Grief, Grit, and Really Good Chocolate

What happens when you refuse to compromise your values, even when it would make growing your business easier? Today’s guest, Kristyn Carriere, shares the story behind 7 Summits Snacks and the journey that led her from performing with Disney on Ice, to developing chocolate for some of the world's biggest brands, to building a purpose-driven company after the unexpected loss of her partner. What began as an idea for better fuel for athletes became a business rooted in resilience, integrity, and a commitment to doing things differently.

The heart of this conversation is about building a business that reflects who you are, even when the road is slower or more challenging. We talk about ethical sourcing, motherhood, navigating the realities of consumer packaged goods, and why protecting your standards can become your greatest competitive advantage. Maybe you've been wrestling with the pressure to grow faster or wondering if staying true to your values is worth it. If that's where you are, I think this episode will really resonate with you. Please leave a like on this episode and share it with a woman who's building something meaningful in her life.

Website: https://sevensummitssnacks.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/7summitssnacks/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyncarriere/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberleyhiebert
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Found Her, the podcast for women who build empires, break barriers, and blaze trails all while fighting themselves. These are bestie level conversations from behind the scenes. The real work, the messy middle, and the winds that last. I'm Kimberly Hebert, founder, franchise builder, wife, mom, and Grammy, and a woman who has done the inner work while building the outer winds. Here we talk business, identity, relationships, and the kind of growth that cracks you open, then puts you back together. Stronger, better. This is your space to rise as a founder and as your truest self. Let's dive in. Okay, ladies, besties, we're back. I'm back with my most yummiest friend, I'm gonna say, Kristen Carrier. Did I say your name right? Carrier Carrier. Perfect, perfect. Kristen Carrier. I met her a while ago, but she is the founder, she's she's more than just the founder. But why I say she's my yummiest friend is because she is the founder of Seven Summit Snacks, which is a chocolate energy snack. Oh my god, she's got some. She's oh my gosh, they're so good. And as a former long-distance athlete, snacks for uh activity were really, I mean, that's all I lived off for like eight years. But Kristen's story around Seven Summit Snacks and her journey as a founder with a what we call a CPG or consumer packaged goods product becoming a motherhood, the journey through that. I mean, you just you're so you have so much depth to your story. I don't think your product like that's the thing, products don't do the founder journey. So I'd really, yeah, welcome Kristen to founder. This is where all the besties hang out.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Thanks, Kim. I've been a long-time fan of yours. So when I got the opportunity to meet you earlier this year, uh it was like a nice little win for me. So thanks for having me on your uh podcast now.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

And I'm excited to Yeah, I'm I'm glad we finally got this together. Okay, so this is the other thing is that you also, it's not just that you're a founder, but you actually are a bit of a nerd. You're a food food scientist. So tell us a little give us a little more context about kind of yeah, your background, who you are a little bit, and then how I guess the the biggest thing is how Seven Summit Snacks came to be.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Sure. Yeah, so it's a little bit of a long story, but I'll keep it as tight as possible. Um, like you said, I'm a science nerd. So uh liked science, loved science in school. Um, when I was getting to like grade 11, grade 12. Um, and I used to also competitively figure skate. So I have to start that off. So I was a competitive figure skater, getting into like grade 12 in my life and was like, I don't know what I need to like, I don't know what I'm gonna go and do in university. And so um my figure skating coach encouraged me to audition for Disney on ice. I didn't get I didn't get in right away, but um, I did a year of university in like general science and like didn't know what to do with my life, was totally burned out from being like 19 and and all of that. And uh then I got a call from Disney on ice and I to tour the world for four years as a skating princess. So really, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Why is that not in your bio?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Disney princess? Yeah, ex-Disney princess. So through that for four years, for four years, yeah. After into my fourth year, I was like stum like, I want to use my brain again. Like, not that like you don't, but like tired of skating a little bit, tired of politics, and was like, okay, I want to use my brain and was getting into nutrition and food science at the time. I was really, as a competitive skater, hyper aware of the impact of nutrition on your body. And so I wanted to study that. So studied at the University of Alberta, the nutrition program, thinking I was gonna be a nutritionist for like soccer players. But as I took food science courses, I loved those even more. And so took new food science courses, understanding the chemistry of how ingredients come together, understanding how like you perceive food and how your senses detect it and how that can be measured, measured for consumer liking. And then from that, I got a job with uh Cadbury in England and moved to England.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Okay, pause, pause. Did you hear that? Cadbury, she knows the secret.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

I know the Cadbury secret. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

She has not broken the code to me.

unknown 4:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

So yeah, so I did that then for almost 10 years, doing global research and development for Cadbury. Well, the company Mondeleese International, which owns Cadbury, Green and Blacks, and Milka, all brands that I worked on. And then I switched to working for Godiva, and I did that for two years.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

You know what? I'm gonna interrupt you for a sec, because what as I'm listening, because I'm listening to this in a different perspective than maybe some of our conversations over the last year or so. You really have like these, like, you know, in your little fantasy kind of careers, like the Disney princess, ice princess, whatever, working at the like chocolate factory. Like these are just so idyllic.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah. Like I did a um like in a corporate, like kind of team building one time. You all had to write down what your fantasy job was, and I was like performing on stage. I already did that when I was 19. Like I peaked at 19. You peaked at 19. Anyway, yeah, carry on.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

So you're at Gediva, Gedeva, whatever you call it.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And um, while I was working in Europe, I'd come home every Christmas, uh, brainstorm with my sister, my sister Liana, she's like my muse. She she's a chocolate lover and she's an athlete, she's a personal trainer. And she would ask, she literally asked me one year when I came home. She was getting into the world of endurance sport. She's like, Hey, I really don't like these carbohydrate gels. They're gross, they make me feel yucky.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Can we they make you poop your pants very suddenly?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Exactly. Um, she's like, Can we eat chocolate? And I'd never thought about chocolate in that way. And that's what I love about my sister. She's a true visionary when it comes to just like her brain works completely differently to mine. And I'm the like, like you talk a lot about like the SME and the visionary, like I am your husband and the SME, and my sister is the visionary. And uh, I was like, oh, when I thought about the components of chocolate, I would and in context to exercise, I was like, yes, this is totally the answer. And so that seed was planted in my head. And then fast forward a couple months, and um, I go to um Mount Everest with my partner at the time. He had the goal of climbing the seven summits. He really believed that climbing Mount Everest was the like peak of human like achievement. And so he wanted to be able to do that and go to base camp, say goodbye, go back home to England and while he's doing his acclimatization. And then one night I like woke up stark straight and was like, it's called Seven Summits next. I opened my phone, write down all this inspiration, because again, my sister had planted the seed always already about like chocolate for fuel. So I'm like, okay, it's good for an hour of activity, it's gonna be meltable, it's gonna be in a in a push pack, all this stuff. Look at the clock, and I'm like, oh, Robin's on the summit. Like I knew that was the time he was getting to the summit. I went to bed, woke up a few hours later, and when I woke up, I found out that he had passed away at that point in time. And so in that moment, I was really like transferred this wave of energy for him. I truly believe. And within that, that's how the the birth of the company became.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

It was like, oh, that's yeah, that's crazy. You have this uh that's like quite a quite a climb, no, no pun intended, like quite a climb. It's like your story, and then boom, right? Like this, and so at the same time, there's this birth out of it. Yeah. So in continuing then on, you know, managing through the grief and the loss of the partner. I'm guessing that was kind of a big that sounded terrible the way I said that. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

No, no, it's it's like it's like, how is there ever a good way to speak about it, right? Like it is what it is at the end of the day. And I think like I just went into like shutdown mode. My sisters came from Canada to England, packed me up, helped me get out. Our intent was to move to Canada anyway after the trip. And so, like, my mind was already kind of going in that direction. I literally had no reason to be living in England anymore, and so um, yeah, so they just helped pack me up, and a couple months later I moved home. When I was moving home, I was trying to find a job in in chocolate. Again, I was like very highly skilled as no fancy chocolatiers. You're the problem is is they all they there's lots of fancy chocolatiers that didn't need any help, and okay, very well didn't want my 10 years of help. They they like how dare they how dare they as a business owner in this space. I I recognize that now because it's like okay, you have like one or two people who really know their stuff, and then you need production help, you need lay help. And so I wasn't again, my 10 years in industry, I wasn't about to go just pack boxes, and so uh I was like, Okay, well, I'm guessing let's start this company, let's see what we can do. And I really created the job that I wanted because there wasn't one here for me when I came back.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

So, how long ago was that?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

2019.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Okay, so we're like six, seven, eight years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seven, eight years. So then you hit the ground running, you and your sister. Did you go full time?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Like, tell us a little bit about so then yeah, it was pandemic time. We started doing this project during the pandemic, so we were didn't have work, like had all the time in the world to put towards this. Uh wait, you weren't making sourdough? Yeah, no, I was also making sourdough and growing plants, and so you're you're you're still um you're not a mom at this point, though, right? Not a mum at this point, yeah. And so this is Q Jason into my world. And so I moved back in 2019, and like also the the plan with Robin before was move to Canada. Like, I'm getting in my upper 30s, and like it's baby time, and so um I like really had this maternal pull to start finding like have a have a child, and so when I moved back, I was like, Oh, I gotta start from scratch again. This really sucks, like in the dating pool. I love some of your practicality. Yeah, I know. Well, no, honestly, then I was like, okay, how am I gonna find a man? I don't want to find them on like on an app. So I'm gonna join entrepreneur groups and running groups to see.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Oh, okay. So all my single ladies who are doing apps, join an entrepreneur group. That's that there you go. Maybe, maybe you should try a new app. Build a new app. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Entrepreneurs looking, right? Yeah, um, so did that, but it was actually my sister again who found my partner now, Jason. And so um, she was I I like very clearly remember it. She was she came home after like learning how to she's doing a training on how to become a triathlon coach. Okay, and my my partner Jason is the trainer of the trainers, and so she came home and she was like, I found your future husband. And then fast forward like three months to Lava Love a Goodwing Woman. I know, right? She orchestrates a meetup for us, and the rest is history. And so Jason and I have been together since the beginning of 2020, and he again was furloughed during the pandemic, so really was and like just a really super awesome loyal guy who stepped in and and helped the business from the beginning. And then yeah, we had that conversation up front. I'm like, Do you want kids? Because it's kind of important. Because you're like TikTok, like TikTok, yeah. And so yeah, in 2023, uh, we had our our little son Isaac.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

So okay, so there that's a lot. I live, I love the picture, the snapshot. I did not realize how idyllic like little girl fantasy that just sounds like with the princess and the chocolate factory and all that. But I want to just touch base on a couple things that mostly well, maybe at the end. I'll leave some of those for the end. Just about the chocolate, because the chocolate has fuel and some of the there's just some things about it that I think uh people overlook. And I I would just I have some questions. So what uh so the biggest question I kind of want to lean into what I'm always really curious about is I we talked a little bit beforehand is this consumer uh packaged goods category. So when you are a founder of a consumable, let's start, let's just talk with the consumable because that's what you're familiar with. What was the biggest learning curve for you in in building a consumable product?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Um, how important your margins are? And it's really challenging because there's a lot that's dictated to you from the market, and that will help you realize if you're willing to put up with some of the margins that you may have. There's two ways to calculating how much money you're gonna make as a business. One and the the recommendation is always to do bottom out pricing, and so it's like my what is that term that what is that term or language means, bottom out? Yeah, so that means like it costs me 50 cents for the ingredients and pack like the the unit, it costs me 50 cents, let's pretend the unit itself, and then it costs me 30 cents to ship it. So then it's like, okay, here's my 80 cents, but I'm gonna sell it to a retailer for a dollar eighty, and then the retailer wants to put their markup on it so that the like, and there can be two or three layers in between the price you pay as the consumer and the price I sell it to the like the first purchaser at. And so depending on the business model, when I sell directly on my website, for instance, I'm making the most margin or the most amount of money that I can because I don't have you're not paying a middle person. Exactly. I don't know two middle people in a lot of the in the large. Oh, it's two, so even two, yeah. So, like if I'm selling to a store, for instance, that store might be wanting to only buy from a distributor. And so that puts two people in between.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Oh, that's that that's what pip probably people don't know when you're a creator of a perishable product, is you actually so sorry to cut you off. This is just so fascinating to me because these are the secrets of the industry, if you will, right? Yes, so like a distributor, you don't just walk up and knock on their door and say, Here's my product, do you?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Well, you can, but generally they want to know that you've got a good business beforehand. So it took us as a business two to three years before we found a distributor to uh to work with. And so, and some stores, for instance, like we're in the running room, we're in the running room on our own back, which is amazing. So that means I sell directly to the running room and the running room can sell directly to you, and that's your margins and the running room gets their margins, and the consumer, the consumer isn't paying like away inflated exactly versus like I we sell to another grocery store here in in Alberta, and they they mandate that we use a distributor. That means I need to sell it to the distributor for a price, which means I need to shrink my margins a little bit, then they sell it on to the grocery store, which means they have to inflate the price a little bit so that you as the end user, you're you're paying up to 50 cents more for our product at that grocery store versus the running room versus on our website.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Does that cause consumer chaos or confusion?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

It confusion, it can cause we're not big enough for it to like cause confusion. But what does happen when you are a big enough business is that some of the retailers are looking and checking your website to make sure that you're price lined. And so they'll charge, and that's the other thing. Then they're gonna bill me back to say, hey, you put this on for three, whatever $350, and we have to sell it for $450. So I'm now gonna charge you that dollar back and they dock it off my invoice. Shut up. Yeah, so it's a really like margins are a really brutal part of the CPG business.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

So what would you, if you were starting again from scratch, like with a new product, would you start there to in order to determine what the market fit, where you're gonna source ingredients, like all of those pieces?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

So yes and no. I it all depends on what kind of a business you're trying to run. And so I could I had this conversation with someone the other day, and this kind of leans into like a pre-question that you had said at the beginning of the interview, where if I was to start again with seven summit snacks in the way that it is now, I'd have to be charging a dollar more per unit. Like two is the and you zero, you'd be buying it for five dollars instead of four dollars a bar. But we know that when it sits on shelf closer to five dollars, it doesn't move because when you look at the grocery store and you see the other products that are there were too expensive.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah, because they're probably like $3.95 or something, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Is like the exactly, exactly. $350, $349 is really the average price. We already show up at $4.429 on a grocery store shelf for the most part. So we're already challenged from that perspective. Now, there's ways I can make that better for us or like better for everyone, and and those ways are compromising on on ingredient integrity, compromising on packaging integrity. And these are things that I'm just not willing to compromise on as a business owner in this space.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

This is what I love about you. I uh I thank you for bringing that up because otherwise I have a question about that. Because there, and there are certain things that you refuse to compromise on. Because we've talked, I've found uh you know, I've met some other founders of different types of snacks and different chocolates and things like that. And you you're smart. Well, you're smart, you're a scientist, you're a nerdy, you're not yeah, uh, you get it, but you are will unwilling to compromise. It's not even the quality, but it's like the quality of your brand. It's you're unwilling to compromise these standard ingredients for you. I'm sorry. That is just the standard, exactly the way it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, so cocoa is the first one. Like we buy chocolate, and there's two things when it comes to chocolate that are really important to us. One is that it's ethically sourced and ethically sustainably sourced. So that means that there's social programs in place in the growing regions of the cocoa, the cocoa trees.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Because I'm guessing that the cocoa industry, the growing industry, is as corrupt and heartbreaking as the coffee bean industry.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

100%. Yeah, definitely. They're probably the similar so so similar. Yeah, so making sure that there are social programs in place are is really important to us. What we are flexible on is so, for instance, like most people are familiar with like organic. Organic doesn't mean there's social programs in place, FYI, like it means that there's less pesticide in the soil. Um, but like rainforest alliance or fair trade, those are the two most well-known banners in the world as far as ethical sourcing goes. You have to pay a premium as a business, depending on your revenue, to be to have that sticker on your label. You're also tied to buying certain chocolates that have that fair trade or rainforest alliance designation to it. Now, what has come a long way in the cocoa industry is that most organizations do have some sort of sustainability and ethical sourcing practices now that you can that are traceable. And so they each have their own kind of like badge or way of wording it. So I don't ever want to be tied to one program in particular. Um, we want to have flexibility in our sourcing. So, so long as we ensure that there's those programs in place, we can source, which means especially because last year the price of cocoa went absolutely insane. We have flexibility in our sourcing. And that really comes from my experience in the like 10 years' experience working in such a large company to have coffee to know that that's something like one, to be able to interrogate the program, but two also to like just have that flexibility. And the second thing is like we don't want bad tasting chocolate, like there's a lot cheaper chocolate that we could be buying, yeah. It doesn't taste it's so sweet, or it's not been like really nerding out, it'd be like the roast profile of coffee. Like, there's like a roast profile and there's called a conching profile. And I'm so particular on how that flavor needs to be. And my sister, like especially my sister, that we just will not compromise on that. And so we have a few different ways we can source, but like we're just I'm just not willing to compromise on that. There's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

And so, yeah, what is the trade-off when you are unwilling to compromise, which is great because it means that your the customers that you build, the loyalty, there they can trust that you're gonna send. So, what is the trade-off? What is the sacrifice?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Is it the sacrifices are margins? Yeah, margins, slower growth and slower growth because we have a higher price product as well as our margins themselves, so we just can't feed back into the marketing dollars that we would like to be able to spend. So, for instance, like I buy chocolate today at $22 a kilo, and I could buy it for $15 a kilo, so $7 a kilo less, it's really going to make a huge difference to our bottom line, but I'm just not willing to compromise on that. And until I can find something that fits my criteria, then it's just that's just not going to happen.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

I was just sitting here thinking, I have another question about chocolate for you. And I was like, this should be the chocolate episode. That's what this should be. I was like, we're not going to talk about the product, but I'm so this is so curious to me. Well, because two, my two favorite things are coffee and chocolate. So I'm just fascinated by it. I didn't realize how fascinated. So sorry I've hijacked some of this. So keep trying to I'll keep trying to litter a little bit more about who you are. Okay, so not compromising standards is a thing for you, and uh it has created a slower growth. Yes, a little bit more frustration in managing the cash flow and definitely because now you have a perishable product, you have to buy the inventory to supply it to the blah blah blah to the contributor or the consumer. Yeah. So there's lots of there's definitely lots of moving parts. So when you threw in becoming a mother, how did all that work out? Like with motherhood, I know with motherhood, I the first thing I learned is to drop my standards.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

For cleanliness, for wiping their face or hands.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

He licked everything and a little messy little monkey. Um, yeah, so like like that's totally right, totally fair way of doing it. Like my standards for like might have been a little OCD in how I wanted things in my house before, like making sure things were cleaned on his schedule. Like, yeah, that went out the window when I was bored. Um, I also used to like somehow have free time to do like running, extra running, or like um make sourdough, for instance. So I haven't my Jason said to me the other day, he's like, You haven't made cookies in a really long time. I'm like, I have no bandwidth for that. Don't even get me started. So yeah, like things like that. I think yeah, motherhood was like again something that was really important to me and Jason. And so, and I just like I look at my son every day and I'm like, I love this job. I love it so much. And so, um, but yeah, it definitely makes things challenging sometimes. And so when it comes to travel or events, like it just makes the mix a little bit different in the like Isaac, my son, he was at our he was at his first farmer's market when he was three year three weeks old. Like we like we were a NICU for two weeks and then he came out and we were at a farmer's market, and so he's all wrapped in swag. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, um, but I think like uh my and my niece, for instance, my niece is is nine now, and she's been coming with us to events for for yeah, since she was three years old. And so I think it's really cool experience to be like showing your your children like what you do, like they can say, like, my niece knows what I do, my my niece knows what her mom does, my sister does. Um, she knows we have a chocolate company, and she's it's cool. She can say, Yeah, my like my parents have it, or my my auntie and that has a chocolate company. Like it's pretty kind of fun to say that as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

My son, when we go to a race and we'll like hand out bars at the finish line, he knows to like grab the bar and like starts handing it out to people, and he's already three years old. He lifts the boxes that we have that are going out for shipping, like he totally and wants to take part. And I think it's like I think that's really important, and it's kind of cool too, because they're yeah, they're seeing what you're doing versus if you worked in an office all day long, it's like, well, what do you do?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

It's like, well, yeah, mommy goes away or daddy goes away, yeah, and then they come back.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Um, what what challenges, if any, have you noticed? Is there a difference between being a female founder of a CPG product versus male? I mean, I know you're not a male, so um but have you? I mean, you do, I know you've done the circuits, you go and pitch competitions, you get your product in front of uh the in the different um uh what are they called? Um trade shows and things like that, where there's all you know, they get positioned and all that kind of stuff. Is there is there yeah, is there a difference between being a woman and this?

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Yeah, I think historically the answer to that is yes. I was thinking about this this morning. I was listening to another one of your podcasts where you asked a similar question of your guest, uh like in the franchise or world.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

And it definitely used to be that way. And also, like, especially when I was in corporate land, like most of the managerial positions were definitely men. You'd have like one or two token women in a higher level out of like 10 people, for instance.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

I'm gonna say that in the last four or five years, there has been a big shift. And I think it's because, like, I'm gonna even like narrow this down to like millennial women are just like willing to get themselves out there and like try and be seen, yeah. Yeah, and be seen. And I think we're like, so I can't say that like I go to a farmer's market, I'm gonna say that at least half of the businesses at a farmer's market are women owned these days. And again, it might just be that it's the circles that I'm swimming in, yeah, but it is female leaders or female manufacturers that are in those positions. So where the tri and maybe it's maybe in corporate, it's still like there's still a shift there, but I'm gonna say that the go-getters are are the women and the they're the ones building the the futures now um in this world.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah. And so when you uh present your business for uh scholarships, grants, different opportunities, visibility, yeah. Do you think that there's a difference for you as a woman versus a man? Like there's so much uh opportunity for women to present their business, but then you get kind of like you still get kind of like your matrix is still that of a very for sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

And so if I'm pitching in a competition that's not CPG, like if it's like sector agnostic, for instance, yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%, there's gonna be still probably like 70% men pitching to like 30% women, and those three out of 10 women are probably two of them are probably product founders and one is doing something else. So I do think that like in the wider context of like small business and entrepreneurship growth and pitching and all of that, that it does have to do like I still think it is skewed. I'm gonna say the like I follow groups like the like movement 51 and the forum who who share the data to say that women founders are still underfunded. And so I think again, and I've found personally I have success in pitching for money, and usually it's because it is a minority or like women's kind of marginalized, yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, that's kind of like the circuit that I'm in. But when I have pitched in not those kind of forums where it is like there's no like anyone can go, it's more men that are there, and I've been I haven't like made a huge I have I don't have an investor yet, for instance.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

And so we're looking at or like a strategic advisor or something like that or somebody you can connect to.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Precisely, and so and maybe it's because we're a product business, maybe it's because I'm a woman business. I don't I don't know, I can't say, but people are also not believing in the traction that we're gonna be able to deliver at like such a critical time in our business.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Okay, so believe it or not, we are running out of our kind of set aside time, but I do have some like rapid fire kind of questions that just get about chocolate though. Okay, sorry, not yeah, yeah. We'll jump chocolate because sometimes it's fascinating. So what do consumers not know about the cocoa or chocolate industry that would surprise them?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

I think like so it is a pretty like disparaging industry in that, like again, the places where cocoa is grown are poor farms in Africa and in like middle America, um, where poverty is rampant. I remember sitting on a panel about fifty or like at a lecture series like 15 years ago where they had cocoa farmers and people who are really from that first layer. They also can't overpay them. You have to pay them fairly. You and because once you start overpaying them, they're targeted like crime. Oh, it's like, oh well, that farmer's getting like is getting paid really well. So we're gonna come and like burn their farm down now because they're making more money than we're making. So like the industry itself is just like super corrupt. That's why for me, it's like really finding co-ops to work with and like source farmers are really important because there's that. And then there's like 10 million middlemen in the in the in the meantime. The other thing as well that we're finding from like an investor perspective, cocoa is sexy to talk about. So, like some pushback that I'm getting from investability is like, oh, well, the cocoa prices are volatile. I'm like, not as volatile as aluminum or oil or anything else you're putting your millions of dollars towards. So, like, cocoa had a oh yeah, yeah, last year. Like, we're we've moved on from that.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

One of the things that surprises me is the commercialization of chocolate and how capitalism and greed has come like with that, with that exactly thing that you talked about with the uh unpredictability or instability demand, and then creating this. Like, if you actually look at the ingredients of your local, you know, your kind of regular grocery store chocolate bars, they're not actually chocolate bars.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah. So this is the other thing. Legal designation of chocolate and what consumers perceive to be chocolate are like two different things.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Chocolate itself is a the word chocolate is a legally designated globally uh term, which means you can only have cocoa ingredients, sugar, and like vanilla and an emulsifier in there. Milk if it's milk chocolate. But some countries do allow or permit a small amount of vegetable fat within the cocoa recipe itself. That could be coconut oil, it could be just like palm fat as well, up to five percent. But right now, chocolate's also having like a hot moment because of all this like thought of lab grown chocolate. Yes, I know history, which as a food scientist, I'm like, oh, like there's nothing wrong with that. There's literally nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Oh, nothing wrong with that, but we all freak out.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

True. Not different. But chocolate creates a but like it's don't touch our chocolate, don't touch our cocoa. Like it just it's being super demonized right now. And I feel as someone who's been in the industry, I feel really bad for like some of these large who are having to deal with this right now, because it's not gonna be like some mutant chocolate, like people are imagining, like it's gonna be very heavily regulated, scientifically like yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

So, would you use a lab grown chocolate in your product?

SPEAKER_01 32:44

If the price was like if the price and quality met the standards we were looking for, then yes, then I'm I'm very open to the idea of it. Like 90% of the ingredients, like the sugar, the whatever, the protein powders, whatever else people are putting in their chocolate to make it special these days, it's all being lab synthesized, lab like industrially stripped and reformulated, anyways. So, like, unless you're eating the real deal, then so in your let's just quickly in your chocolate, using your chocolate.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

So I eat your chocolate like a chocolate bar.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

So it can do that, but you've you've designed it, it's specific ingredients to help with energy, right? And doesn't create so chocolate doesn't give you diarrhea.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

No, not good quality chocolate does not give you diarrhea.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

What gives you not like a regular gel? That's yeah, exactly. High fructose corn syrup, and exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

That's precisely it's the high amounts of sugar that are often coming from a candy bar that give people the stomach upset because of having too many highly fractionated sugars in there.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Our chocolate itself, we're using high quality chocolate. So cocoa, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar, we're using sugars still, but it's in a like moderated amount because we're using a 65% cocoa, which means there's 35% sugar in there. Yeah, we use honey to bring some extra carbohydrates to it.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

We're using or the energy. And then the way it melts in the package.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah, so the cocoa itself is what's providing the energy. The cocoa is sugar. Oh, um, because cocoa itself has a natural caffeine component to it. So you're getting a little bit of zip from that. You're getting your energy from the sugar and the honey, and then the meltability that you were just going on is also coming from again, the cocoa butter melts at body temperature, but we had coconut oil in there to help soften it so that when you are someone who's active and doesn't want to like chew, just like squirrel it in your mouth and it melted as you go. And so I did a little bit of a post about that the other day on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Oh, okay. So I think um, I think our time is up, and I think I geeked out, I geeked out on chocolate. So uh I feel like we need to form a community support for Cocoa Farmer that you can just like you know, I uh work so uh directly with uh one-on-one and have the community support of Alberta at least to help uh fund that and make it a whole social enterprise that crosses nations. So I love those facts, those standards that you have and the heart that you have for really maintaining. And I know it might, you know, compromise or cost your the pace of growth and success, but in the end, it's what it's what your brand is known for. What final advice would you give to somebody doing a CPG brand? A perishable one.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yeah, I think the CPG, you have to realize that it's not gonna be making money right away, that it's super cost intensive to get it up and off the ground. So you better damn love what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

And so where can people find you, find your product?

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Yeah, so um, best way to follow us is on Instagram. Our newsletters, well, if you go to our website, seven summits summits is plural, snacks.com.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Seven summits.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Um, then you can sign up to our newsletter. You can get insider deals that way. Um, and then I'm on LinkedIn at uh Kristen Carrier.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

So okay, awesome. Well, thanks so much. Everything will be linked in our show notes, so all you listeners can find all the yummy stuff there. And you ship your product, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah, we ship across Can across North America. So yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Perfect. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Perfect. Thanks so much, Kim.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Found Her podcast. If you've enjoyed it, please, please, please leave me a review, subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes, and more importantly, please share with your business bestie. You can join our newsletter, find me on Instagram, all the places. I would love to hear your feedback and connect with you during your journey of building your legacy.