Pop Up Grocer founder Emily Schildt on rethinking the grocery experience

It took a trip to London for Emily Schildt to realize that American grocery stores could do better.

"I came back personally really yearning for a grocery store experience like I had there," she said on the Modern Retail Podcast. "They were just beautiful spaces in which to shop -- gorgeous products, but really thoughtful display and design."

Last year Schildt founded Pop Up Grocer, a traveling showcase of a few hundred products that sets up in U.S. cities for a month at a time. It had four locations to date; the next one opens in Brooklyn this October.

Many of the goods, like cauliflower crust, are available at grocery stores already, but Schildt argues that they're buried in a mass of other items. Since the 90s, the average grocery store's number of items has mushroomed from 7,000 to between 40,000 and 50,000, according to a recent book on the topic.

"It's a lot of cold outreach," she said about how she gets products that are worth the spotlight, many of which she finds on Instagram. A place at Pop Up Grocer helps show off brands that might otherwise remain obscure or have trouble selling online. "I think people find starting their own business so hard if they don't have all of the connections. And it's hard even if you do," Schildt said.

Schildt talked about the company's move into ecommerce, plans to raise outside capital and her favorite place to shop for food in Paris.