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He is the co founder and chief concept officer of Toma.
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Please help me welcome to Mitu Daily Manolo Vergara.
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Hello. And in today's news,
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I feel like I'm like a weekend updates jokes.
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I'm good. How are you?
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I'm good. Thank you for having me.
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Thank you for being here.
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I wish I had food to bring you guys.
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I'm so happy. We ran out,
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we sold out, sold out.
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Well, we sold out completely in New York.
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we're, we're based in Florida mostly.
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So we don't really have a whole lot of products here in
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California. So I have nothing to give you.
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I come empty handed.
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I'm so sorry, but I will send you guys some once
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we have some, I have seen the menu and I'm like
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I need to, I need to try.
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It's good stuff. So tell me Manolo growing up in a
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Colombian household, what were your favorite things to eat?
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Panda Bonos Choy's Marte,
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my favorite La Pata Margarita de Pollo.
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It's the best flavored chicken flavored potato chips is phenomenal and these
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are kind of rare nowadays.
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the little gray little sausages that you eat with like lime.
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Yeah., and it's hard.
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I'm happy now because there's a lot more you can find here
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in L A. But before it used to be rare gems
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Colombia, you would come back on LA Maleta JL A is
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a little tougher than definitely than Miami.
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Miami. You can get whatever you want.
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So tell me about that.
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How did Toma came to be?
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Hunger? Hunger? There was just no good Latin.
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For example, everybody is tacos coming Mexicana,
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all that kind of stuff that's easy to find.
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That's everywhere. Everybody knows what a burrito is.
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Everybody loves a burrito.
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That's wonderful. But if you want like a Pande bono or
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Napa, good luck finding that in L A.
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So this was, this was what the impetus was that.
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There is no really good easy Latin food across the United States
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You can make it at home that can take a lot
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I like, I don't wanna do that.
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I just wanna have like a quick thing that reminds me of
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home but it doesn't take the time to go home.
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You know, Toma is not just Colombian.
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This was AAA point that I,
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I was very stringent on that.
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I don't want it just to be Columbia when I want to
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be like the best of Latin American food.
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So it's like the greatest hit.
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So we have Cuban croquet,
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we have obviously arepas panos,
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we have teos, we are empanadas and not Colombian.
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Argentina me the greatest because II I agree the best food is
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I mean, in my opinion,
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Colombian proud but the best food in Latin America is the fusion
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of Yeah, I also don't want to eat just,
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you know, arepas for the rest of my life to switch
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So help me explain because this is actually we're the only Colombians
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in the room. Help me explain cheese in our chocolate.
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Oh I can't explain that.
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I don't understand that.
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I've also never done that.
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I don't understand. No.
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Like why would I put cheese in my chocolate?
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it's kind of like putting like milk or butter.
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It is just the dairy situation at the end just like in
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a different level of moldiness,
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I guess. but I'm also not a big chocolate drinker
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and then, but like no like it's like you remember when
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like this bullet coffee came out and it was oh you're putting
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butter in your coffee.
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Yeah, it's the same thing as putting cream in your coffee
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You've just, you know,
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mixed the cream until it's separated from the fat.
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So it's not that crazy to me.
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I would imagine that the texture though,
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of drinking the chocolate,
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it can get a little because it's melting.
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It's fine. It's like melted cheese.
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It's just good. I like it.
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I, I'm not gonna y your yum,
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but it's weird. It's weird.
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Ok, fine. It's weird but it's really good and you
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should try it. So you guys are expanding all over the
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Congratulations. Thank you very much.
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Thank you. Was there a specific moment or experience that made
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you want to decide to take Doma to Busch Gardens?
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not necessarily a singular moment,
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but we just, we know that this is like a a
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Like we want it to be like,
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you know, grab and go things.
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So it just, it makes perfect sense to be in a
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place like Busch Gardens for us because people are like having fun
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and you're with your family and it's kind of tropical because Tampa's
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hot and so it's just like a perfect fit for us once
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they once the opportunity made,
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made itself available, what is next for Tomar any more?
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So we are we just finished the halo screen at at
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Busch Gardens. You know,
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they do like their scary Halloween situation,
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but now we're gonna do their Christmas which runs from November 15
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until January 5th. So we will,
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we will have our pop up there.
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You can find us there.
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We also have cocktails at this location.
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And we're also, we're also expanding throughout,
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not just South Florida with,
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with new farm stores and new partners,
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but also through, through the rest of the,
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of the United States.
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we're gonna be launching in California very soon.
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We, we just launched in Madrid and we're gonna be doing
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Barcelona Valencia, another location in Madrid very soon.
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Yeah. And we're doing eats Con in Miami in February
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We'll be there with,
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with our stuff and we're just kind of,
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you know, chugging along.
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We're, we will be in Walmart's starting February of 2025.
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So we're very excited.
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That is so exciting.
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I'm personally super excited for here in California.
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But the fact that if I'm ever in Madrid,
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oh Domas here. Well,
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the idea is that wherever you are in the world,
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you can get a little piece of home,
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wonderful, beautiful touch.
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That's good. I should,
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you should trademark it right now.
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Paul. Thank you so much,
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Manolo Vergara and Toma.
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