Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Hong and Mollie Cha.
Hello Hannah and Mollie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
We’ve been best friends for going on 16 years now and both became lactose intolerant in our early 20s! We couldn’t eat dairy anymore but loved our sweet treats still and a lot of them include dairy! But, what’s available at stores either tasted really terrible or had terrible ingredients. So… we did it ourselves. We created Must Love and now make a line of delicious and wholesome plant-based frozen desserts (ice cream), sprinkles, and soon, cookies!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
So. Many. Struggles.
Building manufacturing scale was incredibly challenging. We went from making 10 pints every 30 minutes to 20 pints every 15 minutes overnight in year one and it still barely was enough for us to meet our purchase orders from customers. So we started pulling double shifts, expanding staff, and then we would do a midnight shift finishing pallets. It was completely unsustainable from a mental and physical energy perspective, but we did it for almost a full year until we were able to find manufacturing partners to help us scale.
What started as kind of a cute operation with just the two of us making ice cream a couple of days a week and the rest of the time doing sales meetings and deliveries turned into a 24/7 ice cream-making fever dream (nightmare?). But we persevered, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it at all, because it was the hardest thing we ever did. There were many times I cried and broke down. We made it through to the other end though because we had each other and our other team members.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Must Love?
Must Love makes plant-based indulgences – your nostalgic favorites, but plant-based and with better ingredients so you don’t have to hesitate when you indulge. There’s no second-guessing in sharing our treats with your family.
We make a line of dairy-free ice cream pints and novelties. We have a line of super-premium sprinkles that are completely plant-based, even the colors. And, coming soon, a line of frosted cookies that really speak to the child in all of us.
You can find our products at Sprouts nationwide as well as in certain regions of Whole Foods and at other natural and specialty retailers everywhere.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Interesting question, I think we would say we’re not risk-takers because we are pretty measured about where we invest our dollars. But the fact that we are doing this at all probably means we are!
The biggest risk was probably deciding to quit our regular jobs to do our own thing! Giving up salary and benefits to striking it out on your own is a huge risk and I think you have to be realistic about how long you can go without making a salary and how much risk you’re willing to take. This is the first conversation you have to have with yourself before you jump in with both feet.
The next biggest risk was starting new product lines. Once we finally got in the groove of understanding the ins and outs of ice cream, we jumped into cookies. This is a calculated risk we’re taking, we know we’re facing another steep learning curve, but we know this is the right direction to expand our brand.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://must.love
- Instagram: @mustloveco
Image Credits
Must Love
