Building a Cult Food Brand: The Umami Papi Story

imagine this you're bored in

your corporate finance job during lockdown

most people bake bread

Ethan Yong built Umami Papi

from a tiny apartment and a Microsoft paint logo

he created a chili oil brand that's now worth

and bless as f*cking delicious by Gordon Ramsay

I used to go around Melbourne driving in my car

with a boot full of jars

approaching different grocers and stockers

asking if they were interested in my product

because of the poor performance

I was pulled into a meeting room with

my performance manager

and one of the partners

and they just kind of laid it out on the table

days where we'd make no sales

so it wasn't exactly the perfect scenario

that I planned in my head

I told him a little bit about the story,

gave him some jars

and he introduced me to his category buyers

and we exchanged some emails and details

because we did sell well

we were able to be given the opportunity

later that year in September

for 150 stores in Coles supermarkets

hi my name is Ethan

I'm the founder and CEO of Umami Papi

Australia's cult chili oil brand

here we are today at founders in motion

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let's get into it

for anyone who's not seen Umami Papi on a shelf or on socials

what is Umami Papi

let's get into the semantics here

so umami and Papi it's two words

it's flavour daddy

pretty much okay

because umami is a Japanese word for flavour

some taste deliciousness and Papi is a Spanish word for father figure

so when you put two and two together

it's it's flavour daddy and the brand

the brand started off with just chili oil

and now we've got a couple more products and one product on the way

which is very very exciting

my ethos is that if it tastes good and there's a lot of flavour in it

we'll make it spicy or not spicy

but currently everything is

there is an element of chilli in our products

so let's take back to the first product

so you're in your grad roll at a big corporate

things are looking stable

looking nice um

then somehow

you end up spending your nights making chili oil in your apartment

so what drew you in

when I got into uni I started making chili oil just for fun

because there wasn't really any brands that I was familiar with

on the shelf besides LA Grima

and so fast forward to 2020

one of my close friends

he posted an Instagram story of a chili oil that he had bought

and I replied to that story and I was like

that's a pretty good business idea

and he's like yeah

you should do it

so I went out to an Asian grocery

I spent like $60 on all these different spices and chillies

and still have that receipt today actually

I should go dig it up and find it

frame it up on the wall in the warehouse

hundred percent and I was just relentless with the way

I wanted to make this perfect recipe

with crispiness and spiciness

and flavour and aroma

and I was just doing it night after night

until I got it to a level where I was like okay

I think it's pretty good

and that's when I started to bottle it up and sell our first jars

how did you think about balancing that

how that period like I didn't think about balancing it early days

it was very much OK

after work alright

I got to make the jars I gotta cook the product

I gotta send them out etcetera

so I was just kind of rolling with the punches

until I couldn't handle it

I thought I was able to do both because I just thought well

until mommy puppy makes serious money

then I'll quit yeah

but the

the way I quit wasn't exactly the way I had planned it out in my head

so I wanted to ask you about like that choice

so to to quit and go full time for Umami Papi

what were kind of the indicators that made you take the leap

I'm waiting for that perfect moment right

and the perfect note in my head was it's ten PM busy season

and you're working crazy hours every day

10 hour days and you're just fed up with the workload

and I'm at my desk and sales are booming with Umami Papi

there's all these growth opportunities

all these stockists that want to stock our product

and then I'm thinking you know what

I don't need this corporate career anymore

I'm gonna leave and go all in with the mommy puppy

cause of how much it's growing now

and it's the perfect pivot

so every time you go on a job in business advisory

which is the department I was in

get a performance review on how you went and I managed to

received three needs improvements in a row

which were huge red flags

and they very much knew what I was doing

because every time I'd be on a new job

I'd be like hey

I've got this chili oil brand like check it out

I'd be capitalizing on the fact that I was meeting so many different

new faces in the office

so they kind of knew my head wasn't there

yeah and because of the poor performance

I was pulled into a meeting room with my performance manager

and one of the partners

and they just kind of laid it out on the table

so I had to make a decision whether or not I wanted to stay

I said you know what

maybe I'll give it a shot

and the partner smiled and was like

I knew you're gonna pick the more fun option

and I was like yeah

well I I gotta do it right

you know Umami Papi wasn't making a lot of money at the time

they'd be days where we'd make no sales

so it wasn't exactly the perfect scenario that I planned in my head

but the turning point was where I was just overwhelmed

everyone that's doing kind of a full time job

and like a side hustle situation is looking for that perfect time

perfect moment they're like

envisioning this like beautiful future of like this side hustle

potentially making more than their full time job

and then they'll quit but a lot of it

a lot of the reality is

very hard to do both of these things very well

and it takes your focus away from one thing to another

I think honestly something that I'm personally learning this year too

is you can't give 100% to everything you do

and a lot of life is about like prioritizing what path you wanna take

um and I completely relate to that story

cause I used to be a consultant as well

I was in the advisory kind of space

and I remember those times as like them taking my entire soul

like I was working so so much

so I can't imagine like

you were also during chili oil on the sides as well

you summed it up very very well actually

yeah

so yeah excellent description

thank you um

so there are so many chili oils in the market

like you mentioned Lao Gan Ma is like a really big one

mm hmm what made you believe that people needed a different one

and needed a mommy Poppy

in 2020 there wasn't a lot of western branded chili oils

Laquan Ma is obviously the goat

she's been around for decades and she's got a serious chili oil empire

right like

I think I've read something that they do

like 500 million USD in revenue per year

and that was maybe years ago when I read that

so they're a huge business

a lot of people know who they are

they call it you know

the angry grandmother or something like that

I don't know if she's just angry

I don't know if she's angry

I think it's just like her face right

yeah so at the time when I started this

I would see there were a couple other brands in the market

not too many in Australia at all

but there was one in the US

and I just thought it looks really cool and

and modern and it makes you want to pick it up and buy it because it's

I think especially in the western market

people kind of flock towards um

fun looking brands that are modern and maybe trendy and less

so when you look at a product that might look a little bit more uh

branded as a foreign product

it maybe it seems less approachable

what I wanted to do was alright

let's make it fun somehow

so when I started I I

I I drew the chilli logo in Microsoft Paint

and tried to mimic that cheeky

smirking emoji and draw his face on it

and I didn't think about alright

how am I gonna compete in the market

how am I gonna face off against all these other brands

it was very much I just am passionate about making chili oil

and I wanna make the best one and get it out there

yeah for someone thinking of like

scaling their production to something a little bit more high risk

higher cap ex what are some insights you had from your experience

so there was one weekend where I had to make the

had to make an amount of jars to meet the current amount of orders

and it took me Friday Saturday

Sunday to prepare cook

fill label and package all those jars and I thought to myself

I can't keep doing this every weekend

because the orders are gonna go up

so I'm gonna need to find

a more efficient way of producing more at scale

and at the time I had met this guy on Instagram

and he was doing frozen dumpling deliveries

I was speaking to him about my issue and he says oh

I actually operate out of a commercial kitchen that

is a cooking school

he spoke to the owner

and the owner was happy to let me cook on the weekends

since on the weekends I couldn't actually operate in cooking schools

because of covid restrictions

so it was perfect because Monday to Friday

I'd be at the office or working from home

and I was at my corporate job

so I was able to go in on the weekends and cook batches

and cooking it at much larger scales

because we had two wok burners and these big

massive woks so you could fill it with lots more oil

not only could it fit more

but you could it

it would cook much quicker because you turn on the heat

and compared to a little baby flames at home

you've got this massive jet

yeah I remember turning it on for the first time going like

holy shit this is so cool

can I curse on this podcast holy

I was like holy

holy shit like it's it's

it's massive it's so hot

like I remember thinking it was so cool now it's super normal

you were on Gordon Ramsay's Food Star

so what was that whole experience like

it was one of the most real experiences for me

everyone knows Gordon Ramsay

and so

when I had the opportunity to be one of the contestants on the show

it was

you're experiencing that myself

being in the kitchen and cooking for him

and having him critique my food

or compliment my products

he said it was absolutely delicious

so that was a very yeah

that was a very gratifying and fulfilling moment for me

and even though I was quite nervous cooking for him

I will never forget that moment and the experience on the show

getting into your first retailer

I feel like that's like a huge moment for a lot of consumer brands

how did you that come about

and what are kind of

some tips and tricks you have for navigating that process

so I moved to the suburb of Hawthorn in September 2,021

because I needed a bigger garage

and a bigger house to store a lot of the chilli oil related materials

because I was still packing orders out of my garage at that point

one day for lunch I wanted salmon

and I didn't have salmon and I didn't have a frying pan

so I thought OK

I need to go out and buy a frying pan and salmon

so I drive out to the nearest Coles and I end up at Coles Camberwell

it's about 10:00am in the morning

I get out of my car into the Coles

walk in and I immediately see this huge

huge Coles that made me think wow

it's a really modern clean and nice Coles

and there were about 30 staff members walking around

and the energy was quite buzzing

and I was thinking wow

there's like a lot of people on the floor

so I went and got my salmon and frying pan

and some other groceries and what not

I go to the checkout counter

and the girl there monitoring the self serve checkout she's

for whatever reason me and her make some small talk

and her name's her name's Sarah

and she's like oh

it's pretty good that you can call me on your break working from home

right and I was like yeah

my job's pretty flexible

she's like oh

what do you do and I was like

I got this chili oil brand

it's called Yummy Puppy and she's like

oh you've got a

you've got a food brand and I was like yeah

I do

she's like yeah Sarah

and she's like you should go and talk to that guy over there

and I'm like who's

who's that and he says oh

that's the head of Coles Local

and I said what's Coles Local

she's like this is a Coles Local

we just opened two hours ago

it's our launch day

so I Learned that Coles Local for those that don't know

it's a boutique Coles in affluent suburbs

that stock more premium products

and it's more of a premium grocery experience

while also stocking the standard core Coles items

and so I went and said OK great

so I went to the car grab some jars that always carry jars on me

you never know when an opportunity arises

you never know went and approached myself and his name was Michael

very kind gentleman and introduced myself

I told him a little bit about the story and gave him some jars

and he introduced me to his category buyers

and we exchanged some emails and details

he asked me a few pressing questions about how our movements were

what stores were already arranged in

and after that I walked away thinking okay

maybe there's an opportunity here

and a couple months after that was when I met my

business development manager

slash sales director who works for the brand still today

and he was able to use his networks and leverage

into sending more samples into Coles

as well

in addition to the ones that I had given on that day

and also you basically

they just took whatever was in the trunk of your car and then like

put it on the shelf oh

I wish I wish it was that easy

uh no

I gave a few jars to the important people there that I had met

the buyers and they would have taken it back to the office for review

we organized together to send some samples to head office

and then the following year

Coles Local wanted to do a promotion called Chilli Fest

where they featured all

Australian and some international brands that had chilli

and that was spicy products

and we were featured as part of that promotion

we sold an exceptionally well amount of chilli oil

cause we did sell well

we were able to be given the opportunity later that year in September

for 150 stores in Coles supermarkets

and that was a pivotal moment of the business

going into main calls we had made it right yeah

so that was very very exciting

then there's also kind of like

you're working with a lot of brands that are very well known

so like Legos like you mentioned just now

how did you come about approaching these kind of brand partnerships

especially some of the first few ones that you did

Legos is like a legacy Australian brand right

been around for like 100 years

Umami Papi is this new emerging brand that's playful

and kind of tongue and cheek with its branding

so we joined forces

because they wanted to leverage our connection to a younger audience

and we saw they've got a lot of range

they got a lot of distribution

and it'll be a great way to get our brand in more people's faces

because of the network they've got with all the other retailers

and so

we came up with a pasta sauce that is not only just a pasta sauce

but it's versatile

enough that you can use it as a tomato base for something else

so did you approach the Lego team or did they approach you guys

so initially they approached us cool

and then that's when we started to have a lot of lengthy discussions

on how we can get started

I guess then

like how do you position yourself to get approached by these brands

to do these kind of interesting brand partnerships

I think if you're making some waves online

and you've got some real retail shelf presence

the more presence you've got out there

the more awareness you've got about your brand

the more these opportunities may come to you

as well as you creating your own too by reaching out

you need to have a little bit of market presence or awareness

so that it can be a two way street for both brands collaborating

so you've expanded to other kind of countries

like what were some kind of unexpected challenges that you faced

expanding outside of Australia

it's not as simple as sending a bunch of pallets over

to the supermarket and letting it sell itself

because when you're in a new market

people don't know about your brand

you need to really figure out and invest time and money into

how are people going to hear about my brand

because if it's a premium product

premium price point especially in markets like Malaysia

where

our chilli oil might be three times as much as a locally made one

we need people to purchase the product and not look at the price tag

we set up a lot of sampling booths and we did a lot of promos

live activations

things that we haven't really done too much of here in Australia

because we rely a bit more on the internet and word of mouth

but there's a lot of investment goes to that

and making sure that also

there might be some dishes that I've got in my head

that would pair really well with umami

happy here but if I use those same dishes there

it might actually be a little bit strange to

local tastes and preferences

so it's really speaking to the locals there

understanding what people like

what they respond well to

and so your responsibilities have shifted a lot since starting out

um you've gone from literally making chili oil Friday

Saturday Sunday by yourself to now kind of CEO

more kind of the strategic angle of the brand

so how are you navigating that shift

it is year 5 of the business now

this is the first year where I feel like an actual CEO

I think the first few years

I was very much in the weeds of it all in production

packing orders and you know

we still grew our team and we had other people

not just myself because with any business

any company you can't

it can't be a one man show

something switched this year

where I realised the power of delegation and coaching

and even from day one

I've always built systems and processes in place for myself to follow

but only in the past couple of years

have I delegated

some of the systems and frameworks I've built within the business for

other junior staff to follow

and now I've got a strong emphasis on

weekly check ins with some of my junior team

that report directly to me

and they've got their own junior staff too

and the power of coaching and delegation

and teaching them things that I have learnt

throughout this business journey

and even outside of my business from other business owners

by doing this

you are empowering other people in your team to become better leaders

improving their own personal and professional skills

it's the people that grow the business

especially now in Year 5 so it's my role to make sure that yes

I set the strategy but I also make sure that the key people involved

are getting the right coaching and getting the right development

from the diary of the CEO says that predominantly

his entire job is recruiting

which I think is very true

in the sense that if you have an incredible team

you can really go to the moon and do incredible things

and it's the people that makes the business

what's been the most valuable lesson that you've Learned

throughout your journey

I'd say it's learning to just to to just do in the early days

I had absolutely no experience in the food industry

what sort of compliance is required on the label of a jar

what are the food safety repercussions

how do you get into supermarkets

how do you scale a product from a smaller amount to a larger amount uh

what's a reasonable wholesale price to

to match what sort of retailers are expecting X amount of margin

all of this was unknown to me

this is pre chat GBT days

so I had to Google things

I had to look through pages and stuff and crazy

learn from trial and error yeah

so now you've now we've got AI now it's a lot easier

but back then it was just a lot of trial and error

you gotta keep going and trialing things and figuring out

and being really relentless with how you're gonna obtain information

particularly in an area that you've never explored

now I've got resources now I've got experts that I can call up

call upon or hire a consultant for

to get some professional advice and

and pay a retainer

but back then you're trying to save every dollar as much as possible

and you know you can't be

I can't blow a few thousand dollars on a food scientist

to tell me a little bit more about shelf life stability

I kind of got to do the research your own

whereas now most definitely would to get that peace of mind security

but the in the early days

it's very much you stay hungry for

for knowledge and you're gonna make a lot of mistakes

and the power of writing things down

when you write things down

you're collecting data

and by using this data you can reflect back upon this

data in order to make improvements in the future

and create processes or systems around data to

make your business more efficient

or to prevent yourself getting into

a sticky situation that you may have gotten yourself

into in the first place

so throughout this five years

have you ever had like an oh

shit moment that this business might go under

yes haha yeah

particularly in the early days

you go days without any sales or you

I used to before I knew what a distributor was

so I used to go around Melbourne

driving in my car with a boot full of jars

approaching different grocers and stockers

asking if they were interested in my product

and you could do a whole day of that and get all rejections

giving any interest of wanting to stock your product

or even taking the sample jar

and that can knock your confidence yeah

and really teach you lessons about having thick skin and resilience

and having to

really push the boundaries and get out of your comfort zone

to try and make something work

if you believe in it

if someone is starting a consumer brand from scratch today

what is an underrated advice you have

be naive

your naivety is your superpower

I say this because in the early days you have no idea about risk

you have no idea about risks

now I'm way too calculated so if I have to launch product

I'm thinking alright what's the food safety

what's the water activity that could be in this product

what if people um

get ill because of there's there's mold growing or anything like that

how do I make sure our uh

kitchen bench tops are fully sanitized before production

all of this stuff to be like fully compliant

whereas back then

I had no idea about compliance or any rules or things like that

that I had to register my kitchen from

with the council if I wanted to sell product

but I was just doing it without any council approval like whatever

I'm just gonna who cares it's just a hobby right

yeah but at this level you you can't operate like that

I miss the early days of figuring things out

and those moments of being in Sydney

after I sent 48 jars to my auntie's house and picking it up

and then taking the bus around Sydney

cause I didn't wanna pay for Ubers

with a backpack of jars in the hot Sydney summer

trying to hustle and meet

people with different grocers to expand into state right

I could have saved a lot of time by just getting a distributor to

to do it but it was very early days and you're gonna

you're gonna miss those moments yeah

those early moments

even though you're trying to chase and get that first big customer

or I wanna hit

you know six figures or whatever that early milestone is in business

you know the

even though we have even bigger milestones now

for whatever reason

it was those small wins in the early days I'll remember the most

and that gave me feelings of um

accomplishment almost bigger than the big ones today

I don't know what it is and there's probably some psychology behind it

but yeah enjoy those early days

because those are the most fun moments of

building out a business from scratch

yeah I mean

it's like those first early days

you're like wow

I can't believe people are stalking my product

like I can't believe customers are talking about what I exactly

it's this a it's this like idea of like wow

I can't believe I did that

um I agree

yeah now it's like well

you should know what your mom is the best chili oil ever

no I'm just kidding

it's a it's

it's it's super cool to me still when people hear about it

but early days it's like what

like how did you

like how

you know I wanna know everything

I still wanna know everything today

but it's it's even more surreal in the early days

I I suppose

I suppose it's about novelty right

you know these are the first wins

and as you mature in your age or in your business or in your career

as you start to progress things don't

things aren't as novel anymore because you've lived through them

so I think it was just those first

those early days that's why they hit so powerful and um yeah

they'll always those moments will always hold very close to my heart

oh I love that

so the way that we like to wrap this up is

we like to play a little kind of rapid fire type game

sure but you know

in the spirit of chili oil okay

cool side hustles

hot corporate jobs

not for me but some hot for some launching on TikTok first

I'd say not because I launch on Instagram first

and I think it's more community driven that way

Gordon Ramsay yelling at you

not an ideal situation

but hot in a wonderful experience having flame by Gordon Ramsay

so I'm gonna say hot actually packaging over product

not it's important but you gotta have a good product inside the jar

or inside the packaging yeah

quiet quitting no

not I certainly didn't do that yeah

I uh

I I

I didn't want to let my team down

so it was a decision I was like yeah

I can't I can't do this anymore

and also my exit was quite hot because of my last day

I went around the whole office and I dropped jars everywhere

and like interrupted people working

I said it's my last day I'm gonna go all in my chilli oil business

try it post on Instagram

tell your friends

I've literally interrupted multiple floors

and just capitalized on the fact that there were heaps of people

in this yeah

office building Gorilla marketing 1 0 1

you gotta maximize you know

maximize your footprint 100% even today

doesn't matter yeah

you always gotta be selling

always gonna be on hundred percent influencer collapse hot

very hot but not just any influencers

you wanna partner with

the ones that are in a line with your brand's lifestyle

and even better if they're already a fan of your product

so what's next for a warm puppy

hot honey hot honey

that's right okay

by the time you guys watch this

it's probably out there already

at least at Coles if it's not at Coles yet

it's definitely online so yeah

that is it's gonna be a spicy honey made from Australian honey

and it's salted caramel meets sweet chilli

oh my God that's the vibe

so excited for it yeah

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