Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Did you know chewing gum has plastic in it and it’s the world’s second most common form of litter? Zabrina Ziegler on how to build a sustainable startup and True Gum’s mission to educate and create impact.

Transcript

Did you know chewing gum has plastic in it and it’s the world’s second most common form of litter? Zabrina Ziegler on how to build a sustainable startup and True Gum’s mission to educate and create impact. · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Episode 11 with Sabrina Ziegler.
• 0:16
  Hi, and welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. The flavor of the hour today is a nifty brand called True Gum that produces all-natural, plastic-free chewing gum out of Denmark. And yes, I know exactly what you're thinking, and it is true. Chewing gum is plastic, and how gross is that? But the funny thing about this brand is that I actually spotted them in my favorite cafe in Geneva and bought a pack. Loved it, searched it on Insta, and became an instant fangirl.
• 0:45
  They've got such a beautiful and educational Instagram, which is where I learned that chewing gum is plastic in it. And after I googled the brand, I was happy to see that it has a female founder in the mix. And alas, that was pretty much how I got my intro to the brand. I got in touch on Insta, and the rest is history. To put things into perspective, True Gum is now stocked in thousands of stores around Europe and the world, and is producing up to 500 kilos of gum per day in their own factory.
• 1:12
  Anyway, enjoy the app. It's a goodie. This is Sabrina for Female Startup Club. Let's get started. I want to go back to the very beginning and talk about what you were doing before TrueGum and how TrueGum came to mind. Yeah, it's a couple of years ago now. It's very weird to think about. So Peter and Morten, we are four people, founded TrueGum, and Peter and Morten has the original idea. Yeah.
• 1:41
  And they were just, I think it was back in 2016, just sitting and eating this wholesome meal and talking about what was in chewing gum. They were sharing this pack of gum that was pink or green or something that's very...
• 1:57
  unusual for a food, or at least that maybe only candy has this type of colors. And they were discussing what's actually in chewing gum because it stays on the streets and it can stay there for quite some time. And they were just Googling around and quickly find out that it had some petroleum chemicals inside, which were in daily life called astics. And they were like, that's weird. Like, why do you?
• 2:27
  Why would you make it like that? And quickly they found out that, of course, at some time point in the early days, chewing gum was made from actual gum from the gum trees. And then, I don't know, being curious as they were, they were like, yeah, maybe we can make it ourselves. And they started searching for, like, how can you buy gum base? And is it like something that's only...
• 2:55
  We purchased it, for instance, from South America, but then they figured out there was lots of gum trees around the world, like in Greece and Asia and so on. And they just, you know, maybe a little bit naive, just got started. It's like, let's buy some gum base from one of these gum trees and just try and put some flavor in it and see how it's working and try to figure out a recipe from their home kitchen.
• 3:24
  And at this time point they were still working, I don't know, 40, 50 hours in their daily jobs as well. So it was all during the night and evening. And then I think they, of course, with their background, they are more commercial background than I have. They were like, okay, there's also a business opportunity here. If this could succeed and, you know, it tastes great. And then they,
• 3:52
  started looking at the markets and see, okay, it could be that people would want to purchase this type of chewing gum. But then they did a lot of testing and then eventually along the way, I think half a year later in the beginning of 2017, I came along together with the fourth as well, Jacob.
• 4:17
  And Jacob's background was very similar to Peter and Morten's background, commercial background from business school, but with more economics, how to say, perspective. And I came along very, very randomly. I was just, they found me on LinkedIn, actually, which is yay for LinkedIn. So I was just out of university. I studied engineering.
• 4:46
  uh, food science in my bachelor's. And then I studied human nutrition on my masters. And during this time, uh, in, uh, my masters, I thought also human nutrition can be used, uh, anywhere in maybe, uh, how do you say jobs? Like where you, uh, for instance, you have to eat more vegetables a day and then, uh,
• 5:13
  government goes out to people saying, okay, I have this guidelines. And then you could be one of these persons making these guidelines. And I was like, no, this is not me. Uh, it's, it's way too boring. It's a lot of computer work and, and, um, studying for many, many years. And I was like, no, I have to do something more creative. And then I got a job, student job, um, at the chocolate factory here in Denmark, actually. Um.
• 5:40
  And it's called Tom's Chocolate Factory. And then I got to be a R and D, like the development assistant there. And I was like, got the, got to work with these developers at the factory. And it was, it was so much fun and being creative. You could just like, what's trendy out there and you can put whatever you want into chocolates. And then I actually ended up doing my,
• 6:09
  masters there and I did some probiotics in chocolates and was so much fun being there and being part of that. And I was like, no, I have to do something else. And just sitting in front of a computer, I have to do something like, I don't know, creative at least. And I write stuff on my LinkedIn. So I
• 6:34
  was working at the chocolate factory. I was in R&D work. And then all of a sudden, these two guys wrote me, so you've been developing chocolates. And so could it be kind of the same as chewing gum maybe? Because we need a hand. And I was like, oh, chewing gum. Well, how hard can it be? Let's take a look at it. And then we just met up at some random cafe here in Copenhagen and I was like,
• 7:03
  I was unemployed and just out of university. And I was like, yeah, let's, at least I can do something while I'm looking for a job. Because at this time point, I didn't really think that it was gonna be like a job, like a real job. And I was thinking, no, it could be something fun on the side maybe. And then I met with Peter and Morten and we sat down and they talked about their ideas. And I guess chewing gum could really be
• 7:31
  a new way of looking at the whole chewing gum category because people did not know that there was any, that there was a plastic in chewing gum. I was like, that's interesting. I didn't know. And I was educated within the food area, at least then I should have maybe known that it contained these artificial flavors and so on. And I was really hooked. And I was like, this, this could be, this could,
• 8:00
  get big, this could really be a good business opportunity as well. So we actually just got started and got a lot of samples, you know, just making kitchen, chewing gum, and everything was so sticky and messy and really, really tough to work with. Nothing compared to chocolate. Chocolate is way easier to work with.
• 8:25
  Along the way, we were, okay, this is starting to taste okay a couple of months in. And we sat at these cafes and were tasting a lot. And then we went to some of the schools just to go to the canteen and hand out some samples and just see what people thought. I think some of the first, you know, you need to get some feedback before actually...
• 8:52
  hitting the right recipe for sure, especially with something as chewing gum. And the gum base itself didn't really have a very nice taste because it's, well, it comes from a tree. So you have to...
• 9:04
  kind of modulated a little bit. Um, but, uh, I think then we just got a lot of feedback and a lot of the feedback that we got to begin with was like, Oh, it's kind of hard. And well, it's, it doesn't have a lot of taste and, uh, tastes a little bit like trees and stuff like that. And, um, anyways, we, uh, kept pushing through and, uh,
• 9:29
  We just got some new samples and talked to a lot of experts, which is a very long story, of course, but a long story short to begin with. Then we found some companies in Denmark actually that made some flavors and we kind of figured out through them that like, how is the recipe actually? Because chocolate and candy and all these sort of
• 9:56
  Hard candy, for instance, there's a lot of recipes online. And for chewing gum, it's very much of a secret. So we were struggling with actually getting the right recipe to get the texture right and the flavor right. But then a company in Denmark, actually, Stimerul, I don't know if you know it, but they have been sold to Mandalay's now, but it was actually, it used to be Danish. And then we got actually some
• 10:26
  experts who actually used to work there in the 80s and 90s to talk a little bit with us and share a little bit of their secrets. Yeah, and then sooner or later, I should say that we got a recipe that was actually working. And of course, when I think about the chewing gum we made back then was really, really horrible compared to now. It was not
• 10:51
  really edible, but people were really sweet and we had a lot of people's feedback and we just kept on. It's really trial and error. So that was kind of the beginning of the whole thing.
• 11:07
  And at that point, you were still in the kitchen making it yourselves with the recipe that you got from the other company and the flavoring. Yeah, exactly. We got all these things we just ordered for private purpose. We were not really a company back then. We just meet up at cafes and discuss it. And we were working firstly in Peter and Morten's kitchen. And their poor roommate really hated it. So we took all the stuff to my apartment and then I was just...
• 11:37
  developing the chewing gum from there until we had to grow out of that and actually got some customers. But at this point there was no customer, it was just trying to get the right recipe and
• 11:49
  and the raw materials right and so on. And so how did you get the first customers? What did you – did you start a website? I think at this time we were all living in Copenhagen, so it was a very good place to start because there was a small cafes and very nice – how do you say –
• 12:17
  like luxury brandings and so on. And we could fit in very nicely there, um, together with these, maybe a little bit more artsy things. And we were located at museums as well, which was also a very weird outlet, but it was working. Um, but the very first, uh, customer actually was a small cafe in Copenhagen. And, uh,
• 12:41
  it was actually a chain. So we could see an expansion possibility there. But we just tested in one store just to see if people would actually buy it and if the pricing was right and so on. And at this time point, the packaging was very much different than it is now. So people were, I think at this time when people really didn't know if it was food or
• 13:08
  If it was something else, it was difficult for people to know because we didn't have any nice footage on the packaging or something like that. So we were missing quite some things at this time point. So it's been a lot of developing in that.
• 13:29
  This was the first place to actually take it in was a small, small cafe in Copenhagen. And so did you just go in and like basically knock on the manager's door and you were like, hey, can I sell this? Did you already have to have like a certification to sell an F&B product or how did you go about that? Yeah, of course, at this time when we were...
• 13:52
  already moved out of the kitchen actually. Uh, we, uh, we moved into a small place, uh, because we were at the startup event, uh, actually. And we talked to a couple of guys there who started this, uh, kitchen, the kitchen company, uh, where they made these like very natural, uh, raw looking kitchens. And it was very, it's not anything to do with food, but, uh,
• 14:20
  But they discussed a lot about how to do a startup and we had to get some ideas and how to not fall into, how do you say, it's called a pit or like going the wrong direction to begin with. So we really were trying to discuss this with them. And they said to us afterwards after this event that, oh, this is quite interesting, you're trying to make a
• 14:49
  the natural plastic free chewing gum that's not ever been seen out there as like the first mover. I think that was the thing that interested them and they were like, so we have some space here. We have some different, uh, uh, engineers, uh, sitting here and they were, how do you say it? Like, um, they were the first, uh, investors in our company actually. Uh, so we moved all of our stuff there and made it.
• 15:18
  their second floor completely how to say possible to produce food stuff in you had to have like clean surfaces and all this stuff so that was actually where we produced so they were also a strategic partner from the kitchen point of view and the funding point of view definitely yeah they actually uh
• 15:41
  Part of the funding was also to have very low rent because in Copenhagen, it's very expensive to get a place. We didn't want to go outside of Copenhagen yet. It was way too early stage. So we didn't know if it's going to be selling or anything. At this time, we weren't selling yet. So we really had to figure out to be a place where it could be authorized to produce food.
• 16:08
  And we had the Danish Food Authority. They had to be able to come there, check it out, and see everything is made properly. And then we could go from there to kind of a more factory. But at this time point, it was definitely more kitchen scale and factory, that's for sure. But they got us this very nice area. We had maybe 16 square meters in there, second floor, just to have somewhere to have all our raw materials at this time point.
• 16:39
  Yeah, and then we actually, back to the question, was actually, we just knocked on the door and just, so we had this Turingum, we really like it, hope you like it too, kind of, and just shook hands on a very short-term agreement. So if they got, I don't know, maybe 20 packs for free, then we could look at a deal if they could actually sell it. So yeah, it's definitely, to begin with, it was fantastic,
• 17:07
  very important for us to just get the feedback and have some partners to be able to get some good feedback from. And the big change like supermarkets and such things was impossible to get into at this time point. You have to kind of build a brand.
• 17:25
  before actually getting into supermarkets for sure. So the small cafes and museums was a good place to start out. And so was that the strategy? You kind of stuck with all the smaller kind of boutique stores and then you started your outreach to the bigger supermarkets? Or did they end up coming knocking on your door? Well, actually both. But luckily our brand, because to begin with, we had this very artsy idea of
• 17:53
  the packaging and so on. So our brand was very, um, you couldn't, people couldn't figure out if it was, I don't know, bandage or birth control pills. And we've heard so many different things and it's, it was like, ah, that's, that's really not good. People should be able to look at the packaging and immediately know, okay, this is a chewing gum, or at least know that it's a confectionery product. Um, so we also went through kind of a rebranding, uh, to get the packaging that we have today.
• 18:23
  Well, actually multiple rebrandings, but we have had four different looks of our packaging. But when we finally got the right one, then the supermarkets came knocking on our door because we started selling better in the small cafes. And 7-Eleven in Denmark has, I'm not really sure how many stores they have, but
• 18:47
  I don't know, maybe 300 or 400. And they are located in very nice places, especially in Copenhagen. And it's kind of the convenience store that you go to when you need to buy cigarettes or just like going with the train, you just go in to purchase something to drink. And then if our gum, at that time point, we were in a really bad position or a really bad spot in the shop. But if we would have been maybe at the cashier's,
• 19:17
  then for sure it would have sold better. But it is like chewing gum, it's a tough thing to sell if you're not at the registry because chewing gum is not something that you put on your grocery list. So when you're at the supermarkets, you need to be able to put yourself in a very nice spot at the store and everybody knows that the
• 19:44
  Turingum next to the cashiers, that's all the big brands like Wrigley's and so on. It's almost impossible to push them aside and get something like ours at this time when we were very, very, very small. So it would not be possible. So I think the strategy was correct from our side to start, build up the brand in the small stores and figure out if we were supposed to be like a small,
• 20:10
  a small niche product or if we should go the supermarket way. I think for the first time we discussed with the supermarket chain was maybe, I don't know, two years, one and a half, two years into our project of True Gum because we were thinking about that, okay, it's maybe more the health stores that would want to sell our chewing gum and we were having these...
• 20:39
  variants that were very mint and matcha. You know, you always have this hint of a matcha, a hint of turmeric and such things. So we were looking at more like health stores than supermarkets. This we like, maybe people don't really want this. They just want like spearmint or peppermint or something that's very ordinary. So it took us a long time to actually figure out that, okay, both the, to grow business, you need to be in the supermarkets, but, but also.
• 21:07
  People want to buy a natural product. They want the clean label and so on. And so in the beginning, in that first year, compared to now, for example, to paint the perspective picture, how many boxes of gum would you have sold in that first year? And how many do you sell now? What does the supermarket buy?
• 21:27
  I think for the very first year, I think it was about zero packages we sold. Then it was all development. We handed out a lot of samples, but we really didn't sell a lot. And that's during that year where we tried to figure out what kind of packaging as well. And that's where we hit the right one. With the one that we have now, it took us almost a year. So it was alongside development of the chewing gum recipe as well.
• 21:57
  I think for the second year, maybe we, I think we produced, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 kilos a day, maybe something like that. It was very, very small, small amount. So it was all handmade. That sounds like a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like a lot. No, but today we are actually producing about 500 kilos. So it's a, it's growing quite fast. It's really for chewing gum.
• 22:26
  I think at the first year we had, I don't know, 20, 30, just for kind of testing and trying to figure out what is our brand? What is TrueGum and where should it go? Because when we, at the end of 2018, I think that's where we were in 7-Eleven, but figure out that convenience stores and health stores, that's definitely not enough.
• 22:54
  And it could go around with the business, but definitely it was not. We really wanted to be a successful alternative to steamroll and Wrigley's and all these conventional gum types out there. So we wanted to be in the same position in the store and we really wanted to build it into something bigger. And that's where.
• 23:22
  Luckily for us, it was a very big success in a small Danish local supermarket chain, which is very organic and maybe the right customer definitely at this time point. And it was a very, very nice success. And then the bigger supermarket change in Denmark, they came knocking and said, okay, we can see your great success here.
• 23:51
  So we would like to try your mint and matcha for the next six months and let's see where it goes. And then started a whole new kind of true gum of the product.
• 24:05
  of our journey. When you went through the rebranding process, were there any challenges in trying to find packaging and kind of the visual message from what you would have in, say, a health food store versus what you would have in a really commercial supermarket? Definitely. It's been, and I think we've discussed this so many times because it's very, very different. When we had our first packaging, for sure, it was very artsy and very...
• 24:33
  modern look, like this very clean package. And it was very simple text and very, it was very nice. It just didn't, you couldn't really feel it. It was something that you want to eat. It wasn't really, how do you say, tasty looking. But it was working very, very well in museums and these small health stores because you knew that what you buy here is usually something that you can eat.
• 25:02
  and when we went with this packaging into 7-Eleven, that's definitely where we figured out this packaging is not working. People didn't know what it is. Even if we were at the cashiers, which we weren't back then, but even if we kept this or stuck with this packaging, I don't think we would have been a success. People would not take an extra look at it. It was not...
• 25:31
  It was not drawing focus at the cashiers. And as soon as we put on, for instance, for the mint and matcha variant or the ginger variant, we put on the actual photo of a mint leaf or the ginger root. And all of a sudden, people were like, okay, this is eatable. It's something for me to eat. And then they actually already draw their focus to it and then pick up the packaging and say, okay, so.
• 25:58
  if you take a look at it, then you can see an ingredient list and so on. And then they kind of got intrigued. So for sure, when we went into supermarkets, a whole new discussion came up, just like which supermarkets is the first one that we got into the more organic and, and people that are very focused on, on what they eat and clean label and so on. That was working perfectly with the idea of the brand and what we were trying to do. So keep it,
• 26:27
  very very clean label so fewer ingredients as possible was was better and when we hit the shelves in a supermarket that is very classic so completely big store in Denmark we were discussing so this you know is pricing and everything is that gonna work in these types of stores is is people gonna buy it if it's
• 26:55
  almost twice as expensive as the conventional gum out there, which is very tricky because people don't spend a lot of money on these convenience products. It's more like, I need it, and I need a nice, fresh feeling in the mouth, but is it that important that it's natural or clean-able or vegan? And we were really scared, actually. We were, for sure. But luckily, I think the rebranding of,
• 27:23
  of the chewing gum was definitely important. Otherwise we would not have, I don't think that people would have
• 27:30
  looked at it like twice in the in the supermarkets if we have the right image of true gum for sure and when you guys have like started to grow and scale and obviously get these larger supermarket chains on board have you also had to get new investment to be able to keep scaling or were you able to stick with your original factory and the kitchen and everything that you already had with the first round of investment
• 27:54
  First investment and also the money that we put in the company, they would run out when we needed to scale up production. Because we have a production to begin with when we did maybe 10 kilos a day. Well, even back when we did one kilo a day, it was handmade like all the way through. There was just the, you know, you got really strong because you have to knead the gum by yourself and like pulling and stretching like when you make it,
• 28:23
  hard candy as well and it's just it's a tough job and it's really i i was doing maybe at that time point before we got any machines at all i got 400 grams per batch which was very hard because you were doing it by hand so like really big arm muscles in in that time period um and i was like no this is not gonna work it's too tough it's like when when we if we need uh just like at this time we had 10 12
• 28:52
  cafes in Copenhagen. And it was like, the change were not even, you know, in our minds at this time point. But when we discussed with 7-Eleven the first time, I was like, I was looking at the guys and they's like, yeah, they are very interested in 7-Eleven. It's like 200, 300 stores around Denmark. I was like,
• 29:11
  No, that's not going to happen. I can't do that. I could use all my strength and energy to produce the gum. So we're like, okay, we have to take a look at machinery. We have to have some machines and something that's called the chewing gum machine and we were like, no, I don't know. And we were Googling and discussing with some people that I know from the bachelor and my masters. So there's something called a set blade neater. I was like, okay.
• 29:38
  we have to figure out how to get this and how much it costs. And then we went to this machine fair in Germany, in Cologne, and it was a gigantic fair. And we were these tiny, small startup people, and they were not laughing, but inside they probably were. Because every time we were looking at these machines, we were like,
• 29:59
  okay, so does this one-ton machine mixer thing, can they make, I don't know, a lab scale size one for us instead? Because it's like, this is way too big. We're not making a ton of chewing gum. It's crazy. So this machinery all of a sudden came on board and we were like, okay, so we have to discuss with some
• 30:20
  maybe a secondhand company or something like that. And all of a sudden we had to figure out how do you make the gum when you're not just doing it by hand?
• 30:30
  And then this fair was definitely, it was a kickstart into our production setup journey. It was crazy to see these big machinery that could make a ton per hour or something like that. And we were just searching for something that could do maybe two kilos per hour. It was insane. But from this fair, we got good contacts and we found a company that made...
• 30:58
  refurbishments of the machine machinery and then we figured out how to actually make it when it's not completely by hand so we got kind of what is called a food processor processor uh was needing the gum for us and we just had to figure out the mixing times and so on and and then at this time we were still hand rolling the gum into ropes and then we're cutting on cutting boards which was also
• 31:24
  insane. I think we were four people always standing there in the kitchen, just like sweating and we're wearing gloves all the time. And your fingers just like started to peel off almost in these gloves. And it was just, it was really a tough time producing chewing gum. We were like, Oh, why didn't we do chocolates or something else? But, but it was also fun, like trying to get to know these machines as well, because of course at this time point we, we knew that, okay,
• 31:54
  It could be a success, but we really have to power through all of this because the machinery is expensive. So we have to do a lot by hand still. But that was the first machinery we got from that fair. And then it was more or less a small, tiny factory of the 16 square meters on the second floor in some old wooden building in Copenhagen. That was like the first... Hmm.
• 32:24
  No, no, it was just then we knew after a while then we had to build a bigger factory and not be on the second floor because second floor is horrible. Like lifting boxes up and lifting boxes with chewing gum down and all of this was so much caring. And it was, I think, in the end of the day where we were at the old place, it was maybe three tons a month going up and three tons going downstairs. It was crazy.
• 32:51
  horrible. So we had to go in something that was on the ground level. So, so we moved actually only last year in June. So we've been there at the old place for quite some time. But when we moved here where we are now, actually, we,
• 33:11
  We had to get some investment, but I think for us it was also important to keep the share mostly between us. So keep all the percentage of the company between us four, at least try to keep the majority. And we've been agreeing on that since day one, I think.
• 33:32
  But then we got one investment from a guy that used to be CEO of Stimrol when it was actually in Denmark, which is one of the largest chewing gum brands in Denmark, at least, and quite a big part of Europe. So when he got in touch with us and he actually contacted us, he was very interested in what we were doing.
• 33:57
  So he had like 10 or 15 years of experience from a chewing gum factory and running the whole place. We were like, yeah, that's probably a good investment to get in. So it was like not only for the money because, of course, at this time when we could sell more of our company and get more liquidity. But I think this time was also very important to get like
• 34:26
  to take the clever choice or how you should say, and also get somebody enrolled in TrueGong kind of, and say, okay, you could also be quite a big part of this, not only about the money, you have to,
• 34:43
  kind of help us out and you have the great contacts and so on. So this was a very important investment, not only for the money, definitely was also needed. Of course, it's tough running a production and getting all the raw materials and machinery. It's tough. But I think this was also great to have a good investment in the people who
• 35:06
  for sure. And I want to talk about your, cause obviously you operate a lot of B2B dealing directly with your like supermarket customers and things like that, but you're also direct to consumer and you can buy your gum online. Was that like that from the beginning or did you introduce that later on down the track and you sort of thought to yourself, okay, let's market B2C?
• 35:31
  Actually, it started like that. The first day before we even got into any cafes and so on, we were selling the chewing gum online and we made these starter kits. So we got one of each flavor at this time. And I think it was actually two of each flavor. We have three flavors at this time, but the licorice, the ginger and the mint.
• 35:53
  And to begin with, we thought, okay, one of each flavor, that's all. But the costs of sending it out was like,
• 36:03
  eating up the money we could actually get from these sales. And so we ended up doing like two of each packs, and then you could just like try it out like once, or you could subscribe. Today we don't have any subscription online yet or still, but we...
• 36:24
  we started with subscriptions and I think we ended up maybe having 82 subscriptions maybe, something like that. Only Danish customers of course, but it was kind of good because sometimes then you could just write out to the emails and say okay, how do you like the new ginger recipe? We changed it from today and just let us know kind of. It was nice to get some feedback that was not only friends and family because we only had friends and family to
• 36:54
  to get some feedback from. So subscription office of true gum was possible back then. And then online sales is still, and I think especially when people see our, our brand on the Instagram, especially then they go to our webpage and purchase it because now we also
• 37:13
  sell directly to the customer in other countries. Yeah. It's a, it's also a way to get people to try it out. Yeah, for sure. Is your bigger, where's your biggest market for online? Is it still where you are or is it somewhere else in the world? No, it's, it's still, it's still in Denmark for sure with the online sales. That's a,
• 37:38
  still biggest in Denmark, but I think these Corona days, I don't know if it's actually went up. I didn't talk to the guys if it actually did, but I think we're not selling that much online. It is very much at the supermarkets, especially those places where we are at the, at the cashiers registry and, and maybe even these,
• 37:58
  dumpers that's on the floor like you cannot really pass through the store without you know hitting them that's the perfect spot because then you can really fall into true gum instead of you know
• 38:13
  walking by the candy shelves and you would never even notice our chewing gum there. So definitely the chewing gum, it has to be at the cashews. And when you have those contracts with the supermarkets, how do you negotiate to be the brand that's at the register and the brand that's in those bumpers versus just being in the candy aisle?
• 38:32
  That's really a tough one. For sure, the first supermarket chain we were in in Denmark, the more organic focused supermarket, they really liked our Turingum. So I think they had an agreement with Stimrol. I'm actually not sure. Whereas Stimrol probably would purchase this spot close to the registrar.
• 38:55
  But because they liked our brand and they liked us, and we were the ones going out to the store and say, hey, wouldn't you want to have True Gum here instead? It fits your profile as a supermarket as well, a lot better than Stimroll. We, of course, also spend a lot of time, especially the first two years, to actually educate people in what is actually in Chewing Gum and did you know, and all of these things to actually inform people on,
• 39:23
  of their choices, especially the store owner of the, of Yerme in Denmark, which is the name of the, of the stores. They, they were really shocked and they were, you could feel like,
• 39:33
  they made it their course to try and you know be part of this plastic free change which was also running very much on in denmark at this time point plastic was plastic waste in general was very high in focus so which was also very very lucky for our brand i think also pushing us forward yeah in this in this direction
• 39:57
  So I think for the shelves right now in the big supermarkets, I think we still need to argue a lot and to kind of make the store feel like they're also part of a big change, especially in Denmark, but also worldwide, that we need to focus on get rid of plastics wherever we can. It's not really needed in chewing gum when you have this gum base, which is from the gum tree itself and is biodegradable.
• 40:26
  And luckily we have some very, very good people in sales and marketing. So they really, they're doing an amazing job to actually push this forward because we cannot as a start of a small startup company, we don't really, we can't really afford paying maybe 2% of our sales to the stores. And I think I'm not even sure how, how much the big,
• 40:54
  companies like Rick Lee's and so on pay to be there. But, uh, I think it's a lot definitely. So it was not possible for us to pay us. We pay, pay for, for the way into the shelves, but, uh,
• 41:07
  Talk our way. That's for your charge. Talk louder. Shout. And get your customers to shout. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I want to talk about your Instagram because you touched on it before and your marketing in general is just so on point. And I think you guys do such a great job at educating the customer on the way.
• 41:27
  into obviously the issues with chewing gum that we probably all never knew about before and what goes into these kind of products. So can you talk a little bit about that direction and has that been the direction from the beginning or you sort of realised the need to also educate the customer?
• 41:44
  Yeah, no, for sure. It's been tricky to begin with, like which types of USPs did we want to work on? Because to begin with, we were looking at, I don't know, five or six different USPs that we really want to highlight and all the time use on social media and so on. But I think to begin with, we used natural a lot because people were very focused on natural products and
• 42:12
  These also like raw materials, a clean label and such things. But then came the whole vegan and then we changed it a little bit. It's like, oh, how about the vegan? And then, okay, we have to focus a little bit more on that. And so it was a little bit messy to begin with, I think. And I think for most people, especially also in food branding,
• 42:34
  It's very tricky to know what is the people's focus and what should our focus then be. And I thought we had an amazing product. And to begin with, we're like, okay, so can we call it plastic-free? And what is plastic in, how do you say, the common way of talking about plastic is the same product.
• 42:56
  plastic that goes into chewing gum, maybe 10 or 15% of it. It's the same that goes into car tires and plastic bottles and so on. So we're like, okay, we have to call it plastic. So it's also something about the legal stuff to how, how is it allowed to say something is free from, you have a lot of free from kind of foods out there. And some of them are legal and some of them are not. So definitely also took us some time to.
• 43:26
  to like dig into what can we actually say. And then we ended up these days, especially a lot of focus on plastic and plastic waste. And we figured out along the way, especially the first year, year and a half, that people were very much focused on this plastic free and not so much that it was natural ingredients and so on, because kind of the branding itself
• 43:51
  They thought, oh, they will look at it once, twice, and they were like, yeah, of course it's natural. And they even thought it was organic as well. And we cannot actually be organic, but they thought, yeah, it's natural, organic, because it's true gum. And after that, we realized this is to be a little bit more bold. And then we went with plastic-free. And this is kind of the...
• 44:13
  hopefully maybe, where we ended up and kind of the strongest USP that we have. It's definitely plastic-free because all the other things, they just kind of tag along with the plastic-free message. Yeah. Oh, wow. It's so cool. I really love what you're doing. And I think it's just such an amazing product that I'd never even thought about before and to innovate in an industry that's
• 44:39
  kind of out of mind it must be quite thrilling actually um i wanted to ask you about the impact of what's happening at the moment with covid19 and and whether it's impacted the way that you're working with your team or with your factory i know we kind of spoke about it before the podcast technically started but if we can circle back hopefully just increasing production but uh
• 45:04
  Definitely right now we can see setback, especially our biggest chain in Germany, DM. Definitely because they have been on lockdown for such a long time, you can see the sales are decreasing a lot, like 60, 70% or something like that. And of course that has an impact when you're producing yourself because you have staff that you would want to keep and all these things. But luckily for us, we have,
• 45:33
  lot of solidarity here in in turgum and people are really helping you know from both the operators in production up till us the the owners to to actually get this through this uh through this rough patch or how you should say so so for sure it's uh has quite an impact on production company and and especially when we have our own production here in denmark but
• 45:58
  Definitely, you can already see that the sales are going a little bit up now, which is great. And actually, today was quite a big news in the...
• 46:08
  in the office because we just got 1200 new stores in Austria. So hopefully soon, yeah, everything is going to go well, which was quite amazing because right now we didn't think that, you know, we've been not really focusing on sales that much. And we've of course had a lot of time to be on Instagram and Facebook and all these social medias, but we haven't really been able to discuss a lot of sales opportunities out there because people are like, no, holding a little bit back. And, yeah,
• 46:38
  and so this was really great news and then I know for sure this is it's gonna work out in the end for sure and so you know just one last question on this if you're producing like 500 kilos in a day and now you have like another 1200 stores that have just signed on for example how many packets of gum is that in a year like how many it's a lot it's it's a lot and it's really scary numbers I
• 47:07
  marketing campaign and videos and so on to promote TrueGum and Peter. He's in charge of marketing and he was running up these numbers from all these statistics. It's completely insane how much ends up on the streets and the sidewalks and then people from the government, they had to come and scrape it off from the sidewalks because otherwise it will stay there forever and look really bad.
• 47:35
  Then it ends up in sewers, ends up in the ocean, and then it ends up in our food chain all over again because the fish, they eat it. And it's a horrible story. It's a lot of plastic. It's insane. Yeah. It's crazy when you think about those kind of numbers and it puts it into perspective how much plastic must be coming from chewing gum on the roads and in the ocean. Yeah.
• 48:02
  It's really scary. And I'm conscious that we've already been talking for an hour, but I just want to quickly, quickly go back to the marketing and see what your marketing strategy has been to grow your direct-to-consumer base and what kind of efforts are working for you at the moment with those channels. In general, for our marketing, we haven't really, because we are producing ourselves and have the factory, I think we spend a lot of money on marketing.
• 48:30
  production equipment and raw materials because we have to buy the gum base from South America and it takes a while before it gets here. And you know, all of our money is tied up in raw materials and production in general. So we haven't really spent a lot of money in the marketing area. So what we do is mainly keep people informed through social media and so on. I think we, Peter especially, he spends a lot of time
• 48:59
  getting these behind the scenes kind of footage and videos from our productions. Like keep everything as see-through as possible because then for the consumer at least it's better than one big billboard somewhere where you can see, oh, Stimroll and get fresh, I don't know, airwaves through your mouth and everything is kind of synthetic. And here you can show people how it's done and we don't have anything to hide.
• 49:28
  So I think everything has been very kind of organic growth from the beginning and it's still working that way. We don't really have big budget for marketing or we use some money, of course, on Facebook ads and so on, but we don't really put the money there. And I think I'm to blame maybe because I'm using all the money in production instead, but yeah, it's a, it's very, it goes normal social media and so on.
• 49:57
  And luckily it's still working because I think the message is quite, how do you say? Yeah, it's a strong message. Strong message, yeah, exactly. So people, they talk about it, so that's amazing. Do you have any advice for other women who might be wanting to get into the startup scene and sort of jump into the sustainability sort of businesses or just producing in the F&B space at all in general?
• 50:26
  For me, the most important thing has been to just catch the day. And if there's problems, just stay happy and focus on solving the problem and just work through the tough patch, the rough patches, because there will be rough patches when you have your own production or if there's somebody out there who wants to produce their own. It doesn't even matter if it's food or
• 50:53
  I don't know, something else completely different. It's there's going to be a lot of rough patches and there's going to be a heavy lifting phases and there's going to be a lot of tough, long hours. And you really have to just push through and.
• 51:10
  really the best advice is to find the right team because a lot of people can also do it alone. And I'm really taking my hat off for those people because we've been four people and I could not imagine that we've been only one or two people. There's been so much work and you definitely need different areas of expertise. And with my food background,
• 51:38
  I like chemistry and all these nerdy things and the guys with the commercial background and they just, they know where to get the right people and how to, how do you know, sweet talk all these supermarket chains and so on. You need all aspects if you want to grow a food company and be a success. So definitely look at your team. And if you're missing somebody, just spend some time on,
• 52:05
  figuring out who your teammates should be. Lovely. And the last thing I do with every woman that I interview is six quick questions. It's a quick fire round. You might have seen them in the last episodes. So number one is what's your why? What's my why? It's very tricky. I think for me it has been just to,
• 52:31
  I have to be able to make a change and the big chocolate factory I was working at before, it was just big commercialized business. And it was just not for me. I couldn't make a difference because I was just, I don't know, kind of redoing things sometimes. I think for me, it's been to actually.
• 52:52
  start from scratch and see where it can go to actually make a change and not feel like every day is the same. I really love that every day is different. What's the number one strategy or marketing moment that made your business pop? That's also tricky. For sure, we were very lucky that
• 53:14
  kind of the change in focus, like people's focus, they were really focused on natural and plastic free and so on. We were really lucky to hit the right, kind of the right thing there. But I think one thing, no, it must be that the growing focus on what you actually eat, that's what made our business pop.
• 53:44
  maybe the rebranding was kind of important. Where do you hang out to get smarter? Well, when I'm not spending all my time in the factory, these days at least, then I think I started out using a lot of time on YouTube and watching how it's made kind of videos and so on. And then...
• 54:08
  listen to a lot of great podcasts and like the the good foodies podcast is really great uh i think it's a british podcast yeah um yeah i'll have to check that one out yeah it's really great uh number four is how do you win the day i love these questions um yeah i think for me it's been quite important uh like with good food and uh
• 54:34
  Yeah, doing yoga, for instance, that's really, whenever there was the time, there was a period in True Gump's history where there was no time for anything. We slept maybe four hours and just worked all the time. It was, of course, tough because it was a tough job, lifting a lot and so on, but it was especially tough because when you don't eat properly and exercise, you don't have the strength or energy to actually stay happy and healthy and actually focusing on your goals for the day.
• 55:03
  Good food and yoga, that's probably my recipe. Question number five is, if you only had $1,000 left in the business bank account, what would you spend it on? Yeah, that one is really, that's for me is like, I don't know, first panic. That's the first thing. And then I think you have to just like stop production immediately because that costs way too much. But I think if I had $1,000,
• 55:33
  left on my account you would have to spend it on first a lot of samples so we could go out still meet the people and fairs and and spend a lot of time these food fairs and talking to the consumer and and so on and then maybe the rest of the money would have to go in there in the social media and facebook ads and and getting people to know us
• 55:57
  And last and final question is how do you deal with failure? And that can be either a specific example or just your general approach and your mindset towards it. With failure, because of course there's a lot of failure, especially in startup. And you do things, you know, also even you can fail in the same thing twice sometimes because you're like, no, this time it's going to work. But it's like, first thing is just like, don't blame anybody because it's not worth it.
• 56:24
  Like we are four people and you cannot really go blame anybody. So don't blame anybody and kind of feel the sense of urgency and act upon it. And just like get the job done. That's, you know, you learn from your mistakes. So that's, I think you have to feel like it's kind of fun to learn from your mistakes when you're in a startup and you cannot really, you know, sit down and cry about it. So it's like,
• 56:53
  you know, sense of urgency and then just get it done because nobody's going to do it for you. Yeah, absolutely. That's true. Thank you so much for taking the time. I just want to get the specifics of where people can find you if they want to look you up on Instagram or LinkedIn. Oh, yeah, I'm really not much on Instagram, but definitely Instagram.
• 57:17
  You can get the True Gum on Instagram, just like True Gum, small letters. And on Facebook, it's completely the same. But if it's me, just like if you have any questions or anything at all, you can also write my email. It's completely okay. It's like sabrinasnigleytrugum.com. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. No, thank you. Thank you for letting me be on your show. It's amazing.
• 57:49
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 58:14
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 58:36
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show, and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 58:53
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 59:17
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 59:40
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show, and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.