TRUBAR - How Bold Packaging and Clean Ingredients Win

Ramon Vela (00:01.496)
Welcome back everyone. This is gonna be a great show. Let me introduce you to Erica Grousman who is founder and CEO of True Bar. Welcome to the show.

Erica Groussman (00:27.849)
Thank you so much.

Ramon Vela (00:30.222)
Well, I appreciate it. know you're running a company, you're an entrepreneur, and you've got a million things on your plate. So I really genuinely appreciate you taking some time to talk to us and for our listeners, because we love to learn about new brands. And I'm sure a lot of people know who you are already, but I'm glad that we're going to be introducing you to a lot of other people as well. So thank you again. I love

I really feel strongly that consumers should know a little bit about the companies that they're doing business with. And I especially want consumers to know that there's real people behind these companies. It's so easy for, especially in very competitive markets, it's so easy for people to see a product on the shelf or online and just simply think it's some large conglomerate, it's just some faceless corporation or whatnot.

But the reality is that there's people who care deeply about the product, the quality, the service, the customer service, all of everything. And there's real people who believe sweat and tear over bringing the product to market. You and your team are one of those. And I just want people to know who the people are, know, humanize this a little bit. And one way of kind of humanizing this and understanding who we're talking to is by knowing what you're grateful for. And so that's my signature question. It's a question of gratitude.

And with that in mind, Erica, if you don't mind, can you share a moment or a memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because it meant that they believed in you, your vision, or your potential?

Erica Groussman (02:12.223)
I mean, there's a million reasons. So many times that I've been, I felt so grateful. One that just stands out right now is my team believing in me, right? They're following me, they're behind me, they're guiding this company with me and they're believing me. took, know, people have left their other jobs to come and work for me.

Ramon Vela (02:18.542)
Thank

Erica Groussman (02:40.521)
I brought someone out of retirement, you know, their hours of days that, you know, taking them from their family because they believe in the bigger picture of Truebar. And so they believe what products I'm going to bring to market. so standing by me. So I would say that that is sticking out in my head right now of a form of gratitude that my team believes in me and believes in Truebar. And so I'm equally thankful for them.

Ramon Vela (03:11.49)
Yeah, and that actually really speaks to the heart of the question because there are times when people believe in you, sometimes even before you believe in yourself or let's say before the dream is fully laid out and done, they have a belief in a vision that you might have. And so it really speaks to the heart of the question.

And I would even say that it's probably even larger than just the team on the company. It's probably your support system too. So family members, loved ones, know, whoever they're there supporting you and helping you and believing in you. And even further than that is that when you get investors or beyond that, when you have investors, I always tell people this investors, obviously the plan is important. The vision is important.

But what they're doing and what your support and what your team is doing is they're investing in you and saying, we of course believe in the mission, but we're believing in you and your ability to execute that. And that's pretty awesome. What do think about that?

Erica Groussman (04:19.225)
Absolutely, I agree. No, it totally is because you could be a founder who's, know, I'm not gonna do that. I gotta hire someone for that and that and I'm definitely not that founder. I'm the founder who like just gets it done, whatever it is and I figure it out. How do I solve this problem? Versus, you know, who am I gonna hire to solve this problem?

Ramon Vela (04:42.86)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, and like I said, so that's a really great question, a really good example. And so thank you for sharing that. And it also leads me to my first question for you. So your team and others who believe in you and who have come out of retirement to help you in all of this, share with us a little bit and share with the audience that vision or the vision that is

that they are believing in. Like what is it that they're believing in that they left their job or came out of retirement to really be a part of all this?

Erica Groussman (05:23.089)
Yeah, so True Bar is it's a vegan plant-based protein bar with 12 grams of protein, 11 grams of fiber, and we're vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, no sugar alcohols, no seed oils, and most importantly, they taste delicious. So they're all dessert inspired and all of them are

really truly delicious, this amazing texture. So the whole concept behind it is something that you can't wait to enjoy, that's good and clean, and then you feel good afterwards. And to hit all of those notes, it's just not really out there in the market. So they're believing in the vision of having something that

Ramon Vela (06:05.176)
Mm-mm.

Erica Groussman (06:10.535)
everyone can enjoy that's a better for you item, right? Like you can go get a candy bar that tastes good, but then you feel not so great afterwards, right? Or, and even maybe your body doesn't feel bad, but you're like regretting it. Like, did I really just eat that? Now I gotta go for a walk. So they're believing in the bigger picture that you can have a better for you item that...

Ramon Vela (06:18.21)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (06:28.322)
Hehehe.

Erica Groussman (06:36.479)
tastes good that people are gonna enjoy, but they could still use it as like a dessert.

Ramon Vela (06:41.162)
Mm-hmm. And by the way, I just want to mention, thank you for that. And I want to mention that you guys were kind enough to send me some samples and I have some right here and I'll be giving, yeah, that's right. And it also, there's different flavors like this one right here was whipped key lime.

Erica Groussman (06:52.125)
Ooh, that matches. I'm wearing key lime color today.

Ramon Vela (07:05.408)
And this one here is, and this is a really good one. is like decadent for me because I love donuts. This is daydreaming about donuts. That's me. That's what I do every day. Pretty much every moment of the day. And then this one's also a really good one. I'm sure this is one of your best sellers, who knows? mean, they're all best sellers, but this one, everyone loves cookie dough. So this is another one.

Erica Groussman (07:15.635)
Yeah

Erica Groussman (07:29.749)
Yeah, and I just ate a strawberry one, but it's in the wrappers in the garbage. But I just ate a strawberry one. Strawberry shortcake.

Ramon Vela (07:35.63)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think I've had those. Those are really good. These are actually, what I'm showing you is pretty much what's left because you sent us a couple of boxes, several boxes and different flavors. And they went very, very quickly. I mean, I tried them too, but my daughter, my teen daughter really loved them. My wife, my other daughters, my older daughter, my son, they all really enjoyed it. And it was hard to keep it.

Erica Groussman (07:42.612)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (08:05.708)
in the house. So I told them, listen, I had to reschedule this interview. So I need to keep these in the house a little bit longer because I want to have something for recording time. But it was really difficult and that's how good they are. And we'll go through that in a second. And everyone out there, if you want to take a look at what we're talking about, you can go to trubar.com. Trubar.com. So I love this vision that you have.

Erica Groussman (08:09.951)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (08:32.646)
And I want to drill down a little bit more on that because this is a competitive market. It's competitive. And you know that there are bars out there in companies and they'll be, I'm not going to name anything like that, but there are bars out there that pretend to be healthy, have all the marketing jargon, you know, what is it? The green washing. mean, like all these different terms of like basically just saying like, here's what we have, but they're really not.

It's healthy, they have sugar in them or all sorts of other stuff. And it's just competitive because you have these people that you're competing against that may not be as good as you, but market as if they're really good. And there's all sorts of stuff going on. So it's very competitive, but you guys are successful. You guys have, I would say that you guys are successful. I'm sure you guys still have more plateaus that you want to get to.

Erica Groussman (09:28.317)
Of course, of course.

Ramon Vela (09:28.674)
But I would say you guys are doing a fairly good job. mean, you guys are very successful, which is a testament to you and to your team. And I'm just wondering, how do you break through all that noise? How do you break through the marketplace? If you were to kind of describe into one line, two lines of why True Bar is successful when lots of others are not in this competitive market, what would it be?

Erica Groussman (09:57.749)
So I think the biggest thing is is that we need to like once someone tries it They're sold Like once they once they actually pick up the bar taste it and see what's in it see the ingredients By the way, you mentioned sugar. We have sugar in ours. We use organic cane sugar. It's Sugars not so much the enemy. It's the the ingredients that you can't read

Ramon Vela (10:06.53)
Mm-hmm.

Erica Groussman (10:23.157)
and the sugar alcohols, the stuff that's artificial to your body that creates havoc and inflammation and all the not so positive things. But a good example to your point, we were in Whole Foods. We started in Whole Foods in like 30 stores and we were next to all the bars that you're talking about, have millions and millions of dollars behind them.

Ramon Vela (10:23.497)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ramon Vela (10:33.826)
Yeah, I agree, yeah.

Erica Groussman (10:52.531)
It didn't start right away, but like we slowly became number one in those Whole Foods and we were not spending anything because we didn't have funds. This was a couple of years back and we slowly became the number one bar for a while. And that was with no spend next to these brands that, know, whether they were healthy or not healthy for you, they were spending the money and had it. And our bar became number one.

Because once you try it, once you read it, once you see it, it is really truly delicious and clean.

Ramon Vela (11:25.442)
Yeah. And so, you know, it's really challenging to go up against those folks. do you think it was, I mean, obviously the taste has a lot to do with it because the product has to do what it says it's going to do.

And people can try something once. People can love you and love the name and love the branding, but the product always has to do what it says because they can buy it once, it may not buy it again. So the product really has a lot to do with it. But there's more to it, right? There is your mission, there is...

your personality, there is the branding out there because you're the face of the company. And I'm sure for a long time in the early days, especially you were the face. There's the branding component. What spoke to people though? Is it the mission, the clean ingredients? Was it the lifestyle that you were promoting? Was it the...

the brand somehow, mean, the colors are amazing. mean, to me, they're just so, like this one right here, it's just such a beautiful packaging. this one goes along with your outfit. mean, the packaging is beautiful and attractive and colorful and fun. But what do you think spoke to people? mean, I'm wondering. Yeah.

Erica Groussman (12:47.507)
Yep, yep.

Erica Groussman (12:54.727)
Yeah. I mean, why can't it be all of it? Why can't it be a combination of like, wow, this is led by someone who seems to be incredible. And, you know, the bars taste good and they're clean and the packaging is sexy and it feels good to touch, right? That matte packaging. It's cool to have, right? It's not.

Ramon Vela (13:06.648)
Mm-hmm.

Erica Groussman (13:20.053)
it's got like a trend appeal to it, right? Where you could have it on your yoga mat or in your purse or in your car. It's just like, it's great. It's just a great bar. Why can't it just be all of it? The lifestyle, right?

Ramon Vela (13:30.53)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (13:41.266)
I mean, yeah, I agree. Well, and I'm so I'm wondering, the other part of it is that what we haven't talked about is like the the mechanics of it, I guess, like the distribution, the supply chain and so forth. Obviously, get into Whole Foods, probably like a huge, huge milestone and big one. What other milestone has there been that really stands in your mind? Like, was it?

the first retailer you were in, your first sale, or maybe it was like the first iteration of the bar that you tasted and you thought, this is exactly what I'm looking for. There's always, I mean, there's a lot of milestones, I'm sure, but bring this back to the early days. As you started this, as you had this vision and idea, what was the first milestone that hit that made you think like, wow, this is, we're onto something, like this is gonna be something.

Erica Groussman (14:40.337)
there's so many and back to the gratitude how about you know the way I got into the 30 Whole Foods was a gentleman on LinkedIn that I just kept blowing up and he gave us a shot like he just he tried it and was like okay I'll let you guys you know I'll let you guys in so I have to be thankful for that so that would definitely be also like another wow moment when

Ramon Vela (14:42.766)
you

Ramon Vela (14:50.968)
Mm-hmm.

Erica Groussman (15:06.771)
We went from 30 stores to getting national at Whole Foods, like a pinch me moment or, you know, sitting down next to someone on an airplane and then pull out a bar and just start eating it. And I'm like, that's good. Have you tried their other ones? You know, and like, just really getting like, they have no idea who I am or anything, you know, it's, that was a pretty incredible, crazy feeling.

Ramon Vela (15:10.424)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (15:26.678)
Yeah.

Erica Groussman (15:36.693)
or being in a sales meeting and when they're like, yeah, we know about Truebar because other companies are pitching us with your data, like showing us in the chart, like where they compare. It's like, we're one of the pillars, right? Which is crazy. So all of those moments, I would say, are leading to that.

Ramon Vela (15:52.59)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (16:05.39)
Yeah. And I love this example that you gave about having someone on a plane or someplace open up a bar. And that's so surreal, right? Because you know people are buying it, but to have someone have it and not know who you are, you know, it's just, I would imagine that's pretty cool. One of the other things you mentioned is going from 30 to national.

Erica Groussman (16:25.033)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (16:32.142)
So that's pretty, that's a, mean, that's huge. That's a big deal. Um, and it's a, and it's, and it's really, uh, over, could be overwhelming. I mean, how did you guys manage like, you know, the manufacturing supply chain?

Erica Groussman (16:45.695)
I don't let anything get overwhelming. Nothing phases me. So I'm a yes person. So it's like, can you do this? Yes. And then I figure out how to do it. I don't dwell on it. And I don't get scared of it. Because if you start getting scared and dwelling, then you're wasting energy that you could be using to go positive and forward. So.

I don't know, I don't get overwhelmed. I just figure out what the solution is right out the bat. Like, you know, if there's an ingredient shortage or, okay, how are we solving it? What are we doing? Not like talking about, we got this shortage. What are we gonna do? Like none of that. It's, what's our next path? Who are we reaching out to? And I use LinkedIn a lot. I feel like it's such a great tool because...

Ramon Vela (17:32.044)
Yeah.

Erica Groussman (17:38.761)
Let's say it's an ingredient, for example, you can just type in that company, see who works there and go right to the top like, hello, CEO. So it's great. So that's, I don't get nervous or scared. And when we did get that, we were producing and we are in Costco. So Whole Foods wasn't a fright compared to Costco at all.

Ramon Vela (17:46.892)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (18:02.776)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (18:07.406)
Oh, you know, and you're saying something I think is really interesting right now. And I have these conversations with people. As a matter of fact, I just had one briefly the other day with another founder. And it's really about, I don't know how to describe these set of skills, but it's really about your emotional mental state, like your resilience and your grits and all those words.

For me, I've come to realize, I've interviewed so many people now. I don't wanna brag, like almost a thousand people, but it's up there. But what I'm floored by is a couple of things. There's so many people who tell me, I didn't know anything about this industry before I got into it. Yeah, like you. And then the others are like, you know,

And many of them have that same attitude that you have. And it just seems to be a common thing. I mean, you know, there are people who obviously don't have all those things in spade, but it's a real, it's very common and it's very unique at the same time. Because yeah, it's the mindset. But it seems to be like for an entrepreneur, it's part of the personality. Not always, but a big part of it.

Erica Groussman (19:24.573)
It's a mindset.

Ramon Vela (19:35.328)
is the mindset that we're going to get this done like no matter what, like I may not know the path. I may not know what to do. may not know how we're going to get there, but we're going to get there. And so for some people that's scary optimism. like that's like, you're like, you're just flying blind into, into the night or whatever, but, it really is. mean, I think that's the secret of being a great entrepreneur is of course you need to have like the operation mindset and you need to understand the numbers. need to kind of know all of that. Those are.

Erica Groussman (19:49.633)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (20:05.09)
And those are learnable, but what's harder to be learned, and I'd love to get your feedback on this, is how do you develop that personality that just like nonstop, like we're gonna get it done, we're gonna make it happen, personality, because I think that's what the key of anything is. You can learn, like you said earlier, if you have to, can hire people to come in and solve a problem. You can hire people to teach you about how to do, you know,

different financial things or whatever, you need to have that personality. How do you develop that? How did you develop that?

Erica Groussman (20:42.197)
I don't, do you develop it or are you born with it? I don't know. I don't know. Right? I don't know.

Ramon Vela (20:44.812)
I don't know, that's a good question. Nature versus nurture, right? So I don't know.

Erica Groussman (20:53.685)
think I was always kind of just like flying in my own beat, you know? I guess that doesn't make sense, but you know, drum into my own beat. Yeah, I don't know, but I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.

Ramon Vela (21:02.466)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (21:10.286)
Well, I mean, you're right. I don't know if it's, if it could be learned, but it definitely, you know, needs to be, it could be honed. could be practiced, you know, um, I think it can. Um, although if you are born with it already, then it's just, it's just like a, a plus. Yeah. And, um, but this is so, it's so much more important than what people think is that mindset.

Erica Groussman (21:17.663)
Could be honed. It could be honed. Yeah.

Erica Groussman (21:29.843)
innate.

Ramon Vela (21:38.83)
that ability to not give up. That is just to me, like I've just noticed is it's so, so like it's a critical aspect of being an entrepreneur. And if you don't have that, it's really a weakness or you can hire or you can have a co-founder who has that component of it, which is actually what I, who I interviewed the other day. I interviewed, there's a founder who was more analytical and very kind of like, they always take up with the negative things that can happen.

Erica Groussman (21:57.546)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (22:06.456)
But then you got like the other co-founder who's just like, okay, let's just go. Let's just make it happen. And they kind of balance each other out a little bit. But yeah, you have to, you you gotta have that main one. So, but speaking about that, let's talk a little bit about the challenges. So there's a lot of challenges that you had. I mean, we're skipping over so much. You know, you were in Costco, then you went to Whole Foods and you went from, it was a 30 stores to national. There's a lot of stuff in between.

Erica Groussman (22:29.374)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (22:36.63)
Walk us through some of those challenges and some of the lessons that you've learned.

Erica Groussman (22:41.599)
Hmm, challenges. So, I mean, my biggest challenges were around...

Erica Groussman (22:53.513)
I don't know how to talk about it. This is offline. Just because, just because like, I don't want to go into like my whole public company thing right now, or do we want to go there?

Ramon Vela (22:56.751)
Pause.

Ramon Vela (23:04.917)
It's up to you. If you don't want to get into it, we don't have to get into it.

Erica Groussman (23:07.571)
I don't want to get into it, so I'm trying to think what challenges I could say that... Okay, I know what to do. Okay, let's start again.

Ramon Vela (23:14.574)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, okay. So you can go ahead and pretend I asked the question and I'm gonna count us that back in. So pause, one, two, three.

Erica Groussman (23:26.515)
Yeah, so some challenges are, I learned early on that I needed to get redundancy because some of the ingredients, you know, they couldn't keep up with our demand. So I think it was during COVID that I had to actually like air-free ingredients in and we were spending more money, but I had to do it, right, to just keep up. And from then on,

I started not only trying to buy forward and be ahead of the curve, but also just getting redundant. And so now today, for every single ingredient, I have at least one backup, for the most part, two or even three. And that goes for ingredients and packaging and even comants, right? So that's something that I learned that I needed that right off the bat, I was not even.

thinking of. I just thought, like, this ingredient is free flowing and, you know, just turn on the faucet and it just comes out. So that I would say was a challenge that I had to learn. But I just figured out what was the solution, right? And yeah, that was expensive solution, but it needed to be done, right? So.

Ramon Vela (24:38.894)
And, and what, so, and I'm sure there's a lot of other challenges to choose from, but, when someone comes to you, cause you've had all these challenges, you've had to figure things out. had this, you have this great, powerful attitude. and when someone comes to you, cause you, you're such an inspiration from what you've built. What do you tell them when they ask you for advice?

Erica Groussman (25:08.085)
What are they asking about?

Ramon Vela (25:09.356)
Yeah. Like if they say, if, if, if a young person comes to you, well, younger, you know, like, out of college or whatever, and they're just, they want to start a business or someone comes to you, maybe a young woman who wants to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. They want to start their business. Do you tell them, do you, like I've had entrepreneurs half jokingly tell me like when they, someone comes to them and ask about business, they're like, don't do it.

Erica Groussman (25:24.294)
just like in like just general advice.

Erica Groussman (25:34.325)
Like run, don't do it. No, I would say do it. would say absolutely do it. If you have a good idea and you believe in yourself and you have the energy and you know that you're gonna wear all the hats and not act like you're above anything.

Go for it. Like it is so fun and so rewarding. I mean, yeah, it's a lot of work. I look at True Bar as my third child. I eat, sleep, breathe it. Like it doesn't, there's not like a second that doesn't go by. It's not in my brain. I don't have nightmares anymore. used to. I used to have nightmares when I was doing all the procurement.

Ramon Vela (26:13.304)
Hmm.

You

Erica Groussman (26:21.631)
but now I have someone thankfully. So I know I'm in a waking up in a dead sleep. But I would absolutely say to do it because it's just, it's amazing. You're building something. Like you're building something from the ground up and what's more rewarding than that, right? You could go get a job and do a nine to five and work for someone and it could be rewarding because you're helping to build it also and that's great, but.

Ramon Vela (26:41.614)
Mm-hmm.

Erica Groussman (26:51.557)
You just have to make sure that you are resilient, that you're gonna be okay, and that you can stick through it, because it really is a lot of work. I mean, this road has been a long road.

Ramon Vela (26:57.038)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (27:02.774)
And you just mentioned about the nightmares and stuff, is, this is part of the entrepreneurial journey for a lot of people just to know that there are parts that are, mean, you love what you do, you wouldn't do it if you didn't. love the, many entrepreneurs, far as founders, love the act of building. They love the act of growing and figuring it out. Some founders don't like to,

Erica Groussman (27:06.581)
Very true.

Ramon Vela (27:30.228)
go after a certain point because it becomes more managerial than the fun growth part. But I mean, it's very core. Most founders love to the growing part, love the problem solving and everything else. But that doesn't mean that you don't feel the pressure. That doesn't mean that you don't feel the stress or the nightmares and all this other stuff. It happens. It's just part of the deal. It's just part of what you sign up for.

How do you deal with that? Is there any things that you do like exercise or meditation or working out or whatever it is?

Erica Groussman (28:06.907)
Yeah, so I did TM. So that's a form of meditation. so I learned that you might practice it also. I don't know. So I learned that maybe like eight, seven years ago, a while ago. And that I do whenever I need to. And you basically can close your eyes and you say your special word and you feel like you're in the womb, kind of.

Ramon Vela (28:12.824)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (28:31.884)
Mm-hmm.

Erica Groussman (28:32.896)
So I do that. But yeah, you definitely feel like someone punched you in the stomach sometimes and you're gonna throw up and nightmares and like there's a lot of negatives that go along with this, but you just try not to remember it. It's like childbirth. You forget it and you remember the positive of this beautiful baby. So, yeah.

Ramon Vela (28:50.606)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. You know, the funny thing is that out of all the interviews that I've done, I think I've only met like one or two people that don't have any of those issues. It's so unique. I've never, rarely, very rarely run into anyone that does not have those issues. And I can really just,

Erica Groussman (29:04.883)
Hahaha

Ramon Vela (29:16.898)
I think it's for one of them at least is because they had a very difficult life before being an entrepreneur. And so I think that probably is like, you know, they've been already through the ringer, like everything else is nothing. But they went through some really difficult times. And, but almost everyone I know has to deal with us. And so you have to figure out ways to manage it. mean, and hopefully in healthy ways, because if you don't,

you know, it's all going to come, you know, it doesn't last. And if you can learn a way like TM, Transcendental Meditation, or any of those others, you have to figure out something, something healthy, hopefully, because this is a long, long-term game. is a marathon. This is a marathon. You don't want to ruin your body necessarily, because it's hard. So thank you for sharing those things.

Erica Groussman (30:01.415)
Yes, a healthy vice. Yeah it is. yeah is.

Ramon Vela (30:13.698)
So let's talk a little bit about, well, actually I want to get into the product, but I also am curious about, you know, we talked about the vision. We talked about some of those things that people, what speaks to people about the brand. And I'd love to learn a little bit about the behind the scenes stuff, like.

I sincerely believe in it. This is reality as far as I'm concerned, that you bleed sweat and tear over your product. Not just you, but your whole team does. You do things that others that we can't see as consumers behind the scenes. There's quality control, there's formulation, there's all sorts of things that in many ways you guys go above and beyond the call of duty.

You may not have to do this, but you're doing it anyways. Talk to us about some of those things, some things that you're really proud of, that your team does, that you do, that really feel for you kind of go above and beyond what's asked.

Erica Groussman (31:24.637)
Yeah, so I would say that like our packaging, for example, we only just recently started putting the stamp on there that we plant trees a certain amount for every, you know, I don't know the exact amount of it. But

We just started putting the stamp on there, whereas we didn't for a long time. But we were doing that. They're also recyclable. We try to find their post recyclables. We're using recycled ingredients or particles, not ingredients, particles of the packaging. And that wasn't broadcasted either. So we're just doing the extra whatever we can. Or as far as the ingredients go,

Ramon Vela (31:59.352)
Mm-hmm.

Erica Groussman (32:10.453)
I changed the formulation to be seed oil free certified before we were even announcing it. It had already gone through, but we had the packaging that still had it on there. And so there was a little time where we didn't have that stamp on. But I didn't want to toss that packaging. That's not good for the environment. We use a lot of

organic ingredients, like wherever we can, but we don't put that on the packaging. Because it's not always, but when we can, we do. Even though they're all non-GMO and really good ingredients, regardless. But I always want to do better, right? And that's something that I stand behind with the bars is however I can make them better, I will. And even right now, like I'm

toying with a different type of sugar. So it's just there's whatever I can to make it be the best bar that it can be. It's my third child, so it's just like I want my third child to be the best that it could be. So plenty of things like that.

Ramon Vela (33:16.878)
Yeah, and you know, and I feel like those those are really great examples, but they kind of like you can group them together into this one idea that you guys you and your team are always looking to improve the ingredients, the customer experience and and the community. And so you guys are always striving

to make the best choices you possibly can. And what's great about this is, you're telling some of the stuff that doesn't get really noticed and or like you said, I actually really love what you just said and you said in passing, which is you didn't make the change in the labels because you already had those labels and you weren't gonna toss these labels out. That little act really tells me, says a lot about you and says a lot about

Erica Groussman (33:49.98)
Absolutely.

Ramon Vela (34:16.174)
brand because those things cost money, but it's also, like you're wasting them. It's like, if you don't use them, you're wasting them and so forth. And I just really liked that. It's such a small thing, but it's like, do we take the glory of, let's tell everyone that we're, you know, we eliminated seed oils or whatever, or do we keep the packaging and then wait until, you know, we're done with that run. And then we add, then we add it on there.

To me, like that's a big deal. Like that, to me, that says a lot about the brand. And also it actually tells me, or makes me feel like I can trust you guys even more. Like the labels sound fantastic. Like everything on here sounds really great. You've got, you know, you have the different, the ingredients already in there, like what they are. Like this one is almonds and brown rice and pea protein in cassava.

And so you have everything on this label, but at the same time, there's a lot more that you're not putting on this label that you probably could. But now that you're telling me this, now I feel like, wow, it's like, I like what's on the label. And then plus what you just said, I mean, it makes me feel like I can trust you guys. It makes me feel like, there's more behind the scenes that I know. And this is one of the reasons why I have asked people like yourself to come on the show, because I want you to talk to us about those little things that don't get into the package, right. Or don't get into the marketing.

Erica Groussman (35:28.457)
Yeah.

Erica Groussman (35:41.073)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ramon Vela (35:42.008)
part of it. So that's pretty cool. That's more of a comment than a question. you know, but I love it. So let's see, let's make sure people know where to go. You can go to truebar.com. Truebar.com is the website. We're of course going to have that on our post.

Erica Groussman (35:47.52)
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Erica Groussman (35:58.773)
and there's no E, it's T-R-U-B-A-R dot com.

Ramon Vela (36:02.252)
Yeah. that's right. T R U B A R.com. T R U B A R.com. walk us through the, so let's say someone loves what they're hearing and loves what they just heard about, you know, you doing these other things that are not necessarily promoted on the packaging or whatnot. And they like what they see and they like the, the, the mission and the vision and the cleaning ingredients and so forth. Where do you want people to start with their journey?

of the brand. Is there a particular bar that you want them to try? there an assortment pack? What is it? Where would you like them to

Erica Groussman (36:37.101)
No, whatever they'd like. mean, there's a lot of places where there's single bars sold. Our website only has 12 packs. So and same with Amazon, really 12 packs or some eight packs on there as well. But like Whole Foods, for example, has six flavors. So you could just try one of each bar or however you'd like. And there really is a flavor for everyone. So if you like.

cookie dough or donuts or mint chocolate chip or cookies and cream or coconut. We have bars for, you know, there's, so many different flavors and they're all so delicious. strawberry shortcake, which I just ate today. so it's really what you're, you prefer.

Ramon Vela (37:25.41)
Well, I mean, you have so many to choose from. I'm looking at it right now. I think I've tried most of these. I tried the strawberry shortcake, the whole lot of macchiato, the daydreaming about donuts, which is one of my favorites. The cookie dough is also one of my favorites as well. I think out of all of these, the one that I love the most.

was the Get In My Belly, PB &J Jelly. That one to me, I think is my favorite.

Erica Groussman (37:55.838)
the peanut butter and jelly is really good. Yeah, so that's at Costco. That you can get at Costco in a Costco pack.

Ramon Vela (38:02.798)
Yeah, those are that that is that's amazing. That is a great flavor. And then I think I also tried the fudge fudger peanut butter, which is great, too. But these are like they're like you said earlier, they are they are sort of like dessert kind of based. But yet they have these clean ingredients. So it's almost in some ways it's like you're

Erica Groussman (38:12.947)
Motherfudger, peanut butter, yeah.

Ramon Vela (38:31.106)
You're giving us permission to be a little decadent and feel good about it. Indulgent. Yeah. Indulgent. Yeah. And so, and the thing is like, try to limit the amount of sugar, a lot of sugar I have in my diet, but I still like some sugar in it. And, and I like sweets, but I do feel guilty sometimes if I like have a piece of cake or something like that. And with yours, I feel pretty good about it.

Erica Groussman (38:34.429)
Indulgent nutrition. Indulgent nutrition, that's what it is.

Erica Groussman (38:46.954)
Yeah.

Erica Groussman (38:56.798)
Of course.

Ramon Vela (39:00.652)
I have to say, you know.

Erica Groussman (39:01.095)
Yeah, you can have a key lime, a piece of key lime pie, but feel good because you're getting protein, fiber, and then a little sugar, which is okay. Like it's okay to have sugar.

Ramon Vela (39:08.812)
Yeah.

Yeah. And what I do is I have, like if I usually take a walk after dinner, and so I usually have one of these with some water and then I go for my walk and I actually feel pretty good. It's like, satisfies my sweet tooth craving with, but, having something that is as good as better for you, obviously than having like a piece of cake. Cause it has a nutritional profile that I really, really appreciate and enjoy.

But it's like you're satisfying that sweet tooth, but at the same time, you're doing it with something pretty good. So that's what I liked about it. And I would highly recommend anyone to try them out. You have to try them if you really want to experience, as we talked about earlier in the conversation, it's really all about the product taste. So the ingredients obviously are fantastic and the nutritional profile.

but it's not gonna go anywhere unless you really like the taste and I think you're really gonna like it. It's actually quite, I've tried numerous bars, Erica, but this one has a different texture. It's really delicious, but it's kind of different than other bars. I don't really know how to describe it.

Erica Groussman (40:27.217)
Yeah, it's the nut butters. It's like a creamy, like great consistency. It's not chewy or dry. It's just, it's perfect. I'm not biased or anything.

Ramon Vela (40:36.888)
Yeah. when it comes to that, like how long did it take you, when you, from when you had the idea of Truebar to when you came out with like the first version of it that was

Erica Groussman (40:52.411)
It takes a while, even to this day, playing with new bars, it takes a while to kind of perfect it, because you want to get that perfect flavor and texture. you've got to decide what nut butter and what coating and what flavors. And like the coconut, for example, it has a different texture. There's like coconut flakes inside and on the outside.

And all the bars, they're not that quick.

Ramon Vela (41:22.862)
The very first one, what was the very first flavor?

Erica Groussman (41:29.189)
So we did, there was four of them to start. We launched the four of them together. It was cookie dough, peanut butter, salted almond and donut. So it those four together.

Ramon Vela (41:39.086)
those are like all my favorites practically. And well, yeah. And that's actually pretty interesting too. Like I've talked to other founders, not in this market, like beverage people and they make these small changes sometimes. can, it could be like the packaging, like

Erica Groussman (41:43.029)
They've been revised a lot since, but yes.

Ramon Vela (42:05.25)
you know, going from bottle to can, for instance, you know, and they say, that one, that big, that one little change made a huge difference in the business. I was talking to a company that makes cookies and they said, they made their cookies smaller and there's a, it has a name to it. I don't remember, but they made them really smaller. And for some reason after that, it took off. Like these little bites really took off.

So these companies make sometimes very small changes and things, but it makes a bigger change. Did you experience anything with that with a Truebar? Did you make a change in the design of the packaging or the flavor profile or whatnot?

Erica Groussman (42:49.789)
I don't know, there's been so many changes throughout the way. I've, I'm just always changing stuff. So I couldn't say that one particular

change did anything, would just say just as a whole, I've just, you know, it's in the bars don't look the same. You know, that just continuously changed them, the ingredients, the profiles, the packaging.

Ramon Vela (43:14.67)
you

Erica Groussman (43:21.661)
Yeah, but.

Ramon Vela (43:22.295)
And what drives that change? Like, is it because you're always looking for it to be the best tasting or nutritionally?

Erica Groussman (43:30.377)
Better. Just everything. Even right now, like I'm looking at packaging and I like want to change it. Just how it looks on the wall. Like you don't realize it, you know, how it looks maybe in one store versus another store or how it is on Amazon versus a store or, you know, just the call outs, where they're placed, how big they are with a shiny light. Does it make it glare?

Ramon Vela (43:38.572)
He he.

Erica Groussman (43:59.669)
So there's all these little things you have to constantly be thinking about. Are the bars gonna be this way or that way in display? And how do they look? And so just, as you're evolving as a brand and in new retailers, you have to think of new things that you weren't thinking about six months ago even.

Ramon Vela (44:17.518)
Yeah. Yeah. I love what you just said right now. And it just reminds me like maybe this is like another lesson that you would add is just the constant innovation, the constant change to improvement.

Right. Not just change for change, but just to improvement. and taking all these things, like you mentioned, like the distributor or I'm sorry, retailer, but you know, sometimes seeing how they display things can cause a change in how you, and how you're packaging. I, I've heard that once before where they, had a packaging and they put this

Erica Groussman (44:38.643)
Yeah.

And you need to have that.

Ramon Vela (45:03.03)
this information at the very bottom of the can or the package, I don't remember which one it was, they realized that the retailer was putting on the shelf and people couldn't see that little part right there. And so it kind of made a change when they changed it around. But anyhow, you have to look at all these little things. And so that's a good lesson too, in terms of constant improvement, right? Like how can I improve this? I like that.

Erica Groussman (45:24.477)
Yeah. And you've got to be able to be apt and limber that you could do it, right? Because if you're stuck in your ways and you don't want to change, that's not good either.

Ramon Vela (45:31.822)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (45:38.06)
Yeah, that's actually, you know, I was just thinking about that lately with all the tariff stuff going on and all these different changes. And I kind of feel like we're, we're really entering a time period where I think we're going to have to learn with, live with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of change, not just in this country, but just globally around the world. And

Erica Groussman (45:45.683)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (46:03.106)
I feel like that's a skill that we need to develop. Like we need to practice that because we just have to get used to uncertainty and change. But it feels like you're already on that path. Like in terms of how the business is going, because some people, you're right, have a business and they just say, I want it this way. I'm not going to change or I have this product and I don't want it to change or whatnot. I think you have to be adaptable and flexible.

Erica Groussman (46:20.757)
Alright.

Erica Groussman (46:24.701)
You have to, yeah, you have to adapt and flex to where you are, where you are in the business. Absolutely.

Ramon Vela (46:31.086)
Yeah, I agree. Well, I want to be respectful every time. This has been fantastic. I want to highly recommend that people go out. This one here is my favorite so far. mean, yeah, this is the one I've been trying to... So just so everyone knows, I know I mentioned this before, but we were supposed to have this interview a couple of weeks ago.

Erica Groussman (46:47.795)
Donut. Daydreaming about donuts.

Ramon Vela (47:00.04)
And these were sent to me beforehand. And so I wanted to try them before the interview and then we had to reschedule. And so I had, these were going fast. So I had to even hide them for myself because what I was getting used to is like every day after dinner, I would have one of these when I started getting like a sugar craving, I would have one of these and they're so delicious. They really, really are. And they have this really interesting texture that I haven't really tasted before in other bars. Very chewy.

Erica Groussman (47:09.973)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (47:30.078)
and the flavors are just amazing. So like if you have this one and you have this one, which is the Whip for Key Lime, they're obviously very different flavors. you can tell that they're just very different. mean, you can like this one has the flavor of the Key Lime. This one has the flavor of the donuts. This one has the flavor of the cookie dough. So they're very prominent and they taste delicious. And so just like she said earlier,

It really depends on what your flavor, you know, what you're attracted to in terms of your flavors, but there's something in there for everyone. So I highly recommend it. I think they're a product worth buying in a brand we're supporting, which is our tagline. Thank you so much, Erica. I really appreciate you making time. I know you're busy. You got a lot of stuff going on. Tell us where to go in terms of buying it. If you want to shout out some partners, feel free to do so.

and then your social media, where you want us to go on social media.

Erica Groussman (48:34.237)
Yeah, so we're in Costco, Walmart, Sam's Club, Whole Foods, Target, Hy-Vee. You can go right to our website and see the locator and it will tell you all the locations that are nearby to you and what is actually in the store, whether it's a five-pack, single bars, 12-packs. So it's T-R-U-B-A-R dot com. Or you can find me at Erica Truebar.

or on Instagram or you can go to our Instagram and it is trubar.brands.

Ramon Vela (49:10.818)
Thank you for that. And any last words you want to leave with the audience?

Erica Groussman (49:14.779)
No, just thank you and please try it. Let me know how it is. You can always reach out to me. I will actually respond on my Instagram. There's not anyone else there. It's me. So.

Ramon Vela (49:26.062)
Thank you so much. I, like I said, I really enjoyed this conversation and I really enjoyed the product. So I honestly, that's my personal testimonial is I really enjoyed this product. It really was something that I'm look, I look forward to after dinner. I say I was looking forward to it because I had to stop myself from eating it because I needed to save some for this interview. And then I want to do some videos around it too, after this interview.

And I had to hide them for myself. That's how good they are. So definitely go check them out. Go to the website. We're to have the link to our pod to everything she just mentioned, the website and the Instagram and all that other stuff on our podcast description, which you could find on Google. I'm sorry, Spotify, Apple and permit. Pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts, simply type in the story of a brand show and you should be able to find it. I trip over my words because I'm saying this all day long and

And beyond that everyone, like I say, stay sane, stay healthy. And one way of being healthy is eating something that's nutritionally good for you. Try these out, check out the bag. It tells you everything that you need to know about these and go visit the website, which is Truebar.com to learn more about the nutritional values and the panel.

Beyond that everyone, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to another episode of the story of a Brand.

Erica Groussman (50:57.055)
Thank you.

Ramon Vela (50:59.041)