We were lucky to catch up with Tony Rivas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tony , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

I always tell people these three key things in being successful. First, don’t give up in the face of failure. When we had the fire in our Tampa factory in 2017, I had two choices: to face the challenge and come out the other side, or to quit.

Second, take a leap of faith, but have a parachute. I suggest having a business plan or some type of document that is thoroughly thought out.

My last key to being successful is to have a network. Being a business owner can be very lonely, and I am part of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Business program where I’ve been able to find a supportive group.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Tony Rivas, and I’m the president of Chifles Chips; a plantain chip company based out of Miami, FL.

The brand started over 61 years ago, in 1963, and is the oldest Hispanic brand in the U.S. When my father was 19, he started working for Borges Distributor and distributed Chifles around Miami. He worked his way up to buying Borges Distributor.

When I was a kid, I would unload boxes of Chifles before school and during the summer. This really taught me the value of money and the importance of hard work. I graduated from an all-boys high school and went on to the University of Florida to study engineering. After college, I moved to Texas for an engineering job for 4 years. Afterwards, I moved back to South Florida to work in pharmaceutical sales. After 5 years, I was ready to go into the family business. In 2010, we brought on Mission Tortillas, which was a key point in helping us become strong distributors. After losing a major brand in 2015, we wanted to have our own brand that we distributed, which led to acquiring Chifles in 2017.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Our resilience got us through the fire at our Tampa factory. On November 10th, we lost everything. The factory burned at 400 degrees for 14 hours. We had to start from scratch. The day I got back from Tampa, my wife had gotten me a pair of Chifles-branded Nikes for my birthday with a note that read ‘Chifles is not just a brand, but a family.’ That was when I knew we had to keep going.

Have you ever had to pivot?

With the fire, we had to pivot our whole strategy. In Tampa, we did everything in house, but that wasn’t the best way to optimize freshness. we started to outsource from Latin America which increased the quality of our chips and made them taste better. We wanted to simply our production, so we can focus on what we are good at which is distribution. Today we are bigger, stronger, and continuing to grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chifleschips.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chifleschips/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-rivas-259890178/