Name: Elysia Treviño-Gonzales
Birthplace: San Antonio, Texas
Title: President and CEO, Twang
Favorite San Antonio memory: "Riding the trolly with my grandma through downtown to Kiddie Park, or Popo, my grandpa, taking me to the Original Donut Shop for donut holes, or visiting Buttercrust Bakery on field trips."
Go-to restaurants: Rosario's, Chris Madrid's, Singhs Vietnamese, Best Quality Daughter
Favorite recent book: I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sánchez
Most recent vacation: Nashville, Tennessee
San Antonio-based beer salt company Twang has grown significantly under the leadership of President Elysia Treviño-Gonzales. Since taking reins of the family business seven years ago, its sales have boomed and the footprint of its local production plant has grown to 50,000 square feet.
Last month, the 37-year-old company broadened its relationship with Walmart. The retail giant now carries Twang's citrus-flavored beer salts in 3,500 stores nationwide, giving it a presence in all 50 states. Treviño-Gonzales hopes that's a major step toward making her products a staple in bars across the country and the Twang brand a household name.
Separately, the company has also formed strategic partnerships with top beverage brands including Heineken USA's Dos Equis and Boston Beer Co.'s Truly Seltzers.
During a recent interview, Treviño-Gonzales discussed her plans to educate unfamiliar customers — especially those outside the business' core Southwest market — with Twang's Latino-centric products. Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
What's your biggest accomplishment as Twang's CEO?
My biggest accomplishment so far from taking over Twang is that I've doubled [sales] over the last six or seven years. ... And probably another big standout of accomplishment for me would be during COVID. We were able to keep all of our employees safe and working and never missed a paycheck or anything like that. So, working as a team through COVID was a real testament to the legacy that we've been building over the last 37 years in terms of our company culture. Really, what makes Twang is our people.
The Walmart deal gets Twang into all 50 states, including a lot outside the Southwest, where people may not be familiar with the idea of adding salt and lime or lemon to a beer. How do you educate those consumers and get them on board?
It's going to be a combination of things. Definitely [social media] and partnering with influencers. You know, recently, we did a sponsorship program with Spencer Boyd in NASCAR's [Craftsman] Truck Series. We branded a NASCAR truck to really start to expand the Twang name into territories that are unfamiliar [with the product] and the name itself. It's a little bit of a curiosity. So, it will be everything from social to [outdoor events]. One of our biggest and probably main ways to educate people about Twang is to really put the product in people's hands. So, we like to do a lot of field events where people are already out enjoying themselves, whether at a music concert, a sporting event or a tailgate. [It will involve] field events and brand ambassadors handing out products.
How does the new Walmart partnership fit in with Twang's long-term development strategy?
Oh, it is huge. Because before, we were really only able to concentrate our marketing in areas and territories that we had distribution. And, with us being located in San Antonio, we've always been fortunate enough to have a lot of consumers come and visit San Antonio and come across our products, and then go back to Kansas or Nebraska or wherever they're from. And we've always run twang.com, our own internal store, but the fact that consumers now can find our products in just their everyday store, that's really where our sweet spot is, because it's a very impulsive type of purchase. ... We had to really kind of put some proof in the pudding to [get approved for] the expansion that we have now. So, we've been building our store count over the last handful of years to where now Walmart has recognized that this is a trend or something consumers all across the United States would enjoy.
Where do you see Twang 10 years from now?
My goal would be 10 years from now for every household across the United States to have a Twang product in their pantry, and that we continue to expand. Whether that's new flavors, new categories, new products. That's where I continue to see [our] evolution, just really focusing on the big idea, right?
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