Alejandra Ríos, Ambrosía | Scaling Food Businesses and Transforming Family Companies

The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.

Today my guest is Alejandra Ríos, CEO of Ambrosía, a leading gastronomic services and events company in Mexico with more than 300 employees. She is also an angel investor and a Shark on Shark Tank México.

Throughout her career, Alejandra prepared to take on the leadership of her family business, Ambrosía, and take it to the next level. From an MBA at Harvard, to working in investment banking and as an executive at ALSEA, the largest restaurant operator in Latin America with almost 3,000 locations.

Today we talk about:

Why food is such a difficult industry in Latin America
What qualities, processes, and culture are needed to grow food businesses
When to get involved in the family business and how to transform it into a more corporate company, including how to approach the difficult conversations with family members

In addition, Ale explained to me what the advantages and disadvantages of being a public figure have been for her businesses.

Now, I’ll leave you with this conversation with the great Ale Ríos.

Youtube Timestamps*

[01:33] - Entrepreneurship in the Food Industry

How did she get into the fascinating world of startups?
What from all of her experience helped her enter the world of startups as an investor? What did she have to learn from scratch?

There is an impression that when Latinos think about starting a business, especially for the first time, they tend to think of businesses related to food: restaurants, pastry shops, food delivery, etc.

Does Alejandra agree and, if so, why does she think it is so attractive to start a business in the food sector?

In the US, there is data from the National Restaurant Association showing that restaurants are one of the hardest businesses. 60% go bankrupt in the first year and 80% within 4 years, and their net margins are 3 to 5%. The numbers in Mexico are probably very similar.

In Alejandra’s experience, why are food businesses so difficult? What are those things that people understand least about this business?
What has she learned about designing processes that are as replicable as possible so they depend less on specific people?
Where did the idea come from of bringing methodologies from other industries into the food industry?

Alejandra worked at Alsea, one of the largest restaurant operators in Latin America and the world.

What would she say are the keys behind Alsea’s success in such a complicated industry?
What lessons did she take from Alsea that she has implemented at Ambrosia?

Alejandra has said that service jobs are very draining, with very little growth potential and poorly paid. It is no surprise that one of the main problems for restaurants is staff turnover.

What lessons does she have on how to create culture and retain talent in this industry?
When she talks about a leader having to spend most of their time creating culture, what does that look like day to day?

As a result of the pandemic, there was an explosion of companies raising millions of dollars for food delivery, ghost kitchens, virtual restaurants, etc.

And many food startups approach Alejandra looking for her as an angel investor.

Given everything discussed so far, can you really create large-scale, multimillion-dollar startups in the food industry?
What founder profile does she think does better in this industry?

[35:30] - The Future of Ambrosía and Family Businesses

We talked with Pato Bichara of Collective Academy, whom we already had on the Podcast and who is part of Ambrosía’s board.

He told us that since he joined, Alejandra has done a great job of transforming Ambrosía from a very family company into a more corporate one.

How does she think about the balance between family and business? How close together or how separate should they be?

Alejandra is driving the digital transformation of Ambrosía, implementing new technologies and frameworks such as customer Lifetime Value.

But Ambrosía is not a new company, so there must be challenges.

What has she learned about how to transform a family business?

[49:31] - Content Creator

Ambrosia is doing well, but at the same time Alejandra is flying high on Shark Tank and as a content creator.

What benefits has her work as a content creator generated for her company?
As a founder, what would the disadvantages of creating content be? For example, how does she advise the founders she has invested in?

In the US, where the content creator industry is more developed, it is increasingly common to see creators hire CEOs or COOs so that they run their businesses, and the creators take on more of a role as the face of the business and grow through their personal brand.

Has Alejandra thought about this scenario?

[56:24] - Quick Questions

If she looks 10 years into the future, what is the most extraordinary vision for Ale Ríos and for Ambrosía?