Tyrel Johnson - The Ice Cream Upstart Taking Over the Freezer at Erewhon

welcome to shelf help today we're speaking with Tyrell Johnson co founder and CEO of Natty Ice Cream the high protein ice cream brand that really tastes just like real ice cream if you haven't tried it yet definitely encourage you to do so Tyrell began his entrepreneurial journey with e commerce focused ceramic cutlery brand that he quickly sold after bringing it to market in pretty short order then found a pretty big passion for design and he spent about a decade or so working with various technology and consumer brands before eventually eventually launching Natty which I'll talk about kind of with origin story heroes in a second yeah in a second yeah Tyrell just first off for the listeners that that aren't that familiar with with Natty Ice Cream give it give us just kind of quick lay of the land in terms of origin story and a why behind the brand core products in the lineup and then maybe just throw out a few places that people can get their hands on them today and then we'll go from there cool yeah I mean the the journey of Natty started a year before the idea even came to it you know entered my brain my brother and I my brother is my co founder and CEO of Natty we both were not in a great place with our health and we wanted to change that in a big way so we hired a fitness coach cleaned up our diets and a year later Garrett lost 50 pounds I lost about 30 pounds and completely transformed like how we look how we felt and in that process we we understandably like ate a ton of protein bars tried a bunch of different powders and didn't really like most of them there's a lot most bars are not clean powders aren't that delicious they're not that enjoyable and right at the tail end of that journey I discovered the Ninja Creamy so I picked one up I was like cool I can we haven't had ice cream forever because we didn't want to share that with uh with our fitness coach and explain why we were sneaking an ice cream and so the Ninja Creamy offered a new way to consume protein in a more indulgent form factor I was like sweet I can have my ice cream again two weeks into using it though it was kind of cumbersome you have to like mix it freeze it and I thought somebody should put these in pints so I looked online tried to find it in retail and I couldn't and so the light bulb went off immediately and I told my brother at the time hey let's just do this for us let's just play around and experiment see what happens let's not take it too seriously and over the course of a few few months you know we just making samples for ourselves friends and family people loved it and so we decided to like actually turn it into a real company let's you know let's brand it let's do something really unique here and kind of shut down the agency we were running at the time and the whole the whole why behind it was at the core like it was very simple it was make a product for ourselves we had cleaned up our diets we had I cared about you know reading it nutrition labels my brother turned me onto Bobby Parish so we were like no seed oils no synthetic ingredients like let's get really clean about the label on food we're consuming and so that kind of sparked like what Natty became you know it has to be a clean label product it's gotta be all natural ingredients it's gotta have great macros taste great has to kind of fill a lot check a lot of boxes frankly and yeah that's kind of how it started mention you started the the brand with your brother I don't know polarizing views on on both sides about building business with family from someone that's actually done it built a successful business so far and Brand's head in the right direction yeah what's what's that experience been like for you in building the business with your brother man I think it's polarizing for a good reason like it's kind of like getting married to be honest you know entering a business partnership like it's going to most times a business is like a long long journey it's not easy you're not always gonna see eye to eye on things and so it's really important to like ensure you kind of you don't just go into it throwing caution to the wind like hey I'm this is probably gonna work out no like the downside of it not working out is pretty big and so might as well vet the people you're considering going into business with and just make sure there's like a good fit right like my brother and I are we have completely different skill sets and that works really well because it's the division of labor or like what we're responsible for is very clear we just divide and conquer in in every area of the business and we've just been fortunate to have both really come at it with the same level of respect and intensity and put communication first you know I think the same goes for a relationship so it makes sense anytime you're dealing with humans communication is like incredibly important and so yeah I mean listen we've had our UPS and downs like even in this business there are times where things ebb and flow personally um and one person has to like take a week off or like work less and that happens right so it's just about having understanding and good communication and and working through that but yeah it's it's been great so if you if you know if you can check the box with family uh yeah and just I think the big thing with families my my dad my brother and I have been close with him on the business side too he's been working with a brother his oldest brother for two and a half decades so we Learned a lot from him and his biggest lesson was always put uh your family like first basically make time to just hang out and be brothers you know and and don't bring like family dynamics or emotion into the business run a business with logic at the end of the day and kind of create mental separation totally yeah initially created the first iteration of the product in your kitchen with the Ninja as you mentioned before kind of moving to a more legit dive into that a bit you know I imagine it took quite a while to kind of dial things in find a formulation and process that that really worked and as you said actually really taste like real ice cream I guess kind of just without giving away any too many trade secrets or anything what did you kind of feel like were the key variables that you guys were playing around with or kind of key tweaks you made between that first version you made to that final version where you guys said okay this is right we feel like we can actually start you know taking this to market and selling it to retailers and non starters it's a great question I mean it's crazy I just sent out a a newsletter the other day and it was cool to reflect like a year ago we barely we had just figured out the Natty brand the foundation of it we still didn't we still hadn't given ice cream to strangers yet like it's pretty crazy how much has happened in a year and just thinking back to that process it was nothing there wasn't any kind of silver bullet bullet or magic moment or thing we did it was just repetition and you know day after day it's kind of like seeing progress in the gym you just continuously go and show up and the breakthroughs continue to happen in small ways and then all of a sudden you know those little incremental shifts in formulation for example like oh it's getting sweeter oh it's getting softer less protein taste you know it's kind of trying to find ways to incrementally chip away at a better product and you know from September last year to January of this year we probably went I think we went through exactly two hundred and ten 220 recipes so there's a lot of R&D I just tabletop R&D like yeah ourselves and we we had some great partners uh contractors we were working with as well who had a lot of experience in the ice cream games you know that definitely helped finding ingredients that we weren't aware of uh and making big improvements I would say the biggest thing for us was upgrading our machinery as well ingredients are one thing the production process is a whole another animal and so a product can shift a lot when you upgrade machinery and you go from like a a batch freezer to a line freezer spiral line freezer um where you know the products able to get to a frozen temperature significantly faster whereas at our kitchen even today in our in our facility you know it's a it's a fairly small operation you know it's it's very much manual but yeah man it's it's been just really a function of us day in day out modifying the recipe in very small ways yeah and finding new ingredients to work with as well yeah yeah I hear a fair amount of CPG entrepreneurs say you know the product is never done it's kind of an ongoing right iteration kind of an ongoing improvement and you can't you can't ever feel like it's done so I totally never no honestly it's crazy that we got in retail in in July and we can talk more about that yeah but we you know the product we went to market with was good I was definitely happy about it but as of mid October we made a huge unlock like these incremental shifts over the summer and then all of a sudden introducing a new ingredient really shift turn the table like on softness for us we we felt like we nailed everything on the indulgent flavor side like it's got great macros it has a creamy taste once it kind of thawed out um and it checked all those boxes but the only one we didn't check was softness out of the freezer because it's low sugar low fat high protein it was really really tough and we didn't take any shortcuts with synthetics synthetic ingredients that would offer that like really soft texture um and you know we made that shift in October so it's taken us a long time and you know it's never perfect being in retail with a product that isn't ideal isn't a great situation to be in but people still loved it and now we're just incredibly excited to get this new version out cause it's a it's a night and day difference I think you guys have got a vanilla skew in the market and a chocolate skew in the market if you're not able to say yet that's totally fine but if you're if you are able to share anything about anything that's coming up on the product roadmap for sure yeah um I'm not gonna share the specific flavors yet we're gonna do like a grand reveal of those of course and promote them in a fun way but there's a fruit forward flavor you know kind of on a innovating on a classic a little bit and then there's a the flavor that's got some fun texture to it some crunch all right you know little mix ins and stuff to to make it more of a a fun experience and it's a delicious and new take on a classic flavor so that's going forward you know we wanted to kind of reinvent the classics and uh not reinvent them but do them you know bring this high protein high fiber low sugar yeah like clean label approach to the classic flavors and then start to expand with like innovative flavors yeah totally makes sense cool I'll be keeping an eye out you guys are currently making the ice cream in a and he said it's in a still fairly manual at some point and if so what when do you envision we've we're actually making that transition right now oh nice cool so we've been vetting I mean we've talked to pretty much every co packer in the ice cream game across the country starting last September so we've been vetting with a few of them since then and found a couple amazing partners that uh we would be you know we're the the only client of theirs in this category and so really excited we're rolling out kicking starting the process with one in three weeks and so we'll be scaling with them and then we have a secondary partner as well on the western side of the United States so super excited yeah it just opens up the doors on like you know raises the ceiling if you will on like capacity totally in a pretty much 150 x what we can currently do wow that's awesome if not more so it's it's a huge thing for us we realized like we came into this you know we there was a lot of work building our own facility and figuring out how to make ice cream having never done it before especially like in a commercial ready way where we are licensed by the state and we can sell retail product but even doing all that work we realized this isn't what makes Natty special this is not our secret sauce and so it's funny we built this whole thing up to only like not need it anymore six months later less than a year we're gonna still the plan is to still keep the R&B kitchen it gives us a lot of like speed advantages on improving the product developing new flavors it's a content kitchen as well so there's a lot of fun things we get out of it a lot of benefits but yeah moving away from a production standpoint I've heard that searching for a is a there's not a whole lot of there's not a there's not a big group out there that that does these kinds of products and I've heard it it can be a challenge to kind of find the one that's a good fit and that's has capacity and open to working with a new brand and all that kind of stuff so awesome that you guys are able to to find not even one but but two two and I think other the other advantage that we I didn't know at the time you know it's it's funny there's a lot of clarity looking backwards but one of the benefits of us building the kitchen and figuring out how to manufacture it ourselves in the beginning gives us a ton of knowledge going into working with these co packers like in person we know like what the overrun needs to be we know how the product needs to feel out of the machine before it freezes like we understand the process versus us going there blind like I don't I don't know you guys do it you're the experts and then the product ends up having issues or you know we're able to like see around the corner now so yeah totally packaging design for a minute I know this is definitely an area of your expertise you've been doing a lot of this stuff before you launched Natty for the Natty brand what were some of the key variables that were top of mind for you when you were building out the brand identity kind of positioning brand voice for the brand yeah for us I mean Natty because we were deciding to go into the high protein natural space natural ingredients being like the two pillars that we're focused on we Garrett and I always wanted to to create a brand that we would be excited to wear on a shirt a brand that we were proud to represent and that like I guess desire came from all these other brands we've been a fan of in the fashion world like streetwear world like represent for example to you know other brands in the in the lifting space and supplements and so we wanted to pick a name find a name that represented something bigger than just product that we were creating kind of a movement if you will and it came to us pretty easily fortunately in this naming journey we started off I can share that we started off with a our code name in the beginning was superhuman OK and uh we still had the Greek god character and it felt cool but it it just didn't have like a deeper meaning to it and we had a naming session with one of our really good friends who's now an investor and he was like what about Natty like the Natty bodybuilding culture is is huge and and we were big fans of it we just never put two and two together and like oh yeah of course and there's a tie in to natural ingredients we love being part of that world like we really we really align with like the natty ethos of not taking shortcuts and like doing the work to get you know the result you want and so we're like this is perfect we can stand on something as a brand we can stand for those values as a lifestyle as like a community and the products we develop so it's like we kind of talk about the same core values even with developing ice cream or like we didn't take shortcuts with putting synthetic ingredients in here the same way a Natty bodybuilder doesn't take shortcuts so that's how it all came to be it was like very natural process and just got lucky I guess with timing and then the name being available totally that makes sense the James Richardson book it seems to be like but whether you've read it or not he kind of talks about from what he's found is basically how premium pricing really just kind of comes from one really clear crystal clear promise that a brand has versus kind of feature it is and that kind of context what would you feel as like ours given the position of of course like a protein forward like a functional product it's a commitment to clean label and premium ingredients and so you you know you have to back up like if you have a premium brand the ingredients the product the experience everything else you do has to back up like the I guess the appearance like the claim to be a premium brand you might price it higher but if if you open up that container and take a bite and then flip it around and look at the ingredients and those don't match up and you don't have that commitment to the consumer then it's not a great look and we're we're trying to build customers for life right yeah so at the end of the day we have to find a way to make that work and we have but that's our commitment is clean label yeah totally makes sense and kind of like a similar concept that grabs people's attention and then when they make a connection from like the Greek god which you don't expect to see in the ice cream aisle yeah to like just the the the the rich indulgent experience that we offer we you know we start off in a completely different side of things with focusing on all organic ingredients we focused on this kind of unattainable goal of a 10 to 1 calorie rate protein to calorie ratio where it was like we want 400 calories 40 grams of protein we want a macro max basically and we just over time realized that the consumer doesn't at least when it comes to ice cream they're not trying to maximize their macros they're trying to enjoy ice cream and we've seen like Halo Top kind of fall off in that way like you know it's I'm you know it's there's there's plenty of people that like it I'm in love ice cream and I I think my brother and I are the harshest critic and so for us it had to be something that you would put up against the ice cream you're already eating enjoying and loving and saying well this is just as good but it's far better for me so why not that's an easy replacement yeah and yeah it's it's not been leaning into you know protein content as like the leading differentiator for us yeah yeah I think is a definitely a unique category prevents some unique challenges just from what you've Learned so far what's kind of really unique about frozen category versus man it's not easy like operationally and you don't have a lot of shelf space to to you know there's a lot of competition for that limited limited space in most retailers and so you really have to bring something fresh and new to the table totally from a positioning standpoint and a product standpoint and then you know the packaging has to stand out because you you open up the the freezer door and you're bombarded with a lot of the same there's a lot of brands that are bright and colorful and exciting um and you know we came in we're like hey we need to stand out somehow let's I've always been a big like I always look for contrast whenever I'm designing a brand identity I'm looking for contrast in some form or like it could be visual it could be color and often times it is it's really like you know what Sause did in the pasta sauce aisle right bringing color and a fresh take that's that feels more alive and ours was actually kind of going in the opposite direction taking away color muting it and making it dark and intense so I would say yeah like it's been operationally not as hard as I thought it would be there a lot of people have already kind of paved the path for building an ice cream company and whether it's production scaling that freight you know working with brokers like kind of every thing every challenge you need to overcome as a as a ice cream brand or frozen brand it's been done before it's just really about getting in touch with those folks and yeah and learning as quickly as you possibly can and then just learning on the go I would say like it uh given that there are a lot of challenges more challenges than some other categories I think higher barrier to entry but that also offers a wider moat and uh less competition so yeah yeah more limited in the space cause as you mentioned you're sitting behind a freezer door often condensed it or what not are there anything that you guys have found can actually have like we're still pretty early so nothing nothing substantial that I can report on like you know us having a a massive impact I would say the obvious one for driving trial is demos like when people finally try Natty they're a little hesitant at first I've never had protein ice cream before they try it and they're blown away and they go and buy when we when we demo we see you know velocity go through the roof and but you still have to attract the customer and so outside of packaging yeah there's some interesting things you can do I saw midday squares have like an in he just posted about it um and it was like this little shelf that was on the inside of the door right and it's like this new shelf that's like created and it blocks the other brands it's like pretty crazy move um and I thought that could actually apply in the freezer as well yeah um and then you know I was in sprouts the other day and I saw Poppy had a a branded refrigerator by checkout and I was like okay that idea quite a big investment you know maybe eight 500 bucks to some 500 to 1,000 bucks to get that done at least for a freezer you know freezers are more expensive but you know there's some really unique merchandising opportunities that you just have to like think outside of the box it's like what else can we do like maybe putting a freezer at an on like in the middle of an aisle where they have like the the frozen veggies and fruits you know you stick one at the end of that and it's like a top sliding freezer there's a lot of opportunities that we're seeing so I think it's just bringing new ideas to to the retailers um and utilizing like kind of like unused floor space as well if you had like we're gonna let you redesign the entire frozen section layout what what might this look like oh man I would like the the the I guess the pet peeves I have as a consumer is like Freezer's just not working well and yeah you know dropping up the ice cream and I can't read it and I don't know what's going on I think organization too like consumers are uh at least me you know I go there I'm like oh I want some indulgence stuff awesome I wanna know where that is I want dairy like this is pretty done fairly well right now but I think it could be done better where it's like different categories of ice cream what's where's the healthy stuff where's the indulgence stuff where's the dairy free stuff and I think what it's missing is an innovation set like just a short a small area of the freezer where it's like the hot the new the innovative stuff yeah seeing that in all the other categories so I think granted it's small it's a small amount of space but I think even having a a single shelf where it's like 7 skews and just giving small brands placement there I think it would be cool totally I know you guys are on the shelf at Air One which is huge it's kind of like the Rite Aid passage there is in terms of you know getting that first buyer meeting in the first place getting the commitment and then once you got that commitment all the boxes and kind of need to have a successful launch yeah honestly we got pretty lucky we posted a we've been posting about our journey since the early days and while we haven't put up like insane numbers or gone viral many times we did go viral once on X and I got a lot of retailers just from that one but Aaron came to us early and they saw what we were building the clean label you know commitment and really aligned with that and so I think it was really just a no they they don't really they never had a a super healthy ice cream in their set yeah at all and so we were the first one to come in there and offer something that met their standards and you know I think it's just a function of a lot of the competitors in our space if not all of them don't match the ingredient standards that they have right so there weren't really many options for them outside of us yeah and yeah they really aligned with the premium positioning and we went through their review process in under a week I mean it was it was pretty crazy to be honest with you really fortunate you're an awesome team and but like you know if this is an opportunity to give any like advice yeah not being someone who's like I haven't sold a billion dollar company but I think you know what I've seen happen from posting on social about like the behind the scenes and the journey and not being afraid to feel like I I've had moments where I'm like who am I to post about this we haven't done anything we haven't even launched yet it's still an idea this is early on but at the end of the day what do you what do you have to lose you know except for ego right it's like might as well and the opportunities that have come from it have been awesome so I would think I would say like a lot of the opportunities we've had have come from us just sharing our journey do you found specifically that's from a velocity standpoint there I think shop you know product customer alignment it's a really really great you know the the customer there is looking for either something really healthy and clean or they're looking for something that kind of gives them the the the signaling like status signaling that you know hey I bought this expensive item it's premium and it looks cool so I think we check both of those boxes but honestly we the demos the early early on we we invested heavily in demos and we still do but just educating the consumer that we exist and it's delicious and yes it's it costs a lot currently which is coming down but it's worth taking the risk like I just don't think myself I put myself in their shoes as often as I can and I'm like would I spend that much on ice cream that I've never tasted before not sure I would you know and so demos really help bridge that gap and it helped us a ton that makes sense I would say field marketing too you know getting outside of the store and thinking of innovative ways to to meet your customers before they even'cause a lot of people they just don't know you exist totally let alone in a what stores yeah so getting out into the real world doing collaboration events and and getting products in front of people in that way has driven a lot of awareness as well yeah yeah to actually build a relationship with the person yeah and you know even from a transactional perspective like if you can get their contact information you're not going to get that from the retailer yeah so you know if you're not if you have no DTC component you might as well be out there in the real world doing giveaways doing samplings doing things to get people's contact information so you can remarket to them and then you know from the less like trackable perspective less data driven perspective it's really just about connecting with other humans and creating an emotional experience around your brand yeah so that you build a a customer for life yeah totally let's talk about brokers for a minute I'm pretty sure you guys work with cultivate I've definitely heard good things about brands are about to start working with a broker how can a brand actually like man there's a lot of things honestly I think the biggest one is going in with the right expectations um I've heard stories where founders are getting the growth they they're getting gross they're they're growing door count pretty quickly and they're still not happy and they're like coming at the at the broker and pressuring them and it's like having realistic expectations yeah first off right and seeing them as a partner and respecting them and their team and then it's also just like treating them like they are an extension of your team and so making the time to meet with the people on that team individually yeah making sure you answer all their questions making sure they get product and can sample it and and and get to experience it for themselves totally um and then also just being quick to give them the the assets the resources that they need to be successful like it's just you know prioritizing that and making sure they're armed to to go out there and win doors or when did you guys decide it made sense to start engaging a broker I think the bigger question is just making sure that you understand what the cost of growth is totally you know even beyond getting a broker it's like backing up even further and saying okay if the broker does their job well and gets us all this growth are we ready for it right do we have like the the the demo engine are do we have a partner or are we going to build our rep program ourselves what is that going to cost realistically let's be you know let's overestimate this you know let's understand what the slotting is gonna be let's understand the free fill situation you know there's a lot that goes into that are you ready for a broker I think looking back I think there's a lot you can do as a founder just going direct to retailers but if you have the capital and you're ready for that growth yeah I think going and working with a a broker makes sense when you have the capital yeah and you're and you're ready so I think it's for us we comparatively to to some other brands we know like we went in pretty early with a broker but we also understand what the costs are going to be true when we get the growth that we're going after so definitely not the most lean approach you know it's not not cheap to work with a a broker but you're either gonna do the work yourself or you're going to leverage people who have relationships and right the cost yeah totally ultimately deciding to work with cultivate any recommendation in terms of best way to kind of diligence or I guess validate a broker's retail relationships mm hmm for us it was the decision stemmed from our our advisors you know we've been really fortunate to be friends with and with Troy and Winston from sauce and met with them and knew that they had an amazing relationship with with cultivate and so it was kind of one of those situations where we did talk to a couple others yeah but at the end of the day people we trust trusted them so I think it's uh also making sure you know we we it's not like we talked to cultivate had this trust and we you know had they been working with a competitor of ours or you know a significant amount of ice cream or like frozen brands that might have changed their decision but given that we we're like the only one uh that made that decision really easy so I think also just considering what other brands they're representing uh and will you be able to get the attention you know of the of the team is is an important decision as well Tyler last question for you any brands specific brands or just trends in general in the CPG space that you've been kind of tracking and all the things that you've gotten particularly excited about in frozen specifically it I've always been a big fan of the Alex team Alex ice cream the Culture Cup is awesome yeah I love seeing that that's like a pretty innovative thing you know bringing a different form factor as well like the Mini Cup where you can just and we've seen that do really well for us outside of the retail like we don't sell those currently but those form factors are fun and that's a great you know a great switch up on on something that I didn't expect to see in frozen frankly generally in CPG I think the movement like back to the protein trend is a little insane it's gone too far and I think we're gonna see a correction pretty soon like it's just too much man they're putting protein in in water now and I'm just I don't know I love protein I love it but it's it's getting a little crazy so seeing fiber come back I think is really really good I mean my partner is a functional medicine doctor and I've Learned a lot about the about the human body through her and we can all we can't just overload our bodies with protein we need to have a pretty balanced diet I think fiber intake in the US is pretty low we can all do better myself included and so seeing more of an emphasis and a trend on fiber coming back is cool um and it's almost overwhelming like how much innovation is happening in CPG and how many cool brands there are it's almost hard to like think of the brands that are caught have caught my eye recently yeah there's a lot for sure there's a lot going on well yeah that's been great I feel love follow along to follow along what's the best place to fall along with you specifically Tyrell and then best place for people to fall along with Natty as well yeah for me personally it'll be LinkedIn I love posting on there for whatever reason you know keeping people up to date on the journey showing behind the scenes and then for Natty Instagram's the best place to really get a feel for our brand you know what we stand for and events and everything that we're doing in the real world so yeah uh we're we're Natty dot ice cream on Instagram perfect and then Tyrell Johnson on LinkedIn sounds good Tyrell has been great appreciate the time thank you a go to market standpoint tell me about the journey of getting on the shelf you need to check leading up to that launch and I think it also gives brands an opportunity truly partner with their broker to maximize success I mean at the end of the day in terms of how you ended up honing in on that makes sense that's super helpful yeah I think a lot of other people are getting excited to be shelf stable CPG categories you kind of touch on it a little bit it seems like you know a magic wand and every retailer in the world said hey from a um definitely seems like there's I know you guys kind of kind of ice cream machine were there any kind of must haves and is there a plan to shift like what's kind of the the trigger point or milestones let's talk brand identity Natty's one crystal clear promise to the consumer we wanna be an aspirational brand you know all the other