Two-year-old Graza has popularized squeeze bottles filled with olive oil that appear in seemingly every food influencer’s social videos. And those influencers are playing a key role in the brand’s largest product launch to date beyond the squeezable bottles: Beer-can refills.
On May 9, Graza rolled out beer cans of olive oil, sending the new product to about 300 creators, said Kendall Dickinson, head of social and influencer marketing for Graza. The goal was to show people how to refill the signature squeezable bottles with more sustainable cans and a kitchen funnel.
Andrew Benin, cofounder and CEO of Graza, said it shows how influencers have played a major role in growing the brand without much paid marketing. Graza cut its marketing spend from 12.5% of gross revenue to 5% in February when olive-oil prices skyrocketed. As of May, Graza’s marketing spend is still down, Benin said.
“There’s only so much you can do on your own channels or on ads,” he said. “You need the community around.”
Olive oil isn’t the only consumer-packaged good to pull back on marketing. Big CPG brands like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola have cut their marketing budgets due to rising costs in the past couple of years.
“Our agencies are begging us to spend more money, but we don’t see a reason to do so,” Benin said, citing the brand’s organic growth.
Benin said Graza had been planning the launch of cans for about 19 months, since shortly after the company launched in 2022. The decision to sell canned olive oil has also served as its own marketing, he said. For example, the cans are sealed with nitrogen and crack open like a beer can. They are also recyclable, which Graza uses to appeal to sustainability-minded consumers.
“There’s this whole engineering side to it that you wouldn’t expect a consumer-packaged company to innovate in,” he said.
Graza is leaning on other brands to promote its new product
Graza is working with other canned products to promote the refills. A twice-a-month series called “Cracking Cans” shows Graza alongside other canned products like alcohol. For example, a TikTok and Instagram video shows how to make onion rings using Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Graza’s olive oil. Graza also has a partnership with cannabis-infused drink brand Cann.
Dickinson estimated that Graza has added around 2,000 new social followers since launching the cans. A heavy percentage of content to educate people about how the cans work is set to continue through the summer.
Benin said the challenge with marketing the cans was not to overshadow the brand’s core squeezable bottles.
“All our messaging, our advertising, our website, and how we built it needed to be built in that way where it didn’t cannibalize our current business,” he said.
Benin said Graza’s sales are split between its direct-to-consumer website and retailers like Whole Foods, Publix, Target, Harris Teeter, and Walmart. For the launch of the cans, Graza created its first subscription-only offering on its website, where people can buy two squeezable bottles of olive oil, two cans, and a funnel for $65.
While subscriptions can be tough for brands, “We’ve had enough data that people really love our subscription,” Benin said. “We’ve had two and a half years of learning that gave us the conviction to launch this starter kit.”
