#98 - Yemeni Mesa |The Emerging Brand That Will Change The Keto World

What The Fat (WTF)

Episode #98

Yemeni Mesa is a dad, entrepreneur, former competitive bodybuilder and lover of food. He’s spent most of his life pursuing two passions that are at odds with each other: a love for carby sugary food and all of the great pleasure it brings, and an equal love for feeling lean, strong and healthy. These opposing endeavors have brought him to where he is today. His mission is to optimize his health, without compromising on the great joy that food brings. In this episode of What The Fat, we talk about what drives his experimental and entrepreneurial mindset, his invaluable experience working for top power houses in nutrition like Quest, and his exciting new brand coming to market, Heka Foods!

Enjoy The Show!

Take Aways

Yemeni Mesa is a passionate entrepreneur with over 25 years of senior executive experience, working with fast growing and disruptive brands like MET-Rx, Dreyer’s, Quest & KNOW. From a young age he developed a die hard work ethic to achieve success. As a former bodybuilder, Yemeni, holds a strong passion for nutrition, fitness, and “bio-hacking”. He is constantly self experimenting on how he can optimize his health and share his findings with the world. In this episode we chat about his experience working for some of the top company’s in the nutrition space, tips for entrepreneurs, and his exiting new brand launching!

Links and Resources

Yemeni's Instagram

Yemeni's Website

Heka Foods

Show Notes

• 1:28 Growing up in Colombia South America and moving to the United States
• 4:26 How Yemeni's passion for health and fitness started
• 7: 26 What drives his self experimental mindset
• 9:05 His experiences working with MET-Rx, Dreyer’s, Quest & KNOW
• 17:35 The Intoxicating Environment at Quest Nutrition
• 21:49 The reformulation of the Quest Bar
• 30:42 Tips for entrepreneurs on navigating retailers
• 34:39 Working with KNOW as President of Sales and Marketing
• 39:33 The mistake that cost KNOW: Chipgate 2018
• 46:10 Pros and cons of venture capitals
• 49:24 What is Yemeni up to now? New brand alert!
• 57:04 All about Heka Foods
• 59:28 Where you can find Yemenie
• 1:00:28 What Yemeni is most excited about!

Tweetables

“We care about the products integrity”

“The bars that have IMOS in them have more net carbs than you think...IMO’s do partially digest and are in fact more of a carbohydrate than they are a fiber”

“The retailer lives by brands who bring in foot traffic”

“You don’t start a business to make money, you don’t build a business to get rich”

“If you’re managing a brand be transparent, be honest from the get go”

“Sweeping something under the rug and not addressing it, big mistake”

“You have to build a core audience, a core consumer who loves the brand”

“I think of the ketogenic diet as a healing diet... Keto to me is how I made myself healthy, and now that I’m healthy I can focus on body composition - thats secondary”

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