Hey there, I'm Tals Lotnitsky from Ignite IT Consulting.
You know me from the Braving Business podcast, but when I'm not behind the mic, I'm helping
tech startups and established companies ignite their full potential.
I also help entrepreneurs and businesses in distress reset for success.
With over three decades of entrepreneurial success, I bring hands-on experience to drive
growth, navigate turnarounds, raise capital, and lead to innovation.
Whether it's executive coaching or strategic transformation, I'm here to turn your business
challenges into success stories.
Visit igniteitconsulting.com and let's spark that change together.
That's igniteitconsulting.com.
Your journey to business brilliance starts now.
And one last quick thing.
If you enjoyed this episode, please stay on after the show to learn more about the Braving
Business podcast and other great episodes for you to discover.
And now let's get the show started.
Well hello there.
Gosh, man, I haven't seen your face in like forever in a day.
Well, then you've been blessed.
How are you?
I'm well.
I'm back situated in the sunny and thunderstormy Tampa Bay region after a little bit of travel.
I know you've done a little travel yourself.
I have.
That is a Florida thing, storms and sunshine at the same time.
That is true.
Totally.
Yeah, I did some travel.
My kids went overseas with some school trips.
So that was an amazing thing.
Travel I think is always a fantastic educator.
You learn so much by travel.
Can't be.
Where'd you go?
They went to Paris and Salzburg and Lucerne and we met up with them in Vienna.
They also went to Munich and then we met up with them in Vienna and then we went to Brussels
where I had a beer with my son, his first beer.
Wow.
As far as I know, his first beer.
First beer in my butt.
You keep telling yourself that.
Yeah, I know.
And then London where Kara took our youngest daughter to go see Taylor Swift because she
scored tickets.
Nice.
So it was an amazing trip.
Amazing.
That's awesome.
You were all over Germany.
I was.
Yeah.
My son is finishing a year abroad in England and we're both huge soccer fans.
And so you know what?
I was thinking I might have to be in India for work and then I ended up not having to
go.
And so I looked at some options and off we were going to a couple of soccer games.
We saw England, Denmark.
We saw France, Netherlands, and we also got to tour Berlin for a couple of days.
So it was a lot of fun.
That's really enjoyable.
That's amazing.
Asha, what about you?
Any recent travel for you?
I've been all over the US for sales meetings, but nothing exciting.
I am leaving in two weeks here to go to Italy.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You've been before?
No, this is a virginal trip for me.
Delayed honeymoon.
And then last of my 30s birthday, I turned 39 later this month.
So kicking it.
That's amazing.
Where in Italy are you going?
We'll be spending almost a whole week in Rome, a few days in Florence and the remainder in
Tuscany.
So it'll be nice.
Very nice.
We're in relaxation.
Yeah.
I love Italy.
The Amalfi Coast is my personal favorite.
Sounds like you're skipping it this time.
Maybe next time.
It's an experience.
Let's tell our guest.
Let's tell our audience about our guest today and get the show on the road.
That's absolutely right.
But congrats on the recent nuptials, Asha.
That's amazing.
So it's always a thrill, Tal, to meet, of course, all the wonderful guests that we've
had on the show.
It's been as honoring as it's been enlightening.
Asha is someone that I actually know.
And I am so excited that she's on the show because she is the personification of a badass.
So it's just so cool that she's on.
So Asha Ablesha is her name.
She is the dynamic founder and the CEO of Mason Dixie Foods, one of the fastest growing comfort
and food brands in the US, renowned for its clean label biscuits, sandwiches, and waffles.
Clean label means it's all real stuff.
It's good gut health stuff, no fillers, none of that stuff.
So she's always been very mindful.
I'm hungry right now.
And I am.
Trust me.
This stuff is awesome.
Please don't keep talking about that because I'm going to be drooling here in a second.
After a successful career in tech of all places, leading projects for iconic brands such as
Audi and Toshiba, Asha left the corporate world to pursue an entrepreneurial dream.
Drawing inspirations from her immigrant parents' small carryout restaurant, she launched Mason
Dixie Foods in 2014 with a focus on healthier comfort food.
Her journey is filled with both challenges and triumphs, as we always talk about on the
show, including pivotal decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic that reshaped her business.
Today Mason Dixie Foods products are available in over 6,000 retail locations and 3,000 Marriott
hotels across the nation.
And also, I think today they just launched chicken and waffles at Costco.
So that's another big deal that we'll dig into.
I know.
So Asha, you and I, we've hung out before.
Next time you're in Chicago, we're barbecuing and doing drinks.
So come on over, Karen and I are waiting ready for you.
I'm so excited to share your story.
Thank you for being on the Braving Business Podcast.
Thank you for having me once again.
It's always a pleasure, PJ.
Well it's my first time, but PJ has been raving about you and we have had a couple of false
starts and we're glad to finally have you on.
You've done some really cool things, but you and I share some common roots.
We both grew up in a family of immigrants who operated small businesses.
I'd love to hear your story.
How was growing up in a family of immigrants, entrepreneurs?
How did that influence your journey?
Well it's a major way.
I always tell people I'm a child born of conflict.
My dad was Palestinian-Israeli and my mom was Korean and we're born and raised in Baltimore,
Maryland.
So there's a lot of learning and accommodation being made between having a tricultural household.
And I always say that American comfort food saved my parents' marriage because my mom
hated land, my dad hated kimchi, they could never agree on what to eat.
I kind of grew up with the American classics because everybody loved it.
But no, it was a really rewarding experience growing up with such a diverse household too
because we were taught from a very early age that you are what you eat, literally, and
to really take care of your body by sourcing the right foods.
I'll never forget one of my earliest grocery store memories of shopping with my dad.
We went to some, it was just a close by store and he pulled out a cucumber from the produce
section and I was like, whoa, that's the biggest cucumber I've ever seen.
He's like, yeah, it's for the donkeys, don't eat this.
And it's crazy to me because here we are almost 30 years later and we're still eating food
for the donkeys and that's not okay.
So always been very cognizant about looking for farm quality produce and we used to go
pick your own farm, we used to buy the bruised stuff and can it and pickle it and I watched
my parents kill a chicken and that was not cool but it's a green in the memory.
So, knowing where your food comes from and what quality looks like has always been part
of my DNA and I'm really excited that it was inspirational enough to make me bring it into
Nathan Dixie as he started that journey.
So what does it mean, food for donkeys?
Is it just poor quality or what does that mean?
Yeah, I think my dad was just implying that if it didn't look right, didn't smell right,
didn't pass the test, you just threw it to the animals as feed.
You didn't ingest it as a human.
So that cucumber, I mean it was probably this big, right?
I mean that is just obviously genetically modified, something's gone wrong there, right?
When an average cucumber should be this big, right?
So for him it was like, okay, if it doesn't pass the sniff test, what do we call it, the
duck test if it quacks like that all the time?
Same principle, if it didn't look right, you shouldn't eat it.
Yeah, and I've always told Kara that it's not the size that matters, right?
So oh goodness, before you go there, or rather instead of you going there, I did want to
comment on clean food.
It was interesting to me being in Germany for several days how my gut felt so much better.
I was eating unprocessed foods.
The breakfast buffets there are full of fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh cheeses.
And I was telling my girlfriend, I felt a substantial difference.
And it's just a fact.
Americans eat a lot of processed foods, a lot of foods that aren't very good for us
that maybe aren't even that good for our animals.
So I think it's quite interesting that your father taught you that lesson.
I think it's an unfortunate reality.
We mass produce a lot of food.
I don't know where that's going to lead.
I cannot imagine that the health outcomes that we are experiencing are devoid from context
to the kinds of foods that we're consuming.
No, I completely agree.
And I think there is something to be said.
This is a very large country and feeding it is difficult because we have a capitalist
system and a national food framework where if you're in places like Germany or England,
you're talking about a three to five hour end to end logistical journey.
In that time, nothing can rot.
So you're still within food safety standards, even if the refrigerator cuts out in the truck,
right?
We don't have that here.
And as a result of that, unfortunately, throughout our history in the last 100 years, there's
been a mass industrialization of food versus thinking about what is good for your body.
We're thinking about what's good for machines.
And that's not great.
So I think part of the premise of why we do what we do at Mesa Dixie is to make our mission
is to make people feel good about the food they crave.
We're not going to stop one another from having a biscuit.
And you know what?
Even in Germany and in France, I mean, you're eating carbs galore.
You're eating fat.
Yeah, lots of carbs.
You know where the stuff comes from.
And it's not filled with filler and stabilizers and preservatives.
I mean, that's the stuff that we don't understand.
That even adds to calories.
People are always surprised, for example, when they see that some of our sandwiches
are less than 300 calories for a full five ounce portion, which is a normal grab and
go sandwich side.
And everyone's like, well, how have you got?
It's a biscuit.
It's sausage.
Well, first of all, when you start eliminating stabilizers, gums, added sugar, you know,
when all this stuff has calories, even if you don't know what the property of that thing
is, it adds calories.
It adds weight.
It adds things to it that just don't need to be there.
So the more simpler you can eat, the better it is for your gut, for your total well-being
in general.
So we really stand by that.
We wanted to make comfort food not a bad word anymore, right?
Because there is something to be said about the pleasures of having something tasty and
wonderful.
It just doesn't have to be made with crap.
Yeah, yeah.
So, let's talk about your journey, right?
You obviously were you were ensconced in the tech side, you were in with Audi, you were
in with Toshiba.
You easily could have stayed there.
But instead, you inside were like, you know what, I have this nugget of courage that I
want to explore and I want to go out and I want to dive into the food industry.
What drove you to make that decision?
And what were some of the initial hurdles or challenges that you faced?
Yeah, I mean, you know, sadly, I constantly have to remind people, even though the world's
changed a lot, thankfully, in a good way, we're still far behind.
I mean, women in management roles is only as new as the early mid-80s.
And I'm talking one in a million, not one in every 10, right?
So, you know, the upward mobility journey for the average woman seeking, you know, executive
advancement is nil.
I mean, it's terrible.
And I felt that glass ceiling multiple times.
Not a floor, not it's, you know, or actually, it's a glass floor, not a ceiling.
Because it's just you're not given the opportunity to excel because there's always 50 more guys
that have had more experience or more networking or more whatever in front of you.
And if you go by order of magnitude and time in, you know, women are always left behind.
It's still a frequent problem today.
It's something I hope, you know, here at Mesa Dixie we're solving.
But I was just kind of tired of being passed up, not getting credit.
And you know, to be honest, doing other people's work, I was, you know, incredibly productive.
I could get everything I needed to get done in a day's time and was asking for more and
just wasn't being rewarded with it because mediocrity maintains stasis and people like
stasis.
And I just couldn't sit there with my hands under my butt waiting for something to happen,
right?
So, I always had this entrepreneurial spirit.
I was very blessed to meet a woman named Cynthia Fondry very early in my first job.
She was the first female CEO I'd ever met.
And she was kind of the image of my dreams of what a woman CEO would look like and act
like.
And she very early on said, you got a touch of the entrepreneurial spirit.
You should really, you know, do something with that.
So, even though I worked at all these places, I always had a side hustle.
And then finally, I was like, you know what?
I'm sick of making this side hustle a side hustle.
I want to jump right in.
Because I also thought, you know, if you really believe in yourself and you really believe
that you can do anything, then why not just jump right in?
Why not just believe 100% in yourself and in your abilities and do just that, right?
Versus just being on what's happening right now in a lot of places, right?
Being on the chopping block, just your number and there's a line that's drawn.
And was she like a big mentor for you during your early years?
Absolutely.
She passed away sadly from ALS just before I launched the business.
So she never got a chance to see it.
But she was a very special person because she was just, so interesting story.
When I was really little, I grew up pretty poor, right?
Two immigrant parents.
They grew up in section 8 housing until about 13 years old.
And every day your immigrant parents tell you to become a doctor or a lawyer because
they were the only two trades that they know make money.
And I didn't know what either one was.
And the only doctor I'd ever met was my pediatrician and he was an old Korean man.
So I couldn't really envision myself becoming him.
And I didn't know what lawyers really did.
And I was scared of blood.
I was like, there's no way I can do any of these jobs.
And so the only other women roles I saw were moms, nurses, and teachers, right?
And so it was pretty limiting because I hadn't ever seen a female CEO.
And so I told myself when I was very little, one day I was going to meet this powerhouse
CEO.
She's got a red power suit, big blonde hair, and she's going to be bossing people around
and that's the woman I want to be.
And I never in a million years thought that I would find it.
And here I am, my first job, my first day even.
We were told that we had to meet this subcontractor who's working on this multi-billion dollar
government contract to build something.
And I was like, okay, well, I don't really know what she's going to look like.
No, you'll figure it out.
So I'm sitting there waiting for this woman to come through.
She barges through the door and she's like, hey, that's parked in my parking spot.
And I was like, oh my God, who is this?
She's in a red power suit.
She's got blonde hair and she was stoking because she wanted to park in the CEO of the
private contractor, my company boss, right?
His parking space, she wanted to park there because it was the first one.
So she was giving shit at the first onset.
And I was like, oh my God, everyone loved her.
They were laughing and she was just so powerful.
And she just really, she just controlled the room.
And it was so incredible to see that out of a woman, right?
It's my first job, never seen that.
And I just took to her.
It was like we'd known each other for years and she really influenced my confidence.
And, you know, really, again, she urged me to start a business whenever I could.
She really thought I'd be successful at it.
So Asha, it's an interesting story, I think, on several levels.
First, I think the experience of meeting someone who is instrumental to how you view what's
possible.
I think if you're fortunate enough and not everyone in the audience is going to be fortunate
enough to run across someone in their personal journey that is inspiring and showing you
the path and maybe giving you the courage.
It's harder to do that if you don't have that experience.
What do you think would have happened had she not been in your path?
I mean, how instrumental do you think she was to you being able to see the possibilities?
And what would you say to someone who maybe is not in the position where someone like
that's in front of them about finding that courage to dare?
I think you could seek inspiration anywhere, right?
I was very lucky.
That was a very like, you know, happenstance moment to be able to realize the exact person
I envisioned a mentor could be.
But I mean, truth be told, the other person I quote all the time and he probably has no
idea how influential he was to me was at my...
When I moved out to LA for a job, I worked with this engineer and he was just my colleague.
He was my bunker mate in our, you know, row of cubicles and his name was Pastor Casanova
and he was trying to get his Mexican wife into the country and it was so challenging.
And one day he was trying to give up and he said, you know, I just thought, but what have
I ever failed at that I've worked absolutely my hardest at?
And he was like, nothing.
So I'm gonna get her here.
And I thought that was so endearing, but I never in a million years would have thought
how influential that statement has been for me as an entrepreneur.
Because it really did give me some of the boosts that I needed to say, just fucking
do it, just jump, just go ahead.
Because what have you ever failed at that you've tried your hardest?
I've never failed at anything when I think about it that way.
I find that statement really interesting because I think in our...
This is our third season and we've spoken to some of the world's most successful people.
And the common thread that we've heard is actually the failure is a constant companion.
Now, yes, I think ultimately what separates those who have accomplished a lot in their
careers from others is they are relentless.
They're not willing to accept defeat.
So when you say that, when you say what have you not succeeded in in your life, and also
I want to pivot to the fact that you've said that your business was an accident.
So I want to kind of understand what you mean by that.
But do you literally mean that everything you've touched has turned to gold?
If so, that would be amazing.
Congratulations.
You're probably the first person that we've had on the show who said that.
No, I think your definition of failure is polarizing now.
I think failure is something with a period.
That's done, right?
It's over.
If you put an ellipse, you had two more periods to ellipse.
Now it's no longer a failure.
It's a work in progress.
It's a pivot.
It's a change in motion.
I don't believe that failure is anything but permanent.
It's really when you do give up.
It's really when you do put a period on it.
And I think that view of multiple fairs, I don't think that's true at all.
There's no failure if you were able to successfully pivot out of it.
Like I said, I really believe failure is giving up and putting an end to it.
And yeah, no, I mean, starting the business was not an accident.
What ended up happening was serendipitous in many ways.
But I love that quote from Serena Williams where she said, luck ain't got nothing to
do with it.
It doesn't have anything to do with your success.
It just presents opportunities.
And if you take advantage of it, you seize the day and you really do something with it,
you can be successful.
So I definitely think while accidental, we seize the opportunity and we won, right?
And we got after it.
I love that living the ellipse part, right?
You're absolutely right.
If you have a period at the end of failure, it means you did give up.
You let it win.
And so it's that kind of perseverance that I think is really kind of endemic through
all the entrepreneurs that we've had on the show.
And Tal is right.
We've had some lesser known people.
We've also had some very well known people.
But that string carries through all of them and also through everything that you're saying,
which I love.
I just love it.
So what is, could you tell us a little bit about the story behind Kickstarter, right?
That's something that a lot of people hear about.
That's a lot of things that, you know, hey, you want to do something.
You should do a Kickstarter.
You should do a GoFundMe or whatever.
What was that experience like?
Talk about that and how it helped launch the first Mason Dixie pop-up.
I was really lucky.
In my tech days, I was working in software and I had been to a lot of these conferences
where they had these awesome keynotes.
And then back then we were idolizing tech startup founders like crazy, right?
And I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of Kickstarter at one of these conferences.
And it was really interesting because, you know, while it is a very philanthropic opportunity
to get things funded in a very democratizing way, one of the biggest advents and successful
reasons it was so successful was it had incredible SEO power because it was this hotbed of innovation
and ideas.
And who wouldn't want to write about that?
Who wouldn't want to say that they found the guy that made potato salad a million dollars,
right?
Like it was like this weird thing.
And I realized really quickly that if we wanted to get mass appeal and understand if this
concept would stick beyond just the DC area where we were starting the restaurant, I needed
to know that someone in Northern California would want it.
Someone in Texas didn't want it.
Someone in Maine would want a Mason Dixie restaurant, right?
So I went there first to kind of prove to myself that this was worth my time.
And in many ways, I kind of fell in love with it because the instantaneous connection you
have with people you've never met.
And if there was something about what you're selling that really resonated, it became such
a cataclysm of love and support and money, right?
It was all the things.
So, but, you know, I can't lie.
I mean, I didn't sleep for 30 days.
I was sitting there manning the comment section and the messages and responding to everything
and then rebooting it on Facebook.
Back then Instagram was like a fledgling thing.
That was like, I don't know, just a fashion billboard.
But we had one and Twitter, you know, we were just all over trying to push the message.
So I think one thing that entrepreneurs should realize is that nothing is easy and nothing
is free.
And time is the most valuable medium we have.
So use it wisely and realize that all the good things that are really worth it do take
a lot of time.
So cultivating that environment really helped us launch the concepts like energy and excitement.
And I think it really did play a lot into why our pop-ups were so successful in the
beginning.
So I really like the you've made a couple of points that I think are worth expounding
upon.
First, I want to be clear, I absolutely and wholeheartedly agree with your definition
of success and your rejection of the of the of a full stop failure.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I think it is in fact the one common thread that entrepreneurs that we've had on the show
have had is that they simply refuse to quit.
And that that is that that the difference maker for for successful entrepreneurs from
others.
Of course, there are plenty of entrepreneurs that flat out fail because they stop.
And it's it's the motion, the continued motion.
And that, by the way, is true whether you're an entrepreneur or or someone that's just
going through life and and doing your very best to keep a roof over your family's head
and food on the table.
Let's talk about luck, though.
You made a point and I think you quoted Serena Williams and luck had nothing to do with it.
And again, I find myself pondering that because I think that luck has a lot to do with it.
And in your specific case, there was a Whole Foods buyer who took notice of you and your
success that created an opportunity for you.
How much of that buyer cross you?
And by the way, that doesn't mean that you don't create your own luck.
So I don't think that those two things are are the emphasis of each other.
I think that there is luck and in this creation of luck, but luck in and of itself is a variable
and a factor in the success of a lot of businesses.
How about yours?
How much of that buyer crossing your path do you think was luck?
And how much in general do you think business success is owed to let's call it good fortune,
good karma, whatever you want to call it?
I mean, you've had to have had experiences in your life, entrepreneurial and not right,
where you've gotten an email and you and you hand it over, you said, I'm not going to answer
that email.
And turns out that person's famous turns out I should have answered it because I could
have won a million dollars turns out turned right.
Those are lucky moments, but they turned out to be absolutely nothing because you didn't
do anything with it.
Right.
So I think luck is interesting that way.
Right.
Because she presents herself at the right time and the right place and the right people.
But if you don't do anything with it, it's just another happenstance.
That's why that's why every time I get an email from a Nigerian prince, I answer because
I don't want to I don't want to miss out.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
No, no, no.
Fair enough.
No, but it's you know, was I lucky that she came by?
Absolutely.
Was I adamant about making things right?
I mean, the story is this woman comes by the restaurant, we were absolutely out of food
and I started doing this thing where I was handing out consolation gift, an IOU of frozen
biscuits, right?
Because we'd run out of food and I was like, I don't know what else to do.
So here's an at-home experience, throw it in the oven.
You know, that was an accident and I didn't have to could have just closed up shop.
Right.
But I was I was lucky and that she responded months later to say she loved the products
and she wanted more samples.
Again, luck didn't have anything to do with it because I didn't have to give her more
samples because at that time, at that moment, I still thought she was just freeloading and
wanting more free food by giving me this really cute story about her son, who I didn't even
know was in his like mid 20s, by the way, I thought he was like 12 and you know, he
eat her and you know, love the biscuits.
I'm like, oh, I'll just drop.
I'll drive all the way to Rockville.
I'll drop off this produce box full of biscuits and just try to earn that customer.
Right.
Didn't think she was trying to buy the product for the store.
Right.
I didn't think that until I got there.
Right.
And that's when the aha moment happened.
And it was like, OK, so was it luck I met her?
Sure.
Was it my need to satisfy customers?
That was so crazy that I put this box together and drove all the way out to Rockville to
meet her and just give it to her.
That was me.
Right.
That was my my need to fulfill something else.
And you know, at that moment, I you know, I could have also said, no, this is a distraction.
I'm not doing this.
Right.
I'm not gonna have biscuits and a Whole Foods.
I want to I want to have a hundred restaurants.
But there was something about it where I was like, you know what?
Great marketing for the restaurant.
I'll do it.
I never in a million years thought it would be this.
But, you know, did you know you're going to marry the exact woman you married?
Did you know you're going to have a son?
Did you know you don't know these things until you really jump in?
Right.
So, yeah, I mean, I think I love the story and I really think that the point you made
about your passion and luck merging together to create opportunity is a really, really
important point.
A lot of times we come across people who talk about having had bad luck.
Things didn't work out.
I had bad luck and luck, in my opinion, in my experience, is something that tends to
depend a lot on the amount of effort you put in.
It doesn't guarantee effort alone doesn't guarantee you that lady luck will smile upon
you.
But effort absolutely gives you a significant leg up when opportunity presents itself.
So to those in the audience who are listening, who are maybe looking at and saying, sure,
I mean, in hindsight, you could say, you know, it was luck or it wasn't luck.
Well, luck was present.
I think, Ash, I think you're acknowledging that there is an element of good fortune.
But I think the point that you're driving across, which is well worth retaining, is
that luck favors those who are ashen it and committed to whatever it is that they're attempting
to do.
100% well stated.
He's really good at that stuff.
So OK, so you go you drop off this box, things are humming for you.
And then all of a sudden, someone gets a cough, COVID happens.
And now you got to make some tough decisions.
You got to you got to close down restaurants because no one's going out.
So how did you navigate those challenges of closing restaurants and then relocating everything
back to Baltimore?
Like, what was that like?
Yeah, we had made the decision before COVID to move to Baltimore because we were growing
the frozen food business was growing and headquartering a predominantly back office operation, you
know, was difficult in D.C.
The leases are expensive.
The spaces are meant for lobbyists to see the view of the monument.
I mean, we're a frozen food company.
I was like, put me in a basement.
Come on.
Like, this is nuts, right?
So when we were running out of opportunities, we went back to my hometown because I was
like, you know, if D.C. won't take us in, maybe, you know, one of the most industrial,
most craft cities in the country would honor us.
And so that's, you know, one of the best decisions I ever made is coming back here.
But the crazy thing, obviously, with COVID was everything got held up.
We were trying to rebuild the office space and, you know, construction went, everything
went haywire, right?
I really take my hat off to all entrepreneurs and especially restaurateurs during COVID.
I mean, people need to really understand and like kiss the feet of anybody serving food
during that time.
It was a very challenging time.
I mean, to pivot as many times as restaurateurs had to do, I don't think any other industry,
I don't care what you say.
You know, you're on the front lines dealing with a customer.
There's no scarier place than between a human's hunger and you.
Let me tell you.
You know, it's like sticking your hand in a lion's mouth and hoping he doesn't bite.
I mean, it just really is.
And it's, you know, sometimes it's really tough.
And so going through all of that and then removing human connection, becoming just a
machine that makes food and puts it in a bag and shoves it out a window and closes the
door before the germs come in.
I mean, it was a weird time, right?
And on top of that, you know, hospitality, it's all about greeting the customer and whining
and dining them.
And now you're telling everything through an app.
It's like, oh, God, it took the soul out of everything, right?
It was really challenging.
And you know, I think every entrepreneur didn't even have time to take a breath.
You just had to run as fast as you could, right?
There was this atom bomb cloud coming for you and you were just ducking and diving and
trying to find any way to avoid the consequence of what was going to happen.
So it was a very tough time and it was devastating to think about.
But you know, every day you thought it would be tomorrow would be over.
So there was that human trait of hope was probably one of the best things we have.
That's an innate function of ourselves and unique, I think, to many other creatures.
But every day thinking it would be over gave you the next day to really make sure that
you're doing everything you can to make sure it's over in the next day, right?
So every day with problem solving.
And you know, we moved because we didn't have an office.
We moved to everyone's homes and my house became the UPS store.
And I admit everybody masks or not because I was like, we got to get this samples out.
We got to test these biscuits.
I mean, doing stuff over Zoom and you know, the video quality.
I'm looking at nooks and crannies of butter in a raw dough and I'm looking at it in my
phone, like trying to figure out like how small was it?
You know, it was a nightmare.
But it was wild because the one thing that bonded everybody in the food and beverage
industry was we were all trying to make a buck happen because every physical outlet
was out of the question.
So you had your own manufacturer who typically wouldn't even hit a phone call sitting there
videoing biscuits coming off a line for you, right?
I mean, that just didn't happen.
So there was this beautiful community building energy that I think made it a lot easier to
get through.
And I think also, you know, entrepreneurs, especially founders or CEOs, it was a heavy
time because you're also the only structure and hope sometimes that somebody had that
it would be okay, right?
So you're having to be positive.
You're having to coach people.
You know, every...
I hated having the happy hours, the virtual happy hours because inevitably somebody got
too drunk and then I got stuck on an eight-hour therapy call, right?
Because they just wanted somebody to talk to you about all the things they were scared
about, right?
I mean, it just really became a multifaceted role.
And I think if anything, anyone considering entrepreneurship realized that's not unique
to COVID, that is every day that you're helping somebody somehow on your team.
Yeah, let's talk about team building because at the time that COVID hit, I was the CEO
of iControl Data.
We had tens of thousands of customers, including well over 10,000 restaurants that were using
our services.
And of course, essentially overnight, almost all of them were...
We were in the business of helping them pay for their alcohol to their suppliers.
And of course, you could at the time not sell alcohol off premises if you're a restaurant.
That law has changed a lot of places, but back then you could not.
And it essentially put a complete hard stop to our business.
And it was absolutely challenging.
I think the area that I'd like to dive into with you a little bit is the area you just
touched on, which is people.
You know, tough times make for opportunities.
And you know, entrepreneurs, particularly those who are in leadership positions, they're
not just solo entrepreneurs, but they're running businesses where there are people reporting
to them.
Have opportunities at different times in the trajectory of their business to really shape
the experience for the people who are working with them and also be empowered by the people
that are working with them.
Talk to me about what you experienced with your team.
First of all, how big of a team was it at the time?
And what was it like to go through something none of us had ever experienced with a team
of people being in a position where, as you said, you needed to, people were looking up
to you to see how you were doing with the situation.
How authentic did you feel?
Well, it was a tough time because, you know, we had over, I don't know, at peak right before
COVID, maybe 56 employees between the restaurant and the frozen business.
Frozen business only had about three people.
And then sliding into COVID before we knew COVID was happening, we had just made a significant
jump in hiring.
We hired eight people.
I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but if you're doubling in size, it is.
And remind you, our office was the broom closet in the back of the restaurant.
We shared the computer with the GM who needed to print menu, right?
Like, I mean, this was completely game changing.
We didn't have Microsoft Office.
I mean, we had to do everything literally overnight and then train everybody.
And, you know, it was tough.
But I think one of the things about scaling this business during pre, post, you know,
contingent with COVID was finding human talent in unorthodox ways.
You didn't get to physically meet them.
I didn't meet half of our team for a year and a half or more.
I was meeting people virtually and using the power of words and stories.
And, you know, we're very big on diversity and inclusion, just always have been.
We're a majority woman run business to this day.
And you know, I'm very loud and proud about that.
And then obviously during COVID, we had all the challenges with the murder of George Floyd
and civil unrest as it relates to inequity among people of color.
And we were already at the forefront of that change for our industry.
So I took that opportunity to just get louder about it, right?
To just get people to wake up and cure us out, right?
And it actually drew talent in.
I never placed a job posting during that entire time.
People were really looking for purpose, value, hope, and reinventing themselves.
They were like, if I got to work from home and my PJs, I may as well do some, if someone
is going to invade my home with their image on Zoom, then I need to make sure I really
want to see their face every day.
I really got to make sure I love doing this job, which ended up people didn't realize
that there's a blessing and curse working from home.
You had no escape, right?
You're at work all the time.
I mean, no wonder everybody went mentally unwell, right?
I mean, this was very, very life-changing for everyone.
And so I was very lucky to be able to have a voice at that time to attract incredible
people into my orbit, whether they're still here or not.
Why are they were here for a year?
Why they're still here, right?
And I was just having this conversation with my CGO this morning.
We really got lucky because we were able to hire people because we liked them and we liked
what they brought to the table.
Not that way, right?
Instead of writing a job description, you start going, seven years, nope, this one only
had five, nope, throw that one away.
Direct experience in frozen...
You didn't have logistics, but he had frozen.
No, okay, throw that away.
We didn't have to do that.
It was just, this person's a firecracker.
They want to jump in.
They're awesome.
Let's just do it.
And it's incredible because they're here thriving and they wear every hat and their institutional
knowledge is so deep.
If I went down for some reason, or plan to ever do, if I was down in a plane crash, there's
at least a handful of people here who know where everything is, who could keep this thing
going.
It's interesting.
I don't know if you realize it, you use the word luck.
You said we got really lucky that there were these people who were interested in or could
step up.
And again, I think it's luck you created.
I mean, you created a certain culture in your company, a culture of inclusion, a culture,
a word that I often use is the word love.
And it's not a word that a lot of people associate with business, but I do.
And I think a loving workplace is a workplace where luck, lucky things happen because people
tend to feel ownership, want to step up, want to do more and feel that by stepping up, they're
not going to put themselves out on a ledge to get their, you know, their neck wrung out
if things don't go well.
But rather that they'll be celebrated for wanting to learn and grow.
And those cultures feed on themselves, just like bad cultures feed on themselves.
They do.
But you're very right about that.
I do reference luck a lot because I think as a CEO, I think and as a first time entrepreneur,
I think we have a tendency to create an identity of myself as the business leader and then
my personal self.
And then, you know, most of us don't actually get to be very retrospective outside of these
awesome podcasts, right?
We don't really actually get to look at what happened.
We're always thinking forward, right?
So whenever I think when I get to reminisce, it all feels so lucky as, you know, little
Asha, right?
I'm just like, oh, wow, I'm so lucky.
Like all these things happen to me.
I almost get to romanticize in my own self image.
And I think because of that, I always say I feel lucky.
But to your point, there was a whole lot of intention behind everything that brings that
energy.
That's very interesting that you bring that up now that I think about it.
It's funny how we present ourselves.
No, it's totally true.
So tell I'll give you some, excuse me, I'll give you a little bit of data point.
So when I first met Asha, gosh, probably four years now, probably something like that.
Yeah, my gosh, she was she was just a little thing.
And just, you know, she was she was making a lot of noise in the industry and just a
dynamo and I really want to get her on.
So Karen, I had her on the old What the Parent podcast and then we had her on again.
And by that time, so I'm very interested here at this numbers now.
By that time, she had in two years had gone from Hey, I'm, you know, I'm making frozen
biscuits to serving over a million sandwiches a year through Marriott, I believe, if that's
if that's true.
So where are you at now?
What are you doing now?
And I know today, as we're taping is the launch of the chicken and waffles at Costco.
So that's completely badass.
So what were you at now?
Like what kind of numbers are you producing?
And there's another product line extension coming up, if I'm not mistaken, right.
There's something else coming up in March.
Is that right?
That's what I saw in the in the in the document, unless it was the same thing.
It that unfortunately, I wrote that document a while ago because of my gotcha.
Unfortunately, but yes, we did launch a bunch of new breakfast sandwiches in the market
in March.
It's all been doing incredibly well.
I mean, I cannot complain.
Our success at Costco has been game changing.
It's lifted our awareness by 500 percent.
I mean, it's just it's been unbelievable.
I can't even tell you how many sandwiches to be honest anymore, PJ.
It's but it's a lot.
It's it's probably like, I don't know, in the dozens of millions a year now.
I mean, we've we've really platformed.
We're the number one breakfast sandwich in the channel, number one breakfast brand at
Whole Foods.
I mean, it's just I don't know.
It's been crazy.
So a lot's changed that way for sure since we first started chatting.
And I think a lot of that kind of leans into, you know, one of one of the things that I
think entrepreneurs get into a lot of analysis paralysis and you get, you know, as you get
bigger, you get scared of taking risks.
So you start doing dumb shit like overanalyzing stuff.
And then all of a sudden, you're just making another flavor of peanut butter.
Right.
Don't.
Right.
You just got to do some things.
You got to figure out a good test strategy.
You got to get that stuff out there and you got to take it off the chin.
If somebody says this is dog shit, it probably is.
So you fix it.
Right.
So you're doing the criticism, making sure that like, you know, formulations.
I mean, we're on biscuit 8.0 now.
I mean, it's never done.
I mean, that's something I learned when I was at Audi for sure.
Right.
It's product improvement, product improvement, product improvement.
You were never done.
The car is never perfect.
And I think that's that's something that's really evolved for us.
I mean, when we first met, we were doing frozen dough.
We've had to completely move away from that because supply chain got challenged and they
don't.
Those factories don't exist anymore.
It's all fully baked.
Right.
That's it.
That's a huge difference.
The huge product improvement for us now instead of waiting 30 minutes, you wait 30 seconds
and it's done.
So I think in that way, that's been game changing.
And then it's funny, just the other day, we were trying to get something together for
our legal team, all the IP stuff that they want us to document, whatever.
Our team's going through it.
And I was like, holy crap, the amount of breakthroughs we've had as a business.
You wouldn't even think.
Right.
I mean, we were on like third, fourth sheets.
And that's that was wild.
When I first met you, I was like, we're trying to get something.
It's called a cheddar biscuit.
Yeah, you were you were worried if it was going to work.
I remember that you were worried about if people were going to find it cheesy enough.
Yes, exactly.
Oh my God.
Great memory, PJ.
So yeah, no, a lot a lot has changed that way.
And for the good and we've made so much progress that way.
We've grown in so many different channels.
Like I said, launching Costco as they speak, but we're also going to be launching at Sam's
Club in the fall.
And, you know, we're continuously growing.
And the next big frontier, actually, I'm really excited about it.
Maybe I referenced this fall.
I can't remember.
You know, again, growing up as an immigrant child and growing up not wealthy at all.
I always thank my parents for being smart enough to always make sure that we had access
to food, quality food.
And I think it's a sham that in America, you know, how we treat our legit Dix folks out
there on these streets, having to eat out of gas stations three to five times a day.
And it's dog shit.
I don't think that's OK.
So I'm really excited.
We've started to partner with some incredible people and we're looking at, you know, executing
in the convenience channel now and trying to get into travel more.
It's trying to get into the hot serve sections that all of these different convenience or
than gas stations where people people don't realize how lucky they are, but a lot of folks
have to shop and eat there every day.
So well, I know a thing or two about about those classes of trade, and I probably can
make some connections for you.
So I will stay on for a couple of minutes afterwards.
I don't want to.
And I know we are about to run out of time with you.
I did want to pause and give you a chance to talk about something that you're very passionate
about, which is your involvement with the Franciscan Center and Dignity Plates.
I'd love for you to tell us who these organizations are, what they do and why is it important
to be involved in these organizations or with these organizations?
Thank you for bringing that up.
So the Franciscan Center is run by the Catholic Charities of America, and it's a economically
challenged people can come there and seek out any kind of resources, whether that's
food, pharmaceutical aid, et cetera.
And there's a new subset of that called Dignity Plates where we're basically training, retraining
folks who are economically challenged into the food and beverage workforce, which is
incredible because the curriculum gets better and better.
The team is incredible.
They're diversifying like crazy.
They've started a catering business out of this.
So graduates who are not looking to enter into a full time gig as a chef or sous chef,
and they want to become an entrepreneur, they can get hands on work experience plus get
paid.
So it's been incredible.
So we donate a lot of time, money, resources.
We teach a whole lesson on entrepreneurship and running a business here.
So it's really important to me because in the city of Baltimore, we still have an incredible
great divide where a lot of the most economically challenged people still continue to be African
American and it's not okay.
And so we love being able to give back and be a constant resource.
That's the other thing I love about it.
It's not a one time thing.
We're part of that curriculum three times a year.
We're involved with them probably 12 times a year, anything they need.
It's a constant partnership.
So for anyone looking for opportunities, always look close to your community, look in your
backyard.
It's a great place to start.
And I'm really proud of all the success we've had with that organization.
That's awesome.
You know, just a side note, one of the things that I love about you and love about Tal and
a few others that I've met is that even though you guys have been very successful, it hasn't
changed you.
And I love, I just absolutely love the energy and the honesty and the realness that you
bring forth.
And like I mentioned, Tal, you know, I work with Tal, but he's been, it's a thing that
I hope that most entrepreneurs keep in mind.
Like don't get lost in it.
Be who you are and just, you know, continuously grow.
So I think that's amazing.
One last thing.
So you have a quote that of course ties into your brand, but it's really funny and it is,
you got to risk it for the biscuit, right?
So reflecting on your personal journey, what advice about risk taking would you give to
aspiring entrepreneurs?
And how can an entrepreneur tell the difference between a reckless risk versus a calculated
risk?
I think that the magic of entrepreneurs and founders is their gut.
There's always a little bit of having this fabulous gut and it does steer you, I'd say
nine times out of 10 in the right direction.
But the way to make sure that that gut feeling is right is I think one of the biggest things
and all of my advisors and investors and mentors throughout my career have always said, I take
criticism really well and I don't take it personally.
And I think that is one thing that a lot of folks don't realize how valuable that is.
There's always a nugget of truth in everything, even if it's ugly.
Just find the nugget and focus on that, right?
Take feedback, share your ideas, but realize that nothing's perfect until it is, right?
So you just got to take the chance and make sure that it's groomed the right way with
as much feedback as you can get.
That's awesome.
I think it's worth, again, it's not surprising that there are so many aspects of being a
successful entrepreneur and being good at what you do that have tremendous commonalities
with just being a good human.
And in general, being able to listen to feedback and criticism without becoming defensive,
without feeling the need to what about to the person that's giving you the feedback
is a massive difference maker in terms of being able to grow.
And that's true as an entrepreneur and as true as a human being.
So I can see just from our interaction, and I don't know you the way PJ knows you, but
I'm not at all surprised to see how successful you are because a few things come out very
clearly in speaking to you.
One is you're plain spoken.
Not a lot of highfalutin words, not a lot of BS, not a lot of MBA speak, which I, I
find to almost always be the mark of a person who's successful on merit and not just because
some stuff they heard.
That's one.
Two, you talk clearly and plainly about the importance of being a part of something bigger.
So whether it's bringing healthier foods into the community, caring about people outside
of yourself, being aware of the plight of people who are less fortunate, caring about
those things and helping people that are in your orbit grow.
Those are all things that seem self-evidently to be things you're passionate about.
And I think third, and again, you and I happen to have the same experience.
We're from the same part of the world too, which is the, the, the experience of being
an immigrant.
And in my case, watching my parents, my father was an engineer, but he worked construction.
My mother was a PhD in education, worked as a teacher's aid.
People willing to do what it takes.
And that oftentimes is what entrepreneurs have to do in the early, in the early days
of almost every entrepreneurial adventure that you might take on.
You're going to be the person that wipes the floor, empties the trash bins and makes the
sales calls.
If you're not comfortable doing these things, guess what?
You're not likely to be able to be successful.
You have to be willing to be humble and to be real.
And those things tend to drive success.
And I think that's, that's what, that's what I'm picking up when, when I'm speaking to
you, Asha.
So, our guest today, Asha Aboulayja is, is the founder and CEO of Mason Dixie Foods,
which is one of the fastest growing comfort food brands in the US.
She's doing really cool things with, with, with, with healthy foods, as well as really
cool things in her community.
I'm originally from, well, I'm originally from Israel, but I grew up in Rockville, Maryland.
And so we are from somewhat of the same, you know, we, we, we took our steps in the same
places.
So I, I just want to, you know, congratulate you on everything you've accomplished.
Wish you continued success.
If people want to know more about Mason Dixie Foods, where, where should they go?
Yeah, they can visit us at www.MasonDixieFoods.com or Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok,
at Mason Dixie Foods.
Amazing.
Asha Aboulayja.
Thank you so much for your time today.
It's been a pleasure and we look forward to maybe having you back someday.
Oh, that'd be amazing.
Thank you, Bob.
And that's a wrap, folks.
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