Starting From Scratch

It all started with an idea… but not my idea. Like Many businesses started in the 2020’s, TruJoy Yogurt can trace its origins back to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the heat of the lockdowns, when my whole family was living under the same roof for the first time since high school, my sister, Abby, who had been living in Los Angeles at the time kept talking about how much she missed this one particular Frozen Greek Yogurt shop in Santa Monica. I was intrigued by the idea and in the boredom of lockdowns started working up plans to open a Frozen Greek Yogurt store back in Texas. The idea lost traction when life began its return to normal.

Months later, while training for a triathlon, I was logging 100’s of miles per week between the swim, bike & run. Needless to say I was burning tons of calories and doing everything I could just to keep weight on. One night after a particularly long ride, I was digging into a pint of ice cream and took a look at the ingredients and nutrition. I wondered if it might be possible to have an ice cream that was nourishing, natural and delicious. Why work so hard and replenish with junk? Thinking back to Abbys idea, it was obvious - the ‘ice cream’ had to be a Frozen Greek Yogurt.

Not knowing anything about making ice cream (i’m a geologist), I asked my Mom for her ‘Lemon Velvet’ ice cream recipe and went to work using my grandmothers Cuisinart ice cream maker. Mom made this ice cream for us once a year growing up, and after seeing the amount of cream and sugar that went into it, I understood why we only got it once a year!

It didn’t take too long to figure out how to make the Frozen Greek Yogurt taste good, but getting the texture just right proved to be a challenge. I bought a 360 page text book on the science of ice cream, spoke to PhD’s in ice cream (yes, this is a thing) and made well over 100 batches before I thought we had something that was truly marketable. Going from a dozen pints to 1,000’s was going to be a challenge!

The guest bedroom at my apartment in San Antonio and TruJoys first office.

Meanwhile, and in addition to my day job, I took a job at a local scoop shop working four shifts a week scooping and serving ice cream. The thinking here was that we’d launch what has now become TruJoy Yogurt as a scoop shop. I loved the idea of being able to serve customers Frozen Greek Yogurt and immediately be able to see a response and make changes. Ultimately, I decided against this route - I believe that TruJoy Yogurt is a product that lives in your freezer, a sweet treat for any day of the week. My time at the scoop shop was not a waste of time though, I learned that I was truly passionate about serving smiles, not just ice cream.

Why the name ‘TruJoy Yogurt’? Again, I can’t take credit for the name… Originally, I wanted to name the company ‘Atlas Yogurt’ an obvious allusion to the Titan of Greek mythology who held the world on his shoulders and a subtle nod to Ayn Rand (whose novel changed my life). My sister refused to let me do this saying it was too nerdy. One afternoon, I was working up a batch in moms kitchen and asked her what she thought I should name the company. She didn’t hesitate and said “‘TruJoy Yogurt’, it’s Yogurt spelled backwards but with a ‘J’”. The question of what to name the company was over, or so I thought…

Right before hiring a company to design our logo, I thought it might be worth checking out if ‘TruJoy’ had been trademarked. I remember the gut-wrenching blow when I learned that the name had been taken, I had fallen in love with the name. Thanks to some skills I learned in a previous career, I managed to track down the owner of the company who owned the trademark. She could not have been more gracious and said that she was going to let the trademark expire and was happy to sign it over. And the cherry on top, her last name was literally ‘Sweet’. I’ll forever be grateful for her kindness and can’t wait for the day that she can try our TruJoy.

With the naming rights secured, I hired a branding agency to design our logo and packaging. Their only real instructions where to somehow come up with a way to show that ‘TruJoy’ was ‘Yogurt’ spelled backwards. We went through several iterations and I learned just a bit about all of the intricacies that go into design, branding and packaging. I’ll let you be the judge… but I love what they came up with for TruJoy!

This brief summary barely scratches the surface. It’s been in adventure getting here. But right now, I feel like I am at the trial head looking up a tall mountain. I’m excited to see where this trail takes TruJoy Yogurt next!