Tyler Phillips, a University of Maryland graduate, is the co-founder of Hummii, a plant-based snack startup with a chickpea mascot that has earned a space at D.C.'s Union Kitchen. It is currently seeking funds through a Kiva campaign.
How and where was Hummii created? Hummii was created in a tiny apartment kitchen located on Calle Cerra, a street in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico. This street is well-known on the island as one of the epicenters for artistic and culinary influence. After living in Puerto Rico for over a year, I was getting more and more obsessed with plant-based nutrition and endurance training. These exercise routines were often filled with hundreds of thoughts whizzing through my brain as I tried to pass the time.
On one especially hot morning in late December 2019, I was thinking of plant-based dessert recipes to create for our family that was arriving the next day to celebrate the new year. Inspired by the heat, I decided plant-based ice cream would be cool to try. Using a zero-added sugar dessert hummus recipe, I added some unsweetened almond milk (now unsweetened soy milk in the current Hummii recipe) to a mixture of chickpeas, aquafaba, bananas, monkfruit sweetener — and a flavor add-in. At the time I created a chocolate flavor, banana peanut butter flavor, and coffee flavor for the family. Fortunately, they enjoyed it enough where it encouraged me to keep creating it, improving upon the recipe, and sharing with other friends and fitness fanatics on the island. Eventually, the concept was validated enough to have drawn interest from another lifelong friend and entrepreneur who moved to the island with me. Two other New Yorker friends living on the island were going to act as investors. This belief in Hummii was what allowed me to have the confidence to further pursue the idea even after these other co-founders could no longer continue.
What was the process of developing the Hummii branding? As mentioned above, living in an artistic center of San Juan certainly helped as I would be surrounded by various innovators and their creations on a daily basis. Additionally, the original name for the brand was Humm Virya. Humm was derived from the sound you make while practicing meditation or when you are happily “humming” along in life while also a reference to Hummus, since chickpeas were a core ingredient. Virya means “energy” and “enthusiasm” in Hindu, which I thought would be neat to include in the name. Then the chickpea character was created that very first day back in December while I sketched out a chickpea meditating with muscle bulging due to the power of a plant-based diet.
Eventually, the entrepreneurial friend, Ryan Zeiser, who helped in the early stages suggested that we use the name Hummii. This name seemed to be more in line with the playful, family-friend brand we wanted to create and can be thought of as a phonetic mashup of the words “healthy” and “yummy”. The cartoon ingredients you see on our social media, packaging, and marketing materials come courtesy of a fantastic freelance Serbian cartoonist, Luka Jovanovic. We were fortunate to have found him on Upwork within three days of beginning design and have continued to work with him ever since.
How did you end up at Union Kitchen? Calling back to above when there were four of us co-founders in Puerto Rico; we were about to incorporate Hummii and start a fully funded venture. This was coming into fruition right at the end of February with the pandemic on the horizon, little to our knowledge at the time. As the pandemic grew in severity, I quickly realized the other co-founders would be impacted and unfortunately not able to give their attention to Hummii. We all ended up returning to various areas of New York for a period of time to be with family.
My brother and I helped out our dad during the day with our family’s chain of hardware stores (Phillips Hardware), which were essential to serve the community. Our dad’s perseverance, sense of community, and adaptability continue to play huge roles in my entrepreneurial style and the Hummii brand. After helping him during the day I’d return to the kitchen at night to make some batches of Hummii. I am still very thankful for our mom who put up with the constant craziness in her kitchen during this time. Those Hummii batches would then be distributed to our cousins and grandparents who happened to all live within a 20-minute drive. This was a nice way to check up on them during the beginnings of Covid while also getting diversified feedback on the flavors.
I had experience with startups & accelerators, with a business development role at a Puerto Rican startup while we participated in the Pre18 accelerator program. This led me to see the benefit of learning from mentors and going through a program with like-minded entrepreneurial individuals. Luckily, one of those nights after working and cooking, I was surfing the web and discovered Union Kitchen’s program.
I applied and had a virtual “Shark Tank-esque” pitch a few weeks later. With the help of my little sisters, I practiced the presentation and successfully conveyed the Hummii vision to Union Kitchen’s team over a Zoom call. About a month later I found myself returning to the area (I graduated in 2018 from the University of Maryland, College Park) and beginning the Union Kitchen accelerator program. It’s certainly been challenging to do all this amidst a global pandemic but I feel very lucky to have the guidance of their community and the support of friends & family.
What was your go-to snack as a kid? I had a very plain (and unhealthy diet) as a kid filled with Smucker’s PB&J, mozzarella sticks, cheerios, and Twizzlers as a go-to candy. Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream and the Monster Mash at Friendly’s were also some of my favorite desserts.
What is the process like of developing new Hummii flavors and products? It’s an extremely organic and creative process. Oftentimes, the best ideas come when I am moving around, stopping in the grocery store after a workout, traveling, or having fun with friends & families. Other times a certain lyric of a song will trigger going down a rabbit-hole of recipe creation and has led to the growth of the Hummii Hits Spotify playlist. After the idea for a flavor or product has been formed, I’ll spend a couple of hours searching the web and compiling similar recipes. Then I’ll mix and mash some elements while also putting a “Hummii-twist” on it. These “twists” include the addition of chickpeas with our Plant-Powered Popsicles or tofu with a line of plant-based Power Puddings (releasing sometime next year). Something we learned while at Union Kitchen is the importance of also projecting COGS [cost of goods sold] as you scale operations, profit margin, and the nutritional value while creating the recipe. Usually, within a few days, I’ll then sketch out a couple of cartoons related to the flavor and its name. These will be sent to Luka, the cartoonist, and we’ll work on the design together for around a week.
Have you experimented with a flavor that just didn’t work? So many times. I think that it’s an integral part of creating something truly innovative. You have to be prepared for large amounts of failure and learning. Being captain of a winless varsity ice hockey team has probably helped years later. Some flavors will sound extremely delicious and nutritious in preparation and then just completely flop when it comes to advancing towards commercialization. For example, there’s been a Matcha Berry Magic (Matcha & Blueberry) flavor that was just too expensive at this point to release. There have also been many flavors currently on the “sidelines” waiting for their turn to appear on the Hummii roster of fit flavors.
What is your crowdfunding goal and what will do with the funds raised? Our current crowdfunding goal with Kiva is $9,500 of which we have raised a little over 30%. We will use the funds to provide a cushion of cash flow for commercial kitchen space at Union Kitchen. A portion will also help scale production of the Plant-Powered Popsicles, either in-house or in partnership with local popsicle makers in the area. Lastly, we’d love the ability to expand our production team of one with someone who has more technical experience. We understand that now is not the easiest of times to ask for loans from the community but have been pleasantly surprised and grateful for the support we have received.
What was your first job? I was always very busy balancing academics and sports but would work some summers. The first job I had was around the age of 13 helping out at the point of sale and any manual labor jobs that Phillips Hardware had.