Move fast and break things, fail quickly, rapid iteration is the key to success; these are all slogans typically reserved for the hoody-wearing, software-first, tech-set. But Big Mozz, which originally launched at Williamsburg’s cult-favorite Smorgasburg is an unlikely proponent of the Silicon Valley ethos. “OG” Big Mozz, as co-founders Matt Gallira and Jimmy Warren refer to it, was fresh mozzarella, stretched on site. That morphed into what would become their first “big” hit, the Mozz Bomb: a fresh made ball of mozzarella infused with basil pesto with the help of marinade injectors. Next came Mozz Sticks, perfectly crispy, sinfully gooey mozzarella sticks, which would become the bellwether of the business; not only given consumers insatiable appetite for them, but the potential to scale the product beyond the Williamsburg waterfront. The connecting glue (or goo): locally sourced mozzarella from the happiest grass-fed cows in the world; because if you’re going to have “Mozzarella” as part of your namesake, it better be the best of the best.
Before launching the Biz Mozz, both Gallira and Warren orbited the food world in different yet complementary ways. Gallira was operating a CPG pasta sauce brand he founded called The Atlantic Ave. Company, while Warren was cooking at some of NYC’s top restaurants before becoming a private chef. Initially, Gallira tapped Warren to help him out temporarily with his Smorgasburg debut; but a shared passion for food and entrepreneurship has made the two an ideal pairing for the long haul.
Here we talk to CEO Gallira about resisting the temptation to chase every opportunity, the importance of building efficiencies, and how a loan from Bond Street is helping the team execute on their vision to make Big Mozz well, even bigger.
Bond Street
What’s the origin story of Big Mozz? What led to its founding?
Matt Gallira
Big Mozz launched somewhat casually—no one quit their day jobs right away—but from the start we able to capture and distill what we love about food and cooking, and build the company around that energy. Our goal was to create the perfect brand to become a Smorgasburg vendor: a clean, clearly defined hook, with a playful but recognizable menu, backed up by killer quality control all the way. You’ve got to bring a ton of energy to the market, so we wanted the brand to be a party, and to not take itself too seriously.
At the same time, we thought of our product and how we conducted ourselves as business owners with the seriousness of a “real” company, even when we had only a handful of people on the team. Now that we have our feet under us, our focus is on managing the company’s resources and making sure our 50-or-so peak season employees are bringing the same fire and passion that Jimmy and I share.
Bond Street
What were you and Jimmy doing before starting Big Mozz?
Matt Gallira
Prior to starting Big Mozz, I had launched a CPG pasta sauce brand in 2013 called The Atlantic Ave. Company. I was selling at tradeshows and farmers markets and learned about one of the greatest outdoor food markets, Smorgasburg in Brooklyn. My first thought was to sell my red sauce with pasta at Smorgasburg, but at one sauce demo at a grocery store, I saw someone making mozzarella on site. That started the chain of reactions. I did some research, found an amazing mozzarella curd supplier, Caputo Brothers Creamery, applied to Smorgasburg, and amazingly, got in.
Jimmy, our Executive Chef, started his career in finance, but found himself chasing his passion for food and decided to go to culinary school in New York. He worked at some of the top restaurants in New York, but quickly learned restaurant life wasn’t for him. He became a private chef so he could create his own menus and schedule while straying away from the militaristic agenda of restaurant life. One summer, he needed more work and saw a job posting that I shared. He was only looking for part-time work initially which I guaranteed him it would be…
After the first day of Smorgasburg, we realized we had a great concept, great operational instincts, and a great relationship with each other. We built a brand and embraced the popularity we were earning at Smorgasburg. Then in September of 2015, we started our Mozz Sticks concept. The growth was huge and in order to keep up we had to quit our other jobs, partner up, and focus entirely on Big Mozz.
Bond Street
Can you explain the process from start to finish for how your mozzarella is made?
Matt Gallira
Making mozzarella is uncomplicated, but takes practice, a little finesse, and the willingness to put your hands in 180 degree water. We start with a bowl of mozzarella curd, made with milk from a local grass-fed dairy, and “cook” it by adding really hot water and salt. Then, with a big wooden paddle, you stretch the curds to make some magic happen with proteins and butterfat. The heat and careful movement create the creamy, stretchy, perfect mozzarella.
Since Mozz Sticks are a much higher volume product, we use a great whole-milk mozzarella that is coated in fresh garlic, parsley, Pecorino Romano, so that they are exploding with flavor and gooey, stretchy cheese.
Bond Street
What is the most challenging thing about starting a new business?
Matt Gallira
When we started out, the temptation was to chase every carrot. You want to grow as quickly as possible and go in any direction that can drive revenue. What you don’t realize is that those short term wins don’t help you grow a sustainable business, but they *can* provide the gift of cash flow problems. Staying disciplined and on-track with your business plan – with some thoughtful course corrections where needed – is the best way to scale your business, especially one like ours that is so reliant on its brand and product recognition.
One time last year, after a season of trying out corporate catering, private dining, mozzarella making classes, and absolutely everything under the sun that could keep the revenue coming, we had a client ask us to cater a two hundred person Bat Mitzvah. And they wanted variety. So we found ourselves designing half a dozen service stations, including an “Asian Takeout” bar with pastrami spring rolls. We took a step back and realized the absurdity of what we were doing, and made a detailed P&L on that event, and turned down the gig. Now, if either of us finds the other chasing something that doesn’t fit within our strategy, the response is “Remember pastrami spring rolls?”
Bond Street
You launched the business at Smorgasburg initially, what do you see as the positive/negatives of that approach?
Matt Gallira
Smorgasburg is a great incubator for food startups. It’s a launchpad for quick service and novel food concepts, and provides an opportunity to present your menu and brand to tens of thousands of people every weekend, without the overhead of a traditional brick-and-mortar location. Starting at Smorgasburg allowed us to go from a concept to a company very quickly. Being able to test ideas every week and get very honest feedback from a your target audience – it’s super valuable. Big Mozz Sticks actually came from that feedback: so many people asked us to fry our mozzarella, we knew it was worth a try.
On the flip side, you can’t balk at the demand Smorgasburg can generate. This sounds like a good thing, but sometimes we didn’t have the time to plan our business decisions before acting on opportunities. The season of Smorgasburg is from April to October, and once you start, it’s seven days a week. You’re iterating constantly, and learning on the go, and to create the systems and procedures to let your staff succeed in a challenging environment… and in all of that you can lose focus on what your new business was trying to accomplish in the first place.
Bond Street
Was it always mozzarella sticks and pizza?
Matt Gallira
“OG” Big Mozz was actually fresh mozzarella, stretched on site outside at Smorgasburg. Our first big hit was called a Mozz Bomb: a fresh made ball of mozzarella injected with basil pesto with these big marinade injectors. Over time, we got smart and zeroed in on what our customers really love, and what could scale. Mozz Sticks are more economical to produce and very easy to scale, and people absolutely love them. Pizza is labor intensive, but lets us work with high end event planners. In the end, the demand for both Wood Fired Pizza and Mozz Sticks at Smorgasburg is higher than our OG fresh mozzarella.
Bond Street
What are some money-saving strategies you’ve used as a growing business?
Matt Gallira
Building efficiencies is key. Our business relies on serving fast, high quality food to a lot of people in a short amount of time, and in the market setting, time is money. We are constantly working to shave seconds off our ticket times, or better manage our equipment so we have fewer food waste, or save a few cents per unit from our suppliers without losing any quality. Spreadsheets are your friend: know the break-even on doing any event. Spend the time to train your employees, which will save on food cost and mitigate the risk of major screw-ups down the line. Sometimes you have to remember your business is not a charity – you’re paying for your employee’s time, and if they are not contributing, you can send them home. Always plan and staff an event with these questions: “What are we trying to accomplish at this event as a company,” and “What are the risks?”
Bond Street
You work directly with local grass-fed dairy farms. What was the process like of establishing relationships with farmers when you started, and are there concerns around supply as you continue to scale?
Matt Gallira
Mozzarella is the most consumed cheese in America, and we found early on that 99% of it is a commodity. About two months before launch, a cheesemonger friend pointed us to Caputo Brother’s Creamery, and the lightbulb went off. They produce mozzarella curd (the only ingredient, besides salt, in fresh mozzarella) made from the happiest grass-fed cows in the world—we know because we’ve met them—and their product is intensely better than any other mozzarella available in America. It costs more, but we don’t care, because nothing compares. We won’t use any other curd for our fresh mozzarella. Having a close relationship and open communication with your suppliers is critically important, and that was easy to do with Caputo Brothers because they run an honest, dependable company.
Sometimes you need to find a compromise between quality and economic feasibility; but knowing there is no other producer in the US making cheese this way, and having started a company with “Mozzarella” in the name, we couldn’t choose another product that we knew would be inferior.
That being said, fresh pulled mozzarella has a very high moisture content and doesn’t work for Mozz Sticks. So to keep our fryers from exploding at Smorgasburg, we had to look hard for a great low-moisture mozzarella that could meet our standards. The upside of working with that product is that it scales and is priced like a commodity, so we can predict price swings every season and anticipate our costs.
Bond Street
How did you hear about Bond Street?
Matt Gallira
Jimmy’s girlfriend Kathleen works at a non-profit called charity: water. Bond Street’s CEO, David Haber, interviewed charity:water’s CEO for his great podcast. Kathleen is a much better networker than either of us, and a pillar of Big Mozz’s emotional support, so in striking up a conversation with David, Big Mozz somehow entered the conversation. David invited us to look up Bond Street, and we did. We wanted to refinance and consolidate some of our debt, and Nick and his team were super helpful through the shockingly quick process.
Bond Street
Had you ever applied for financing in the past? How did the experience with Bond Street differ?
Matt Gallira
We have applied for financing in the past and it is a time consuming process. Bond Street asked the right questions during the application process that really got to the heart of what we are trying to accomplish with our business and the odds of our success. We were able to get our loan quickly to avoid cashflow issues as we geared up for the 2017 season.
Bond Street
What will the financing from Bond Street allow you to do?
Matt Gallira
Bond Street allows us to breath. We have a very promising year ahead of us, but like most startups, initial fixed assets are expensive and sometimes you can get caught up in credit card debt. Luckily, with Bond Street, we are able to pay off our credit card and have some much needed capital to revamp and expand our infrastructure to capitalize on the opening of our season in late March.
Bond Street
What’s your vision for Big Mozz? Are you thinking, five, ten years ahead?
Matt Gallira
We’re always looking ahead. Mozz Sticks as both a product line and retail business unit has a huge upside. It’s scalable, it’s efficient, and equally important to us, it’s a lot of fun to manage right now. Our retail business is expanding into the music festival scene and that is a great way strengthen the brand. We are working toward a point in three to five years where our wholesale business is partnering with restaurant groups, hotel chains, cruise ships. Wherever there is a party, we want Mozz Sticks to be there. We’ll need to create new relationships with production partners, distributors, and build the sales channels to scale the way we want. As we go, we’ll expand the product line to incorporate new items that fit our brand and will be exciting to our customers. There is a franchise model that makes sense for Big Mozz Sticks too. But we’ll see. The growth of our company follows a plan, but it is very organic. We will listen to what people want, stick to what we are good at, and act accordingly.
Bond Street
What are your 3 favorite independent businesses in NYC?
Matt Gallira
- CoCo&Co is an amazing company run by two guys who spread fun throughout the city and country with coconuts. They have a great social platform and are genuinely nice dudes who love selling coconuts at parties. If meteor crashes and destroys Big Mozz, we’re both working with CoCo&Co.
- charity:water has a vision to reinvent the way we think about nonprofits. They have created a transparent and innovative company with great social branding and communication and a mission with a huge social impact.
- Momofuku is a great brand inspiration for us. They have a brand architecture is really uninform, which is impressive considering the variety of food concepts and retail products they serve. Knowing you can go to Fuku or Ssam Bar and experience a similar level of service and quality experience, and feel similar vibes between the two is very cool. We look at them as a model for how our brand should present itself across our own offerings.
Bond Street
Why is it important to support independent business?
Matt Gallira
Small businesses drive employment growth in this country, and account for more than half of all jobs in the US. We need to support our entrepreneurs who have a clear vision and the drive to follow their passion. For us, the most satisfying part of owning a business is developing a great team, and during our peak season, Big Mozz has more than fifty employees. Knowing how both challenging and rewarding that is, we feel a lot of pride for other entrepreneurs willing to take on the deeply personal risks of operating a business like that.
Independent businesses owners are scrappy, and clever, and they live for the grind. What we might lack in startup capital, we make up for in passion for their business and their team, and we should all get behind that.