We had the good fortune of connecting with Julio Torres and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julio, we’d love to start by asking you about lessons learned. Is there a lesson you can share with us?
When working on a new product you are passionate about, you just want to release the best product ever created. But this can take years, and there is a point where you need to tell yourself this is enough. Otherwise you get blind and never move to the next step that is really to sell your product. “I wanted to have the oat milk perfected, and kept tweaking the formulas, until I realized I needed to just begin selling my oat milk and building my brand.” Also opinions from family/relatives and friends are very important at this point they are your best asset at the development stage.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Well, I used to drink a lot of milk, even with my lunch. But 4 years ago I realized my body did not like milk anymore. That’s when I started to work on a milk alternative during my free time, to create the best alternative oat milk. Why oat milk? Because, it is the option with the cleanest flavor in the market so far.

As I said before, there is a point you need to say STOP, and this happened to me last year. I stopped with formula development, because I realized the product was very good actually, and I confirmed this with friends and family. Then, it was time to start selling.

The name of our company came because I have been told I have a pretty smile; also it is funny but it is the first reaction we get from people trying our oat milk for the first time: “we get a smile” and very good comments about our product.

The most unique characteristic about our product is the low calorie content, just 40 calories per glass. This is because our oat milk has zero fat and zero sugar, whereas oat milks add fat and sugar. We also use our own oat milk to craft delicious vegan ice cream that we hope to launch in the first quarter of 2021.

We received a very good lesson from one customer we visited when our packaging was not ready yet. He was impressed about the flavor of our product, but told us to come back when our packaging was ready. He happened to be lactose intolerant as well, which is  probably why we did not lose our opportunity! We have since started the conversation to deliver a very good volume of oat milk to them.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Actually, my best friend visited two years ago for the weekend. I picked him up at Union Station, and I took him to Whole Foods to see some of the new food products available. We had a great time together. Next day I took him for breakfast to Snooze at Westminster, then I took him to do some shopping at a local toy store called Hero Headquarters Comic and Toys and Flatirons Crossing Mall. Then we went to a couple of local breweries,  Raices and 10 Barrel Brewing Company. On Sunday, I took him to a Broncos game; it was a lot of fun. He headed to the airport Monday morning.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to dedicate this to my best friend Walberto Garcia. We are both food scientists, we both love football, and we became friends 25 years ago. He has been a lot of inspiration for me to get where I am now and where I am heading. He is also a food entrepreneur; he has launched so many food products in his career. He has succeeded in a few and he has failed more times, but it seems like he is unstoppable because he is always working on something new. We are not business partners at this point but I am pretty sure we will cross paths at some point of our entrepreneur journey.

Other: Our oat milk can be purchased at:  https://nudefoodsmarket.com/product/organic-oat-milk/
https://foodboxes.thegrowhaus.org/product/oat-milk-local

Image Credits
Nicole Contos

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