Crispy Q&A with Matthew Abram

N: What inspired you to enter the niche exotic snack industry?

A: After graduating University in 2021, I was working in the UK for a professional soccer, or ‘football’ team. I always knew that the British had great chocolate but as I was living there I found myself eating maybe a bit too much chocolate. Eventually, when the COVID virus hit and I was forced to return home to Canada, I found myself missing some of the sweets from back in the UK. During quarantine, I started to look into how I could get some of these snacks brought into Canada for myself, one thing lead to another and Willy Wacky Snacks was created.

N: Can you recall the pivotal moment in your early career when you realized you were onto something big?

A: I started Willy Wacky Snacks thinking it would be a bit of a side hustle until I could get back over to the UK post COVID. I recall telling my Dad, "if I can make a couple hundred bucks a month doing this during Covid I would be happy." It didn't take long for the TikTok page to grab some traction and our family house to fully fill up with orders. Quite literally... our entire house was filled with boxes of orders every day. In the third month of operation is when I rented my first location exclusively for Willy Wacky Snacks. I think that was probably the point where I thought that maybe I wouldn't be heading back to the UK!

N: There are countless intriguing locations in this world and options for snacks, what goes into selecting the products for your business?

A: The first thing you have to consider when finding snacks from around the world is the logistics in terms of bringing in the snacks. When I first started the business I sent quite literally thousands of emails and made hundreds of phone calls to people around the world who I thought could help me bring snacks over into Canada from other countries. You have to find the right dancing partners for the whole thing to work, most people in the business don't really want to deal with all the hassles involved in exporting to other countries. Nowadays I am quite a bit more established so I have a lot more people reaching out to me rather than the other way around which makes life much easier. Once the logistics part is sorted I have sort of developed a pretty accurate "THAT'S SO COOL" radar which helps me identify what snacks are worth bringing over.

N: How do you stay up to date with evolving consumer preferences and emerging snack trends?

A: To be completely honest, I don’t really spend too much time looking into the overall trends and consumer preferences in the general snack/confectionary industry. We are very much sort of in our own lane and have customers that just want the weirdest and hardest to find snacks. These snacks are not meant to replace your regular go-to snacks, but are rather meant to be part of a fun experience. I always tell people that I am not trying to sell these snacks as being "better" than the regular snacks at your local store, after all those snacks are literally manufactured with the North American palette in mind, I am instead selling an experience where whether you like the snack or not, you still had a great time, experienced new flavors and traveled through "food."

N: What unique challenges do you face in the exotic snack industry, and how do you overcome them?

A: I think the biggest unique challenge that we face pretty regularly is keeping up with some of the demand for some of our most popular products. At this point we have a fairly big group of customers who are always on the lookout and ready to pounce on our newest drops. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the business, many of the snacks we get are "limited edition" and are made in very low quantities. Sometimes this can be frustrating for those who want to try all the latest stuff but through our Email and SMS notifications we try to keep everyone as up to date on drops as possible.

N: Describe your general day for us!

A: Wake up and immediately hit the emails responding to general enquiries. Then I absolutely have to have my coffee and I drive over from Toronto to the warehouse in Burlington which is about an hour away. I have 6 full time employees right now so I catch up with them in the morning and go over the game plan for the day. If we are behind on orders I will help with picking/packing/labeling orders. If the staff have that under control, I can start doing product research into new snacks that are coming out worldwide and start working on what bringing them into the country would look like. In the afternoon I will usually start working on planning & editing content. Such a huge part of this business is social media. After work when everyone leaves at 5pm I will usually stay about an hour extra to film any content. I get back home around 8pm, go for a run and I finish the day pretty tired!

N: Are there any insights that you’d like to share with aspiring entrepreneurs?

A: I think that firstly you should figure out your "why?"

Make sure you start something you enjoy, are passionate about and believe in! Entrepreneurship is a lot of hard work and can be lonely, especially at the beginning so finding your ‘why’ is going to help you get through all of that! Once you have found your business and your "why," dedicate yourself to it and you will learn so much regardless of whether your business ultimately finds success or not!

N: With your impressive TikTok following, do you consider it a cornerstone of your business success?

A: Absolutely! TikTok has allowed so many businesses to organically grow and build a customer base! We have never spent a single dollar in paid advertising, we just opened up the doors to our business through TikTok. I try to be as authentic and transparent in my videos as possible!

N: Any upcoming partnerships or launches in the pipeline?

A: We are having our next restock Nov 10th (today) so we are super excited to share all the new snacks with everybody! We have had a few potential opportunities to run a pop up in either Toronto or LA so that may be something I consider if it's something our customer base is interested in!

N: And lastly, the most important question of all: How do you enjoy your chicken nuggets?

A: I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not but however, McDonalds does them is how I want them haha!