Renfro Foods is a privately owned, award-winning food producer of salsas, sauces and relishes, including 30 Mrs. Renfro’s products, located in Fort Worth, Texas.
Founded in 1940, Renfro Foods is owned and managed by the second and third generations of the Renfro family. Its products are sold in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada and the U.K.
As president of Renfro Foods, Doug works closely with his cousins Becky and James to run the company. In particular, Doug focuses on research and development, private label and contract packing, quality assurance, sales and marketing, legal, information technology and a dozen other areas
Doug and his cousins strive for family harmony in managing the company and don’t make any major decisions without a unanimous vote of support.
For Doug, one of the benefits of working with family is the ability to be brutally honest with each other and still maintain a civil and professional relationship.
The team at Renfro Foods pays close attention to flavor trends to identify new salsa flavors.
QUOTES
“When I got out of college, if I had come to work here I would have been chopping cabbage. The executive positions were filled by my dad and my uncle.” (Doug)
“When I came (to Renfro Foods) I had been in charge of corporate accounting for a billion dollar company. My uncle was still doing pricing on a legal pad with his desk calculator. I said, ‘Here’s a spreadsheet. It’s going to instantaneously recalculate the cost of thousands of items in a millisecond.’ He saw what that did and he said, ‘Can you do that every 90 days from now on?’” (Doug)
“If you don’t demand as much of your ego to be around, one of the secrets I tell (people) is get somebody without your last name to suggest the same idea you’ve been suggesting that’s been ridiculed and suddenly it’s a great idea.” (Doug)
“If you take business things personally, that screws (family) relationships up.” (Doug)
“I think we lost money on every jar of Raspberry Chipotle we sold last year. Thankfully we didn’t sell many.” (Doug)
“I want everything on the label to be tasteable but you can’t always afford to do that without losing money,” (Doug)
TRANSCRIPT
00:01.23
vigorbranding
All right, hey there, Fork Tales listeners and viewers. I am really happy to be joined today by a good friend of mine, Doug Renfro. Doug is president of Renfro Foods. And I had to say it like 25 times because somehow the word foods after Renfro, I mean, foods in Renfro is easy.
00:13.93
Doug Renfro
sorry
00:15.18
vigorbranding
Renfro Foods, I just struggled. But anyway, ah he is the the the president of Mrs. Renfro’s Salsa. ah Not only are they a family owned company, which always is interesting, but they’re one of the most innovative companies I know. Doug, welcome and thank you very much for joining us and for your time.
00:32.73
Doug Renfro
Thanks, happy to be here.
00:34.60
vigorbranding
So ah you know I’m going to start off by pointing out i’ve I’ve been very fortunate to know you and to ah have your product. And it’s phenomenal. And I’m not just saying that. ah Case in point, I have three jars behind me that were supposed to be props for this presentation. There were actually more than three. But my favorite one was sent to me, which I thank you for, and I ate it. So ah I don’t have as many jars here as I should probably. but Anyway, it’s a phenomenal product and you know, anyway, I appreciate you sending us some samples. So so tell us tell us about you and Renfro Foods and the story and your role in the company.
01:12.84
Doug Renfro
Sure, we’re an 84-year-old family business and all the development has been organic. My granddad distributed grocery items in the 30s and made it through the Depression and thought, you know what would be fun, we’ll quit my job and start a company out of the house. So in 1940, he and my grandmother started out of their house and for 12 years or so they distributed grocery items and flavored vinegars and different things, spices. And around 1952, they moved into the core building that I actually sit in. We have now two city blocks in the street in between, but we were just one little brick building. And he started making syrup, and I like to point out there were no maple trees harmed.
01:50.40
Doug Renfro
yeah And then they made relishes. And you know, when when I do a trade show, like we’ll be in New York together two weeks from now and it’s a fancy food show and people will walk up and say, are these are grandmother’s recipes.
01:56.90
vigorbranding
Yep.
02:01.53
Doug Renfro
And I always say, no, but wouldn’t that be cool? ah You know, nobody ate Chipotle in 1940, 50, 60, 70. It’s all very organic dynamic.
02:07.41
vigorbranding
Right.
02:09.47
Doug Renfro
So when I was a kid, we just made Southern relishes, which had the velocity of a snail. So we had no money. And then we got in, my dad and my uncle got into taco sauce, thank God, in the seventies, which became macanti, which became salsa. and and ah and so And separating that you know for a moment, I went i worked at the nastiest jobs we had you know every summer, sixth grade, through high school. and In college, I lived at home and mixed the spices in the afternoon, went to school in the morning, very glamorous life. So I got out of college early, went to work for Ross Perot’s company at the time EDS. I was here when they sold it to General Motors, you know wearing a coat and tie every day, going to Detroit. My car did not smell of oregano anymore.
02:46.98
Doug Renfro
ah Very cool, good people, smart people, good money, got my MBA, CMA, and some other acronyms. But, you know, corporate life will suck the soul out of your body. So I came back 32 years ago and working with my cousins, my dad, my late uncle, it’s been a lot of fun and to your point, You know, we weren’t getting a lot of sales with mild, medium, and hot. So we started creating things like craft beer salsa, mango habanero, tequila, I think. And not at um a gourmet store, housewarming gift price, but at an everyday in your grocery cart price.
03:18.68
vigorbranding
Mm-hmm.
03:19.53
Doug Renfro
And we’re fortunate now to 600 brands in the country where Mrs.
03:19.54
vigorbranding
Mm-hmm.
03:23.12
Doug Renfro
Rimbros is number eight. I caution people not to get excited because we doubled would be number eight. but Big folks are big.
03:31.24
vigorbranding
yeah Yeah, well, hey, they are. But you know what, though? Your product is fantastic. And in this in this day and age, we do a quench. We do a ton of CPG work, right? And craft and ah the originality and having a real story It’s super important to people and so products like yours. I mean you yeah I mean, I know you’ve been doing this or for forever you guys but but it’s a really it feels like a really great time for this type of brand and this type of product and Again, it’s all about the quality.
03:52.55
Doug Renfro
you
03:59.98
vigorbranding
So I you know, the mango habanero as I said is my favorite. What’s your favorite?
04:05.52
Doug Renfro
Weirdly, that is also my favorite.
04:06.85
vigorbranding
Ah Nice
04:06.92
Doug Renfro
and and i’ve you know all Almost all the items now are recipes I’ve gotten to create over the years with my vast lack of culinary training. um but we you know I would look at things like Mango Habanero specifically.
04:17.07
vigorbranding
Thank
04:19.83
Doug Renfro
I was at a white tablecloth restaurant. I saw Mango Habanero on Chutney on Halibut, and I followed it away as something maybe five years later, we could sell every day in the grocery stores.
04:22.21
vigorbranding
you.
04:29.82
Doug Renfro
and That’s exactly how it turned out. and Even then, there was pushback internally about, you know, it sounds like a bizarre combination. And of course, it’s a better number two seller now for quite some time nationwide, Canada, UK. But ah it’s also, you know, a normal trend now. And that’s what you’re seeing like, you know, fast food places now have Carolina Reaper french fries, which, yeah you know, 20 years ago, nobody knew what it was.
04:50.78
vigorbranding
Yeah.
04:54.17
Doug Renfro
10 years ago, it was crazy, exotic, ridiculous. And now it’s almost an everyday thing.
04:58.86
vigorbranding
Right, right. So we are you Mrs. Renfro then, if you’re making all these recipes?
05:03.42
Doug Renfro
If you take the, my grandmother’s on the side of the label, if you put a wig on me and shave the beard, I think that’s what you get.
05:11.51
vigorbranding
That’s fantastic. yeah it’ so Okay, so talking about family here. I mean, you know some family owned companies, you and I know know a lot of people are part of family owned companies. ah Some families require members and future leaders to spend time outside the company. ah Was your time required and did you find that time valuable? And then or or did you and did you always plan? I know you worked there when you were young. Did you always plan on coming back to the company? Talk a little bit about that.
05:36.67
Doug Renfro
Sure. My time was not required. Frankly, when I got out of college, if I had come to work here, I would have been chopping cabbage.
05:43.53
vigorbranding
Yeah.
05:43.60
Doug Renfro
ah they they The executive positions were filled by my dad and my uncle. <unk>s such a tiny We’re small now. We were tiny, tiny back then. So I had to go somewhere else if I wanted to not wear jeans and be covered with cabbage and onions. And I think it was wildly helpful. like When I came back, I had been you know in charge of corporate accounting for a billion dollar company in some areas. and My uncle was still doing pricing on a legal pad with his hand desk calculator. And I said, look, here’s a spreadsheet. And it’s going to instantaneously recalculate the cost of thousands of items in a millisecond.
06:16.59
Doug Renfro
And he saw what that did. And he’s like, can you do that every 90 days from now on? stick yeah Having the discipline and learning and the networking was just fabulous. And I will tell you, we needed a ah filtration system for the fourth generation. So I said, we can’t hire 14 people just because they want to work here. And I said, in that case, for that gen, yes, you have to work somewhere. You have to graduate college. You have to work somewhere else for at least two years and a real job.
06:41.34
vigorbranding
yep
06:42.42
Doug Renfro
And then we can talk about management training on your management track.
06:44.65
vigorbranding
here
06:46.70
Doug Renfro
And ah today we have zero fourth-generation working here. But we have we have that off and on. About half of them have done so well they could not remotely afford to take a pay cut and come back here.
06:59.74
Doug Renfro
Yeah.
06:59.93
vigorbranding
Yeah, that’s great. And my my rule has always been two years and one promotion.
07:01.41
Doug Renfro
yeah
07:04.61
vigorbranding
If you want to come in the family, in the business, ah you got to, you know, college education, two years and one promotion. So ah and you know what, it’s neither where my girls or seem to be remotely interested. So they’re probably smarter, they but they got a good education.
07:18.22
Doug Renfro
and And we’ve got our age range on Gen 4 is like 23 to 38.
07:19.88
vigorbranding
kind
07:23.63
Doug Renfro
So you know some of them, I didn’t come back till I was 29, I think.
07:23.85
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
07:27.19
Doug Renfro
So there’s you know wait we’ve got lots of time. I’m not ancient yet, but you know I’ve still got some time in me.
07:33.14
vigorbranding
Yeah, well, yeah, sure. Of course you do. and Now you said, in one of your quotes, it was something like, ah ah if people say their family business journey, if if people have said ah their family business journey has been a smooth road, they’re a smooth liar.
07:46.85
Doug Renfro
so
07:46.95
vigorbranding
ah but Talk a little bit about the struggles and the family and all that kind of stuff.
07:47.79
Doug Renfro
well
07:51.08
vigorbranding
Just, you know, like some of the things you have to overcome, because it’s always amazing to me. ah ah Just, you know, what what all is involved there.
07:59.16
Doug Renfro
Yeah, it’s it’s funny. i’ve I’ve spoken to the TCU family business class like eight years in a row now. And I usually start out with how much time do I have? um But is anyone recording this? I’m like you. But you know, one of the things you deal with is like my late uncle and my dad, they, to me, they see me in diapers when I started talking because that’s how they met me.
08:19.23
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
08:19.42
Doug Renfro
And it’s hard, you know, they’ve seen you be a silly kid and get in trouble. And now I’m telling them they need to change the branding. You’re like, you know, what’s this little kid saying, shut up and get back over there. And frankly, if you don’t have, you know, if you don’t demand this much of your ego to be around, one of the secrets I tell them is get somebody without your last name to suggest the same idea you’ve been suggesting that’s been ridiculed. And suddenly, it’s a great idea.
08:42.33
vigorbranding
Hmm.
08:43.81
Doug Renfro
And actually, it becomes their idea. And as long as you can live with that, you know, if it’s all for the greater good, you know, foul I don’t have to get credit for everything, and I don’t have to get immediate results. It’s slow, steady progress to me. Because you and I have seen a lot of people that you know skyrocket up and then skyrocket back down.
08:59.28
vigorbranding
Yep, that’s right.
09:00.96
Doug Renfro
It’s about gradual process. We have we have no investors. you know We just use bank debt when we need it. um It’s all still family controlled. And because of that, it’s more slow, steady path. But yeah, well I think you know I’ve told you that my dad and my late uncle had a rule. They were 50-50. They had a a little sister who didn’t work here, but she could be a swing vote, but they had an agreement. They never ever did anything important if it wasn’t a unanimous vote. They didn’t go get a tiebreaker. So now my cousins and I who run it, we have 84% of the votes of the company, and we could outvote each other on certain things.
09:30.24
vigorbranding
That’s great.
09:38.26
Doug Renfro
And we’ve done the same thing. if it’s I’m talking about a capital expenditure branding campaign, a new flavor. big things. We have to be unanimous or we don’t do it. I just assume I’m missing something if I can’t convince them both and vice versa. And now that’s key. I’ve seen friends who make a lot more money and have a lot more wealth, who have a sibling they can’t talk to, they’ve never spoken to in 20 years, and it breaks their parents’ heart. And we’ve chosen not to do that.
09:59.72
vigorbranding
yeah Yep.
10:02.50
Doug Renfro
We’ve we’ve gone with family harmony, so we sub-optimize, but it’s a family business.
10:02.81
vigorbranding
Yeah.
10:05.90
Doug Renfro
We can do that.
10:06.99
vigorbranding
Yep. And you know, that’s, ah that’s really important. I mean, I know you obviously get it because you said all those words. and and But, but, you know, when you have the family involved, I mean, you know, the family, it’s important.
10:17.69
Doug Renfro
Okay.
10:18.01
vigorbranding
there’s I don’t know that there’s anything more important than family. And you’re, you know, the the company is what supports the family. And so if they can’t all be harm, if there can’t be harmony, At the end of the day, we have. and so I admire you for that, the way you’re handling it, because ah as you’re you’re right. We’ve seen a lot of ah more, unfortunately, probably more examples than not where you know somebody gets ah iced out, or they’re not talking, or you know the families are completely ah dysfunctional now, you know but maybe maybe the business survives, or maybe it doesn’t. and That’s just tragic. so
10:49.71
vigorbranding
And so speaking of, your Uncle Bill, you said, I think one of your other quotes in an interview said something like, you can be brutally honest with each other about ideas. ah he could He could call you an idiot and it’s no big deal. So, I mean, that’s that’s that’s a benefit, right? That level of honesty.
11:03.05
Doug Renfro
Yeah, that’s key is that we were i famously tell that story that like I would say to him or he to me that, you know, I think what you just said was the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard from a business perspective, where do you want to go to lunch? Because we didn’t, you know, there was no personal aspect to it. And and that’s key. If you take business things personally, that screws the relationships all up.
11:22.85
vigorbranding
so you Now, back to the salsa. You have 20 different flavors. and how do you I know you’re the one that’s ah um coming up with a lot of the different formulas. How are you finding that inspiration? I mean, just out there in the world, i mean you said that the the the the mango habanero came from ah a meal you had somewhere. is that Is that pretty much what you’re looking at, just trends and things like that?
11:42.45
Doug Renfro
Yeah, I tell people I’m cursed to have to eat at the nicest restaurants in the nation and, you know, read cool food magazines and see what’s going on. But yeah, it is that that simple, which is not actually simple, is always looking around. You want to see what’s on the edge. You know, I we developed a bacon queso for a customer. And as you know, a lot of what we do is creating things for other people. Our names know we’re on it. There’s no indication we made it. ah But people looked at us for ideation. I’ve had grocery chains come to me and they’re like, what should we do for a private label salsa?
12:12.69
Doug Renfro
It’s going to be our first time. And I don’t mean, we’ll never make the mild, medium, and hot for the big folks, but if they want a pineapple chipotle or something, they were one of the few players that they will come to.
12:19.59
vigorbranding
Right.
12:22.91
Doug Renfro
And i’ll I’ll give them my ideas. Half the time they run with that, say make some recipes for us. Half the time they do the total opposite of what I suggested. As long as they pay us, I’m fine.
12:31.59
vigorbranding
Yeah, makes sense.
12:31.88
Doug Renfro
um But yeah, you’re looking at, and and as you know with trends, most of them won’t become a mango habanero or a ghost pepper, which are in a habanero, which are top sellers. You know, I thought pomegranate chipotle was a great idea. Not many other people did. ah So, you know, you end up DC and you ski rationalization um is painful, but we do go through that.
12:49.81
vigorbranding
Well, and you have to balance that. like you You can be out there too far out on the trends. I mean, a quench, we’ we’re big on trends. We do trends presentations every year, and I know you’ve seen them and been a part of them. And you know so you you see these things that are out there. You want to kind of be first to market, but that can be dangerous because you know maybe maybe the pomegranate is going to be something that will be fantastic maybe in another six months. If you’re too far out in front, you can you can you know get delisted, as you said. or But if you if you would just sit back and be hot and medium and you know mild, I mean, that’s no good either.
13:22.12
vigorbranding
So I really i admire what you’ve done. And I think that the the branding you’ve done and the flavoring you’ve done is fantastic. And just just for all honesty, I don’t do the branding. I mean, your your your design package stuff is impeccable. And I’ve always been a big fan of it. So ah congratulations on that.
13:39.90
Doug Renfro
Thank you.
13:42.28
vigorbranding
So, I mean, now, how many do you try and make? I mean, like, ah is there in your mind, you say, hey, we should come up with two new SKUs a year? Is it sort of like when I find something I like, we’ll make it? ah how does How does that work?
13:55.53
Doug Renfro
But it’s two different answers based on when it was. When I came back, we we weren’t really in grocery stores per se.
13:58.43
vigorbranding
Okay.
14:02.35
Doug Renfro
We were in fruit stands at the time and different things. So we were fighting for our lives. My cousins and I needed more money. Our dads wanted more money. We needed it. You were raising families.
14:12.71
vigorbranding
Yeah.
14:13.20
Doug Renfro
and so we were literally being told no constantly go away because we had hot medium mild and green taco sauce. That’s all we had. And so with no permission, one day when nobody was looking, I added black beans to the medium. Then I added the habanero, which was crazy exotic sexy at the time, you know, super hot. And we would, my sales director and I, he’s been with us 32 years and it’s non-family. We would go to retailers around the country and in Canada and say, hey, I know you have a million sauces before you throw me out. We have a black bean and a habanero at an everyday price, not a gourmet price. It gives you variety. And they started saying, yeah, that’s they’re delicious. That makes sense. We love your company and your marketing and your products. And this will give us variety. And they started putting it in and we were just you know making it up praying. And so after that, we did a
15:01.69
Doug Renfro
but we A couple of years later, we did Chipotle, corn. we i We were early on Chipotle. Nobody could say it, including our own staff. I walked through the office. I’m here. Chipotle. Chipotle.
15:10.26
vigorbranding
but
15:10.84
Doug Renfro
I’m like, oh my god, we can’t pronounce our own product. ah Then when you when Chipotle, the chain became big, they taught everybody. And then Jack in the Box made a hilarious ad about how to power pronounce it. And so, yeah, I would look at things, you know, I saw a ghost pepper in a chocolate bar. I’d been watching it for a couple of years. When I saw it in a chocolate bar, and I told the family, I think we can put it in salsa. My uncle thought we were gonna get sued, so we put a crossbones skull on it, ex-scary hot.
15:33.05
vigorbranding
Hmm.
15:34.74
Doug Renfro
and The Today Show fell in love with it, gave us a solid minute on the Today Show back when we all watched TV and there were no streaming channels. ah Huge success. But at this point, now we’re mature.
15:45.35
vigorbranding
Yeah.
15:47.18
Doug Renfro
and frankly we’re busier than ever on rnd but it’s all for food service co-pack and private label clients with renfro what you’ll see is the big chains will want you to give them two items with a significant slotting and kick out your two slowest ones and i’m like no thank you but if you give us two if you’ll give us two more spots incrementally, we’ll take it, and that happens. But for now, when the when COVID hit, the supply chain fund and the inflation that followed that, frankly, we haven’t come up with a new item since Blackberry Serrano was our last one.
16:20.17
vigorbranding
Nice.
16:20.37
Doug Renfro
And we’ve kind of hunkered down. So you know maybe Pavone pomegranate is next.
16:25.34
vigorbranding
There you go. I love it.
16:26.20
Doug Renfro
I’m still thinking.
16:29.01
vigorbranding
So what what is the what is the mix between ah branded sales, I’ll say, and and food service ah percentages?
16:36.24
Doug Renfro
i And there’s there’s branded food service and then Copac Private Label. So it’s three, it’s a triad, which is really nice. It it really, you know, diversifies things for us. And we’re sort of 40, 45% Renfro and then you split the rest of it between food service and and other brands. Like I can take the national retailer usually and show you, you know, two to five other brands that we make and and not all salsas.
16:53.69
vigorbranding
That’s great.
16:59.57
vigorbranding
Mm
17:00.60
Doug Renfro
You know, we we’re acidified foods, condiments, so we can do cheese in a jar, which God didn’t mean to happen. um barbecue sauce, relish, you know, sauces.
17:12.54
vigorbranding
That’s fantastic. That’s very cool. um So I mean, the flavor thing, again, is brilliant. And I love all the different combinations and they are delicious. You know, through my career, you know, again, doing CPG for for basically, almost 30 years, I hate to say the agencies around for 33 years, but doing the CPG thing for good, I think 25 years. ah food, um the flavor thing was almost, it almost seems a shortcut because there’s a lot of expense involved in in flavors. But like I remember, okay, that as dumb as this sounds, potato chips. It’s like, you know, ah plain potato chips still sell great, but put flavors in there and we helped many ah snack food brands, currently hers, with a lot of their products and and just adding new flavors all the time.
17:43.66
Doug Renfro
Wow.
17:52.57
vigorbranding
Just the consumer loves it. It gets them excited. We even did it with tuna, which, I mean, adding flavor to tuna, ah you know, and it just, we blew sales out of the water. Now, again, the companies were the the R and&D behind it, but we were like all in for the, the you know, the Sriracha flavored and all the different types of ah tuna flavors. And, you know, for Starkus, and it blew them out and the sales went through the roof.
18:14.72
Doug Renfro
So.
18:17.12
vigorbranding
So, I mean, the, I know R and&D and I know category extensions can be expensive, but I also think there’s a a sort of a hidden ah marketing excitement. ah It just you know it brings brings energy to the category. And again, when you see your products against across the shelf or those log those those labels across, it’s ah it’s a really impressive uh a lineup i mean how how you mean i do i obviously probably feel the same where you wouldn’t have so many but i mean yeah i’m sure you’re torn like do we want another skew do we not want another skew can you talk a little just a little bit about that
18:51.01
Doug Renfro
Yeah, it’s challenging because everything in life, usually the 80-20 rule works and ours, you know, we have 28 current Renfro SKUs, the top four do have the sales, you know, the top seven or 70% of the sales.
19:01.36
vigorbranding
huh
19:03.24
Doug Renfro
So you’re like, well, why don’t we just cut the rest of them because people want variety and the people who want those second tier items. It’s funny on our online platforms, those will be our best sellers because they’re so hard to get and the people don’t care what it costs. They just want it so badly.
19:16.56
vigorbranding
Right.
19:17.79
Doug Renfro
and But and you know no matter what you do, I don’t care if you have another 10 fantastic skews, the top four or five are going to be half your sales.
19:24.24
vigorbranding
That’s right.
19:26.20
Doug Renfro
If you go to a farmer’s market and they got like 30 kinds of jelly, you’ll inevitably find that two or three do most of the sales. But they they get attention. People come over there because they want to taste you know coconut marmalade, but they end up buying peach. you
19:40.92
vigorbranding
Right, right, right, right. Well, I think I heard you say that the mango habanero is number two. What’s what’s number one?
19:47.21
Doug Renfro
of habanero, though the one I was told internally would never sell much because it was so hot, but it’d be cute to have.
19:53.27
vigorbranding
Wow.
19:53.65
Doug Renfro
think It’s been number one for over 15 years and I can’t eat it. i Most of the things that are best sellers that I’ve created and when I create for Renfro, my cousins get votes in our sales director. If it’s non Renfro, the customer rules or I’ll make up something. but for rent bro i I first cook with Microsoft Excel because it we line price. It doesn’t matter how good it is if we lose money on it because I can’t charge more on just one item. So first I pre-cook it in Excel and if it’s going to work financially, then I i do what I think is good. and Then I bring in my cousins and a lot of like on the craft beer, we were about ready to take it to New York.
20:31.12
Doug Renfro
for the big show and I was like, it’s just kind of bland. And then my cousin Becky was like, yeah, it’s, they need something.
20:36.20
vigorbranding
Mm hmm, mm hmm.
20:36.98
Doug Renfro
So I threw in Guajillo, Ancho and Chipotle in small amounts. It’s kind of a mid range. And we’re like, she’s like, yeah, that’s better. And then James might think it needs to be chunkier who runs production and our sales director might have an opinion. And so it, you know, it is a village situation, but you’re right. Right now we’re like, oh, it gives me a headache to think about another skew. Cause how much could it sell? Your home runs are about one a decade.
21:00.63
vigorbranding
yeah Yeah. So you you said something very interesting there. And again, being in a CPG world, I have experience with that whole line pricing thing. So if I can ask, like I’ll say it this way. We had a client we worked with for, oh boy, we built the brand. It was probably a good 18 years and it was Turkey Hill Ice Cream. And Turkey Hill, like most brands, had a line price. But there was an awful lot of a difference in cost to make vanilla ice cream versus, let’s say, ah like a rainforest crunch or anything with nuts and stuff. Because the expense of those nuts, and and people don’t realize that.
21:32.10
Doug Renfro
Right.
21:33.41
vigorbranding
They just think it’s, oh, it’s two for $5. Or, oh, the price went up. Or it’s 89 cents more. But they they don’t realize. that one flavor to another flavor could be a huge difference and in in the cost to make it. um do you run I mean, I have to imagine you run into that to a degree. And ah you know is that something you have to deal with?
21:52.47
Doug Renfro
and and Absolutely. I think we lost money on every jar of raspberry chipotle we sold last year. Fortunately, we didn’t sell many. but yeah Raspberry is an item that the price goes wildly up and down, fluctuates like crazy. and Most things don’t. they They go up slowly or they sit still. but Our craft beer salsa, we don’t make as much money on it, but it’s fabulous and tastes great. But yeah would I be thrilled if everybody just bought mild all day long? Absolutely. I could get a new car.
22:23.33
vigorbranding
Yeah, there you go.
22:23.47
Doug Renfro
i myself And that is that is exactly the challenging aspect. Blackberry Serrano, you know making that worthy of the name, I get really annoyed when I go to a restaurant. They got a tomatillo pecan, you know smoked watermelon sauce, and all I can taste is salt. I want i want everything on the label to be tastable, but you can’t afford always to do that as much as you’d like without losing money.
22:39.89
vigorbranding
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. That’s ah well yeah that’s ah that’s the the the the difficult part of, I’ll say, what you guys do. And that’s that’s putting product ah quality product in ah in a container. Whatever your your product is. It could be ice cream, salsa. It could be potato chips. It can be candy. it’s just the the The flavoring, you can do it. But there’s always these these cost constraints, that line pricing thing. and And then there’s the evil empires of the retailers, right? so
23:12.03
Doug Renfro
It’s a delicate dance.
23:12.91
vigorbranding
but its It is a delicate dance and I don’t i don’t envy you. so But hey, you sent us a bunch of salsa, so like we’ve had a lot of parties at Proven Group, and ah but we’re gonna have our first salsa party coming up, so we’re pretty excited about that. um But as we know, um you you have recipes throughout the thing, so ah your salsas aren’t just for tortilla chips.
23:29.66
Doug Renfro
the
23:33.46
vigorbranding
You have tons of recipes on your website that you salsa.
23:33.90
Doug Renfro
right
23:37.31
vigorbranding
um So we’ll have some fun.
23:37.41
Doug Renfro
ye
23:38.43
vigorbranding
I’m gonna i’m gonna name a few recipes from your site that use salsa. And you can tell me if you’ve tried it and what you thought of it. Ready to roll?
23:46.76
Doug Renfro
Ready.
23:47.46
vigorbranding
All right, we have the Molten Chili Chocolate Brownie with raspberry chipotle salsa.
23:54.46
Doug Renfro
That came out of a wine pairing dinner. I thought it was and a winery owner and we’re a charity event and I thought she was inebriated and they She would sober up later. No, she flew us out there and had her chef and they had like 80 people bought tickets and they paired a Renfro item with every course. And for dessert, they they used the raspberry chipotle. I think they blended it with maybe raspberries and sugar also. But ah on chocolate, that did pair nicely.
24:19.34
vigorbranding
Yeah, ah that’s interesting.
24:19.62
Doug Renfro
yeah
24:21.07
vigorbranding
and But that was your most expensive vitamin, so maybe you don’t want to sell too many of those brownies, right?
24:24.76
Doug Renfro
ah please Yeah, please don’t buy too much of it.
24:29.31
vigorbranding
Alright, meatloaf with craft beer salsa.
24:33.21
Doug Renfro
I have not had that. I have had it with the roasted salsa, which has a really strong mesquite aspect to it.
24:39.53
vigorbranding
Nice. ah Grilled, and this is also a delicious ah one of your products, but grilled peach salsa chicken with a pe with ah with a peach salsa.
24:48.11
Doug Renfro
yeah Back in the day when we still had to demo at the booth, that was our go-to.
24:51.39
vigorbranding
Uh-huh.
24:52.21
Doug Renfro
And and it’s funny, people think they’re cooking. If you say, put a jar of peach salsa in a baggie, throw in the chicken breast, put it in the fridge for an hour or two, then grill it. They think they’re like a gourmet chef. um And it tastes delicious.
25:03.30
vigorbranding
Yep.
25:04.91
Doug Renfro
You can reserve some. ah It’ll caramelize on the grill, and then you can reserve like a third of it and pour it over just as you serve it.
25:07.79
vigorbranding
Mm
25:10.15
Doug Renfro
And that is delicious and crazy simple.
25:10.85
vigorbranding
-hmm. Yeah, that’s great. I mean, a very good friend of mine owns a company called Gazebo salad dressing, and he sells way more salad dressing as a marinade than he does as a salad dressing. And it’s really, truly a salad dressing, but people find figured out that you know marinating in this in these products, and I’m sure your products are are phenomenal for that.
25:32.84
Doug Renfro
And I love any recipe that’s take a whole jar and use it.
25:35.06
vigorbranding
Right. That’s right. That’s right.
25:36.98
Doug Renfro
No tablespoon recipes.
25:38.73
vigorbranding
Yeah.
25:38.89
Doug Renfro
yeah
25:39.37
vigorbranding
Yeah. He he realized that early on. It’s like, well, you know, the more, especially guys, right? Guys are grilling. So what do they do? They dump the whole jar to your point, you know, we’re not, we’re not going to spare anything.
25:45.50
Doug Renfro
Absolutely. sister yeah
25:47.93
vigorbranding
So that’s, that’s the perfect consumer right there.
25:48.64
Doug Renfro
yeah
25:50.55
vigorbranding
All right. spag Spicy spaghetti sauce with medium salsa.
25:54.72
Doug Renfro
I don’t recall having that. I think we i think my cousin Becky pre-cooked everything before we would let it be on a label back and when we started doing this. I i probably sampled it, but she’s our ah she she cooks as my wife does too. ah gee They’re both excellent cooks and will actually whip these things up. I’m gluten-free too, but my wife can find gluten-free pasta to put that on.
26:16.82
vigorbranding
There you go.
26:16.93
Doug Renfro
I’ll tell her Michael said we had to taste it.
26:18.85
vigorbranding
There you go. That’s it. That’s it. So the last one is Mexican fudge with green jalapeno salsa. This one isn’t a chocolate fudge, it’s more of a cheese.
26:27.63
Doug Renfro
yeah When I came back 32 years ago, that was the only recipe we had, and it’s still the most popular. My aunt came up with that, interestingly. and it’s It’s cheddar cheese, eggs, and green salsa, and you just add more green salsa if you want it spicier, and you you put it in a pan, you throw it in the oven for 40 minutes, you go get ready for the party, whatever, take it out, slice it up, put it on triskets or whatever, and people love it. It’s gone, especially when it’s warm, and you serve it that way. ah We call it cowboy cobbler. I mean, there’s a million things, but it’s just three ingredients. like Even I can’t screw it up.
27:01.20
vigorbranding
Now you said that that when you do R and&D, it’s your cousins get involved, but you also said like the the really hot, you can’t eat. Like that’s for, is that your palette? Is it just, you don’t really like super spicy or how does that work?
27:10.80
Doug Renfro
It hurts.
27:14.06
Doug Renfro
My assistant, it’s ah my R and&D guru that I’ve got working with me now the last few years. He’ll make me occasionally do a cutting of like ghost pepper case. So in the morning, I’m like, really? That’s my breakfast. And with ghost pepper, habanero, Carolina Reaper, I can taste two or three, four samples. And I’m done for a few hours because then I’m torched and I can’t distinguish anything different.
27:33.60
vigorbranding
Right.
27:37.32
Doug Renfro
Fortunately, I don’t have to very often when we’re coming up with something. um You know, I created a ah special ah triple hot reaper for a business group you and I are in and I tasted that till I couldn’t see my feet and then we said, okay, it must be fine.
27:53.90
vigorbranding
Well, that’s fantastic. So tell me, before we wrap up, like what’s next for Renfro Foods? i mean Can you share any details about what you’re cooking up for the future? Anything you’re excited about? Anything that’s going on in the company or in the family?
28:07.24
Doug Renfro
Yeah, that’s always a frustrating thing about doing so much private label and co-pack and food services. I can’t talk about most of it, but it’s really cool. We’re we’re doing things for people like ah the dairy-free queso, you know, that’s nut-based, the things that my 87-year-old father is like, what?
28:22.27
vigorbranding
me
28:26.19
Doug Renfro
That’s what my grandparents wouldn’t have known. ah We do ethnic sauces. We were always reinvesting in the plant. my My dad, my late uncle, my grandparents taught us don’t ever milk the company. So we doubled our shipping warehouse two years ago. We added a brand new two story production employee break room with QA and production offices above it. We automated some more things on the food service line. We’re always reinvesting. We’re always looking, you know, for the future we’re doing licensing agreements with other brands where we handle the marketing for them and you’ll see if yeah you’re gonna be in the new york show i think you’ll see another brand in our booth that i can talk about then.
28:55.96
vigorbranding
Awesome.
28:59.33
vigorbranding
Yep.
29:04.36
vigorbranding
Super. That’s awesome. I mean, congratulations on all the success. and I mean, you’re, you’re a great president. You’re always very self-deprecating. Absolutely hilarious. Lots of fun. And I think that just, it sort of just, you represent the brand in my mind and in a lot, in all the positive ways, you know, and I would love to see you put a wig on and and try and emulate your camera. That would be, ah that would be fantastic.
29:23.97
Doug Renfro
maybe yeah yeah
29:25.99
vigorbranding
That’s how you should work the booth. You should be Mrs. Renfro. So,
29:28.46
Doug Renfro
like
29:29.43
vigorbranding
All right, so I have one last question I asked this from every guest and it can’t be your product if you had one final meal What would you eat? Maybe where and why?
29:40.36
Doug Renfro
Well, I forgot the can’t do your problems. You gotta start with chips and salsa. And frankly, I do eat lots of people’s salsa. It’s it’s experimentation, but also, you know, I always ask people, you think the donut shop guy eats a donut every day? You know, you want to change it up. ah for lunch ah For the entree, I think I’d have chicken tikka masala. My wife and I have become big fans of of Indian food and eating it around the world. I would say one of the places in London, I think it’s Rick Road that has all their Indian restaurants.
30:05.10
vigorbranding
Nice.
30:06.18
Doug Renfro
And then Grand Marnier Soufflé for dessert. It’s one of those things that’s too hard to make at home, but most so hard that it’s hard to find it. There’s a French restaurant locally. I can get it like occasionally and that, now those don’t go together, but you said final meal, so it doesn’t matter.
30:20.00
vigorbranding
That’s it. Final meal. Yeah, that’s what you got to do. That’s fantastic.
30:23.12
Doug Renfro
ah
30:23.48
vigorbranding
Well, Doug, thank you very much.
30:24.20
Doug Renfro
yeah
30:25.29
vigorbranding
I look forward to, I know you’re doing ah an event in in in Fort Worth ah for all of us. um That’ll be fantastic. And I will see you at Fancy Food.
30:34.95
Doug Renfro
See you there. Thanks again for letting me play.
30:36.83
vigorbranding
All right, pal. Appreciate it.
00:01.23
vigorbranding
All right, hey there, Fork Tales listeners and viewers. I am really happy to be joined today by a good friend of mine, Doug Renfro. Doug is president of Renfro Foods. And I had to say it like 25 times because somehow the word foods after Renfro, I mean, foods in Renfro is easy.
00:13.93
Doug Renfro
sorry
00:15.18
vigorbranding
Renfro Foods, I just struggled. But anyway, ah he is the the the president of Mrs. Renfro’s Salsa. ah Not only are they a family owned company, which always is interesting, but they’re one of the most innovative companies I know. Doug, welcome and thank you very much for joining us and for your time.
00:32.73
Doug Renfro
Thanks, happy to be here.
00:34.60
vigorbranding
So ah you know I’m going to start off by pointing out i’ve I’ve been very fortunate to know you and to ah have your product. And it’s phenomenal. And I’m not just saying that. ah Case in point, I have three jars behind me that were supposed to be props for this presentation. There were actually more than three. But my favorite one was sent to me, which I thank you for, and I ate it. So ah I don’t have as many jars here as I should probably. but Anyway, it’s a phenomenal product and you know, anyway, I appreciate you sending us some samples. So so tell us tell us about you and Renfro Foods and the story and your role in the company.
01:12.84
Doug Renfro
Sure, we’re an 84-year-old family business and all the development has been organic. My granddad distributed grocery items in the 30s and made it through the Depression and thought, you know what would be fun, we’ll quit my job and start a company out of the house. So in 1940, he and my grandmother started out of their house and for 12 years or so they distributed grocery items and flavored vinegars and different things, spices. And around 1952, they moved into the core building that I actually sit in. We have now two city blocks in the street in between, but we were just one little brick building. And he started making syrup, and I like to point out there were no maple trees harmed.
01:50.40
Doug Renfro
yeah And then they made relishes. And you know, when when I do a trade show, like we’ll be in New York together two weeks from now and it’s a fancy food show and people will walk up and say, are these are grandmother’s recipes.
01:56.90
vigorbranding
Yep.
02:01.53
Doug Renfro
And I always say, no, but wouldn’t that be cool? ah You know, nobody ate Chipotle in 1940, 50, 60, 70. It’s all very organic dynamic.
02:07.41
vigorbranding
Right.
02:09.47
Doug Renfro
So when I was a kid, we just made Southern relishes, which had the velocity of a snail. So we had no money. And then we got in, my dad and my uncle got into taco sauce, thank God, in the seventies, which became macanti, which became salsa. and and ah and so And separating that you know for a moment, I went i worked at the nastiest jobs we had you know every summer, sixth grade, through high school. and In college, I lived at home and mixed the spices in the afternoon, went to school in the morning, very glamorous life. So I got out of college early, went to work for Ross Perot’s company at the time EDS. I was here when they sold it to General Motors, you know wearing a coat and tie every day, going to Detroit. My car did not smell of oregano anymore.
02:46.98
Doug Renfro
ah Very cool, good people, smart people, good money, got my MBA, CMA, and some other acronyms. But, you know, corporate life will suck the soul out of your body. So I came back 32 years ago and working with my cousins, my dad, my late uncle, it’s been a lot of fun and to your point, You know, we weren’t getting a lot of sales with mild, medium, and hot. So we started creating things like craft beer salsa, mango habanero, tequila, I think. And not at um a gourmet store, housewarming gift price, but at an everyday in your grocery cart price.
03:18.68
vigorbranding
Mm-hmm.
03:19.53
Doug Renfro
And we’re fortunate now to 600 brands in the country where Mrs.
03:19.54
vigorbranding
Mm-hmm.
03:23.12
Doug Renfro
Rimbros is number eight. I caution people not to get excited because we doubled would be number eight. but Big folks are big.
03:31.24
vigorbranding
yeah Yeah, well, hey, they are. But you know what, though? Your product is fantastic. And in this in this day and age, we do a quench. We do a ton of CPG work, right? And craft and ah the originality and having a real story It’s super important to people and so products like yours. I mean you yeah I mean, I know you’ve been doing this or for forever you guys but but it’s a really it feels like a really great time for this type of brand and this type of product and Again, it’s all about the quality.
03:52.55
Doug Renfro
you
03:59.98
vigorbranding
So I you know, the mango habanero as I said is my favorite. What’s your favorite?
04:05.52
Doug Renfro
Weirdly, that is also my favorite.
04:06.85
vigorbranding
Ah Nice
04:06.92
Doug Renfro
and and i’ve you know all Almost all the items now are recipes I’ve gotten to create over the years with my vast lack of culinary training. um but we you know I would look at things like Mango Habanero specifically.
04:17.07
vigorbranding
Thank
04:19.83
Doug Renfro
I was at a white tablecloth restaurant. I saw Mango Habanero on Chutney on Halibut, and I followed it away as something maybe five years later, we could sell every day in the grocery stores.
04:22.21
vigorbranding
you.
04:29.82
Doug Renfro
and That’s exactly how it turned out. and Even then, there was pushback internally about, you know, it sounds like a bizarre combination. And of course, it’s a better number two seller now for quite some time nationwide, Canada, UK. But ah it’s also, you know, a normal trend now. And that’s what you’re seeing like, you know, fast food places now have Carolina Reaper french fries, which, yeah you know, 20 years ago, nobody knew what it was.
04:50.78
vigorbranding
Yeah.
04:54.17
Doug Renfro
10 years ago, it was crazy, exotic, ridiculous. And now it’s almost an everyday thing.
04:58.86
vigorbranding
Right, right. So we are you Mrs. Renfro then, if you’re making all these recipes?
05:03.42
Doug Renfro
If you take the, my grandmother’s on the side of the label, if you put a wig on me and shave the beard, I think that’s what you get.
05:11.51
vigorbranding
That’s fantastic. yeah it’ so Okay, so talking about family here. I mean, you know some family owned companies, you and I know know a lot of people are part of family owned companies. ah Some families require members and future leaders to spend time outside the company. ah Was your time required and did you find that time valuable? And then or or did you and did you always plan? I know you worked there when you were young. Did you always plan on coming back to the company? Talk a little bit about that.
05:36.67
Doug Renfro
Sure. My time was not required. Frankly, when I got out of college, if I had come to work here, I would have been chopping cabbage.
05:43.53
vigorbranding
Yeah.
05:43.60
Doug Renfro
ah they they The executive positions were filled by my dad and my uncle. <unk>s such a tiny We’re small now. We were tiny, tiny back then. So I had to go somewhere else if I wanted to not wear jeans and be covered with cabbage and onions. And I think it was wildly helpful. like When I came back, I had been you know in charge of corporate accounting for a billion dollar company in some areas. and My uncle was still doing pricing on a legal pad with his hand desk calculator. And I said, look, here’s a spreadsheet. And it’s going to instantaneously recalculate the cost of thousands of items in a millisecond.
06:16.59
Doug Renfro
And he saw what that did. And he’s like, can you do that every 90 days from now on? stick yeah Having the discipline and learning and the networking was just fabulous. And I will tell you, we needed a ah filtration system for the fourth generation. So I said, we can’t hire 14 people just because they want to work here. And I said, in that case, for that gen, yes, you have to work somewhere. You have to graduate college. You have to work somewhere else for at least two years and a real job.
06:41.34
vigorbranding
yep
06:42.42
Doug Renfro
And then we can talk about management training on your management track.
06:44.65
vigorbranding
here
06:46.70
Doug Renfro
And ah today we have zero fourth-generation working here. But we have we have that off and on. About half of them have done so well they could not remotely afford to take a pay cut and come back here.
06:59.74
Doug Renfro
Yeah.
06:59.93
vigorbranding
Yeah, that’s great. And my my rule has always been two years and one promotion.
07:01.41
Doug Renfro
yeah
07:04.61
vigorbranding
If you want to come in the family, in the business, ah you got to, you know, college education, two years and one promotion. So ah and you know what, it’s neither where my girls or seem to be remotely interested. So they’re probably smarter, they but they got a good education.
07:18.22
Doug Renfro
and And we’ve got our age range on Gen 4 is like 23 to 38.
07:19.88
vigorbranding
kind
07:23.63
Doug Renfro
So you know some of them, I didn’t come back till I was 29, I think.
07:23.85
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
07:27.19
Doug Renfro
So there’s you know wait we’ve got lots of time. I’m not ancient yet, but you know I’ve still got some time in me.
07:33.14
vigorbranding
Yeah, well, yeah, sure. Of course you do. and Now you said, in one of your quotes, it was something like, ah ah if people say their family business journey, if if people have said ah their family business journey has been a smooth road, they’re a smooth liar.
07:46.85
Doug Renfro
so
07:46.95
vigorbranding
ah but Talk a little bit about the struggles and the family and all that kind of stuff.
07:47.79
Doug Renfro
well
07:51.08
vigorbranding
Just, you know, like some of the things you have to overcome, because it’s always amazing to me. ah ah Just, you know, what what all is involved there.
07:59.16
Doug Renfro
Yeah, it’s it’s funny. i’ve I’ve spoken to the TCU family business class like eight years in a row now. And I usually start out with how much time do I have? um But is anyone recording this? I’m like you. But you know, one of the things you deal with is like my late uncle and my dad, they, to me, they see me in diapers when I started talking because that’s how they met me.
08:19.23
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
08:19.42
Doug Renfro
And it’s hard, you know, they’ve seen you be a silly kid and get in trouble. And now I’m telling them they need to change the branding. You’re like, you know, what’s this little kid saying, shut up and get back over there. And frankly, if you don’t have, you know, if you don’t demand this much of your ego to be around, one of the secrets I tell them is get somebody without your last name to suggest the same idea you’ve been suggesting that’s been ridiculed. And suddenly, it’s a great idea.
08:42.33
vigorbranding
Hmm.
08:43.81
Doug Renfro
And actually, it becomes their idea. And as long as you can live with that, you know, if it’s all for the greater good, you know, foul I don’t have to get credit for everything, and I don’t have to get immediate results. It’s slow, steady progress to me. Because you and I have seen a lot of people that you know skyrocket up and then skyrocket back down.
08:59.28
vigorbranding
Yep, that’s right.
09:00.96
Doug Renfro
It’s about gradual process. We have we have no investors. you know We just use bank debt when we need it. um It’s all still family controlled. And because of that, it’s more slow, steady path. But yeah, well I think you know I’ve told you that my dad and my late uncle had a rule. They were 50-50. They had a a little sister who didn’t work here, but she could be a swing vote, but they had an agreement. They never ever did anything important if it wasn’t a unanimous vote. They didn’t go get a tiebreaker. So now my cousins and I who run it, we have 84% of the votes of the company, and we could outvote each other on certain things.
09:30.24
vigorbranding
That’s great.
09:38.26
Doug Renfro
And we’ve done the same thing. if it’s I’m talking about a capital expenditure branding campaign, a new flavor. big things. We have to be unanimous or we don’t do it. I just assume I’m missing something if I can’t convince them both and vice versa. And now that’s key. I’ve seen friends who make a lot more money and have a lot more wealth, who have a sibling they can’t talk to, they’ve never spoken to in 20 years, and it breaks their parents’ heart. And we’ve chosen not to do that.
09:59.72
vigorbranding
yeah Yep.
10:02.50
Doug Renfro
We’ve we’ve gone with family harmony, so we sub-optimize, but it’s a family business.
10:02.81
vigorbranding
Yeah.
10:05.90
Doug Renfro
We can do that.
10:06.99
vigorbranding
Yep. And you know, that’s, ah that’s really important. I mean, I know you obviously get it because you said all those words. and and But, but, you know, when you have the family involved, I mean, you know, the family, it’s important.
10:17.69
Doug Renfro
Okay.
10:18.01
vigorbranding
there’s I don’t know that there’s anything more important than family. And you’re, you know, the the company is what supports the family. And so if they can’t all be harm, if there can’t be harmony, At the end of the day, we have. and so I admire you for that, the way you’re handling it, because ah as you’re you’re right. We’ve seen a lot of ah more, unfortunately, probably more examples than not where you know somebody gets ah iced out, or they’re not talking, or you know the families are completely ah dysfunctional now, you know but maybe maybe the business survives, or maybe it doesn’t. and That’s just tragic. so
10:49.71
vigorbranding
And so speaking of, your Uncle Bill, you said, I think one of your other quotes in an interview said something like, you can be brutally honest with each other about ideas. ah he could He could call you an idiot and it’s no big deal. So, I mean, that’s that’s that’s a benefit, right? That level of honesty.
11:03.05
Doug Renfro
Yeah, that’s key is that we were i famously tell that story that like I would say to him or he to me that, you know, I think what you just said was the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard from a business perspective, where do you want to go to lunch? Because we didn’t, you know, there was no personal aspect to it. And and that’s key. If you take business things personally, that screws the relationships all up.
11:22.85
vigorbranding
so you Now, back to the salsa. You have 20 different flavors. and how do you I know you’re the one that’s ah um coming up with a lot of the different formulas. How are you finding that inspiration? I mean, just out there in the world, i mean you said that the the the the mango habanero came from ah a meal you had somewhere. is that Is that pretty much what you’re looking at, just trends and things like that?
11:42.45
Doug Renfro
Yeah, I tell people I’m cursed to have to eat at the nicest restaurants in the nation and, you know, read cool food magazines and see what’s going on. But yeah, it is that that simple, which is not actually simple, is always looking around. You want to see what’s on the edge. You know, I we developed a bacon queso for a customer. And as you know, a lot of what we do is creating things for other people. Our names know we’re on it. There’s no indication we made it. ah But people looked at us for ideation. I’ve had grocery chains come to me and they’re like, what should we do for a private label salsa?
12:12.69
Doug Renfro
It’s going to be our first time. And I don’t mean, we’ll never make the mild, medium, and hot for the big folks, but if they want a pineapple chipotle or something, they were one of the few players that they will come to.
12:19.59
vigorbranding
Right.
12:22.91
Doug Renfro
And i’ll I’ll give them my ideas. Half the time they run with that, say make some recipes for us. Half the time they do the total opposite of what I suggested. As long as they pay us, I’m fine.
12:31.59
vigorbranding
Yeah, makes sense.
12:31.88
Doug Renfro
um But yeah, you’re looking at, and and as you know with trends, most of them won’t become a mango habanero or a ghost pepper, which are in a habanero, which are top sellers. You know, I thought pomegranate chipotle was a great idea. Not many other people did. ah So, you know, you end up DC and you ski rationalization um is painful, but we do go through that.
12:49.81
vigorbranding
Well, and you have to balance that. like you You can be out there too far out on the trends. I mean, a quench, we’ we’re big on trends. We do trends presentations every year, and I know you’ve seen them and been a part of them. And you know so you you see these things that are out there. You want to kind of be first to market, but that can be dangerous because you know maybe maybe the pomegranate is going to be something that will be fantastic maybe in another six months. If you’re too far out in front, you can you can you know get delisted, as you said. or But if you if you would just sit back and be hot and medium and you know mild, I mean, that’s no good either.
13:22.12
vigorbranding
So I really i admire what you’ve done. And I think that the the branding you’ve done and the flavoring you’ve done is fantastic. And just just for all honesty, I don’t do the branding. I mean, your your your design package stuff is impeccable. And I’ve always been a big fan of it. So ah congratulations on that.
13:39.90
Doug Renfro
Thank you.
13:42.28
vigorbranding
So, I mean, now, how many do you try and make? I mean, like, ah is there in your mind, you say, hey, we should come up with two new SKUs a year? Is it sort of like when I find something I like, we’ll make it? ah how does How does that work?
13:55.53
Doug Renfro
But it’s two different answers based on when it was. When I came back, we we weren’t really in grocery stores per se.
13:58.43
vigorbranding
Okay.
14:02.35
Doug Renfro
We were in fruit stands at the time and different things. So we were fighting for our lives. My cousins and I needed more money. Our dads wanted more money. We needed it. You were raising families.
14:12.71
vigorbranding
Yeah.
14:13.20
Doug Renfro
and so we were literally being told no constantly go away because we had hot medium mild and green taco sauce. That’s all we had. And so with no permission, one day when nobody was looking, I added black beans to the medium. Then I added the habanero, which was crazy exotic sexy at the time, you know, super hot. And we would, my sales director and I, he’s been with us 32 years and it’s non-family. We would go to retailers around the country and in Canada and say, hey, I know you have a million sauces before you throw me out. We have a black bean and a habanero at an everyday price, not a gourmet price. It gives you variety. And they started saying, yeah, that’s they’re delicious. That makes sense. We love your company and your marketing and your products. And this will give us variety. And they started putting it in and we were just you know making it up praying. And so after that, we did a
15:01.69
Doug Renfro
but we A couple of years later, we did Chipotle, corn. we i We were early on Chipotle. Nobody could say it, including our own staff. I walked through the office. I’m here. Chipotle. Chipotle.
15:10.26
vigorbranding
but
15:10.84
Doug Renfro
I’m like, oh my god, we can’t pronounce our own product. ah Then when you when Chipotle, the chain became big, they taught everybody. And then Jack in the Box made a hilarious ad about how to power pronounce it. And so, yeah, I would look at things, you know, I saw a ghost pepper in a chocolate bar. I’d been watching it for a couple of years. When I saw it in a chocolate bar, and I told the family, I think we can put it in salsa. My uncle thought we were gonna get sued, so we put a crossbones skull on it, ex-scary hot.
15:33.05
vigorbranding
Hmm.
15:34.74
Doug Renfro
and The Today Show fell in love with it, gave us a solid minute on the Today Show back when we all watched TV and there were no streaming channels. ah Huge success. But at this point, now we’re mature.
15:45.35
vigorbranding
Yeah.
15:47.18
Doug Renfro
and frankly we’re busier than ever on rnd but it’s all for food service co-pack and private label clients with renfro what you’ll see is the big chains will want you to give them two items with a significant slotting and kick out your two slowest ones and i’m like no thank you but if you give us two if you’ll give us two more spots incrementally, we’ll take it, and that happens. But for now, when the when COVID hit, the supply chain fund and the inflation that followed that, frankly, we haven’t come up with a new item since Blackberry Serrano was our last one.
16:20.17
vigorbranding
Nice.
16:20.37
Doug Renfro
And we’ve kind of hunkered down. So you know maybe Pavone pomegranate is next.
16:25.34
vigorbranding
There you go. I love it.
16:26.20
Doug Renfro
I’m still thinking.
16:29.01
vigorbranding
So what what is the what is the mix between ah branded sales, I’ll say, and and food service ah percentages?
16:36.24
Doug Renfro
i And there’s there’s branded food service and then Copac Private Label. So it’s three, it’s a triad, which is really nice. It it really, you know, diversifies things for us. And we’re sort of 40, 45% Renfro and then you split the rest of it between food service and and other brands. Like I can take the national retailer usually and show you, you know, two to five other brands that we make and and not all salsas.
16:53.69
vigorbranding
That’s great.
16:59.57
vigorbranding
Mm
17:00.60
Doug Renfro
You know, we we’re acidified foods, condiments, so we can do cheese in a jar, which God didn’t mean to happen. um barbecue sauce, relish, you know, sauces.
17:12.54
vigorbranding
That’s fantastic. That’s very cool. um So I mean, the flavor thing, again, is brilliant. And I love all the different combinations and they are delicious. You know, through my career, you know, again, doing CPG for for basically, almost 30 years, I hate to say the agencies around for 33 years, but doing the CPG thing for good, I think 25 years. ah food, um the flavor thing was almost, it almost seems a shortcut because there’s a lot of expense involved in in flavors. But like I remember, okay, that as dumb as this sounds, potato chips. It’s like, you know, ah plain potato chips still sell great, but put flavors in there and we helped many ah snack food brands, currently hers, with a lot of their products and and just adding new flavors all the time.
17:43.66
Doug Renfro
Wow.
17:52.57
vigorbranding
Just the consumer loves it. It gets them excited. We even did it with tuna, which, I mean, adding flavor to tuna, ah you know, and it just, we blew sales out of the water. Now, again, the companies were the the R and&D behind it, but we were like all in for the, the you know, the Sriracha flavored and all the different types of ah tuna flavors. And, you know, for Starkus, and it blew them out and the sales went through the roof.
18:14.72
Doug Renfro
So.
18:17.12
vigorbranding
So, I mean, the, I know R and&D and I know category extensions can be expensive, but I also think there’s a a sort of a hidden ah marketing excitement. ah It just you know it brings brings energy to the category. And again, when you see your products against across the shelf or those log those those labels across, it’s ah it’s a really impressive uh a lineup i mean how how you mean i do i obviously probably feel the same where you wouldn’t have so many but i mean yeah i’m sure you’re torn like do we want another skew do we not want another skew can you talk a little just a little bit about that
18:51.01
Doug Renfro
Yeah, it’s challenging because everything in life, usually the 80-20 rule works and ours, you know, we have 28 current Renfro SKUs, the top four do have the sales, you know, the top seven or 70% of the sales.
19:01.36
vigorbranding
huh
19:03.24
Doug Renfro
So you’re like, well, why don’t we just cut the rest of them because people want variety and the people who want those second tier items. It’s funny on our online platforms, those will be our best sellers because they’re so hard to get and the people don’t care what it costs. They just want it so badly.
19:16.56
vigorbranding
Right.
19:17.79
Doug Renfro
and But and you know no matter what you do, I don’t care if you have another 10 fantastic skews, the top four or five are going to be half your sales.
19:24.24
vigorbranding
That’s right.
19:26.20
Doug Renfro
If you go to a farmer’s market and they got like 30 kinds of jelly, you’ll inevitably find that two or three do most of the sales. But they they get attention. People come over there because they want to taste you know coconut marmalade, but they end up buying peach. you
19:40.92
vigorbranding
Right, right, right, right. Well, I think I heard you say that the mango habanero is number two. What’s what’s number one?
19:47.21
Doug Renfro
of habanero, though the one I was told internally would never sell much because it was so hot, but it’d be cute to have.
19:53.27
vigorbranding
Wow.
19:53.65
Doug Renfro
think It’s been number one for over 15 years and I can’t eat it. i Most of the things that are best sellers that I’ve created and when I create for Renfro, my cousins get votes in our sales director. If it’s non Renfro, the customer rules or I’ll make up something. but for rent bro i I first cook with Microsoft Excel because it we line price. It doesn’t matter how good it is if we lose money on it because I can’t charge more on just one item. So first I pre-cook it in Excel and if it’s going to work financially, then I i do what I think is good. and Then I bring in my cousins and a lot of like on the craft beer, we were about ready to take it to New York.
20:31.12
Doug Renfro
for the big show and I was like, it’s just kind of bland. And then my cousin Becky was like, yeah, it’s, they need something.
20:36.20
vigorbranding
Mm hmm, mm hmm.
20:36.98
Doug Renfro
So I threw in Guajillo, Ancho and Chipotle in small amounts. It’s kind of a mid range. And we’re like, she’s like, yeah, that’s better. And then James might think it needs to be chunkier who runs production and our sales director might have an opinion. And so it, you know, it is a village situation, but you’re right. Right now we’re like, oh, it gives me a headache to think about another skew. Cause how much could it sell? Your home runs are about one a decade.
21:00.63
vigorbranding
yeah Yeah. So you you said something very interesting there. And again, being in a CPG world, I have experience with that whole line pricing thing. So if I can ask, like I’ll say it this way. We had a client we worked with for, oh boy, we built the brand. It was probably a good 18 years and it was Turkey Hill Ice Cream. And Turkey Hill, like most brands, had a line price. But there was an awful lot of a difference in cost to make vanilla ice cream versus, let’s say, ah like a rainforest crunch or anything with nuts and stuff. Because the expense of those nuts, and and people don’t realize that.
21:32.10
Doug Renfro
Right.
21:33.41
vigorbranding
They just think it’s, oh, it’s two for $5. Or, oh, the price went up. Or it’s 89 cents more. But they they don’t realize. that one flavor to another flavor could be a huge difference and in in the cost to make it. um do you run I mean, I have to imagine you run into that to a degree. And ah you know is that something you have to deal with?
21:52.47
Doug Renfro
and and Absolutely. I think we lost money on every jar of raspberry chipotle we sold last year. Fortunately, we didn’t sell many. but yeah Raspberry is an item that the price goes wildly up and down, fluctuates like crazy. and Most things don’t. they They go up slowly or they sit still. but Our craft beer salsa, we don’t make as much money on it, but it’s fabulous and tastes great. But yeah would I be thrilled if everybody just bought mild all day long? Absolutely. I could get a new car.
22:23.33
vigorbranding
Yeah, there you go.
22:23.47
Doug Renfro
i myself And that is that is exactly the challenging aspect. Blackberry Serrano, you know making that worthy of the name, I get really annoyed when I go to a restaurant. They got a tomatillo pecan, you know smoked watermelon sauce, and all I can taste is salt. I want i want everything on the label to be tastable, but you can’t afford always to do that as much as you’d like without losing money.
22:39.89
vigorbranding
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. That’s ah well yeah that’s ah that’s the the the the difficult part of, I’ll say, what you guys do. And that’s that’s putting product ah quality product in ah in a container. Whatever your your product is. It could be ice cream, salsa. It could be potato chips. It can be candy. it’s just the the The flavoring, you can do it. But there’s always these these cost constraints, that line pricing thing. and And then there’s the evil empires of the retailers, right? so
23:12.03
Doug Renfro
It’s a delicate dance.
23:12.91
vigorbranding
but its It is a delicate dance and I don’t i don’t envy you. so But hey, you sent us a bunch of salsa, so like we’ve had a lot of parties at Proven Group, and ah but we’re gonna have our first salsa party coming up, so we’re pretty excited about that. um But as we know, um you you have recipes throughout the thing, so ah your salsas aren’t just for tortilla chips.
23:29.66
Doug Renfro
the
23:33.46
vigorbranding
You have tons of recipes on your website that you salsa.
23:33.90
Doug Renfro
right
23:37.31
vigorbranding
um So we’ll have some fun.
23:37.41
Doug Renfro
ye
23:38.43
vigorbranding
I’m gonna i’m gonna name a few recipes from your site that use salsa. And you can tell me if you’ve tried it and what you thought of it. Ready to roll?
23:46.76
Doug Renfro
Ready.
23:47.46
vigorbranding
All right, we have the Molten Chili Chocolate Brownie with raspberry chipotle salsa.
23:54.46
Doug Renfro
That came out of a wine pairing dinner. I thought it was and a winery owner and we’re a charity event and I thought she was inebriated and they She would sober up later. No, she flew us out there and had her chef and they had like 80 people bought tickets and they paired a Renfro item with every course. And for dessert, they they used the raspberry chipotle. I think they blended it with maybe raspberries and sugar also. But ah on chocolate, that did pair nicely.
24:19.34
vigorbranding
Yeah, ah that’s interesting.
24:19.62
Doug Renfro
yeah
24:21.07
vigorbranding
and But that was your most expensive vitamin, so maybe you don’t want to sell too many of those brownies, right?
24:24.76
Doug Renfro
ah please Yeah, please don’t buy too much of it.
24:29.31
vigorbranding
Alright, meatloaf with craft beer salsa.
24:33.21
Doug Renfro
I have not had that. I have had it with the roasted salsa, which has a really strong mesquite aspect to it.
24:39.53
vigorbranding
Nice. ah Grilled, and this is also a delicious ah one of your products, but grilled peach salsa chicken with a pe with ah with a peach salsa.
24:48.11
Doug Renfro
yeah Back in the day when we still had to demo at the booth, that was our go-to.
24:51.39
vigorbranding
Uh-huh.
24:52.21
Doug Renfro
And and it’s funny, people think they’re cooking. If you say, put a jar of peach salsa in a baggie, throw in the chicken breast, put it in the fridge for an hour or two, then grill it. They think they’re like a gourmet chef. um And it tastes delicious.
25:03.30
vigorbranding
Yep.
25:04.91
Doug Renfro
You can reserve some. ah It’ll caramelize on the grill, and then you can reserve like a third of it and pour it over just as you serve it.
25:07.79
vigorbranding
Mm
25:10.15
Doug Renfro
And that is delicious and crazy simple.
25:10.85
vigorbranding
-hmm. Yeah, that’s great. I mean, a very good friend of mine owns a company called Gazebo salad dressing, and he sells way more salad dressing as a marinade than he does as a salad dressing. And it’s really, truly a salad dressing, but people find figured out that you know marinating in this in these products, and I’m sure your products are are phenomenal for that.
25:32.84
Doug Renfro
And I love any recipe that’s take a whole jar and use it.
25:35.06
vigorbranding
Right. That’s right. That’s right.
25:36.98
Doug Renfro
No tablespoon recipes.
25:38.73
vigorbranding
Yeah.
25:38.89
Doug Renfro
yeah
25:39.37
vigorbranding
Yeah. He he realized that early on. It’s like, well, you know, the more, especially guys, right? Guys are grilling. So what do they do? They dump the whole jar to your point, you know, we’re not, we’re not going to spare anything.
25:45.50
Doug Renfro
Absolutely. sister yeah
25:47.93
vigorbranding
So that’s, that’s the perfect consumer right there.
25:48.64
Doug Renfro
yeah
25:50.55
vigorbranding
All right. spag Spicy spaghetti sauce with medium salsa.
25:54.72
Doug Renfro
I don’t recall having that. I think we i think my cousin Becky pre-cooked everything before we would let it be on a label back and when we started doing this. I i probably sampled it, but she’s our ah she she cooks as my wife does too. ah gee They’re both excellent cooks and will actually whip these things up. I’m gluten-free too, but my wife can find gluten-free pasta to put that on.
26:16.82
vigorbranding
There you go.
26:16.93
Doug Renfro
I’ll tell her Michael said we had to taste it.
26:18.85
vigorbranding
There you go. That’s it. That’s it. So the last one is Mexican fudge with green jalapeno salsa. This one isn’t a chocolate fudge, it’s more of a cheese.
26:27.63
Doug Renfro
yeah When I came back 32 years ago, that was the only recipe we had, and it’s still the most popular. My aunt came up with that, interestingly. and it’s It’s cheddar cheese, eggs, and green salsa, and you just add more green salsa if you want it spicier, and you you put it in a pan, you throw it in the oven for 40 minutes, you go get ready for the party, whatever, take it out, slice it up, put it on triskets or whatever, and people love it. It’s gone, especially when it’s warm, and you serve it that way. ah We call it cowboy cobbler. I mean, there’s a million things, but it’s just three ingredients. like Even I can’t screw it up.
27:01.20
vigorbranding
Now you said that that when you do R and&D, it’s your cousins get involved, but you also said like the the really hot, you can’t eat. Like that’s for, is that your palette? Is it just, you don’t really like super spicy or how does that work?
27:10.80
Doug Renfro
It hurts.
27:14.06
Doug Renfro
My assistant, it’s ah my R and&D guru that I’ve got working with me now the last few years. He’ll make me occasionally do a cutting of like ghost pepper case. So in the morning, I’m like, really? That’s my breakfast. And with ghost pepper, habanero, Carolina Reaper, I can taste two or three, four samples. And I’m done for a few hours because then I’m torched and I can’t distinguish anything different.
27:33.60
vigorbranding
Right.
27:37.32
Doug Renfro
Fortunately, I don’t have to very often when we’re coming up with something. um You know, I created a ah special ah triple hot reaper for a business group you and I are in and I tasted that till I couldn’t see my feet and then we said, okay, it must be fine.
27:53.90
vigorbranding
Well, that’s fantastic. So tell me, before we wrap up, like what’s next for Renfro Foods? i mean Can you share any details about what you’re cooking up for the future? Anything you’re excited about? Anything that’s going on in the company or in the family?
28:07.24
Doug Renfro
Yeah, that’s always a frustrating thing about doing so much private label and co-pack and food services. I can’t talk about most of it, but it’s really cool. We’re we’re doing things for people like ah the dairy-free queso, you know, that’s nut-based, the things that my 87-year-old father is like, what?
28:22.27
vigorbranding
me
28:26.19
Doug Renfro
That’s what my grandparents wouldn’t have known. ah We do ethnic sauces. We were always reinvesting in the plant. my My dad, my late uncle, my grandparents taught us don’t ever milk the company. So we doubled our shipping warehouse two years ago. We added a brand new two story production employee break room with QA and production offices above it. We automated some more things on the food service line. We’re always reinvesting. We’re always looking, you know, for the future we’re doing licensing agreements with other brands where we handle the marketing for them and you’ll see if yeah you’re gonna be in the new york show i think you’ll see another brand in our booth that i can talk about then.
28:55.96
vigorbranding
Awesome.
28:59.33
vigorbranding
Yep.
29:04.36
vigorbranding
Super. That’s awesome. I mean, congratulations on all the success. and I mean, you’re, you’re a great president. You’re always very self-deprecating. Absolutely hilarious. Lots of fun. And I think that just, it sort of just, you represent the brand in my mind and in a lot, in all the positive ways, you know, and I would love to see you put a wig on and and try and emulate your camera. That would be, ah that would be fantastic.
29:23.97
Doug Renfro
maybe yeah yeah
29:25.99
vigorbranding
That’s how you should work the booth. You should be Mrs. Renfro. So,
29:28.46
Doug Renfro
like
29:29.43
vigorbranding
All right, so I have one last question I asked this from every guest and it can’t be your product if you had one final meal What would you eat? Maybe where and why?
29:40.36
Doug Renfro
Well, I forgot the can’t do your problems. You gotta start with chips and salsa. And frankly, I do eat lots of people’s salsa. It’s it’s experimentation, but also, you know, I always ask people, you think the donut shop guy eats a donut every day? You know, you want to change it up. ah for lunch ah For the entree, I think I’d have chicken tikka masala. My wife and I have become big fans of of Indian food and eating it around the world. I would say one of the places in London, I think it’s Rick Road that has all their Indian restaurants.
30:05.10
vigorbranding
Nice.
30:06.18
Doug Renfro
And then Grand Marnier Soufflé for dessert. It’s one of those things that’s too hard to make at home, but most so hard that it’s hard to find it. There’s a French restaurant locally. I can get it like occasionally and that, now those don’t go together, but you said final meal, so it doesn’t matter.
30:20.00
vigorbranding
That’s it. Final meal. Yeah, that’s what you got to do. That’s fantastic.
30:23.12
Doug Renfro
ah
30:23.48
vigorbranding
Well, Doug, thank you very much.
30:24.20
Doug Renfro
yeah
30:25.29
vigorbranding
I look forward to, I know you’re doing ah an event in in in Fort Worth ah for all of us. um That’ll be fantastic. And I will see you at Fancy Food.
30:34.95
Doug Renfro
See you there. Thanks again for letting me play.
30:36.83
vigorbranding
All right, pal. Appreciate it.
