S6 Ep11: Grandma's Favorite Snack Gets a Tasty Makeover with Ashley Albert
“When you come up with something, you have to commit to manifesting that thing.” — Ashley Albert
Matzo crackers are a classic snack, but many people struggle to find a good version that doesn't taste like cardboard. Matzo Project co-founders Ashley Albert and Kevin Rodriguez have solved this problem with their revolutionary matzo cracker.
Matzo Project is designed to appeal to consumers who want to enjoy familiar flavors without compromising their health. With its extra snappy texture, sturdy construction, and flavorful ingredients, this cracker is sure a favorite among snack lovers. Matzo crackers are made from natural ingredients and are also vegan, nut-free, and dairy-free. Plus, it's kosher (but not certified for Passover) — reviewed and approved by the Rabbis of the Orthodox Union.
Matzo crackers are also versatile. Their different recipes make it a perfect ingredient for just about anything you crave— from a bowl of soup to your favorite toast.
In this episode, Justine and Ashley discuss how to start an artisanal food brand. They also share advice on key areas such as knowing which avenue suits your business model best, working with a co-founder, the importance of committing to your ideas, and facing the dilemmas of going big in your ventures.
They wrap up the show with their Lucky Subscribers Giveaway. Tune in to find out more details on how to participate and win!
Connect with Ashley:
Ashley Albert, the creative powerhouse behind some of the most iconic ideas of the last decade shows no signs of slowing down. Living in Brooklyn in close vicinity to The Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club, one of her pet projects, Ashley is the driving force behind The Matzo Project and the kids’ band The Jimmies. But aside from her ideas, Ashley’s home- from plants to photos; quirky objects, and unique furniture- paints a vivid image of Ashley’s life and personality.
Connect with Matzo Project:
Episode Highlights:
01:05 Everything Matzo
09:11 From Voiceovers to CPG Company Founder
18:22 Co-Founders Complement
20:03 Manufacturer vs Marketer
22:52 Yes or No— Facing the Dilemma
26:35 Going Big
31:08 Matzo Giveaways!
Tweets:
Revolutionizing the cracker aisle is a challenge accepted for @MatzoProject. Listen in as @jreichman and @pluckypea share how a classic snack has been satisfying cravings and promoting healthy munching! Stay tuned to learn how you can participate in the Lucky Subscribers Giveaway! #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #MatzoProject #healthysnack #kosher #crackers #femalefounders #businessbuilding
Inspirational Quotes:
09:52 "When you come up with something, you have to commit to manifesting that thing." —Ashley Albert
19:32 "It's hard to start something when you want to be that careful about it because you don't take the risk and get messy and see what happened." —Ashley Albert
20:38 "If you want to be a manufacturer, then you have to open your own factory. If you want to be a marketer, you find somebody else that you pay to do that part and you focus on building the brand. We knew right away that we all wanted to be marketers, not manufacturers. And that was really great to have that from the get go and understand how to go down that path." —Ashley Albert
21:29 "In general, you have to be really proud of the thing that you made." —Ashley Albert
24:37 "If we didn't get a deal, it would still be an incredible chance to educate people who've never heard of matzo that matzo is for the people, it's not just a religious thing." —Ashley Albert
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman Good afternoon, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justin Reichman. And with me today is Ashley Albert, the Co-Founder of the Matzo Project. Welcome, Ashley.
Ashley Albert Thank you, Justine.
Justine Reichman It's so great to have you here. I'm a fan of The Matzo Project.
Ashley Albert Yeah. It's so fun. We've already had like a whole-- we've already had our own personal podcast-- for the podcast. She showed me the pre podcast.
Justine Reichman We had the pre podcast. I don't know. I mean, you think people would be interested in our pre podcast. We could show highlights or blurbs or what do they call those?
Ashley Albert Bloopers?
Justine Reichman Bloopers.
Ashley Albert I love it.
Justine Reichman So for those that are not familiar with The Matzo Project, would you just share a little bit about it?
Ashley Albert Sure. So matzah is if you don't know is a traditionally unsexy, unleavened cracker, that Jewish people who are religious and, some who aren't religious, eat for the holiday of Passover. One week of the year, which is in April, usually late March, early April. And nobody likes it. When I asked people how to spell matzah because we spell it M-A-T-Z-O, and I put on, you know, like social media, like how do you spell it? We try to get a consensus? Everybody was like C-A-R-D D-R-Y like nobody-- they were very poor matzah, really got went through the wringer. But, you know, I had this idea to do an artisanal matzah because in the end, it's just like a good neutral cracker. It's like the wind beneath the wing. We have yet to find something that you cannot put on matzah. It's really just like a delivery method. And my pitch is that it is more versatile than a pita chip, more flavorful than a water cracker, and more elegant than a saltine.
Justine Reichman Wow, I like that. Well, my favorite, I have to say I found you by accident. The first time as I told you in Northern California, the Everything Matzo, your branding, your packaging, Everything Matzo, I was so surprised. I loved it.
Ashley Albert It's funny. You mentioned Russ & Daughters in our precast or pre podcast and originally we were going to do a pink Himalayan sea salt and pink pepper corn flavor, a strawberry flavor, and a rosemary lemon peel. And then I have another business. I have a nightclub. And Russ & Daughters was doing their Christmas party or their holiday party at the nightclub. And so I was talking to the owner and I was like, "What do you think? Rosemary lemon peel matzah?" And he said, "You know, you should make it everything matzah. That will go great or let's just serve that with my chopped liver. You have everything matzah?" I was like, "Yeah. We do. We do. We do have everything matzah." And like, "Stop the presses. We gotta do everything matzah." And so we did everything matzah and then we sent it to him and they never wrote me back. They totally ghosted us.
Justine Reichman Come on No way.
Ashley Albert We made everything matzah just for him and they never wrote back. I know.
Justine Reichman Did you send it to him.
Ashley Albert I do send it to him. We were like, here's the matzah. I don't know. Maybe they got eaten on the way or something. But we have Everything Matzo, otherwise you-- maybe we would never have met. So thanks, Russ & Daughters because if it was Rosemary lemon peel, maybe it wouldn't have picked it up.
Justine Reichman Rosemary lemon peel, I have to say sounds really good too. But it sounds like other things I've had.
Ashley Albert Yes.
Justine Reichman Right. It sounds like those fancy crackers but it sounds really good. Like when I think of that I think goat cheese or like some spreadable very elegant cheese. When I think of the Everything Matzo I'm picturing salmon, and cucumber, and a little caviar on top. And to me that feels very much in line with the Everything Bagel. And I could see serving that, you know, some of the Jewish holidays or chopped liver on top or some schmear.
Ashley Albert Yeah. And that's the thing like for people who are-- who have grown up with matzah, but don't have, you know, the people who aren't interested in us other really religious people, like we're at a trade show, and they walked by and we're like, Would you like to try some matzah? They're like, I have enough Matzah. Thank you. Like they don't like matzah. But people who just feel either natural affinity towards it because it feels like cozy and home and family or have never heard of it and just, they're trying it like, is it matzah? What is it? What is the-- matzah? It's made of matzah balls? They asked that all the time. So it's made of matzah balls? Were like, no, no, no. It's matza balls are made of it, matzah balls made of it. But so they don't eat it. You know, my staff at my nightclub just walks around eating the dry matzah and I'm like, what do you-- you can't-- you can't eat it that way. That's not how you eat it. But they don't know. They're just like, oh, it's delicious. You know, they just eat it like a cracker with Eataly. Do you guys have Eataly?
Justine Reichman Well, they do in San Jose now. I haven't been to that one, but, you know, because I'm from New York, and I moved on 22nd Street, easily my backyard.
Ashley Albert So they used our matzah on their like wine and cheese plates. Matzah but as just like a giant sort of like bowls cracher, you know, so.
Justine Reichman I could see that because, you know, those long thin, I don't know what they call them, but they put them on things when you get like [inaudible] a carrier for all these different things. Yeah, that's great. And what a great place to be, Eataly, right, like that is a place that they choose only the best of the best, from cheeses to the meats to the crackers.
Ashley Albert And you can't believe how many people go to Eataly, like the exposure that we got from just being there. I had no idea they had that much traffic going through, but we would hear about it all the time. It was amazing.
Justine Reichman I find so interesting is that, you know, I naturally think of matzah as something that I eat at the holidays, but you've elevated it and you've expanded the brand to something that people can eat and enjoy outside of Passover or Rosh Hashanah, when you're putting, what are the apples and honey, the maror on top of it. For those that don't know what maror is, I think it's apples and honey and walnuts or something. Right? Isn't that what we make?
Ashley Albert Horseradish involved?
Justine Reichman Oh, maybe that's haroset, you know, I don't even know the name but it's about the idea. Right? The haroset, so that's Passover too, though when you put all this stuff on it.
Ashley Albert Right. It's like Hillel sandwich, right? When you do the two with the-- it's horseradish, and like an apple thing and it's like, the sweet and the bitter of life is very similar.
Justine Reichman Aren't you knowledgeable, and you told me you're not so Jewish.
Ashley Albert Now, I'm like, Jewish elites now. It was so funny with these people. I get invited the rabbi who like is the Orthodox Union Rabbi for matzah has invited me over to have like a Seder at his house. And I usually wear kind of low cut things. And I just lucked out that I happen to have something slightly more modest on. Because it didn't occur to me till I was already like, well into Brooklyn before, Oh, my God, oh my god, I think I'm supposed to be completely covered. And oh, my God, this is-- so I just got lucky. But like, what do I know. I'm like a Jew from Miami. I always say that I'm a bacon on sale Jew, which might be
Justine Reichman I remember years ago, I was dating somebody that was, you know, we were both Jewish, but he was a bit more observant. And he used to take me to services on the Upper West Side, like Shomer Shabbat. They were Shomer Shabbat. He wasn't originally but like, as, you know, he got more religious and so we went to these services. And they were-- they separated men and women. Now I come from reform, okay, and you don't have to wear long skirts. You don't have to cover your shoulders. You can drive to synagogue. So we get to synagogue and it was snowing. And I live on 22nd Street and the synagogues on 86th Street. And somebody says, Oh, it must have taken you forever to get here. And I was like, pardon me? We drove. And I wasn't trying to be rude or disrespectful. She's like, Oh, you drove here. I didn't realize that, you know, I mean, it's not that I didn't realize but like, I wasn't trying to be disrespectful. But of course I drove, it's my reality. Right?
Ashley Albert I'm always like, hi, nice to meet you. No, sorry.
Justine Reichman Hopefully, I mean, I learned to be very, you know, mindful of the different sex if you will. And so I'm curious. How did you, you know, you did voiceovers, you have a nightclub, because this was your long term plan. You're retirement plan. And then you got into matzah. So you weren't a first time entrepreneur, obviously. But how did you get into matzah and the CPG world?
"When you come up with something, you have to commit to manifesting that thing." —Ashley Albert
Ashley Albert So we were talking a little bit before about how your special talent is like connecting people and sort of seeing, you know, bringing the strings together. And my special talent is like honing the edges of ideas. Like if you tell me something that you're thinking of, I can tell you how to monetize that thing. It's just like the thing I can do. And so lots of people come to me for advice when they have an idea. Usually I miss hear their idea and then I tell them, like, Oh, this is great. And you could do this, you could do that. And I'm like, Oh, that's not what I meant. I'm like, Oh, well forget that. This is the thing you should do. Anyway, my summer camp friend, Kevin, who I've known forever and ever, over the years had come to me with a bunch of different, really good ideas, but big, you know, when you come up with something, you have to really commit to manifesting that thing. And if you've never done it before, it can feel super overwhelm. He thought about doing an urban nursing home. He thought about doing a coffin company. He thought about doing an--
Justine Reichman Hold on, I'm sorry. Circle back with you.
Ashley Albert -- I might have been [inaudible] I feel like it's ripe for redo. I was just talking about that the other day. Don't steal this idea listeners, but I really feel like I could do like a hip funeral home. The funeral homes that are out there now are like this-- it's somebody it's a long time ago idea of fancy and classy. It's not today's generations version
Justine Reichman [inaudible] of sick and regenerative and
Ashley Albert Yeah. Precisely. Let me go, who knows, it could be a lot of different things, but I feel like it's not-- it's just not aligned with who we are today. I don't want to be like a wood paneled velvet, you know, place with, you know, brocades. So anyway, he came to me and he said, I think I want to start a gelato company. And I was like, Kev, I have never needed gelato. I couldn't find it. I have never had a gelato emergency. Like this is not a problem that needs solving. The world has their gelato already. And he was like, Oh, but I found a guy in Eataly. I can apprentice with and I think it's really good idea. And I said, Okay, we're gonna go around to every gelato store that we can think of in New York for the day. And if at the end of the day, you can tell me what you would do differently, then I will help guide you towards gelato success. So like a rainy February, and we walked around and it was tumbleweeds, tumbleweeds, we didn't see-- I don't think a whole day we probably didn't see any buy gelato. We didn't buy gelato. We just went to look and we looked. We did a gelato kind of day. So anyway, at the end of the day, he was like, I can't open a gelato company. I was like, No, it's a terrible idea. No, you cannot open a gelato company. And just out of nowhere, I remembered an idea that I had had 20 years earlier for next door neighbor whose family was getting rid of their pizza business and they have this pizza oven. And they lived on city Island. And I was like you should keep it and make the city island matzah factory. I don't know, this is my big idea. She had maybe the best job of anybody ever in the whole world. She wrote the tiny two sentence synopsize of movies for New York Magazine. So just like this delightful romp, starring Paul Rudd, you know, could falls flat when it could have sort of, you know, or whatever it is, like just a tiny bit of opinion, tiny bit of-- it was pretty great. So she didn't need to start matzah company. She was like, That's a great idea. Not doing that. So 20 years later, it had just been like macerating in the back of my brain somewhere. And all of a sudden, I was like, Ah, you should start a matzah company. I can't believe that in 20 years, nobody's ever done it. I can't believe since I had the idea still, nobody has ever done it. You should do that. And he said, Yes. I love it. Great idea. Okay. And I was like, goodbye. See you later, send me a box, call me. And then he went home. And he started like rolling out dough and making different versions of it with different fancy salts and different fancy oils and different fancy flowers. And he would bring me drop off my house, little brown paper bags that were numbered. And I would eat it like matzah zard and be like more flour, less oil, different salts. And he kept working on it. And then I was like, this is it. And so we found the recipe and then he was like, Okay, now what? Like you didn't actually know what the idea-- he knew was a good idea but he didn't quite know what the idea was. And I was very clear what the idea was. I knew exactly what the packaging should look like, I knew where would go in the store. I know who would buy it. I just knew. I just knew. And so I was like, Okay, I will get you started, but then I'm out. And then now I have-- I got too far. I got too far. I got too involved.
Justine Reichman I can't hardly see you in the packaging.
Ashley Albert Oh, that's the thing. Kevin and I, so we went to summer camp in North Carolina, as did you.
Justine Reichman I'm familiar.
Ashley Albert But we grew up in South Florida and we had nearly identical South Florida style grandmas. So it's very easy to come up with all of the copy because we just sit around and think of what our grandmothers would actually say. It's like very authentic. Like, we have these chocolate Unger pouch keys and yet, she has a different pop bubble everywhere. And the one from-- there says get them away from me, because that's what my grandmother would definitely say. If there was something very delicious, she'd be like, get them away from me. So like things like that we just are like, yep, that's what she would say. And it's easy to write it. So yeah. Oh, I'll tell you a quick story about that. Somebody said we get a lot of beautiful fan mail from people. It's like the product is a good product on its own, but somehow it touches people in a really interesting different kind of sentimental way and we get so much incredible fan mail. And we got a note from this girl who said, You know I work in Marketing and I just had to write and say I have never seen better branding. Your packaging blew me away. You are so incredible. You know I'm Jewish. I'm not religious, but like I felt like my family was speaking to me directly through your packaging. And usually when someone sends us a really nice note, we'll send them some matzah. You know, we'll send them out to their house as a thank you
Justine Reichman Is anybody listening to this?
Ashley Albert So we sent her some matzah and she took it with her to her family's house. And her grandmother said, you know, this is your cousin Ashley's matzah. It's really her family talking to her from the box. We nailed it.
Justine Reichman That's awesome. I love that. That's so great. Oh, my goodness. So you didn't-- you never thought you'd be in matzah?
Ashley Albert No, definitely not.
Justine Reichman How long was that process, by the way?
Ashley Albert Well, so we did, you know, we did the gelato thing. Maybe he spent two weeks bringing over stuff. And then you know, because I own this nightclub people will take meetings with me. So I sort of went like, try to feel it out, like, is anybody going to buy this? And I went and met with like four different grocery stores, buyers, and all four buyers were like, Great, okay, so we'll take like, I don't know, maybe like four cases of each flavor to start. And we were like, Okay, let's thank you. We'll be right back. And then I was like, Oh my God, what are we gonna do? We were--
Justine Reichman You gotta make matzah.
Ashley Albert -- matzah roller with like, cabinets white, like soldered together, pizza cutters, somebody else was putting dots on it. It was a very hands on process. People are like, did you get video that? I was like, who had time video? Who had time for video? We're barely surviving. But so I was like, Okay, we're not going to be able to fulfill four boxes of each. We had three flavors with cinnamon sugar, everything and salted. And so I went back to them and I said, Listen, we're going to make as much as we can make, this in preparation for Passover.
Justine Reichman What year was this, by the way?
Ashley Albert 2017. And so I said, we're gonna make as much of it as we can make. And when it runs out, it runs out. And then I got a little bit repress, and people were waiting in line before they opened and all four stores were sold out by 11 o'clock in the morning. Okay, okay, people want this now. Okay. Okay. So then we got serious and we started-- we were doing a little commissary kitchen. We moved to like a kosher bakery in Coney Island. We were still doing it by hand but now we're doing it with like much bigger ovens and more sophisticated equipment, still very labor intensive. And then we got asked to do the James Beard Seder.
Justine Reichman Well done. Congratulations.
Ashley Albert You know, we were like, Oh, well, lilke a matzah chips. Matzah chips. So like, we're just making stuff up as we're going along here. And so we made the matzah chips, which was really the original matzah chips didn't look anything at all, like our current matzah chips. And then we went to the Fancy Food Show, which is in June. We got there and we were like the bells of the ball. And everybody wanted to order from us. And we were like, Oh, we still-- Oh, no, we still can't. We can't. We can't fulfill any orders. No, we were still not ready. So we told everybody give us six months. And we took those six months to like really scale up to like now we really can feed the entire world with matzah. No one will ever run out of matzah as long as we're in business. We work in a giant ,giant, pristine cracker factory. It's not our factory, but it's a factory. And then we, you know, we'd launched like, January 2018, like New Year's Day, we were like, Okay, we're ready. We just shipped it all out and here we are.
Justine Reichman That's amazing. So out of curiosity, what's Kevin's background?
Ashley Albert So Kevin, he's a Cuban Jew. Kevin Rodriguez.
Justine Reichman Juban.
"It's hard to start something when you want to be that careful about it because you don't take the risk and get messy and see what happened." —Ashley Albert
Ashley Albert Juban. And he worked-- he became like an interior designer, like he got his degree in interior designing or for Vera Wang for a long time doing her like wedding suites, doing them furniture and stuff for her and that kind of thing. But he never really like found his thing. So that's why he was always-- he and his wife, his wife is Chinese. He's like, we're gonna start a hand pulled noodle company, really loves food. He's like, super meticulous. He's like the kind of person who takes like 40 minutes to make his coffee in the morning, you know what I'm talking about? It's like weird, like, grinder, one of a kind never seen before grinder and he individually shines each bean in the sunshine before he, you know, like, he really likes to do things very beautifully. He just has like, impeccable taste, but he's also like, the Min Chi Min just of all menchi guys. He's the nicest, sweetest, kindest, most gentle, wonderful person. And so yeah, like he knew he wanted to do something with food. But again, being someone who's so meticulous, it's hard to start something when you want to be that careful about it because you don't take the risk and get messy and see what happened. As you can probably tell from from my side of things, again, things really messy. I'm like, here's what we're gonna do. So it's we're a nice complement to each other because then he comes in and just sort of like smooths out the edges of everything after I've burned it together and walked away
Justine Reichman That's amazing. You have the business sense and, you know, business acumen and you've run other businesses and now you're in the matzah business, which you never dreamed of but
"If you want to be a manufacturer, then you have to open your own factory. If you want to be a marketer, you find somebody else that you pay to do that part and you focus on building the brand. We knew right away that we all wanted to be marketers, not manufacturers. And that was really great to have that from the get go and understand how to go down that path." —Ashley Albert
Ashley Albert Yeah. And he really runs the show in terms of like operations. He's, like, learned so much and now I think it's like a very knowledgeable, like seasoned guy. Like now we've been doing it for, you know, five or six years, something like that. And he like really knows his stuff. Now, people come to him for advice about how to start a brand. And when we started, I got like, two books on Amazon that were like how to start an artisanal food brand. And one of the things that it said was that you have to decide whether you want to have-- be a manufacturer, right away, if you want to be a manufacturer or marketer. And if you want to be a manufacturer, then you have to go open your own factory. And that is, you know, employees and lights and machinery and that kind of thing. If you want to be a marketer, you find somebody else that you pay to do that part and you focus on building the brand. And so we knew right away that we all wanted to be marketers, not manufacturers. And that was really great to have that from the get go and understand how to go down that path. And so we can really, if they want to know how to be manufacturers, we don't have to tell them, but if they want to be marketers, we can go down that path.
Justine Reichman Do you feel like your experience in Royal Palms and instead set you up to be a marketer?
"In general, you have to be really proud of the thing that you made." —Ashley Albert
Ashley Albert I think that in general, I am like a little bit of a like, I'm a good hype man when it's something I'm really excited about anyway. I am also the lead singer of a marginally successful rock band for children. And so when that happened, you know, I feel like, in general, I think you have to be really proud of the thing that you made. And then at marketing now it feels so like, slimy, where I feel like for me, marketing is like, I feel like I'm doing somebody a favor. When I'm like, check that out. I'll talk to you later. You know, like, I don't feel like, oh, if you could just try my matzah. I just like, let me give you some matzah. You know, it feel like and I think that's the way you have to market you have to feel so excited about your brand. And I think that the projects that I've done so far have all been that for me. So yes, I think in long the answer's yes.
Justine Reichman And so curious, so you have-- how many different flavors now?
Ashley Albert We have a harissa flavor, salted and everything and a cinnamon sugar in like flats and chips. And then we do a cinnamon sugar bite that's on JetBlue, like in a little snack--
Justine Reichman [inaudible] JetBlue.
Ashley Albert Oh, yeah. We're door party pack number four. Like if there was ever a question about whether or not like matzah could be a year round snack, we're not in the special secret kosher snack pack. We're with the like m&ms and beef jerky and Swedish Fish and air, you know, cheese crisps. It's like a legitimate snack in there, which is really exciting.
Justine Reichman That is great. I love the fact that you're on the airplane as a snack.
Ashley Albert I know. Yeah.
Justine Reichman That is awesome. So when you look forward, what are some of the other kinds of places you see yourselves?
Ashley Albert So we've said no, much more than we have said yes so far. You know, we got an order from Walmart for $250,000, pretty quickly after we first started. And we were like, No, we cannot do that. We're gonna get on their shelves and off of their shelves. WalMart customer does not know about us, and they don't want to know about us yet and we're just not be able to do it.
Justine Reichman Do you see shark tank in your future, like, have they approached you?
Ashley Albert They have. And I think for me, I think it's a great idea for our brand because when you see a brand that you've learned about on Shark Tank, it's sort and you buy it, it's like buying, it's like getting its autograph. Like you're like I saw it on TV and then buying it. It's sort of like participating in the show in a really interesting way. I just don't think that we're ready for it. What i really don't want is for us to go up there and then to do like a thing where they ask us a question, and then they edit it out so it looks like there's crickets chirping and we look like blindsided. You know, how sometimes they do that? I like really I'm afraid that they're gonna do that to us about something. I'm like, I can't. There has to be, I gotta wait until I can handle that kind of mockery?
Justine Reichman Well, you know, I don't know how flexible they are with their agreements. They probably are very buttoned up and have limited ability for you to [inaudible] But you know, I would imagine that, you know, you're pretty seasoned with this, you know how to respond, you know how to make those comments and present yourself. But my question to you with that is, what would your agenda be? Would it be just to get yourself in front of it to potentially get money or really just to get the, you know, the attention, the press, regardless.
"If we didn't get a deal, it would still be an incredible chance to educate people who've never heard of matzo that matzo is for the people, it's not just a religious thing." —Ashley Albert
Ashley Albert I think for us, I mean, obviously, if we didn't get a deal, it would still be incredible-- an incredible chance to educate people who've never heard of matzah that this is for matzah for the people. It's not just a religious thing. It's not--
Justine Reichman Matzah for the people. I love that. Matzah for the people.
Ashley Albert But we've never taken any money. So Kevin and I have just sort of funded it ourselves and everything we've made we've just put right back into it. We've never taken a dime out of the company. Like everything we make, we just put back. And it would be nice, I think, for Kevin to make some money eventually from it. But I think as we grow, we're starting to see a lot more things that we're not able to do because we don't have capital behind us, you know. When you go into a grocery store, you have to pay-- you have to get free fill, which seems like it's just free fill is product, but, you know, they go into 200 stores, and they want free fill a case of every product you have that's like 1000 cases that you're giving away for free. And it's really prohibitive. So we could use the money but more than that, we just like have been really lucky and wong it so far. But I feel like we could really use some guidance now about where to go next.
Justine Reichman Like human capital now. It would be the financial capital, human capital.
Ashley Albert Yeah. And I think that's something that maybe, like those three things together is what Shark Tank probably offers. It's expensive money. I could go raise cheaper money somewhere else and I probably could find some human help somewhere else. But sort of that trifecta of like, the marketing and the exposure and the help and the money I think together might be-- might be worth it but not in exchange for crickets and double.
Justine Reichman Oh, my gosh. And so, you know, if you were to get the human and the financial capital, I'm curious, in your head, do you have an idea of vision for next where do you see yourselves going? Any idea news, new concepts?
Ashley Albert Well, so first, you know, we haven't gotten into like big grocery stores. So far, we've been in lots of like little specialty stores, we're going into Whole Foods global and we've been in Whole Foods for a long time. And now we're going into like, all the Whole Foods is. So that's like our biggest grocery store. But it's almost time to go into, like the stop at shops and that sort of thing. And I think if we did that sort of thing, we would need a lot more marketing first. If you can't do that stuff without marketing, you need to do the free fill, you need to do promotions and coupons and there's just a lot of that stuff. My dream is to go into the deli section, like you know, the section where they have the bagel chips and the brownie brittle and like, it's like the land of misfit toys, like it's where nothing belongs anywhere else. They just throw it there. So I really would love to be-- I feel like that's where we're gonna, if we're in the kosher section, people who are shopping for us are not shopping in the kosher section and people shopping in the kosher section are not shopping for us. They want to put us there, because it's exciting to have one new thing, alll the things. But yeah, so that and then we're also, you know, we're not kosher for passover. And that's not a problem for a lot of people but there definitely are people who are like you're having a matzah company and you don't have anything that's kosher. How is that even possible? So we're thinking about doing like a limited edition commemorative tin-- matzah shaped tin with a different like grammar of the year, every year. And here's where your listeners could come in handy. We got something in it. I haven't figured out what because we could use-- we could collaborate with like a matzah company in Israel and put their matzah in or gluten free matzah, but it's yucky. And I don't want people to eat that matzah and then think that that's our matzo we make all year or eat it like just like all the other matzo, it's just too risky.
Justine Reichman What about doing something that's not matzah?
Ashley Albert Yes, exactly. We need something that's--
Justine Reichman Because if it's matzah but if you were to do something like, okay, and I'm just throwing this out there, I'm not suggesting it, but you know, how they have those, what are those orange slices, I'm just using something like that, or the chocolate covered almonds or, you know, things that we eat, right? At that time of year. So if you did something like that
Ashley Albert that's the idea is to do to have the box so that it feels giftable and you can put your yucky matzah in it until Passover is over and then you can use it for our matzah after that. But I haven't quite figured out what the thing is. I think it does have to be a candy item maybe or it can be, you know, we make this matzo ball soup kit. We could do like soup for group and then you can't if you bring it to a party, you can't enjoy it there. Right. It's like then you make it and you give it to them for later. So if it was a box that had something in it that you could actually enjoy then in there. I feel like that's the thing. I'm saying maybe chocolate covered potato chips.
Justine Reichman That's good. I think maybe we should throw this out to our listeners our viewers to you know, put suggestions in the comments. If you're listening, if you're viewing, you know, throw out suggestions.
Ashley Albert It just can't have-- you can't rise, it can't be having a yeast in it. Yeah, can't be leavened and it's pretty easy to make things kosher for passover that aren't things like matzah. So I think it's a little bit less strange in a process if there isn't any flour in it, ideally no flour. And what else can't be in it?
Justine Reichman I think the question is is like, what's your favorite Passover treat that you get or that you eat on the holidays that maybe Ashley can collaborate with?
Ashley Albert Or is there something that you have a feeling couldn't be kosher for passover, but you haven't had it's a Passover treat like I think, sponge? No, like honeycomb sponge. I don't know why but I somehow think that that's kosher for passover even though it's absolutely rises it's got like baking soda in it. But I was like, oh, chocolate covered sponge could be delicious.
Justine Reichman Macaroons?
Ashley Albert Macarons. Good, but again, hard to make-- hard to make delicious if we're not making it our central thing. Like I feel like we work with a chocolate tear already, because we have the own capatch keys. So I don't know but that's the product.
Justine Reichman Okay. This is are asked to our listeners and our viewers, we want to hear from you. So, you know, I want to tell them about our giveaway too.
Ashley Albert Oh yeah. We're gonna send some lucky listener, viewer?
Justine Reichman Either or because we have--
Ashley Albert Some lucky subscriber, a matzo project minima Gila, which is a box delivered to your door with a little bit of all of the things that we make. So there'll be some harissa chips and some cinnamon chips and some salted chips, and maybe some everything flats and some matzah ball soup. And you know, she'll get a little bit of everything to try.
Justine Reichman So in order to participate in this, you will have to stay tuned for our instructions, you'll have to follow along, make sure that you tick every box, and then we will let you know who wins. Oh my god, this was such a fun conversation. I love learning all about what you're doing all about all your projects. And I want to stay tuned snd we must stay in touch follow Matzo Project. And I'd love to be able to share some of those recipes for Passover as well. So I just want to make sure that everyone has access to the Matzo Project and can get it in time for Passover. Could you just share with us where everybody can find and by the Matzo Project?
Ashley Albert You can always get it at Matzoproject.com, M-A-T-Z-O matzo project. And I mean in specialty like beautiful jewel box like cheese shops and specialty stores all around the country and Whole Foods and Amazon if, you know, if must.
Justine Reichman Okay. We'll addd it to our Amazon shop so everyone can get it. So stay tuned, we'll make sure that it's there for anyone that's here. And we have our giveaway coming up. So make sure you stay tuned for those instructions so you can win the amazing giveaway for your Passover. And it was so great to chat with you.
Ashley Albert Thank you so much.
Justine Reichman I can't wait to connect when you are here soon.
Ashley Albert Yeah. I'll see you in April.
Justine Reichman Awesome. Thanks so much.
Ashley Albert Have a great day.
