There is always a Better Whey

A Day In My Life As An Entrepreneur

Today, like many of my days, consisted of thinking through and executing better ways to run my business. On the surface, it was no different than a day at Kraft, where I was constantly tasked with bigger, better, faster. The difference is, as my former Kraft colleague so eloquently said, I am not making incremental changes to a product that has been in the hands of countless brand managers over the course of years or filling in the blanks of annual planning templates. I am creating this template with limited precedent data.

Here is what today entailed…

FedEx arrived with samples of our new packaging. We improved our graphics and added “Vitamin D” copy to the package. The new packaging will run at our plant on Wednesday and will be hitting shelves in the next few weeks! Ahhh…if only it could be that easy. Much to our dismay, packaging printers made a few mistakes that, if you look closely, you may notice. On back of the package, you will see what you may think is a colorful design. The line of circles should NOT be there! And the purple printing is not consistent; some areas are dark and some are light. The packaging is definitely a “Better Whey” from where we are today, but we are still not there yet! We are quickly regrouping with the printer.

Next we sampled several prototypes. Brian is screening a variety of ingredients to improve the taste of our plain yogurt (people say it is way too sour) and we are also looking at some delicious new products for future launch (that’s about all I’ll say so as to not tip our hat too much!). Brian convinced me today there are definitely “Better Wheys” to formulate our current and future product. Stay tuned on that, lots more to come…

Next, we thought through future growth plans. A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with Julie Smolyasky from Lifeway Kefir. She gave me some interesting advice on growth, which is impacting our expansion strategy. After looking over our original business strategy, I believe there is a “Better Whey” now!

All that, and still time for a workout and blog post!