We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marissa Gencarelli a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Marissa , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

We had been looking for a name that was rooted in Mexican culture, but not too obvious. First we started with names used in my home state of Sonora, Mexico though all were too difficult to pronounce. We were looking for a simple word to describe our spirit of explorers, after all that’s what got this company started: exploration in food. I was raised by parents who valued travel as a way to learn about history, food, and culture. Travels were extensive and usually lasted several weeks during the hot summer months. The journey would start from northern Mexico until we made it all the way south. Changing landscapes were mesmerizing and learning who were the Indigenous People that inhabited that land and their customs was critical to how I now see food. Tortillas were at the base of it all and its what unite us. That’s when we found Yoli which means to live in Nahuatl (Aztec language). We embraced it as to live as seekers of high quality hand crafted goods and an attitude of always explore food.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born and raised in Sonora, Mexico and attended The University of Arizona. After graduating I was recruited for a tech company in Kansas City. I had 16 amazing years working there, but it was also taking a toll on my mental health. I started cooking food from my childhood as a way of therapy. I consistently noticed that the tortillas like the ones I grew up with were missing, so started playing around with making my own. Lots of trials and errors, my husband Mark and partner at Yoli joked perhaps we could make this a business. Just like that, we built a business plan, looked at equipment, rented a space and before you knew it we began our operation in 2017 and we were supplying restaurants. The following year we entered the consumer space at Whole Foods and Farmers’Markets. In 2020, we opened a very small retail space which was pivotal for our brand. Having a brick and mortar allowed us to not only have a bounty of tortillas, but create new products that we felt are essential for a Mexican food experience. We still use that space as our living lab, introduce new products and measure its sales and customer feedback. As things take off we can scale…things that don’t work we file it away. At the core that’s who we are as a company, we take chances, we explore flavors and we are totally okay with failing fast. The other core principle is how we source our ingredients: we are committed to regenerative agriculture. I spend part of my time helping researchers with different initiatives in the agriculture sector. Today, we have 3 tortillerias, our products can be found in the midwest at many grocery stores, enjoyed at restaurants and we ship directly online. We still have so many more experiences to share via our food creation, but we are so proud of how far we come from being ex-corporate kids that took a big turn in our lives. We are very proud of what we have building and in 2023, we won a James Beard for Outstanding Bakery. We received so much support from all over the country and the world. Calls, emails and dms poured in stating how proud they were that we received such a recognition. For me, this means that Mexican cuisine is being recognized for its excellence. Representing so many immigrants and all those Mexicans across the world is something that I’m the proudest and I work very hard to not fail them.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

How you fund your business is something very personal as it has to be what you are comfortable with. I get asked many times how we funded Yoli, the truth is that we used our savings and for the first 4 years I worked my corporate job while doing Yoli. We have taken a bank loan for buying larger equipment for us to scale, but as you can imagine this was no small task. Most banks are risk adverse specially when it comes to food businesses. I’m not opposed to taking investors, though when we do make that choice it will be with great responsibility. You hear horror stories on how companies are lost due to investors ROI timelines, etc. In addition, we have a clear vision of who we want to Yoli to be and honestly when we started people did not understood what we were doing. We repeatedly got asked why we were making Mexican products in an already saturated market. Or why make tortillas when there are those very large companies. In our view, the Mexican products market is ready for disruption, innovation and authenticity. Though not everyone can see it until you show it.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In October of 2019, we were set to launch our flour line and a small retail space. Our timeline kept on getting pushed to the following year and absolutely nothing could of prepared us for the pandemic. At this point our business was mostly restaurants with a small percentage consumer. When all the restaurants shut down we were in panic mode getting zero sales. Our stomachs felt so sick, but I’m a strong believer where there are challenges lie new opportunities you may have never seen. Our shop opened in the middle of the pandemic and because we were producing tortillas we were designated an essential business. Overnight, our sales flipped and we were very successful on the consumer side. We also used the pandemic as a way to unite our community. Everyone was fearful and tired of being in lockdown, our chef friends without a place to work…we began a year of pop ups. All chefs that we have been working with came to Yoli on our non-production day and served whatever they wanted, the only rule is use our tortillas somehow. We didn’t charge a fee or anything – pure joy of seeing creativity and the lines would go all the way out. People gathered in our outside yard, brought blankets and chairs. It was so beautiful to see the power of food and community in such sad time in the world. It was hopeful and I will never forget all those messages from people that were so happy they got to do something during the pandemic.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.eatyoli.com
• Instagram: @yolitortilleria.com @artsmolinoandmarket @marissagencarelli
• Facebook: @eatyoli
• Linkedin: Marissa-Gencarelli

Image Credits
Picture of Marissa on at the Yoli retail: Alyssa Broadus Flour Tortillas: Lauren Pusateri Corn Tortillas: Zach Bauman Production images: Alyssa Broadus Yoli Pop Ups: Alyssa Broadus James Beard 2023: Daniel Moroyoqui