Rob Johnson - Founding Born Simple, Selling to Mizkan, and Leading Innovation Across a $1B+ Portfolio

welcome to shelf help
today we're speaking with Rob Johnson
Rob founded Born Simple
the protein forward prepared meals brand
in 2018 sold the business to Miscon in 2021
been running the brand inside the larger company
ever since while also leading
innovation across the broader portfolio
a lot of really cool stuff going on
excited to dive into it um
I'm just first off
just for the listeners that maybe
aren't all that familiar with Born Simple Love
just kind of start off getting a quick lay of the land
just in terms of kind of origin story
why behind the born simple brand
and then kind of born simple line up
kind of core product line up
as well as
maybe a quick overview in terms of the broader Miscon
portfolio and where born simple fits in there
yeah cool yeah
thanks for having me so born simple is like you said
we are a protein forward complete
shelf stable complete meals company
we look very different than we did
when the brand was founded
and the founding story is
you know one of those things that's like
half luck
and kind of half trying to take advantage of a
of an opportunity I was actually running a like
a small kind of
family founded barbecue sauce brand in the Midwest
backed by private equity group in Chicago
and was down meeting with the Whole Foods buyer
the
the barbecue sauce buyer for Whole Foods at the time
and she hated the brand that we came into picture
and we started just kind of spitballing with her
about how we could potentially recreate
basically the same products
but upgrade them a little bit
and then kind of completely rethink the branding
and that's really where the brand sort of came from
I had been sort of thinking about it for a long time
and my background is basically running uh
small natural organic
kind of entrepreneurial brands
under the umbrella of Big CPG
so like
my very first job uh
out of grad school was running the Alexia brand
which is frozen potatoes frozen French fries
under the banner actually kind of a funding structure
under the banner of a company called Lamb Weston
which was owned by Conagra
so
sort of two steps removed from the mothership in Omaha
back then but kind of got a great um
you know exposure to founders
the entrepreneurial journey
fundraising and then
you know
what happens when you integrated into a big company
and what things struggle
how can you benefit from the resources
and stuff like that so
long story short we started pitching this idea
to the Whole Foods buyer at the time
and she loved it and then
I had to basically
go back and pitch my private equity investors on hey
there's a new brand
that we think we can sell into Whole Foods
she wanted it in two different categories
so she's like I want the barbecue sauce product
but I also want this other product
which ended up being a
a soup broth concentrate at the time
cause she was looking for a supplier for that
she's like this thing you just pitched me
would be perfect for that
so we ended up basically leaving the meeting in Austin
with her saying hey
if you can get your investors behind this
and you can start this new brand
we will take you to market in
across two categories nationwide
and it ended up being like
eight items
so it was one of those things where it was like
got effectively
got the sale before we even had the brand design
and all that kind of stuff
and then we worked with her over
you know the next couple of months
but the Genesis of it was
there were two big things happening at the time
right so you gotta think back to 2018
e commerce basically became mainstream for
for CPG but there were two big
kind of upstart
e commerce companies that were doing more or less
the same thing so one of them was brandless
so I don't know if you remember that company
yeah they are now defunct but um
and great story there
and then the other one is Public Goods
who I think is still around
okay but the central kind of yeah
they're so
they're both really cool brands like um
ironically brandless
you know sort of their whole ethos was like
we don't believe that brand means anything
and so we're gonna effectively like
not brand any of our products
but the the insight that I took from that was
was basically
consumers wanted value and the right price right
like a really good product and the right price
and the brand was important
but only to an extent and so especially like
an upstart brand in the early days
nobody really knows what the brand means
and you should have to establish that over time
and so you can win on just a product and a price
brandless was was really trying to do that
I mean they'd raised
you know I wanna say
like $250 million or something crazy like that
they ultimately spread themselves way too thin
and then Public Goods was doing more or less
the same thing like
very light touch branding
very sort of straightforward communication
that kind of stuff
but both of them were digitally native
and had no plans to go into retail at all
and I was like well
my background is in retail
I know how to go to market in retail
we could take this insight and basically
do it in retail which will allow us to scale way faster
than anybody in e commerce ever could
so I skipped that e commerce step
the other thing that was going on
that LED to kind of the idea behind born simple was um
you know small companies have an advantage
and this idea still exists today
small companies have an advantage over big companies
because they are willing to do things that don't scale
in the early days to ultimately get to scale later on
big companies the conversation that always happens is
ah that's a lot of capital to invest
or our manufacturing platform is not flexible enough
to do that kind of thing so like
the first thing we did those barbecue sauces were in
if you've ever seen the this
the pouch that daisy sour cream is in
it's like this inverted pouch
yeah we basically said well
we're gonna do that but we're gonna do it in other
sort of liquid condiments
and so that was what sparked the idea
with the Whole Foods buyer
and then we sort of put those two ideas together
it's like if we created this sort of like
light touch branding
super straightforward communication
very simple to its core
and we did these things that are not sort of scalable
that no big CPG company is gonna do
until we're massive right
I think there's an opportunity
there's like a lane there
and so that's kind of how
that's kind of how we uh
you know we got started
that are
that are currently in
or has spent majority of their career in
kind of bigger CPG
that are thinking or been tempted by
branching out on their own
and building something on their own like
like you did what up maybe just to give them some
some confidence I guess
if nothing else like what
what aspects do you feel like
of that Conagra experience
where I think you were managing like
Alexi Brand was like I don't know
450 million ish portfolio
what do you feel like um
were some of the most valuable
learning you brought from that bigger CPG world into
you know starting and
and building born simple and in those yeah
what was the most valuable
in terms of those three years from
from launch to acquisition
yeah I would say um
I would say if I gave one piece of advice
to anybody working in big CPG
that has interest in doing something more
entrepreneurial
it would be go find a startup and work for it
because there is absolutely no
no substitute for being in the trenches
and actually doing the things that startups do
and there's a ton of reasons why
big companies operate very differently than startups
right I mean
not the least of which what I said earlier
about
doing things that are unscalable in the early going
big CPGs don't do that right
because uh they
they it's harder for them
especially public companies
harder for them to take a long term view of um
you know of kind of how they do things and invest early
you know
and suffer losses along the way to ultimately get to
you know a prize at the end of the rainbow
so to speak
so I I would say
you know I
I had a super
it's mostly luck but I had a really unique kind of
you know come up story in
in big CPG
because my very first job
was working on a brand that had just been acquired
like five years prior
it was still operated independently
the founders were not still involved
but they were still connected
and I still had access to them
and then because of that experience
I was able to kind of move up within Conagra
sort of on that track so when I left Conagra in 20 17
I was running basically a division of Conagra
whose entire job was to take these small natural
organic brands that they had acquired
you know all of them were sub 50 million in revenue
and figure out how to run them
and figure out how to take the resources and expertise
that Conagra had and make that
of a positive impact for those businesses
and you know
there's a lot of like
oil and water between those two things right
big companies just think differently
and operate differently than small companies
and it's really hard for big companies
because after you've done things for a long time
and you run billion dollar brands
and had some success and stuff
you know for better or for worse
your ego sort of gets in the way and you're like
what does this 50 million dollar brand know
that we don't know
and they should be doing things the way we do things
not the other way around and so
so yeah
I think the most valuable bit of my experience was
being sort of in the trenches
and being able to actually operate those businesses
independently
you know feel the things that founders feel
and then when I left to go and kind of
you know
do pursue my own sort of entrepreneurial journey
I had that background but
I also had the great training
that a big CPG would give you right
so I knew how to use IRI you know
and and analyze that data and what that meant
I knew you know I
I had a
a great mentor early in my career at Lamb Weston
who was kind of a hard ass but
but was very unforgiving around product launches
from kind of a planning and um
you know planning marketing
telling the story
understanding how it's gonna fit with a customer
you know understanding trade strategy
I mean all those kind of things right
and so like
I got a really really good um
so a dose of what does a
what does an effective commercialization
for a new product look like
which is super helpful when I then went to
you know kind of do my own thing
because it was like well
I know how this I know how all of this works
soup to nuts and I can
I can sort of put myself in the shoes of a buyer
I know what questions they're gonna ask me
I know what sensitivities they're gonna have
I know what things I need to talk to them about
in order for them to be a sort of
you know for this concept to be attractive
and so yeah
I think the benefit I had
that I don't think a lot of people have
is I got to see both sides of the world
I literally have
sat on both sides of the table for MMA deals right
on the acquirer side at the big company
and thinking about things from
from that standpoint on the
on the seller side right
we sold born simple to Miscon in 2021
so I got to be a part of that whole process
on the other side and then
I also got to be embedded with these founding teams
like immediately post acquisition
when I was at Conagra right
so Blake's all natural a small um
you know kind of family run
frozen Popeye business out of New Hampshire
I got to spend I mean
I was probably traveling almost 50% of the time
out to New Hampshire to
to be with that team and
and get to spend time with them
and understand the world they lived in
and I'll never forget like
the the quote that still rings in my head today if
if anybody out there is in big CPG
and is thinking about becoming an entrepreneur
like
hear this and he said to me
he said you don't really know what it's like to be uh
an entrepreneur until you wake up on Monday
and you don't
know how you're gonna make payroll on Friday
like that is
to me to
just captures the the um
the level of stress and
and the types of things that you have to think about
that when you're working for a big CPG
like you don't think about how the bills get paid
no you don't really care
you don't know where the money comes from and
and you don't really care right
you you get your paycheck
you do your thing and you go home
and that
actually dovetails
into a lot of the work around innovation that
you know
that I've been involved in at Miscon over the last
you know six to nine months
it's less about like
what are the great innovations
that we should be launching
and more about how do we bring startup thinking
to a bigger organization
and how do we leverage Miscon's scale
plus an entrepreneurial mindset
to basically take the way that startups do things
and supercharge that and de risk a lot of it
because we have the resources to invest in things
like data and research and
and some of those kind of things
from a brand identity and packaging design standpoint
key variables that were top of mind for you
when you were building out the brand identity
positioning voice
packaging design for Born Simple
yeah I mean this
this could have really turned out to be a
a super stupid thing for me to have done
because just imagine yourself
you know
you're the CEO of a small private equity backed company
right walking into the largest
natural foods retailer in the country
and you got a meeting to pitch your products
the buyer tells you she hates the branding
but loves the products and you go into like
you know pitch mode on this new concept that literally
no one has ever heard of or knows about
you didn't warn your private equity backers
that you're gonna do this right
I mean they
they very easily could have fired me and been like you
you're pitching your own product
when you're supposed to be in there
pitching this brand that we invested in right
it all ended up you know
working out for them when we sold to
to miss con and and stuff
but um
but yeah
big risk right
so I had been thinking about this for a long time
right
because part of the reason I left Conagra because I
was because I got so frustrated with how slow
and methodical and risk averse they were
and it's the same thing I talked about in terms of like
small companies do things that are very unsustainable
in the short term right
which is a huge advantage
that they have over big companies
so I've been thinking about this for a long time
it just been something I've been kind of mulling over
and so in terms of the design elements
you know
simplicity was basically the foundation of all of it
and if I you
I go back to the examples I gave
that were kind of the inspiration for the brand
you know brandless and public goods
if you look at the packaging that brandless had
and I think Public Goods still has
man that you don't get much simpler
and actually I had been
probably
the only person in the world that knew about this idea
before I went to go pitch it to Whole Foods was
or I didn't go pitch it to Whole Foods
I found myself in a meeting pitching it to Whole Foods
was my wife and she
I've been talking to her about it for a while
and like
this idea of kind of doing this thing in retail
that was getting popular in e commerce
and kind of taking some brand design elements from it
and she was at a brewery in Oregon and with a
I think maybe with her brother
and sent me a picture of a beer bottle that had
that was basically like
spot on
exactly what I was trying to do around the brand design
so I think I even had that picture on my phone
and showed it to the Whole Foods buyer
when we were there and
and was like
this is kind of the aesthetic I'm going for
so this is what you can expect
we didn't even have a name at that point right
so born simple
the name Born Simple came later
um but yeah
it was really all around simplicity
I wanted you know
clean lines I wanted very straightforward communication
cause one of the other insights that I had
you know around kind of the way big CPG does things
is what we used to call the NASCAR package
which is and you see this today
around protein so protein is a huge trend
and so what everybody does is
you know even brands that have had protein
and haven't really changed their products at all
they're now slapping a protein claim on the bag
because it's they
they want to be on trend
and they want to capitalize on that
you know the rise of that trend
yeah and so what you end up with
in big CPG a lot is like
you stand back from the shelf
and it's like you've got all these products
that are screaming a thousand things at you
it's really hard to as a consumer
to make your way through that
and so you know
the inside I had was like man
what if we just did away with all that
and like
it's just it's just super straight forward
it's very easy to trust it's very easy to understand
you don't have to do you don't have to do
a lot of research at the shelf
to figure out what this is
and so that was kind of the underpinning of
of what ultimately became
you know the original born simple brand design
we've moved I'd say
pretty dang far away from that now
because
we've gone through a couple of different iterations of
you know of products and
you know you gotta adapt to the category
and I'll tell you one big learning we had was
we launched a line of pasta sauces in a tetra carton
okay which is great for a whole bunch of reasons
there's a bunch of benefits to it
but one of the downsides is
if you think about the pasta sauce category
everything is in a glass jar
which means you can see through it
good point you could you make the argument that like
you know what's gonna be in there
you don't really need to see it
but there's just this enough of
an element of consumer trust
that you get
from being able to see through the package
that something that's not see through
raises enough questions
that it's just another hurdle for a consumer to
to pick you up off the shelf
right so again just
just going back to what I said about
you need to sort of adapt
sometimes you need to adapt your packaging design
to the category we didn't do a good job of adapting it
and then when we launched into the complete meals
which I'll say
has been the most successful thing we've done
you know today
we added a some big food photography to the package
and then obviously before protein got crazy
we started talking about protein
so I know everybody says oh
we were on the protein trend before it was a trend
I wouldn't necessarily say that
I would say in the process of developing these
proteins started to kind of pop
and so
we prioritized that over some other things that we um
you know that we could have done
but yeah
underpainting was super straightforward
straight lines easy to understand
simple communication and then that obviously
has evolved as we kind of evolved
yeah totally
and there was some specific moment where boys
he stopped accepting glass and curb side recycling
that kind of sent you down a rabbit hole
assuming I got that right
yeah curious about that journey
that kind of ultimately landed you on the stand cap
yeah so the Stan Cam pouch
I would say you know
like a lot of things was
was part opportunistic and part
like part luck and
and part you know
sort of
understanding the opportunity we had in front of us and
and kind of capitalizing on it
so yeah
so I live in Boise Idaho
I'm originally from Oregon
so recycling has been a part of my
sort of life since I was since I was born
right it just in Oregon fact
I was funny I was with my parents this weekend
and I went to throw away a plastic bottle
and my mom like
you know
um admonished me and like
grabbed it out of the trash and was like
that's 10 cents because they have
you know they do bottle recycling there and stuff
and so um
it's just sort of embedded in
in our culture just because that's
you know that's how things go in Oregon
and so um
and so uh
and I think
a lot of consumers are confused
by what you can recycle what you can't recycle
it's just a really
kind of daunting thing to try to dive into
and not a lot of people
spend a lot of time thinking about it
and so yeah
we got to notice at some point
you know this is like
right around the time I was leaving Conagra
that Boise was gonna stop accepting glass
and curbside recycling and I saw
I was like that seems so strange
you think glass is like
the most recyclable thing ever
yep just based on the way it's made
and all those kind of things
and um
I started diving into it and realized
holy cow something like
70% of the glass that gets recycled in the US
gets put on these barges and sent to overseas to like
China or places
that ultimately end up putting them in landfills
right
so the idea of glass recycling is a total misnomer
and so so it is recyclable
but it's not like most things
that's driven by money so it's not like
economically viable because
the capital that it takes
to set up a glass recycling facility
and the cost
the incremental cost of recycling a glass bottle
is actually more than producing virgin glass
so it just makes no economic sense
it's a huge sort of supply chain challenge
and so saw that and then we were at Expo West
this must have been 20
it must have been 2018 and a sales guy from Glenroy
who is the company that patented that stand cap pouch
and sold it to Daisy
came by our booth and was like hey
I see you guys do barbecue sauces
have you ever thought about putting barbecue sauce
in this pouch and both the co founder
who I was working with at the time
and myself were like you know
kind of light bulb moment
and then you couple that with the fact that
you know I Learned all this about glass recycling
what he kind of pitched us on was yes
it's plastic and no
it's not recyclable
but if you think about sustainability
from kind of cradle to grave
this pouch because it
if you think about
when you ship packaging into your production facility
right
glass jars ship in exactly the same way they ship out
right you don't
can't fold the glass jar down
well the space and savings and
and consequently the fuel savings
from basically being able to lay those pouches flat
is really significant
the other thing I didn't realize is
is glass manufacturing is super water intensive
and so you are spending a lot of natural resources
anyway long story short
he pitched us on the pouch
and I go back to what I originally said
like that is something that is totally unsustainable
in the short term because we had to work with a co man
the margins were tight you know
those pouches were way more expensive than
than glass bottles would be
and so no big CPG company
is gonna completely remake their supply chain
to be able to fill you know
inverted pouches
and so we got a lot of traction with them
just because it was different
there was a an element of consumer convenience
because the thing about barbecue sauce
that everybody's experienced is like
you get set down to the last 10%
and there's just no good way to get it out of a bottle
you're like putting it upside down in your fridge and
and this was already inverted
so for the same reason it works in sour cream
it could work in a lot
basically any liquid condiment category
it's taken off in honey now
I think yeah
and some other places guacamole
you know so that makes total sense
I think it was August 2021
you sold born simple to Miscon
which is you know
where you are now
the US subsidiary of the big Japanese company
that I think's been around for 200+ years
that journey I guess from
so I was out pitching you know
venture funds and and family offices and stuff
for probably six months plus
before we were approached by Miscon
and it's you know
like everything else I've said
it was it was mostly luck
right so one of the um
so the
the private equity fund that was backing us in Chicago
was actually the partners of an ad agency there and uh
and one of the partners of the ad agency
that I knew well
happened to be playing golf one day with a guy who
I believe
was the general counsel at Miss Con at the time
and he started talking about born simple
and the cool things we were doing
and our relationship with Whole Foods and
and this guy from MISCON was like wow
that's super interesting you know
I'm gonna kind of take this back to the folks at Miscon
and just talk to them about this
might be something you know
we're kind of looking to make some inroads
in the natural channel and come
you know find a brand that we can
you know leverage to expand um
and and kind of develop as a new platform
and one thing LED to another
you know we sort of made a pitch to them
we talked to them about investment
and
they were interested in acquiring the whole company
I mean we were still really small at the time
and so we were honestly not in the market looking to
to sell the company I think we all believed in the the
you know the business that we were building and
and our ability to to get bigger and
and do that kind of stuff
but
I think one of the signs we were seeing in the market
cause you gotta remember
they approached us like in October of 2020
and if you remember 2020 and 2021
in kind of the food money and funding landscape
that's when everything sort of came to a crashing halt
right um
the money was crazy during
right like during covid
and then immediately after
and I started to see some signals
as I was out raising money that like
this funding is kind of drying up
and it's gonna be a really tough slog for the next
who knows how long
to go out and raise money for these companies that are
you know typically unprofitable for a long time and
and stuff like that
and so just kind of trying to read the tea leaves
and we're like man
these guys think differently
cause I'd been you gotta remember
like my background was at Conagra
and I had been on the other side of the table
you know pitching founders
on why they should sell their company to Conagra
and then working with them afterwards and seeing
you know
that what we said in the meetings and at the table
was not ultimately what happened
and you know Mizkan
what I now know is Mizkan
is entirely privately held by a single family in Japan
it's a 225 year old company
so when I say they think long term like
they think like in generations
and um
you know I didn't know very much about Japanese culture
or anything like that and what I have found
and I think what I could sort of
sense from them early on was they are
you know the foundation of everything that
that happens in Japanese culture is respect
and so you couple just a core ethos of respect
with a really long term vision
it is a really great place to grow a company
because you don't have the
so yes
we have financial targets
you know all that kind of stuff
same as any other company
but you know
they are more willing to invest in the short term
to ultimately get to the the right outcome
than almost any other organization I've ever
I've ever heard of so
you know really great meetings with them early on
and then yeah
like I said decided to sell the business to them
close the transaction in August of 2021
and I would say you know
if you look at any
sort of CPG transactions in the last 10 years
you will be hard pressed to find another founder
that has stuck around with the parent company
for as long as I have and I think that's a
that's a testament to the people at Mizkan
the family's vision you know
the autonomy that they've given me
you know the ability the the
the ability to sort of
digest a couple of pivots on the brand
which just wouldn't have happened
you know in
in another place and
and so yeah
I feel very lucky that they were ultimately the the
you know the organization that end up with the brand
and and then I've been able to
you know be a part of the company for now
almost five years
that's awesome yeah
they sound like great partners yeah
without going into any level specifics at all
but maybe just for some other founders that are maybe
you know starting to seriously explore an acquisition
what were just in terms of
kind of at a you know
at a general high level what were the
I guess kind of key deal terms or
I don't know structural elements
that were the most important to you
when you were thinking about
going through this acquisition process and
and thinking about what yeah
generally what was most important to you
yeah I mean
it's a lot of things right
the purchase price is always really important
so so
you know I would be remiss if I didn't say that
and so you know
actually we
we made them we pitch
we pitched them on a number
they came back and said yeah
that's that's just not gonna happen
and so then we said okay
you know
we're gonna come back down to earth a little bit
and then you know
we structured there was like
an earnout provision which is not uncommon right
so we would ultimately get paid on on
you know if we hit future targets
and we were super comfortable with that
and ultimately you know
at the end of the day
when you're backed by a private equity group
really the number that matters is are
you know what kind of return
are they gonna get on their investment
and so I think when it sort of came down to brass tacks
I think what we
the conversations we had internally were hey
this is an opportunity for you guys
to get a decent return on your investment here
there was a key man clause
which I won't get into the specifics around that
but basically meant that you know
I was gonna have a home for a period of time
because they wanted me to come and lead the business
which I again
I wanted to do you is
you know something I founded and had passion for
and then one of the things
I think that gets overlooked in terms of transactions
and again I've now been
because I participated in
in Miss Cons uh
activities as well and so
I've been on that side of the table quite a few times
now I think
you know having the experience at Conagra
having worked with founders like
immediately post acquisition
seen when those go badly and also seen when
you know from my own experience
when they go really well I think
the number one thing that gets overlooked the most is
sort of the structure of the entity when it's acquired
meaning how quickly are they gonna try to integrate you
I go back to this is gonna sound like
a little bit of a weird reference
but like
I go back to when I was in grad school
I was like
on the student council
and I was the VP of student Services
which doesn't mean anything other than to say that like
my job was basically
to try to make sure that the printers were working
and everyone had a copy card and like
the things that make life easy
that was sort of my responsibility
what I Learned through that experience was like
if you just make people's everyday lives simpler
and easier and and
and less friction
there's a lot of other things that you can do
that they're not gonna care about right
it's it's kind of like
it's kind of like gas prices right
lots of things can be going on in the world
and at the end of the day
if people's gas prices are going up
that's what they're gonna pay attention to
and so in the context of an
an MNA transaction
the thing that I think a lot of companies acquire
is risk that I would say
I will say Miscon
it does this better than almost anybody
is if you try to try to integrate a company too quickly
you are going to make the lives of the
and in every transaction is different
so this is not a blanket statement
but like
you're going to make the lives of the acquired team
a living hell a living hell
can look like things that you might think don't matter
like I'll just give you an example
if an acquiring team
and this is not an example from anything specific
but like
if an acquired team is all using Mac computers
and the parent company uses PCs
and you acquire them and you say
well
now you need to get on all of our digital technology
and you grab the Macs from them
and try to get them on PCs
those are the kind of things that make people leave
right totally yeah
and so ultimately what you end up doing is
in the process
of trying to integrate and streamline and systematize
you destroy value
because the value that you're acquiring is
a lot of it is in the people that have built that thing
right and so
so as a as a founder
who cares about the future of the business
that you started
I would just pay a lot of attention
to the language that acquirers use
around how they're gonna integrate the business
or if they're gonna integrate it
if they're gonna operate it independently
where those sort of connection points gonna be
do they have anybody on the team
that's ever worked for a startup
or
understands what it's like to be an acquired founder
right that's a really important thing
I think that gets missed a lot
because obviously
the transaction price is the thing that carries the day
and in my experience
you know it's hard to find good advisors
other than founders who have exited
that have been through this
that know what it's like on the other side
because those are the kind of things that yeah
you're gonna cash the check
but I have known and been involved with a lot
a bunch of founders who have found themselves
on the other side of a transaction
that they were happy with the outcome
in terms of the price and were extremely
extremely unhappy with the way that
you know things went after the transaction
and ultimately
end up leaving the company sooner than even like their
you know a lot of times
you'll get like
a retention bonus after being there for a year
two years or whatever and I've seen
I've seen founders not not single digits
like a lot of founders renegotiate those
to be able to leave earlier
because they're like I just can't
these people are coming in
and trying to tell me how to run my business that
that I ultimately ran
and got to the point where they wanted to acquire it
and now they don't want my opinion anymore
that I would say
that's the number one
most overlooked thing when you're
when you're selling a business
cause you get really caught up in like
I'm about to be you know
wealthier than I've ever imagined
the check size is awesome
and it's hard to rebalance that with
what is life actually gonna be like
once I'm a part of this parent company
and how are they gonna treat us
totally yeah
Born simple
has gone through a pretty notable transformation
started with those barbecue sauces
broth concentrates
and then now you've shifted to
yeah
just walk me through what that kind of pivot look like
from the behind the scenes
yeah I mean
I think it's a lot of things
it was not sort of any one factor
that kind of made us pivot
so the the first thing that happened was
you know Miss Con owns iconic pasta sauce brands
so Miscon owns ragu and Bertolli and
and so I think
one of the things that they saw with born simple
early on was like hey
this is a clean label you know
we were all organic at the time
this is an opportunity for us to make an impact
in the pasta sauce category
that we can't with our current brands
and so we did that again
I think hindsight being 2020
Tetrapak packaging was a challenge in the category
for reasons I don't think we foresaw
and so that sort of happened and
and then you know
we sort of exited that business
but through that again
the if there's one theme here
through this entire discussion that
you know there have been strokes of luck along the way
that have LED us to the
different things that we've done and
and you know
different ways that we've been successful
the protein meals was was one of those
so I because I was at Conagra for
you know a long time
Conagra owned Chef Boyardee
so I never worked directly on that brand
but I was in meetings where they would talk about it
and and some of the challenges
and so I understood a little bit about that category
and we threw our tetrapack manufacturer
we understood that they you know
could do basically
could do meals in that packaging
and it wasn't something we ever wanted to do
or ever thought we were gonna do
but we started looking at the opportunity
and it's like
we already have a supply chain set up to basically
to do this we have a co packer
we have you know
direct tie to Tetra so we can buy the packaging
all these relationships that we have
and we started looking at the category
and we're like man
this category is in desperate need of a makeover
it is losing consumers hand over fist
and effectively
all the brands there are just in a race to the bottom
and I remember you know
at Conagra we used to pre this
pre covid right
so Chef Wardee was effectively a cash cow
they were just milking it for the profit
because if you went above that dollar
dollar 25 price point
your volume would just drop off the map
and so they were totally stuck
they couldn't improve the food
they couldn't you know
if you think about what gets you to $1
25 in retail cost at the shelf
that doesn't leave a lot of room for food cost right
retailers gotta make margin
the the manufacturers gotta make margin
and so and so they just were totally stuck
it was like we're just gonna ride this thing out
and then you saw like
a year and a half ago
they ultimately ended up selling the business
to a private equity firm because it just
you know they could never figure out how to grow it
everybody in the category is doing the exact same thing
Spaghettios doing the exact same thing right
and so it was like
somebody's got to come in here and make an impact
like convenient food
has never been more important for consumers
and there is so much great technology out there
and so anyway long story short
started looking at the category and realizing
holy cow this is a massive opportunity
and I'm happy to report that um
you know every buyer that I talked to in the country
has basically told me the exact same thing
like this category is
is really struggling
it's dragging down the rest of dry grocery
it's totally out of step
with everything else going on in the store
and so they're desperate for somebody to come in
and bring back younger
wealthier consumers to a category
that just makes logical sense
that there would be a solution like that
and so that's what we're trying to build
we've been successful I'd say
at understanding the target
and being able to attract the right target
we're gonna continue to improve the food over time
because I'd say there's
that's probably the biggest opportunity for us to
you know to improve is
is just to make the food better and better and better
and so um
so we're actually in the process of
of doing that right now we've
we've hired a um
an outside consultant
um that works with chefs to help us um
kind of redesign some of the food to make it really
you know really
really good food and we'll continue to evolve the line
but we're you know
for all the pivoting that we've done since
you know
the original barbecue sauce and broth concentrate
we are fully committed to this category
and we're gonna be in it for a long time
with no plans
at this point to really pivot away from it
this is this is gonna be
I think the thing that gets us to
you know ultimately to
to scale
and you're still running born simple
you know within Miscon
but I think more recently you took over
took on the head of innovation role for
I think all of Miscon America in general
what is that
what does your kind of day to day look like
between still running born simple
also running innovation of the company
and kind of what you own and yeah
what the day to day looks like for you
and how you split your your time
yeah well the
the running joke was that the head of innovation role
was only supposed to be 30% of my time
and what ultimately ended up happening is
it's been about 50 50 and now
I'm just operating at 120% of my capacity
instead of 100 so um
but it's it's all fun
I mean this is the stuff I
I really love and get excited about right
so like I kind of mentioned earlier
my role as head of innovation is less about
what should we launch because what we should launch
ultimately
is a function of all of the processes and systems
that get us to a product idea right
and so what I've been focused on
for the last six to nine months
it has been bringing kind of
some startup thinking and some agility
and some nimbleness
to the innovation capability at Miscon
and then really
trying to improve some of the systems and processes
that we have for commercialization
so working with our you know
kind of project management team
to basically to streamline
like we use a stage gate process
which a lot of companies use right
so it's that but it's also like
where do we get our ideas from right
my bias is to say you know
having operated at the startup level
for most of my career right
I think the thing that big companies get wrong
is they do what I like to call
innovation behind a computer screen
so you're sitting behind a computer
and you're reading research reports
and you're looking at trends online
and you're you know
diving into cercana or IRI data or whatever
well what you miss when you do that
is actually interacting with the products
like a consumer would right
and so and if you look at most successful startups
where did they start they didn't start with
I have an idea for a product or
there's an opportunity in this category
they started with I'm having a struggle in my own life
and I'm gonna come up with a solution to this struggle
that is not intended to be a business
it's literally just intended to be a solution
to a problem I'm having at home that ultimately
other people are also having
and then that becomes you know
a a concept and a
and a company and a and a product line and
and you know
you grow from there right
um so I'm trying to
to sort of help the company evolve
and I will say you know
I I report to the CEO
the CEO of Miskon is a guy named Diego Palmery
and I have to give him a ton of credit
because I think he is a visionary leader
in the sense that
he is not afraid to take on the daunting task
of evolving the culture at Miskon
to think more like a startup
and you can't walk away from the scale
and resources that we have right
so we're a little over $1 billion in net sales
so we have some scale we have some resources
but we're not Conagra or General Mills
or Unilever or any of those guys
so we still have the ability to operate
you know with a lot more efficiency
than a lot of those companies
because we just we just don't have
you know that hangups
we're not a public company
you know there's
effectively one family that can ultimately
make the go or no go decision on everything
and so with him as a partner
and kind of
on this journey to evolve our innovation capability
you know we've spent a lot of time focusing on
how do we make sure to set the company up
to sort of
think differently about how we're solving problems um
and less about sort of
how we're capitalizing on opportunities and categories
and more about how are we thinking like a consumer
and really um
establishing a deep sense of empathy with the consumer
um ultimately
to get to like I said
solving problems for the consumer rather than
rather than
giving them products to fit into their lives
yeah I love that
last question for you Rob
especially being in this innovation role
I think this question is a bit more interesting for you
and if there's anything that you guys are kind of
circling around that are still under the radar
you can you cannot disclose any of those
but any any specific brands
or just kind of trends in general across CPG
that you've been kind of
particularly excited about lately
or things you're watching closely
yeah I mean
there's so I it would be hard for me to pinpoint
just one thing happening at Miss Con
I think that's part of the fun is
is you know
especially with two iconic pasta sauce brands right
ragu and Bertolli and
I think consumers will see a lot of really cool things
come from from those two brands here
in the next year to 18 months
we also have let's not forget
we're a legacy vinegar company and
and that has real credibility in kind of the Asian set
right so there's a ton of really fun
cool breakthrough stuff that we're working on um
in that space and probably next year to two years
you know that stuff will hit the market um
and and make a big impact
so there's a time going on in this one
like I said
I think I've focused a lot on sort of capability
enablement and kind of thinking and culture and
and stuff because
again my belief
so there's this great quote that I love um
this guy Edward Deming
and it's I'm gonna get the exact quote wrong
but something around like um uh
every every system
gets exactly the results that it's designed to get
right and so we've focused a lot on
how do we design a system
that is gonna get us to really
really great cool breakthrough
you know solution oriented innovation
rather than I think what we've done historically
and a lot of big companies do is
you know you take a research report
you look at category data
and then you come up with ideas through brainstorming
or you know
consumer groups or whatever um
and I think
just kind of shifting that mentality a little bit
um I will say
one of the brands that I've always held out as
you know incredibly innovative is um
and everybody will be familiar with this
but once upon a farm
so for a couple reasons I am
we are consumers I have a four year old at home
so um
you know we love those juice pouches and
and um
and but I think the thing that really uh
stands out to me about that company is
not only did they come up like
their juice pouches have existed forever right
but they really took a very
very difficult idea in terms of like
changing the way that they're manufactured
and putting them in the refrigerated set
like I cannot imagine a more daunting task
than establishing a new segment
or category in a temperature controlled environment
like the because I worked in frozen
most of the early part of my career
like the idea
just the supply chain the limited shelf space
I mean that is a Herculean task
and they have
basically established a completely new space
I mean there's lots of other brands that have done it
but um
you know the cool thing is I
I would say you know
they really stand out
I would say one of the lessons that
I think everybody can learn from once upon a farm
is that is sort of the lesson of um
kind of like technology what they would call an MVP
right if you look at the products
that once upon a farm launched
when they very first started
they look
super different from the products that they have today
both in terms of brand design and structure
and strategy and all that kind of stuff
and so I think that's a great lesson for
for food entrepreneurs which is
you know just because the thing that you launched
didn't necessarily hit the Mark
it's a great opportunity for you to learn
and continue to pivot and improve
and there's no better sort of
laboratory for experimentation than the real world
so get your products out there
sell them listen to your consumers
week as you go you know
um find great partner retailers
that are willing to go on that journey with you
and then you know
it's like they say right
every overnight success took 20 years to build
that's the fun of building
is like
you get to you get to
you know sort of try things out and see what works and
and improve as you go and
and like I said
we're trying to sort of instill some of that mentality
at at Miss Con as well
well yeah
Rob this has been awesome
I know we got a hard stop in here
in three minutes but um yeah
this has been awesome I really appreciate the time
I think you live in Boise or from Boise
shifting gears a fair amount
yeah we were actually in the market raising money
lucky enough to be in a similar position where they're
with some sort of strategic acquirer
since the acquisition believe

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