Embassy Ingredients combines creativity and science to provide its customers with the very best innovative flavors and bakery ingredients available. Embassy Ingredients has an on-site flavor lab and full bakery test kitchen staffed with certified flavorists, food scientists and bakery specialists.They formulate, test and manufacture a wide range of flavors and bakery ingredients ensuring that taste, quality and performance are built into every product.Natural ingredients and colors have taken over, with nearly 80% of flavors and ingredients being natural. Using high quality, natural ingredients is something Embassy Ingredients has been focused on for many years. It is possible to have indulgence AND clean labels. Many products that are indulgent and taste great have clean labels. The technology today allows for the use of natural ingredients that taste as good or better than the artificial ingredients of the past. The typical Embassy customer takes 12-18 months to launch a new product. For that reason, tracking trends that are in the earliest stages and will still be relevant a year from now is important. QUOTES ]“When I started, I was the only employee. I got the orders in the morning, made them in the afternoon, delivered them the next day and got more orders.” (Martino)“As a 17 year old kid I found out that persistence and perseverance were the personality traits you need as an entrepreneur.” (Martino) “In the 90s I’d say about 80% of the flavors that were sold were artificial and 20% were natural. Right now it’s about 80% natural and 20% artificial.” (Martino) “We’ve always tried to keep the junk out of mixes. Just because you’re buying something you want to indulge in, doesn’t mean it has to be completely unhealthy for you.” (Martino)“If it’s not needed inside the product, why put it in?” (Martino) “When you indulge, it better be good. You don’t want something that’s being made as inexpensively as possible.” (Martino) “Every crisis you face you learn some new business skills you didn’t know you had.” (Martino) “During a crisis (like COVID), people eat more sweets than in a non-crisis.” (Martino)“If you taste test new recipes for a living, you get really good at tasting without eating.” (Martino) TRANSCRIPT 00:01.76vigorbrandingToday’s guest is someone who knows a lot about ingredients a lot about flavor trends and a lot about baked goods. He’s Martino Babila and he’s the founder and president of embassy ingredients welcome to show Martino and thank you very much for joining us. So. 00:13.47MartinoThank you Michael thanks for being glad to be on the show. 00:18.41vigorbrandingYep, So tell everyone you know a little bit about Embassy ingredients. What’s your mission and what do you guys? do. 00:21.59MartinoSo embassy ingredients is centered on the bakery trace so we supply ingredients to large scale bakeries. So we have a side of our business that makes flavors and a side that makes the industrial version you might say of a Duncan hides cake mix. So when you go off to your supermarket or to Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks you’ll find our ingredients and a lot of the baker that you’re going to be buying at those qsars or supermarkets. 00:47.54vigorbrandingFantastic I like in forktails we talk about food and beverage right? So restaurants you know cpg all of the like. But what’s really kind of cool about you and your businesses is you make the flavors and the reasons we go to restaurants reason we buy Cpg is because we like the way stuff tastes we like the way they prepare their food and you guys are. Kind of the secret ingredient if you will ah in in behind it all. So my first question I’ve known you for a long time but I actually found this out and did not realize it so I think this is fantastic and a great way to start I love I love stories. Um, you know I started my agency. Ah my first advertising agency when I was 27 I thought that was really young. Ah, but you took over your father’s company as owner and president when you were seventeen years old ah you know and when I was 17 I was probably getting in trouble for speeding with my my new driver’s license. So I mean I can’t imagine ah starting and running a company at that point in time. Can you can you tell tell us that story how how does someone start a company or take over a company at 17. 01:45.63MartinoBut it started actually 2 years before that my dad pulled me out of school when it was in grade eleven. So technically I never graduated high school and I started a company with my brother and I and my dad so the 3 of us started up a business that was mostly distribution. My dad had a hobby of. Bringing in these flavors from italy diluting them with simple syrup which is water and sugar and we used to sell them to bakeries up and down the street. All these small italian bakeries that were all over toronto. These toronto is a large italian community Two years ...
