Making the Most of Every Opportunity: How to Get the Word Out About Your CPG Business in New Ways with Parker Olson
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Creatively Marketing Your Consumer Packaged Goods Brand…
Let’s be honest: marketing your consumer packaged goods can get a little boring, right? There’s a certain flow we all follow to get the word out about our products and it can feel like there’s nothing new under the sun. But that’s not necessarily true. Videos, podcasts, and influencers have opened up new marketing avenues that are fresh and exciting.
In this episode, I’m interviewing Parker Olson, founder of Fōrij superfood granola made with functional mushrooms. Parker shares how changing his diet led him to mushrooms, how he tried and tested his products, and the out of the box ways he markets his company, like living in a tent for two years while he created his company and filmed it!
We also chat about how becoming an entrepreneur has changed him by allowing him to be his most authentic self and setting his own rules.
Subscribe to the Food Means Business Podcast with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones to hear the personal stories and “secret ingredients” of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
[00:41] Parker shares his journey from employee to founder, and how experiments with his diet led him to mushrooms
[06:28] Parker shares the first steps he took to launch his food company, Fōrij, by running test tastes and tweaking the product to make it better
[11:06] How Parker found his target consumer
[18:50] Some out of the box ways Parker marketed his products
[20:21] Parker shares about hiring interns, growing his team, and networking with other CPG founders
[24:06] How entrepreneurship has changed him
If you want to hear more about how to market your food products in creative ways, be sure to tune into this episode:
Links mentioned in this episode…
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About Parker Olson:
Parker Olson is the founder of Fōrij, a functional granola company based in Seattle, WA. He spent 18 months recording how different diets impacted his health, from mood to sleep & energy. One month, he tried functional mushrooms and they transformed how he felt on a day to day basis. The issue? Mushrooms taste gross. The solution? A delicious superfood granola packed with hyperconcentrated mushroom extracts from the lion's mane and brown button!
Connect with parker olson:
Connect with Parker on LinkedIn
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
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[00:00:02] Djenaba You are listening to the Food Means Business podcast, which features the personal stories and secret ingredients behind what it's like to abandon your day job to start a CPG food and beverage business. I'm Djenaba Johnson-Jones, a former marketing executive turned entrepreneur and founder of food business incubator Hudson Kitchen. Join our community of fellow food business owners and subject matter experts to learn and laugh with us as we explore a startup world that's a little more culinary and a lot less corporate these days. Hi, Parker. Welcome to the Food Means Business podcast. We're so happy that you're here now.
[00:00:37] Parker Thanks for having me in Djenaba so we can just chat food and catch up.
[00:00:41] Djenaba I want to hear all about your story, but first, tell us about your journey from employee to founder.
[00:00:46] Parker Oh, that's a long, winding journey. Just being super honest. But yeah, I graduated school in neuroscience finance backgrounds, went into management consulting. I was working in that realm for a while and found nutrition through a set of experiments that I ran myself and became so compelled that I had to start creating my own products to help get certain mushroom nutrients into people's diets, which I'm sure we'll jump into today. But I love the question. As a side note, I actually was doing contractor work for my old employer for close to two years while I got for my current business off the ground.
[00:01:23] Djenaba That's good to hear because, you know, you kind of hear these stories of people just of leaving their job and kind of abandoning it to start their business. But it's nice to know that you kind of kept something on the side to keep money flowing in, I assume.
[00:01:34] Parker Yeah, precisely. It's I'm sure, as you're very aware and others are as well, it's a huge challenge and endeavor to kind of get your own operation off the ground, especially in food.
[00:01:43] Djenaba Yeah, very true. So you mentioned that you did a series of experiments. So can you give us a little bit of information about what you did?
[00:01:49] Parker Of course, yeah. I don't know what like there wasn't anything that, you know, I was super hellbent on. But the roommate that I was living with at the time, in 2018, he ate like crap effectively. So, you know, it was eating Pop Tarts and Cheez-Its, and that's what he ate when he went to the grocery store and he didn't know how to cook. And so I was giving him a hard time one day and we made a bet. And I said, I think I could go vegan for 30 days if you're willing to join or if you would eat healthy and effectively I went on like a very strictly vegan diet for 30 days and was sort of fun. And I noticed kind of fundamental shifts in how I felt towards the end of that 30 day period. So it was really after day like 15, 16, 17 for me, and I thought it was a good time and was having fun. And so I thought, okay, I'm just going to do this again with another sort of nutritional regimen or diet. And I ended up spending 18 months in a row trying nutritional regimens for most of those months. Wow. Yeah, it was it was a lot it was fun, though. I had a really good time with it for most of the months.
[00:02:49] Djenaba Why do you say most of them?
[00:02:51] Parker There were some really challenging ones. The Whole30 was really challenging for the first couple of weeks. Keto was was really challenging and I wasn't doing this half baked or I wasn't doing it where I was eating crap, like I was being super regimented, eating really healthy throughout all of these lifestyles. But those who were challenging I found gluten free to also be really challenging. So I don't know. I think everybody's unique and I think things like that are really valuable for people to go through individually and not just take, you know, my experiences or others experiences kind of for a fact.
[00:03:22] Djenaba Got it. So with this experiment, you ended up with mushrooms.
[00:03:26] Parker Yeah. So good question. How did I get there? Yeah, Yeah. After about 12 months of going through more standard diets, right? Like vegetarian, pescatarian, keto, Whole30, like more like, I guess what I would call culture diets. I started getting into more niche subjects and topics, and one of them, which I was starting to learn about were these like adaptogens are cultural mushrooms. And I had a really interesting experience with functional mushrooms at a class that I went to at a local apothecary that was all about adaptogens and tonics. And I felt like the very real benefits of a reishi mushroom during this class and felt really compelled by these mushrooms. So I decided for one month I would go off of all supplementation. You know, I am always here and there is supplementation and that also I went off of all caffeine and I made my own sort of functional mushroom teas or I guess tonics, if you will, and that that was like the month. So that month in particular was the month that I felt best. So I was just like sleeping super well. I'm like a lot of energy was really efficient and really productive at work, just like felt like all systems were go. So that month in particular had a really big impact on me and, you know, my background being in neuroscience, I understood it was more like medicinal or psychedelic mushrooms do to your body. But I never really looked into some of these functional mushrooms that are totally legal, that they're consumed all around the world. And so I dove really heavy into the research there, just out of curiosity, and started to find like really impressive studies that were being done around the world on a lot of these mushrooms and mostly kind of in the Eastern Hemisphere. So I just became very compelled by what was happening in the space and and a little bit inspired to kind of help bring that to more of the Western Hemisphere or to my own society as a whole.
[00:05:17] Djenaba So what made you decide on a food product versus a beverage? Because I've seen a lot of mushroom coffee's in those types of things.
[00:05:24] Parker As I kind of like started to explore the different products that were available. Something that I realized pretty quickly was the modern and mass consumer will not consume whatever it is unless it tastes really good, right? I don't think that's a super surprise to anyone. And I wasn't very impressed with a lot of the coffees on the market. And so for me, I actually started to take these different mushroom supplements and I was making my own extracts and tinctures at home and I would put them into my own breakfast. So I was putting it into like a cereal or an oatmeal and then eventually a granola. And I basically was working with my roommate sister who was living with us at the time. And she's a very talented baker and chef. And we just started coming up with recipes to see, okay, how could we get these mushrooms into different things that I was eating in a way where you really couldn't even tell that the flavor was there. So that's kind of how we started on food. It was more so, you know, an opportunistic component. And the idea that we felt a strong belief that we could get these mushrooms into different foods without impacting flavor.
[00:06:28] Djenaba Okay, So you decided you're going to launch this food company. What did you do? First?
[00:06:32] Parker I was this is all going on and I'm experimenting my own and I'm putting these mushrooms in different foods and we're trying to have recipes and really having fun. It was it was just out of like fun and curiosity. And I start bringing these creations into my office where I'm working and I'm like doing surveys and I'm handing them out. And again, it was just it was so much fun. So around the same time, I found myself at a startup conference just visiting a friend's. He was going, he was trying to network, I don't know. And everybody at the Startup Conference is asking, okay, what do you do? Like what are you working on? What are you building? And I wasn't building anything or that I thought, so I made it up on the spot and was like, Well, I'm going to build the first mushroom based food product set. And nine out of ten people, it was like a tech conference in San Francisco looked at me and really could care less. And one guy in particular, it was an angel investor, thought that it was really clever and he thought that like we were ahead of the market and he was friends with the guy who was putting on the startup conferences named Sam Parr. And he was like, Sam loves this stuff. You got to go tell him about it. So he brings it up to Sam and there's like 20 people who are trying to network with Sam and get his contact information. And this guy cuts everybody off and is like, Sam, you need to talk to Parker, who is this really cool mushroom concept that you're going to want to hear about. So we exchange information and, you know, they were like, okay, cool, send me your pitch deck. And so the first thing I did was I went on to Fiverr and I and I had a logo made and then I made a pitch deck and then went home and I thought, okay, I'm going to have to start figuring out how to sell this product. Clearly there's intrigue from people who are following this market. That was kind of the very first move, if you will.
[00:08:08] Djenaba Were you able to get investment from Sam Parr?
[00:08:11] Parker No, no, we didn't get investment for eight or nine months. But that to me, like it validates some of like the external market intrigue. And then I went back to Seattle, which is where I live, and we took our granola and we started going like cafe to cafe and selling it to different cafes and I was at the gym. There was a month long period where I wouldn't let myself leaves a gym until I had ran five taste tests with people in the gym. So I would bring like product. And for me I thought, okay, if I could really solve the taste equation and our products would have these elevated benefits around then of health and energy. I really felt like there was a really great opportunity there. We were solving kind of a real issue. So every single day I would go to the gym and I would bring, you know, competing products and little white ketchup cups and I would run taste tests, you know, kind of there while I was going and selling at different cafes and kind of monitoring.
[00:09:07] Djenaba So that was a great idea because that way you get feedback. Were you able to make changes to the product or did you feel like you had the right product all along?
[00:09:13] Parker We made changes for two years. I mean, we're arguably still making changes on some levels, but after about six months, we started working with a product developer who we have some sort of core principles around our products now of how we're able to effectively incorporate an additional amount of these mushrooms into our products while not impacting flavor. And so we worked with a product developer to kind of get to that point where it was like a little bit more scientific and not just us, like in the kitchen, you know, splitting up a sheet pan into six ones and trying different things in each one. So.
[00:09:47] Djenaba So when did you get to the point where you were actually packaging something to sell to consumers?
[00:09:52] Parker So we were selling cafes for a while and an opportunity came along basically to sell in like a local subscription box. And it was like kind of right after COVID had had this is like early 2020 and we had been reached out to. And so they were like, Hey, we would love to sell your products. So you've heard of them. We've had them in this cafe. We think it's really cool. Do you sell them in bags? And I thought, Well, of course we do. And so I went out and sourced craft bags and went and got like a little stamper. And thankfully, I noticed one of my friends in Seattle kept posting about this chocolate company in Seattle. And so I had told them, I said, Hey, you know, do you know that the founders of Joe's Chocolate, how do you know Joe? And he's like, Well, his name's on Joe, but I do know I'm his name's Peter. And so Peter was the one who I told him about this opportunity. And I was like, How do you put product in bags? And he said, Okay, well, why don't you come over? And I came over and he gave me like a heat sealer, and he kind of like showed me different things and he let me use their kitchen space. And so that was kind of when we started like just out of more opportunistically, we're really great. We should put product in bags. And I think that was our very first purchase order for like $6,000.
[00:11:05] Djenaba Wow. That's amazing. So tell me a little bit about your target audience, because there's a specific person that's interested in consuming mushroom products for their health. So I would love to hear about that.
[00:11:16] Parker We're always sort of testing this. I think right now we really have two core consumers. The way that I like to think about it and frame it in my own mind is there's a reactive consumer and there's a proactive consumer. So this reactive consumer is more so like learning about these benefits of mushrooms because they have a problem. So typically it's an older consumer, like 50 to 65 or like 45 to 65 maybe, and maybe they're starting to see some cognitive decline or looking for ways to sort of address some some age related concerns and are looking for natural ways to do that. So they're Googling, they're talking to their doctor. And then something we've invested a lot in is our SEO and blog presence. So, you know, like last month we drove over 50,000 unique users to the website who are learning about the benefits of lion's mane. And so these are people who have a concern, are learning, hey, this is an interesting natural remedy. Let me try this. Right. And people are compelled by being kind of in an art in an existing food item. So that's sort of one core audience. And then the other audience is more of this like proactive, younger audience, right? You can think like young family, young mom who they know about more like functional ingredients. They're intrigued about functional ingredients and getting them into their both their own diet and in their children's diet. So we're actually we're seeing quite an interesting customer segment open up with like more family and children's specifically.
[00:12:34] Djenaba That's interesting. So you got your product into the boxes. What happened next after the subscription boxes?
[00:12:40] Parker So the subscription box company, I think like unfortunately I think went under like a year later and they pivoted. I actually think they still exist, but they're like a video editing company now that clearly, clearly multi-faceted. And after that we started selling online and at the time I was living in my tent in the backyard, I had several roommates.
[00:13:03] Djenaba Okay, wait, wait, wait. Why?
[00:13:08] Parker So I was storing product and like equipment and whatever in my old bedroom I bought like, metal racking. I didn't have money to pay for a warehouse and had gotten to the point where during the day, I would like store boxes of random things on my bed. And then I would have to, like, move them off of my bed to, like, go to sleep at night or I was only sleeping on half the bed. And it just became like kind of alarming. So I decided, okay, I'm just going to move outside. Like, I'll be fine, like I can sleep 365 in Seattle in a tent. It's not that big of a deal. I didn't even really think about, like, the end game. I just moved outside. Yeah. And I ended up living outside in a tent for two years. Wow. And, like, throughout the bed. We have like, full metal racking in the house. There are desks. When we had interns our first summer, like from the university, we were all working in the bedroom. So right around like kind of year one when I was living in the tent. Everyone's talking about B2C, and we were working in an agency for a man. Things work obviously for a while. And so one day I just like I was like, okay, I'm going to make good content and I'm going to like, sell our products online. And so I kind of what was next was I started making this content about like me living in a tent. So like, do what I'm doing and why I'm so passionate and compelled and about my story. And we had some videos that like, went viral and like, really did super, super well for a long time and kind of got us kind of a little bit off the ground, if you will. That was kind of the next stage was more of this like B2C got us off the ground like showed some validity. We started to get like really good reviews like strong repurchase rate. And then from there we got a really cool opportunity with one of the distributors basically who was like, Hey, we saw your ad. We think this is really cool. We'd love to put you in our like emerging brand portfolio. So like, you don't have to enter any of our distribution centers, but you have access to any of them that you'd like. And so, like here are the different retailers that pull from them. And so that was a slight transition into focusing a little bit more on retail, and that was maybe mid 2021, I think. Yeah, like mid-to-late 2021.
[00:15:09] Djenaba Got it. So what happened next?
[00:15:12] Parker Yeah. So then 2021 and we have access to distribution and we're intrigued by it and the DTC became a lot more challenging around that time. There like was the iOS update and and whatnot. And we were talking to some investors at that point, like we kind of required some capital is like keep growing. We were just like running production runs at a certain size where it was like, we kind of need some money to like float our our cash to cash cycle as well. And we're looking at maybe outsourcing production to a manufacturer or like getting a space ourselves. And we were in really deep with a couple of angel investors who traditional sales guys they like built their own business very like going to go to every door, knock on their door. And I resonate with that on a lot of levels. And so, you know, we all knew about this distribution kind of opportunity or access. And during COVID, you had to just email people like you couldn't meet with people anymore. And there became a lot of challenges. But in the same phase, there became a lot of cool opportunity. So I put together this plan and this idea that I would buy effectively a glorified minivan. And between you and I, I originally purchased a pop up like camper that went on my old car. So I'd like an old, like, SUV and like, untie strings and like this, like, thing on top pops up. Right? Which would have been absurd if I lived out of that. But I thankfully, I found this, like, really cool 1995 Japanese import pop up camper van, pretty affordable like wheels on the other side of the car. And I convinced these guys I was like, look, like I'm going to go pursue some of this distribution in a couple of these regions. I think we could do really well and I will leave the tent and I'll move into this van and I will drive around the country for as long as it takes.
[00:16:58] Djenaba Oh, my goodness.
[00:16:59] Parker And I had a girlfriend at the time. She wasn't super stoked about that.
[00:17:03] Djenaba I'm thinking not. Yeah.
[00:17:09] Parker And so they were like, awesome. Like, and in my mind, you know, when there's so much noise coming through email and everyone's just trying to get on a call and I'm like, Hey, I'm going to drive a thousand miles to come meet you, and we can stand six feet apart, but I'm still going to drive a thousand miles like that. That's how much I care about this. I thought it was a compelling reason for people to give me some attention.
[00:17:28] Djenaba I agree. So what happened? Did you get to meet with the people you wanted to meet with?
[00:17:31] Parker Yeah, I'm. Oh, my God. I have PTSD from living in that van. I do that for a year and I got us actually, I was looking at my I had some memories I got off almost exactly a year ago or a little bit less because I got on in September and I came back like late August. So. Okay. Yeah, I drove around a lot of the country and most of it was work. I slept in, I don't know, probably 150 different grocery store parking lots. Was sampling product, demoing product, was meeting with buyers, was opening up different distribution. Yeah. I mean, there's probably to unpack there, but it's like I probably, I think I've blacked out like half of it, honestly.
[00:18:09] Djenaba I mean, you really had to because if you had said this was, you know, set out to be that three year plan, you probably would have done it. So it makes sense.
[00:18:16] Parker Totally. Yeah. But, you know, it's really like in my mind and how I think about this business and this game is like it's so saturated, like it's so saturated and like, cash is so challenging, but consumers, so many, so many options. The buyers have so many options. And like you really need a way to differentiate yourself and stand out. And so, you know, I always had thought in terms of just like trying to garner attention or put together good content or like really try and get some of these meetings in terms of how we're going to market. So that's a little bit of of the background and backstory on on Forij.
[00:18:48] Djenaba That's. Crazy and definitely shows dedication for sure. So what other kind of off the wall things have you done to kind of get the word out about the business?
[00:18:56] Parker Yeah. I mean, how, man? I mean, I've like on a floating home and I've slam across the bay to people on the dock to hand out samples I've done like airplane giveaways. There's been a couple of those that, like, I've produced some content that I've gone a bit viral on. Again, it's like I try and think like, there's so much noise everywhere that exists in all these traditional communication channels. And so like, how can you open up like nontraditional communication channels where noise doesn't exist? And there's you also going to have a more authentic communication, whether that is with one on one with the consumer or with a key decision maker. So those are some of the bigger ones. Let's see, like there are some things on the road that I did like.
[00:19:34] Djenaba I heard that you sampled on a flight.
[00:19:37] Parker Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I've run several giveaways on flights and I figured out which airlines are more, like, lenient letting you do that. Yeah. As part of that, I was like, convince the flight attendants to let me do, like, giveaways on flights or samplings on flights. So I'll go in and I've had a couple of them who will let me get on the P.A. system mid-flight, Like I get up and they're like, Hey, this guy's got something. And I'll get on and hand out product and just talk with people. And so it's super fun.
[00:20:03] Djenaba Yeah, that's nice.
[00:20:04] Parker I've been thinking about putting together a challenge where for 24 hours in a row I'll just fly and I'll just do giveaways on airplanes and like you can do on like quarterly and you can try new people excited about it. I haven't thought a lot about it and honestly, like it sounds pretty exhausting, but it would be kind of fun.
[00:20:19] Djenaba It does, but it sounds like a lot of fun. That's true. You mentioned before, when you're talking about, you know, out of working out of your home about interns. Tell me about your team, who you have now.
[00:20:28] Parker Yeah, actually, like, I think as I think about the evolution of our business and kind of what are we doing differently and why I believe we're going to win like that becomes a more critical element, I think, for this next upcoming year. So, you know, our team largely today exists. There's like maybe three or four of us today. It's really myself. And then a woman named Amy and Amy manages operations. She works our co-packer. She manages freight and logistics forecasting. She manages fulfillment. She, like really is holding the business together, I think, while and giving me some room to like, go and figure out how to grow the business. Amy is unbelievable and she always deserves more credit than she gets. And something, you know, I've been working on internally and actually with another founder in the space, we've been kind of building on some systems collectively sort of for our own brands is building more autonomous loops and hiring like full time folks from around the world with different skill sets. So right now, kind of our most recent hire is we have two full time employees. One is full time influencer outreach and product seeding, and then the other one is full video editing. So.
[00:21:37] Djenaba Oh, wow.
[00:21:37] Parker Okay. Like definitely taking a bet on on content this year and just really trying to get a lot of really strong content out in organic content. So I think as we look to evolve, that will be a key pillar. As something else I'm intrigued by is like some of some of the podcast marketing or even podcast guesting and just trying to share some of the story and share some of the ridiculous stories that I've done in the past, even like here today. Right? So I think we'll continue to look to expand the team in really cost efficient ways, but also in ways where like, you know, if we go and we hire someone who is full time out of the Philippines, you know, we can pay them a wage that is effectively would be comparable to $90,000 a year here, well above their minimum wage. And like they're doing awesome work and it really feels like a win win. I think if you can kind of solve that equation effectively, which we're learning how to do. So it's been really fun and really cool to work with people all around the world.
[00:22:33] Djenaba Yeah, that is really cool. So talk a little bit about networking with other CPG founders. Like I found, you know, in this space that people have kind of welcomed me with open arms. People will talk to me about whatever and anything. So I'm wondering, like if you've had that same experience.
[00:22:47] Parker Absolutely. I think chatting with people and at least for me personally, like one of my favorite things to do is trying to connect to other people when there's a specific need and use case. And I never look at, you know, networking with someone else to think, okay, what can I get out of this? I always look at it to say, who can I connect them with or what are they struggling with, or what is somebody else struggling with that maybe this person could help and chat with. And ultimately, I really think that in the end it is selfish because it says I find this person to be really smart, compelling, interesting. I think, you know, in the future I may need help with something that maybe this person can help with and I want to help this person first. But yeah, it seems like in this industry there's sort of an us versus them mentality and us is anybody who's selling under $100 million and they're getting their brand, which is really cool. Yeah, and it's really fun. And you know, I think a lot of the investment dollars that are in this industry are here because they just love the industry versus they are trying to get massive returns. So it creates more of this like emotional bonded industry versus, I think in tech where it feels a lot more like sort of cutthroat. And it's it's just it feels way more like financially motivating where I can chat here with some of my biggest competitors and we can chop it up and give each other leads and honestly have a good time. So I totally agree and feel the same way.
[00:24:06] Djenaba Well, how has entrepreneurship changed you?
[00:24:08] Parker I think in a lot of ways entrepreneurship has granted me the permission to be my authentic self. Like, I love doing shameless, ridiculous things and things. It's super fun and I think more people should do them. And in a lot of ways, like being an entrepreneur just helps me justify my own behavior. So I really like that. It's I think it's fun having no rules somedays, you know, at least you've your own rules set. What about you? I guess? How do you answer that question?
[00:24:38] Djenaba That is a very good question. I think that I take a lot more risks and feel, for lack of a better phrase, I felt, you know, comfortable being really uncomfortable because I know what the payoff is going to be. Because when I was working in a corporate job, it was like very much like, okay, I I'd have to be here. I'm working at this whatever hours I'm working, and I'm going to do what they ask me to do, whatever. I'm going to go home. And I didn't really take any risks around that. But now I come with an idea and go and execute it. And it's a little bit scary, but it's also a lot of fun.
[00:25:06] Parker So yeah, and Hudson Kitchen's Brand for a decade is that.
[00:25:09] Djenaba No, no, no, it hasn't been that long. So it's been around since 2015. And I started the business really doing workshops and networking events because I wanted to build this facility that took four years to build. So we opened in 2019. So yeah, and it's been a minute, but it's been it's a lot of fun. It's been a little crazy, as, you know, like raising money and doing all the things that you need to do to make your dreams come true. But it's great. Yeah, it's been great. So we have something at Hudson Kitchen called the Money Bell, and we ring it when people get their paychecks or they bring on, you know, new retail partners or whatever. We'd love to hear what you're celebrating.
[00:25:44] Parker Yeah. I think for me, there's maybe like two money bells right now.
[00:25:48] Djenaba Okay.
[00:25:49] Parker So one would be we're about T -60 days out from launching in Asia.
[00:25:55] Djenaba Oh, wow. Okay.
[00:25:56] Parker We're not launching ourselves. I think that would be crazy. We have a really great relationship with the distributor and, like, awesome payment terms, and I've seen just, like, really great things from them. They've paid for everything to pave our way into Asia and they have a really excellent distribution and they're positioning our product in a super unique way. And so we're really excited there and everybody's sort of aligned on truckload volumes, which is really exciting, I think, for our business. And how the contract is structured is to be really consistent kind of cash flow flows in order. So it's super exciting. We're really excited to get that off the ground. So that's a ring. Yeah.
[00:26:31] Djenaba Awesome. Yeah.
[00:26:33] Parker The other one is we are putting together a product line for an influencer who has like collectively about 19 million followers. So she recently put out a post about it and in under 24 hours they have like a thousand pre sign ups. So we're really excited to kind of get them off the ground and it'll be a cool awareness for us. And she's always wanted us on product and we definitely feel like we have the capability to put that together for him. So we're just really excited to kind of work together and explore this potential opportunity and feel like there's just so much opportunity working together. So it's been really fun as well.
[00:27:07] Djenaba That's awesome. Yeah, that's really awesome. Congratulations. And I also think collaborations are just like so important to the growth of business in general. So that's great. Parker, thank you for being here. Tell everyone where they can find out about you and Forij.
[00:27:19] Parker Yeah, if you're looking at Forij specifically, you can go to our website which is www.forij.co. Forij. And then if you're curious about me, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn and share a lot of content there and engage a lot of people. And I love chatting with new people. You know, you can look me up Parker Olson on LinkedIn, I'm sure you'll find me and I'm like a little mushroom emoji, I think next to my name. So it's cool. Yeah, Thanks for having me.
[00:27:44] Djenaba Sure. Thank you. The Food Meets Business podcast was produced by Hudson Kitchen. It is recorded at the studio at Carney Point and mixed and edited by Wild Home Podcasting. Our theme song is by Damien de Sands, and I'm your host, Djenaba Johnson-Jones. Follow Hudson Kitchen on Instagram at thehudsonkitchen and to get Food Business Bites right in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter at thehudsonkitchen.com/newsletter. Listen, follow and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. Until next time.