Marissa Gencarelli, Co-Founder of Yoli Tortilleria (Interview 8/100)
Let’s talk about a woman who really speaks my language. Marissa Gencarelli is the Co-Founder of Yoli Tortilleria making and selling tortillas as an ode to her roots in Mexico. This conversation starts with her talking about speaking to a group at Kemper Museum about how consumers have a choice to be a consumer of companies that align with your values. While others may say things like “keep politics out of my food,” it’s her view (and mine) that we can’t separate those two. The good news is that it’s clear that Yoli’s values of community, family, and the idea that “corn is life” drive their growth and sticking to those values has served them so well.
She tells the story about how she started with cooking in her home to get her mind off the stress of life and the magic grew from there. She and her partner (both in business and in life), Mark, juggled newborn children, full time jobs, and all the hectic aspects of life as Yoli rocketed into the Kansas City market. It’s all the lessons from her journey that helped shape what Yoli is now. Marissa comes from a long line of strong females and her ability to take those lessons and strengths from her family tree to educate the community how diverse and high quality Mexican food can be by making food fun. Let me tell you from my experience, she’s doing a great job of making food fun. I had a blast talking with her.
Key Takeway: the details matter. Her background in the corporate world helped to set the strategy and details that prepare them for all the complications and details of the opportunities for expansion that popped up, especially early on. Taking the skills that she learned helped to set a solid foundation to build upon as they continue to grow and expand. A thoughtful structure that involves cross-training, flexible hours, and teamwork both supports the employees that keep Yoli running on a daily basis and helps those employees grow in their own careers and personal lives.
Her honest view of how to run a business while being smart and intentional about giving back to the community was insightful. So many business leaders have a tough time saying no when donation requests come in, especially for those within their nonprofit neighbors. She makes a great point about considering the aligning of values and return on investments by specifically choosing to partner with nonprofits and community partners that are directly associated with the values and purpose of Yoli. Yoli focuses their partnerships on women (specifically building the confidence of young women), local farmers, and entrepreneurs. Narrowing in the focus allows for a higher return on investment into the community.
So many lessons. So much wisdom. I can’t wait to see what Marissa and the Yoli team tackle in the future.
Shoutouts:
Angie Long, Co-Owner of KC Current
Correction: I mention that Marissa is the 3rd woman to be interviewed, but she, in fact is #4! (Shannon, Veronica, Emma, and now: Marissa).
Transcript
AM: Hey folks, thanks so much for coming to the Capitalism for Good Podcast. It's here where we'll focus on exploring how we both make and spend our dollars to benefit the greater good. Folks, today we have Marissa Gencarelli, who is the co-founder of Yoli Tortilleria, that she started with her husband Mark, and she is just someone who gets it. Immediately, when we started this conversation, she was talking about another speaking engagement that she recently did, where she focused on the impact of choosing where to spend your dollars, and how you can use the choices you're making when you're in the store making purchases, to actually lift up your community, and she was just speaking my language already. We also get into the serendipity of how her company, again Yoli Tortilleria, started with herself and her husband, and how she was really intentional with the community give back strategy, how she naturally grew a business primarily made up of women, and that also showcases her Hispanic culture. It's clear that Marissa is on to something with a unique and powerful within Yoli, as she's joining this interview from her newly expanded test kitchen. So she was just in the process of figuring out where the internet is best, in the lighting, and got a little sneak peek of what was going on back there. It is so cool. I am so proud of the things that they're doing.
We've talked a little bit in past interviews with other female founders about how sometimes it's a little bit tough to to find those people that look like you in those underrepresented populations of leaders. And Marissa is one of them. And what's even cooler than that is she's not only one of those leaders and those role models and those mentors, but she also comes from a long line of it. Going all the way back to her grandma, being an entrepreneur, her mom's an educator, you can see how she had the confidence and the skills to start this company. It seemed like all of the pieces just really fell together. So I am excited to share that. I'm excited for the legacy of her family and her culture and her heritage to continue. They, with this company, Yoli Tortilleria, obviously is a company that makes tortillas, but also salsas and all sorts of other things. They have a location that is in the Kansas City Current Stadium, which is the women's owned and female soccer club in Kansas City.
There's just so much to be proud of. And we talked about all of these different things, but we barely touched on certain things. There were some questions that we didn't even get to because it was just an hour conversation. So I encourage you not only to listen to this conversation, but also check out her website. That'll be linked in the show notes. You can see more about the history, the partnerships she's got with the University of Missouri, local farms, Girls on the Run, Girl Scouts, Zero, Food Print and more. She is truly using the legacy of her family to improve the community in Kansas City with an eye for expanding beyond the Midwest. It was just a joy to talk with her, and I'm excited to share this conversation. Enjoy.
MG: I just did a thing at the Kemper Museum a few weeks ago, and it was, they had this huge mural of Lucia Virales, which is a Mexican artist, and it's like a last supper scene. It's a little poignant, and what we did was a long table that looked like it was coming out of the painting, and it was all about after the meal, what are the little munchies that you have in Mexico, but overall, it was just a conversation about how I do my business and the choices that we make on a daily basis. Based on our beliefs, like where do we consume the pork, or where do we get the corn? How do we treat our employees? Mostly it's all women and all that, and it really surprised the audience, but one of the things that I just told the audience, and I hope they didn't hate me for this, but it's like, you guys as a consumer, you have a choice every single day as you walk down those aisles in the grocery store, and look behind, see who owns them. Is it a good company or not good? Are they making everything, importing everything, and price, for example, from somewhere in Asia? Do they have good labor practices? Things like that just become a little bit, and I said, you don't have to be perfect all the time, but it's just at least try versus being like a multi-conglomerate that is just venture capital behind it, and it's not the same as an independently owned business or someone that is really focusing on their work they're doing and how they're achieving it. So I don't know. It was an interesting conversation, and so far, I haven't gotten any hate mail, so it's all good.
AM: Hopefully, it's all love with things like that. But that's at least my goal is like, there's so much negativity in the world. Like, let's talk about the positive parts of it. And like, like you said, as a consumer, if you have a choice when you're in the store between two companies, I mean, let's just face the fact, there's one that might be, you know, taking your money and your profits, and then trying to take your rights away. And then there's another one that's like literally giving back to the community and like lifting up like, to me, that seems like an obvious choice, but we don't always talk about those things.
MG: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Okay. Before we jump too much into it, because I'm so excited to talk to you about all of that stuff can you back up and give us just kind of a high level view of Yoli and how you guys got started in that whole kind of overview and story?
MG: Yeah. So we started Yoli primarily, both me and my husband. We had full-time corporate jobs. I was born and raised in Sonora, Mexico, and we were getting ready to have our second child, and I was missing home so much. I was traveling all over the world and worked for a really incredible healthcare company, also very mission-driven. But I mean, it was taking a toll on me. And so literally, I would just start cooking at home to decompress, so I wouldn't be on my cell phone. And it literally just started like that. And then one thing we realized, we're missing a good tortilla. So what do we need? Where do we go and get them? How do we start making them? And literally, we just started making them at home. And we first tried to figure out, like, do we start with corn or flour? Obviously, I'm from Sonora, so I love Sonora flour-style tortillas. We started with the corn. That was just a very interesting, for us as a Mexican, obviously, corn is life. And so we started with that. And little by little, we just started adding products. Yeah, so it was just very seamless kind of transition. In some ways, it just, it wasn't really, there wasn't a master plan or a business plan, other than, okay, this is how much we got to spend because it was all self-funded. Yeah. Let's see how it goes. And if it goes well, then we keep on adding.
But if it doesn't, then, okay, we sell the equipment and that will be that. But as luck would have it, within one week that we had set up our equipment and practice and launched, at night, we would be dropping samples to chefs in the Kansas City area. And within one week, one chef asked us if we could see our facility.
I had just delivered my daughter one week before c-section. And like, literally, like, you know, you still have all those patches and, you know, we had no employees. It was just me and my husband doing it at night. And then at the next morning, giving samples. You know, it was one of those like, he wanted to see that the business was still legit, that it wasn't just in a base and all that. And we walked him through how we were doing everything and showed him the process. And he turns around and looks, and it's like, so how many employees do you have? And I said, like, oh, four. It's like, and he goes, how many clients? Oh, we have 10. We had like one. You know, it was just one of those things. It was like, bake it till you make it, but it was within one week. And he goes, can you do this seven days a week? And we just turned around and said, yes. And then after he left, I'm like, I need to sit down. I mean, still in pain, all these things. And we looked at each other and like, who's quitting first? And so my husband quit first because he had more experience in manufacturing than I did. And I had all that health insurance. So with a company I worked in, and so that's kind of, so for four years, I did both jobs.
AM: Oh my gosh.
MG: So yeah, I was crazy, but well worth it, I guess.
AM: How did you balance that piece of you're building this like empire of your own, but you're also working a corporate job, not to mention the children part of it, like how'd you balance all of that?
MG: I didn't.
AM: Okay.
MG: I'm not going to lie. It was not good at balancing time. If you said something mean to me, I might have break down crying because I was so exhausted. That level of stress, but I would wake up every single morning, three in the morning. We would have our powwow meetings of strategy, of what we were going to do, and off my husband went to go ahead and run the factory while I was working and taking care of the kids, and all this other stuff in my corporate job. Then every single break I had, I would just jump on and work on growing our brand.
AM: Yeah. Oh my God.
MG: So exhausting. Yeah.
AM: I can't even imagine. I feel like we hit this point when you're spread so thin like that, that it's almost like you're in survival mode, and you're in autopilot, like not even thinking things, which maybe that helped you in the beginning to be to not overthink some of your business decisions, because there's only so many hours in the day, you have to keep going. Do you feel like that was your experience at all?
MG: I think that, so my previous role, I did a lot of strategy, and so I felt like once we've got going, so we first did a little napkin strategy, we just literally on an airplane, we start saying like, okay, this is the kind of company we would like to do. During the time that I was still working, especially the first six months, a lot of what we did, especially on my side was like, what kind of company do we want to be? What are our values? What should our brand feel like? Because when we first launched, we didn't even know what to name ourselves. All those different decisions that once you take off, they're so critical about the identity and how people perceive you. We took a lot of thought of very thoughtful decisions, and then it's like, okay, then how do we grow the business? What are the different areas that we would like to grow? Then after that, it's like throwing out the roof and see what sticks, because it's like you might have all this strategy, but the cards don't always fall the way you want them to fall.
One of the things that for us, we'd never expected to get a restaurant client right away like that. Then the second thing that happened to us, which was very fortunate, was that Whole Foods saw us demoing in a farmer's market. They had a forager and she walked by, and she wanted to know everything about what we were doing. Then she said, I don't have anything in our region like this. So that is literally within months of us launching. It reshaped everything for us because they have the third party audit and everything. Most small food brands wouldn't start right away with that level of your diligence and making all those big binders of processes and everything. But that's when we got really lucky because I was in healthcare, so I knew a lot of processes, a lot of audits. I did all those different things. I was fortunate that that was our start. It was very hard. Then after that, it has been always just like, okay, what are the opportunities out there to grow our business, that it's in line with what we see our end goal?
AM: Yeah. You are speaking right to my heart there. My last full-time position that I left just over a year ago, I was in medical research, managing research programs, and the audits and the SOPs, and the number of procedures, everything's written down, everything is looked at, every dollar, every cent, every action is accounted for, which is helpful when you're thinking about other things to be able to look into those details and apply that structure, but it's a lot.
MG: It is a lot. The more that we grow, the more complex it gets. Now we're GSFI certification, which is what you need for targets in Walmart and all those different things, those levels. Every time our audits get, there's several levels. We haven't reached the gold one, which is really expensive and we're not being requested for that from a product. But eventually we might if we're wanting to send a product to Europe, for example, you would have to go ahead and those are like two-week audits and everything. But I don't know, I feel confident that we're doing everything right, and I love preparing for these because it gives us view on holes as well that we might have that we're like, because you're in a day-to-day, sometimes there's things that you don't see, and so right now we're getting ready for our next audit, which is going to be in July, and it's like, okay, what we got? You got this though.
AM: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about the things that you wanted to leave behind? You've talked about your husband and yourself came from that corporate world, as you're building something and you get to put your own stamp of the approval. Like, what were the things that you wanted to do a little bit differently from your office experience before?
MG: You know, at least in my case, a lot of what I saw is I worked in a company that was, when I started, were probably like 6,000 employees, maybe a little bit less. And by the time I was leaving, we were over 35,000. And so I saw that growth of the company and from a leadership perspective, I saw the battles that occurred. I saw which it was not pretty. And if you're close to the sun, you know, you really get a sunburn. That I didn't, I wanted to make sure that I did not create a culture like that.
The other thing that I wanted to make sure is that we had a good exit plan. So, the company I worked for, I loved dearly. It ended up selling to Oracle Health. And it was not a pretty scene to see how the dominoes fell. And so, from the very beginning, Mark and I had a conversation of like, okay, what happens when we get old? Who gets the business? How are we going to do this differently? Making sure that A, the brand continues, you know, and hopefully it's thriving and it grows beyond what we, you know, so hopefully we give it to someone that is in better hands and grows it a bit more than we did, versus just letting it kind of die. You know, it's like, that's one of the things that it was very important. And I saw it firsthand, what happens when the founder passed away, you know, and all these different things that happen. So it's the reality of like, when you start a business, you should think what's the end, because you're not gonna be able to have it forever, right? And I don't know, that was one of the things that was very important for us, that we did that right just because of my experience.
But honestly, I also brought a lot of good things that I learned there. So I was very lucky that I was in an environment that it was always thriving on R&D. It was very flexible, you know, when I had my first child and I had a lot of complications and I had to take him constantly to the, you know, physicians and things like that, they were always like, yeah, go, no problem. So there's the same thing that we apply with our workforce. We, as I said, it's mostly women. I would say like it's 85% women in our workforce. And we're very flexible with doctor appointments and everything like that, which is honestly unusual for factories.
AM: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that piece of it? I so I'll tell you a little bit about like what happens behind the scenes. Like I spend so much time talking to my personal little network that is also primarily made up of women, probably just because I am a woman, and really trying to talk about all of the things. Not just our positions within business, but life and balancing and all of these types of things. And one thing that always comes up when I tell them that I'm interviewing a female founder or a women leader is like, okay, one, what's it like to be in a male dominated field because so many of our top leaders are men, especially if you're getting into venture capital or anything like that. But it seems to, at least on the outside, and then you were just talking about internally with your employees, you've built this women-focused organization. You've got partnerships, you've got a location that's at the KC Current, which is huge and really uplifting women within the community and all these things. Like, did that just happen naturally or was that a conscious decision? And how does that piece fit into it for you?
MG: I'll be very honest, we had not noticed that all of our workforce was all women until we had a reporter come in. And she looks around and she said, you guys do realize that you have all women, right? And I was like, what? Like, for us, it was just like natural.
AM: Yeah.
MG: Yeah. It wasn't, it really wasn't by design. It really did happen by accident. Yeah. One of the things that we started learning is when you hire a lot of women, they're very loyal to the work. They're very committed. But you also have to make sure that you build a level of redundancies because women, as women, we have so many more other responsibilities and roles. A lot of them are mothers or caregivers to their parents. I have one that is a caregiver to elder parents and stuff like that. As a mother, I knew all the challenges as well, and I know that I'm better off than a lot of other people, and I have the possibility of paying a babysitter or a nanny and things like that. I know a lot of women are not in that position. Clearly understanding that and the limitations, this was something that we always are very thoughtful, and now we have redundancies and we have everybody under the same roof to make sure that if someone from one team is out, we can go ahead and plot them in from another one. We're cross-training people always, and just being very thoughtful of how do we go ahead and allow flexibility, but at the same time, we are running a business. What does that look like? We have even implemented flexible hours.
We had different shares for the women that had kids that they needed to make sure that they were there for the bus pickup. We wanted to make sure that the kids are safe and all these different things. But then there's other women that we have that they're older. They're like, I don't care. I want to come at 5 AM because I want to leave early. Because they may have teenagers. For them, it's more important for them to be after school. It's different people and different paths of their lives. It's just really figuring out what that schedule and what the flexibility can be in making sure that you work as a team. Yeah it's not easy. We have had some difficulties along the way. There were some upsides or someone getting upset because so-and-so, whatever, but there's always a little bit of, there's a lot of feelings.
AM: Yeah.
MG: I don't take it as a bad thing because at least we're all talking through it. Yeah. At least we're not bottling it in, and then all of a sudden, there's an outburst. Instead, it's always like, hey, so-and-so thinks that I am doing this tortilla wrong. Let's go ahead and talk about it. You might be doing it wrong. I do not know. But it's a different approach of how we do it, very team-based.
AM: Yeah. As you're naturally building that, one thing that came to mind specifically when you're talking about the cross-training piece is it's been my experience working. I've held so many different positions and different jobs in my career. A big part of those transitions has been me filling in for a co-worker when they're on maternity leave or if someone leaves to take a new job. I'm like, oh, I can learn that skill and I'll be the stopgap for a little while. Then being like, oh, I really like that. Are you finding that as you cross-train that people move around into different positions, to utilize their talents and strengths differently?
MG: Yes, absolutely. One of the things that I tell a lot of people, in fact, I just did a round of interviews for some other positions. Well, the person that is managing my retail, the person, that's not his job. Like, they can't be that, you know, position. And he's a male, so he could be better used somewhere else. So what I'm doing is shifting him to grow him in another area. And then I fulfilled his role with someone else, and then I interviewed this amazing woman that I love her, but she wasn't the right fit for that. And so I actually gave her a call, and I said, I really like you. I think you're a great person. I think you have amazing skills. I named all her skills. Yeah. And then I said, would you be willing to take another role that you did not apply for? And I mean, she replied immediately and said yes. And it's like trying to, like sometimes I feel like we might not even acknowledge what our skill set is. You know, we might think that is X or Y, but I can see it from a bird's eye. And thinking it's almost like a puzzle that I have to figure out. Like, you know what? You probably are better suited here. I have hired the wrong person for the wrong job. And it's not fun because one, you see them constantly fail and they feel frustrated. And then you feel like an over, you know? And so that's not okay. It's not okay for them and it's not okay for us, you know? So it's just, it's not a good match. And so now I'm always focused on looking at their skillset. And then based on what I know about our business and how I want to grow with, is it going to be a right fit for them? And can I help them grow?
AM: Yeah.
MG: And then of course, you know, the idea that nothing is permanent, you have to always think about that, that things change, our business will continue to transform and grow. And so I now look at people like, is this someone that I want to grow with us?
AM: Yeah.
MG: And so, you know, I might, because I'm going to invest time in you. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do all this. So can I see you besides that role? Where else can I see you grow within our company? Yeah. And that's kind of how I approach it.
AM: Yeah. I love that so much. I want to shift us to a little bit into how you prioritize your involvement within the community, because that's something else that I think is so admirable about what you've built with Yoli is, you've got these ties with University of Missouri, you've got these ties with KC Currant, and the Zero Waste Initiative. You've got all of these pieces. I think I saw you're also partnering with the Girl Scouts and Girls on the Run, and how does that fit into your business model? And was it something that you always had as a part of the model, or did it have to come secondarily once you guys kind of grew and got a little bigger?
MG: No, so I'll be very, very honest. So several years ago, I attended a Chef Summit from the Beard Foundation.
AM: Yeah. Congratulations on that 2023 James Beard Award. Is that right?
MG: Yes. And it's like these big conference that they have, and they will give anything from a business perspective, organizing yourself and employee benefit, like all kinds of different things. It's like literally free education. Yeah. And one of the things that we were struggling is, we were getting hit for donations constantly. And so food businesses are like prime targets, like from schools, from churches, everything. I don't know, they think that it doesn't cost us to make product. I do not know what people think. It's just like, oh, it's okay. You're just providing a case. Well, yeah, but there's labor behind it. There's all these other things to it. And so her name is Anne, did a kind of session and talked about how you should go ahead and take a look at your business overall profile, your ethics, what is really important for you. Then really pencil sharp, super sharp on what are the things that you want to make an impact because you're stretching yourself so thin, given here and there, here and there, that then you can't make an impact on things that really matter to you. And so that's when we decided, that's when we redid our page on the website. And we said, OK, these are the key things that are very important for us at Yoli. And one of them was the agriculture systems. I mean, we owe everything we do to our farmers. That's the reason why we have a good product. We might just like do some management of trickling it and all that. But I mean, it wouldn't be there if we didn't get good corn and good flour and good pork fat and everything. I have visited those farms. I see how hard it is for those farmers and the land issues and everything.
We said one of our issues will be the farming community, and then also how those farmers are practicing the everyday agriculture system. That was also important. So sustainability, and obviously now we're all talking about regenerative agriculture. So that was another thing that was very important to us, because that's the future for us. I mean, we get all of our corn right here in Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois, and it's all close to us. We literally go to harvest parties with everybody that does it and all that stuff. And what is it going to look like in years from now if we have all these horrible droughts? The state of Kansas was in a state of emergency last year because there was no water. And so those are the kind of things that are very important for us.
So we're funneling through that. And then speaking of how we were talking about women, women are very important, and it's very hard for women to do entrepreneurship for many reasons that we just discussed from kids and taking care of the family, all these other things. It is a man's world. It's harder for a woman to get alone. All these different things. And so I started looking at it from a holistic perspective. And one of them was from when you're really young. What does it look like? And I look, I have a daughter and I do remember being in the third grade. And all of a sudden, my confidence was broken. And I cannot remember what did it to me. But something happened to me that it was like earth shattering.
And I started to like close up and everything. And so it's like, I think about my daughter and it's like, what are the tools that I can give her to support her in making sure that she continues to be a confident girl? And she can do anything she wants. You know, she doesn't have to run our company. It's anything she wants. But how do we go ahead and do that? And that's how I found Girls on the Run. Obviously, she's in girl scouts and all these different groups that support young girls to make sure that they have the right tool set as they keep on going. And that's why KC Current is just also outstanding for us to be part of it or that mission, to reshape how we're doing sports. So yeah, I mean, that's honestly, that's the reason why we funnel things like that. And that's why we're very clear in our website. Like if what you're asking is not part of these things, then we might not be the right person for you. And that's okay, it's like, I do other things, I support the arts because that's a passion of mine, I support other things within the community, but at the end of the day, I really wanna focus on those and make a bigger impact.
AM: Yeah, that's amazing. I can't stop thinking as you tell that story about, so there are three other women that I've interviewed so far. You were interviewed number eight, I think, out of - the goal is 100. - You were the third woman, and all three of them have talked about that role model piece specifically, and that they've experienced this difficulty or this lack and this gap in having role models and mentors in business leaders that are women and that look and understand and that they can relate to and even if we zoom out into just like under representative business leaders in general, like there's so many different demographics that that touches, but women in particularly, it's been really tough for this generation of women. It's difficult to get alone, all these other things, and yet what I am struck by is all four of you are like, here we go, but we just have to do it. We just have to figure it out.
And yes, there's not a lot of role models. But one thing that I want to say back to you and reflect back to you is you are the role model. You are that mentor. You are that example. And especially as you're thinking about your daughter and these women in the community, it's one of the things that I've loved and I'm so proud from. I grew up in Kansas City. I grew up in the Lee Summit area. I live in Louisville, Kentucky now. But it's so easy for me to brag on Kansas City because of people like you that are just like, all right, well, we're doing it. We're gonna support women here. We're gonna support the community. We're gonna support those underrepresented populations here. Do you recognize, do you have any time and space to sit down and recognize and reflect about your role in the community in that way?
MG: I think that the biggest thing is like, I reflect on the responsibility that I feel in, I don't know, that maybe I was born and raised Catholic, so maybe some of my guilt's always like, what am I going to say that I should exist? But no, I mean, I do recognize just in general the responsibility to be kind to other people. I mean, there can be any woman that reaches out and I will always take a cup of coffee with that person, listen to what they have and I'll give them the best advice I have and see if they want to continue with a mentorship, I'm always more than happy to go ahead and do so. I do that a lot. And then also for a lot of Hispanic women, I think that we even have it even a little harder than, you know, so that's another thing that is always dear to my heart. It's like, okay, how do I help you bridge that cultural gap?
AM: Yeah.
MG: They might exist in there and that you might not think as highly of yourself. So, I mean, I also, I, you know, I'll be honest, I come from a line of a grandma that was an entrepreneur. She had fifth-grade education. She started cooking her hams at home. Then she started selling them. And then, you know, then she ended up building a company. And then my mom was a teacher. So it's like, I come from a line of women that, you know, knew how important it was to have your own, you know, financials and independence. I think that's something that is very important.
And that sense of responsibility of, you know, sharing that. But the thing that I noticed that is different, I have received mentorship from many women throughout my career. And there's a lot of different old school thinking of like, just suck it up or, you know, it's like, that's why, you know, I'm not a huge fan of that book from the table, whatever you sort of name. Goldberg is like, oh, that you have to make sure that you have a seat on a table, but sometimes they don't even bring a chair, you know, it's like, so it's like, it's a little bit depending on where you are in society, and it's a little bit different. So I have a clear understanding that it's my responsibility to make sure that there's a chair ready for people. Yeah.
AM: We, I focused on you being a female founder, but you brought up a good point that you're also pulling in and shining a spotlight on your heritage and like being a spotlight for the Hispanic community and like you are by nature of your business and in making tortillas and having this food business like you're also a great example in spotlight of the Hispanic community. What does that mean to you?
MG: I mean, it's obviously it's always an honor to represent a community that especially these days is under attack. It's always making sure that I'm shining the light, the best light on it and the values and how hardworking our population is. I think that it's just always an honor. I never realized how much of an honor it was until we got our nomination for The Beard, and we got an army of emails of people pouring in from all over, just encouraging us like, who are you? What? And then realizing that our impact was so much greater than just being like the frivolous part of just being nominated. So I feel like I have a clear understanding of what it means to be recognized on something that typically is seen as something low-cost, not, I mean, we're not a French restaurant. There's all that part of it of what people think you should be.
AM: Yeah.
MG: Trying to break that barrier of like, well, let me show you what a good quality tortilla looks like. Let me show you about how you can also do this in the right business model. You know, by sourcing straight from the farmers. What does that look like? How do you treat people? What are the benefits you're giving to employees? Like all these different things. It's a different than if you get, you know, any sort of bell sounding tortilla. It's just showcasing that that was very important for us. And then it's just getting the support of the community. That was wild for us.
AM: Yeah, it's amazing. And in kind of talking about that piece about the making sure the quality and the education piece about your products and making sure that that is front and center. Can you talk a little bit about how you're choosing the farms that you're using and like, how are you picking and choosing where the ingredients and the packaging and all of those things come from?
MG: Yeah, so the ingredients, I mean, we're so lucky because we're in Kansas City we're in the Missouri side, but we're so near Kansas and also Illinois is very close to us as well. And Iowa, there's all these places that have incredibly farming community. At the beginning, it was very difficult to go ahead and find small farmers that could have access to cleaning tools because it has to be processed correctly. And this part of us also being in Whole Foods because all of a sudden, we had to track lots and everything from the very get-go. It had to be everything be non-GMO and things like that. So process was first like, let's go ahead and literally take a compass and what's the radius.
So we started asking within farmers markets, who was in that area, who was growing what. And that's literally how we started going to different communities and sitting down in kitchen tables. And they would bring us a sample and sometimes they had rocks and something else that I did not want to know what it was. And I was like, do you have access to cleaning, combi and all this kind of different things? A lot of people do not have any of that. So, okay, well, okay, how do we get through? So that was the first thing to identify those. And then how do they have access to all the requirements that we had in order to be in a national chain? That was one of the things.
So first we were working on that. And then we were working making sure that was non-GMO. That was very important for us. We wanted to go organic. But one of the things that is really interesting about organics that a lot of people don't realize is how much taxing it is for the farmer. So every single process that they do, like if they just spray one area, then all of a sudden they cannot be certified organic. And it's incredibly costly for the farmers. And when you know that it's like their house on the line, because literally like that's how farmers live. Who am I to tell you you can't put X, Y, and Z to protect your crop?
AM: Right.
MG: I feel like, you know what I mean? And I know, so that's the reason that I'm very passionate about doing Zero Footprint, because they're providing matching grounds to farmers. And they still are not in our area. They're still more focused in other areas. But that's the goal. And my goal is to get more people signed up in our area. And so hopefully we can start getting other farmers matched into it. But it's very hard, right? And so that's kind of overall, like the selection that we do is like, hey, what's your process? How are you doing it? How are you cultivating it? You know, just the basic things.
And then after that, like the next step that we really wanted to focus is, how do I invest on you to get you in the path for regenerative agriculture? And that's the very hard one, especially where policy is right now. No farm bill has passed. You know, unfortunately, this is one of the things that I've been talking about is like, your food choice is a political choice. And so a lot of people are like, oh, keep my food out of policy. Well, I can't because it's all intertwined, how we, you know, in a corn is a commodity crop, you know, so there's all these other layers into it. And so, yeah, I mean, I think about that all the time, and I think about who am I supporting, and what is the farmer doing, and how are they doing it. But in general speaking, those were our criteria. And the other criteria was very hyper local focused.
And the reason was is, again, we're lucky. We're in the Midwest. We have a lot of agriculture. And I want, and I remember driving through all these towns and a lot of them like empty little downtowns, the kids have been leaving, really big health care issues, and hospitals shutting down.
AM: It's wild. Yeah.
MG: It's wild. And so it's like, why would I be giving my money to somewhere else when I can give it in here and it's going to stay in this local economy? Yeah. So again, for me, it's like, it's using Capitalism for Good. It's like, where I'm putting my money is my investment.
AM: Exactly.
MG: An investment of where I want to see the future. And I think that more people should think like that. It's like, your business decision affects and has ripple effects.
AM: Yeah. Obviously, I can't agree more. I mean, that's a whole part of what drives this project is like, I understand that it takes money to make money and that some people are kind of frustrated by it. But the decisions that we make with our money are meaningful and powerful. And you can put blinders on, but that doesn't change the impact if you're going to follow what happens with your dollar. And you can do something really cool and good with it.
MG: Yeah. And for me, it's like, I have so many more dreams of what I would like to see. And I love the Neiman Ranch model. I'm obsessed with them. I think that it's incredible what they have been able to achieve, but it took a lot of time for me to be able to do that. And I think that we certainly could do that with grain as well. So hopefully, I've been trying to get, I know this farmer, he's incredible. And I keep on like saying like, do you want to do this? Thank you.
AM: Yeah.
MG: Hopefully, you know, he can go ahead and take that. And I can collaborate and help, but he calls me an instigator.
AM: Instigator for good things.
MG: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I think that there's so much that can be done.
AM: In kind of talking about that, you started this conversation in talking a little bit about the legacy plan and kind of what you hope for in the future. Can you talk a little bit about where you'd like to see yourself or Yoli or the community going in the future?
MG: So, I mean, where I see Yoli coming and headed next, and it's something that is, I started doing in small doses. So how about four years ago, I started a zine series that is like, I focus on one ingredient or a state, and then our salsas, they'll state where they're from, like what is the right pairing or things like that. I think that overall, my mission of the company is not, you're not just a tortilla brand or a salsa brand or anything like that. It's more like to showcase how diverse Mexican food is, and how rich and beautiful it can be. And I feel part of the reason why we're doing all this is because at one point, I felt like we were in a box. I did not like that feeling, like all Mexicans were all the same or we all eat birria.
I mean, I'm from Sonora I never even know what birria was, because that's in Guadalajara only. So it's all those different things that I have, like something inside me that is eager to show people how beautiful my country is. So I think that that's part of me from an educator perspective, and so I see us growing more in that direction. But I'm going to do it in a way that I hope that doesn't sound preachy. I want to make it fun for people, because I just believe that if you start just like, oh, there's just, nobody wants to listen to that. People want to enjoy the food and eat it, but I'm going to give it with doses of you learning where that thing comes from, and with doses of you supporting local communities that you don't even know about. So that's the end game for us to be able to do that in scale. So not only in the Midwest, but start growing it up outside of the nation wide. So that would be my dream to be able to do that.
I think models that I love seeing, and I didn't know anything about them, but I do love what Italy has done for Italian cuisine, that it's just has showcased all these beautiful producers, and educated the people that they're smaller than just red sauce. So that's, you know, I think that that's incredible.
AM: Yeah, I'm very excited for all of that. All right, my last question is, who's another business or leader that you see out there in the world, and it could be anything from someone that you used to work for, a mentor, someone that you're a purchaser of, just absolutely any business and or leader that you see out there in the world making a positive impact that you think deserves a shout out.
MG: I think right now I have very much impressive people in my mind is Angie Long, which is one of the owners of the Kansas City Current. She is incredible. She is just beyond smart. I've come to meet her several times. And I mean, the mission of making sure that women's sports get a chance and redefining that, that is absolutely outstanding. What is even more amazing is how she's gotten that. It's like she's not waiting for people to get it done, and they're doing it their way. And I think that there's something so beautiful about that. It just reminds me of back in the day when probably with NFL was done and things like that. And it was just a guy that was really passionate about it. And I get the same sense from her, but it's really focused on women's sports. And I know I don't know if you have been to a game yet. Have you been to a concert game yet?
AM: No, but only because I am mostly in Louisville. But my goal is within 2025 to make it to a game. I've been past the stadium every time I fly in and out, and I am dying to go.
MG: So I can tell you that I remember the first game. I literally just started crying because of pout, and it's a different crowd. So you see this little young girls, so excited. And then there's the moms and the sisters and then group of friends. And it's just, it's like a community just celebrating women in sport. And I had never seen that. I remember wanting to be in sports when I grew up, and I was always told there's no chance. You're never going to thrive there.
AM: Yeah.
MG: So for young women to be able to see that, that's outstanding and what she's doing is incredible.
AM: Yeah. I 100 percent agree. I got a little choked up listening to you talk about it, because I just think it's so powerful. And much like you were talking about how she's just doing it, she's not waiting around. Like you did the same thing and you're talking about, like you don't want your business and your culture to be put in this box. You're just doing it and showcasing it.
And like that's, that's what it takes. The other thing that I want to point out that I think is so cool to shout out to the Kansas City community is one of the folks that I interviewed a couple weeks ago is Keith Bradley, one of the co-founders or co-owners of Made in KC. And when I was asking him what his shout out was, he was like, I can't even choose one, but it's all of the restaurateurs and the people within the food industry, specifically in Kansas City. He was like, I'm amazed at what they're all doing.
MG: Well, you know, I always say that it's very important for each other to support, to have that support among our community because we get overshadowed by the coast. Yeah. And so I think we do have something to prove, right? And we're doing it. So it's like we're enough being say that we're fly over country.
AM: I know. Prove them wrong.
MG: Yeah.
AM: Thank you so much for doing this. I, Marissa, I could talk to you for like hours. I have so many things that we haven't even touched on that I just, I think that you're so interesting. The things that you're doing are so cool. I wish you all of the best and I can't wait to see what happens with you in the future.
MG: Thank you so much. Come and visit us anytime. Just let me know.
Yeah. Folks, thanks so much for listening to the Capitalism for Good project. Just a quick reminder that this project is supported through patreon.com/CapitalismForGood. There are weekly Between the Interviews episodes, early releases of interviews, march and other bonuses for those that subscribe through the Patreon. Support allows for this project to continue to move forward without the potential bias of traditional ads. Thank you so much for anyone that's already in that community and for anyone considering joining.
As always, please let me know what you think. Also, if you have any recommendations for leaders that you see out there making a positive impact on their internal and external communities, I would love to shine a spotlight on your favorite folks. That's enough.
Let's go leave this place better than we found it.
