Tryst Gourmet

my name is Bob Ferraro and I'm with a company called trist Gourmet and our brand is the uh eat well Embrace Life brand of hummus and it's a it's a unique product in that we use other beans so instead of a a chick peas we're using edamami beans black beans red lentils yellow lentils white beans and consumers have really responded to that in the three years since we launched we just celebrated our third year of shipping we're now the fifth largest manufacturer of hummus in the country and we're the fastest growing Innovation is what started this success that we're on and when you're the small guy it's the one advantage you have the industry for us right now it's it's crowded to kind of get yourself in there you have to be able to stand out in certain areas and for us that's our Innovation but you also don't want to have any glaring weaknesses and then to us partly the OU gave us the ability to match what was going on by the big guys in the industry so as a little company it gave us at least that footing to say hey we're were able to play on that same playing field and it's been a huge Plus for us when we decided that we were going to start this brand there was so much work that was going on behind the scenes uh obviously we had to get our our recipes our R&D and get it to where we wanted and we had to do all the packaging we wanted to stand out from a packaging standpoint we had to line up all our sales network and work with the people for us any distraction from us focusing on what we're good at would have been detrimental to the business so to be able to pick um a kosher certification um that didn't need us to hold their hands didn't need us to be as involved as it possibly could have been with others or as many challenges it just worked really well our Packers um you know expressed to us that it was an easy process and and that's what we wanted that's what we needed we have our product packed for us so we had three different locations none of them using OU at the time and we reached out to the folks at U and the process was very smooth efficient given everything we had going on at the time we really couldn't sit there and had to hold hands and work through all this stuff with the different Packers it was a very seamless transition to get it up and running and we know that we wanted to do business north of the Border in Canada and also South of the Border down in Mexico um and we have and the fact that we have the ability with ou that they're internationally known and recognized that's a big plus for us and and there's also the discussion of we have people interested in taking our products and prodct producing them in other countries and so the ability to know that we could take that OU with us wherever we go is a huge part of the whole process well there was never a question if we were going to have it buyers insist upon it then it really becomes well who do you want to work with and for us we think the reputation of OU the the recognition for it was was an easy decision that helped in sales if we didn't necessarily have that on there and it was maybe a certification that wasn't as well known well respected it could have hurt our sales we looked at different certifying bodies and and it became readily obvious that the OU was the best fit for us they were good to work with they were great to guide us through the process and and since we've gotten up and running with them they've they've continued to be a great group to work with um it's been a a very painless simple process that has gotten us where we need to be with our kosher certification and and obviously that's helped to build the brand and um grow us into what we are today I I know they deal with these multinational International companies on a large scale multi-billion dollar companies we were a startup coming to them with no business whatsoever and yet they treated us with a degree of importance and to us it meant something you know that we were able to kind of be treated in a way that we felt like we were the big guys although we we certainly we learned anything um on the map yet we're very fortunate to have the best broker Network in the country we're very fortunate to work with some of the best retailers in the country we have some great Packers but we also know that uh to align ourselves with probably the best in the certification just made sense it was our goal from the day one they have something there as a team as a company as a brand that really it stands for excellence they're the best at what they do their service they provide the recognition they provide and I think just the consumer awareness for it it's it's a no-brainer you do have to be kosher and in order to do that for us we think it's a no-brainer that you you go with the leader in the category and it's one less thing you have to worry about [Music]