We were lucky to catch up with Matthew De Bord recently and have shared our conversation below.
Matthew, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your business and how did you resolve those issues?
I will share 2 unexpected stories.
First, people assume business owners are rich. I quickly stopped telling people I started my own business. I just tell people I work for a food manufacturer. This eliminates the assumption that I am rich. We have financially struggled to keep NewGem Foods operating. We are not rich.
The second issue not understood is the near impossible task of selling a CPG product. Retail buying teams are approached by brands wanting retail shelf space daily. Thousands of new brands annually. It is a herculean task to get approved to be on shelf in retail.
Once on shelf, merchandising does not happen as envisioned. Store visits are a must to discover and correct problems. Then is the challenge of educating consumers about a new product to get them to break purchasing habits to try something new. Getting off the shelf. It is 100 time more difficult than I imagined.
It is difficult getting on shelf.
It is more difficult getting off shelf.
Matthew, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
About me.
I strive to be a good person, respectful, and kind.
Working and studying in Japan inspired me to bring healthy convenient food to everyone globally. Asian cuisine is healthier than western industrialized food offerings. Many Asian food items incorporate sushi seaweed (Nori). My inspiration was to make a similar product using vegetables and fruits.
My background in Finance, Economics and Business Management was not suitable for food product development. The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service agreed to help develop my innovative product concept. With the USDA’s help for 4 years I created a new product category, received 2 patents and developed the process to produce NewGem wraps made from vegetables and fruit.
NewGem’s products are fun, flavorful and versatile. It remains fun to see them produced.
Our sandwich wraps are 30 to 40 calories, 3g to 6g carbs, gluten free, and provide a serving of fruit and vegetable. They are much healthier than bread and tortillas, plus allow new, fun, innovative sandwich wrap recipes. Similarly, our NewGem sushi wraps allow limitless innovative sushi roll flavors to be created. There are many other CPG product applications for NewGem’s proprietary fruit and vegetable wraps.
Other than helping people eat healthily and live a healthier life style, I am most proud of providing well-paying jobs to my team. Giving them financial stability, paid vacations and helping them elevate their skills, plus building confidence helps counterbalance all the struggles.
When NewGem is bigger I will introduce products already developed using our technology that will help our planet.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I am the youngest of 7 children. We all had to contribute, meaning we had to get jobs when possible. I had a paper route from 10 to 13. At 14 I became gainfully employed cleaning a movie theater and started paying income taxes. My parents taught us how to budget and appreciate the value of items purchased. I am frugal.
After finishing my MBA and paying off my student loan, I continued to add to my savings for several years. This savings, my employment when starting NewGem Foods, my wife’s income, and expensive loans is how we have financed NewGem Foods for 19 years.
NewGem is ready for rapid growth. It is time to raise investment capital.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
NewGem’s initial product is a sushi wrap made from fruits and vegetables. After borrowing a lot of money to build a processing plant to produce and sell our sushi wraps, I realized this was not going to scale as expected. There were too few potential customers and they were obstinate about trying a new sushi wrap. They remain obstinate to today. Being a component of another company’s product is relying on them to sell NewGem’s products.
NewGem needed to sell a product that would allow us to control our own destiny. I made the decision to develop a vegetable and fruit wrap to replace bread and tortillas to sell in retail under NewGem’s own brand.
Half our revenue is selling sushi wraps to food service providers and half is selling sandwich wraps wholesale to retailers.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.newgemfoods.com
- Instagram: @newgemfoods
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewGemFoods/
- Linkedin: @newgem
- Twitter: @newgemfoods
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/NewGemFoods