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Michelle Mazzara's first business was an online dating site for foodies. She was first to market. Six months in, she shut it down.
Twelve years later, Luvafoodie is a clean-eating spice brand sold through regional grocery — and about to make the jump to national.
In this episode of the Command Your Brand Show, Jeremy Ryan Slate talks with Michelle about what it actually takes to kill a good idea fast, build a consumer brand from nothing, and get a product onto a grocery shelf and keep it there.
In this conversation:
- Why she walked away from a first-to-market idea after six months
- How selling caramels in local Minnesota stores became the test that proved the brand
- Why short shelf life killed the chocolate line — and led to spices
- A heart disease misdiagnosis, and the salt-free product line that came out of it
- The spice blend she developed for her dog Lucy, who lived to 17 and a half
- Why packaging aesthetics are "the communication that happens before communication"
- The scary move she's making right now: spice tins to shaker jars, and a new co-packer
- Be a big fish in a small pond first — the local-to-regional-to-national path
- Exactly how she got from single stores into a grocery chain's distribution center
- What she won't co-brand with, and why
- Being a solo woman founder: total freedom, and nobody to check you
If you're building a physical product, or you're sitting on a first idea you suspect isn't working, this one is worth your time.
👇 COMMENT BELOW: What's the thing you should have quit six months sooner?
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
00:25 Where the brand came from
00:39 It started as a dating site for foodies
01:32 How do you know it's the right pivot?
02:00 Testing the brand with caramels in local stores
03:01 Why chocolate didn't work — and spices did
03:36 A heart disease misdiagnosis and the salt-free line
04:30 Why she couldn't compete with Match.com
05:51 Was the pivot hard mentally?
06:41 25 years in consumer packaged goods — Target and Walmart
08:02 The salt-free niche nobody was serving
08:52 Food dyes and the clean-eating shift
10:07 Spices for dogs and cats
10:57 Lucy: seizures, a wrong diagnosis, and 17 and a half years
12:20 The science of the retail display
13:00 Why aesthetics sell food
13:49 The scary move: spice tins to shaker jars
15:59 "The communication that happens before communication"
18:02 How she got the message out for 12 years
19:35 Be a big fish in a small pond first
19:57 From single stores to a distribution center
21:08 What's in the line now
23:01 What she won't co-brand with
23:52 Solo founder: freedom and its cost
24:51 How do you command your brand?
25:50 Where to find Michelle
26:59 The Puglia culinary tour
CONNECT WITH MICHELLE MAZZARA:
Luvafoodie: https://luvafoodie.com
The Making of a Luvafoodie Brand (memoir/cookbook): https://www.amazon.com/Making-Luvafoodie%C2%AE-Brand-Clean-Eating-Revolution-ebook/dp/B0DLH84YB8
Luvafoodie Spice Blends Cookbook: https://www.amazon.com/Luvafoodie-Blends-Cookbook-Michelle-Mazzara/dp/1708273026
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-mazzara-83853b7/
