The Modern Retail Podcast

One of the ways direct-to-consumer cookware brand Made In has grown was through its connection with chefs.“Chefs are the new athlete,” said co-founder and CEO Chip Malt. That idea has been core to Made In’s growth. Malt was the most recent guest on the Modern Retail Podcast -- his interview was recorded live at the Modern Retail Summit, held in Palm Springs last week.Indeed, Made In -- which first launched in 2017 -- has inked multiple deals with celebrity chefs, including “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio and Mozza co-owner Nancy Silverton. Made In sells to restaurants, which make up only 5% of its total sales. But its partnerships with these chefs have helped Made In become a more prominent cookware player. Malt said sales grew 5x in 2020.The idea behind Made In, he said, was to make a cookware brand that had real brand loyalty. “Food is a very emotional category,” he said, but most people think of recipes or the food itself, rather than the tools they use to make the dishes. “We couldn’t think of anything where people care less about the brand affinity in a space of a product they use so much.”To try and create that brand affinity, Made In has tapped a deep network of culinary professionals. And, as a happy side effect, the company’s business-to-business sales have grown. For now, they remain a drop in the bucket -- but Malt said that the chef community “makes up way larger than 5% of our mindshare.”By focusing on those tastemakers, he said, “it’s an organic growth through that community.”

After hitting it big in Australia, Glasshouse Fragrances is testing out the U.S. market.The company makes luxury candles among other high-end products, and since launching in 2005, has become one of the biggest candle companies in Australia. Now, it is focused on international expansion after launching in the U.S. last year. It is currently available in over 1,200 retail locations in the country, and has expanded to body washes, soaps and diffusers. Founder Nicole Eckels joined the Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about how she built the brand and her strategy surrounding the U.S. expansion.“Scaling to the U.S. was very difficult because we have grown a very big business for our category in Australia,” she said. “And it took all of our resource just to supply that [Australian] market and to serve as that market.”Indeed, over the last 15 years Eckels has been trying to perfect her Australian business. In the early days, she was doing everything from scratch. She had a background in sales, but not so much in manufacturing. “It really was a matter of trial and error,” she said -- figuring out how to make the right products and get them in the right hands. “It was really really tough in the beginning,” she said.But now, she said that the timing is right and it’s time for Glasshouse to bring its products to the U.S. Eckels is doing this by establishing an online presence -- both direct-to-consumer as well as on Amazon. She is also seeking out distribution from independent retailers. “We’re not trying to just be everywhere and get mass distribution right away,” she said.Still, there’s a lot of work to be done. For one, she is still building out Glasshouse’s brand presence in the States. With that, she’s trying to find the right retail partners. For a luxury brand, she said, it’s a difficult balance -- and that’s what she’s figuring out now.“We are a luxury brand,” she said. “We don’t want to be everywhere but we don’t want to be too difficult to find either.”

Kids Foot Locker has big plans to be the number one shoe retailer for kids.According to Jill Feldman, the vp and general manager of Kids Foot Locker, she aims to make it a billion-dollar brand. “That’s not quite doubling [where it is now],” she said on the Modern Retail Podcast, “but we have had really big momentum recently.”There are a few major things Feldman is focusing on: for one, expansion. That includes expanding the product selection, but also Kids Foot Locker’s retail footprint. “We actually are planning on expanding our store base, which I know is a little bit unusual in retail right now,' she said. Part of that mandate is finding the best new locations, she explained, while also diversifying away from older spaces like malls.“We’re finding ways to really become embedded in the neighborhoods where our customers live,” she said.But physical expansion is only a small part of her focus. Feldman is working on revamping the entire in-store experience, as well as continue forging unique brand partnerships. Her team is “coming up with amazing collaborations between [companies like] a food brand or sometimes toy brands,” she said.All of these endeavors are aimed at targeting Kids Foot Locker’s core customers: sneakerheads. For the most part, that title is often thought of as a certain type of (often male) hype beast. But, according to Feldman, “we have a young generation of sneakerheads as well.”With this, the hope is to continue growing the Kids Foot Locker brand -- both in customers, revenue and stores. “It’s one of the fastest-growing banners in all of Foot Locker,” she said.

It’s 2021, and oat milk has become a mainstream phenomenon.One brand leading that charge is Oatly. It’s a nearly-30-year-old Swedish company, but only expanded to the U.S. in the last five years. But its expansion helped spur a nationwide acceptance of dairy alternatives.Mike Messersmith, Oatly’s president of North America, joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and talked about the brand’s growth, as well as the category as a whole. Oatly started its U.S. expansion in coffeeshops, and that helped it expand into retail; “people discover it, they talk about it and they want to buy a larger carton at the grocery store to bring home,” he said.With that, Oatly is now available nationally and in major retailers including Target and Whole Foods. In tandem with this increased distribution, the last two years have been huge for the milk alternative brand. According to Messersmith, over half of Oatly’s customers in 2020 were new to the brand that year. According to its most recent earnings report last June, the company brought in $146.15 million in revenue, a 53% jump from the year before.And while oat milk is often considered a more bourgeois product, Messersmith said he is intent on getting everyone in the country to drink it. “Our goal in this was not just to bring oat milk to Brooklyn and the arts district in LA,” he said. “I want people ordering oat milk lattes where I grew up in northeast Pennsylvania.”So far, those plans seem to be working out. The milk alternative category as a whole is exploding. Plant-based milk saw 20% year-over-year growth in 2020, hitting $2.5 billion in revenue, according to data from Spins. Oat milk sales specifically tripled in 2020.For now, his focus is on getting people to try oat milk, as well as very conscientiously expand Oatly’s product line. Last summer, for example, the company launched a series of soft-serve flavors.Even with this growth, Messersmith was clear that his strategy isn’t to take things for granted. “We’re still at the very early stages.”

Over the last year and a half, people have increasingly invested in their homes. And mattress brand Saatva was able to capitalize that demand.The ten-year-old company saw revenues almost double over the last two years. In 2017, the company disclosed that it made $207 million in revenue. According to co-founder and chief strategy officer Ricky Joshi, Saatva has been "basically profitable since day one." He joined the Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about how Saatva has been growing and expanding its product line.Saatva has tried to establish itself as the producer of a higher-end mattress made with more sustainable materials. According to Joshi, the intention since day one wasn't to raise a lot of money and, as a result, be forced to scale in a short amount of time. "We really went out there and just tried to organically build the best business possible, being really disciplined in terms of how we managed our spending," he said. The company hasn't raised any VC money, but did receive a private equity investment in 2018 for an undisclosed amount.In the early days, the focus was on making a few products -- namely mattresses -- well, as well as capitalizing on the then-nascent digital marketing landscape. Now, the company is beefing up its advertising efforts and has expanded to other products, including bed frames, sheets and comforters. Joshi said more products are on the horizon too.With that, Saatva has also been increasingly expanding its retail footprint. It has a New York showroom that currently brings in $8 million of revenue a year. Now, the brand is opening new locations in cities like San Francisco, Washington, DC, Portland and Boston. Joshi said that the New York location "significantly exceeded our expectations."With the new stores, Joshi said he's trying to figure out the right goals. For smaller cities, for example, direct sales in stores will be more important than those with larger populations where a store can have greater impact on the overall market. "Every story has its own KPIs and goals," he said.The next year is critical for Saatva's growth, in Joshi's eyes. The company is ready to open more stores, launch new products and gin up more brand awareness. "We're going to take advantage of the growth in the home furnishing sector," he said. "Particularly the luxury part of the home furnishing sector."

It’s been an unpredictable year-plus for the spirits industry, as alcohol consumption shifted away from bars to the home and, now, slowly back to bars. But that presented a unique opportunity for the apéritif brand St-Germain.The Bacardi-owned elderflower-based liqueur has benefitted from growing demand for apéritifs. But according to Emma Fox, the VP of the brand, St-Germain has also been taking great pains to get more people to know it exists.Fox started working at St-Germain about a year and a half ago. Her mandate, she said on the Modern Retail Podcast, was about “making sure that we have the right ambassadors and people that work with us.” Before, a drink like St-Germain would focus predominately on distribution in upscale bars. But Fox has updated her marketing strategy to get the bottle in the hands of both consumers and influencers.Of course, that doesn’t mean bartenders are no longer important. Hospitality professions, she said, “are a part of the fabric of St-Germain.” But, with the coronavirus causing many bars to rethink their businesses, so too did St-Germain have to update its marketing playbook. Much of the focus over the last year, she said. was on making “very very simple content.” The idea was to get more people to understand exactly what the aperitif is.Now, things are accelerating even more -- and Fox is planning bigger promotions and events. At the same time, she said, St-Germain is trying to stay focused on what it is and to whom it caters. “You’ve got a North Star to guide you,” she said. “[Otherwise], I think you can get very easily distracted in a number of ways.”

Cuisinart is generally known for one thing -- its food processor -- but the company has been expanding its reach in the kitchen for decades.In fact, the brand is moving beyond the kitchen into new parts of the home. Most recently, Cuisinart launched an air purifier. That makes for a tall order as a brand marketer.This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, Mary Rodgers, Cuisinart’s director of marketing communications, spoke about how her overall approach has evolved as Cuisinart’s product line has evolved.Rodgers has been at the company for 25 years. That’s a long time -- but her role has only expanded over the years. “The real reason I’m still here is because I work on all these exciting aspects of the business,” she said. “Sometimes when you get in certain companies, you’re very narrow in your field of vision. I like that I have a lot of influence over all of the brand marketing for the company.”Her scope is quite large. She runs the brand’s DTC business, which in 2018 moved from outsourcing fulfillment to bringing it all in-house. The company purchased a fulfillment center in Arizona and used it as a hub for all of its distribution. It held all the inventory for online orders, as well as handled customer fulfillment for online orders from other retailers. In essence, Cuisinart now controls all of its own distribution. “It tightens up the whole system,” she said, “because we’re not shipping an item to a retailer who is then shipping an item to a consumer -- you’re compressing the entire system, basically.”Beyond that, she controls all the other aspects of brand marketing -- which includes well-known channels like search and TV, as well as more experimental channels like TikTok. While Cuisinart is testing out the new app, Rodgers was clear that marketing campaigns must “always tie everything back to strategy.”Since the early days, Cuisinart has tried to compile as much first-party data as it can about its customers. Today, Rodgers is trying to systematize that even more. One of the big things she’s paying attention to is lifestyle changes. Before, items like Cuisinart were often gifted during big life events like weddings. Now, wedding culture has changed and Cuisinart is trying to find ways to remain relevant.With that is the main goal and conundrum of her job. “We have to understand the big picture,” she said. “Where are our consumers?”

Eric Girouard hadn’t planned on launching his company during a pandemic, but that’s what ended up happening.Girouard is the founder and CEO of Brunt Workwear, an online apparel company that began selling its first products -- work boots -- a year ago. While Brunt had been in the works well before the coronavirus first hit, Girouard was faced with a decision in March 2020 of whether or not to delay the launch. Ultimately, he decided against it -- and, in fact, did the opposite and ended up launching earlier than planned.He joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and discussed how the last year has gone.Sales thus far have been good. “We’ve consistently grown 63% month-over-month since we’ve launched, said Girouard. Brunt was able to grow because people in the trades have had to continue working, pandemic or not. “There was about a two week [work] hiatus,” he said. “And then a lot of our core customers -- the real construction worker, the trades worker that was really building the economy in the country during one of the most challenging times -- were deemed essential.” What’s more, most of these people bought their work gear in person at stores -- but they were forced to find new products online. Those two issues meant that Brunt had a possible way to enter the market.Another big facet of Brunt’s strategy is its brand ambassador program. Before Brunt launched, Girouard spent hundreds of hours seeking out influencers in the trades. These weren’t your usual Instagram-famous accounts -- they were people who recorded themselves doing grueling work and amassed an audience of fellow workers. These are the accounts Girouard wanted repping the Brunt brand -- and this growth strategy, he said, has worked.While Girouard is happy with the current trajectory, he’s excited to get Brunt’s name in front of more people. “At the end of the, day being less than a year old, less than 99% of the country knows Brunt Workwear exists yet,” he said. “We’re just so early in our life cycle.”

According to the dog toy and accessories brand Bark, that’s led to an increase in demand. During its latest quarterly earnings report, the company reported that subscription shipments shot up 52.4% year-over-year, hitting 3.6 million. And revenue grew 57% year-over-year, coming to $117.6 million.According to CEO Manish Joneja, the plan is to grow and expand. Joneja joined the Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about the last year and his big plans for the brand -- which went public via a SPAC in June.Joneja is relatively new to Bark, which first launched in 2011. He was brought on as CEO in September of 2020, coming from Amazon. “What brought me to Bark is what I shared: my love for dogs,” Joneja said. “The market right now serves you as a transactional commerce.”Bark, conversely, is built more on building a relationship. “The foundation of Bark is built on high-level personalization with high-touch service,” he said.The focus is on expanding into new areas -- such as food and dental care -- as well as acquiring more customers. For now, Bark will remain focused on dogs. “We want to make sure we serve the 63 million households [that currently own dogs],” he said. “That’s a tremendous opportunity -- you want to get that right first.”

Gabi Lewis thinks the cereal world is ready for an upgrade.That’s why a few years after he sold his first company, a cricket protein startup, he co-founded Magic Spoon. The brand, which first launched in 2019, is sold entirely online and offers a variety of different protein-filled cereals for around $10 a box. The idea with Magic Spoon, said Lewis, was to “take cereal through the innovation that we’ve seen in categories like ice cream or candy -- where brands have come in and they have just flipped the protein and sugar on their heads.”Lewis joined the Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about how he built the Magic Spoon brand, as well as where he sees it going from here.The one thing Lewis is intent about is Magic Spoon’s focus on cereal. “We’re not entering 20 new categories,” he said, “we’re not going into 30,000 retail stores.” Instead, the company has just focused on just offering its cereal, which currently comes in eight flavors -- including ‘cookies and cream,’ ‘maple waffle’ and ‘fruity’ -- as well as limited edition products that get released every few months.The idea was to create a standalone brand for health nuts who want a healthy breakfast that’s reminiscent of their childhood.According to Lewis, growth has been steady for the last two years. And demand grew even more during 2020. Like many other online grocery-adjacent brands, Magic Spoon saw an explosion of demand during the early days of the pandemic. “We did see a massive increase in demand across the board,” he said, “I think just because there was an increased desire to purchase food online period.” He added that “obviously some of that is continued [and] some of it hasn’t.”Despite industry fluctuations, Magic Spoon has tried to find new ways to discover customers. Rather than focus predominately on Facebook and Google, the company has built out a robust network of influencers who have evangelized the brand since the beginning. Similarly, Lewis has been testing out other new advertising channels like podcasts and television.All of this, according to Lewis, has helped prepare Magic Spoon to continue its steady growth. He is insistent that, despite the look and feel of the product, Magic Spoon is not out there to totally eat General Mills’ lunch.And that, he maintains, is its ultimate competitive difference. “We’re not cereal,” he said. “We are protein powder in the shape of cereal.”