Beyond the Board: Graza Olive Oil| Whole Foods Market

is usually the taco truck that I hit on the way to Expo which I did this morning. Um I guess the weather. Probably a little break from New York. It's been brutal. — It's been a tough winter for y'all. — But I don't know, Expo's special. It's special to see a lot of people. It's really amazing how many connections you make in this industry and having everyone concentrate around this convention center is I mean it's always a great time. I feel like a lot of our brand collaborations have come from just being at Expo and walking and talking and meeting people. — so many. — Yes. Some would say too many, but I you know you know we're being more thoughtful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe we'll get into that. Yeah, so for our listeners we're at Expo West which is the largest natural and organic food conference in the United States. And so we get we see a lot of new products and innovation. It's always a fun time to be here, but uh why don't we get to started? So you know, Graza now becoming one of the most recognizable olive oils that you're able to see on grocery shelves. Tell us a little bit of history of like how did this product uh

come to ideation and into the market? We'd love to hear the in-depth story. — Yeah. I mean it's I think about it all the time because it's all rooted in product obsession. And I feel like that's kind of the through line that keeps me engaged is Graza started from product obsession, obsessing over olive oil. Uh I'd worked in different industries, different consumer industries in the past, never fully in food, but I did cook uh for a time at Gramercy Tavern in the city. So you know, food was always a major kind of connective tissue in my life and I didn't know how I was going to figure out a career long-term in it. Uh my wife is from Spain, tried some amazing olive oil on a trip to Spain and truly just had a sensory experience. Like this was not a opportunity rooted in a business case. It wasn't like how big is a of a market is olive oil or who are the biggest players in olive oil. It was I just tried something and now I need to figure out how it's made and where it's made. And it was kind of a Monopoly board of sorts. Turn the bottle, see who the manufacturer is, drive there, go to that mill, learn, ask them how much they export, not enough, where do you need to go? Go to the next place. And it was really an exploration. And for a long time I was actually working at a different food company called Magic Spoon and I was bringing bottles of olive oil to the office, doing tastings. And I think there was it was obvious that I was no longer engaged and my head was somewhere else. — longer on the — I mean, worst possible employee ever, incubating his new business inside of a different company. But I couldn't stop. I just got obsessed with the product. I'm sure everyone loved the tastings though. They were good tastings. Yeah, I was preparing little pan con tomate, little anchovy toast with our olive oil. It was a good time. Yeah, outstanding. So it started out as sort of this sort of obsession in learning more about olive oil in general. Yeah. What sort of helped take it from sort of the experimentation being able to try all these different olive oils and looking at the sourcing to figure out like how do we actually bring this product to market? What was sort of the process for you on that side? Yeah, the supply chain's probably the biggest piece to figure out because I think in our world you can walk into you know, a co-manufacturing environment and they have a standard olive oil in a standard glass bottle and it's kind of post your label here and you have no control over the spec or what's going into the bottle because there's so much efficiency in buying bulk. For us it was challenging. Once we figured out the packaging which actually got figured out by walking around Whole Foods shelves and there's pictures early on Graza days maybe a year pre-launch of us taking like a Sriracha bottle and a Tetra Pak bottle and combining the caps and seeing how that looks on the olive oil set. It was just really happening live in the store. Um but once we had the packaging it was actually really difficult because it's similar to going to like Bordeaux. Olive oil's very you know, traditional, historical. So it's like in wine, if you went to Bordeaux and said I want to put Bordeaux 1990 reserve Grand Cru in a squeeze bottle, it's going to work. They would tell you to kick rocks. Like you've just insulted their heritage, their person, their father, their grandfather, their grandmother, everyone involved. — you possibly do this? So olive oil was the same way. It was like a squeeze bottle doesn't really make sense. This is what we put it in. There's tins, there's that. So it was very difficult to convince people to do things our successful because we're uncompromising in doing things our way. The same way we did it on day one is the day we're going to do it on year 50. Um so it was more difficult back then to convince partners to adjust to the oils that we wanted to buy, the way we wanted to store it, bottle it. Um so that was kind of the supply chain side. It was difficult. And then the brand coming together, I mean that's just like pure creative exploration. It's a it's an honor to be part of a branding process. You pay for it. Um and usually you get what you pay for, but that for an entrepreneur I think is the real extraction of all of your creative thoughts about the product that you want to bring to market. It's a great process to work with a great creative agency. Yeah, well I love the product and you know, one of the things I think is great is the packaging where it's so functional. And for me that was like one of the ah-has where it's like gosh, like

how didn't somebody think of this sooner? What was sort of the process that you guys went through and helping work through the design and uh It's funny. It's like it is a shower moment. You know, it's [clears throat] not a So even though I'd used squeeze bottles on a cooking line, I didn't make the connection over those difficult years of life. It took a shower with a Dr. Bronner's bottle uh which for those who use Dr. Bronner's know it takes a really long time to wash off. That's the soap that keeps soaping somehow. So plenty of time to think. And uh and in the shower had the idea and thought Dr. Bronner's I'm squeezing it on myself I could squeeze olive oil like this. Ran out, had a 3 L tin of Whole Foods 365 Mediterranean blend, cleaned out the Dr. Bronner's bottle which also takes a very long time, filled it up with the oil, squeezed it in a Lodge cast iron pan, was like oh my god, we're on to something. And then went on YouTube, Gordon Ramsay, Microsoft Paint. He had a squeeze bottle in his hand, put a green box over it and uh branded Graza for the first time and put the word sizzle. And it all happened in one day. It was like a pure very fortunate train of thought. And it's funny you look back on that picture. We do a onboarding with all of our employees that's a photo journey. It's like 750 pictures of pre-launch and kind of first year. And you look at that picture and you're like it really isn't that different. You didn't I mean obviously the bottle now is different. The imagery, the characters, the world has come together, but it was a squeeze bottle of this color in his hand. It's it was all there. Yeah, no. And it's just one of those I just kept on saying like gosh, how did somebody not think of this sooner? And when you have such a high quality product and — Yeah. functionally it works so well whether you're you know, going on a cast iron pan or you know, putting a little drizzle on top of a salad. It's just it's so functional there. — I think we got lucky with having something tactile that people could really experience in a different way because you're always pouring olive oil from the glass bottle or from a big jug and there were functional issues with that where you use too much, use too little. This definitely made people feel like they had control in the kitchen. And I think in a time when everyone is inspired by chefs more than they've ever been. Chefs have a broader voice than they've ever had. Obviously with social media, the amount of content with chefs cooking, it made you feel like that at home in an instant. And olive oil never really made people feel that way. Right. We And when you're building a feeling as opposed to a product, you're really onto something. Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things you were talking about is you know, some of the work around the sourcing. So can you talk through some of the details as far as the work that you go through as you work with some of your producers and the standards that you are looking to bring into the into your product. — Yeah, I mean we since day one have been single origin, single varietal, not because we believe in those buzzwords I'd say for signals of quality, more so because we know what varietals we want and we know where they're grown, hence the origin. So still to this day 95% of our oil is picual which is a very pungent, usually very high in oleic acid, high in oleocanthals which are the things that make the back of your throat burn. People and people probably know them as antioxidants or polyphenols. And those oils traditionally for the American market were used as oils that you would blend into different oils to create a more smooth and buttery flavor profile. So you would take 90% of Arbequina and 10% of Picual and you would say Arbequina is a little too bland for me right now, but this one's way too strong. You'd bring them together and that would be kind of your master miller's blend, whatever you want to call it. And that's not to say that's a bad practice. We just really like the stuff that was 10%. We built a product based on our pallets, not the pallets of a consumer that theoretically we really didn't know that much about. Consumer insights didn't have a place in the founding of this company. What was being created was something that we liked. Um and that's extended to our other product categories, making products that we like how they taste and then we'll help and try to educate people on on why olive oil could and can and maybe should taste this way. So that single origin single varietal practice has been very difficult to scale out. Uh and we have expanded uh to different countries. So we source Cobrancosa from Portugal, we source Athenolia from Greece, we source Chetoui from Tunisia, we source Picholine from Morocco and on every single bottle we're always printing the origin, the village that it's from, the varietal and that creates a very difficult label stock situation because usually it's like oil's coming out of this tank and someone's running to get the labels and putting it on the labeling machine. Like is it right? Um but I think we've had success scaling out inefficiency and that's probably costly but we think it reaps the rewards. Um and we're proud of it. — And you're bringing the transparency to the customer at the — And the farmer's proud of it because a lot of these farmers in Tunisia when they see the word Kairouan, their village on a bottle instead of it just going into another master blend of olive oil, they feel so proud because most of the world doesn't even know that a place like Tunisia grows olive oil. They don't even know where Tunisia is on a map. Right? It's in North Africa. It's in the Mediterranean. It's right next to Spain. So you know, I think Graza intentionally is not necessarily tied to one place and people hear the name and they don't know where it's from. Which in our industry so much of the marketing in olive oil was always tied to origin, right? Does it sound Italian, feel Italian? And that was a signifier of quality. And I think we intentionally went the other direction and said Graza is whatever you want it to be. All we're trying to do is promise you that the oil inside is excellent independent of where it comes from, which we'll tell you where it comes from. It's a different angle. Yeah, absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about the different formulation that you have

between the sizzle and the drizzle and what went into that and what was the idea around having sort of two different varieties there? I think that helped us a lot. And when you're starting businesses in CPG, there's usually a talk about consumer education and when I hear that, I hear that's incredibly expensive because right, olive oil is interesting cuz you already probably have it in your pantry. I just have to convince you to give mine a try cuz most people have been cooking with it or you know, your parents used it so you use it. So then the sizzle drizzle was doing that education for us but in a really palatable way. Right? So drizzle you kind of know what it stands for because you're drizzling, it's the function and that's an early harvest olive oil, which could mean a lot of things because when is early? Um but for us, it's harvested in October. Uh it's usually on the same exact farms that we're sourcing sizzle from. Uh the yield of oil when you harvest in October is usually between 12 and 13%. So each olive only has 12 to 13% oil. So when you're making 500 ml of that product, you need a lot more olives. It makes it a lot more costly to manufacture. Uh also the olives don't really want to come off the trees. Think of the tree as kind of the you know, the mother and the olives are its babies and it does not want you know, it's nature and you have to be a bit more forceful in taking them off the tree because people don't know about extra virgin olive oil, which is crazy when I learned this. Extra virgin olive oil is new. It used to be olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil is maybe 40 years old, right? Olive harvest was wait until May when the olives were you know, 30% fat, totally rancid, moldy, didn't matter but I was going to get the most oil out of it. In fact, I'll let them fall off the trees because I don't even want to get up on the stool and harvest it. So all the olives would fall and you would walk around with the rakes, scrape them up, wash them and press them and that was oil. That was really high acidity oil but it was plentiful. And people were able to handle it in the Mediterranean and then the oil grades was is a newer invention and a good one because the earlier you harvest olive oil, the more polyphenols, the more antioxidants it has and the more flavor because of those polyphenols and antioxidants. So that that's drizzle. It's a it's a special product and I'm mostly proud of providing it at scale because the market for that product was small in nature. There were a lot of small brands that maybe would produce a thousand bottles, 1500 bottles, 2000 bottles of this kind of first day of harvest product but it was very cost prohibitive for an average consumer to participate with that. Maybe it would be a gift that you would give at the end of the year but then it's a really expensive gift. So are you really going to use it? Are you going to use half the bottle? Is that $20 that I'm using? It was kind of a product that would collect dust in your house even though olive oil is supposed to be used as quickly as possible. It's not wine. Um — [clears throat] — so that's drizzle uh and that's us working with farmers to really pay six, seven, eight months ahead of time to improve their cash flow cycles and also compel them to participate in this movement into early harvest olive oil with us because it's better for the tree. The tree uses the post-harvest time in drizzle to recuperate during the rainy season in Spain, which is usually during harvest. Um so the pruning that you can do quickly after harvest it's a great it's a great thing and we're proud to do it. And then sizzle harvested in December. So usually six weeks later and that gives you a 18, 19, 20, sometimes 21% yield. So just waiting six weeks, olive is taking on water during the rainy season, produces a more mellow flavor, still Picual usually uh but it makes more sense for cooking because really when you use olive oil and you add heat, a lot of the flavors either absorbed by what you're cooking or dissipates. So drizzle's meant to be used raw and sizzle's meant for cooking and the names definitely help people know right out the gate. Yeah, you know I know — That was a big ramble but I'm very passionate about olive oil. No, no. No, of of course. So what are your favorite ways to use uh each of the products? Yeah, uh drizzle I've a sneaky favorite way. I make uh icing out of it for cakes and desserts. So if you just uh mix powdered sugar and drizzle in a Pyrex, it makes like a crazy lime green olive oil frosting that you can put on anything and the flavors is nuts and the visuals are amazing and when you show your friends, it's like they can't process it. — oil ice cream, I've put olive oil on ice cream but I've never thought about olive oil frosting. — Yeah, it's amazing. Um I like olive oil in sweets uh and then sizzle, I mean I don't know. I use sizzle for everything. Like we are lucky, you know, olive oil what people forget about is you know, all these cooking oils, they have a place in in the American food ecosystem because olive oil is more expensive than a lot of other cooking oils. So to be able to use olive oil every single day, if you're a consumer that can, it's already good fortune because it is a healthy cooking fat. And our game is not kind of you know, participating in you know, saying we're better or worse than anybody else. We all have a place but olive oil is expensive compared to other cooking fats price per fluid ounce. So I am lucky that I get to put some garlic and olive oil in a pan and it creates the beautiful thing that garlic and olive oil does as the base of most of our cooking. Yeah. One of the things that I'm really impressed about in you know, going back to the sourcing that you've done here is the efforts that you do in working with your suppliers and you know, looking at the you know, different ways to help support their business sustainably as well and obviously having two different products has been really critical on there but how have you sort of worked now that you've grown the business to continue to scale that in a meaningful way Yeah. In supporting more and more farmers in these practices. Yeah, I mean

primarily tradition we use traditional harvesting methods which are inherently more expensive because they require more labor. Right? So it's a dying art in olive oil. Uh most of the investment in big food investment groups is going into super high density agriculture which is necessary actually because we need to keep feeding people where there's more people in super high density agriculture and olives produces a lot of product and that kind of creates a base for our entire industry because there is product availability because of that. And honestly that empowers us to play the other side of the coin which is a lot of our farms are small, small plots of land. It's more expensive to harvest but by becoming the buyer of that olive and of that oil at scale, it's become an efficient outlet for farmers who communicate with each other usually in small villages and say, "Who are you selling olives to? And do they pay on time? And are they nice people? Are they trustworthy? It's that simple, right? So you we've built these relationships a lot through word of mouth in Spain as being the outlet for high quality olive oil because we're paying more than the commodity price always, usually 25, 30% more than what is a publicly published index in Spain. Um so we we've built a good name for ourselves. Um, and I think it's nice because we're kind of viewed as a free agent because we have things that everyone wants. Everyone wants to sell high-quality olive oil because it's expensive. So, you know, you great great margin for them. And we have volume. Everyone wants to bottle that bottle. So, we you know, we as as quickly as we've grown, I think the industry has celebrated us because we brought a lot of attention to olive oil, high-quality olive oil, and that's helped us in Spain build our name. Has sort of the word of mouth also helped you sort of get introduced with new potential farmers and suppliers? Or what's the way that you sort of help expand geographically

geographically as well? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think we're always thinking about integrating deeper into the supply chain. So, for us, we're exploring, you know, leasing land and actually farming on our own. You know, it's it's difficult. You want to respect how difficult it is in a sense. And it's not a cost-savings activity. So, we're actually figuring out who really knows the land the best. Uh And those are the people that we would contract and work with to probably manage what we want to do rather than kind of entering thinking we're the smartest people that, you know, the people have been doing this for a long time. And a lot of secrets and tradition is passed down. And we need to empower the people that know how to do it to keep doing it um, rather than insert ourselves as, you know, whiz kids that are going to figure out a better way to do it. So, so we're looking at integrating into our supply chain. And then, yeah, I think word of mouth, especially internationally, you know, a lot of our farmers maybe are contracted for projects in North Africa or in Portugal. And they'll bring us with them and introduce us to the mills and the growers there because it's kind of like a nerdy community. If you're doing great things with olive oil in Spain, like someone's going to invite you to Portugal to be like, "Tell me your nerdy things that you're doing. " So, we get to piggyback on those trips and always be positioned as like, "Well, we're going to make all this great stuff and they're going to buy it. " Yeah. — That's great. — Yeah. When did you have sort of that first aha moment where you realized

"Wow, we could really disrupt the olive oil industry. Like, we actually have something here that you know, when did you when did you have that experience? Was it early on? Was it, you know, years in? Like, what was the — I'm still in disbelief, to be honest. I think it was even before it launched. I remember getting asked questions from investors early on that said no to investing in Graza, like, "You know, but this is such a saturated category. There's so many brands. " I mean, you look at an average grocery shelf, there are a lot of brands. How do you decide? And I was like, "The reason you find this uncompelling is the reason I find it compelling. " Right? That I see opportunity where you see difficulty. Um, so I feel like we knew before. We knew what the shelf looked like. We knew the conventions that existed. We knew the marketing playbook was repeated. We knew the culinary interactions between olive oil were usually tied to, you know, burrata and tomatoes and pasta. We knew that there was a space to kind of veer and and do things differently and bring the product into different culinary spaces. Um, so So, I'd say we were pretty confident going into it. But I mean, I'm still in disbelief. What was it like the first time seeing the product on the shelf? Oh

my god. Stressful. The bottles were like I'm like a yeah, I'm if you at work, I'm not the optimist at the office. — So, even though they're on shelf, like I see like a speck of dust and I'm like, "I can't I can't believe it. " But it's not easy to put olive oil in a squeeze bottle. We're still learning that these days. There there's difficulties in doing it. So, it was amazing though. I mean, I remember when we launched at Whole Foods and it was at one of the new store openings and I saw actually it was off shelf just because, you know, we had a great relationship right out the gate. And we were there handing out coupons for people to try the product. And a lot of people had seen it online already. And that's where I was like, "Oh, you know, I think that we are culturally relevant even without starting any marketing or and having any marketing budget, you know. " It was cool. Yeah, which store was the launch at, do you remember? Oh, that was on Madison in New York. NoMad? Yeah, NoMad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's where we met a lot of the team. some amazing people that listened to us when we said that this bottle would do great in produce because it's not going to break, which would be a disaster in produce. And it looks really good. And as you say, it's green and yellow. It's good. It's green. Yeah, we always viewed ourselves as like we're okay playing second fiddle. Like, the tomato is amazing. Like, putting us right behind it, we're okay with that. We don't need to be the star of the show. We like we are friends with garlic. We're friends with avocados. We're friends with tomatoes. We're friends with toast. Let them be the star, but you need olive oil to kind of bring it together. I'll bring it all together. I love it. So, when you think about all the effort that went in before you got into that very first store, what was one of the biggest learnings that you had? And uh

what would you do differently as far as that or challenge that you went through? Oh, man. I mean, supply chain I think is like where I mean, we still forecasting is so hard. I mean, we are we perpetually under forecast. Um A good problem to have, I guess. It It is a good problem to have. — Better than the other way. — Until you have retail score cards and, you know, everything else that comes with it. But um I would have made so much more product. I would, you know, I think that I think there was some fear when you have like maybe 100k in the bank account and you it's going to you're going to spend 70 of it on product. You're like, "If that doesn't work, then um then what happens to me, you know? " So, so probably would have made more and 15 times since then on different occasions. Um You know, so, you know, mayo's moving faster than I thought it would. Probably should have made more. Um So, but yeah, I think yeah, probably beefing up the supply chain earlier on. You know, and really understanding kind of simulating the pressure testing your supply chain is how we call it at work now. We run simulations where we say, "Okay, if the business doubled overnight, something crazy, right? What would happen? What would we do? Where can it move? Where can't [snorts] it move? Right? What how how much can we actually support? " I wish we had a little bit of that thinking earlier on. Well, you know, right after you you all launched, you were in two regions, you know, really quickly there. And it was one of the most successful product launches that we had seen in a long time. And obviously a lot of buzz that was around it. Um I know our team members love the product as well. You know, what do you credit that

early success to, do you think? — The secret sauce. Yeah. I think if I knew the answer to that question, I would be doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on that every single day. I wish it was that easy, right? That would be the easiest investor mindset to Graza. I think Graza is a confluence of many different things. And I think that's why it's really difficult to emulate. I think that for one consumer, the packaging really resonates with them. And I think for another consumer, they could care less about the packaging and they care about oil inside. I think for somebody else, seeing people that they trust cooking with it online is the reason they buy it. And I think for other people, us being there when promotional support is necessary to drive like I think it's a little bit of everything, which is why I think there's only one Graza. I think we we, you know, if you asked even our marketing team, our commercial team right now, the answer to that question, they would not know yet. We don't have enough data to know. Um I'd like to believe that the brand itself is probably strong enough, the packaging, the label, everything to get someone to buy once. It's very interesting looking. It's very engaging. Yeah. It's on social media. And like, we like to say it's a premium, right? It's not cheap, but it's a palatable premium. It's not double the category average, so it's inviting as a price point. Uh, but I mean, we're not in this to sell one bottle. Like, we're the second one. So, at that time, someone had to have tried it. And either they love the tactile experience or they love the flavor. And either one of those is enough reason to drive the second purchase and third and so on. So, yeah, it's, you know, I think it's a lot of different things. I think we did have some good pre-launch marketing though. We gifted a lot of product. And I think even the content creator community treated us differently than they treated other brands or other olive oils because we really weren't pushy. The brand itself is very friendly. Yeah. Um, and like we weren't saying, "We need you to do something. We want you to post. " Well, you know, it was just like, "Hey, you know, have fun with this. " Yeah. And and it was very serendipitous. Yeah. Yeah, at the same time, it's like we get a lot of credit for the bottle. Bottle works against us half the time because there's a purist in olive oil that will not buy that. They don't want to buy a plastic bottle. Right? Now we have glass bottles. It's great. They look exactly like these bottles. In fact, I think they look too much like them where people on shelf don't even know that Graza sells in glass. We thought it was funny. Uh, but I think we could make some improvements because it looks so identical. — similar. It's crazy. As soon — as you touch, you definitely know it's like, "Okay. " — got to touch. — You got to touch. So So, it's definitely not the packaging cuz that works against us half the time. This is to a certain consumer too cool for school. No way this can be high quality, right? So, that's a fight that we have to fight. This isn't easy, you know, to have gotten this big. I mean, I got data this morning like it's the second time that over a 13 and 26 week period that Graza is the fourth largest extra virgin olive oil company in America. Inclusive of private label. Would you ever thought that? No. No, and that's not — And you haven't hit the ceiling yet. No. And that's not That's honestly not That wasn't the goal at the beginning. The goal was the product, the oil inside, the supply chain, and it's still that way. That's where I spend most of my time. You know, a big thing for us is, you know, we want to work with brands who uh can bring innovation and integrity, differentiation, and obviously those are areas that you've all focused on. Uh how was working with Whole Foods? Like

you know, what were some of the things that uh our team was able to help support and uh support you along the journey in those areas? — Yeah. I mean, you you know our crew there. You know our support. I'll shout them out. I mean, John amazing, Brooke amazing, Anna Maria amazing. Monica, she's gone on to do different things, but was the first person in our inbox, actually. Um so I think we really were a product of true forging at Whole Foods. Outreach by you guys. We didn't come to you, you came to us. You found us. You asked for it. We weren't ready. We made it happen anyway. Retail was not part of our plan for the first 2 years. Um and we were — hearing that and I was just uh shocked. Yeah. We didn't think we were going to be ready for it. We didn't think we could finance it cuz it I mean, this stuff you have to buy. The terms on olive oil are awful, right? So, the financing was difficult. Um so yeah, it was truly a Whole Foods discovery product and a catalyst for everything else that came. And I think we're self-aware and that's why we continue to invest in Whole Foods um because we know it's where it's not we started. Um but [clears throat] yeah, we I mean, I think there's a lot of pride on your guys' side of finding us and uh giving us the chance and supporting us with space and it still happens today. It's like everyone texts me like, "Oh, you're off shelf at Whole Foods again, but you're not on promo. What's going on? " I'm like I'm like, "No, no, you don't get it. We need that space to stay in stock. That's not a favor that anyone's doing to anyone. That's not what's going on here. These people wouldn't just give out free space. That's not how this works. They want to sell another bottle of Graza. And so that space is necessary, you know? It's our job to keep that in stock now. Um which isn't easy, either. So So, Whole Foods has been I mean the beginnings of Graza, for sure. Yeah. Well, let's talk about this new product

uh that we've got here. Yeah. — That uh you've just launched. Uh where did that idea come from and what's sort of the passion behind it? And mayo's got a lot of oil in it. Um so, we we have been asked by Whole Foods and by other retailers to launch everything under the sun, right? I think it is true that a good retail buyer is looking for innovation, taking risks, things that might not work, but still moving things and pushing the envelope. And I think Whole Foods does a good job of that. Um but we decided to not launch products for a long time, right? Maybe we did a partnership, a small one here and there to test the waters, but Graza was an olive oil company. We launched different sizes. We launched Frizzle, which is still derived from olives. Um we launched refill cans for our olive oil, but it took us a long time to get here because there was a belief that we should just kind of stay in our lane and focus. Uh but then we created a criteria for what innovation meant at Graza. What was kind of allowed and what wasn't, right? Cuz most people would think we should launch vinegar, right? Olive oil vinegar. And we're like, It takes a long time to get through a bottle of vinegar, right? I like things that are going to be touched three times a day, right? Which is what I think about sizzle and drizzle. It's like breakfast, lunch, dinner. Eggs in the morning, salad at lunch, salmon and sweet potatoes dinner. Those are things that people buy at Whole Foods all the time, and I'm a part of that. Um so so, we like higher velocity categories. And there needed to be a major through line with olive oil. Um so Graza is not at the forefront of like an anti-seed oil movement. Like we said, we actually celebrate other oils because they're all necessary. Um but we what we like about olive oil is that we think fat, right? Which is 9 calories per gram, should taste like something. Uh and that's once again with mayo kind of a deviation cuz the oils that mayonnaise is primarily made with are completely neutral. All they are is a functional element in creating an emulsion. Not saying that's a bad thing, but we like our oils to taste like something and impart that taste on the things that we're making with them. So, these mayonnaises taste completely different. And that's also very Graza, right? We're doing things our way. So, those are our three kind of pillars for product innovation. We're doing it our way. Oil is a major through line, and it's high touch, right? And mayonnaise checks those boxes. And you know, we went aggressive. We did three different formulations. And you know, it was very intentional because there's different flavor profiles for different use cases, which is very similar to what we did in olive oil. There's a lot of our DNA all over it. And it's rolling out at Whole Foods nationally and and off to a great start. And we're excited to once again remind people that I'm buying mayo. What's mayo made from? Well, it's 70% oil. The rest is eggs and lemon juice and vinegar and other things. My Graza olive oil goes into my mayo. We're really excited about that connection that we can create [clears throat] um and how they taste. Uh so so, big thing for us, first time we've ever done it, uh expanded outside of olive oil, even though there's still a lot of olive oil in there. Um and it comes with its challenges in terms of manufacturing, uh which we view as a moat. It's a very specific equipment to make this product. So, you know, mayonnaise is funny like you can either do an emulsion which is just think of a Vitamix, like you know. Uh which if you put olive oil in a Vitamix, it gets incredibly acrid because the cellular structure explodes and doesn't rejoin. Um essentially those polyphenols just pop and they get very bitter. So, we have to essentially explode a droplet of olive oil into really small nano particles at the same time that we explode egg into nano particles, the same way we explode everything that's in there into the same size nano particle, and then combine them all together at the same time, at the same speed. Uh it's really cool. So. Yeah. Good luck to anyone else that's going to try to make that mayo. How long did uh the product development take on something like this? It took a while. Yeah, it took like 2 years. Um so so, we didn't know if we were going to do it, but we were still working on it. Um there's not that many people that can make it. Uh so so, at the which adds risk because then it's like who's got leverage against who in terms of pricing and supply chain redundancy. So So, it was risky, but we did it and we think it tastes amazing. And that's our platform for it. We are a taste company. Uh we think our olive oil adds taste to the things that you're cooking. It adds taste to your life. We think our mayonnaise adds taste to the things that you're making with it. Um and it's been a fun transition for us. I think that there will be more innovation from Graza. — Yeah, I'm looking looking forward to that. Well, you definitely have, you know, a really loyal, connected customer. What uh whatever your insights sort of taught you or the anecdotes or the feedback that you're getting, what's

created that really strong, loyal connection? I think mostly taste, honestly. Like I Like the review we get is this is better than what I was buying before. Or the other review that we get is I thought this was, you know, a scam or a joke. And actually, I love it. — In a sense, uh which is fine. We'll take that. Um But I think I think we've definitely opened up. It could have been because people weren't tasting olive oil before. Like they were just buying it and putting it into a pan. And like we ship it to your house and there's a whole tasting note that says, "Wait, before you cook, do this. Smell it. Do that. " It's like, "No, don't even taste it. Smell it. " So, they're actually experiencing the way they should taste. — Yeah, I think because that's what we talk about in the background. That's what's on our channels. That's what's on on our Instagram and on our TikTok. Um so, I think mostly the taste cuz now they can get squeeze bottles from other people, you know, Whole Foods included. Literally, if they wanted to get a different squeeze bottle of olive oil, there are 30 other ones out there. So, it is not the bottle. Everyone launching squeeze bottles has been the proof point that it is not the bottle. I'm so tired of hearing about it. Um so so, I think it's the taste. I think they can tell the quality is there. And I think they really like our messaging, our communications, our creative. I think there's a lot of authenticity to Graza, you know, we we um like for a long time, like I was saying with the brand like this too cool for school thing, we needed to own it and say "Okay, like we are trendy. Sure. That's not a bad thing. We're also trendsetting. " So, one doesn't come without the other, you know? So, it's not going to be right for everyone, but we are trendsetters in this category and ideally in other ones, too, and we have to own that. And that might mean it might take time to get the next consumer segment over the hump, but that's okay. Who's in a rush? Yeah. — You were mentioning uh a little bit earlier some of the collaborations that you've done and obviously here at Expo

West has been inspiring for some of those. Uh what's the process for making the decision? Cuz I'm sure you have dozens and dozens of folks reach reaching out. — Yeah. Um how do you go through that process of deciding this is a going to be a good match for us to do something together? Mhm. How's it going to taste is the biggest criteria. Great. I love you saying that because Yeah, it's like People always ask, "How do you get on the Whole Foods Market shelf? " It's like, "First off, it's not only does it taste great, but it's got to taste better than every single thing that's already on the shelf today. " Cuz swapping something out that's just like for like is not going to be different enough. So — to add to the category at all. It's not going to So um so usually we will based on who's coming to us, we can evaluate what their current portfolio looks like. It is true. I mean, because olive oil can be an input in everything. I mean, from a from a you can make olive you can make Oreos, you know, use olive oil instead of palm oil. It literally it's anything that has oil, we can be there. So we get a ton of outreach. People want to leverage the brand. I think more so than they want to actually leverage the ingredient. Um So we have a strict process for saying no. Uh and the ones that we've said yes to, I think there's a lot of brand alignment and we we've enjoyed the product quality without Graza. We think that we can influence the taste profile by adding extra virgin olive oil or olive oil uh into it. And yeah, a few of our collaborations have been retail ready products uh on your shelves. We I mean, the Ithaca hummus collaboration that we did is it's the number one cold dip at Whole Foods. Um So that's just alchemy, I think. And we did a Firehook cracker collab. Um but that's because we were eating Firehook crackers ourselves before. So it's like a lot of it is just I mean, there is intuition there. Um But I'd say we say yes to, you know, less than 1% of the opportunities that we get. Um but I will hit [clears throat] you up for a Whole Foods collab product one day. — Okay. All right.

— We'll hear you out on that. Yeah. Well, despite the tremendous success that you've had, you all are still in like the early days. So what do you see for Graza over the next 5 and 10 years? Hopefully retaining our current employees. I feel like that's the base. You know, being — Secret sauce. Yeah, being a place that people are inspired to work, inspired by the product that we're selling, inspired by the process, inspired by the growth, by the challenges. I think like homegrown talent means a lot to us. Um so hopefully a lot of the same faces in 5 years. Um I think if there's any slowdown in our core business, which is olive oil, then we've made some wrong decisions along the way. So kind of figuring out how do we support the base? Um and innovation organizationally is most of the finesse that I think we're going to have to build that muscle and I'm sure we'll make some mistakes. Uh we already have. And um I think that we're going to continue investing in our supply chains and becoming experts in oil production, oil manufacturing, oil storage. Um not to tell that story. Right? Uh it's funny if you look at our Instagram, like we don't we hardly talk about Spain. our mills and our farms because it feels almost disingenuous. They're we don't own them. We're beneficiaries of them. Yeah. — [clears throat] — So I think we got a little bit tired of like the manufacturing story as being a sales angle. Um It felt a little green-washy to us, but this year I think I this year I I do think we'll go to Spain and try to tell the story of the things that we're doing differently because they're the way that we're doing things. Um So yeah, I think more integration in the supply chain always necessary as a quality protection, uh not as a cost protection. Yeah. Yeah, when you know, we're ready to hop into the lightning round, but sort of as the last question, when you think about sort of your early days, maybe even before

you saw the opportunity for Graza to come to fruition to where you are now, how do you define success differently, you know, uh both, you know, personally and, you know, professionally here from the company perspective? How's that evolved over time? Personally, I mean, I had kids throughout this entrepreneurial journey entrepreneurial journey. So the amount of time the amount of bedtimes that I'm able to facilitate is my measure of success. Love that. — Personally. Um because we work a lot. Um and then professionally, yeah, it's I mean, Whole Foods is a good example. It's like we became the number one olive oil brand pretty quickly. So where do you go from there? Right? Growth is intoxicating. Right? When you're up into the right, greener pastures everywhere, everyone's happy, but it's like what happens when you get to the top? And what do you do? And how do your strategies change? And how do you collaborate? How do you make decisions? I think that has been a new success for us is learning how to have those conversations and learning how to honestly play defense as much as we play offense sometimes. Um you know, so I think that's growth for us. It's like strategically in the business where we're we're different than we were before. It's not growth at all costs. It never has been. Um so staying true to that and yeah, that [clears throat] that's success for us. And if you, you know, were to give advice to other entrepreneurs who have some of the same aspirations that you had with Graza, yeah. — Yeah. What's the number one piece of advice you'd give them? Um For the first 3 years, listen to yourself a lot. [snorts] And then eventually be able to shift to listen to other people. Okay. Yeah. Good advice. Yeah. All right. Ready for the lightning round? — Let's do it. All right. Let's go. Which olive oil do you reach for the most in

your own kitchen? Frizzle, sizzle, or drizzle? — Drizzle. And sometimes I cook with drizzle because I break the rules. I'll just say it. But you know, it's like everyone comes over and they take all my sizzle. So then I'm just left with drizzle. I got to do stuff, you know? I I've had to do the same when I was out. So Yeah, he said it. Where do you find inspiration? Where do I find inspiration? Probably hiking, honestly. Probably upstate New York, you know, that's like the moment. Seeing my dog like run around the woods for me is like cathartic. Outstanding outstanding. How do you unwind after a stressful day? I make Play-Doh penguins with my daughter. Great. Pantry MVP besides Graza. Uh Bianco Dinapoli canned tomatoes. Outstanding. Hardest lesson you've learned as a founder? This is going to be a lot more emotional than than economical, I'd say. Like the human side of this is there there's a lot of emotional burden with a growing team. Yeah. Cooking uh hack that you can't live without? Microplane. Yeah. For everything. Yeah. Favorite Whole Foods Market item outside of Graza? Feel like that's the same as like my pantry staple. Um if I had to name another one, — [snorts] — mhm. You guys have this butter right now. It's like I think it's called Ivies. It's like in a black block. It's like a carbon neutral from England. Oh my god. It's so good. Yeah. I love I Graza loves butter. Like we're friends. Yeah. Yeah. Uh go-to meal to cook and impress a dinner guest. That meat sauce. And finish the sentence. Right now, I'm most excited about mayonnaise. [snorts] Mayonnaise. All right. — We were not expecting that one. Thanks for joining us on Beyond the Board. Until next time, let's keep cooking with purpose, leading with innovation, and supporting brands like Graza that bring a fresh approach to every dish. —