Revolutionizing Healthy Eating: A Conversation with Mauricio Gomory

Hi Stephen, nice to be here.

Yes, of course. My name is Mauricio Gomory. I’m the CEO at Julian Bakery. We’re a gluten-free, good-for-you food manufacturing company based in Oceanside, California.

Yeah, so the brand Julian Baker is the story of two different families, one in California, and one down in Mexico. So the Julian Baker brand was started in Julian, California, about 20 years ago, by a lady called Barbara. So she wanted to give an option to customers or people who couldn’t have regular products because of some specific dietary restrictions. Her son had celiac disease, so she needed to do something gluten-free better for him so he could have delicious food, that was compliant with his dietary restrictions. So the brand started and then her son took over and started increasing the portfolio to be able to give even more products to more people with different types of diet. So they started to go and start doing products for keto-compliant, paleo-compliant, and those types of products. So the idea is to give a product to people who can’t have any other granola, any other bread, or any other cracker to have the possibility of having a delicious product right there on their table. And then there’s a story of my family. We’re from Mexico, from Yucatan, which is in the Southeast. We have a cookie company there, and we were looking at opportunities to have healthier products in the US market. So we kind of combined forces with the company that was here in Oceanside, California. And we came in, we have all the expertise and managing food company. And now what we’re looking for is trying to get more distribution and get these products which are super healthy to even more customers in the United States.

Well, our products, because of the ingredients they use, they are very clean. They are as natural as possible. Some of our products are organic certified and we offer the best nutritional values in the market. I’ll give you an example. Our protein granola, which is our pro-granola line, it’s better than regular protein cereals because it has no sugar. It has tons of protein and tons of fiber. Very low calories and low net carbs. Normally when you find protein cereal in the market, they are going to be high either in net carbs or in calories So we have low amounts of those versus regular granolas or organic granolas We don’t have any sugar or added sugar and we have way more protein. We’re way more fiber so we’re kind of like the best of both worlds in terms of a protein cereal and Healthy granola and then for example our crackers are I mean, you won’t find crackers as delicious as ours with such healthy ingredients. We just make them with seeds. We make them with tapioca flour. So they are gluten-free. They are super healthy, but they are very, very delicious. We have two different ones, organic Parmesan crackers and salt and pepper crackers. So for those, it’s mostly flavor and the real healthy ingredients that they carry.

Yeah, they sure are. For our granolas, we have different flavors. The best-selling ones are peanut butter ones, the ones with peanut butter flavor, chocolate flavor, and vanilla flavor.

You can see it back here. Yeah, the red one is peanut butter. The blue one is vanilla. And then here I also have the Parmesan crackers. These are delicious. Steven, I’ll have to get you some so you can try them.

Yeah, that’s it. I’ll send you some samples for you and your wife to try.

Yeah. So the hardest part of having an online business, well, is that most of our sales are done online. We’re to get to more retail stores and get more distribution. But the hardest part of e-commerce and having the product out there is getting people to try it. Because we’re sure that once people try our products, they’re going to buy them again. They’re going to love them. So the question is, how do you get them to buy them? I mean, there are different routes to be able to do that. One of them, it’s the traditional ads, we do ads through Instagram, Facebook, Google, and Amazon. Amazon is a great tool. only that for Amazon, you have to be very smart about how you work, like the finances with everything that they charge you, the rates of the fees. You have to be very smart about how to do that, but it’s a great channel being able to be.

So, one of them, yeah, one of the bigger challenges is getting the product out there. So using tools like Amazon and being FBA on Amazon and being on Prime, helps, helps a ton. Another thing that helps is being present at events where people can try your product. For example, we’re participating next week at Expo West.

Natural Products Expo West, which is in Anaheim. And that’s a really big opportunity to get the product out there, to have people try them. Being at stores, either regionally or nationally, also helps people to find the product in the store, maybe do some demos for them to try them. And then they can go online and buy again through our webpage or Amazon.

Yeah. So Amazon is kind of like, I mean, it’s like a sword. You have to be very careful with it. It’s a great tool. It’s a, you have, I mean, the customer base that they have is huge. but the thing is that you have to be smart. You need to know the price. You have to have the correct pricing. You need to consider, shipping costs. You need to consider fees. For example, I mean, sometimes people don’t know, but for example, Amazon charges a higher percentage of the products is higher than $15 versus lower than $15. So you can even use those numbers to make sure what’s the best way to sell the product. Maybe it’s a big box and it’s better to have it at a certain price, or maybe it’s better to sell only a two-pack instead of a single because if you sell a single, Amazon is going to take most of the cost away. So it’s just a matter of doing your numbers correctly and making sure that they do make sense and you’re making money because when you start to do Amazon ads when you start to do FBA, you have to be careful that you’re not losing money on the product, even if you think that you’re earning.

So I mean, obviously we want to get to as many people as possible. We do believe that healthy eating is the future. It’s where most people either should go or will have to go because of how our diets are changing. So we do believe that we’re doing our part in getting healthier products out there. So now what we’re looking to is distribution. We want to be in more stores. We want to be in more homes. Because we do believe that

Before it was, I mean, I know that you remember that before we always thought that healthy was equal, bad product or bad tasting product. So you were kind of sacrificing the taste because you were getting something healthy. And what we’re trying to do here is that you don’t have to trade anything off. You can have a healthy product that is also delicious. So that’s kind of what we’re trying to show people that if you see something healthy,

It can also mean that it’s something delicious and that you don’t have to sacrifice anything. You don’t have to sacrifice any craving. You’re going to be able to have it, but you’re a lot healthier as well.

Yeah, there sure are.

Yes, of course. One thing that I would say is to be smart. We’re always, I always talk about finances, be smart about finances, be smart that what you’re selling is making you money and that you’re not sacrificing anything. But then how to get the brand out there. You have to, first you have to believe in your product and then you need to show the customer what the benefits of your product are. Either, for example, if you’re selling on Amazon, make sure that you show them your product is better than the competition. My product is good for you of this, this, and this. We always try to make sure that Amazon uses this thing called 8 plus content, that you can upload pictures, you can upload videos, you can upload comparisons with other brands. And that always helps the customer have more information. We have to always think that our customers are smart and they want to know as much as possible about your brand as they possibly can. So try to give them as much information as possible and they’ll end up making the best decision. But for that, they’ll need to know more about you, more about your brand, more about your history. Another thing is to show them who you are, your products and your brand need to be a reflection of who you are as a person or who you are as a business. So make sure that you’re always coherent and that there’s consistency between what you are and what your brand is, what you’re trying to promote, and what your brand is trying to accomplish. I guess that those would be my recommendations.

Yeah. I mean, I would just say doing business is hard. It’s not something really easy. If it were easy, I mean, everyone would do it. I would just say it takes work. It’s not going to be, you’re not going to build a brand from one day to the next. It takes time. It takes effort. But when you’re doing things the right way when you’re giving your customers correct information when you’re giving them a good product,

From my point of view, everything will happen in the end. You just have to make sure that you’re doing things the right way, that you’re putting in the work, and that you’re offering something different, something unique. I guess those would be kind of my main points. And I will invite everyone to try our products. Julian is a great brand, a California brand. And again, we’re not only healthy, we’re also delicious. And obviously, we always say that,

Let’s have people eat healthier. Let’s have people have cleaning ingredients and cleaner products. So that’s what we’re all about.

Of course, thank you, Stephen, for your time, and good luck.