluten-free options at that time. This is 2012, 2013. I mean,

9:24you could get rice pot, brown rice pasta and, and I'm sure you ate those things, right? Like you ate rice-based pasta and some of it's pretty good. How did you get to a place where you, where you were like, well, beans, that, that could be an interesting way to make pasta. Yeah. Uh, well, first of all, brown rice pasta is a lot better now than it was then. So fully agree with you. Uh, it can be very good now. But at the time, um, I was having a hard time with, uh, the options that were available. And if someone is eating beans, they're getting protein, they're getting fiber,

9:58they're getting all these antioxidants. It's a vegetable. It's like all this good on the nutrition side. The more I learned about the environmental side of beans, that they're the most efficient form of protein per greenhouse gas emissions. I just started to think like, how cool is that? That's something you can work on as it grows, just does more and more good. Okay. So, so wheat pasta, which I've made before, it's, it's basically, it's flour and egg yolk, salt and water, right? It's not that hard to make, but, but because the properties inside of flour,

10:31um, are such that they can make something elastic, they can, you know, it's, it's fairly easy to work with. Tell me about experimenting in your apartment with chickpea pasta. Like what were you doing? I wasn't totally sure you could make a good pasta with chickpeas, right? I had to really go through the, the, the ringer a bit. I bought chickpea flour, uh, on Amazon. It was Bob's Red Mill. And I looked up some blogs, uh, that had recipes using chickpea flour and found some common pairings

11:07that people had used. Right. Gluten provides an amazing network. Uh, it's, it's pretty incredible if you can eat it. Yeah. And if you can't, uh, finding something that acts like it, um, whether it is egg, egg can actually go pretty far or, uh, some other secondary ingredients. I remember the very first version I made was something like chickpeas, eggs and chia. Oh. And chia was not the best idea. That's very sticky. It didn't look great. Yeah. Uh, but it managed to roll. Eventually I was

11:44constantly recoding it to your point with other flours, uh, to keep it from being so sticky to the table. I didn't have a roller pin. I was using a wine bottle. Uh, I didn't really have a good way to cut it. So I was using a knife and, uh, managed to keep it from sticking enough that I was able to cut these little slices of, uh, dough and just boil them. It was really bad. Um, and, uh, the next version, uh, I remember it was just chickpeas and eggs. So tried no chia and that was definitely better.

12:19Um, but in my head, I remember early on, I was just thinking about what is going to allow this to be accessible to as many people as possible. So even though egg actually worked okay, I wanted to see if we could keep it vegan. So I also used tapioca from Bob's Red Mill. I think xanthan gum from Bob's Red Mill. Everything. I think Bob's Red Mill was, was definitely my early source. And I guess at a certain point you, I mean, um, you must've actually probably bought like a,

12:51what, like a hand cranked pasta maker or like a home pasta machine or something. Exactly. Um, there's a very popular hand crank called the Atlas Mercado. That was my first, uh, my first CapEx, uh, bought it. I think it was something like $30 on Amazon and, uh, use that to sheet the dough and then ultimately turn it into spaghetti, bought a little dryer rack and just kept going, trying different things, uh, different temperatures, times, things like that. And, you know, I was waking up every morning before work, making chickpea pasta, 5am blasting country music.

13:27My roommate thought I was crazy. And, uh, I showed up to work one day and I, you know, gave my boss some pasta and I was like, what do you think of this? And he was like, it's okay. I was like, okay, maybe there's something that we can work with here. I mean, you're experimenting in your kitchen while working at the startup, but clearly you feel like you're onto something here. Something interesting. Cause at that point, I imagine nobody was making pasta out of chickpeas. One thing that's very cool is we can claim to be the first ever chickpea pasta, which I am very proud

Partnering with his brother and crowdfunding

13:58of. You, you decide that this is good enough by the fall of 2013. And from what I gather, you actually contacted your brother, who's eight years, eight years older than you and who had experience with a startup. And you asked him if he might want to move to Detroit and, and help you. So I have always looked up to my brother. Uh, we are eight years apart. And, uh, even when I was a kid, everything he did, I want to do. And, uh, when I was thinking about starting my own thing,

14:30I was just asking him for advice, you know, what do you think might work? Um, and he was reaching a point where he was thinking about what he might want to do next. And, uh, in that conversation, he brought up the idea of being an advisor to, uh, Bonza. And I don't know what gave me the chutzpah to say, uh, no, actually I want you to be my co-founder. Uh, and he sat with it for like five seconds and he was like, yeah, let's do it. Okay. So you are, this is the thing you're going to pursue,

15:04right? And first of all, the name, you had a name already. You called it Bonza pretty quickly. Uh, one of my friends, we were just going back and forth trying to just riffing. And at some point he said to me, um, Carbanzo, what about Bonzo? And I was like, that's pretty good. That's actually like there's something nice about that, but I think there's a clown named Bonzo and I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it should be Bonzo, but maybe Bonza. And, uh, it, it also sounded a little bit

15:41like the word pasta. Um, you know, maybe tonight I'm not eating pasta. I'm eating Bonza. I love the name still. It's, um, I've been so happy with it. All right. So you have a name and you're going to, your, your brother's on board and you need to raise money. And so for the money side of this, you went on a crowdfunding platform, uh, called Rocket Hub. And I think the way that this worked was if you did well there, then you could get some additional cash from Venture for America, right? Like who you were still working with at the time. Uh, and so what did you do for Rocket Hub?

16:12Is it like you make a, like a video and you tell a story of what you're trying to do? Exactly. Uh, and the video came out great. Uh, I actually, um, I was able to use a song that I had created as the background music and use some 3d graphics. It was just, it was just so fun to be, uh, that creative that early. And you raised $17,000. So not, I mean, you know, not hundreds or millions of dollars, but still, I guess enough to win this, to get another $10,000. Yeah. Which was huge. Just such an amazing headstart.

16:45I mean, things are really going your way because you get this money and you also, I guess it captures the attention of some producers on a, on a, like a shark tank like show. It's called restaurant startup. I don't know if it's still on CNBC. It's not. And they asked you to be on the show, which of course you're going to say yes. Right. To talk about your new pasta. Exactly. Our, our attitude at the time was we'll do anything, you know, we'll try anything. We'll talk to anyone, anyone who will listen to us. Uh, because if it wasn't going to work,

17:20I just wanted to know. And you weren't selling anything yet. No, no, we weren't selling anything, but they reached out. I saw it as, um, what a cool opportunity, first of all. Right. And, um, second, a really quick way to learn, uh, a pretty scary way to learn because if it goes terribly like that also might be the end of it and flying colors. Uh, but we were going to have chefs who were the investors, try the product and, uh, consider

17:53whether or not this had good future potential. So we filmed for the show and it was all the drama, right? We had to open a restaurant and we ended up doing a Chipotle style. I guess there's a common theme there, a Chipotle style restaurant where, uh, it was built around pasta, chickpea pasta, and we would have toppings. And I mean, they, they brought some cool people through. I remember Nancy Silverton came through and, uh, exactly. I was just like, well, what's going on here? Yeah. Astoria Moza for people who, yes, she's very famous.

Landing early retail accounts in Michigan

18:26Of course. So you get on the show and one of the, uh, celebrity judges, it happens to be Joe Bastianich, who's also the guy behind Italy, which is a kind of a perfect, like lucky fortune because he, I guess is like, Hey, you can put this pasta in Italy. Yeah. It ended up going well enough that Joe, uh, decided that this was a concept he was going to invest in. And we had our classic dramatic negotiation where he took a box of pasta, ripped it open through the pasta

18:58everywhere on the table. It was like reality TV to a T. And this is really, I mean, this is all just, it happens very quickly. I mean, you can get it, you're going to get into Italy and in your, you're in Detroit. And I guess you also have an opportunity to get into Meyer's, which is a upper Midwest grocery chain. Exactly. And the series of events with Meyer was similar to doing the reality TV show. I was just doing any pitch competition. Anyone would hear me at. And I, I went to a pitch

19:29competition at the university of Michigan lost in flying colors because it's a popularity contest and I didn't go to Michigan. So, uh, no one voted for me. Uh, everyone was voting for their friends, but one of the judges, uh, happened to know the gluten-free buyer at Meyer. And, uh, he was, I think he's just like a friend. And he said, Hey, I'm going to introduce you to this person. Uh, you should chat with, with them. And long story short, uh, I, I showed up to the meeting

20:00still with pasta and apply in a, in a bag, a little baggie, no packaging. And just said, you know, I, I was looking for advice. I truly did not think that they would be interested in carrying it, but because we were local and Meyer is amazing about supporting Michigan based companies. I think he felt compelled to try it. And I was like, okay, that's awesome. What if we do like five stores? What if we do 10 stores, see how it goes. And he was like, no, actually I want it for the full chain. So, uh, I, I was very nervous to say yes. Um, but, uh, ultimately, uh, we did. And so the

20:41first accounts we launched in at pretty much the exact same time ended up being those 190 Meyer stores and the two Eataly stores. How did you, you have to make the pasta at scale. You have to actually start making it and you had to package it and, and that requires money. First of all, did you had $27,000 from which you had raised in that crowdfunding thing? And then what additional money did you have at that point? Uh, we also raised $75,000 on the show. Okay. But you had to, to now really get this

21:16professional as you couldn't make it in your kitchen. It had to be packed. You had to have a box. You had to have a design. I imagine there, you know, there are not, not plenty, but there are several pasta manufacturing facilities in the U S that do pasta for many different brands. So I'm imagining that's your first stop. You're going to start to call up pasta makers to see if they could take your recipe and make this. We had found a very, very small manufacturer in Michigan that was gluten-free, but they can only do 150, 200 pounds an hour, which is really inefficient and amazing that they existed

21:52because we could learn with them, but we didn't think that it would be viable to start selling into grocery stores at that scale. And so we started seeking out larger, uh, manufacturing partners and we ended up finding what was at the time the largest gluten-free pasta manufacturer. And we were so excited and we were like, okay, this is. And they were also in Michigan or somewhere or another state? Uh, they were in California, uh, outside of LA. And so we, we went, uh, and had a visit and, um,

22:24they expressed a lot of confidence that they would be able to make the product because we were having all this success at the smaller scale. Yeah. Tell me what, so, okay. So this is a, this is a gluten-free pasta manufacturer. So I'm assuming most of what they're making is rice pasta, rice, pasta, rice and corn pasta. They had no experience working with beans. Okay. So you have this recipe. Which is chickpea flour and xanthan gum and tapioca starch and some pea starch and salt. And you're, you give it to them. And okay. Seems straightforward. You make the dough and then you just,

22:56the machine pushes it through extruders and then it drops onto a tray and then it's dried and then packaged and you got your pasta. That's what it should be. Yeah. That's what it should be. Okay. We, we, uh, we had the same hope and unfortunately, um, it felt like just about everything that could

Scaling production and medical emergencies

23:15go wrong, did go wrong when trying to do that scale up. We started doing these runs at, I don't remember, I think they were something like a thousand pounds an hour. So going from 150, 200 pounds an hour to a thousand pounds an hour, um, it's just the scale of a mistake increases dramatically. What's the mistake? What was the problem? By the time the pasta came out, it looked okay, but you'd boil it and it was just mush, like complete mush. Okay. And by the way, were you at the facility? Did you go to California and oversee the process? I was there pretty much the

23:50whole time seeing over and over again, these production runs where, and keep in mind, like with only just over a hundred thousand dollars, like you just don't have that much tolerance for these mistakes at that scale. So it would be something like, I think each run would be something like 8,000, 10,000 pounds. And, uh, if it doesn't work, you've lost the tolling, you've lost the ingredient costs and that adds up. So we were just watching as, okay, the first one doesn't go great.

24:22You think to yourself, okay, it's the first try. Let's regroup, figure out what else we can do. Try another variable. Again, doesn't work. So we had something like three production runs of maybe depending on the size of the run, eight to 15,000 pounds. And when you're buying chickpea flour for, I assume at the time, maybe could have been 80 cents a pound, that starts to become a problem. So I became extremely stressed. It was not paying attention to like taking care of myself. I was

24:58not sleeping. Uh, and I became at some point, I guess, so dehydrated that it kicked off what was a latent kidney stone. And so, uh, in, in the most dramatic fashion, my brother joined me to, uh, oversee what was then our last shot at a production run, uh, where we had burned through the money that we had saved. And, uh, we're on our way there. And I turned to my brother, Scott, and I'm like, I got some pain in my side. I think something's going on here. And he's like, no, you're fine.

25:32And we're sitting there waiting for the pasta to come out, to be able to try it. And I'm in so much pain that I can't stand. And I'm like billowing over. And I was like, we need to go to the emergency room. So go to the emergency room. They asked me on a scale of one to 10, uh, how much pain I'm in. And I'm like, well, I didn't get shot, but I know I'm in a lot of pain. So I want to say 10, I said nine. And I'm thinking about this last production run. I felt like I'd put everything into, uh, this business, even though it had been less than a year, I'm thinking to myself,

26:04this company is not going to survive before it even launches. This is the end of the world. If this doesn't work. When we come back in just a moment, Brian comes up with a fix for the mushy pasta problem and chooses a bold breakout color for the box. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to how I built this. As I mentioned earlier, every founder I talked to does it all

26:37the big picture, dreaming the late night spreadsheets, the 6am coffee run. Nobody asked you to make and every dollar you spend on your business should work just as hard as you do. That's why I want to tell you about the U S bank triple cash rewards visa business card. Right now you can earn an extra $750 cash back. Plus you get 3% cash back on eligible purchases at gas and EV charging stations, office supply stores, cell phone service providers, and restaurants,

27:11the things you're already buying. And here's the kicker, 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 billing cycles. That's breathing room when you need it most. Visit usbank.com slash business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is U S bank national association pursuant to a license from visa USA Inc. Some restrictions apply. Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2014. And when we left off,

Solving the texture problem with stickers

27:53Brian was at a real low point. His chickpea pasta recipe was not working out. And in the middle of dealing with all that, he got an incredibly painful kidney stone. That problem eventually went away, but the pasta was still coming out mushy. So we went back to the plant, just keeping our fingers crossed that the production run has gone well. And, um, I can clearly see that it has not gone amazingly well, not a product that we were going to be proud of. And I think it was that day where I

28:28was like, something's got to change. They can't just keep making this product. That's this bad over and over again. And going in, despite them asking me not to going, going in and talking to the press operators and saying like, what's going on. And they're like, yeah, this corn smells funny. And I was like, that's cause it's not corn. You're not making a corn pasta today. It's chickpeas. And I was like, Oh my God, the communication here is horrible. And, uh, that was, that was when they kicked me out of the plant and they're like, you got to get out of here. And you got kicked out because you were there too much or you were too, you're like poking your

28:59nose and things too much. A little overzealous. Yeah. I really wanted to see what was happening on the line because this is, this was everything to me, right? Yeah. Time was running out. I mean, we had a PO due because Meyer and Eataly were both going to have product available. And so we were running out of time, running out of money. And, uh, we also had the distributor at the time basically threatening us. They're like, if you don't fulfill this PO, you're never going to work with this retailer again. But you had to, so you basically, even though this, what was coming out of this

29:32manufacturer wasn't great, you had no choice but to use it. Is that what you're saying? That's how it felt. I was hearing these threatening messages from the distributor that was basically like, if you don't fulfill this, you'll never, you'll never work with this company again. And I don't know any better. And how much pot, I mean, how much money was this going to cost you? Like how much, most of the a hundred thousand dollars you had at that time? Yeah, we were basically out. I mean, at that point. Okay. And, and this was going to be for all the Meyer stores and some Eataly shops. Exactly. And it was something like 20,000 boxes for the initial PO. It wasn't a crazy amount,

30:07but at the time it was a crazy amount. So, uh, it, it, it, it just felt like the most impossible will fulfill, uh, order. And so we sat there and we were like, okay, what if you, uh, boil it for one minute, two minutes, three minutes? And then it was like, okay, what if you don't boil it at all? What if it just sits in hot water the same way that you steep tea? Huh? So you would, you would basically just boil water, let it stop boiling and you put the pot, turn the heat off and let it sit there and see if that changed the mushiness.

30:41Like if that made it more, more like a wheat pasta. Making it more like a wheat, wheat pasta is definitely a stretch, but at least making it not fall apart. And, uh, we found that that made it okay. It was okay. It was good enough. If you didn't boil it, if you just put it in hot water and let it sit there, it cooked better. I was still, listen, I was not proud of it. I was, I felt really bad about having to sell this under our brand, but I also knew it was a matter of survival.

31:12So we then already had the packaging printed. So in order to get through it, we had to get stickers. What did the stickers say on them? Oh, bonza is even easier to cook than regular pasta. Steep it like tea. So you had to get, you had to physically put that sticker on 20,000 boxes? 20,000 boxes. So we ended up finding some people who worked at that plant to help us. Um, and it was

31:44brutal. Uh, and you know, I'm very grateful to the folks who, who were willing to take on that job because it's pretty mind numbing and we shipped it. Yeah. And, uh, we then got the heck out of that facility, went back to the small manufacturer and said, you know, we're going to try to work with you for as long as we can. And, uh, it was immediately better working with them. They seemed to have more of an ability to adjust because it was a smaller run. So you could test, you could

32:16learn, you could try something else all pretty continuously. So yeah, we were treated. All right. So now it's the summer of 2014 and the pasta is about to roll out in 192 stores,

Launching on television and refining the brand

32:29which I think are mostly Meyers in the Midwest. And at the same time, the reality TV show that you're part of on CNBC is also about to come out. So this is a pretty like big moment for you. Um, what happens? The show, the show aired on August 5th for the first time and it crashes the website and there was real interest. We were getting tons of emails and people were frustrated. They couldn't buy it. And the show itself, it really highlighted a lot of the points that I would hope would be

33:00highlighted that it was higher in protein, higher in fiber, gluten-free vegan, all these great things like it actually, it told the story to a lot of people really fast. So even though it was, it had a lot of fake drama that didn't really happen. It also net net was a, a dream way to start to have that kind of exposure. And did you have any feedback on flavor, right? Because wheat pasta is fairly neutral. I mean, maybe it has like a slight salty flavor, but it's very, it really is like a canvas for sauce. But

33:34once you, you're using other non-wheat flours, you're introducing flavors that are palates aren't used to, right? I think what we found is in a red sauce, it was a pretty similar experience. But when you started going to the lighter sauces, it has a different flavor. And some people like that flavor, but a lot of people do want the experience of, of wheat. And so it was a work in progress. I'll say that.

34:06Yeah. But people really did love it. Like that was one of the, the, the cool things is even with recognizing the product needed to be better, it just solved such a problem for people to have pasta that could be so nutrient dense. And the nice thing about pasta is it's a vehicle for your sauce. So even though it had its flaws, that would often be hidden by the sauce itself. And I imagine, I mean, in a sense, it's like, even though it's not yet perfect, you know, cause a lot of times that can sink a brand, right? If people try it once and they just

34:38not didn't like it, they're not going to go back to it. But I think in this case, it was just so different. It was like chickpea flour pasta. And probably there were a number of people kind of excited about that because either they were gluten free or they were already looking for high protein foods. So imagine you had people like that who, even though it wasn't perfect yet, were still psyched just because it was different than anything else out there. Yeah. You know, when I think about even the earliest days, I would ask anyone in a room,

35:12you could eat pasta, but have it have more protein, more fiber. Almost anyone would say, absolutely. I would love that. And so I think just for a beloved food, people love pasta to be able to eat it and have it be that healthy, uh, was really a novel thing. Brian, tell me about the packaging. I mean, how did you design it? Cause I've seen the early packaging. It looks quite different than what it looks like now. I had a window so you can see the pasta that says chickpeas and the logo was different. Did you hire somebody to design that for you?

35:42We did. Uh, and, and there were so many iterations of design and we quickly through farmers markets learned what people liked, what they didn't like. And it really did shape the messaging that we felt like would most resonate. And, um, saying chickpeas as a lead actually scared a lot of people. So, uh, and as did gluten-free gluten-free was very much so not on the front of our packaging. We didn't have a gluten-free certification on the front. It was on the side. We really wanted people to think of this

36:15not as a product that's not for them, but a product that could, that could be because it's high in protein, high in fiber. And yeah, we definitely started to notice that people appreciated that the pasta was high in protein. I also thought it was sort of like you're putting together these, these two ideas that usually don't go together, which was somewhat, uh, shocking, right? To have a pasta that has protein, it's sort of like you, you don't expect those two things together. So there was, I think it also built intrigue. Yeah. It's interesting because it really jumps off the

36:46shelves, right? And I think one of the, one of the reasons why this has been successful is because you see it, it's an orange box. Yeah. Orange is my favorite color. So, uh, I, I, you know, grew up on Nickelodeon, uh, always loved it. And, oh yeah, that's a, that's right. That's a great orange. Yeah. It's yeah. Uh, and when we were thinking about the color, we also thought about what would stand out and saw that at the time, almost all pasta was blue. It was crazy. You

37:17would think that they were all in cahoots because every single one would look the exact same and nothing contrasts more sharply with a blue than an orange. It's distinctly bonza. I will say that at this point. All right. So you have, uh, packaging and, and you've got now some momentum, but you still need to, I mean, to scale now, and this is already, you know, 2015, you still have this issue with production, right? Like you, it's, it's being produced in a small

37:47facility in Michigan. And I'm imagining that, that you and your brother are talking about, like, we got to figure this out because this is going to be a problem at some point. Exactly. Uh, we, we started to recognize that the facility we were working with was not ready to invest in growing with us. And we were, we had the place bursting at the seams producing as often as possible and they were not willing to buy a new line. So, uh, funny enough

38:17at that time, the person from that other facility who kicked me out of the plant, his name is Manoj, he sent me a message on LinkedIn, said, hi, Brian, I'm thinking of starting my own facility. Would you be interested in being a customer? And, uh, I hated him. I hated him so much because he kicked me out of the plant. So it took every ounce of swallowing my pride to answer that message and

38:47say, sure, let's chat. We talked with him and there were some mutual interests there. And we said, hey, you know, we, instead, would you want to team up with us and help start a facility together and work through the details? Um, that you would own instead of, instead of him. So he, he was thinking about starting his own anyway to make gluten-free pasta. And you're saying, well, maybe we team up and own it together. Exactly. And it was a nice opportunity for him as well. A little bit

39:19less risky than starting his own plant. But how are you going to finance that in April of 2016?

Raising a seed round and entering Target

39:24Yeah. Uh, so that is part of why we, we, we ended up raising, uh, a seed round for the very first time. Um, and at that point we had been in a few thousand stores, uh, and, uh, we were starting to see some good momentum. I believe our, our orange packaging was starting to hit shelves, but a lot of our customers, in theory anyway, were not shopping the pasta aisle, but they'd see it when they were walking around the perimeter of the grocery store on the end cap. And they'd say, oh, I'll try that. That

39:54looks different. Yeah. And then they'd come back and buy it more. And it was this like really cool line graph where it would be like line up, new line, new baseline up every time it was on display. And we were able to, uh, raise money based on some of that early momentum, but we were very nervous about setting up our own facility. We really didn't want to, it was only after exhausting all the other options. We spoke with pretty much anyone we could and, and just continued to have bad luck or there just wasn't enough capacity. So after everything we went through with the first production run,

40:28we were very, very focused on de-risking. Uh, and, and, uh, that felt like the lowest investment way to, um, to get started. Okay. So one of the things that I think really is going to be pivotal is getting into, I mean, being Italy and Meijer is great and even Whole Foods, but, um, you were, you got into Target and this is like about two and a half years in and Target's critical, right? Because if you're in Target, then you can really become a big brand. Like you can become a,

41:01you know, a significant brand if you're just in Whole Foods, but to really scale, you've got to be in Kroger's and the Target's and Walmart's. And so they agreed to pick it up in May of 20, not, not in all the stores, but I think in a few stores or a test run. Exactly. A couple of hundred stores to see how it would go. And, you know, we watched it like a hawk. We did everything we could to, to try to support it and it got momentum. How? I mean, they used to give you one chance, right? So how did it, I mean, there has to be a reason why people noticed it there.

41:32I think it was a combination of the bright orange packaging. I hope, right? Uh, we had started to really learn what was resonant on social media probably before a lot of brands were taking it seriously and people loved pasta content. I remember it wasn't long before we were able to say we had more followers than any pasta brand. And that was, it was meaningfully helpful in also sales conversations, but I think building resonance and we would see these people who would create amazing recipes and

42:07we would just reach out and say, Hey, would you like to try our pasta? And we would ship them anything. So I have to imagine if I look in retrospect, the things that worked very different product first of its kind, but also the relentless pursuit of just saying like, please pay attention to us. Right. Yeah. And I mean, the momentum of this product is amazing. I mean, you, you, I think by 2022 you're in 21,000 stores. And at this point you've got pizza and you got mac and cheese, you got

42:37rice, um, and you'll eventually create more products. But, um, I want to ask about, you know, a challenging period for, cause this is, and, and I should mention you were on the show very briefly a couple of years ago, just a short episode with a few other guests. And we talked about this and it's a really important story because, you know, in a sense at this point, anybody could, could hear this episode and go, Oh, Bonza, you know, they just like jumped from success to success. And the guy was in

43:08the startup lab and, and people are like, where's the failure? Where's the, where's the setbacks? You know, I, I, that's how I learned from how I built this. And there was a very significant setback. Yeah. Let me, let me tell you the story that I know, and then you can chime in, but the story is there was a, uh, a report. There's a, there's an organization, influencers, moms across America, and they, you know, talk about healthy food. And I think they were very much supporters of, of

43:39organic, et cetera. Right. They tested a bunch of foods and they found that in your pastas, including other products, there was a trace elements of an herbicide cloud called glyphosate, which is, is like one of the most widely used herbicides on the planet. It's in Roundup. And so again, I don't know if this is, you know, whether their testing was fair or not, but did they come to you first or did this just come out of the blue? One day you opened the internet and people like, dude, what's going on with your pasta? I still remember when I saw that press release.

44:15Okay. So they didn't come to you first. They didn't ask for anything. No, I was sitting in a one-on-one. I saw a Google alert and my heart sank. It was terrifying. Uh, and I remember my brain just jumped 20 steps ahead. I don't know if I could have predicted how bad it actually was, but I knew it was going to be bad. When we come back in just a moment, Brian is absolutely right. It is bad. Really bad. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

Facing a viral food safety crisis

44:52Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2024 and Brian is dealing with a nightmare scenario. A viral report from a food safety group claims that bonza chickpea pasta

45:23has high levels of a harmful pesticide. I mean, honestly, we were shocked to see it. I think it was not something we ever would have expected to be the case. The majority of our supply chain at that time was already traceable. And we had relationships with many of the farms that were growing, uh, our chickpeas and, and, and most of them were coming from the U S. Correct. And none of the farmers that we have a relationship with were spraying glyphosate. So I was so shocked and confused.

45:57And then it quickly turned into, Oh my God, I'm getting a lot of threatening messages. Uh, people are really scared. They don't know what this means. They don't know how to contextualize it. And we didn't have a prepared response because we never would have expected it. Who are you hearing from? Are you hearing from, uh, I'm assuming consumers, but also from like the big companies, like the whole foods and targets of the world? It started with the advocacy group. And then the advocacy group has a very strong network of influencers that they work with who promoted the message. And, uh, frankly,

46:34fear and food is a very compelling message on social media. And it was a game of telephone where by the time it made its way to some of the largest accounts who were sharing it, they were saying things that were even more extreme than the initial very extreme message. And I think we were, we were paralyzed by, uh, this, this moment and, and wanting to verify whether or not it was true as a first step. Right. So, so on the one hand, like you, you want to release a statement, but you can't necessarily

47:08deny it until you've tested it. I guess you could recall all your products, but it's not, that would be maybe overkill. What did you decide to do right away to stop the bleeding? Cause I imagine, am I wrong? Did it, did it instantly affect sales? For absolute clarity, our sales went down 30% week over week. Wow. Wow. Wow. I mean, honestly, I was more concerned with people's fear, um, and trying to figure out how to address

47:39that. Yeah. I had people who I've known forever calling me and I had someone call me crying because they were so scared and, uh, they didn't know what it meant. They didn't know how to contextualize it. And they love Bonza and they give it to their kids all the time. I was also sitting with the fact that I've spent all this time only caring about trying to make healthy food. And now I'm in this position where, uh, people are of the belief that we are doing something extremely nefarious or intentional.

48:12Uh, and you know, it was like maybe more than I wanted to admit my identity had been wrapped up in this idea of I create healthy food and, uh, to then be told and get messages from people on the internet who don't even know you that are accusing you if you're trying to kill them. Exactly. And, and, uh, I just, I started to feel so terrible every day and it got to a point where a video would go online. My whole body would start shaking from the adrenaline and the fear. I legitimately lost like 10 pounds during that time period because I was just walking

48:44nonstop trying to work through the stress. And it was sort of like waiting for the, the shoe to drop that another influencer would post, another influencer would post. So what were you doing in those first few days? Did you, anything like, like what, what did you do? My hope was that we would get test results back quickly. So you didn't release a statement. You didn't do anything like that. Well, we did that. We did that. Uh, but, but that's not enough to, to quell people's concerns.

49:14So we absolutely, we put something on our website very quickly. Uh, but it was along the lines of, we were going to look into this, which is, which is, you know, for the people who are most concerned, maybe not what they want to hear. I just, I wanted to make sure we handled it the right way, not the rushed way. I was trying to do the right thing where we would not say something out of turn. And it was like, you couldn't have made it up that the, uh, the lab would just take longer and longer and keep delaying and delaying and delaying. And next thing you know, it's been

49:46three weeks. And what did, what did the results tell you that you guys got back? Very different. And, and, uh, for many reasons. And what we published was ultimately 98% lower than what was claimed. And, but it wasn't zero, right? There was gray. So what, what, what I had to sit with was that's not great either, right? Like it was, it was a very low level that would still be considered low by most standards. It was below EWG's, uh, benchmark for, for risk, which is already very, very conservative. But I, I, I just sat with it and I said to myself,

50:21I know we can solve this because the majority of our supply chain is already this way. So we're just going to, we're just going to make sure that we get to a hundred percent compliance and we were able to do it within just a few weeks. It's, I mean, this is in June, right? Uh, of 2022, 2020 was a bad summer for you and you're seeing sales just really collapse, but you now have data and you now have had some breathing room to kind of think about what to do. So what do you, what do you decide to do?

Rebuilding transparency and supply chains

50:52So in, uh, the span of a few weeks, uh, we gained a better understanding of how to, uh, get our supply chain to a place where every farmer we would know. And, uh, if we didn't know them, for example, in, uh, art for our pasta made in Italy, uh, there would be a tremendous amount of testing to confirm that growing practices are as they should be. Uh, and a lot of people worked with us to, to make sure we could get that over the finish line, given the circumstances. Um, so that was one component.

51:24And then the other is, um, working with a certifying agency, uh, called the detox project who created the glyphosate residue free program. So if you ever see a product that says glyphosate residue free, uh, they are the ones who created that certification and they have a new certification then new. Now, uh, many are using it called clean scan, which is intended to be not just focused on glyphosate, but also a standardized panel of pesticides, over 400 pesticides. Uh,

51:59and you know, we don't choose them. It's just that these panels are designed by, by lab testing companies. And, and they basically certify that a product is free of these ingredients. Correct. And you also commit to publishing test results. And what I loved about it is, uh, it's all focused on transparency. It's, it's meant to be a form of accountability that, uh, is very public. And I, I just wanted to, um, rebuild trust with people by just saying, you know what,

52:37we may have, uh, a test result that shows a, a positive on something like there is drift from nearby fields. The reality of farming is, is messier than most people think. And if that does happen, we will publish it and we will make a public commitment to, uh, solving for it. We will, you know, do a root cause analysis. We'll figure out where it's coming from. And I think you've got a QR code in your box right now that you can scan and you can see those test results. Yes. And that said, you know, good news does not travel as fast as bad news. And again,

53:09I think there are things we could have done differently. I wish the lab testing came back sooner, but in lieu of that, a more quick, obvious, easy to find statement that just acknowledged what was happening and that we were investigating and surprised, um, that may have helped a little bit, but honestly, it's hard to say. So if you were, if you were a crisis communications expert now, which you are, and you were giving advice to somebody in the same situation, would you say, no, you want to over communicate? You want to just talk and talk and talk and talk until everybody

53:41hears your message? Is that what you would say? Basically? Yes. At that moment, I'm not going to blame anyone but myself at this point, right? Like it would, again, I don't even know if this would have helped, but my, my hope for anyone else who's listening to this is to say, uh, if you respond with an earnest assessment of the situation, show what you care about, what you intend to do about it. Uh, I think that that can be well-received. It's hard to do. How long do you think it took

54:14before, you know, how long did it take before the sales recovered? It's been a mixed bag. In some accounts, sales are better than ever. Uh, and probably not surprisingly, the natural channel has been much slower to recover. And it's crazy because those were in many circumstances are originally our best accounts and, uh, maybe not best by, uh, uh, total dollar sales, but like

54:45repeat customers and correct. Um, and per store sales, per store sales. Exactly. Uh, and, and it, it actually does make sense that the, the people who, uh, shop in the natural channel, uh, are most likely to be affected by this type of messaging. My hope in all of this, as I sat with it was to assume positive intent with anyone. So, um, I truly believe that the moms across America team is

55:19extremely well-intended. I think that they are, uh, fighting for what they believe in and everyone was doing it from a place of, I want to help people. And that honestly made it so much more tolerable to get through it, assuming positive intent. And, you know, it's going to take time, right? Like it, the, the whole foods customer is going to take a while to, to, you know, believe in us again. And I will say like, I have alerts turned on, uh, for any mention of Bonzo and

55:51glyphosate. And I personally respond, I jump in on Reddit and my hope is a hundred percent of the time that there is a mention of Bonzo and glyphosate. Someone is responding and contextualizing until it's impossible to see a version of this story without context, which is exhausting. It's exhausting. You got a vibe, you got a vibe code, a Claude, um, Claude agent to do that for you. I mean, Might be helpful. Despite that challenge in 2024, you are, I think this year you were, became the fifth biggest pasta

56:21brand in the U S. Um, you also, uh, now you also started to sell a wheat based pasta protein, right? Um, and so you've got, and I think it's made a different facility, but you, you have that because of the high protein content. And, um, as I say, you've got frozen pizzas and protein waffles and, and, and, and mac and cheese. Where are you seeing the most exciting growth right now? Cause now we're, we're, we're in a, we're in a, now in a world where there's lots, you've got competition that you didn't have before, right? You've got, you know, Lupini pasta and, and other

56:56brands that are making chickpea pasta and even Barilla, the huge Italian brand is making, you know, chickpea pasta now. So, uh, but where are you seeing real like velocity in, in all of the

New products and reflecting on luck

57:12different things that you now make? At the end of the day, our most important product is still our chickpea pasta, the very first. Uh, and we are, uh, despite some challenges still, by the way, in the natural channel, we are seeing great growth, uh, in some accounts outside of that. Uh, but it's, our core focus has to be and remain our chickpea pasta, uh, for every reason. So for, for all the, it's, it's fun to make new stuff. It's really fun, but, uh, continuing to challenge myself to,

57:46to do less, uh, in the face of a lot of enthusiasm to want to do more. When you think about, you know, where you got to now, how much of, of, of this do you attribute to the, to the work that you and your brother put in and how much you think had to do with luck and circumstance? I mean, you did, you know, you, you arrived at the, you know, the beginning of the protein boom, there's going to be a fiber boom. There's still a lot of people who are gluten-free. You had, um, early luck with, with that reality show. And so there, there are all those factors, but how much do you weigh those two things, luck and, and hard work?

58:22I think when we're at our best, we are doing anything we can to increase the likelihood of luck. So if it's putting ourselves out there and doing a reality TV show and going through all the chaos that comes with that, but knowing that it increases the likelihood that something might go right, that's where we should be. There, there's just so much, uh, that I think has been a tailwind. If we're doing it right, we're just increasing the likelihood of a tailwind. That's Brian Rudolph, co-founder along with his brother, Scott of Bonzo. Thanks so much for

59:00listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app. So you never miss a new episode. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please do sign up for my newsletter at gyros.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by Catherine Seifer with music by Rumtine Arablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Kerry Thompson. Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Chris Messini, Alex Chung, Sam Paulson, Carla Estevez,

59:34JC Howard, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

59:52How I Built This, Can Ilet This. How I Built This. How I Built This amanite. How I Risk ThisHHHH! Android Convict. How I Bali��. How I Built This. How, a Ralph Leak. I's Bigged.