 It wasn't about, you know, the commercial success. Of course, that's part of it. But it was about doing it in a way that was the right way, sustainable, true to the original vision. And Michelle's a question to herself. The challenge that she posed to herself that led her down this path was, why the heck can't my salad dressing be as healthy as my salad? As easy as that, right? And I mean, how many people say that? They don't do anything about it. This is Started to Storefront. Today's guest is Christy Knowles, CEO of the plant-based product line, Mother Raw. Christy initially joined the company in an advisory role. The founder, Michelle Cobman, had already shaped what was then known as Michelle's Raw Foods into a successful company with VC Backers. Christy's role was to help better define the company's business strategy and take their products to the next level of appeal and availability. Then tragedy struck. Michelle passed away at the two young age of 45, leaving Christy tasked with carrying out her vision. It is a task Christy has taken too hard as she strives to guide the company with the same care and passion as Michelle would have done. So listen in as we cover everything from why it's been easier to raise money since the COVID shutdown, the meaning behind giving her employees a thank you pay and why the dressing aisle at grocery stores was in desperate need of a disruption. Now, back to the episode. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. On today's show, we have Christy from Mother Raw. Christy, thanks for joining. Please tell everyone a little bit about the company. Oh, well, first off, thank you for having me. It's always such a delight to be able to share this story and the journey of Mother Raw. So for those of you who aren't aware of what we do and who we are, basically our mission is super simple but very powerful and we encourage everyone everywhere to just eat more plants, just eat more of them. Why? Because it's good for you, it's good for the planet, it's good for sustainability and that's it. So you're probably wondering how we encourage people to do that. Well, we may consciously craft actually a line, amazing, organic and real ingredient made from nature, not from the lab. Condiments, salad dressings, dips and casos and provide all kinds of versatile ways that you can use our products and just make eating plants that much more delicious. It's funny, so you guys had sent us some products and I have, I'm glad you showed everybody but I have the ranch here and this is amazing. Honestly, we, so my wife and I have this terrible habit of adding like a blue cheese or ranch to certain items and I'm always looking for something that's vegan or at least something that's more plant-based, less oils and it's always difficult, really difficult to find and especially for it to taste good, right? And so as you guys, I just wanna share with everyone, give everyone a sense of what types of products are you guys focused on? Obviously we have the dressings, the salads, you mentioned the queso, are there anything else that you guys are working on at present time into introducing to the market? So we have, as I said, the quesos and a line of dips, an onion dip and a ranch dip that like everything else we do, it's plant-based, it's allergen-free, they're not made with nuts. Those are available online but not widely available yet through retailers so our focus right now is in pushing those out to the retailers to make them more accessible and of course we have an innovation pipeline behind the curtain where we're working on some new things as well but it's all about just how can you dip, devour, drench plants to make them more delicious and encourage more people to eat them. More vegan sauce bosses. And you know what's interesting? We are absolutely vegan. At the same time, we like to describe ourselves more broadly as just being super clean. Again, all of our ingredients by nature, not by lab. Very premium ingredients so we're the only brand out there who does like you do at home in that we use only extra virgin olive oil and just the right amount of it in our dressings. Most, if not all and I will say other dressings use very processed oils. So it's all about for us the choice of ingredients and plant-based or vegan and we're allergen-free because we wanna make our products as accessible to everybody that we can. I think that's the challenge too. It's one, it's the education of these, right? And so there's a tremendous amount of wellness companies that we have on that'll have a product and it's one, how do they get the price point one to fit the masses but you don't wanna start taking shortcuts, you don't wanna start adding gums and then there's also another component where it's you need your product to last, right? Where you still need it to, the shelf life is super important. And so it's very challenging. I did wanna ask you a little bit about how COVID has impacted your business, if at all if there's certain things that you've pivoted or you've shifted into education, what are some of the things that COVID has made you focus on during this crazy time? Yeah, well, of course, it's a course, of course a question you have to ask because COVID has affected everybody on so many levels. I'm really happy to say that the team at Mother Raw has maintained their health and we haven't been directly hurt or hit from a health perspective, which is a number one priority. The first thing that we did though is we self-manufacture. And that's unusual for a startup company. And it has been such a benefit all along, but through COVID and enormous benefit in that we control everything that comes in and comes out of our facility. So immediately we stopped all interaction from the front office and our amazing production team because we wanted to keep our production team safe and healthy and away from our front office team. So immediately went to office team working from home like earlier than anybody else. That's amazing. Yeah. And then what we did is to protect our production staff, we were one of the first to move to a thank you pay and we're continuing to do that. A thank you pay. A thank you pay. So we raised their pay right away, continue to do that because they continue to take protocols that are necessary to keep themselves healthy. So we did that. We have their groceries being ordered and delivered from our facility and delivered to our facility so that they don't have to go into the grocery store that themselves or their families. Wow. We've arranged for them not to take public transportation. So all of these measures we took within the first week and we're continuing to do that. We have daily check-ins with them from a mental health perspective. How are you doing? How can we help? So I think in that case, those are measures that with our promise, which is to put good on good, it comes naturally, good on good. It penetrates that mission or that promise of ours, immediately translates and weaves itself through to our people and our products and our culture. So COVID in that way, maintaining the safety and recognizing the extraordinary efforts of the team was something that we had to do. And I'm really proud to say that we've not had to make any really tough decisions about letting anybody go. We've kept retaining 100% of our team. And then on the business side, it's been interesting. Of course, we had to re-forecast. Right. If you haven't re-forecasted now in the face of COVID, you probably not made some, you know, you probably made some not great decisions. So the first thing was, how is this going to impact our business and adjusting for that? The second thing was, how are we going to fill the orders from all the new distribution we actually gained through COVID, which was a unique, it's not a problem, but it was a unique challenge because we were not bringing in any temporary workers. So it was, how are we going to make sure that we're still delivering 100% service levels and on time with those new customers? And we did it. I just want to give you kudos. That's amazing. I mean, one of the things that, just in talking to a lot of founders on our podcast and a lot of people that are running their businesses, there's so much press out there around the world is ending. And I think every time I walk away from one of these podcasts, I'm just wondering, why isn't this being told? Why aren't we being told about the CEOs that have been nothing but on it, immediately reactive to the moment of, we know this is bad, and we're going to make this the best case scenario. We're going to lean in. Instituting thank you pay, I think, is tremendous, keeping in line with the ethos of the company. And so one, thank you for doing that. Personally, for me, it's therapy because in these interviews I do, the world is actually quite amazing. And right now, more than anything, there's just so much negative, whatever, the narrative that it's like people think the world is ending. And I'm like, there are plenty of people doing a lot of good. And it's a shame that we're not sharing any of that stuff. So thank you. I love it. For me, it comes down to what's the culture, what's at the center, the ethos of the organization, as you said, and then all of the leaders in the business. So I don't take full responsibility. It was a management team, our head of operations, working with us and saying, OK, here's what I think we should do. And some of those things like thank you pay were just an immediate yes. Yes, of course, because that's where we come from. That's the place that we come from, but it certainly was. And it always is a full team effort. Yeah, and I think that my experience was COVID. I've been fortunate in that it would be close to me, has been touched and from a health perspective and such. But I do see a tremendous amount of humanity that is obviously, it's coming from the experience people are having with COVID and coming to the table, the boardroom table over Zoom that never existed before in just the way that I'm fundraising right now. And I think that fundraising right now has been a much better experience because of COVID than otherwise. And I know that sounds odd, potentially. Can you share more about that, or is it because? So let me just guess. So intuitively, I say it's probably easier to get meetings, right? Things are via Zoom, so there's less travel, especially with, I assume you might be raising capital from people all over the country. Well, OK, you're absolutely right. I mean, the coordination I've had over a dozen meetings, well, well over a dozen meetings. And to fly, you would have flown to each of those meetings so the time, the stress, the money involved. That's one part of it for sure. But the second part is, it's just more human because you're seeing into people's worlds, these VC partners or whomever I'm working with, they're humans too. I'm human. Their dog walks into the Zoom. My dog walks into the Zoom. And when you ask, I think the most poignant part of the meeting is when you say, hi, how are you? You actually get into a bit of a conversation about how you are because it's not a throwaway question in COVID world. It really isn't. So I don't know. I mean, it'll be hard. Maybe in the end, there'll be harder parts. Like it's going to be, you can't just come in, walk around the facility without a whole lot of planning. But this stage has been OK. I think too, as an investor, we invest in some companies and that if you can see a founder and you can see exactly when they've been tested, which is COVID, it's on display. And the numbers are what they are. And so as soon as you talk to somebody who's been able to pivot or a company that's been able to do a lot of the right things, it's actually an immediate litmus test of, this is someone I can rely on. It's instant. And you can't hide that, which is a beautiful. There's two ways of looking at COVID, but there's one of the pros I would say is that the business owners that have shifted, I would bet on for the long term because it shows that they have the staying power and the ability to rethink their business on the fly, which is valuable. Yeah. I think that's an excellent point because yes, of course, it's a litmus test for me too in terms of who I'm dealing with if I'm bringing on a new agency or how people are talking about it. And I just think it's going to expedite the conversation that we've been having collectively around doing the right thing. So it's not enough for a food company just to have a product that tastes good and is at an accessible price. Like that stopped being good enough a while ago, really. And I'm not saying there's not a place for that, but it became the story has become and what does the company do for others? And what is the mission of the company and how does it source things? And all of those things were becoming collectively more important than consumers' choices. But I think with COVID as the cloud over us right now, it's making those things so darn clear, right? I want to buy stuff that's going to feed my family and nourish my family as best as I can. I want to choose companies that are employing people that are at least local to whatever that means to them, right? They want to know that companies are doing more. And so I'm really excited for all the entrepreneurs out there, including ourselves, who are already on that path because I think it just expedites it. I totally agree. I wanted to touch on something that you mentioned before, just dive a little bit deeper. We just had someone on the podcast who talked about wellness. And so her whole company is dedicating to remote team wellness and setting up meditation centers and making mental health check-ins and doing this, that and the other. And you kind of mentioned it. You said, you know, you guys are doing mental health checks. What has this been like in terms of transitioning? I assume to fully remote and aside from your production team, but what are some of the things that you're either innovating it on or you're doing things that you may have not done before that you can share with our listeners? Yeah, I think we're growing in that respect. So what, you know, what we're doing is we're doing weekly check-in, weekly meetings on Monday. How's everybody doing? And, you know, how is everybody doing? And getting to know each other on levels, I'm good, my weekend was great, you know, versus now it's, well, you know, what did you do? Who just, how did you feel going there? What was it like going, you know, to that park or just an exploring more deeply what, you know, what people are doing to feel, to help themselves, right? And I encourage every Monday, I encourage everybody, take breaks, get outside, go for a walk, you know, take half a day. I know you're getting your work done. And we're not a big, big group. So I don't have to be super structured about it. Sure. But I think that the empathy, the recognition that we all have different ways of destressing and being really honest about what I'm doing or how I'm feeling. So some of those Mondays, you know, we go around, how's everybody doing? We talk, we share. And also, you know what, I need a boost right now, guys. You know, I need a boost. And so, you know, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna go take the dog for a walk between one and two. So I'm gonna, instead of doing that meeting between one and two, can we do that after? Given, you know, leading by example, I suppose, but also saying, you know, I'm gonna take a day off in, you know, next Friday or whatever it is, because I just, I need to, I need to go to my happy place with this, which for me is hiking out in nature by myself. Happy, happy, happy. And making it okay to put a name to, you know, I'm feeling not well. I'm not feeling myself off to, these are the types of things I'm doing. What are you guys doing? So there's that, and we're also right now investigating a meditation practice as well. The one thing, I think too, it's great. As leadership, it's so important to give permission, right? To, even though the employees necessarily aren't asking it, but just leading by example, such an important thing of just saying, hey, look, you know, I wake up at seven, if you wake up at seven, up to you, I'm going for a walk at nine though, and I'm doing my walk outside. You should do it, but up to you. And then at 11, I'm doing another walk up to you guys. And then at one o'clock I'm going for a hike, and I'm back on at three. I think that's so important. And I think so many leaders are, you know, it's a little nerve wracking at the beginning to be like, you know, you don't want to look like you're lazy as a leader either, right? So there's this thing that happens in the narrative of your head of, should I do it? Should I not do it? But I think at this point, especially during COVID, it sounds like at least you've taken the approach of, we're just going to admit to being human, and we're just going to lean into that, and it's honest, and it sounds like it's working, which is great. Yeah, I mean, I think the team is, well, I know the team is engaged. I know that some of them are struggling more than others. The ones with, you know, young kids. I mean, it's so difficult. I think we just have to be, you know, we're like patient and people who gave it their all before are still giving it their all in maybe, you know, a little bit of a different way. And that's gotta be okay. For us, it's about, you know, where it's not okay as if we're letting down, you know, we're not shipping on time, or you know, that becomes a problem. And we're really, you know, managing that. We have protocols in places we talked about, but also if something happens, what's the next thing we're going to do? You know, what's the step that we'll take to make sure that we can continue to deliver? But all the other stuff, you know, if the strategy document isn't done on Monday and it's done on Tuesday, it seems to be less pressing, you know, than it was when you're in the office every day and you're like, where is it? Where is it? It's okay. Tomorrow's okay. As long as it's good and I know it's gonna be good. So that's okay. That's so true. I was laughing before because all of my friends that have kids and I'm like, hey, how's it going? The first thing, all of them almost, that they all say, are daycare centers open yet? And then they're like, check in with me after that. They've had it, you know, and it's hard. I mean, it's, they're both trying to work. They're in different rooms. They're both sharing the wifi and everybody's wifi isn't great anymore. And so it's, there's a whole host of issues. Switching back to the fundraising, how much are you raising? What, where are you guys on the funding? Are you like series A, series B? We're series B. We already have a partner and that partner is gonna come in with another commitment, which is fantastic. And we're looking for someone to lead the round and we're looking for about five to seven million Canadians. So you can do the math on that. It's a lot less U.S. than U.S. dollars. Yeah. In terms of the change these days. But yeah, and it's, I mean, it's, we've got some great interest and I'm really looking forward to being able to execute the plan that we have. And as part of your series B fundraising, what are some of the key pieces, key levers for growth that are in there? Is it distribution? Is it getting in more? I mean, you're in a ton of stores already, but just give us a window to some of the key pieces of that strategy. Yeah. Well, no, you nailed it. I mean, there is still a lot more distribution to be had. And in fact, I, you know, in terms of COVID, one of them, from a business perspective, going back to the need to be forecast, we had about a thousand customers that were, we were already, we've already been awarded. And what that means is we're either set up in their system or they said yes, right? Email exchange, yes, you're in, but that's the timing on all of that is up in the air. Sure. So we've had to shift out kind of the distribution assumption somewhat. So our growth is distribution, about half in distribution and the rest, a combination of velocity and some assortment, you know, increases of the number of products on the shelf. Right now we're sort of averaging four to five and we're projecting maybe seven out into the future years. And it's all very fact-based, you know, and we think it's achievable and it all comes down to, you know, our competitive advantage, which beyond our product and, you know, our larger brand, because product is, you know, part of brand, but is the management team who comes from a background of CPG plus really successful startups and it has to do with execution, right? And so we feel good about our plan. We're getting good, you know, we're getting positive feedback. I've been broken up with a few times, but no doors slammed, computers slammed on me. So that's good. That's great. I mean, look, that's positive. I think that's great advice. We have a lot of people that listen that are fundraising or probably in their head around, this is gonna be really difficult. And so just your story around how much easier it is, I think is smart. And in my head, I was thinking like, you could even do Zoom tastings or you could at least ship them the products they could taste it themselves on their own accord. Yeah. Yes, we've shipped them the products and the reality is that there's money out there looking to be invested in this space. And so I would encourage everybody to take it as an opportunity and to your point showing, you know, what kind of a leader are you during this period of time? What have you been able to achieve? Maybe your food service out of your business has shut down, but where have you pivoted on, you know, your retail business or your online business? And there's money out there ready to listen. When you project into the future, do you think you and your team, you know, we're seeing a lot of these tech companies announced July 2021 as a time where they'll all go back to the office somewhere in September of next year. Do you have any idea crystal ball or at least something you're forecasting towards for getting everyone together? Or maybe it's, we're just gonna go remote. It's working. We like it. Yeah, we haven't figured it out. What we've said is the following. Because we're a food facility attached to the front office, we really have to separate those boundaries, right? And so what we've said is for the next month, we're going to see what happens as kids go back to school because there will be an impact on that. What that is depends on how everybody behaves, you know, depends on all those types of things. So for now, we're saying that the front office staff is not going back to the office for the next four weeks. That's like cutting stone. And then we'll see where we are. We want to get back together. Absolutely. You know, you miss so much, I believe, of just not being able to connect. So what we've said is we will find a way to connect whether it's like half a day, you know, twice a week in that office, but then we just won't have, you know, the production staff come into the front office, which would be a shame because we love when they come in and out. But, you know, we'll have some protocols that way. The other thing that I've been doing for the last few weeks is having a couple of team members to my house to do strategy planning sessions, ideation sessions. We can safely, you know, distance and be respectful following all the protocols. And so that's been good. That's been really nice. Like to have that contact. So one way or another, we'll figure out a routine, but we want to, before it includes in the office, we want to make sure that we understand what's happening with the, you know, kids going back to school. Totally agree. It's a tough one. Our podcast is a great example. It's like we used to do these all in person. And for sure, it's like really easy to do them online now. And, you know, it's kind of to your point, less travel, there's less coordination of schedules, semi less busy, but man, it's like having to do like body language pickup and audio. And there's so much more of sensing I have to do when I'm doing these interviews because it just makes it hard. And if there's a computer Wi-Fi lag, then it's like, oh, I'm missing, you know, there's so much is communicated just through body language. And it's so easy to miss when we're doing Zooms or phone calls, but I agree. There's no easy way to transition into this, but I did want to talk about how you became CEO of this wonderful company. It's quite a story. And so if you could just share a little bit about the founding of Mother Raw, how you got involved, and then ultimately how you're now leading the team. Absolutely. So when I started with this business, I had left behind the career in CPG of about 25 years. And I was really looking forward to going from big and bureaucratic to small and scrappy and fast. And I was brought in to help do a little bit of consulting work. So the company was actually called Raw Foods. So a different company name, different brand name. And it was founded by a woman named Michelle Cotman. And by the time I arrived on the scene, Michelle had already successfully had a VC invest in her company. And they had been invested for about a year. And hadn't quite had the traction that they were looking for, which is often the case, I think, but they kind of decided that what they needed was somebody who had my experience to come in and give them some perspective. So as I was in that process, about two and a half months in, Michelle, who had been very supportive of just figuring out how to take her vision to more eyeballs and more stomachs. She passed away at the very young age of 45. And it was like the lights went out in the company. You know, a founder, I mean, they lived, breathed, and she created this product in her kitchen and sold it at farmer's markets, like most founding stories start. And so it was at that time that I was able to mine and not able that I willingly and went for to CEO to really with the passion of taking what was and is an excellent proposition. And now we're, we've gone from what she had 300 stores which on her own was fantastic. And we're in 3,600 now. And I just think she's shining a light on what we're doing. It's amazing. And what, I mean, I can, I shared with you before where I knew of one company who lost a co-founder and how it was just really, you know, the DNA of that person still exists. And, you know, leadership tries to make sure that that person is remembered in everything that you do. And you had mentioned a story to me about how, I'm hoping you can share it about how her daughter came in, right? Her 19-year-old daughter while you guys were doing some sort of branding work. And what was that? What was that like? Yeah, that was really cool. Basically, so Michelle has two kids. Laurel, her oldest daughter and a younger son. And Laurel came to work with us after her mom passed as an intern that summer. And we were in the throes of really getting down to the fundamentals of this brand. What is the mission? What is the vision? Why do we exist? How could the world exist without us? Our why, right? And she was with us for that work. And she was able to impart, you know, her perspective from, she and her mom were very close. She used to taste test everything with her mom. So she was very, very clear on what her mom's ambitions were. And so she was part of the whole rebranding effort, which could have been seen as quite threatening. You know, you changed my mom's brand, but it literally, she was just so supportive and loved what we were doing because she saw why we were doing it, how we were doing it. We also redeveloped all the products. And we did that not because we needed to change the fundamental of the ingredients. That was so important and is important to us. It was important to Michelle. But just because Michelle wasn't a professional product developer, she made these recipes and came up with them herself. But I was able to, I have tons of experience in innovation and product development. So I was able to bring in the right person to work with our ingredients, to redo all the products that needed redoing. And Laura was sitting there taste testing with us, you know, just like she tested with her mom. So it made it very, it wasn't about, you know, the commercial success. Of course, that's, that's, you know, part of it. But it was about doing it in a way that was the right way, sustainable, true to the original vision. And Michelle's question to herself, the challenge that she posed to herself that led her down this path was, why the heck can't my salad dressing be as healthy as my salad? As easy as that, right? And I mean, how many people say that? They don't do anything about it. And I was one of those people, right? And so we stayed true. And when you think about the name Mother Raw and how it relates to the story, you know, Michelle, Mother Earth, Mother Raw, you can see how it all came together. I love that. I'm also one of those people actually, there was a long time in my life that I wouldn't eat salad. And everyone around me, you know, would eat salad. And I would be like, but you're just loading this thing up with this, you know, 600 calorie dressing that doesn't make it taste like salad anymore, right? You're not really enjoying the trueness of the earth. You're just masking it with like, it might as well be chocolate at this point, right? Yes, exactly. And you know, there's so many categories like that that needed to be disrupted, that were dusty and we've been accepting the status quo. And now there's so many small, you know, emerging businesses like ours that are taking those things head on. And thank goodness, you know, retailers are paying attention. You know, retailers have to decide whether or not they're going to put you on their shelves. And if retailers weren't being a little bit more progressive themselves and seeing that as a competitive advantage, we'd be where we are. But because there's all these scrappy brands like ourselves who are saying enough is enough. And because there's consumers willing to try new things, we find ourselves in a place where so many categories are being reimagined. Well, first of all, thank you for sharing that. I'm sure Michelle's looking down on this and obviously extremely satisfied, extremely overwhelmed probably with the work you've done. I mean, you've taken this to a great place. So thanks for sharing that. I know none of these conversations are that easy with regard to death, but it's certainly best case scenario to some extent. All right, let's switch some gears here. So it's hard to do. It's hard to do. I know, it is, although it's what, you know, it's the passion that burns, right? And keeps us all going and it's working. And it's working, things are working, which is, you know, it's so exciting. When we launched, we didn't launch Mother Raw until really January of 2019. That's when we switched the social handle from raw foods and had to bring those raw foods consumers and engage fans over to Mother Raw. That's when we were formally starting to be on shelf. And so when we launched, it was, you know, okay, let's hope this works. We just spent nine months reinventing the proposition to Mother Raw and all these products. And it was when we had our first two US customers that we were like, yay, we have something here. And it seems like a long time ago, but it was only January of 2019. When you thought about rebranding, and so this is for all the entrepreneurs out there who are rebranding or have rebranded, how do you think about branding as a whole, particularly in this situation where a lot of it has to be done remotely, right? And so is it going heavy into socials? Is it going into PR? Is it partnering with different influencers? What's the strategy that Mother Raw takes in relation to getting the brand and the education out there? Yeah, I think to answer the second part of your question about sort of what are the marketing tools that we are focusing on, you know, it's a combination. It really is a combination of all of those things. I wish I had the magic bolt that said it's one over the other. I think, you know, absolutely getting super smart with your digital media, your SEO, driving consumers, where you need them to be driven to A, B testing as much as possible. Don't hang your hat on one thing for too long because you want to always be in experimental mode in terms of, you know, what is pulling harder for you. We definitely, we started with a kick butt web environment. That was, you know, when we developed sort of our UX design, it was all around the website as a hub and making sure it was designed to do the things that we needed it to do. In our case, we needed it to also be an e-com site. So it was making sure the outset, it wasn't about all the bells and whistles because we're still building, you know, as we go and as you get bigger, but just making sure that that experience is amazing and that it's taking consumers on the journey you want to be taking them on and that it's fast, you know, speed. Don't have a bad first experience where on mobile it's, you know, terrible and slow experience, but you know, it was great, it was great on my laptop with crappy in on your mobile, you'll lose people right away. So do, you know, make sure the things that you do and build are done very well foundationally and then think about, you know, it depends on who your consumer is and where you think that they're going to be most likely to become aware and motivated and in some cases, influencers are super important in that respect. In other cases, they might not be as important. And I think there's a sexiness to certain channels like influencers and they are important in our business but they're not important enough yet to invest all of our money in that, you know. It's, we're a brand that's bought at retail. What do we have to do? We have to taste great. As a food product, you have to communicate taste as unsexy as it might seem. You have to start at the fundamentals as I guess my long-winded answer. And from a communication standpoint, if you're a food brand, communicating taste in everything you do, the language that you use, we use the language, it's craveable. So not just taste great. It's what language are you going to create? And then what visuals, what's your visual style to create that top of the funnel message around taste? Without that, you've lost everything. That's smart. And in terms of product placement, I assume a big piece of this is getting next to maybe like the regular barbecue sauce. Is that a part of it too? So that people have the option of all things compared in the same row or on the same shelf? Oh, that's a good question. For, yes, it's always easier to start, to be distributed in a spot in the store that's already an embedded behavior for your consumer, right? And so for us, refrigerator dressing, that's a behavior and it's the growing behavior within salad dressings. The center store is declining. It's 24 feet of all kinds of brands and varieties. The refrigerated set is more manageable and it's growing. So that's where we want to be. For dips, the same thing, dips are growing like crazy and they're growing in the peripheral in the produce area or the deli area. So that's where we want to be. And so those two things, absolutely placement where the action is happening is where we want to be. One of our challenges is that we've developed some condiments. They're fresh, like our current products and that's trickier. That's gonna be trickier when we go to retail. So we're sort of pacing ourselves to grow Mother Raw to be this put good on good brand that stands for something and starting with dressings and dipped primarily for retail because that'll connect the consumer to the brand more easily. And then we can think about, okay, now when we launch condiments, they're thinking kind of Mother Raw before they're necessarily thinking shelf-stable condiment section, right? So Mother Raw's in the fridge. That's gonna be a tricky. We know that. But my hope is on that from one of my hopes is that, and we see it with one of the retailers in Canada, is that as plant-based protein alternatives continue to grow at such a rapid rate that retailers are creating sets just for those, right? So this is your plant-based protein section. And if we can, with our condiments, be associated there where they're already refrigerated, where those plant-based products are already refrigerated and be part of the overall plant-based protein solution, that's like a total win. So that's the hope. I feel like that's also accelerated during COVID, right? At least in my head. So we invest in a company that it's a four-ingredient almond milk, their biggest hurdle ever has been, the shelf life is like five days. And so you have to buy it frozen, and then you have to add water to it at home, which in a normal setting is extremely difficult, right? You're changing the behavior. But then COVID hit and all of a sudden, they were telling me that people are Googling frozen milk at an all-time high, like you can see it spikes. So I went to Google Trends and I said, let me take a look at this. And sure enough, it's like unbelievable because now people want to store, right? They want to... Yeah, wow. I love that example. And they've come out of this like thriving because now people can buy it. That's been the whole problem. The whole problem for them has been, how do we get this in consumers' hands? But get them to understand it doesn't last that long because it's fresh. And so they initially attacked the coffee market, right? And so you're an almond milk latte. The coffee, any coffee shop is running through almond milk all day. So it's way easier to introduce the product. And yeah, during this time, it's like all of a sudden the consumer has shifted, doesn't mind refrigerating things, doesn't mind freezing things, just really cares about the ingredients. You know, that's so interesting. And like, if I think about it for us, who knows? But one of the things that we've noticed is that our online sales of ketchup have gone up, right, significantly. And it's in our top five and it's not available widely in retail at this point. And so it's like, oh, how come that's happening? Anybody I can see it, healthy ketchup. Oh, we come up, right? And at the time, they don't care if it's refrigerated or not, they're looking for a healthy ketchup or a no refined sugar ketchup, what we offer. And so potentially, you know, that's a really interesting, I gotta go back and talk to the team about that in terms of maybe that's just it. And in fact, growing the condiment segment of ours online first, because you come on to Mother Raw, you don't come on because we're refrigerated. You come on because of the ethos of the brand but you learn we're refrigerated and then you, you know. And so it takes away that challenge, I guess, of teaching a new behavior. So that's super interesting. It is, yeah. And for me, it's like, there's a grocery store called Irwan here in Los Angeles, which is, yeah, I'm sure you're aware of it, but it's like super fresh. Everything's very natural. And so as an investor of this product, you know, the freezer aisle, cause everything's frozen and the freezer window is usually fogged up. So I'm like, no one can see this thing. But at this point, I'm realizing because of COVID, people know exactly what door it's in. And so to me, just doing, you know, doing the calculus that you're probably doing is like, it's only a matter of time before this becomes a freezer section, right? Just like ice cream. But now it becomes like, hey, look, these are all the products that you guys are looking for that are just supernatural and that the consumer is becoming educated. Yeah. And I mean, what's, I think like frozen as well, just building on your, you know, the business that you're invested in, frozen is seeing a huge renaissance, right? And frozen has always been a great option, right? Frozen veggies, frozen fruit, like always been a great option. But, you know, there's a bit of a stigma, you know, attached to certain things frozen. But now just frozen overall and now you're part of that wave, which is, you know, yeah. I just think about it like... Good luck with that. Yeah. We hope, I think it's cool. But at the end of the day, it's a leader much like you where they've just decided to lean into certain things and have taken what the world has given them and they've leaned into it. But the way I think about this is most 20 year old, so I have like four in-laws, they're all in their 20s. I go over to the house, I open the freezer. There's nothing in the freezer ever. It's usually ice. And there's like cups of beer that are just cooling, you know, for when they want to have a beer. And that's really it. And so I'm like, okay, either the freezer is gonna go away, right, as just part of you buy a house and no one needs a freezer anymore or we're gonna have to repurpose it. And so I get excited about the notion of repurposing because it means there's space, right? Mm-hmm. Uh-huh, I get it, I get it, good, good. Something to think about there. But look, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Please tell everyone where they can find you, where they can follow you, where they can order your goods. Yeah, so if you go on our website, www.motherraw.com, you will see the store locator there, as well as you can purchase online in terms of some of the retailers that we're at, just to give you a sense. We're at Sprouts nationally. We're at some Whole Foods and some Target stores. We're all over California. So hopefully you can find a retailer near you, but certainly online is the easiest way to just take a look at our whole line and what we do. Please give us a try. It's all about good on good and making eating plants exciting and easy and why not just eat more plants makes sense for everybody, guys. I'll just say this much. It tastes great, it tastes clean, which is a hard thing to describe, but you know it when you know it. So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna have to get some ketchup because we run through that so quickly. Christy, thank you so much. It was great chatting with you. Thank you.