CWC EP 26 | Andy Cagnetta Sits w/ Andy Alimo, Owner of Canoli Plus

In this episode of Coffee with Cagnetta, Andy Cagnetta (CEO of Transworld Business Advisors) sits down with Anthony Alimo, owner of Cannoli Plus in Brooklyn. Anthony shares his journey from serve-it-over-the-counter bakery kid to leading a wholesale powerhouse that ships to nine states.

We dive into the "D-Day" of March 2020, the logistics lessons learned in the U.S. Army, and the "Bakers' Secret"—why the best bakeries in America don't actually make their own shells.

🟢 Learn more about Cannoli Plus: https://cannoliplus.com

📌 Visit TWorld.com for more information about M&A, Leadership, and Business.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey, welcome back to Coffee with Cagneta. We are still here in New York City having a great day at the Theorist Podcast Studios. We're thankful for their hosting us today. And uh we just keep pulling from great businesses here in the New York area. We are with Anthony Alaimo. Hey, I gotta get it right because if I butcher an Italian name, I'm gonna get in trouble. And with every good coffee, there should be cannolis. Oh yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Oh yes, it's uh synonymous.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

It is synonymous. Anthony, welcome. Nice, nice, thanks you for having me. Well, this is a I mean first of all, you have a great story. So I wanted to get into that. But first, you grew up in Brooklyn?

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Yep. My whole life from Benson Hearst. Okay. Um right on 18th Avenue and 72nd Street.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Um my parents actually owned a bakery, owned and operated a bakery right on on that on that block on 18th Avenue and 72nd. That's where I grew up. What what was it called? It's called Villa Bate. Well, that's what it was called. Yeah. Um and my dad opened that place up in 1978.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Wow. Yeah. From scratch.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

From scratch. Wow. From scratch. From working in car washes and bread bakeries, scrounging up enough money to open up his own place.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Where were they first generation?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Oh no, no. My dad was born in Sicily.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

And immigrated in 1969. Uh 68, excuse me.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

So after 10 years of living in America, you know, uh like really saving their money, having friends, borrowing money from friends to open up this shop. That's how they got to that shop.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Wow. That's that's amazing. And so you grow up in a bakery. In the bakery. Little pudgy. Yeah. I can imagine. I mean, yeah, like we're talking about it before. Where and not until you run a bakery do you start losing weight. Because it's crazy. So tell me how you got into Cannoli Plus.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

So basically, about six years ago, the owners were two brothers. Um, the location's actually not far from my uh my family's existing location. Uh, the two brothers wanted to retire. Uh, just they were over 60, right? You know, wanted to have their exit strategy, and they didn't have much. Uh, there was a lot of tension in the place because they'd worked together for 30 years and kids were involved in the business. So they just decided to separate and they had approached my family um to take over the business. Now, my family is my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, my brother-in-law, we all worked under the same roof. Wow. Uh, pretty much did everything together and such. Um, when approached to take over this business, my family was very excited in the beginning because it'd be a great opportunity to have another outlet for us, uh, another source of income. Um, so when it came down to it, you know, um, me, you know, the the actual management and taking over another place, the logistics were a little bit difficult for my family because they had never operated more than one business at a time.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, that's always the trick.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

So it it was a little difficult and they they opted not to do it, not go through with it. Uh, I was 30 at the time. Uh, I was a little angry at them. I I kind of understand where they came from. Right. Um, but I still had this driving force in me that I wanted to take on uh a new venture and maybe you know put something on my own shoulders and go down my own path. So after tons of convincing and uh, you know, a little couple of fights in the family, uh, I left my family business in 2019. Uh September 4th of 2019 took over Cannoli Plus, and now this September will be six years.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Wow, good for you. Thank you. So tell me, what was Cannoli Plus always what it is today, or have you grown it since?

SPEAKER_02 4:10

So uh basically when it opened up in 1995, it was kind of like a glorified bakery. So it sm started as a small shop that was making cannoli shells, foyels, uh, a couple of cookies. It's it's it we generally make the things that bakers hate to make hate to make exactly right. Don't want we don't they don't hate to make it. They it's hard, it's labor-intensive, or um, it's tedious. So um cannoli shells is a big thing. Um, a lot of places that you know serve cannoli shells don't make their own shells just because of, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Um I don't know anybody that makes their own shells.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

See, a lot of people think that everywhere you go, they're everyone makes their own shells.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

No, they stack them up in the back because they don't want them to get mushy. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

And then they'll fill them for you. Right. And it's like, this is a fresh cannoli. Wow, this cannoli's great. You guys make great cannolis. Thank you.

unknown 5:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

That's usually how the exchange goes, right? But there's a whole other business that behind that, where it's right where I step in and I I literally help people, you know, provide products to the consumer.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

And you ship them everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

So we're in nine states right now. Uh, we usually deal with wholesale. So I'm I we don't run much retail, we do wholesale clientele. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

There's not people walking and getting boxes of cannolis a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Once in a while, what what people like to do with us is they'll come to our you know, our counter because we have a little coffee counter and they'll order some empty cannoli shells, some frozen cream. They say, Oh, I'm going to Florida next week. So they go downstairs, they go down south and they take their cannoli cream and their shells and they'll pipe them fresh at you know friends' homes or when they have uh desire for cannolis.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, there's some places in Florida you mentioned that I know of that I've I've had the cannolis at. And so are they buying the cream a lot of times?

SPEAKER_02 5:55

So a lot of times do they do, and a lot of times they don't, because a lot of people do feel like they need to have some sort of control in what their cannoli comes out like. And some people have different tastes or they add more cheese or more sugar, or they don't put chocolate chips, which is who doesn't put chocolate chips in a cannoli cream.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

By the way, I so I've I might be in a little sugar coma right now because I've had already two cannolis and a spuya dell. Yeah, so um, I mean, they're fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Thank you so much, Andrew.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

So we talked about this before we got on. I I actually owned the bakery uh in a pasta shop. It wasn't a full bakery, but you know, I was in charge of the bakery, baking part. And uh it's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Oh, yes, it's labor-intensive, right? It's still one of those things, it's one of those You mean robots aren't gonna take it over or AI? Maybe one day, maybe one day, but more in manufacturing. I don't see a robot making uh you know uh a buttercream rose petal to put on top of a cake.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Maybe they will. Yeah, maybe they will. But um it's a it's or it's still a growing business. I mean, what have you learned? Well, what weren't you expecting when you got in the business? I mean, obviously you grew up at a bakery, so you knew how to work hard. Yep. You know how to breathe it. I mean, do you know how to mask, by the way?

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Yeah, hopefully. I knew how to run a bakery. Right. I know how to make bread, I know how to make a couple of things where it would, you know, everything would serve the bakery. And everything when you do work in a bakery, everything serves the end consumer, right? Everybody, people are coming in with their money, paying for it, and walking out. In wholesale, when I took over this company, it was a lot, it was a big learning curve. There's a lot that I had to learn. Um, I'm not serving the end consumer, I'm serving the provider. So I'm serving cannoli shells to a bakery owner as opposed to the person walking into the bakery. Right. So a lot of those bakery owners are a lot older than me.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Right. But you but if there's a lot that goes into kind of perfecting the ability to ship them. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

So packaging is really, really big with us, palletizing, um, and logistics are are are tremendous of to get it to a different state or get it within the tri-state area in a reasonable about a reasonable amount of time.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Well, if you've owned it for six years, not like a lot has gone on in the logistics and supply world in the last six years, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:20

When we took over in 2019, I was like, wow, this is gonna be the best thing ever. Um, Trump had just gotten elected. I was doing the books in January, and it was like the greatest month ever in the history of Cannoli Plus. February was also amazing. I saw like a 20% jump in sales from the year before. And then March came along, and March 2020 was really like D-Day for us. Wow. Which was um, we had March 19th is a very popular holiday. It's St. Joseph. Yeah, we make St. Joseph shells for bakeries, supermarkets, restaurants, and then they pipe in cannola cream or custard cream and make either Zeppelin's or Zeppelin Zeppelin's or Sphinji. Um, right after Saint Joseph, March 20th, you know the world ends. The world ends, and it's lockdowns everywhere. And I'm looking at my employees like, uh, I guess we'll just take it as it comes. We don't know what's gonna go on. Right. Um, it it took uh I would say about a month to figure out that supermarkets were where the money was. People were still going to the supermarket and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yeah, they gotta buy stuff.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

So we uh we started ramping up cookie production, packaging cookies, and that's how we got through COVID.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah, just pivot.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Pivoted.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Right. The first lesson is an entrepreneur. Not everything goes as planned.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

No, nothing goes as planned. You make a plan and then you try to stick closely to it.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Right. Until like Mike Tyson says, until you get punched in the face. Right. So uh you know, growing Cannoli Plus, you know, and then by the way, everybody, it's www.cannoliplus.com. If you have any bakeries that are looking, you you don't do direct to consumer, do you?

SPEAKER_02 10:06

So so direct to consumer we don't do, uh especially shipping out of state. It's something that we're looking into, right? But um we supply mostly bakeries, supermarkets, pizzerias, and restaurants.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

So if you do own a bakery, pizzeria, restaurant, supermarket and you're interested in having cannolis from Brooklyn, you'd contact us and then we'd work on logistics on getting you that.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Wow. And then you you went to school. I uh uh did you go to college?

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I have my associate's degree from St. John's. Oh, nice majored in accounting.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

There you go. Accounting funny because the you know the last couple of guests I had just said they had a learning curve when it came to the books and records. Obviously. That was not that was not you. That was not you.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

That was actually easy for me. Doing the books and uh payroll and all these things was something that uh I was taught from very young. My mom handled all the books at the bakery, so I always stood next to my mom and we went through bills, everything that way.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

So back then there was a lot of cash, too.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Yeah, you can imagine. But that's what sparked my interest in accounting. And I went to school for accounting. Uh after two years of that, school really wasn't that, you know, uh, it wasn't that it it didn't grab my interest, it didn't pull me enough. I needed to be out doing things. Right. So at 19 years old, I joined the army. Nice and uh I did three years in the United States Army.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Wow. Yeah. Did you do what did you you didn't do accounting there, did you?

SPEAKER_02 11:33

No, I did not do accounting there.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

I actually did logistics there.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Oh, there you go. So you got some skills from going to college for two years, and then you and then you wound up in the army. Thank you for your service. Thank you. And coming back, and then so how long were it uh you were in the family business for a few years? You're a young man.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

So I I mean, my dad started taking everybody to work when they were eight, nine years old. If you could count money in your pocket, that means you could take money from people, right? So a loaf of bread was a dollar twenty, and I knew if somebody gave me two dollars, it was 80 cents. So we went like that, and I served bread over the counter when I was eight, nine years old. Wow. So I was about 19, you know, working through high school and working through college. Um, and then when I was 19, I joined the army. Uh, came back when I was 22, and then did uh a solid eight years of, you know, six days a week working in the business, holidays, all with my family. Always trying to grow, um, and always trying to, you know, take that vision that we had of that small bakery and giving it to more people because we had a great bakery. So I opened up the shipping department and uh in Vilbate and we started shipping nationwide.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

And it was great, yeah. So, what's your plans with Cannoli Plus? I mean, continue building out more.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

So, in six years, in six years, we've gone from 12 employees to almost 32 now. Wow. Uh, we started at 16. Still all in Brooklyn in one location. Uh two locations now. Just because unfortunately, Brooklyn spaces now, you have to make like a puzzle. Yeah, no, I would imagine puzzle species.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

If anybody doesn't know New York City, it's pretty uh congested. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

So in two locations, we run about almost 32 employees. Um, we started at about 12,000 square feet. We're about 18,000 square feet now. Um two shifts or so it's one shift now. Right. We run five days a week. Um, production on a six-day is usually every other week. Um, and then we're closed on Sundays. Right. Um, you know, it's it's it's all about it's for us, it's also about, you know, not how much we can do, but we have to like where we are also. Sure. You know, work has to be enjoyable for us and we have to make money. And then we can worry about growing and and you know, and making more and doing more.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Right. That's it. It's a really interesting take. And I think we're we're seeing that more and more with with employees and and trying to keep a staff happy. I mean, I I think there is that talent.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

It's difficult, but we try.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

We try.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah, and and paying everybody. I mean, it's you know, the cost of living is going up, the cost of goods are going up. I mean, you know, you you've probably had to pass that on to your you know, to your customers as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Of course. And New York employ uh in New York State, uh, payroll taxes are going up. Right. Thanks, New York City. Yeah. Um there's just all these, you know, insurances and all these things. And to keep up with this, we have to pass it on to the client, uh, customers.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Right, right. So what's your advice to you know, young people out there if they're take chances.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

You know, I love that. You have to. I mean, yeah, you have to take chances and you can't be afraid to fail. You know, that fear of rejection and failure, it just it just makes you more of a human being once you have failures and rejections. Sure. Um, you know, I I don't think if I at 19 years old, I could never have, you know, before joining the army, I could never have, you know, seen what the world was going to be like unless I joined the army, you know, uh got deployed to Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, then came back. And I was a little bit fearless, you know, when I came back from doing all that. I was I felt like I was almost invincible. So I took chances, you know. I did real estate, I got my real estate license. I was doing home inspections, I got my home inspector's license just because it was something that I I liked. You know, construction was always in my family, and we'd I'd like that. So I took those chances, they didn't pan out, but you know, I but you took chances, yeah. And then one day this opportunity came and it was something was that was more in my field, you know, and I took a shot.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

It's it's great. It's uh it's great advice. Wait, what do you do for fun?

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Golf.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Golf. You're a golfer.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

All right. Well, I'm only a golfer uh since COVID, just because we had nothing else to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Golf became very popular during COVID.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah. So during COVID, we had nothing to do, and but golf courses were open, and my family lives three blocks away from a golf course.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

So in Brooklyn. Yeah. In uh Diker Heights. Exactly. Wow, because I know because my family is from Diker Heights. There you go. I used to play down there when I was a kid. So wow, back in the old neighborhood, Cannoli Plus, but listen, this is a company. Can you ship all over the United States or is it up and down the East Coast so far?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

So right now we're in nine states, so we go as far west as Texas, but again, palletized and to shoot supermarket chains and distribution partners. Right. Uh not direct to consumer.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

It's but we can, but we can. You know, there there are companies that do uh ship cookies directly to consumer. You've seen them all on Gold Belly and things like that. So it is something that we're looking to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

All right. Well, that's the future of Cannoli Plus. Anthony, thank you for joining us. No, my pleasure. Thank you for having us. And guys, uh, this stuff is really good. Anthony, thanks everybody. Uh, not only do we have coffee with Cognetta, we had some cannolis today. So thank you, Anthony. Thanks again for joining us. Another great episode of Coffee with Cagneto. Really appreciate it.