 Healthy Planet, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. I'm your host, Dr. Grace O'Neill, and joining me today are Brian and Charlie Trupo of Trooper Treats. Welcome, Brian and Charlie. Thanks, Grace. So much for having us today. Yeah, thanks so much for having us. Yeah, thank you for being on the show. We're thrilled. So tell us about how you guys became vegan and your journey. I'll let Charlie start off here. Here's the one that became vegan first and I kind of followed suit there. Sure. So it really all started. We were very young. We were seven years old. And it was a Thanksgiving and we were at one of our family friend's houses. And I think Brian and I were just sitting there kind of wondering, like, where's, where's the Thanksgiving dinner? And where are all the men? And I think one of the adults told us that the men were actually out hunting for our Thanksgiving dinner. And that was kind of like the key moment in our journey where we put together and realized that, you know, the food on our plate came from, came from animals. And we were both very big animal lovers. So that was kind of the start of our vegetarian journey. I think from that point, we didn't eat any animals. And then eventually, when I was 15, I became a vegan. And I think Brian came one closer to around 19 or 20 years old. But that's kind of how that started. Yeah. Wow. So who's the older one? I'm curious. Um, I'm older by around 30 seconds. So very, very little time between us. But yeah, I'm, I'm older. So did you have to convince Brian to come vegan or vegetarian or he kind of, you guys just felt the same way all along? Yeah. So, um, I think I became a, I became a vegetarian first. So it was like a year off. Brian became one a year after me. And I didn't really have to convince him. I think it was just kind of a matter of, you know, seeing my actions, seeing what I was doing, seeing what I was eating. And then kind of just thinking about it himself and being like, Oh, maybe what he's, maybe he's a vegetarian for a reason. Like maybe I live animals. Maybe I should do it too. I think at least that's from my perspective. What was it for you, Brian? Yeah. No, I kind of agree with you. Like I don't think I was convinced in any way. But I think Charlie gave me, you know, some insight into what it was like to be vegetarian and then be vegan and recommended some documentaries. Actually, I think the one that really got me to switch over was Cowspiracy. I think it talks about greenhouse gas emissions from, you know, animal consumption and so on. So, yeah, I don't think it really took convincing. It was just more so for me getting over the fact that you can't eat dairy, getting over the fact that, you know, you can't eat pizza. It's a little bit harder to go out and find food. But overall, I made the decision on them. How about other people in your family? Are other people have they followed suit? Yeah. So I would know they haven't actually at all. It's actually funny to say that I feel like they might even be like less vegan, less vegetarian than they were before we went. I know that our parents were vegan in college. I don't know what happened, honestly. Yeah, I would definitely say that being vegan ourselves has definitely made them think more about their actions and more about what they are eating. For example, I know our sister went meatless for a while. I think she does eat a little bit meat now, but I think she's a lot more conscious of actually, you know, what she is eating. So I guess that's the positive impact there. Yeah, well, I mean, you guys are making a huge impact with the troop retreat. So can you tell us how that got started? Who came up with the idea? What, you know, what inspired you? Yeah, so I'll take this one. I had just went vegan my junior year of college going into my senior year. And I was in actually a master's program too, at the same time as undergrad. And there was a thesis. There was a thesis class where I essentially had to either start a business or intern for a startup. Anyway, I was walking the Whole Foods one day and I got the idea to start a vegan milk chocolate company because I was really craving something, you know, kind of creamy, delicious, sweet, like a chocolate product. I just couldn't find anything that was completely vegan. It either had dairy milk or had honey in it or something. So yeah, I pulled my brother up quickly after that Whole Foods trip. And we immediately launched a Kickstarter like 30 days later for troop retreats. Yeah, that's awesome. And you guys are still going. How many years ago was that? So this was during the peak of the pandemic. This was summer of 2020. Mm-hmm. That's amazing. So what is this? I know you have a couple different versions too. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, oh, sorry, upside down. This is the way for Barso. We loved Kit Kats as kids. And so we always wanted to veganize it. Our slogan is actually veganizing your childhood favorites. And so yeah, this is kind of like our version of Kit Kats. We've got the chocolate flavor. We've got the peanut butter flavor and we've got the hazelnut flavor. And how about this? What is this? Yeah. So we just released a product called Earth Gems. Charlie, I'll let you kind of dive into it just because I've got some sound going on here. No problem. So yeah, we recently released these products called Earth Gems, which I can't really say what the vegan version is though, but I'm sure you can imagine what we tried to veganize there. But they're basically gluten free, they're dairy free, and they're just really great for eating on their own or for baking or for using it even as a topic. We showed a lot of time on our Instagram. Yeah, like that right there. A lot of retailers use it for that purpose though. And how about the cookie sandwich? Is that going to be a product, like an ice cream cookie sandwich in the future? Yeah, that's actually funny. You never know. As of now, it's not in our product lineup, but we did, you know, something we did love as kids were those cookie sandwiches with the M&Ms in them and ice cream in the middle. So we'll see maybe one day. I was also wondering about, I mean, I guess there's a lot of copyrights and patents possibly for chocolate. So do you run into any problems with that when you're trying to make something that looks like something else? Yeah, so there's certain, I'll say there's certain qualities that you cannot copy. So for example, let's just go with Kit Kat, for example, like you can't really make it look like a font like Kit Kat, you can't use the exact same colors. I know there was a company called Midday Squares that got sued by Reese's because they use the exact orange color. And that's something we really try to avoid. We run everything by our lawyers. And, you know, it's really hard, though, to patent a product because patents are for processes. So you can't really patent a product or trademark a product unless it's very particular in how it's made. So I mean, I don't know what's on the horizon, but I personally like Toblerones and I don't know what other things people suggested. I like those little lint truffles with like the inside that are kind of nice. Yeah, I don't know what else is on the horizon for you guys in the future. Yeah. So, Charlie, I mean, we've got some prompt releases this fall. We actually haven't even released yet. We haven't told anyone about them. But we do have a couple of hints we've put on social media, such as, you know, it might have some mixed nuts in it. I think that's actually the only hint we've given out so far. So, you know, stay on the lookout for those new products. But we will I will tell you this. One of them is America's favorite candy bar. So if you can figure that out, you kind of can figure out what we're making. So I heard the two of you guys just turned 25. So how does it feel? Am I correct? Yeah, yeah. So we turned 25. You know, it feels crazy that we're a quarter through life. Well, not through life, but quarter through a century. I know, I know. It is funny, like, growing up thinking that everyone lives till 100. So, like, when you turn 25, you're you're like a quarter of your life. But you actually weigh more than that, aren't you? But, yeah, no, it is wild being 25. And I still feel like I'm a little kid or going through high schools at that age. But I know, yeah, our birthday was yesterday. So, yeah, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty crazy owning a business. I mean, we started this in college and it's just crazy. Like, actually, it's still surviving and thriving and growing. So that's awesome to see, especially with the lack of business experience that, you know, we just went straight out of college. Yeah, did you guys, you know, whose idea was it to be on Kickstarter? Oh, I would probably assume me, probably. I don't know exactly. But I did a Master's of Entrepreneurship at University of Florida. And I know we always kind of looked at kick stars. And and we were always curious to see what types of new innovation were coming out. And I had the idea. I was like, why don't we just, you know, we have zero money? Try to figure out a way to fund this so we can actually make this come to life. I was just going to say that, yeah, a lot of a lot of the ideas, a lot of the actual doing does come. It does stem from Brian because he had the background in business. I studied environmental science. So I'm more of like thinking about the environment and animals. But yeah, definitely more of the business stuff comes from Brian. So I guess that's where we combine our our interests a little bit. And did you guys go to the same college? I'm sure you guys went to different colleges. Yeah, we went to different colleges. I ended up studying overseas in Scotland at the University of Stirling. And I'm Brian, I'm down in Florida at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Nice, nice. That's awesome. And I know your company. I'm just wondering where can we get some of your chocolate bars? Like, I know we can get them online. I'm on an email list. Suppose you wanted to go into the store in Hawaii, for instance, and get the chocolate bars. Can you get them at Whole Foods? Can you get them at Down to Earth? We have a vegetarian store called Down to Earth here. Where can we buy these chocolates in Hawaii? Because I didn't see anything on your website. Yeah, so our website is a little bit outdated, to be honest. And we also do, quite frankly, at this stage, try to avoid the hotter states a little bit just because it's hard to ship chocolate unless you have a distributor that can keep it cold. So where we focus is mainly on the West Coast right now. We're in distribution with UNFI. They're basically a natural food distributor. But we're in some pretty decent sized chains in Washington state and Oregon. So molly stones, natural foods. We've got we're in Huckleberries in Washington states. We're in Yoke's Fresh Market. We're in New Seasons Market. And then we might test launch in Ralph's really soon. Ralph's is a Kroger brand. So that would be in San Diego, LA area. Yeah, well, we'd love to have you at Down to Earth. You guys should contact Down to Earth. I'm sure they would be willing to put up your product there because they have a lot of it's like a natural no GMO food store. I'm sure they would be willing. So, you know, there's a lot of vegans out here. So and there's a lot of people who are also lactose intolerant because we have, you know, a large Asian population here. So I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated. Yeah, for sure. We we actually we work with a lot of animal sanctuaries. We've worked with quite a few actually in Hawaii. We've worked with big island farm sanctuary. And then I believe there's one called Aloha Animal Sanctuary. Yes. Yeah, there's one that I'm missing too. But I know the big island farm sanctuary actually is selling them in their little store on site, too. So cool, cool, magical creatures. There's a magical creatures farm sanctuary on the big island as well. That might be the other one I'm thinking of. We have, yeah, yeah, yeah, we have definitely partnered with magical creatures as well. So tell us about your program for the week. You donate like a portion of your proceeds, correct? Yeah, we do. So a lot of times what we do is we partner directly with these sanctuary and we kind of like a cross promotion on us, like kind of benefits the both of us. So depending on the events will change the percentage of proceeds donated. But yeah, we'd love to give back to these sanctuaries. And we just we ultimately started this company because we wanted to figure out a way that we could support animals and animal sanctuaries, but in a very practical way. So we've always wanted to start an animal sanctuary, but we're like, how do you get to the point where you can fund that on your own? We're like, let's come out with a prods where we can just give back to other animal sanctuaries that are already in existence. That's great. So, I mean, that's great to hear you guys have already been at the major sanctuaries here. How about Laeaki? Have you been to the not Laeaki, the one in Maui. There's one in Maui. Have you been to the one in Maui? Is Laura Lay's sanctuary? I don't believe so. I'd love to check it out. Yeah, you should check it out. She's been a guest on my show, so you could go in and search. She's a great, she's a great woman. She wrote her own book, too, about how she came about and did the sanctuary. So that would be another great person to partner with. So do you actually visit all of the sanctuaries? You see a lot of the pictures that you've gone to the sanctuaries. And have you been to some of them or most of them? Yeah, so we've been to some of them, I would say. Any any that are in reach of us. So I've been to a bunch in Florida. I've been a couple in New York, a couple in Colorado, a couple in California. So we hit some of them, but we'd like to go to more. I mean, that's part of our mission and hopefully, you know, down the line when we have more money to give and everything as we grow as a company, we can, you know, go and visit these sanctuaries as well. Yeah, and actually one of our really big goals is to create our own sanctuary one day and we do have a name for it. We would call it, I think we would call it the Chocolate Sanctuary. So yeah, that's a really big goal of ours. And where would it be this Chocolate Sanctuary? Yeah, I don't know. But we do know that we have a few, we have some criteria. We want to be very scenic, very relaxing. Like we want to be kind of like an experience where we can teach people, you know, about why maybe why you should go vegan. And then also we want like a kind of mini chocolate factory on site so that people can see the process of how chocolate's created. I think like a mini Hershey Park type idea. Nice, nice. That sounds awesome. I'll definitely come visit if it's in the anywhere near where I am. So do you think what kind of animals would you like to have on your sanctuary? Yeah, what I've noticed is a lot of sanctuaries. Unfortunately, we can't save all the animals, right? And so a lot of people or a lot of sanctuaries seem to rescue animals that are in really bad conditions. And I think that's going to be the same thing with us, is we're not too, you know, we're not going to be too particular about what type of animal, as long as we're saving an animal that really needs to save and has a story that we can educate others with. I think I think that's kind of what we're looking for over like a certain animal type, but Charlie, I'll kind of let you follow up with that. Oh, no, I agree with you, I think. And I definitely don't have any particular like farmed animals in mind. I think just, you know, save as many animals as we possibly can. And I think that's always been our goal, kind of just, you know, all animals. Yeah, I mean, that's great. I am wondering right now, how many people, how much stuff do you have in your company? Is it still pretty small? Yeah, so it definitely fluctuates a lot. Chocolate is a very seasonal business model, like in the summertime, not a lot of people are craving chocolate, to say, except for consumers. Right now, we've got a team of, I would say, probably a maximum of five. You know, we've got some part-timers, but we've only really got two full-time workers, Charlie and I, on the team, so yeah, pretty small team overall. And you guys are pretty profitable, like so far, you know, as much as you can be, like, I know it's the beginning stages. But yeah, so actually, I would say no, not at all. Interesting thing about startups is our mission is to be, you know, a national company, right? And to get there, you really need to invest in brand. You really need to spend some marketing dollars to get your name out there. And, you know, it takes a lot of money and hard work to get there. So what we do to support ourselves is we're basically trying to, we raise money essentially to support ourselves and also, you know, to because we eventually want to sell to a bigger company that can take us to the next level and like make, you know, make this vegan chocolate company something bigger and more meaningful. Yeah, yeah, I'll just add a little bit on that. It's definitely hard to make money like Brian was saying and be profitable, especially such a small company. We're competing against, you know, the big guys all over America's, you know, favorite candy bars. And I'm sure all the other, you know, small vegan chocolate companies are in similar positions. But, you know, it takes money to make money. And I think we're also making very unique products. And with that comes minimum order quantities that are quite massive. So we do spend a lot of money at once. And then we kind of have to sell off all of that product kind of over a period of time. So it's something difficult being a small, small vegan company, but we're making it work for now. And I think we're on our way, we're on our way up. Yeah, I mean, I hope you guys last. I mean, I really do feel like because the vegan community is so supportive and they're very faithful to vegan companies that even during the pandemic, you guys were able to survive. And I think even here, a lot of the restaurants died during the pandemic, but the restaurants that were vegan actually most of them survived. And I think it was just because they had, you know, vegan people, they don't really have a choice. You know, they have to eat what's vegan, whereas, you know, people who eat other kinds of foods, they have more, you know, choice or I guess whichever, I mean, we're making a choice to be vegan, obviously. But, you know, I feel like there's definitely a faithful following always. So, you know, I do believe you guys stick with it, that you're going to probably become a pretty big company soon. And I think just with a pattern of things like even now, you know, we have these huge wildfires in Maui and people are really thinking about climate change and how what we eat affects climate change and everything. And so, I mean, with people having that more mind, maybe some people will start changing their habits and want to eat, if not be plant-based completely, want to be more plant-based at least, you know, if they can support a vegan chocolate company versus supporting like a big chocolate company that, you know, uses milk and, you know, pollutes the earth a lot. Maybe they would go for the first one, you know. So. So, yeah, I actually meant to ask a little bit about that. You know, how is that affecting you all and, you know, just the community of Hawaii in general? Well, I think it's been, I mean, because I'm on Oahu, I'm not feeling it as much, but it's definitely like I think a lot of people are pitching in and helping. A lot of people are willing to help. We've sent donations over from Oahu, obviously. And there's been a lot of relief effort. But a lot of the problem also lies in the fact that, you know, people just lost everything. So I think I was hearing that some people they're going to stores and all of the stores are sold out of things, too. So that even makes them more difficult, even if they have the money to buy stuff, they wouldn't be able to. So just really difficult, you know, losing everything. And then all those people that died. So, yeah, I don't think I think it's just going to be, you know, really terrible for a while for people, you know, especially our mouths. So I don't know. Definitely, no, I know that I saw that. Yeah, I was heartbroken, just sending my prayers. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how it starts, but, you know, just I just think all the events over, you know, the last few years have just showed that global warming is real and you can't ignore it. And it's happening. So the more people you're watching, prosperity, sea spiercy, buying, you know, vegan products, and, you know, things are going to start moving and changing. I agree. And I think one of the best ways we can do it is with food. I mean, food is part of every culture. And if we can kind of get these vegan or better for you type products that are plant based into everybody's hands, I think that's a great form of activism. And people always ask us, do we do activism? Yes, we do. You know, we volunteer. But also, I think one of the most powerful ways is to share vegan food with others and get them to experience that it tastes just as good as, you know, food with dairy, food with meat in it. So I think food can be a huge game changer. Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering how do you guys actually develop the products you have, like the chocolate? Do you have a team of people or just you guys? Yeah, so interestingly enough, I came up with the first recipe just in my kitchen. Um, so for the chocolate base, that's what I did. And then, you know, from there, we hired a food scientist to help us develop a gluten-free recipe because it's very difficult to work with gluten-free products if you don't know the science behind it. So, yeah, we do have some developers that we kind of use as contractors. So with the gluten-free, what inspired? I mean, I think it's wonderful because I'm actually gluten-free. So I'm really glad you guys are trying to do something gluten-free. But what inspired you to to do the gluten-free versus just a normal, non-gluten-free candy bar? Yeah, I'll go real quick and then try out. You can add on here. So it actually kind of just happened. We were working with a facility that was gluten-free. They were actually all allergen-free. So we said, you know what, let's just stick with the allergen-free message. And then eventually it evolved. We noticed that a lot of people with dairy allergies actually had gluten allergies and vice versa. Maybe I got that wrong. Maybe a lot of people with gluten allergies have dairy allergies. But when we caught on to that, we're like, you know what, let's just stay loyal to to to everyone who can eat gluten. Honestly, also something that affected this was that kick hat has no gluten-free options, at least in the US, I've noticed. So that kind of helped influence our decision there. We wanted to provide people that may never have had a kick hat with a gluten-free wafer bar. So that's awesome. So I mean, I will say a funny story. Like you guys had a special s'mores campaign or something. And I ordered some and I was kind of saving it for a camping trip. And so I put a bunch of them in my refrigerator. And what I thought was a safe place because my husband and I, we each have our own fridge. And what happened was that one day I looked in and everything was gone. I stepped the marshmallows and I go to my husband. I say, what happened? Why did you eat all of my stuff and my s'mores? I'm saving that for a camping trip. He's like, oh, that's been in a while. So I just decided I would just eat all of it because you weren't going to eat it. And I was like, no, I was saving that first. Oh, no. That was the gluten-free graham crackers. And that is funny. Yeah. But are you guys going to have a s'mores campaign and other stuff again? Any new fun campaigns coming up? Yeah. So I think like we were saying before, Charlie, I'll actually let you talk about our upcoming Kickstarter and maybe the Halloween prize we're putting out there. Yeah, no worries. And yeah, so we are right now developing our products for Halloween, which is really, really exciting. It's kind of like a traditional Halloween product. I know it's one that Brian and I both love. But yeah, so we have that. And then, yeah, that's us last year, right when we launched the Wafer Buzz. But so we're also releasing America's favorite candy bar, which and which we'll be launching sometime in September. So those are kind of our next two big things that are coming. Nice. OK, we're out of time. So unfortunately, we have to wrap it up. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. This is Healthy Plan on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. We've been talking with Brian and Charlie Chupo, co-founders of Chupo Treats. Thanks to Michael, a broadcast engineer and the rest of the crew at Think Tech for hosting our show. And thanks to you, our listeners for listening. I'll see you in two weeks for more Healthy Plan on Think Tech, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet. My guest will be Holly Holowalk, founder of Popoki Place, Oahu Cat Sanctuary. If you have ideas for the show or questions for my future show guests, please contact me at Healthy Planet Think Tech at gmail.com. Check out my website at gracinghawai.com or Instagram at Graceful Living 365 for more information on my projects, including future show guests. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. Aloha, everyone.