Blanco Niño: From Burrito Bar Detour to €10M Tortilla Chip Brand with Founder Phil Martin

I'm thrilled to be interviewing fellow Irish person, Phil Martin, founder of Blanco Niño, to explore how an obsession with quality turned a burrito bar frustration into a multi-million-euro tortilla brand.... (cont'd below)

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The Brand Growth Heroes Mini MBA 2026 is back.

Built for founders, marketers and brand leaders who want to grow brands the right way — with practical frameworks, real case studies and honest insight.

Applications open: Monday 5th January 2026

Applications close: Midnight Sunday, 25th January 2026

Limited places available

All info & how to apply visit: https://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/mini-mba-2026

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(Cont'd)
Phil shares the unlikely path that took him from Ireland to Mexico in search of real corn tortillas and why learning how things fail allowed him to build something better. This is a conversation about how to turn craft into something that scales and choosing the long road when shortcuts would have been easier.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why Phil flew to Mexico with no contacts and asked to learn how to grow corn
• How discovering real tortillas completely reset his understanding of quality
• Why it takes three days to make a Blanco Niño tortilla chip and why that matters
• The brutal realities of building a food factory from scratch (and nearly importing a “blowtorch attached to a tractor”)
• How Blanco Niño scaled from foodservice to retail and towards €10M in revenue
• Why knowing every way something can fail allows you to push quality to the edge
• The personal cost of trying to do everything yourself and how founders avoid burnout
• What it really means to build a challenger brand without shortcuts

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Useful links

Connect with Phil Martin on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipmichaelmartin/

Connect with Blanco Niño on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/blanco-nino/

Blanco Niño website https://www.blanco-nino.com/

Follow on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/helloblanconino

Follow on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/helloblanconino

The book Phil mentioned: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

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Thanks to Brand Growth Heroes’ podcast sponsor - Joelson, the commercial law firm

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If you're a founder, you already know how much of your energy goes into building the perfect product, creating standout branding and connecting with your consumers.

But don’t forget that scaling a CPG business also comes with a maze of legal complexities that can make or break your business journey. From contracts, term sheets and regulatory compliance to protecting your brand's intellectual property as you expand, it's essential to get it right.

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With long-term relationships with clients like Little Moons, Trip, Eat Natural, Bear Graze, and Pulsin, Joelson is also famous for advising the innocent founders in their landmark sale to Coca-Cola! As a female team, we are especially impressed by Joelson's commitment to championing female founders in CPG.

Not many law firms are also BCorps, nor do they specialise in helping founders navigate the legal challenges of scaling without stifling the creativity and momentum that got you here in the first place.
So thanks, Joelson—we’re delighted to have you on board for the second year running.

If you'd like to get in touch to find out more, why don't you drop them a line at hello@joelsonlaw.com

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