David Habib built Yo Mama’s Foods from a Clearwater kitchen into a national brand sold in 24,000 stores.
At a live CEO Connect event hosted by Tampa Bay Business and Wealth, Habib shared how the company grew from a storage unit operation into a fast-scaling packaged-food business and what he learned along the way.
Bridgette Bello, chief executive officer and publisher of TBBW, interviewed Habib in front of a live audience at the Motor Enclave in Tampa.
A moment that felt local
Habib said appearing on the January 2024 cover of TBBW felt different than other national press the company has received.
“This has been very surreal,” he said. “One of the people from the magazine actually won our sauce at a CrossFit competition. He flipped the jar over and realized it was made in Clearwater.”
READ: How David Habib built Yo Mama’s Foods
That local connection, Habib said, led directly to new opportunities. One of them was a partnership with Bay Food Brokerage, whose founders were also previous TBBW cover subjects.
“We’ve had great national press, but this has been special,” he said. “It’s even more special that it happened at home.”
Growth since the cover story
Because magazine interviews happen months in advance, Bello asked Habib to share what had changed since the original story ran.
A lot, he said.
Yo Mama’s Foods started out of a storage unit near Nursery Road and U.S. 19. Today, the company ships to 24,000 stores, exports to eight countries and is expanding rapidly with Kroger, which has become its largest retail partner.
READ: LATEST TAMPA BUSINESS NEWS
“There’s no shame in starting small and working very hard,” Habib said.
He added that January 2024 became the strongest month in the company’s history.
When Bello asked what drove that growth, Habib pointed to his team.
“No matter how talented the conductor is, there’s no music without the orchestra,” he said. “It takes a village.”
From the kitchen table to Amazon
Habib repeated a phrase he often uses to describe his approach.
“Start small, think big and scale quickly.”
Not knowing everything up front turned out to be an advantage.
“If I knew everything I know today, I probably would not have had the courage to start,” he said.
At the time, Habib was working in consulting and eating store-bought pasta sauce that gave him heartburn. His mother’s cooking inspired the idea behind Yo Mama’s Foods.
READ: LATEST ON TAMPA BAY REAL ESTATE
“There was a big void in the market,” he said. “Everything looked the same and was loaded with ingredients my mom never used.”
He moved back home in January 2017 and launched the business on Mother’s Day. From the beginning, the goal was to build a global brand in Clearwater.
David Habib, founder of Yo Mama’s Foods, speaks during a live CEO Connect interview hosted by Tampa Bay Business & Wealth.
Clean ingredients and hard lessons
One of the company’s defining choices was using wine as a preservative.
“All the alcohol cooks off,” Habib said. “It breaks down the acidity and gives us a three-year shelf life.”
Yo Mama’s sauces contain about 120 milligrams of sodium, far less than many competitors. Finding a co-packer willing to support that approach was critical.
Pricing was another early lesson.
READ: BIGGEST COMPANIES IN TAMPA BAY
“At first the sauce was $18.99 on the shelf,” he said. “No one is buying a $19 jar of sauce.”
Understanding distribution and margins took time.
When Yo Mama’s became the number one seller on Amazon in October 2017, the company was still operating out of that storage unit.
“I had ten high school students packing orders after school,” Habib said. “We used my car lights at night because the unit didn’t have electricity.”
Expanding in Clearwater
Habib also shared updates on the company’s physical footprint.
Yo Mama’s Foods purchased an abandoned warehouse in the North Greenwood area of Clearwater in 2019 and converted it into its headquarters. The company has worked with the city on a multi-year expansion plan to add space and create jobs.
“We’re excited to keep growing here,” he said.
Failing forward
When asked about failure, Habib was direct.
“I fail every single day,” he said.
One of the biggest setbacks came when a full truckload of product was stolen due to weak controls around a fraudulent customer.
“It was a big failure,” he said. “We didn’t have the right systems in place.”
Still, Habib encourages his team to take risks.
“If you don’t fail, you don’t try something new,” he said.
He referenced Mark Twain’s idea that continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection and said leaders often struggle to communicate what they see in their heads.
“You have to allow room to try,” he said. “That’s how you innovate.”
About CEO Connect
CEO Connect is TBBW’s invitation-only event series that brings together Tampa Bay business leaders for conversation and networking.
Each event includes a cocktail reception followed by a live interview with the featured CEO. Sponsors for this event included Keyrenter, Shelby Construction and Shumaker. The host sponsor was the Motor Enclave in Tampa.
For Habib, the evening reflected the path his business has taken.
He started at a kitchen table. He kept going by saying yes and figuring it out.
And he built something bigger than he imagined.
