When browsing the frozen food aisle at Whole Foods, a supermarket chain in the United States respected for its food curation, the fun packaging, in purple, yellow and orange, stands out. There are the cheese breads frozen Brazi Bites, 18 in each package, with flavors of garlic, cheddar and parmesan cheese and “everything”, with pinches of different seasonings.
Founded in 2010 by a civil engineer from Minas Gerais Junea Rocha and the American husband Cameron MacMullinin Portland, Oregon, the brand is growing rapidly by bringing an item well known to Brazilians to the breakfast and snack menus of North Americans. The marketing reinforces a differentiator of cheese bread: the product is gluten-free.
According to data from Statista, the “gluten-free” segment continues to grow. It was worth US$6.7 billion worldwide in 2022 and is expected to reach US$14 billion in 2032. Riding this wave, in the last decade, cheese bread has gained popularity in the USA. THE Minas Furnaceborn in Brazil, established partnerships with some stores in the USA and Canada and adapted its packaging for the new audience. There are also brands that are born locally in different cities.
Em Nova Yorkthere are options such as Padoca Bakerywhich sells the product in its store, in addition to the frozen version, and also the TAP NYCwhich offers cheese bread and tapioca sandwiches. In some points of sale you can also find frozen cheese bread from Yu Bakeryalso famous for its cassava starch cookies. In New Jerseywas born Yuyuca Cheese Breadwhich offers the waffle version, in addition to the flavor – and color – of beetroot.
With a lean team of 17 employees, Fir Bites has its products distributed in 17 thousand points of sale in the United States, including a new line of frozen products such as cheese bread waffles, blueberry waffles, as well as mini-pizza.
“We are always very attentive to feedback from our consumers”, says Junea to InvestNews. The company’s most recent product, for example, was born from customers’ idea of putting cheese bread dough to bake in a waffle iron. “The fashion went viral. So, based on this demand, we started exploring the category.”
Junea says that her husband Cameron oversees recipe development, a collaborative process between the internal team and external partners. In the United States, according to her, around 87% of frozen food is sold via traditional commerce channels, such as supermarkets and grocery stores, while 11% is sold via online platforms, such as Instacart, FreshDirect and AmazonFresh.
“Only 2% of sales are made directly via the companies’ websites. We have an internal sales team that works with food buyers in different markets and chains across the country”, he says. On FreshDirect, for example, one package sells for $7.79 and two for $12.
A brand is born
Graduated in civil engineering in Brazil, Junea moved to Portland in 2005shortly after graduating. She worked at a construction company for almost a decade, but ended up discouraged with her career. At that point, she had already acquired experience about the American corporate environment, forms of conduct and, mainly, knowledge about business mathematics, the basis for any enterprise, according to her.
As a good Brazilian, Junea missed the our-daily-cheese-bread. It was a product that was scarce in the country at the time, sold in small Brazilian stores, without distribution in supermarket chains, much less online.
Junea then took a family recipe and rolled up her sleeves. That’s how he started selling the product door to door in local stores and supermarkets, taking 99 no every 100 attempts. The first to say yes was a small supermarket, famous for selling international varieties.
While Cameron kept her day job, Junea used her professional skills to understand a sector with a colossal diversity of international foods that fill shelves, freezers and online supermarkets.
The native of Minas Gerais started the venture by enrolling in a course called “How to take your recipe to the market”. He also joined groups of entrepreneurs and connected with more experienced professionals. In the first two years, the couple visited grocery stores and supermarkets to demonstrate the product.
They were there every weekend with the oven in tow to bake your cheese breads and tell your stories: the texture, soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside, tells about the use of tapioca in cooking throughout Latin America. There is also the affective memory, as the product is present in any home celebration in Brazil.
Interact with consumers It was a way of showing establishment owners the product’s ability to attract and retain customers. And once the cheese bread finally conquers a fixed space in the freezer, the relationship becomes what Junea calls “an exchange of real estate space”: the store gives the space, and in return, the product generates sales and keeps the consumer coming back for more.
Shark tank
In 2015, Brazi Bites was one of 200 small companies selected from 40 thousand candidates to participate in the Shark Tanka program on the ABC channel where entrepreneurs present their projects to venture capital investors. At the time, Brazi Bites cheese breads were already sold in 700 points of sale, including the national supermarket chain Sprout Farmers Market and Whole Foods, whose strategy is to test the sale of the product locally before taking it to supermarket shelves. the entire national supermarket chain.
In the first five years, Brazi Bites did not pay for itself. Node Shark TankCameron said that revenue in 2012 was US$60 thousand, the following year it increased to US$200 thousand, in 2014 it reached US$600 thousand and that in 2015 the estimate was more than one million dollars. The story that Junea told investors is the same one written on each Brazi Bites package: the product contains only eight ingredients, none of them artificial, and the “secret” recipe comes from Junea’s family.
With the program, the couple earned an investment of US$ 200 mil in exchange for a 16.5% stake from Shark Tank investor Lori Greiner. But the partnership did not go ahead due to “lack of alignment of objectives”.
Shark Tank really paid off in terms of visibility – and sales. The program had an audience of nine million people. In the following days, the product’s stock evaporated from the shelves. Two years later, in 2017, Junea appeared on the Portland Business Journal’s list of the 25 most influential women.
Help for immigrant entrepreneurs
The couple and the team Fir Bites shares all the learning about being an entrepreneur in the USA with the members of the “Latino Entrepreneur Accelerator,” an initiative they created two years ago to help immigrant communities, especially Latinos, who, according to Junea, are underrepresented in business circles.
The team teaches the importance of knowing all aspects of your product and sharing every detail with point-of-sale traders. This includes the ideal location of the product in a freezer or shelf, a realistic price and the strategy to take off sales.
In addition to reaching Brazilians living in the USA, the company’s marketing team Fir Bites continues its mission to publicize the cheese bread by the American media, including the the TV program of the actress Drew Barrymorewho didn’t hide his enthusiasm when he grabbed the waffle version, and even risked pronouncing it as cheese bread. It achieved.
