Isabel Washington - The Gap Hiding in 90% of the Retail Coffee Aisle

welcome to shelf help
today we're speaking with Isabel Washington
founder CEO of Laurels Coffee RTD
a to dairy coffee latte brand that launched at Air One
I think in fall of 2024
has been pretty much blown up ever since
you've probably seen them in headlines here and there
Isabel grew up in Southern California
went to USC
started her career at Mckinsey in the consumer practice
before leaving early 2024 to
to build Laurel's think
you know she'll obviously dive into it here a bit more
but spotted a gap in the RTD coffee aisle
I think roughly
like 90 percent of the products were non dairy
dairy options are full of seed
oils and questionable ingredients
let's say uh
so I think she set out to kind of build the
the first canned latte made with 100% A2 dairy
so yeah super excited I've into it
Isabel just first off
maybe for the
probably some limited listeners in the CBG world
that aren't that familiar with laurels
love it to just start by just getting
you know quick lay of the land
just in terms of kind of the origin story
building upon
obviously what I kind of touched on briefly
why behind the brand
and then kind of core products in the line up today
and then we'll go from there
yeah so you said all of it beautifully
I grew up in LA
very early adopter of a lot of brands
that have since gone on to be billion dollar brands
I was drinking only pop in high school
um a lot of it being the fact that I was kind of
of the generation who was growing up
when soda kind of started becoming bad move
because of the sugar content and the calories
move to like
a LA Croix
I remember drinking a ton of LA Croix and bubbly
and then I remember when Lollipop came out
I literally remember the strawberry
vanilla in the cooler
Whole Foods the first time I ever saw it and being like
oh interesting
this is soda but it's
and I mean nothing is as good as a Coke or a Diet Coke
um but it's like 80% of the way there
you can drink it every day
and it's like you know
35 45 calories
like it's awesome
so that with many other brands
um obviously went to USC
which very biased
is where a lot of culture starts in a way
for sure I was similarly very early wearing Matt happy
I remember when those founders came
and spoke on a panel as my sophomore year
and they had just graduated from U Michigan and
and the brand was very very new
they didn't even have a storefront yet
Golden Goose Deluxe Brand started
I started but like
kind of got a lot of motion very early at USC
so it's always funny kind of seeing these people
wearing these brands that like
I have already kind of cycled through all of that
to say um
have always kind of loved
and had a pulse on what's new and what's next
went to Mackenzie
worked with a lot of really great consumer brands
everything from tech and wearables to fitness studios
and really got an understanding
especially post pandemic
of how people thought about health and wellness
everything from where their fitness studio fits
into their daily routine especially
now that so many people are going to work every day
it's become more social we have whoops and auras
and even the toilet
one that can scan your poop for you
and tell you the quality of your poop
so there's just a lot more curiosity and excitement
of course there's brand building components
Poppy and in the brand they've built
so kind of all of those things culminated um
into what Laurel's is today
and inspired a lot of the
the why behind the brands
because there was a ton of innovation
I mean obviously Sada
most notably good old
is doing a fantastic job in the Mac and cheese category
but there's really not one brand that is kind of
for lack of better term pioneering brand in
in coffee it's historically always been
Starbucks has their 20 trillion brick and mortar
so why would they not have an RTD
and why would people not buy it
because they know Starbucks
same with Dunkin same with lockholme
even to an extent
there's
hasn't really been anyone whose mission has been to
like create a coffee product
and to think about the experience of the RTD
coffee product so that's really kind of what
brought a lot of the inspiration to the brand
it's it's ritualistic
it's habitual
it's only growing in consumption as people work harder
work longer travel more
and there's just a clear opportunity for me there
yeah totally
that story totally makes sense
maybe diving into the weeds a bit more
rewinding back to some of those early days
when you were working on the
the product and formulation
and going through some of that R&D process
you'd mention Lollipop it's funny
I think I thought I'd seen you read or somewhere
you had said that
something along the lines of you wanted to be that
the Poppy of RTD coffee which is funny
you mentioned Lollipop assuming I got that right
whether it did or not I guess in terms of like yeah
all the way to that last version
you said okay
this is right I feel like this is ready to go to market
kind of key variables you played around with
between that first version and that
and that and that final version and
so when I had kind of
very initially started ID on the brands
it was actually decaf RTD
which continues to be a white space
there's tranquilla which you might have heard of
yeah Eric's great
yeah he's awesome
rocks great
they did a really good job with the packaging on that
but when I was talking to Alex Michaelson from leisure
who has been and continues to be a very strong mentor
he was like
people are looking for products to do something like
it's different when you kind of go to an art
like when you go to a coffee shop
and you're getting a decaf latte
or a half caf latte for that matter
because the experience is going to the coffee shop
it's being in that space maybe you're meeting friends
and maybe it's the afternoon
so you don't want a full caff
like there's some justification for
like a better term behind getting that
but it's hard to kind of go into a grocery store
and buy something that is decaf
that does absolutely nothing for you
I'm excited for Eric to change the narrative
I think that again he's doing a fantastic job
but that was what was shared with me
um that and
you know maybe there's like
elf Indian you can put it into it
obviously the next month is mushroom coffee
that energizes in its own different types of way
but generally speaking
people are looking like a beverage needs a use case
you drink a leisure anytime of the day
but you can drink it at lunch
you can drink it at dinner
you can drink it hungover
um you drink coffee to get energy
you drink energy drinks to feel energy
so there always needs to kind of be a use case
and especially with how expensive coffee is
and how expensive I mean beverages
it would hard to be like put a decaf RTD on the shelf
that does nothing for you for 4 99
so that was what kind of moved away us away from that
um
and then it became various forms of like
caffeinated coffee I don't drink a ton
I mean in college
I would go
I probably drink 1,000 milligrams of coffee a day
like I had my time
I'll go from Celsius to Starbucks
to Starbucks again to Celsius again
like all in a day's work
I have significantly decreased my caffeine content
so a lot of it is like
building a brand for people who look at the shelf
and they're like
why does everything have 200 mg of caffeine in it
um all of Laura's have 80 g
80 mg caffeine in it which is
actually closer to what you would get at a coffee shop
latte but it was really thinking about like
what do I where's the gap
like why do I continue to go to coffee shops
instead of buying the RTD coffee on the shelf
despite the like
despite the coffee shop costing eight or nine dollars
it's the creaminess it's the sugar
it's the flavor profiles it's the seasonal flavors
um the variety
like it's the taste experience
RTD coffee is largely built around convenience
not taste so that was kind of opportunity
that I saw in the category was like
no one is going to bed dreaming of their canned coffee
I wanted to build so that people would
I mean again
dreaming about food is like
way out there nonetheless
when you're going to sleep
but like
no one's ever it's
it's always like oh
I'm in a pinch I have to get this oh
there's nothing else like
it's never like oh
I'm actually like
adding this to my Whole Foods Market online order
because I look forward to having it
in terms of actually you know
tell me a bit about that journey from
you know making lattes in
in your your kitchen
or wherever you're kind of doing in those early days
to sourcing and engaging co packers
ultimately finding one you
you started working with
and felt like it was gonna be right fit to
you know scaling a production in terms of
kind of what that journey and
and timeline looked like
yeah so I had started
I mean again with
they always say that not knowing is a superpower um
and building a brand
because then you don't know how everything can go wrong
yep
so I literally went to Williams Sonoma and bought like
the thousand dollar
you know Breville espresso machine
and was like pulling shots in my kitchen and like
for like
pouring all of these maple syrup
sugar this that
the other like
trying to get a taste profile right
um and then I quickly Learned that's actually not how
there's not some like
massive espresso machine out at some co packer
like pulling shots all day and
and getting the ratios right
so I think very quickly like
this was probably so I left Mackenzie in January of 24
okay um
and then I started working at the co op in March
so pretty quickly I guess that's quick
but also not it was the only path forward
I mean at the time
it was 30 eight hundred dollars a month
yeah and I was like
oh my gosh
this is a lot of money like
I don't know but it was kind of a commitment
and taking the next step forward
towards building the brand
yeah he used to work at Starbucks
and was there through the evolution acquisition
was very familiar with Rtds
so when I essentially was like
make that but with less sugar and less calories
it was pretty it was pretty easy for him to do
a more narrow is maybe a good word to use
supply chain than conventional milk
it seemed like there's probably less suppliers
that's probably more you know
concentrated market like
how do you
I guess maybe now it's not much of a risk now
maybe it already is
but how are you kind of thinking about
I don't know uh
mitigating supply chain risk where there's
as you continue to scale up
and you need more and more of it
yeah
so this is actually interesting because I was on a fund
I was gonna call the fund earlier
who asked me a very similar question
and I think that a lot of it is coming off of the press
that Alex Ice cream has gotten recently
OK yeah
and everyone in the CPG space
well everyone's relative
but a lot of people kind of seeing that news
it's less I mean it's
there's a lot of farmers who have been making a
to for 10 years
I just met one like a week and a half ago
and I met another one at Fancy Foods back in January
they it's important to them as farmers
like they find the value in their milk
the people that buy milk from them find value in it
it's not like
they don't go through the rigorous testing
and they're not importing sperm from Europe
the same way that Alexander Family Farms is
and we talked to a very
very large dairy operation here in California
who has like fifty five hundred cows
all of who are a two cows
they've been doing the transition for like 20 years
okay so transitioning their entire herd to a two
it's not like certified so that's
I mean they know that it's a two milk
but they haven't like tested all 55 hundred cows
but there's a lot of operations like that really
I mean the farm we buy from now
really great family farmers out in Virginia
so I think that there are
I mean
to the Alex drama not that you asked
but like to that point um
there's a very
very restricted supply of organic regenerative A2
like that makes sense
I mean yeah
like it's
it's stacking certification on top of certification
regenerative inherently means that there can only be
like 200 cows
like especially with their farm here in California
there's not an abundance of land
to go out and build more grass fields
for cows to herd on so you can rotationally crop um
and again it just depends on
what's important to you and your consumer
like there are farms who don't have
you know USDA certified organic operations sure
but are like
they do use and farm organically
they just don't have that seal to
to kind of prove it they do everything right
it's really expensive for them to get a certification
and maintain it and they're really small farms
so they don't do it
so that's kind of where the challenges um
again like
I don't know
to speak about someone's product
I don't know if ice cream needs to be organic
I think it's a nice to have
I don't know if it's a need to have
similarly with like
RTD coffee I mean
we can't actually be organic for other reasons but sure
it's less much less
there's a lot of farms selling a t
milk who don't advertise it
I'll put it that way okay
that's good to know okay
packaging standpoint
thinking back to when you're building out kind of
the brand identity voice positioning
look and feel actual packaging
yeah so I think for me
I wanted it to be white I wanted our
our cans and sleeves to be white
again very
kind of
opposite to how you would think about coffee branding
pretty much I mean
I guess it's not pop
and bottle is pink and green and blue
and all the colors true
but generally speaking
if you want to associate coffee in someone's mind
it's gonna be brown
and maybe blacks and a milky kind of brown color
but I wanted to leave with dairy and milk
and that this was like a milk containing product
the reason for that being one of two things
one because literally everything else is not that color
there's not a single I mean
I guess lacquered home kind of is
but nothing is that color really in the category
and then the other piece of it is
I want people to look at it
I mean for a long time when we first launched
and people probably still do
they literally thought it was canned milk
like they literally were like oh
this is like a canned milk product
but I wanted people to see that
and with the cow on the front and be like milk
dairy milk containing product
I mean it has almost 50% milk literally in the product
makeup but also creamy
indulgent sweet
like all of the qualities
that you would associate with milk
because it's a latte product
for that reason
we can probably never launch like a cold brew
I mean we could do black sleeves or something like
because it has such that
strong milk affinity in the packaging
right but I wanted that to be the association because
again like you look at can coffee
it's thin watery
it's alternative milks that
maybe they're thick because they use a canola oil
like it's not naturally creamy
despite that being like
one of the main affiliations that people have
when they think when they go to coffee shops
like you get your 400 calorie latte
you're thinking about how creamy it is
how sweet it is how silky it is
like all of that
I wanted to build that visual association
into the product
with the understanding that it was literally
coming from cow's milk and that we're the only ones
one of like three in the category
who were actually using milk from the cow
obviously
I think you probably Learned so much even since then
you know I think
there's probably a lot of aspiring founders out there
that are um
you know looking to launch an RTD beverage brand
they're about to kick off
and a brand packaging design
what's one thing you you tell them to
I don't know keep top of mind or
or watch out for
that could potentially trip them up along the way
I also just realized I spelled my name wrong
which is really funny did you notice that
I'll we'll edit it later
don't worry I was like
wait why is my name wrong
I would say for those founders
that there is a lot of information
and when consumers are standing in a store
you need to figure out
what is the most important attribute
that needs to be communicated
so for us white sleeves
cow on the front okay
it's it contains milk
you have some help from the category around you
like being between pop and bottle
the consumer can be like okay
this is coffee there is visual cues and
and category cues that people can use
but I'll see products that will have call outs
on the front you know
GLP enhancer ten grams of protein
six grams of fiber hundred and thirty calories
you know this
that the other
all on the front of the packaging
and it just like
overwhelms the consumer
and that's the most important piece of it is like why
and a lot of this will come from launching a product
and actually spending time with your consumers
and getting feedback which is how I know that
people used to think that we were canned coffee
or canned milk anyway
is understanding why
people are actually buying your product
10 grams of protein
generally speaking
isn't enough to move the me the needle
but zero added sugar could be like
that could be the call out that makes the most sense
sure right
fiber could be like but it what
the combination of all of those attributes generally
are not gonna get people to buy the product
it's probably gonna confuse them
and they don't have time to spend
you know 5 minutes in the store
trying to figure out what all of the
the macronutrients in the products are
yep
so I think that was first and foremost for us
kind of along similar lines
which would more just be advice for founders
but is to launch just launch the product
which kind of sounds counter intuitive
to a lot of what you would read on LinkedIn
but we've changed our packaging a thousand times
I mean yeah
not rebrands by any means
like yeah
we've made things bigger made things smaller
change colors
a thousand times
we've changed the product a thousand times
we used to have 15 grams of sugar
now we have 10 we've changed food scientists
we've changed co packers we were
just did a Costco roadshow
and spent
probably talk to 400 people a day about the product
and got to kind of learn what their feedback was
everything from I mean
none of it's conclusive it's too much calories
too little too much sugar
not enough um
so nothing hard to draw any kind of one trend there um
but like get I
I was actually talking to a family about this
probably like a month ago
he was going to do a production run of like
100,000 cans for his first production run
and I said wait a minute
don't do that like
go find some co packer somewhere else
cause that was like this co packer's m o q
go find a co packer maybe it'll cost
maybe you'll be so upside down on the unit economics
like maybe you'll have five dollar cogs or something
right but you'll be able to actually take it to Expo
take it to bevnet get feedback
launch in three grocery stores
launch in Air 1 even if you're in LA
and spend time in
in retail understanding what's important to people
and then you can iterate off of that
um
that's what we did I mean
we launched
there's a full tail that I spent like 40 days in
Aaron the first 40 demos
the first 30 days that we launched
which is honestly
like directionally true in a lot of ways
but there's so much learning that you can have
and I think at this point we made like 8,000 cans
so we really weren't on the hook for much
it was very easy for us to go back to our designer and
and change a few things based on what we heard
so I think
that's the most valuable thing that people can do
especially I mean
in this industry there's so much like
Expo West and Bevnet and Fancy Foods and all of that
getting feedback from the people in the industry
is very important but there is genuinely
no feedback greater than your product being on shelf
and someone buys it or not
yep totally
there's nothing more valuable
like we were 1999 at Costco
we were right next to a Lonnie new
which was like 1649
four dollars is like
a lot of money especially at Costco
where it adds up yeah yeah
and people are like you know what
this is great I'm gonna go buy my laundry new
this is great I'm gonna go buy like
sometimes it just comes down to price
sometimes it comes down to brand familiarity
whatever it is
but there is no greater feedback than that
so that would be my biggest learning
which I still do I mean
we're still learning
and as you enter different retail channels again
Whole Foods packaging works
price works we're seeing week over week growth there
Costco not so much
different consumer cares about different things
cares about price
more than the people at Whole Foods will
sure and the price has to be better than
you know the Kirkland coffee that they would or
you know their product has to be better
for them
to spend more money than the Kirkland cold brew is
so yeah
there will always be learnings
it'll always be an iterative process
but that's probably just launch is always yeah
I tell people yeah
most founders I talk to they say
you know the product is
all components of whether it's formulation packaging
price it's
it's an ongoing product that's always evolving
there's some um
there's some interview that Ellsworth did
where they said that
every single production run they did
it got sweeter wow
interesting every single one
because that was always the feedback
people wanted it to be closer and closer
and closer to soda interesting
which I believe I tried
Poppy was actually sampling at Costco
it was like
sickeningly sweet
so I am much sweeter than I remember it
so I believe them but it's
it's never ever done
yeah yeah
that's interesting you touched on pricing a few times
what especially with your Mackenzie background
I imagine you had a fairly good process
strategy mind
how you're gonna approach pricing
like what what did your strategy and process look like
for nailing down your your go to market price initially
so there's a price ceiling
generally for what people will pay for your product
and as much as people I think now
especially founders love to be like
oh but mine is premium
oh but mine is organic
like they're trying to like
the privatization of like
commodities is becoming an issue
there's a price ceiling um
and maybe there's like
again like for pasta sauce
for example like
there's many players that kind of premium space
there's sauce there's carbon
there's Reyes there's
there's a premium category within the category
but like I don't know
12 years ago if you told like
my dad like hey
pasta sauce is $12 now pasta sauce is $10
he'd be like what do you mean
like Prego's literally right there
so I think that there is like some piece
to it like some
there's actually a lot of
a lot of investors
a lot of buyers who will talk to you can be like Laurel
like Laurel's could be a dollar more
like it could be
we're three 99 at Whole Foods
I feel like it could be four ninety nine or like
five forty nine but I'm like there's
we're gonna like
your velocity can go down
I mean you're a new brand
a new entrant yeah
Lacolumb's right there Lacolumb's like three $3 right
um popping bottles three 50
I just think it's not pill battle
the other side of it though
is that the economics of the business
have to make sense so like
if your if your cogs are four dollars
then by no means
please do not sell your products for 3 99
but I think I always think that my job
like the price is the price
the price is where it needs to be
my job is to make the unit economics work
so the price can be the price
and again we're at the point where we're in like
over a thousand doors we're launching 25 more this year
like we have wow
nice very small economies of scale
much more than when we first started
so our costs have gone down
I mean a
well over a dollar our cogs were like
that's great almost $3 when we first launched
so like
this is not necessarily day one advice
but you're gonna get priced out of the market um
if if you can't be price competitive
and no no brand attribute is gonna save you
but that's that's my
that's my I mean
especially when there's products like
it again with the protein thing
like especially when there's products like David Bar
which are like $2 like
you can't beat the macros on that
and it's $2 so there's no bar that you can launch that
that oh
we have 30 grams of protein for $4
not gonna save you yeah
totally
but a minute or two goes well
obviously the aspirational retailer for a lot of brands
how did you actually kind of go about
I guess getting that first meeting with
with the buyer and getting that commitment
what did it take to actually secure shelf space
yeah so Air 1 is always an interesting one for us
because everyone always says that
but we literally just applied on the website and got in
hahaha I think
I mean I'm sure it's become I
I mean it's always been competitive obviously
I'm sure it's true
only gets more competitive by the day
um especially as they kind of
tighten their ingredient standards even more
I know that they've kind of like
brought the hammer down on like
yogurt needs to be organic certified and like
pickles need to be organic certified
like they are kind of tightening up the requirements
I think honestly
to kind of weed out a lot of people
and a lot of brands that are kind of popping up
but I think that generally
probably and actually
Michael from Ketone IQ
was just on a podcast that I listen to
and he talks about this but all retailers care about
at the end of the day like yes
your product's great
it needs to be different than anything else
it can't just be like another me too brand or product
but you need to tell the buyer two things one
it's gonna bring incremental customers to this category
yeah totally
so for us our dirty Chai Latte
which is my least favorite skew um
is actually our best seller at Whole Foods
of our product offerings
and is No. 2 in incrementality in the category
meaning that
it's not people who are choosing between LA Colombe and
like LA Colombe and laurels or pop bottle and laurels
it's people who historically
have not purchase anything from the category before
and they're buying morals
very kind of easy to back into
I mean
more dollars through the registers in the category
like it's a pretty easy calculation
sending the same SKU count
which generally like
if anytime a new brand comes in
one goes out
so pretty easy math on the back end to calculate sure
yeah but the other piece of it is
how you're gonna support your retailers
and how you're going to
what promo plans you're gonna put together
now in the day of like virality
like are you gonna create content around their brands
we just posted I think
our seventh Costco video
we recently hired the creative director from Jacob Bar
to do content for us nice
so he came with us to Texas
he filled the road show
we're filming kind of a bit on tomorrow
actually about Laurel Supply
about how they opened up an entire store
to carry laurels
so just creating content around that are really like
the two main pillars cause they make money
I mean obviously they make money off your brand
but they make money off promos
they make money every time you buy a display
they make money every time you run ads
like they
at the end of the day
they just need to make money for their store
and their category to do good at their job
right so
how you can communicate and articulate
that you're going to help them do that
is Paramount to anything else
and sometimes it is being like hey
Lockholm goes on on promo
16 weeks will give you 20
like sometimes it really is as simple as that
you mentioned thousand doors
getting a 25 more this year
I imagine distributors are becoming more and more
and more
and more and more important piece of the puzzle
and I think uh
from when I read you're gotten um
UNFI's like up next broad market access programs
that kind of help expand beyond Whole Foods
and the Bristol Farms
and some of the other natural channel
um I don't know much about that program
but for listeners who haven't heard of that up next
BMA kind of program
give me kind of the quick lowdown like
what is it who's it for
how did you actually get in
yeah so up next is the UNFI kind of program
K he has an equivalent one called elevate
essentially those programs are
are for younger brands
there's very specific requirements
that are on the website but I think generally it's like
brands who are new to UNFI
or K he um
they don't um
I think it's probably
like a one million dollar threshold
is kind of when you graduate from the program
so you're kind of in that program until you do
a million dollars in revenue
and through UNFI specific OK
and there's variety of benefits
one we have like
monthly meetings with our account rep at U N F I
who's fantastic her name's Anna
um we'll go through everything as small as like
what programs and shows they have coming up to
like what makes sense for our retail roadmap
what are category reviews like
who are the account managers for these stores
what DC should we open up next
what DC does Hagen's pull from
all of these kind of questions
you can route through her
she's incredibly responsive
genuinely responds within
like an hour to most inquiries
yeah so it's really great to kind of like
have a person in the big conglomerate that is UNFI
and to it makes it feel a lot smaller than it really is
the other kind of benefit
they're very lenient on deductions
so I think we have like a 98% compliance rate
like 90% of our invoices are paid in full
which is pretty crazy yeah
that's great
you pay quarterly into one of their programs
I think it's like point o
three percent a quarter or something
so very small amount
that kind of helps fund the program
so that things like this can exist
but it's been really great
especially for a really long time
I was like I'm gonna build through DSDS
I'm terrified of UNFI
all I hear is build backs and deductions and like
I don't want to deal with that
so
it's been great to kind of have to be in this program
definitely gonna miss it when
when we're when we graduate from it
but it's great and broad market access
on the other side
is kind of highlighting diverse suppliers
okay um
within their network yeah
so there's some similarly like
fees that you don't have to pay
yeah point of contact
special kind of branches and events
special ad space that they send to their their vendors
both really great programs
I always tell people anytime they're like
hey Isabel
I'm launching Whole Foods
or I'm launching you know
I guess yeah
H E B or Central Market or any of these
like larger retailers that pull from unify or Cahill
I'm always like please go right now
apply to the up Next program or the elevate program
they're really great team
honestly that's passionate
not even not even sponsored obviously
or a plug they're just like
really great people over there
that's awesome that's great that's a great overview
excuse me stepping back
in terms of distributors in general
pretty polarizing views about them
but you know
on the other side I think brands have to
to be true partner to their distributor to
and actually have a productive relationship
what have you
found so far in terms of how you can kind of
best efforts of holding distributors accountable
as a smaller ish brand and then on the other side
how do you how do you act like
and make their lives easier and make them want to
you know give you the attention that you want
yeah so I always think of
well first and foremost from the people business
which I feel like people brand owners especially
tend to forget
because all we see is deductions and denials
and like
there's so much like
we're always at we always get the short stick
like literally 100% of the time
so I'll give an example
our distributor in LA is high touch
and they brought us on August 24
they were delivering I mean
our Po's at that time were probably
you know 12 bucks
like we're only selling to air 1
um and really sold the story
they like the products
always tried to be to keep them updated
probably text them a few too many times
asking them questions
and I kind of think like
when we're launching Whole Foods
and talking about our route to market
I was like I want to
for like a better term reward high touch
and give them the Whole Foods
Southern California business
because they've done such a great job with our account
I mean now they do
yeah Bristol Farms and Gelson's
and Lazy Acres and Mother's Market
and we send them like
Laurels t shirts and we always like
they've always been great partners to us
I can pick up the phone and call any of them right now
and they answer that's right
despite having like hundreds
if not thousands
of brands of much bigger size under them
so I think that it has to be like
when people are doing good jobs
you continue to give them more business
meaning more money
same thing with our Norcal distributors
like they do Whole Foods for us
cause they did such a great job right
we didn't open the UNFI Norcal DC for the longest
we held off for as long as we could
we got into rallies so we had to open it
but I didn't want to open that
despite the growth it might have for our business
because people would probably start ordering from UNFI
instead of from them right
so I think that and
you know I gave them a heads up
when we were opening the district
like the Norcal DC
I told them why I said
I wish you guys went to Rayleigh's
all the things but it has to be like
at the end of the day
I wish customers would remember this
when they email me angry things
but it's a person on the other side of the email
it's someone who also needs their back scratched
is trying to make their ends meet
so you have to think about like
how can I make it worthwhile for them
totally and they're also jaded
like at the end of the day
they've seen 25 trillion coffee brands come through
and sell them the story so they're also like
you know like
sometimes you're just
you just have to find your believers and organizations
though and it does suck
like our distributor on the East Coast for Whole Foods
is being a pain in my ass
for lack of a better term
and we're trying to open up more distribution with them
and they're just like
not responding
so I think we're just gonna go switch it to UNFI
so I think that also
kind of has to be the other side of it
like yeah
not everyone is going to believe in you
not everyone's gonna wanna have like
you can put in as much effort as you want into
it's like a relationship you know
you can put as much effort as you want
but if it's not gonna work it's not gonna work
and there are plenty of partners you can find
who will want to be true partners to your brand
or your business yeah
but you also just have to be honest yourself
make sure you're putting in the effort too
a lot of the kind of I don't know
versus expanding distribution points
really driving and continue driving consistent
high velocity versus
yeah it's
it's always a tough balance
right because with one point or one side of the coin
it's like well
we're in a volume business
and as much as Air 1 is great
as much as Bristol Farms is great
like you're not gonna sell a million dollars of coffee
through those two doors
and you're never gonna have cogs
that make the business work in those two doors
uh and our previous broker
we've since changed brokers
but our previous broker was like
you should put and also our
our current broker probably has the same mentality
in a lot of ways but like
you need to fish where the fish are
and sometimes the fish aren't at your local retailer
like I mean
I'm in LA so they are right
but like
sometimes you know
they're the product that you're making
isn't resonating with as many people as it could
I I think it's largely true
like you can't be getting discontinued from stores
while launching new ones that'll catch up to you
yeah you need to make sure
I mean even us
like
there's for a long time
it was just me we've since grown the team
which makes the growth that we're having
more sustainable we just actually brought on our
our fractional VPS sales
who's previously at Jesse and Ben's okay
who grew that business I mean
that business had crazy growth over the last 20
20 years over the last two years
to more closely meet with every single retailer
make sure you have every single promo plan
but something that we admittedly did
over the last eight months
was we focused on Whole Foods
because that's our biggest fish
and then our smallest fish kind of started starving
we put all of our resources into Whole Foods
and stop doing demos at Bristol Farms
stop doing demos at nugget
um because demos are $200
and I need to make Whole Foods happy so
and money is not infinite
that's kind of the trade off
I think definitely has been
I mean not discord anywhere
velocity is still growing
but like
honestly with Nate joining
has really put into a lot of perspective
he's like oh
do you have a promo plan for Mother's Market
I'm like why would I have a promo plan for another
Mother's Market but I can tell you Whole Foods one
I can tell you our our target
we're launching target in August
like I can tell you our target one
so that's probably like
the biggest thing
now we're thinking about alternative channels
yeah like
like hotels and food service that yeah
totally hopefully kind of have a Halo effect
with everything else going on
but it can really genuinely be a lot to
to kind of bite off and chew
but I also think with our products
like
to kind of bring it back to leisure
they built in LA for two years
but they could also like
a lot of that was sandwich shops and
you know like
a lot of those places don't work for our products
like Giada's not gonna sell laurels right
a lot of these places aren't
you know all these fun coffee shops and trendy places
like they
they're not gonna sell another coffee
so that was the other piece of it as well
like we kind of maxed out on the LA retail that yeah
makes sense that we could have and do outside of like
gas stations and in C store formats
the other side of that though
which was our thinking like
we were talking to the
the Whole Foods buyer 18 months ago
now we'll call it he was like
well
do you want to want to launch nationally or regionally
and I was like well
nationally sounds really scary
at that point we were four months old as a brand right
totally
but our products like this might not be innovative
next time the review comes around
they don't even have an RTD coffee review this year
so we couldn't have even expanded our
our distribution this year
so that was kind of the other piece of it
like he was really excited about A2
it was fun the flavors
like all of those things
but fortunately there's not
but there could have been another A2 Dairy
RTD doing the exact same thing
yeah true
Chamberlain Coffee was supposed to launch in target
but they with actually matcha and dirty chai
funny enough but they killed their RTD set
or the RTD line anyway so target called us and was like
hey do you want to launch it instead
was I gonna say no so it's
it's a lot of a lot of times
there's decisions like that that have to be made
of course it depends on your economic situation
like
there's a variety of things that are much more nuanced
and just saying do or don't
which like
to never likes to get into
but there's not one right way in
fact there's seemingly like
every day there's a different way to launch a brand
so totally yeah
you know actually being in the business
on the ground
everything is kind of a case by case thing
everything is different so I
I totally hear what you're saying
well on the other side of it is that like
especially when investors say that
the same investors will then go and say
they don't invest sub 1 2
3 4 million dollars in revenue
so it's like well
how am I supposed to get to $1 million in revenue
by selling an Air 1 in my backyard right
yeah totally
totally well yeah
last question for you Isabel
you've been
definitely been in this CPG world for a long time
not just say
outside of RTD coffee any
just brands specifically or just kind of trends in
in general in the CPG space right now
that they're kind of intriguing you
for the sake of it cause they're interesting and fun
there's a brand called
I think it's called Bad Cow
okay
and it's actually a really good idea
and something that we've talked about launching as like
our own product line at laurels
not to say we still won't actually
because if someone else is thinking of it
that must mean it's a good idea
but essentially it's like flavored milk
so like literally like strawberry
oh I guess strawberry milk exists
but more and I don't have it in front of me
but like more
the packaging is like all fun and cute
like really
just trying to bring a new life into the milk category
which I think is super interesting
so that brand is super top of minds
yeah that sounds interesting
I'm trying to think
I have so many brands in my house and in my fridge
oh honey Moo
have you seen honey Moo I don't think so
okay so honey Moo is down for sure
Honey Moon the packaging is incredible
it's actually started by like I
I know who started it
but it's a secret because they have a full time job
actually right now hahaha
but they it's a
like an ice cream like a popsicle company
is that what they is that what you call them
like chocolate covered I guess popsicles
yeah like it's frozen dessert company
I have frozen dessert in a stick
I don't know yeah
like it's popsicle but popsicle sounds fruity to me
but it's like it's like vanilla ice cream really
you have to go to Whole Foods and try it OK
it's an insane product they
it's chocolate covered I think they have vanilla
pistachio and coffee flavored
it's sweet and only with honey
and a lot of honey like
it literally tastes like you're eating frozen honey ice
cream it's wow
incredible cogs must be insane
but really really good
that's one that's been super top of mind
definitely have to check that one out for sure
yeah really
really good and then probably a third to round it out
let's actually leave it at 2 proda
proda actually is really good proda
have you seen proda is that the protein soda 1 yes
the one that Jeff Church started
yeah yeah yeah
really really good
we drink a lot of protein soda
as much as I hate the protein trend
we drink a lot of protein soda in our house
like protein pop and like they
they do taste kind of like milky in a way
and really really frothy
like I mean
they have whey in them so like
you know just kind of gives it that like
milky flavor yeah yeah
insane flavor profile none of the milkiness
none of the it's at sprouts on the animation set
none of the milkiness the flavor profile
like the flavors are great
I think they have like
five skews really
like honestly better than some like
prebiotic sodas like
just a really really good
it was it was formulated by yeah
I haven't tried it yet I've seen it around
but you're you're convincing me to try it
it's really good so first get in your car
go to sprouts get proda
and then go to uh
Whole Foods and get honey moo
and you'll just have to find out
yeah for sure it
I mean it's so good
it's unbelievable it's nationwide at Whole Foods
okay perfect
I'm gonna go try that next few days
oh cool Isabel
that's been awesome I appreciate the time
I think this is super helpful
for a lot of people that are listening
what's the best place to fall along with you
and all of your expertise
and then
where's the best place for people to fall along with
laurels these days
as well
I am always on LinkedIn
perfect so is the Washington
so where you can find me um
laurels on Instagram
we're starting to post a lot more content there
we have a really fun summer ahead
with some really fun stuff
plans all over the country
so definitely keep an eye out for that
um
and then always Isabel at Drink Laurel's dot com
I try to be responsive
but sometimes I just have a lot going on
but for sure I always do try to help people
because
I would be nothing without the people who help me
so I always try to pay that's pretty much everyone
awesome as well appreciate the time
I think that's I think that's the pod
a true partner to your distributor
season CBG operators I speak with investors as well
talking points are easy but
things you're starting to follow just for the
the first version that you made uh
commercializing the product
totally shifting gears from a visual identity
what were the things that were top of mind for you
what did that pitch look like
probably have to act like a true partner
as a you know

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