ST. LOUIS — Chiara Munzi and Izzy Gorton are aiming to “revolutionize the breakfast aisle with chickpeas” with their chickpea hot cereal breakfast company ChiChi Foods. Munzi and Gorton, who met while students at Washington University in an advanced entrepreneur class, noticed convenient breakfast foods were high in sugar. The founders wanted to change the breakfast aisle through a better-for-you convenient option.

“ChiChi is high in protein, lower in sugar, without any processed or artificial ingredients,” Munzi said.

Oatmeal was a staple breakfast food for Munzi, as it provided a protein-packed meal. However, oatmeal would not keep her full for long and also caused her blood sugar to spike, Gorton said. Looking at protein sources, Munzi turned to chickpeas to fuel her mornings.

ChiChi’s original cereal version began as mushed chickpeas, oats, cauliflower, egg whites and carrots. Realizing her innovation, which was dubbed “breakfast mush,” tasted like traditional oatmeal, Munzi began experimenting more with chickpeas. Originally called GOATMeal (The Greatest of All Time Meal), the founders changed the company’s name to ChiChi by combining Munzi’s first name (Chiara) and chickpeas.

“It started from a recipe of carrot cake baked oats type thing,” Gorton said. “We were like, ‘Wait, we can just use the chickpeas and home in on that.’

“The texture is similar to grits and it’s a little thicker than regular oatmeal. Oatmeal can tend to be slimy and soggy, ours (ChiChi) is a little thicker and smoother.”

ChiChi, which features 10 to 11   grams of protein per serving, 3 grams of added sugar and 6 grams of fiber, comes in breakfast-inspired flavors, including maple syrup, apple pie, banana bread and original. Ingredients include chickpeas, coconut sugar, cinnamon, natural flavors, dried bananas, dried apples and dates.

To prepare the product, which comes in dried powder form, consumers take a third cup of ChiChi and two thirds cup milk or water and heat it in the microwave or on the stovetop.

“The texture should come out smooth and soft,” Gorton said.

The League accelerator class provided Munzi and Gorton an opportunity to turn the innovation into their company, which launched in August 2023.

“Chiara and I met in this class in 2022 and I realized this maybe isn’t crazy making oatmeal out of chickpeas,” Gorton said. “We started making the product in our dorms and on the weekends we sold (ChiChi) at farmers markets.”

To have the money to do their first production run with a co-packer the co-founders, who were making the product themselves out of a commercial kitchen, participated in pitch competitions at other universities and won approximately $184,000, Gorton said.

“That really opened up a lot of doors for us,” she said.

Gorton said having “a bunch of energy” has been their go-to strategy for their (pitch competition) winning-streak.

“It’s nice to have a physical product to show,” she said. “They (the judges) know exactly where their money is going, and we’ve tried to gain as much traction as we can. They’ve (the competitions) kept us motivated and pushed us forward.”

Being young founders, Munzi and Gorton are using the company’s Instagram platform, which has approximately 13,000 followers, as a main go-to-market strategy.

“We’re in 30 grocery stores in Los Angeles and 5 in St. Louis and hope to keep growing that number,” Gorton said. “I feel like that’s what’s got us as far as we’ve come. We’re showing every aspect of growing the business (and) trying to show people we’re not special. We did it just by grinding and figuring it out as we go.”

The founders plan to expand using chickpea formulations into different breakfast categories and even other categories beyond the breakfast occasion, Gorton said.