Adam Torres and Benjamin Etherton launching a CPG brand.
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Show Notes:
Launching and scaling a CPG brand is no easy feat. In this episode, Adam Torres and Benjamin Etherton, CEO of SPRUCE, explore what it takes to make a CPG brand succeed.
About Benjamin Etherton
As the CEO of SPRUCE, a management consulting firm that helps clients increase their net revenues through company-wide synergies, Benjamin leverages his education and executive experience across various industries. He has overseen more than $2 billion in operating budgets and managed diverse teams across multiple projects and markets.
He is passionate about creating positive social and environmental impact through investing and advising. I am a member of the Impact Society at NEXUS Global, a network of young philanthropists, impact investors, and social entrepreneurs.He is also the Chief Investment Officer at Akyso, a research and development company that is developing a novel treatment for opioid use disorder.
About SPRUCE
SPRUCE is a management consulting firm providing an affordable way for businesses to bring experts in-house, evaluating all aspects of your organization to increase net revenues.Their primary focus is reorganizing corporate strategy, improving operating expenses, creating cross-department synergies, and further developing sales channels & sales teams.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I have on the show Benjamin Etherton. He’s CEO over at Spruce.
Benjamin, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, Adam. It’s great to be here. Appreciate your time. All right, Ben. So big topic today. So we’re going to be talking about CPG brands and really the challenges of launching them. And I know that one of the things that you’re doing over at Spruce is working with many companies.
And I guess just to get us kicked off here is like what got you interested in CPG? Like, I feel like there’s some people that are the service side of things. Some people want physical products, like, like talk to me about CPG. What got you into it? Yeah so basically, I’ve got kind of a weird background.
I’ve started a bunch of small companies over the years. The first one was a seafood business. We actually caught crabs in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. Don’t hold this against me, but that company was called Men With Crabs. And our slogan was, we catch them, so you don’t have to, and maybe, maybe not my proudest moment, but you know, early on in my teenage years, that was a fun one.
Oh, you were, hold on. So you were a teenager when you did that. you’ve always been an entrepreneur then, yeah? Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a challenging but rewarding path to go down. You learn something from painful, man. It’s painful. You started young though. That’s awesome. I mean, sometimes I mean, I interview a lot of people and what I’m talking to, they tell me about their first things.
They’re normally like, oh, you know, I sold. Bubble gum or baseball cards, or I was the comic book kid. that was my niche quote unquote in our adult year terms. But for you to have that started to get interesting, but go ahead, go ahead, please. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was, it was fun.
You know, I was basically forced to either work in my father’s office or do something different. And I pivoted to catching crabs, but ended up also doing an for adventure travel, we had a couple of 100, 000 readers. It was all extreme sports and things, different contributing journalists from around the world and brand partnerships with Kelty and Garmin and North Face and a bunch of companies which was fun helped invent the 1st frozen yogurt vending machine company called Frobot.
And then I got into the energy world and worked in corporate energy doing consulting services. I worked my way up within that organization and ended up helping running it for the last 4ish years. I was there built it out and improved our numbers quite a bit. We ended up managing around 2Billion dollars in energy related projects around North America.
I got out about two and a half years ago and had a really strict non-compete in the energy industry. So I had to pivot again and figure out my, my next phase of life and yeah, with a wife and 1-year-old twins at the time. I knew I had to do something. So serendipitously I fell into impact related projects.
And started a management consulting firm called spruce, which is what we’re, talking about today. And basically we do fractional executive services. So we’ll step into various companies and serve for anywhere from 5 to 40 hours a week on an engagement. So, 1 to sometimes up to 8 different companies at a time on a 6 month initially.
That might get extended or we might wrap up the project within that period of time. And and they’re all primarily healthcare and climate related projects following the United Nations sustainable development goals and trying to do some good in the world. So we like to think that our, our missions matter as well.
So, so why CPG? Was it just happenstance? Like those are the clients that came to you or? Yeah, so probably of the interesting projects we stumbled upon was a group approached us about their hemp business. They had started a few years before they approached us. They had 1 of the 1st licenses in the state of Maryland to grow hemp, and they realized.
Pretty quickly that they suck at growing it. It had a lot of disease and plants for dying and things like that. But their team was made up of a bunch of physicians and and engineer types and they realized pretty quickly that 1 thing that they were good at was creating a really efficient and higher quality extraction process.
So, instead of using supercritical CO2 or ethanol extraction, they actually invented and patented a system that uses no harmful solvents throughout the extraction process. So, so they retain a high percentage of the original cannabinoids, flavonoids, terpenes, et cetera, and cannabis and hemp derived material and maintain a lot of the original whole plant.
You know, compounds and create a super efficacious product or extract. So they decide to launch a retail brand around that extract that they create and and launch pills because they don’t believe in smokeables as a medical use case. So we do predominantly. pills, supplements, and topicals, lotions, things of that nature.
Is there anything that surprised you as you were kind of going through this space, like on any challenges, like whether it was, I don’t know, raising money, like differentiation, like you know, a lot, a lot of things in that space of CBD and creating these products, like anything that surprised you?
Yeah, 100%. To be honest, I was very skeptical of the whole industry when I 1st got approached with it. I actually turned them down the 1st time that they asked me to help them out. Because I, I always associated CBD with sketchy gas stations and you know, pills that you saw right on the counter.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other pills. didn’t want to align with that, but as I started to really dive into it, I learned all the actual benefits and I started talking with some of the consumers and patients that were using their pills. And were minor miracles that I was hearing about, you know, people and different things, claiming that these products for really giving them a better quality of life.
So started to fall into it, ended up taking an equity position myself in the organization and becoming a. One of the majority owners and CEO helping operate that business. But but it’s certainly been extremely challenging to raise money in this space. Number 1, just the investing world right now is pretty challenging in general, but you know, CBD and cannabis related businesses are obviously with all their regulation and things like that.
Pretty, pretty challenging to raise money in. Yeah, I figured it. I mean that space. I mean, feel like you have to figure out like your your branding your marketing and really your your value proposition versus some of the other. Just the competition out there because I’ve been I’ve seen a lot in it.
What do you think makes this brand? You know, have some, have some potential going forward. Cause obviously I mean, you have experience as an entrepreneur, not only that, but to make the investment and then to take on that type of, you know, commitment, like you must, this must be a winner for you.
You’re definitely picking a winner here. Else you wouldn’t be putting your time into it. Like, what do you think makes this one a little bit different or stick out? Yeah great question. So, you know, really the biggest differentiators that stuck out to me were one, they, they got their extraction process federally patented with a pretty broad patent on the method and extraction system and things like that.
So there’s definitely value in that I. P. itself. But. Hearing all that feedback from their patients, if you will, or the consumers of their products with how well it worked really piqued my interest. So we’ve actually also expanded to some pretty unique skews where instead of just doing, like, 25 milligram CBD extract or something of that nature in a soft shell or a hard shell capsule.
We are one of the first cannabis or hemp brands to do. Duo capsules or capsule and capsule concepts. So I’m sure you’ve heard of the brand ritual or seed or some of these other C. P. G. companies that people see and hear a lot about where basically they have a pill inside of a pill and the inner pill theoretically dissolves a little bit further into your digestive tract.
But it also allows you to have both liquid components and dry powder components inside of a pill together. So, we’re one of the first brands to do capsule in capsules with our internal, being 25mg CBD, Extract from our patented extraction process and then the outside, we’re doing a mixture of new tropics.
So it’s like a supplement blend where combining lion’s mane and magnesium or whatever the case might be for various ailments. And we have 1 that’s geared towards sleep, 1 that’s geared towards pain relief, 1 that’s geared towards mental clarity and focus and things like that. Which is definitely help differentiate us.
We also are going down a pretty unique path and this is 1 of the synergies that we were able to create between this company, natural and A. T. R. U. L. It’s how we branded it. And another company called Akizo that I’m, I’m a member of where we’re pretty passionate about the addiction space and trying to help people with addictions.
So Akizo was our first entree into that. They invented an absorbable implant that slow releases naltrexone for over 6 months into opioid use disorder treatment patients. So they’re working really hard at getting FDA approval on that end. They were funded by the NIH with over 12 million dollars to Help, you know, proceed through the FDA process with stage one, two and three human clinical trials and things of that nature.
But what we realized was even before you can get an implant like that, you still need to wean off of the drug itself. So you have to go through withdrawal, which is a painful process. So What we’ve heard and have been studying and are now working on clinical trials for is using our C. B. D.
extract for withdrawal symptoms. So helping addicts, alcohol and opioid addicts withdraw with less pain. So that’s that’s 1 of the clinical trials that we’re working on as well. With hopefully partners at the NIH and NIAAA and some other groups. Wow. As I, as I follow your as I follow your entrepreneurial career in this interview, at least, and I’m thinking about this, I’m like, man, you, you, you like to be first, you like to pioneer, you like to do new things.
Go going back to whether it’s the the original frozen yogurt machine or a robotic or, you know, capsule in capsule, or some of these other things that you’re, you’re describing that really you’re, you, you want to be first in a space or, or take a space and take it and add another piece of value to it by, you know, make the progressing it in a different way or coming at it from a different angle.
Like what keeps you interested like that? Like what keeps you going? I think it’s interesting that you have this different take. I feel an entrepreneurship. What keeps you going? Yeah you know, I’m sure people use this term as well, but I’ve always phrased it organized chaos, right? Glutton for punishment.
That’s another way to say it. No, I’m just kidding. Right, right, right. Yeah. No, genuinely, it’s I don’t know. It’s a beautiful thing when your brain is constantly challenged. you know, it’s one thing to. run into the monotony of life and you know, just keep doing the same exact thing over and over and over.
But my days are pretty chaotic, right? They’re learning how to prioritize 1 thing over another and deal with. You know, fire drills and things of that nature that just pop up. You have to, you have to jump into and I love learning new things. I think 1 of the biggest value propositions that we bring at spruce on the consulting side.
Is when we enter into engagements, we always tell our clients look. We are not an expert what you do number 1, let alone. We don’t we don’t think we’re necessarily an expert in anything. We just think that we know a little bit about a lot of things and we’re looking at things from a slightly different perspective.
Then you might be, and we might be able to allocate some resources or concepts with how to properly run your organization from a strategy, business development, sales, whatever it might be perspective that correlates from. Selling crabs to developing opioid use disorder treatments, right? Like there’s really weird synergies that happen when you look at things from a different lens.
Yeah, see you kind of like the the glue like the glue that brings these other things together and ideas because there’s different I just think there’s different types of entrepreneurs like myself. I’m in my lane like I can’t you said yourself I can’t even, I don’t have the mental bandwidth, man, I can, I can do this podcast.
I can run this media company, but if you told me to do anything else, I can barely tie my shoes at this point, man. But, but you’re, it seems to me like you have that ability to bring, you know, ideas and people together, right. And you see a different picture maybe than some others would see.
And even like linking natural and the other company you mentioned, like even in linking those together to solve a problem, right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I genuinely think everyone brings value and there are certain people that have certain skill sets and I’m positive you can probably juggle even more than you realize you can.
And you probably already do, Adam you know, but but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s what I enjoy. It’s the niche that I’ve found and Now, and by the way, I’m going to correct you on that. When anybody listening, don’t send me no emails. I don’t want to help you do anything. You just listen and hit the subscribe button.
I don’t want any of it. You keep it for yourself. I got to know. Oh, no, just joking there, Ben. but any other projects you’re working on just in general, or any like passion project or something that aren’t like, you know what I mean? Your day to day, like, what else do you get into? Yeah yes, I talked a little bit about Akizo Natural, Spruce is the consulting entity my multi year non compete did expire in the energy space, so, of course, I’ve been pretty blessed with having a couple of people reach out to me on that end and just see if there’s something we can do to help them out.
On a 1 off basis, so we’ve definitely been taking on some of those projects and those are always fun. It feels good when you’re able to work with a corporate entity that maybe doesn’t have the best energy strategy and assist them with improving their financials. Via bettering their electric and natural gas purchasing strategies for negotiating their rates with 3rd party suppliers, let alone doing efficiency and sustainability projects for them and starting to talk with them about ways that they can actually create a greener world via solar or wind or whatever the case might be, you know, anaerobic bio digesters and all this fun stuff.
So, so that’s always fun. I also feel super blessed being able to work with my, my wife’s family. They were, course, super supportive when I decided to split off and and start my own thing. So they were 1 of my early. Early clients they are Scandinavian family that has been operating in the U.
S. markets for a while and Brazil as well. And they run manufacturing companies. I’ve been able to get a little involved with some of their manufacturing assets, but my mother in law this amazing business leader. Decided years back with her family to get into the offshore wind industry in the U.
S. markets and they ended up developing what is now known to be the 1st dedicated offshore wind training center in North America. And it’s a women owned, small business founded in the state of Maryland. And it’s, it’s supporting the offshore wind markets, renewable energy, workforce development, and all of that.
So I’ve been able to get really integrated in that organization and help out with taking people that want to transition into the renewable space and getting them skilled up with the right certificates to be able to work in that. Wow, what an amazing story. What’s your mother in law’s first name, only?
Yeah, it’s Katerina. Katerina, you are invited on this show anytime if you want to tell that story because that is super interesting. And and I’d love to bring it to our audience. So you can pass that along to her, Ben, so I’m serious on that one. That’d be amazing. What an amazing story.
Yeah, she’s an awesome human. so Ben, this is about the time we have for this particular interview with somebody wants to learn more about spruce or connect with you and really any of the projects we talked about, like, how do people follow your journey? How do they connect? Yeah. Appreciate that. I am on LinkedIn.
I actually gave up social media unfortunately years ago, which tends to be most people’s easiest way to connect. But it allows me to focus on more important things like business and family. But I am on LinkedIn for professional reasons. You can feel free to. Look me up there, Benjamin Etherton on LinkedIn.
Again, CEO spruce should be pretty findable. You can always email me at ben BEN at T-O-S-P-R-U-C e.com. Ben at two spruce. Fantastic. And for everybody listening, we’ll leave that in the show notes so that you can just head right on over and check out Ben’s LinkedIn page. And speaking of everyone listening and the audience, if you haven’t hit that subscribe button yet this is your invitation, hit that subscribe button.
This is a daily show. We’re bringing you new interviews each and every day, and we don’t want you to miss any of them. And if you’re a long term listener and haven’t left us a review yet, please get that. That review in there, you know, we sure do appreciate them. And Ben, thank you so much for coming on the, on the show.
It’s really been a pleasure. Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it, Adam.