Ashley Cameron - From Labor & Delivery Nurse to H-E-B and 1,500+ Doors

Today we're speaking with Ashley Cam Cameronfrozen cookie dough brand based out of Lakeway TexasAshley grew up on a pecan farm in New Mexicobecame a labor and delivery nurseat Texas Children's Hospital eventuallyand then I believe started loving cookies in 2021 orat I think age 5 and he asked her to bake some cookieswith her during recovery andlong story short here we are with loving cookies uma few years later and I think since then you know she's wonH E b's quest for Texas bestscaled the 500+ doors acrossHEB as well as I think Sprouts WegmansThrive Market as wellbuilt an in house manufacturing facility along the wayall with I think a prettyminimal amount of outside capital which is superlove and cookiesI'd love to just start just getting a quick lay of the landjust in terms of kind of the origin story andwhy behind the brand and then kind of coreawesome well Adamthank you first and foremost for having me I'm superexcited to be here and share our storyso thank you very muchyeah we so 11 cookies as you said is a clean labelpre portion gourmet frozen cookie doughthat you find in the frozenaisle of your grocery store so oftenmerch in that frozen dessert setnext to your ice cream and frozen piesand all of that good stuffso as you mentioned we got our startso my oldest son Charlie was diagnosed with Kawasakidisease at the age of five so for some context Kawasakidisease is an acquiredheart condition in childrenso he was not born with thishe got a really bad virus thatattacked the coronary arteriesof his heart and he had to undergo life savingtreatment and then long term treatment at home forquite a few yearsso when he came home from the hospital after his first treatmenthe said what was the one thing in the worldor I asked him what was the one thing in the world that you wanted to do and hisanswer was simple he just wanted to bake cookieswith Mommy so that's what we did andthrough that journeyyou know I had to be very mindful of what he was eatingbecause the disease process is an inflammatory processso we had to be very mindful and I want him to bea kid and enjoy all the things that hethat we should enjoybut let's do it a better way and so I started you knowreally reading labels and I was like wow thewhat's on the market is so not good for youin the sense that there's just so much additiveand preservatives and food dyes and sothrough this journeywe started baking I was like we can do this better likeand if we freeze them that acts as our preservativewe don't have to add any of that shelf stabilizersand preservatives sowe were baking all these wonderful flavorsand then my husband was like you know these are really good you should think about starting a cottagehome food bakeryso we did and then shortly later Covid hitsand I thought well nobody's gonna want productfrom a home food bakerbut actually I was wrong it made ourcottage home food bakery explodeto the point where I had a commercial mixeron my kitchencounter at one point and my husband was like there'sflour and chocolateeverywhere we gotta get out of here so we found this small littletiny brick and mortar where we opened and launchedpre baked cookiesbut one of the things that people were askingus for was this frozen cookie dough so you knowat scale we were already bakingfrom frozen I'm like well wait what if we just repackthis into a little bit smaller formatand we sell it for people to take and bakeat home so we felt like wedesigned this product that is all butter no seed oilsfree of food dyesand preservatives no shelf stabilizersbut we also wanted to create an experienceright so it's preportion so as a consumer you can bake just oneor you could even mix and match flavorscause they all have the same bake timesand then of course the bag resealseasily for you to store nicely in your freezerso I felt like we were hitting all the high pointsand so when we launched this product out of oursmall retail store it flew off the shelfand so we opened the store inOctober of 2021 and about a few months latersomebody from my local HEB had come inbought a whole bunch of product comesback the next day and was like you have got to applyto the H E B Quest for Texas best programknew nothing about it Learned a lot butdecided to apply and then started gettingphone calls that ended up making the top 10 which thenput us into this very pitch style formatand ended up winning first placeand it just catapulted us and if the timelinewas eight months from the time my first store openedto the time that we were winning that competitionto then now I'm in going into Texas largest retailerand so it was a whirlwind and such a fun experiencealong the way or kind of iterationsyou made along the way from those first fewrecipes when you're just making in your kitchen toin retail today going intoHEB like is there any big kind of variablesyou had to tweak in order to be able to make aformulation recipe that could actually scale toper month or is it pretty much everythingtranslated pretty easilydefinitely some reiterationso as you know we've been in this industryfor like when you are making cookies at homeyou're measuring by the cup rightwe're gonna do one cup of this two cups of thatcan't do that at scale so we definitelyhad to play with the weights and formulationsto make sure that we were still getting the same qualityproduct that we would get if we were makingthis in in tiny batches right we went from making afive pound batch to a 14 pound batchand they don't translate the same so we definitelyhad to tweak it but thethe other biggest thing that we had to really focus on was the sourcingof ingredients at that scaleso what you can buy at the shelf in grocerydoesn't always translate to being able to buyin bulk behind the scenes rightand then we also wanted to make sure that we were looking at the quality of those ingredientsare we are we truly out there sourcingthe best chocolate the best butter the best flourthat we can put our hands on whilethe product still tastes good rightcause it is a fine line ofwe wanna be as clean as we can get but the productstill has to taste good and Iam very confident that I think that we we nailed thatyou could totally correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like abake from frozen in 15 minutes that feels pretty shortcookie portions I can bake fasterbut was there any things you had to kind of work out to be able toI guess be able to stand by that claimyes well and it's actually even better than that it's 13 to 15minutes we put a range we put a range on there andwe definitelyhad to play with it a lot to really nail downit definitely is dependent on the sizeright if we went to a bigger cookieit takes a little longer into a smaller cookiea little bit lessso we put a range in there and there'sthey're also air fryerfriendly which is super great too wowespecially if you gotyou're the only one in your household or twotwo cookiesfit perfectly in that air fryer and so it's asuper efficient and that takes even less timebut we wanted to find a time that was efficientfrom like the concept of going freezer to oven rightum cause the whole idea is that this is a conveniencething as well so that wewe didn't want people to have to wait 15minutes to let them thaw or soften and so thisit was a lot of tweakinga lot of playing back and forth with time temperaturebut this seemed to be like the bestfit that also allows us to have the best qualityright so with quality maintainingthat quality at home is and we put the range on therebecause everybody's oven isa little different and everybodylikes a cookie at a different level you may likemore on the warm dough side where somebodyelse may like an ultra crispy cookieand so that way you can kind of get what you wantmanufacturing facility in houseinstead of going the the co packer route which you canprocess looked like you know what was the triggerthe right co packeryou just wanted really full control over thereally clean ingredientdeck or just capacity or yeah what was kind of theLED to building out a facility in houseso I love this question I love this storybecause I don't always get to talk about it and it wasI want to preface it bywe've had to make a lot of pivots a lot of pivots soto back up into 2022 when I wonthe quest program and I was being given the gift oflaunching into H E B right and my feet were beingI was being put to the test right my feet to the firehow can you support 250 grocery storesand you touched on it earlierI do not have a CPG background I was delivering babiesprior to this so I I really had my learning curve wassuper steepand I had some really great mentors though from HEBwho really helped kind ofhelp me think about things you know going long termwhat is the priority as far as scalabilityand all the way down to like the food safety aspect as well because as we know that's also a big dealso at that time we were still very much in a covidera and I tried so hard to find a co packerbecause that is like the naturalprocess but I could not find onethat would make the product the way I wantedand the biggest part was the pack outthe stand up pouchbecause that's a fairly newer thing in frozen and soin the sense that when you are fillingthat pouch there's lots of issues withsawing and product getting stuck and it was not an easyfind so it was more about the pack out as why I could notfind a co maker co packer in addition peoplewere not takingnew brands at that time so if you remember that timepeople were often firing small brands because they werescaling back their manufacturing they were distancingpeople inside those plants and soit was really hard and so my husbandwas like hey listenwe're not gonna give up on this opportunity let's go buildlet's go build our own so we found a buildingthatwe came in and made completely food safe we got a loanto help build that out and came inredid the whole facility and investedin equipment that would at least get us startedbecause as you knowequipment manufacturing it's super expensiveand so we foundenough equipment that would help us getstarted and help to have a successful launch at HE B so we won this competition in August my facilitywe're gonna talk about speed at January of 2023the facilityopened we launched into H E B in July of 2023and so it was the world winI will say that having not had the a the CPG experiencewe did not build our facility big enoughwith how quickly we have scaledso we have since outgrown that facilityand we had to really take a lookat the hard like the financialslooking at our gross margins and understandingokay I either need to go build a big buildingand a bigger with much larger equipment and investa tremendous amount of capital to help make thisto where we can scale or we can pivotand move to a co manour gross margin increases significantly I can supportupcoming launches atreally big retailers and we can pivotand really squirrel away that and become profitableand so I was faced with this challengeat the end of last year about how are we gonna pivotand what are we gonna do and ultimately wedecided to move away from that so that we canadequately support from a production lens the upcominggrowth and launches that we're gonna see this yearinteresting yeah that'sother foundersthat are probably going through some similar decisionpoints as wellbut maybe not with some of the covid complicationsI guessyeah that definitely added a an element to it thathopefully we never seeagain but it it was definitely a challenge and you knowI'm pretty tenacious and I was like I'mwe're not gonna give up on this and we're not gonna forgothis opportunity and so that's kind of wherewe had to make that hard decisionand but I'm so glad that we went through itbecause it allowed me to really understandwhat it takes to be a manufacturer because I thinkunderstanding that side of the businessI knew what questions to ask when pickingthe right co manufacturing partner right totallyin addition to that is something as basic as likehow do you wrap a palette how do you build a palettehow do you how do you understand what qualitycontrol is and purchasing power andand all of those elementsthat go into making a product and it was reallyit was a hard lesson and an expensive lessonbut it was one that I'm really grateful that I hadshifting gears a little bit from a brand and packagingstandpointthinking back to those early days when you're buildingbuilding out the you knowvisual identity packaging designwhat were some of thosekey things that were top of mindfor you that you really wanted to convey from yeahstandpointyeah so I mentioned the convenience and the experiencefactor from the consumer right so thatstand up skirt cell pouch was such a funeasy way to hit all those high pointsthat one was a big deal for us point twoand I Learned this through my mentorship at H E Bso originally all of our packaging was the same colorand all of that was different on the front like I'm talkingvery first iterationsof what we launched in the brick and mortarthe only thing that was different was the cookieand if all that's different and andyou know cookies are always this warmgolden brown and if all that's you know visuallyif it only looks like the inclusionsare what's different it's hard to tell what it is and I was givensome statisticsthis was back in 2022 so it may have changed a little bitbut it was like hey 80% of the stocking staffat our retailer at HEBcould not read or write English so they stockbased on colorand if your product is being stocked wrongyour consumer is purchasing it wrongso how can you Ashley be creativeand help us differentiate this more and this is where we came up with colorslike color differentiation in each flavorso it really helped identify with or help the brandcreate identity by saying I want the pink packI want the blue pack I want the purple packbecause if you think about it as a consumer you're likeyou'redrawn to that color and it also has some benefitsthat if you look at the frozen dessert setthere's a lot of whitea lot of white a lot of sideways cardboard boxesa lot of Cool Whip and so it was a way for us togo into a shelf as a new brand with very littleyou know consumer baseand for a way for us to pop out on the shelfand so that was probably our biggest takeawaythat has helped with with the brand identityyeah that totally makes senseuncovered some of those kind of back atthe previous company that I builtthat I mentioned and then the productiondesign agency that I run now that's things that weoften come across and and try to highlightfor for clients and we Learned in the previous companywhere is even beyond this color is likeexactlyto your point if there's someone in the back of the storean employee ifif they don't know can easily find your productin a back you know a darklit room in the back of the store they may just saythis is too hard for me to find I'm gonna put something else on the shelfinstead andI think one of the things that has set us apart in the early daysand helps cause it's it's eye catchingwhen you compare to the white sideways boxand you're like oh I'll try that and so then it has allowed us to reach customersthat we had not yet reached totallyfounders that are you know I don't knowa few years behind you and they're just going through thisthinking back now what'sI don't know one thing that jumps out that you tell them to keep top of mind orsomething to watch out for that might trip them upalong the way beyond what you just kind ofis always front and center right I would say and youyou can correct me if you feel differentlywith your agencyI just every time somebody picks up a packthis is love and cookies this is love and cookiesand then let me look at the flavor but this is love andcookies cause the more thatpeople are hearing our name reading our nameI feel like is a superin addition to the color and the eye catchingof the packaging butyou want people to know what they're buyingespecially as you have competition in the setand different things like whatwho is gonna be the top of mind and who's gonna bethe brand that people want to take home yeahto entry right you have like yeah you have the dooryou have the coldnessand you have a lot of things that keep people sometimesfrom openingthat door unless they already know what they wantset and I was like whatwhat if you could redesign the frozen set entirelyentirely in retail what would that look like andentirely so at least you can removeone barrier of entryyeah you know some retailerswill have those like reaching bins and they usuallysee them a lot more about holidays and stuff but thosetend to work really well as well cause you're also lookingdown and you have a 3 60 view versusa vertical view and I feel like I agree with that it would help a lotyeah yeah in terms of pricingthinking back when you were launching into retailwhat did yourstrategy or process look like in terms ofnailing down what you wanted yourgo to market price to be in relation to the marketyeah that's a great question because it has changedand I and I and I will say itpackaging and you have tobe willing I think as a founder to always pivotand don't be married to somethingthat is going to ultimately hurt your brandso when we started at HEBwe actually had a each cookie it was a 16 ounce packthat with eight cookies but each cookie was a 2 ouncepack size so if you do your research it wasthe largest format on the marketbut you were getting this Superior Bakery style cookiebut we were coming in at a high price at 9 99 per packbut we were able to go direct to warehouse I wasn't having to mess with like distributorfees and different thingsand it it worked for us like we didyou know we sold $1 millionworth of product in our first full calendar year at HEBit worked but the second I startedgoing into distribution I realized thatthat price was not gonna work because ofhaving to go through different distributorsI had all these extra feeslayered on and again this is something that I just didn't know I didn't understandat the time and didn't have that experience orbackground knowledgeso we quickly Learned and said hey what happensif we reduce the cookie size to an ounce and a halfso that we can createare we still gonna get the same quality productthe same superior product andbut yet a better price point for our consumerand so we can createthis win win so there was a lot ofback and forth and understanding and having to make that hard pivotright but what we foundis that yes it reduced it justenough so that we can be at an efficientprice point once we go into distributionit also gave our HE B consumer a much better price on shelfand by reducingthe price where groceries right now are going upand we were able to reduce itbut when the cookies bakethey are almost the exact same sizeand so it's an efficiencythat we created without cutting quality and outwithout hurting experience for the consumer and so thatyeah and so it was just a transition and it's a it's aminute change we're talking half an ounceif you weigh half an ounce it'snot a lot but it's enough to give afinancial incentive to our consumerand a benefit to us being able to scale nationwidetotallyyeah that makes total sense I think that's really smartwell you you touched on the H E b's quest for Texasbest a bit at the beginningdid you run first place in2022 got that cash prize directpath to shelf on 250 I think plus doors nationwidegone started going through the this quest process yetyeahtell me a bit more about the the actual experiencelike how did you prep for the pitchwhat did you feel like the judges cared about anythingyou feel like you wish you'd known before you walked in now looking backwell I willI wish that I would have known just how hard CPG wasat the time I was the time when I you know when you gettoldyou're youimagine this I had no experience I knew trulyknew nothing about CPG and I had a retaileras amazing as HEB sayinghey we believe in you we believe in your storywe believe in your productwe want you on our shelves like that is alike oh my gosh like 3 60inside out career shift pivot as a brandan amazing experience soHEB has been an amazing partner amaze I have amazingmentors and friends from this wholeexperience and still to this day they are justan absolute phenomenal partner to work withbut going through the process I thisone of the sourcing managerswho was walking me throughthis really was so wonderful andhelping me talk through you knowdo you truly understand your margin do you understandfreight do you understandall of these things that are gonna take for you to get your productfrom point a to point Binto the consumer's house and so that guidancestill and he's still one of my very dearfriends today but was so beneficialbut I will say if you'reespecially if you're a Texas based brandwas the best experience I've ever had theyI encourage people to apply to try it out because H E Breally believes in this grassroots approachwhere they want they want tosupport Texas local economies they want tosupport Texas brandsand I'm so thankful that they took a shot on us andhope that we're making a difference on their shelf andenjoy being their partner but it's definitelya worthwhile if you're a Texas brandexperience to to go out on that limb and put yourselfout there once we gotnotified that we were a top 10 finalist that's whenthings really started changingfor us so I went I was not onlyprepping for the build out of this potential facilityI was caught in limboright because if we didn't win or if we didn'tthere's no guaranteethat we were even gonna get a contract soI was having to navigatedo I sign the lease do I build this out do I notuntil we actually went through the process rightso this when you give this picturestanding in a room with people watching youat this point in my life I had not given a speech since collegein a small you know smallspeech class with 10 people and I'm here I am talking to 100 people tellingtrying to convince them that my productdeserves to be on shelves and so I had to walk throughour storyabout why and then why the Texas consumer would wantloving cookies in their freezer and then of coursethey are a businessso they wanna know do you understandyour price point do you understandwarehousing and so because I had the guidancefrom my mentorI was able to articulate and come to a point of understandingbefore that pitch and so it it kind of worked outfor us and so I'm thankful for that opportunity greatI'm not sure if if they wereearly enough involved in the processyou're going through this where they couldthere wasn't a whole lot of things to gobacktrack on butas you were going through the process or once you wonbetween then and and when HBOis actually gonna put the brandon the shelf did they come back and sayhey we want you to you know tweak the formulationthis way or we want you to tweak your packagingthis way aredid they have any feedback before getting on shelfcause I know often times like brandsthat I hear and they talk to Whole Foodsthey're like before obviouslyI want to put you on the shelfbut hey you need to make these changes to your packagingbefore you feel like you're ready for the the shelfso I would we were very blessed that theythey had that conversation with us priorto us even purchasingour first round of packaging and our first nicereiterationsof things and hey like as you know like with the brandlike your packaging is ever evolvingyou're always gonna be likenever done making efficiencies and it's never doneyou love to think it is like we just did a whole like kind ofrefresh recently and it's for it we're gonnado it again probablyyou know what I mean it's always changing and sowhat we launched with the HE B is not what's on the shelf today it's similarand people know it's the brandright so a good example of that is that inwe loved it at the time and it worked at the time is that when we first launchedwe used all of our cookies were named after eithermy son or my other childrenor friends and family that werereally supportive of us during Charlie's illnessand it was a nod to them and it was a super funpersonal thingbut once we got outside of of Texaspeople are like well what the heck is a CharlieCash cookie and you're like they just want a chocolatechip cookie and sowe realized that people in other parts of the countrywho maybe they don't have the same understanding of the storybut it was actually causingconfusion on the shelf so we actually have since droppedthe names and just went to like what the cookie actually is whichhas actually helped in increase velocities sothose are some minor things that we've had tochange and tweak since that first iteration butto your original question I had a lot of guidancein the beginningbefore I had to make that first big you know20 thousand dollar run of packagingso that I didn't have to just like that on fireso I was grateful for that that's greatHEB doors look like fromstandpoint in terms of best way to drive trial orany of the other learninglessons things you feel like jump out now looking backyeah so you know we're based in the Austinarea and so it was naturally very easy for us tosupport the Austin marketand so I was doing in store demosall week long at all these different storessampling like live sampling the product and when you'resampling and bakingwarm cookies it's pretty hard for people to say nowhen they're walking byvery true you got the smelland then you add in the taste andit's so that was a really funexperienceand we were able to you know share our storyhave more one on one conversations andagain I think it goes back to that grassroots approachof being local and people want to support localespecially here in Texasand so that was very beneficialthe longer we were on shelvesthe less time and the more we started growingthe less time I hadfor that right and of course just the reality ofof growth yep so we started getting into promotionalsupport like in yellow tags or you knowdifferent things that brands do and we sawa big jump in that and so then we had to learn welldo people respond to differentprice points and what does that look likeand I'll never forgetwhen the first time we ever did a BOGO and Iwent on day three to like check out the shelfand it was empty after day threeand I remember the first time that happenedI was like wow so this one worked and so youand that was always really fun cause peopleget to try multiple flavorsand so we Learned that thoseseem to be really beneficialwhich who doesn't love a good BOGO very trueside really started to scaleeventually just you made the decision toto close down the the retailthe retail side of things yeah walk me through thatokay so to open the manufacturingfacility we got hit with Covid rightso when we had our brick andmortar we had three locations in Austinand I I loved our brick and mortar it was so funI loved having that local consumer basebut we got hit with a really unique challengeso the grocery side was scalingwe knew that we were gonna be launching into ourfirst national retailerso this would have been like the fall of 2024we knew that was comingwe were in the we had just openedour third location but the construction had takensix months longer than it was supposed towhich you know that will tell youas well yeah typical yeah but yeah for surebut we got hit with I was having serious laborshortages and issues and then to find anybodywho would work itI was having to pay a significant amount for laborwe were also at one of the peak egg crises whereegg prices went through the roofyeah followed by butter followed by chocolateI don't know if you make cookiesAdam but eggs butter and chocolateare kind of a staple and so I was looking atyou know like our PNL and looking at these expenses andthe brick and mortars were a fun to havethey were just barelyprofitable and not enough to be a sustainable sureI mean they could sustain as they were but it wasn'tthey weren't handling these fluctuationsof all these commoditiesthe way that I would like and especiallythe labor just really added a hard element to itand so as we knew that this scale was comingI said well is that money better spentsupporting our growth at shelfwhich this is the scalablethese are the the bigger numbers and then at scaleour gross margin is X versus what I'mhaving this strugglingprofitability over here and so yeah takingall those things into considerationwe made the hard decisionto shut them down and it was the right decisionit was a hard decision but it was the right decisionfor the longevity of the businesscontinued to scale I'm curiousa bit about what what the team looks like in terms ofand what's kind of on your mindtake the company to the next levelyeah so we have as we you know as we'vescaled and we've also again shut down the facilitywe this has been a a process it wasn't somethingthat happened overnight there was no magic bullet butas we were scalingone of the biggest things that I needed wasa new head of ops and so I I refer she'sshe's a unicorn she's amazing at what she does andthat was a really good big hire that really helped meand thenwith the the factory shifting the shifting to a co manand then all the cog efficienciesthat she came in and made that was a really bigstep becauseagain I don't know what I don't know and I as a founderyour job is to surround yourselfwith people who are smarter than you and who can doown their previewsway better than you and that are willing to teach youalong the way right yeah also finance I have a greatCFO who has a lot of experience with startupsand she has really helped us own our spend and whatyou know are we being efficient here and then as wewe started I started out therewith those two that were key hires and because if theif the business is not on an operational strong footit's gonna fall apart it doesn't matter how great yourmarketing is or your sales are or whateverit's gonna completely fall apart so operationallyand with your supply chainwe had to make sure that we were on surefooting and I'm so confidentin where we are today with thatso the next thing we realized is that weneeded some help with with marketing right everythingfrom socials to TPRsto you know influencers different things and so weI have a a new CEO who came to me from Lock Lome and umhelped grow that business and so she's veryseasoned in what she does there and so excitedwe've been working with her for about eight months and she's been a great addition to our teamand then more recently I just hired a newuh head of sales so we are working on thislarger growth plan cause now we have this foundationthat is really set and then this way our treewon't toppleso now we're just here to drive sales and growgrow cookie sales and becomeAmerica's next favorite cookie and in the homeand freezer of every every freezer across Americalove that well that kind of leads into next pointsI mean you'veyou've scaled to I think 500+ doors at this pointI think you've raised less than 500,000 bucks still tobusiness I know you mentioned you got a loan tohelp build out theat least like first version of the in house facilitycapital standpoint first off how are you financingworking capital and you knowso we actuallyare in the middle of a larger fund raise a larger okayour first like largerseed round and so which is almost completely funded sofull transparencywe have raised quite a bit of money to help ussupport this growth because as you know it is aa very expensive businessum and especially if you wannawanna grow and scale so good thing is thoughwe're gonna tip that point of profitability this yearwhich is greatand then in addition to raising raising that money soprior to this yes we we raised just a little bitinitially to help us with the facilityor had a loan facility and raised a little bit to helpsupport our growth at HEB but the time hascome where we actually needed a little bit moreso we're actually inalmost 15 doors across the country now wow okayso yeah so we have grownquite a bit and with somesome more exciting launches coming this year sowe need to be able to adequately support that and helpdrive trial and I can't go into every retailerAdam unfortunately and do live demosas much as I would like to but we have to be creativeas much as you probably like to do it that's just not your job anymoresoI still show up sometimes I think it's really fun you gotta engage with the customerand for sure love sharing our storytotally well last question for you you're obviouslyyou've been in entrenched in this CPGworld now for for quite a while any anyparticular brands or just trends in general across CPGoutside of let's just say the the the the cookiecategory that you're particularlyexcited about or things you just been kind of trackingor things you've been buying a lot at the store latelywell I am very much have aADHD brain where I'm always looking and thinkingof other ideas andand this is where my finance and ops teamare very good about reigning me back in saying no nono we have to focusover here because I'm like oh we should do this we should do thatso in my mind I had envisionedthat you know love and cookieswould be on every aisle in the grocery store with all different brandsbut that's just not your realityso I definitely think there is white space foryou know clean label mixes and pre made productsboth like pre madecookies or other like similar thingsthat can meet that shelf stable but clean labelopportunity so those are definitelythings that excite methey're not necessarily on the radarright now but I'm definitely interested in thatand seeing wherethat can go cause I think there's a couple brandsout there who have done that really well they started out with maybe a mixor a bar and next thing you know now they havefrozen this andshelf stable this and it's a way to really saturatethe grocery store and yeah totallyand eventually I think that's where we would lovelove to be one of my mentor one timeasked me I love I love sharing this quick story heI saidhey like who is your competition so let's back up to2022 where again how I knew nothing and I was like wellat this point in time nobodybecause it's a whole door full of pies and there'sno there's no other cookies and we'reinnovative and gonna do all these wonderful thingssound does that sound like a typical founderI I'm unique I'm gonna do all thisand then he was he laughed he literallylaughed at me and was like okay well come back to me when you thought about thatfor a little bit and let's talk about this againand so then I realized what he meant and he's liketruly the entire grocery store is your competitionright you I am yes frozen cookie dough is not typicalin the sense that people have been trained to buy it in the refrigeratorsection typicallywe're kind of essentiallycreating a new category a new place for people to gobut it's not only that it's the dry cracker aislelike dry cookie aisle the cookie mixes anybodywho's dealing cookies you have to find a way to likesnatch them from that aisleto now come to the frozen setand so we're gonna start herebut it's not what we're gonna finishand because the more we can get the brand name andlike across the aisles the more it's gonnaand grow our grow the brand love it that's greatoh yeah actually what's thewhat's the best place to follow along with with you andyour journey and then best place for people to followalong with the brand these days as wellyeah so you can find us on all social mediaInstagram TikTok Facebook our handlesare at get love and cookiesand across the same for every platform of course onLinkedIn and then our websitewhich is get love and cookies.com perfectAwesome Asher I appreciate the time I think theI think that's the pod this has been awesomeFounder CEO of Loving Cookies the clean labeland Charlie was diagnosed with Kawasaki diseasethe listeners that aren't all that familiar withproducts in the lineup and then we'll go from thereyou had to play around with the thingsthat you can bake them from frozen in in 15 minuteswas it just like you couldn't find a co packthe thought process that ultimatelythat's super helpful for I think for up and coming onbrand identity positioning voiceboth the voice tone and also from a look and feelback of house things fairly early likelooking back now for let's just say some up and comingyear two behind youmaking sure that your the name of your brandset you have a ton of barriersfor other brands that that are listening that haven'twhat did those firstwhat was really moving the needle from a velocitydecision processwhat hires have been the most pivotalover the next year or two in terms of what you need toingredient purchases inventory that kind of stuff