Meet the super food you never knew existed

GM. This is Work "After" Work. We tell you things about business that you tell your friends about business and they think you’re a genius.

Happy Hump Day! Let’s jump in:

• 🫘 Lupini Beans

• 😂 Meme of the day

THE SUPER FOOD YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

Today, I’ve got a banger for you.. that nobody else is talking about.

Let me introduce you to Lupini Beans. The low-key Italian superfood that beats almonds (an 11 billion dollar industry) in almost every category:

• 3x the protein

• 2x the fiber

• Zero net carbs

• 40% less fat

While there has been growing interest in Lupini Beans according to Google Trends, its bigger brother ChickPeas still takes all the spotlight.

Now the crazy thing is: there’s only one brand in the space while there are at least 5 huge players for almonds (Blue Diamond, Great Value, Emerald, Planters, SkinnyDipped).

Brami, originally an Italian pasta brand, sells Lupini Beans in 5 different flavors and even sells Lupini dip.

I think this brand is making $20k - $34k a month just from selling these beans. Let me show you how I got this number.

If you go on similarweb you’ll see they had 16.8k visitors last month. If we use 4% (the average conversion rate for food e-commerce) that means ~672 people made a purchase last month.

If the avg purchase was $30 that’s (672 * $30) = $20,000/mo. Maybe it’s a little higher (after all a 4-pack of beans does cost $25) and the customer pays $50 on avg, that’s 34k/mo topline.

Not too shabby for an extremely niche segment (right now).

If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking “Where the heck do I even get wholesale Lupini Beans??”. Nuts.com. Ha, should have known.

They sell a 28lb case for $74 - $2.69/lb.

Let’s do some quick math from wholesale to retail.

Brami sells 4 pouches for $24.69 ($6.17/pouch). Each pouch is 5.3oz, which if you times by 3 is exactly one pound. So 3 pouches (one pound) retail on Brami is $18.51. This is how we’re going to compare with Nuts.com.

Each wholesale pound on Nuts.com costs $2.69.

So we have wholesale $2.69/lb and retail $18.51/lb. That’s almost 7x your wholesale price. Now you start to see how much brand value matters.

And I bet you could even get higher margins by calling Nuts.com and negotiating lower prices for bigger bulk orders.

Then you have to layer in costs on top of that $2.69 like packaging, trucking, R&D, inventory, etc. and your margins are probably around 20 - 25%.

I couldn’t find the exact numbers on how much Brami makes but I did see they secured $10.8M in funding so it’s clearly something investors think will be big in the future and are willing to bet on.

If you wanna compete in this space I’d go after different markets. Lupini beans are versatile that can be eaten plain or put in salads.

You could target:

• Vegans - extremely health-conscious people that will appreciate all the benefits this bean has over others

• Athletes and workout enthusiasts - 3x more protein means GAINS as gym bros would say. Maybe coat the beans in a tasty protein powder to juice up the protein

• People trying to lose weight - these beans have extremely low fats and no carbs - a great dieting snack

And there ya have it. A superfood no one is talking about with only one competitor. Get after it and put that Lupini dance on 🕺

MEME OF THE DAY

pretty much 😂😂

That's all I got for ya today folks!!

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.