Umaimah Sharwani Transcript
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Hi, everyone. You're listening to The Future Of Food Is You, a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Abena Anim-Somuah. And each week I talk to emerging talent in the food world and they share what they're up to as well as their dreams and predictions for what's ahead. As for me, I'm the founder of The Eden Place, a community that's all about gathering people intentionally around food. I love this new generation of chefs, bakers, and creatives making their way in the world of food, drink, media, and tech.
Today's guest is Umaimah Sharwani, founder of From Paro. From Paro is a line of easy to cook South Asian staples, inspired by the comfort foods Umaimah's mom made for her growing up in Texas. Fun fact, the brand is also named after her mom. We also chat about the intricacies of developing a food brand, how her background working for consumer companies came in handy, and the power of food brands to tell the stories of immigrant cultures.
Thank you to Kerrygold and Walmart for supporting today's show. Kerrygold is delicious, all natural butter and cheese made with milk from Irish grass-fed cows raised on small family-run Irish dairy farms. Kerrygold's farming families pass their craft and knowledge from generation to generation. This traditional approach is the reason for the rich taste of Kerrygold. You can enjoy delicious sliced or shredded Kerrygold cheddar cheese available in mild or savory flavors at a retailer near you. There's also Kerrygold's classic salted butter perfect for slathering on some sourdough toast. Look for it in the gold wrapper. Find your nearest store at kerrygoldusa.com. Now let's check in with today's guest.
Umaimah, thank you so much for joining us on The Future Of Food Is You Podcast.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Well, I always like to start off by asking people to tell us about their background and how food showed up in their lives.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, definitely. Where do I begin? I was born and raised in Texas. Pakistani family. Grew up just having so much Pakistani food and that was always our default and normal. And so always grew up loving it. Went to school in Atlanta. And even when I was at Emory I remember going home during the breaks and packing my mom's Pakistani food in my suitcase and bringing it back to college. And my friends and I would all eat her food. And then moved to New York, started working in finance, was there for about two years, didn't really enjoy it. And then made the pivot to joining startups and pivoted to an operations career. And then have just worked in the direct and consumer landscape for the past 10 years or so.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What are some traditional Pakistani foods that you would pack to go home or that you really enjoyed at home?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's so funny because I feel like I've gone through phases of what food of my mom's I love. And I think during college it was chicken biryani, always a staple, would bring that back. During college, I went through a phase of really loving my mom's butter chicken and that was something that she only made for my brother and I. It wasn't something that my dad or her ever ate. So she sort of learned it for us. And now it's funny because we never eat that, so it's definitely a college phase. Now, I love her biryani, I love her haleem. Haleem is a very Pakistani dish. It's basically lentils and grains. It's like a stew with ground beef, shredded beef or chicken. I love her samosas. Really everything. But for me, the staples are always every time I go home I need a biryani, I need a haleem, and I just need her home cooked food.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And so you mentioned that you started in finance, it wasn't a fit. What sort of sparked the change to work at startups and what were you working at while you were at incredible brands like Glossier and Bravo Sierra and Jet.com?
Umaimah Sharwani:
I went to school, studied in finance at the undergrad B school at Emory, and then everyone else I sort of graduated college thinking, okay, I have three options. I'm going to work in finance, become a lawyer, or go to med school. I just chose finance and started working in a private wealth management firm. I did all of the things of taking my Series Seven, N66, all of these certifications so that you can trade stocks and talk to your portfolio companies about what's doing well and what's not. And I think I tried really hard to be good at, but it wasn't something that I genuinely found so much passion in. And so I was always looking at, when is it going to be five o'clock?
And for me, I always had this vision of myself and work of waking up every day and wanting to do what you love. Truly never having the Sunday scaries, really enjoying it. And I think that's an amazing privilege to have, but it's something that I even saw my dad have growing up where he never was complaining about work. He just knew it was a way of life and a part of your life. I remember at the time Refinery was really big, Oh La La was really big and Living Social. This was back in 2012. And so I had found out about fab.com, which was at the time a billion dollar company and they were a flash sales website. And I had seen that an old college friend of mine was working there, and so that's how I found out about it. Looked through their jobs careers page and I truly did one of those career counselor exercises where they're like, "Write down what you like doing in your personal life and what you're good at and how can that translate to your profession."
And at the time I was planning a lot of bachelorette parties and I was going to a lot of weddings and so I was like, "I really love operations. I love putting it all together and seeing everything from A to Z." And so there was an operations role there and so I applied to it. And it was one of the fastest growing startups at the time, so I came in a good time. I think I was one of the first 50th employees and it grew to about 800 at its peak. That was sort of the start of my startup journey in working with physical products. And Fab didn't create anything themselves, it was more about selling other designers and showcasing them. After I left Fab, I joined Glossier and that was a really the first time that I was introduced to creating a physical product on your own from concept of a mood board to former development to packaging to the warehouse to the customer, and just love that entire journey from start to finish.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And I mean Glossier at that time was such a pioneer. No one was really making D2C [direct to consumer]-
Umaimah Sharwani:
At all in beauty.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
... in brands like that. It was either you're a mini brand of a big retailer, so it was just awesome to see what Emily Weiss has done. And now you're the second Glossier alum to be on the show. Roya Shariat.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Oh yeah, she's incredible.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Who's still at Glossier.
Umaimah Sharwani:
She's still at Glossier, yeah. I think for me, what's so funny, too is I joined Glossier as a third employee before they even launched. And so I was just into the gloss at the time. I remember going to meet Emily and I didn't have a huge beauty background and so I actually was just like I'd heard about Into the Gloss, but I wasn't an avid reader. And I remember going into that interview being like, I wonder what we're going to talk about? It's a publication and I do operations, what will we do? And within the first 10 minutes she told me about Glossier and her vision and I immediately sat up straight and I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to come do this. And I had been working at Google at the time launching their same day delivery program, Google Shopping Express, and I was only there for seven months or so, and then I met Emily and I truly did one of those things where I left and I got an offer the next day and then I started a week later. It happened so quickly.
But I think that initial meeting with her and just thinking about, wow, there really is no way that we're selling beauty online and we're talking to the customers and we're making it really personable to them. I was also at that age where I was like, I don't like going to Sephora. It's too overwhelming. I don't know what to buy. I didn't really have an understanding of the benefit of building a brand and a community, and so she was such a pioneer and amazing in so many ways to have her as my first teacher.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
It sounds like you were skeptical going into it, but now it seems like all the learnings and lessons and experiences you had helped you end up building Paro.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, no, definitely. And I think that as soon as I knew that Glossier was going to launch, it was like, I'm doing this for sure, and it was just the most incredible ride. I was there for almost four years and really got to see everything from start to finish and fostered really great relationships with people who also worked there.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, that's amazing. Right now your big project is Paro. Can you tell us what Paro is and the mission behind what you're building?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, absolutely. So Paro is easy South Asian food at home. For me the biggest mission and goal was always, how can we make it easier to cook South Asian food at home knowing that South Asian food cooking, which includes Indian food, Pakistani food, Bengali food, it all requires a long list of ingredients. Some are really hard to find, even for someone like me who grew up with all this food, I was calling my mom nonstop being like, "What do I do now? How much do I put in?" And of course my mom is a typical mom who's like, "Add this, add that," but with no real measurements. So it was so hard to get that from her. But I always just would remember and feel that I'm walking down the grocery aisle or I'm ordering groceries and nothing is really speaking out to me of what I was raised with and what I love. And it is something that I've always wanted to sort of change.
How can we bring South Asian food in a way that's approachable to everyone, not just South Asians? With Paro, we launched with three products. Two of them are lentil legume based in which you get the lentils and you get the spices that you need to cook that specific dish. And so for the customer making it really easy, everything is in the box. And then we have a ghee based condiment that you can put on everything to amplify the flavor. Starting that journey of introducing this food in a very approachable way so people can think, "Oh yeah, that was super easy to make, it takes 20 minutes."
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And for those of who are listening, ghee is a South Asian clarified butter.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yes.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's used in a lot of dishes and it's incredibly favorable. But what I love a lot about your brand is that you named it after someone special. Can you tell us what that is?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yes, so it's named after my mom whose name is Paro. Interestingly enough, when I was starting the journey almost two years ago, Paro was always the working name, so it was always just the placeholder. And the whole journey of Paro actually started when my mom gave me the Ziploc bag and it contained all the spices that I need to cook dal, and so she was like, "Just add this to red lentils." That was sort of what sparked the interest in, wow, this is so simple, I want to make this for everyone in an approachable way. That was the journey of Paro and how it started. So it just made sense to call it Paro. And then just never found a better name and was so representative of my joy and excitement of Pakistani food going back to her and how much I love her food too. And my mom loves that it's her name. She thinks she's a hometown celebrity now.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, I mean she's a big deal.
Umaimah Sharwani:
She is, yeah.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Her name's plastered all over the shops.
Umaimah Sharwani:
And she came to the photo shoot was part of that. So it's also just been amazing to include her in the journey, this part of my life that she doesn't know a lot about, but is now learning so much about it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
As you were thinking about what you've experienced with third culture kid, child of immigrants, I'm curious why you thought, "The best way I'm going to figure this out is to start a company and start the CPG [consumer packaged good] product?"
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, that's a good question. Honestly, it sounds crazy, but I didn't think about any other option.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow.
Umaimah Sharwani:
And maybe it's because I've just worked in direct to consumer brands and I genuinely love creating physical products. I think there's something so beautiful about literally concepting it on a mood board and then going out and finding the right packaging, finding the right design, putting it into your die line. The whole process of it is just so beautiful and intentional that I always knew that I wanted to create a physical product and I went through a journey of thinking through what are some other companies I should start or should I join someone as a co-founder for their company? And nothing really resonated until I had this idea of Paro. And it actually went through a couple of different iterations. So initially maybe two and a half years ago, it was going to be just a spice blend company.
I remember at the time I went on Craigslist and I found a chef in New York and I worked with him for six months on what that first spice blend would look like. And in that process sort of realized, okay, this is still not giving me what I wanted because I still have to cook the whole meal. And so then I started a V2 version of Paro, which was, how can I create a mini meal kit, a Blue Apron, but for two to three people and it's shelf stable? Started on that journey, this was summer of 2021 when I was living in L.A. and started doing that concept and sort of testing it with my community and friends and realized, okay, this still is a little bit hard.
It wasn't until I went to Pakistan in January of 2022 where I sort of just took a step back and was like, wait a minute. This is all about simplicity and the ease and really making it something personal and approachable. And at the end of the day, dal chawal. dals and kitchari are our bread and butter. You'll always have it at the table. And it's always when you don't know what to eat, you'll have a dal. And so just sort of scratched all the over complex ideas I had and really narrowed down that focus of how to make it super simple.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And that's a really smart approach. I think you made it personable. You really fully fledged every idea as best as you could because you really, again, you have that knack for creating physical products and seeing them through the end.
Umaimah Sharwani:
And at the end of the day, I'm also creating a product for myself.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Totally.
Umaimah Sharwani:
I think that a lot of really incredible food CPG founders are professional chefs or home cooks, and I'm sort of taking approach where I'm not an amazing, incredible home cook. And I all I know really how to cook is Pakistani food, which is so funny. That's all I'll ever make. I also have that approach to it too.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Today's show is brought to you by Walmart, the world's largest retailer. Walmart is committed to supporting emerging brands. We love that because these folks are the future. In 2022, Walmart sourced more than 13 billion dollars in goods and services from over 2,600 diverse suppliers, including those led by women and those in the LGTBQ+ community. You can find some of our favorite female founded and fueled food and drink brands at Walmart, including Siete, Calipower, Goodie Girl, Late July, Health Ade Kombucha, Biena Chickpea Snacks, and Lara Bar. If you're a founder of the next great brand and want to get your product in front of millions of potential customers, you need to know about Walmart's Open Call Program.
2023 will be the 10th anniversary of Walmart's Open Call event. It's an exciting and unique opportunity for entrepreneurs to meet face-to-face with Walmart merchants at the largest sourcing event in the United States. This year's Open Call will be in Bentonville, Arkansas on October 24th and 25th. Registration starts this July. Future retail stars, stay tuned for more details. And now back to our guest.
As you were developing the products, how much was your mom involved in the process other than obviously her incredible name and her coming on shoots and stuff?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, a lot. So I worked on basically the blend of both the dal and the kitchari. I took sort of her video of her making it fresh, and then I sort of looked at it and I talked to my spice house and I was like, "Okay, she's using fresh onions. What else can we use besides that, because we can't use fresh onions?" And so I truly took a video of her and I replayed it a hundred times and I'm like, what spices can I use that will give me this flavor profile?
Any immigrant mom, she was like, "You can't do this. You need the fresh onions. You need to saute them first."
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Not settling for less.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, she's not settling for less, because she knows how to do it her way, and so I think the process was also educating her. No, there's actually a food technology and there's new ways to do food that are going to be great and it will save you time as well. But every time I made a spice blend, I'd have the spice house send it to her first.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
So smart.
Umaimah Sharwani:
And so she was actually testing them and her and my dad, my dad is also the biggest critic. He has to also agree to like it. So they were both testing it. And then when we got to a good place, approved the product and the formula. And then the tarka, which is the ghee based product, that I came up with the food developer. And that was something that I was doing a lot of community dinners when I was living in L.A. and testing a lot of different concepts for South Asian cooking out. In South Asian cooking, the last step is usually making your tarka, and you basically temper spices in hot oil or ghee for 60 seconds. And it really blooms that flavor and you put it on your food and it sizzles.
I would do that for my friends and they'd be like, "What's this on top? How can I just dip my naan or my bread into this topping?" For that one product, because it was so much more difficult. I worked with the food developer in New York in her kitchen, developed the spice blend. We tested out a couple of different spices. We tested out different oils and ghees and proportions, and once we had that, took that home recipe to different manufacturers and were like, help us scale this in a better way.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I'm curious for you, when you were deciding on the food partners to work with, what was your research process and what was the philosophy behind making sure that you're following health codes, that they know how to work with different spice ratios, you're building things at scale?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Absolutely. I think one of the benefits I did have is that I had done operation supply chain and beauty and personal care products. I think some of those core skills were really transferrable of at least knowing like, okay, you need your formula, you need your packaging, you need someone to make the packaging, someone to make the formula. So I sort of knew who all those players were. And then I genuinely started by just cold calling. When I started the journey actually of doing my original idea, which was just a spice blend, I would just Google different spice houses on the East Coast or some in California and just call them, and I would always get in touch with the sales rep and I would just start asking questions and sharing what I'm trying to do and really use that as a learning process of what it would take to create this business and this brand.
Just through that cold calling, eventually met the vendor that I'm working with now, the manufacturer who supplies the spices, it really did take, I don't know, I must have talked to at least like 60, 70 different places. Because it really depended on who would want to work with a new brand, who had low minimums, who had good quality. And so similarly, I would ask all of these Spice Houses to send samples to my mom and she would test them. And when she got the samples for the one that we use with now, she was like, "These are incredible. They smell so amazing and the quality is really good." A lot of cold calling.
And then I think from the tarka perspective, because it was something that I had never done before and ghee is not an easy product to work with and produce, I worked with a food developer who really helped me connect with different ghee manufacturers. And I think even with that, the challenge was no one had really created a product like this. Because with the tarka, you're actually putting in a spice blend that we developed into the jar, and then you're adding hot oil and ghee, and that's what's cooking the spices before it's bottled up, and that's how the toasty flavor comes out.
Just even working with different labs who are willing to take that bet on us and are willing to do that for a low minimum quantity was part of the process. And I think for the tarka and for any products that are not dry, you actually work with a food university authority and they sort of look at your product and they say, "Here's your recipe. I'm going to approve it or not approve it." But they basically list out requirements. Here's the step-by-step process the manufacturer has to follow. Here's the temperature at which the spices have to cook. They really give you that requirement, and then I share that with the manufacturer who produced the product.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow. So it's not just a matter of, I have an idea, I'm putting in a box. There are teams and tens of hundreds of people who are-
Umaimah Sharwani:
So many different people.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That go into the box.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, absolutely. And look, there's so many different ways to do things, and I just took this approach because I wanted to make it right from step one because I've also seen what happens when you sort of put something together and then you have to redo it, and that's so hard. So I also put in the time to do it right from the first.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You mentioned earlier that your experience working all these startups got you into the knack of mood boarding, which I feel like that's the way products launch these days. What was your process for mood boarding for creating Paro?
Umaimah Sharwani:
I guess two different ways. One, from the brand perspective. I really wanted to create a South Asian brand that was different than what was out there, the sense that it wasn't just talking about turmeric. And I think that South Asian culture is so much more than that, and it's so much more than spices. It's more about feeling and the food and the architecture, and so I really wanted to include other elements of it that were modern, yet nostalgic. And then from the food perspective, I was really inspired by looking at what did Near East Couscous do or why is Hamburger Helper so big in the nineties? And I think one of the best anecdotes was like Betty Crocker. When they changed the recipe to include an egg, they found a lot more conversion and a lot more sales because there's something really you feel pride when you crack an egg or when you turn on the stove. And so how do you capture that feeling in a product? For me, with Paro, the goal was always to make it on the stove. It was never to be a microwaveable product. It was never a frozen. I wanted the customer to feel like, "Okay, I'm cooking a home cooked meal. It's going to take 20 minutes, but that's the same amount of time it takes to cook pasta." But there is something really beautiful intuitive that people feel when they turn on that stove.
And so I wanted to capture that feeling and that was really inspired by a lot of these old nineties brands that are these boxed dinners that somehow are still doing really well, and I really wanted to compete with them to say, what is the next generation of boxed dinners that are better for you and more diverse flavors?
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Who would you consider your target audience to be?
Umaimah Sharwani:
A couple of different folks. I think that one bucket is just anyone who's looking for a quick and easy meal solution for dinner or lunch. I think we all live these really busy, hectic lives where we overlook the joy of spending 20 minutes to just sit down and have a meal. Really anyone who's looking for a new idea and doesn't know what to cook besides your routine pasta or vegetables or chicken. I think another bucket and something that was really important to me was I also wanted to be approachable for parents.
I want this next generation and I want folks to be able to say, I'm introducing these flavors of dal and kitchari to my kids who are now going to become more used to it and understand the flavors too. And that is shifting already where I hear from some of my friends that their kids are eating sushi in school. And I'm like, okay, that's a great sort of sign that we're ready to introduce these new flavors to new parents. It's a great base, it's a great side. How can you add it to your existing dinner routine?
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Totally. Something I've really enjoyed about visiting your website and your Instagram is you are also partnering with food creators to create recipes that are not just the traditional things that you're expecting out of the box. What was your decision in wanting to do that?
Umaimah Sharwani:
For me, it's all about how can I meet people where they are? So if they're not used to making dal and kitchari the way that I was raised making it or I make it, how can we make it more approachable to them and make it more routine in their dinner prep or lunch prep process? My process was really reaching out to a bunch of different food creators, gifting them product and really saying, you do whatever you want. This is a great base. It's flavorful. You can eat it with X, Y, and Z, but really just not having any parameters and seeing what people do with it. And I think that's been the beauty of it, is seeing a recipe and I'm like, oh, wow, that's such a great idea. Someone blended the kitchari and made a very consistent soup. And I was like, wow, that's a great idea.
The most amazing part about this has been seeing how you can really adapt to these foods into what people want to add to or make themselves.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
As a modern CPG founder, I'm really curious to hear about how you think about finding community and finding community within your customers and how you're hoping to use that to help build the brand's awareness, expand the brand's product line.
Umaimah Sharwani:
The way that I think about community is really anyone who's seen or touched Paro, whether that's on Instagram, a store or one of our customers. For me, what's always been really important is connecting with them to see how are they utilizing Paro in their life? What are they liking? What are they not liking? And really making it a personal approach. Even now, I'll message customers after they purchase and be like, "What did you like? What did you not like?" Really including them in that process.
And I think community at its forefront is really just engagement. Really making sure that people understand that there's a human behind this brand, there's a story behind this brand and that our goal is to really create something for them with them. And so that's the approach that I've taken with community.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's awesome. Well, you mentioned that you're chatting with customers, and since there are big manufacturers on the podcast I have to ask, are there any dream customers that you want to be trying Paro someday?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Oh my gosh, yes. So many. Let's see. Mindy Kaling.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Incredible.
Umaimah Sharwani:
I'm trying really hard to get Paro in her hands. She's been doing a lot of cooking as well, and she's been a really great model of someone who's creating South Asian culture and making it more mainstream. Oprah, who doesn't want Oprah to try their products. Truly, I just think about all of these amazing women that I sort of looked up to and watched as I was growing up, and now I'm like, wow, how can I put Paro in front of them and see how they'll use it and share it with their community and their friends and family?
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What's also fascinating about selling a CPG product, especially a food product, is you have to go out and pitch to different companies. As much as we see so many products on those shelves, those started with conversations with founders. What's been the process of pitching, not just to consumers, but also to store buyers as well?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, I've had a lot of success and what I've been really focusing on is taking that community first approach to even retail. A lot of it has been either DMing on Instagram or really just walking into a store and giving them product to sample. I was in L.A. a couple weeks ago and I went to I think 10 different stores and just dropped off samples, dropped off my card and some Paro merch, and I was like, "Just try it." And then following up with them to see, "Did you try it? Did you like it?" I think the positive ROI from that is really just building the connection with them and seeing in these stores, what other brands do they carry? What are their customers looking for? And having that conversation of, "Oh, okay, you don't have a South Asian brand that's focusing on lentils, or you don't have an easy solution in a boxed meal that's really good for you. I have that for you." And so really learning about that store, their customers and building that relationship with them. And even after they place an order, which is the best feeling, it's still about keeping in touch with them, "Hey, what's doing well? What's not? This messaging has been working really well for me. Maybe you want to try pitching it like this."
Really continuing to be a partner with them. And I think that's so incredibly important, at least for your first, I don't know, 100, 200 accounts until as long as I can't do it. But yeah, I think retail is a really big part of Paro's strategy, and again, with this mission of making Paro a true pantry staple, we need to be where customers are shopping for grocery, which is still in person. That is something that we're really focusing on straight from day one and trying to make it as omnichannel as possible.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You're also a solo founder.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yes.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You're doing this thing on your own.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yes.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You've also worked with a lot of female founders.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yes.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I know there's a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs who listen to the podcast, but how have you navigated this space now that you've become a founder?
Umaimah Sharwani:
You know what? I think at the end of the day, the most helpful thing is really just meeting people and connecting with them. And I think I genuinely, I hate the word networking because I call it more connecting, but I just love meeting people and learning about their stories and how they got to where they are. Even before Paro, even while I was at Glossier, Bravo Sierra, I made a lot of time to intentionally meet folks in different industries who did different things to just make sure that I was always thinking about things from a very 360 perspective. Going into Paro and now being in this position, it's like that community has been the most helpful. And I think that what's amazing about it is everyone wants to help each other. We all have this one common goal of creating a product, changing the way that people think about food or beauty or whatever category, and how can we all support each other in it. And whether that's sharing notes and what's working with email marketing, or how much should I be spending on pave, really, it's a beautiful community, and I think that just building that connection with people. And some of my best friends have come out from this journey of building Paro and thinking about what's going to be the most impactful way to launch a brand.
And the short answer is basically meet as many people as you can, build those relationships, foster those relationships. They go a long way and you can walk out of it with so many incredible new friends.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I think there's so many incredible brands that have been started by third culture kids who are using food as this universal languages as their stories. How do you hope Paro fits into that narrative of specialty cooking and international fare?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, I really hope that eventually there is no international cuisine or cooking. I want, and I think a lot of other founders are doing a really incredible job about this, of really showing that this food is not international food. It is just food. It is what we all want to be cooking at home. There's so many ways to eat it. It is going to be part of our everyday lives. That is just a fact, and we know that people are asking for new and different types of food. My hope really is that we're all doing the hard work, so that 20 years from now, it will be simple for the next few generations. It'll be the new normal. I really hope with Paro and with a lot of these other brands, that we are just doing that work to educate customers and educate people in general on these flavors and make it in a very approachable way that they probably haven't even been exposed to. And I think we have a lot of work to still do. It will take time, but it's really about meeting customers where they are and speaking to them in their language so that they respond better to it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You are just about to hit one year working on this project.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
If we had this conversation again in five years, what would you have hoped to accomplish with Paro?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yeah, good question. I think officially also, I've been maybe working on it for a year, but unofficially, it's been almost three years now of thinking about it. And so even looking back three years ago, Uma, what I would've said to her, I think it's really A, just enjoying the process. Every accomplishment, but also every mistake is part of that journey and has helped me be where I am now. I hope five years later, Uma is still thinking about that, but I think hopefully she has seen success and is now focused on that next phase of Paro, which is maybe going into different categories, maybe launching desserts or drinks or snacks, other sort of food, and really building this true pantry staple brand that people really resonate with.
But I think more than anything, I hope she really enjoys the journey of all the ebbs and flows of having a company and being a solo founder.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Well, Umainah, we're going to do our fun Future Of Food Is You tradition called our Future Flash Five. Are you excited?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Let's do it. I'm excited.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Okay, perfect. The future of spices.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Quality.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of third culture cooking.
Umaimah Sharwani:
The new normal.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of logistics.
Umaimah Sharwani:
AI.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of founders.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Diversity.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And the future of easy prep cooking.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Paro.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Well, Umaimah, if we want to continue supporting you and following you, where are the best places to find you?
Umaimah Sharwani:
Yes, you can find us on Instagram at From Paro. On our website fromparo.com.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Incredible. Thanks so much.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Thank you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Before we go, our guest is going to leave a voicemail at The Future Of Food mailbox just talking to themselves 10 years from now. You have reached The Future Of Food Is You mailbox. Please leave your message after the beep.
Umaimah Sharwani:
Hi, Umaimah. I hope you found a way to let go of the control and enjoy the ride. You're probably driving the kids to soccer practice, killing it as a soccer mom, and hopefully you have found more time to spend with your parents. Over the past 10 years, Paro has become a staple in everyone's pantry, and you see it everywhere you go, but by now, you are supported by an incredible team. You're now at a place where you have more time to build a community that focuses on helping other female entrepreneurs and founders. And lastly, I hope that you're happy and fulfilled and find joy in everything that you do.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's it for today's show. Do you know someone who you think is the future of food? Tell us about them. Nominate them at the link in our show notes, or leave us a rating and review and tell me about them in the review. I can't wait to read more about them. Thanks to Kerrygold and Walmart for supporting the show. The Future Of Food Is You is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Thanks to the team at CityVox Studios, executive producers Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker and associate producer Jenna Sadhu. Catch you on the future flip.