'We haven't changed the way that we do it': MìLà co-founder Jennifer Liao on transforming from a restaurant to a frozen food brand

For frozen food startups, direct-to-consumer is a difficult channel to make work. But for MìLà, which makes food products like Chinese soup dumplings and noodles, being able to ship directly to customers is a core part of its business strategy.

"DTC is very important to us because we do have a direct connection to our customers," said Jennifer Liao, co-founder and president of MìLà. She joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast to talk about the brand's growth.

MìLà began as a Chinese food restaurant but transformed into an online food business when the pandemic first began. Using a Google Form and messaging apps like WeChat, in 2020 Liao and her husband would take soup dumpling orders and locally deliver them throughout Washington. But the dumplings became more and more popular, and so the couple decided to expand its domain.

First, it started shipping to more areas. Then, the company brought on a 3PL to ship frozen dumplings across the country. Today, MìLà has expanded its facilities, employs over 100 people and has grown its product line beyond just dumplings. It's also expanded sales channels with a recent launch in a Bay Area Costco with plans to sell in Central Market in Texas and Wegman's on the East Coast.

The company has also caught the eyes of celebrities -- actor Simu Liu recently joined MìLà as chief content officer.

Even with the growth, Liao said the brand has remained consistent with its recipe. "We haven't changed the quality of the ingredients," she said. "We haven't changed the way that we do it, but we have obviously scaled much more efficiently."

But figuring that out comes with growing pains. For example, when MìLà first began shipping nationwide, it offered a "melt-free guarantee." That is, the dumplings were supposed to arrive at people's doorsteps still in their frozen state. But the brand ran into issues in 2020 with supply chains backed up and deliveries bottlenecked.

"We had actually about 20% failure rate for our soup dumplings, where they would arrive melted," Liao said. After some trial and error, as well as tweaking its fulfillment strategy, MìLà was able to overcome this issue.

And even though DTC presents issues like this -- Liao is insistent that the company will continue to use it as a sales channel. While grocers are increasingly interested -- and the it's easier to ship frozen food to grocery aisles than it is to individual customers -- the brand has a direct line with its biggest fans, and that's helped MìLà grow.

"I don't think we would stop DTC," Liao said. "I think we would try to figure out what is the right ratio of distribution."