EP.172/ KULI KULI
How Kuli Kuli Built a Sustainable CPG Brand with Social Impact at Its Core
When Peace Corps volunteer Lisa Curtis felt drained in a rural West African village, local women introduced her to moringa—a nutrient-packed “miracle tree” that would change her life. That moment sparked the creation of Kuli Kuli Foods, now a leading brand bringing climate-smart superfoods to shelves across the U.S.
In this episode, Lisa joins host Mariah Parsons to share her journey from discovering moringa to scaling a mission-driven brand found in over 11,000 stores. She breaks down the realities of social entrepreneurship, how Kuli Kuli balances e-commerce and retail, and the art of blending impact with innovation. Tune in for an inspiring story about purpose-fueled business, sustainable growth, and why “nutrition you can feel” is more than just a tagline—it’s a movement.
EP. 172
LISA CURTIS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
I was, you know, in this Peace Corps village, very rural, no electricity, no running water. And I'm a vegetarian and felt like I wasn't getting the right nutrients. I was just eating rice and a lot of carbs every day.
Some women in my village, you know, what I could eat that would give me the iron, the protein, the vitamin, just like the nutrition that my body was craving. And they pulled these leaves off a tree and mixed it into this local snack called kuli-kuli and said, eat this kuli-kuli moringa. It'll make you feel better.
And I was like, what are these tree leaves? Like, this is kind of weird. But, you know, totally trusted these women and was just feeling so lethargic that I would, I would try anything. Started taking it and it had the most profound impact on like my energy, my digestion, just like my overall body felt so revitalized.
And so I'm like, what is this plant? How can I get more of it? How can I get it to more people? Hello everyone. And welcome back to Retention Chronicles. Lisa, thank you so much for being with me today.
I'm so excited to have you on the show. Tell our listeners who you are, what brings you to this seat today and all about your brand. Yeah.
Thanks for having me. My name is Lisa Curtis. I'm the founder and CEO of Kuli Kuli Foods.
So we are the leading brand pioneering climate-smart superfoods like moringa here in the U.S. I started the company 12 years ago after serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, where I was first introduced to moringa in the form of this Kuli Kuli peanut snack. And I've now grown it to where we're in about 11,000 stores and available, you know, across shop by Amazon, etc. No small feat.
We have a lot to dive into today. So give us a little bit more background around like what enticed you to kind of dive in and really create a whole ecosystem around moringa. Like I want to know a little bit more around.
Yeah, just like the startup. You know, how'd you decide how to do even where did you even start to invest all that stuff? Yeah, so I will say that it sort of came from my own personal need in the sense that I was, you know, in this Peace Corps village, very rural, no electricity, no running water, and I'm a vegetarian and felt like I wasn't getting the right nutrients. I was just eating kind of like rice and a lot of carbs every day.
Some women in my village, you know what I could eat that would give me the iron, the protein, the vitamins, just like the nutrition that my body was craving. And they pulled these leaves off a tree and mixed it into this local snack called Kuli Kuli and said, eat this Kuli Kuli moringa, it'll make you feel better. And I was like, what are these tree leaves? Like, this is kind of weird, but you know, totally trusted these women and was just feeling so lethargic that I would, I would try anything.
Started taking it and it had the most profound impact on like my energy, my digestion, just like my overall body felt so revitalized. And so I'm like, what is this plant? How can I get more of it? How can I get it to more people? And the thing that the women farmers, you know, that I was working with really wanted was a way for them to grow more of it locally and earn an income by selling it to the U.S. So I said, no problem, I'll help you sell it to the U.S. And I had no idea what I was signing up for. But, you know, it's been an amazing journey along the way.
Yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's a win-win right there, right? So tell me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is moringa is like the leaf that you talked about, right? And then kuli-kuli is like a peanut. Is it like peanut sized? Is that? Yeah, so, so moringa. Yeah, like you said, moringa is a tree that grows all over the tropics.
So it's the leaves that are super nutritious. Kuli-kuli is a popular peanut snack throughout West Africa. And we named our company Kuli-kuli because it was this vehicle to which I was introduced to moringa and just like experienced this health transformation.
And so we started a company in partnership with small farmers, the women in West Africa to really kind of bring that health transformation to more people. And so use the name as emblematic of that. And, you know, how do we, how do you bring these amazing functional superfoods like moringa, like baobab, like so many of the other ones that we've added to our product line since in ways that really benefit small farming communities and help
to transform people's health here in the U.S. Yeah.
Okay, sweet. So now I also like to give listeners context around the products that you swell. So you have a suite of products.
Give us like the lowdown of kind of like different, I guess, categories or different items in your catalog. Yeah, so we have two different product lines in the sense that we sell powders and we sell gummies. So within that kind of, we have like the pure moringa powder, which has been what we've been known for, for the past 12 years.
Then we also have some really cool new products like our superfood lattes, which you can just like add to water and froth and, you know, can give you everything from like, we have ones that are designed around energy, ones that are designed around sleep, ones that are designed around digestion. So like a lot of different benefits. And then our gummies have a whole line of similarly kind of like energy, calm, skin health.
And so really our goal is to help more people access these functional superfoods. Some people who are like me, who are like, yes, I'm going to put this like earthy green moringa powder into my oatmeal every morning. And like, I love the way it feels and I know how to sort of like work with the taste.
And then there are other people who are like, just give me a gummy, give me a latte, give me something that like tastes delicious, but I still really feel the benefits. And our whole kind of brand ethos is like nutrition you can feel. Yes, I love that so much.
You know, before you were even in the Peace Corps, would you have considered yourself an entrepreneur? Is owning your own business, establishing, you know, operations from the ground up? Was that always something that you were thinking about or was it a total left turn? Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I think like a lot of young women, I would never have called myself an entrepreneur, but I would have certainly called myself like organizer, a leader. Like I had started a lot of different things, you know, as early as like high school where I like started this whole recycling and community service program at my school, like lots of things like that.
And I think for me, the appeal of, you know, being an entrepreneur, specifically being a social entrepreneur is like, how do I use market forces to create social change? And I've learned a lot over the past decade plus of building this company. And, you know, sort of in between Peace Corps and Cooley Cooley, like while I was doing this and like nights, weekends, I did work at another startup for a while and got to kind of like bail my way forward on somebody else's dime. And I love that you kind of made the distinction between like social entrepreneurship, using the market to enact social change.
I love that so much. So I want to ask you one more question about that. What was the like process, I guess, of deciding, OK, I don't want to just be an entrepreneur and all of the craziness that surrounds entrepreneurship itself, but I also want to tackle, you know, social change wherever I can.
How have you kind of unlocked that different aspect of the business? I don't think there was ever a question for me. I think, you know, I really started this business out of a mission as opposed to like saying, I want to start a business. What business can I start? So I think the question is really like, you know, I see this problem of here are these amazing, super nutritious plants that grow really well in places like Niger, where I did the Peace Corps, but they're not utilized much locally.
They're not really benefiting the local people, but they have so much potential to benefit so many people. And so it's like, how do I build something that like connects, you know, customers in the U.S. who want functional nutrition that they can feel with small farmers who want to earn a livelihood for their families growing something that will grow even as our climate changes. So I think that's where, to me, the business came out of like, how do I solve this problem? I never sort of sat down and said like, OK, what are all the businesses I can start? Yeah, I really appreciate that answer.
I think those are some of the best, most resonating messages when it comes to social change, right? Is when it's like you can see something happening and you're like, how can I bridge? How can I make that bridge? And how can I cross it? Really cool. He's doing just that. So I appreciate it.
Now we have the context. Our listeners kind of know more about you and your story and your brand, all the fun things that kind of give us the nice foundation to then dive into more of the tactical side of the business. So customer, obviously, customer retention is very central to this podcast.
But I always like to tee it up by talking about acquisition because you can't have retention if you don't have acquisition, right? So walk me through how you thought about customer acquisition. Has that changed throughout the years? You know, different products kind of give me over overview and then we'll kind of go down the funnel from there. So I would say in terms of like how I think about customer acquisition, depends a bit by channel.
So we're an interesting brand and like we have a pretty sizable e-commerce platform, but we also have an even larger retail platform, right? We're in 11,000 stores. So I think first is like, which customer are we talking to? Obviously, this is an e-commerce focused podcast. So I think when it comes to e-commerce customers, like we're really focused on like, how do we get our product out there to a wider audience? And how do we kind of tell the story of what the product can do, what the brand stands for, you know, where it comes from and the impact it has.
So we lean a lot into social to do that, a lot into meta ads, a lot into, you know, just like having great and frequently updated social content, pretty much, you know, most of it video these days. And I think then it's kind of like, how do we get from that like a broad swath of brand awareness, like down the funnel and down the funnel for us can either be like down the funnel of purchasing from our website, purchasing from Amazon or purchasing in store. So a lot of our content will speak to both where it's like, hey, we're having this flash sale on Googly Googly Foods or like Whole Foods is having this huge supplement sale.
You know, come shop with me at Whole Foods or shop with me at Target and like find the products there. Yeah, I love that. And yeah, definitely different by channel.
So I'm glad you made that call out of e-commerce specifically because we'll definitely hone in there with this podcast. And I think what's interesting is thinking about even though you're, you know, using e-commerce acquisition strategies like we'll specifically say social media, how it still bleeds into your other channels when you're looking at purchasing, right? So once you walk a consumer down that funnel, it's like, okay, even though we're using perhaps a acquisition channel that you can, you know, attribute if they go and shop on googlygooglyfoods.com versus if they shop online, I want to hear how you go about, I guess, planning the content. Like, are you looking at, okay, brand awareness? These, this is the message we want to get across when someone is just being introduced to us.
And then education where someone is engaging with our brand. This is the message that we want to show. We want to show them all the different attributes or show them all the different ingredients that we're using, whatever level of education.
And then like for purchasing, you know, what is that perk? What does that deal? What is the value that they're going to get back from the product? Are you breaking it up specifically by funnel content? We do. So, you know, we have like a content calendar and we plan out both like what's going on on e-com and then what's going on in retail. And then, you know, what's going on in the broader world that we can tap into.
And I think there's like different types of content for all of that. Yeah. And would you say mostly, you mostly lean organic versus, like you mentioned meta ads, organic versus paid.
Do you happen to know like what the breakdown in terms of percents are? Yeah. So historically it has been all organic. I think we are just now leaning more into paid.
Mostly because like a lot of our marketing dollars have been point of sale in retail. And so the amount of money that we spend on e-com has been fairly small. And so most of the marketing that happens is like, you know, the big off shelves and Whole Foods or the like promo in Target.
Yeah. Yeah. And that is so fair for like retail, right? Like people, you know, sometimes don't realize.
And this is, like you said, e-commerce focused podcast, but we talk a lot about just retail and the differences and the similarities. But the cost behind advertising in different retailers, the marketing budget, that is no small feat to dedicate time. And I think the thing that's, I think the thing that's like particularly interesting for brands to be thinking about in this like CBG space is like the rise of retail media.
So one of the things we've been really focused on how do we really leverage Walmart.com, Target.com,
Kroger.com. You know, all of the big retailers have been really pushing their dot coms in a way that I think requires a lot of energy and focus and ad spend. And so, you know, we certainly are continuing to lean into Amazon, but I think we're in a world where like Amazon isn't the only player when it comes to shopping for a lot of customers that they're like, oh, you know, maybe I'll like order online and pick up in store or, you know, especially for Walmart, like where I'm gonna order online and have it shipped and it's gonna arrive just as fast as Amazon. Yeah, let's, that's a great point, Lisa.
Let's pause there a bit, because even though it is more in the retail end of things, I think it'll be really interesting for consumers of this podcast to hear, you know, how you think about differences and similarities, you know, with an amazon.com, walmart.com, target.com, because our listeners haven't heard that much on this podcast. If you can like describe kind of like differences, similarities, how you think about it, that would be great. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that's super interesting to see is like how much Walmart in particular is leaning into dot com.
And I think they are like building a lot of features and, you know, some pretty like rich sort of advertising landscape to the point where you see a lot of the same features that you see on Amazon and, you know, with AMS. So I think that's been an interesting one that we've leaned into. I think certainly when you talk about Whole Foods, like Whole Foods being owned by Amazon has meant that like particularly over the past couple of years, you're seeing a lot more of a push on like what they call like Whole Foods market on Amazon.
And like, how do you advertise to customers who are shopping, not in store, but maybe doing like pickup order delivery, that kind of thing. I think, you know, for Sprouts, a lot of it is Instacart. And so like leaning into like Instacart to reach those customers and running ads and campaigns there.
It has been fascinating to me to the ways in which like, I think like retail and digital have kind of merged. And there's like every major retailer is like putting a lot of focus into how do we capture our digital share. Yeah.
And I mean, it's, it makes sense when you look at the market, right? Where retailers, especially during COVID, we're losing a lot of business. And so they're looking at, you know, the Shopify brands hosting their own DTC channel, but then the wall or the, sorry, the Amazons and going like, okay, how do we build that? So we can get a portion of the market that is still digital, but is also loyal to our brand, our storefront still. It is a very, it's an interesting intersection of retail and digital.
And to like, I imagine one of the biggest hurdles that I always hear is about retail versus, you know, DTC or online is just not having your, a lot of the data that you get from your own DTC channel. So I'm sure it would be interesting if, you know, these retailers can figure out how do you get a little bit more data as a brand to then know who your customers are, where they're shopping. Cause I feel like that's where the retail landscape, digital retail landscape will really start to merge and be like, oh, they're becoming more and more similar.
Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think that is, to me, that's like the biggest value in having our own Shopify store is like getting direct access to our customers and direct data and understanding them. Like I think those consumer insights are invaluable, but at least for us from like a dollar perspective, like our website is dorshed by Amazon, by Walmart.
Like it's an order of magnitude different in terms of volume. And so I think, and for a lot of brands I've talked to, like that's a bit of the trade-off is like, yes, we make a better margin. We get, you know, direct customer connection, like through our own website.
But like actually the way that a lot of people shop today is they like type something into Amazon or they like, you know, type it into Google or type it into Walmart or order from TikTok shop or from their like, you know, target app. So it's an interesting time. I think I've been really fascinated the extent to which we've seen a lot of brands that were previously just D2C entering into retail.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's an interesting, it's kind of a shakeup, right? Where people are figuring out their next move. As we're talking about customer retention and kind of some of the benefits of being e-commerce versus retail, I think that parlays nicely into retention because a lot of customer retention can obviously be enriched if you know who you're talking to, what they've bought, what their experience has been with a brand.
Oh, same question, but now about retention. How do you think about customer retention? We can specifically go e-commerce first and then, you know, how you think about it in retail. Because I think that'll be a nice blend.
Yeah, so, I mean, I think in e-commerce, I think we're very much focused on like finding new and enticing ways to bring them back. So it's like, if having like a great email marketing funnel, having like flash sales, having things like that, you know, sort of sending those out via SMS and email to get folks to like come back. I think for retail, it's trickier.
And, you know, we don't actually know who all of our customers are at Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, et cetera. Like we don't have direct access to them. And so their retention is really about like, can we lure them back with promos? Can we, you know, but that's kind of a combination of like, are we retaining current customers? Are we enticing new customers? You kind of don't know, but you see the sales going off to the right.
You think, you know, hopefully something's working. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I don't wanna say it's like you're hoping because obviously you, you know, us being in these seats, it's like you wanna be able to draw a direct line of this person did that, then they did this, blah, blah, blah.
These are the steps that they took. But yeah, retail, it's finicky. It can be real tough to get that, especially on a massive scale across different stores, across different retail stores.
So I think that is, I think that is something a lot of our brands listening will feel in terms of, you know, relating to that. So let's focus on e-commerce for retention. You mentioned email marketing.
I wanna know, is there, are you guys a brand that, you know, we have these specific drip campaigns. And after we get someone, you know, coming through, whether it's organically or through our ads, first purchase, whatever that action or that trigger is, is it like drip campaigns all the way? Or are you more like, you know, just firing off specific seasonal campaigns or whatever else? How do you kind of break up? These are the emails we wanna send. Yeah, it's a mix of both.
I mean, we have, you know, like your welcome series, your sort of like abandoned carts series. I think we have a lot of kind of like basic campaigns set up. And then we also, because we are, have products that are like great for different seasons.
Like we have, you know, powders that are great for smoothies that like definitely during summer, we like promote those more. And then we have our superfood lattes, which kind of have like a season of, you know, winter, fall time. And so we do different promotions based on kind of what is most appealing.
Yeah, yeah. I think that totally makes sense. And not even just the seasonality of the products, but then also seasonality of, I guess, like the human experience or timeline of Black Friday, Cyber Monday.
Like we're filming this right now in August and it seems crazy to say, but the holiday season is approaching and that's kind of the Superbowl of this industry. But because you have a product that is, you know, able to be used year round, sure you have some seasonality with the products, but I'm sure there are people who are like, I want a latte every day, or I want a smoothie every day. Do you find that you're, do you guys run specific seasonal campaigns when you look at timelines for like promotions and, you know, ways to draw people in during the holiday season? We do.
Yeah, we do definitely, you know, drip campaigns and like photo shoots around the holiday season. I think it is interesting being a wellness brand. Like our biggest months aren't just November, December.
Like we're not a really a gifted product as much as we are like a new year, new you. So like January, February is really kind of where our products start to shine. I kind of think of it as like, there's like a sweet season that's like Halloween through, you know, Christmas, Hanukkah.
And then people are like, okay, back to health. And like back to health is where we tend to shine. When it comes to retention in terms of the post-purchase experience, because obviously that can look different based off of if it's a first-time customer versus, you know, a long-time customer or a repeat customer.
So what's kind of the messages, the emails that your customers will get post-purchase? I'm definitely always interested in this because that's where my full-time job Malomo sits of like maximizing that retention. So I always like to ask people of, you know, what is it that's working? What are you guys trying to do? The message that you want to make sure people are, you know, staying excited while their order is being delivered, all that fun stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, certainly I think there's an area we could get better at. We have, you know, a bit of a like welcome, I don't know, whatever series or new order series that like order confirmation and order confirmation, all of that, where we try to do like, you know, spice it up with some marketing. So it's not just like, here's your order, here's your tracking number.
But it is certainly, I think, like an area where we could do more. Yeah. And that's totally, I think a lot of brands feel that, right? Where it's like, okay, I know that the transactional experience can be better or like it's something on the to-do list.
Like I hear that all the time. And I know we were talking before we even hopped on this call, like there's always so much to do, right? So it's like, how can you check things off the list? And I think if you have customers who are coming back and shopping with you, that's such a good indicator, right? Of saying like, okay, we are retaining them just through our product alone. And we know that.
And now we can build on that strategy, optimize, do all of those things. So that is a totally, totally valid answer. And along with that, I like to ask before I kind of start rounding out this episode is, is there any like retention plays that you've seen either through Cooly Cooly or other brands where you're like, that is so smart.
Like as a consumer, I shop with them because of this retention play. Yeah. Kind of like a favorite case study maybe, or like just a favorite idea that you've seen that you really, really appreciate.
And it's okay if there aren't any that come to mind. Yeah. I mean, I think that there are certainly a lot of like full-on DTC brands that do this much better than us.
I think one of the things that I'm always interested in, particularly when brands find a way to like merge sustainability and retention, where it's like, hey, you know, you buy this like laundry detergent, but here's like the refillable version, or, you know, here's your pill jar or your like powder jar, but like here's the bulk size that you can refill. And it's definitely something we've thought about of like, is there a way to like do that? And, you know, we think aren't, our Shopify isn't big enough to really justify it quite yet, but I think it is interesting where you can like retain customers who kind of align with your sustainability values as well. Yeah.
I definitely, I love that use case. I definitely shop with brands who do that, refillables from the jar or the container. And as a consumer, I always appreciate, you know, that extra added effort of I'm shopping with you again and again, and love when there's like a refillable instead of, you know, packaging or whatnot that you're disposing.
So that's a great answer. I love it, Lisa. This has been so fun.
I am so excited to get this out there. Thank you for joining, taking the time. I know it takes effort and energy.
So I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Awesome. We'll talk soon.
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