In short
Vanessa Phillips, co-founder/CEO of Feel Good Foods, explains how she built a mainstream frozen gluten-free brand from a personal celiac diagnosis into a company sold in ~25,000 stores, focusing on recipe standards, cold-chain/CPG scale, and early retail launch tactics (Whole Foods demos).
Guest backgrounds
Vanessa Phillips grew up in NYC’s restaurant industry (family owned restaurants). After a celiac diagnosis, she partnered early with a chef to develop gluten-free recipes that still tasted “not gluten-free.” She opened Friedman’s inside Chelsea Market (gluten-free and gluten options) and later commercialized the recipes into Feel Good Foods.
Key claims
Gluten-free should be “first and foremost” delicious, not a compromise. Restaurant success doesn’t automatically translate to frozen, so product development uses data plus a stage-gate process for manufacturability. Early consumer feedback via relentless in-store demos was critical.
Notable examples
First product potstickers; the “Ziploc bag” dumpling pitch sent to Whole Foods with a mock-up; demoing twice daily for four months across 27 Whole Foods stores; breakfast expansion including French toast sticks (April), pancake/sausage sticks (Kroger), and jalapeno breakfast biscuit bites.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOVanessa's Journey to Gluten-Free Success
0:45 to 2:53
Vanessa Phillips shares her personal story of starting Feel Good Foods after a celiac diagnosis.
“I am such a huge fan of what you've built.”
The Mission Behind Feel Good Foods
2:53 to 4:31
Discussion on the importance of not compromising on taste in gluten-free foods.
“And how lucky that we are that you share it with the world.”
Transitioning from Restaurant to Frozen Foods
4:31 to 7:14
Vanessa discusses her experience in the restaurant industry and the establishment of Feel Good Foods.
“And so tell us a little bit about Chelsea Market and the experience of like cooking this in a real restaurant situation and then how how you kind of made that leap into the cold case.”
Lessons from Hospitality in CPG
7:14 to 9:12
Exploration of the differences and lessons learned from running a restaurant versus a CPG brand.
“obviously, is so much more expansive and became so much bigger than what we originally set out to create.”
Creating New Products and Innovation
9:12 to 13:06
Vanessa talks about her product development process and the inspiration behind new items.
“I left Friedman's, you know, almost a decade ago or over a decade ago.”
Balancing Ideation and Launch Strategy
13:06 to 14:00
Discussion on how Vanessa manages idea generation versus practical launch strategies for products.
“What else haven't I had in so many years.”
Idea Generation and Market Analysis
14:00 to 15:01
Explore how Vanessa and her team generate product ideas while analyzing market demand.
“because if I let myself run wild, yeah, I would just be like footballing all day.”
The One That Got Away
15:01 to 17:28
Vanessa shares stories about product ideas that didn't make it to market and why.
“A lot of times like what, you know, works in a restaurant, it does not translate to frozen.”
Expanding into New Territories
17:28 to 21:28
Learn about the new breakfast products and the expansion of Feel Good Foods.
“And then years later, it was one element, like one piece of that idea that turned into another idea that became our number one item.”
Understanding Production Scale
21:28 to 24:28
Vanessa explains the complexities of production and the unique challenges of different products.
“How much have you vertically integrated versus are you at a co-man?”
Show all 22 chapters
The Ziploc Bag Story
24:28 to 27:39
Vanessa recounts the story of sending dumplings to Whole Foods and the journey that followed.
“We were just like dollar bills stuffed inside as like dunnage in the box.”
Risk-Taking and Celebrating Mistakes
27:39 to 28:00
An insight into Vanessa's mindset as an entrepreneur regarding risk and mistakes.
“I mean, I think probably, but I don't know if I would describe myself as an adrenaline junkie.”
Celebrating Mistakes
28:00 to 28:28
Learn how embracing mistakes can fuel personal growth and business success.
“Weekends can be hard for me sometimes for that reason.”
Turning Problems into Opportunities
28:28 to 29:19
Discover the power of reframing setbacks as lessons and opportunities.
“And yeah, I remember I had a teacher when I was young and whenever I would make a mistake in school, she would say, congratulations, you made a mistake.”
Emotional Challenges in Business
29:19 to 30:27
Understand the emotional journey of owning a business and how to navigate it.
“Yeah, I have, I love the congratulations anchor.”
Collaborative Problem Solving
30:27 to 31:00
Explore the importance of collaboration and teamwork in overcoming challenges.
“And, you know, when you look at it that way, it kind of makes it a little bit less emotional and more like just you're continuing your education.”
The Power of Customer Engagement
31:00 to 33:04
Learn how engaging with customers directly can drive business success.
“Is there like a type of puzzle or game that you enjoy the most?”
Launching Feel Good Foods
33:04 to 36:51
Gain insights into the early days of launching a CPG brand and the strategies used.
“And I know the world has changed a lot in the past 10, 15 years in terms of just like how regional these tests are and kind of what it looks like to start a CPG brand or to survive as a CPG brand.”
The Emotional Connection of Food
36:51 to 39:09
Understand the emotional power of food and its impact on people's lives.
“And I just, me and those dumplings, we were everywhere.”
Branding and Growth Strategy
39:09 to 42:01
Explore the strategic decisions behind branding and product expansion.
“What do you, okay, what, I know what your days were like 10 years ago now.”
The Evolution of Feel Good Foods
42:01 to 48:01
Learn how Feel Good Foods has evolved its brand and packaging over time.
“We never considered naming the brand Friedman's.”
Successful Food Launching
48:01 to 48:11
Discover the importance of delicious food as a key to business success.
“a better note to wrap it up on than that.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00I'm Sam Rose, and you're tuning in to Commerce is Chaos, the podcast for consumer brand founders who know that building a business is messier than the highlight reel shows. Your supplier just missed their deadline, your top product is out of stock, and your competitors somehow launched the same thing at half the price. Sound familiar? Every week, we dive into the real problems that keep founders up at night, from inventory disasters to supply chain nightmares, because surviving the chaos is what separates brands that fail from brands that scale. Vanessa Phillips turned a celiac diagnosis and a Ziploc bag of homemade dumplings into the number one natural frozen snack and appetizer brand in the country.
0:37It's now sold in nearly 25 ,000 stores to a majority of customers who aren't even gluten-free. Thank you so much for coming. I am such a huge fan of what you've built. I also want to completely, if you'll permit me, nerd out on recipes and cold chain in this session. And it's not because I'm picking on you, but I might be picking on you a little bit because I have a feeling that you know more than most people on the planet about both of those things. So to get us started, just give us a little tidbit of like the very, very beginning days of it. Like what was that itch that you had to scratch or the opportunity that you saw?
1:15I heard there was a Ziploc bag involved. I would like to know where that Ziploc bag is now. Is it in a frame? We could put it back here.
1:22Vanessa Phillips:Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and to talk to you. So Feel Good Foods, we are a gluten-free frozen food brand sold in 25 ,000 grocery stores. It really all started with me getting a diagnosis of celiac disease and having to go gluten-free and teaming up very early on with a chef who was very inspired by the challenge of cooking gluten-free for me. And he wasn't gluten-free. So, you know, from day one, he held us both to like a very high standard of be able to really like pressure test it and be like, does this taste gluten-free? Is this something that I would eat not being gluten-free?
2:08Vanessa Phillips:And that was really the start. So, you know, together we started creating recipes in our kitchen and it was really for me. And then when I realized that it, not that it wasn't that hard, but that it was definitely able to be done and that all these foods I missed, I could enjoy again. It just seemed like natural that I would share it with the rest of the world or right now, just the USA. But yeah, it really started from like a very personal space for me in my life after just growing up around food, loving food, and then receiving a diagnosis that for a short time, I thought I was going to have to give all of these foods up.
2:51Wow.
2:52Vanessa Phillips:And you didn't. How lucky. And how lucky that we are that you share it with the world. And like, it's so delicious that it doesn't even matter. I mean, it's great that it's gluten-free, but also who would know? And I feel like that's one of the biggest things with, you know, dietary restrictions and food restrictions that you feel othered all of a sudden because you have like, it could be a preference or it could be an allergy, whatever it is. You're like, I have to compromise. And I think that the thing that you're representing to people is that you don't have to compromise to feel good. It's interesting because I do meet people all the time that say that being on a gluten-free diet is really challenging.
3:29Vanessa Phillips:And I obviously empathize with that. But at the same time, I'm like, I have never eaten foods that don't taste good. Like I'm not going to force myself to eat something that doesn't like excite me. So either I'm going to adhere to the diet that's intrinsically gluten free and just enjoy all the ingredients that do not have gluten in them naturally. Or I'm going to work really hard to, you know, find a way to replicate something that traditionally would have gluten, but literally taste exactly the same. because I'm not just feeding people who are gluten-free. Like we really make foods for everyone to enjoy and gluten-free is one attribute.
4:10Vanessa Phillips:But like first and foremost, it's all about creating foods that are delicious, made with simple ingredients and convenient. And then the gluten-free is always there so that I can eat it too, but it's not even what we lead with. So if it doesn't taste just as good as what I remember from when I was a kid, then we just don't launch it. Right. Right. I mean, and you had you had the advantage of having like a live test audience, which I was a customer of, too, by the way, way back in the day. And so tell us a little bit about Chelsea Market and the experience of like cooking this in a real restaurant situation and then how how you kind of made that leap into the cold case.
4:52Vanessa Phillips:So I grew up in New York City in the restaurant industry. My family was in the restaurant industry. They owned restaurants. And so that was always a very familiar place for me. And probably what I, well, it was what I always thought I would do when I was growing up. I knew I would do something with food. Restaurants was really familiar. So I was like, oh, maybe one day I'll own a restaurant. And then when I went gluten-free, I started actually first making lasagnas, gluten-free lasagnas in my apartment and delivering them around New York City. And then when I realized that I definitely didn't have the infrastructure to keep that up, my partner and I opened Friedman's inside the Chelsea market.
5:35Vanessa Phillips:And Friedman's was really a concept built similarly to Feel Good Foods in that it was built as a space for everyone. There was gluten-free food, there was food that had gluten in it, but really we were inviting everyone, right? And despite whatever your dietary restriction was, like we really tried to accommodate everybody. And at that time, gluten-free, it wasn't like as mainstream of a diet as it is today. So we were really surprised by the number of gluten-free diners that would come into the restaurant. And also we were attracting people from literally all over the world because the Chelsea market, which is where the first Friedman's was, is very touristy.
6:15Vanessa Phillips:So for us, it was more just this light bulb moment that gluten-free is not as niche as we thought. And when you can create gluten-free foods that don't taste gluten-free, you're really going to attract both and really bridge the gap between people who are looking at it as like a dietary preference and then the people who have to eat it for health reasons. So we did a really good job, I think, of creating foods that were so delicious that we were bringing, you know, bringing people together. And then they were just ordering the appetizer that was gluten-free to share. And then now we were like, okay, how does that translate?
6:49Vanessa Phillips:How do we reach more people? How do we get inside people's homes? And the concept there was if you have one person in your house who's gluten-free, you don't want to be buying two sets of pot stickers, two sets of mozzarella sticks. So if you have three kids or you're gluten-free, but your partner's not, we just wanted to have like one solution and have something in the freezer that the whole family could enjoy. Friedman's definitely was sort of the foundation for that. And feel good foods, obviously, is so much more expansive and became so much bigger than what we originally set out to create.
7:21Vanessa Phillips:But the general thesis is very much the same. I mean, Friedman's is a legend, though, too. Not that feel good is not legendary, but, you know, my kids were like obsessed with the mac and cheese. I don't even think as a mom, I knew that I wasn't paying attention to gluten-free, certainly not for a two-year-old who was, you know, luckily didn't have to have that as part of his consideration set. But like, we would just go for the mac and cheese. And I have to say, it was so emphatically good that you're right. Like the lifestyle piece kind of comes along with it. But if you're in the right place with delicious food, you can build an audience that is just selecting into deliciousness.
8:03And then if it's better for them, like, well, well, great.
8:06Vanessa Phillips:Right, right. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's the idea. So glad it resonated with you. That's, that's what we were aiming for. She's gonna be very jealous that I got to talk to you. He's 13 now. Okay, I have a 13 year old. A mac and cheese aficionado.
8:25How different? I mean, I know that the answer is probably like really, really different. But give us a couple of like fun anecdotes about how different it is to run like a service business and, you know, in Chelsea market versus like running this, you know, um, much bigger, uh, pre-made food, food businesses or any, like other than the food and the recipes, uh, themselves, are there things that you learned in hospitality that really translated into CPG? Or is it like, Food is the common thread, but these things are completely different as businesses. So that, you know, food is completely different businesses.
9:10Vanessa Phillips:And, you know, it's been a while since I've run a restaurant. I left Friedman's, you know, almost a decade ago or over a decade ago. So I'm probably a little bit rusty in being able to really, you know, speak to kind of the challenges and complexities of running a restaurant. because I'm sure that the industry has evolved quite a bit from when I was running it. And, you know, I think, too, is just the fact that Friedman's was local and that I was, you know, in front of literally in front of my consumer every day. The transaction time is a lot shorter, you know, so it's easier to kind of really have your finger on the pulse.
9:47Whereas, you know, when you're when you're, you know, running a frozen food company, you know, obviously the transaction time can be a year.
9:56Vanessa Phillips:And, you know, your consumers are everywhere and you're not having that face-to-face interaction in the same way. So I would say it's a lot more complex and a lot harder to manage. I also think that the food is the common thread, but you're a lot more in control of your menu at a restaurant, right? It's one kitchen rather than... overnight if you have to, right? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think building, you know, a CPG brand, very challenging and very complex, especially frozen, but incredibly rewarding as well. And I just, you know, for me, like one of the things that I loved about Feel Good Foods in general is just the brand, right?
10:42Vanessa Phillips:Like I really, you know, continue to feel incredibly inspired by the brand and the brand mission and what it stands for. So, you know, with all the complexities comes even more reward. I think that's a really good point that like if you if you build a thing that you love being around and then you continue to nurture it, it's so much more. It's so much more joyful. It's like you have to be stoked on your own. You have to be high on your own supply a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Do you how how many days a week are you eating feel good snacks? um i well some we're always testing in our kitchen we have you know a full kitchen um you know in our office really really full like very robust r &d team product development team so i'm always testing it's mostly like newer innovation that i would say that i'm eating pretty frequently um in terms of like the legacy items that like i still eat so i i buy feel good foods for my son and his friends You know, they love it.
11:48Vanessa Phillips:And I would say that my son eats feel good foods probably twice a week. It's funny because our first product ever was the potstickers. That was the product that we launched with. That was what I missed most when going gluten free. I, you know, my dad owned Chinese restaurants growing up. So I ate a ton of dumplings and egg rolls when I was a kid. I loved them so much. It was my favorite food. When I went gluten free, I was like, I need to figure out how to continue to eat this. Like I cannot accept a life without it. So our first line ever was potstickers. And till this day, so many years in, I crave them.
12:27Vanessa Phillips:I love them. They're like my ultimate comfort food. They're just the most, to me, the most nourishing. Like if I'm feeling sad, like under the weather, if my plans fall through and I happen to have like a night in or night alone. I am going right for the potstickers. I always have them in my freezer. Sometimes I'll have them twice in a week. Sometimes I won't eat them for a month, but I love them so much. And they just bring me so much joy. Whenever we launch something new, I'm obsessed with it. I'll eat it every day for a week. I can't get enough of it. And then I get my fix. And then I'm thinking about what else?
13:03Vanessa Phillips:What's next? What else can we make? What else do I miss? What else haven't I had in so many years. I do that a lot. You know, I'll be like, oh, when was the last time I had a jalapeno bite? And then that's kind of sometimes sort of the inspiration between like thinking about something and then actually deciding to launch it. When you think about those products that you're sort of like, you know, or maybe the next obsession, let's call it, are you adding to that the lens of, and I need to be able to deliver this through our existing supply chain and like, and it will be in the freezer aisle? Or do you let yourself kind of be a little bit more open-ended about it?
13:43And if you are, like, what does your team say when you're like, hey, let's do, let's do crackers?
13:48Vanessa Phillips:I think that our team would say that I am definitely to a fault an idea person. I've tried to get a little bit more disciplined between like having a free space to ideate and then actually like really have a launch strategy. because if I let myself run wild, yeah, I would just be like footballing all day. You know, we can't do everything. We can't do everything at once. There is a really big difference between like having just, and we do this. We have just free sessions where we just go and we're like, let's think about this and this. You know, 90 % of those ideas don't ever come to fruition, but it's really fun.
14:26Vanessa Phillips:We'll go out to eat and get inspiration. We're always ideating, But that's obviously very different than like really coming up with ideas that we bring to market. And I would say that that's like a mix between obviously really analyzing the data and looking at like, because it's not just about me. I'm actually like a microscopic piece of this at this point. It's really more about like what do our consumers want? Where is their demand? You know, where is their competition? Where is their white space? So really looking at the data is incredibly informative to understand. A lot of times like what, you know, works in a restaurant, it does not translate to frozen.
15:12Vanessa Phillips:People have very different behavior when they're eating out at a restaurant versus when they're buying frozen food. So really understanding that. And then what can work within, yes, our supply chain, our manufacturing system. You know, we have ideas a lot, but it could require it's really difficult to scale. It could require a lot of investments in machinery. It would be, you know, really difficult to source certain ingredients. So there's like a whole stage gate process that goes into it. And there have been so many ideas over the years that I've been obsessed with that we just couldn't do for whatever reason.
15:46Vanessa Phillips:Like it was just too complex, too expensive. So not every idea goes, makes it through the process and lands on the shelf because there is really so much that goes into it. What's like the one that got away? The snack that got away?
16:06Or if you're still working on it and you can't tell me it's okay. Sometimes the one that got away is going to come back, right?
16:12Vanessa Phillips:Like if I know, if I know. There are things that I'm not going to say because I haven't given up on them yet. The one thing that we're not going to do that I could say that I thought about doing years and years and years ago was creating like, but now it exists. A couple brands have done it, but creating like a gluten-free Uncrustable. We talked about that like early on and it was difficult. But I remembered when I was a kid, I mean, this is an example of like a childhood memory. I remembered eating Uncrustable and I loved soft bread that wasn't toasted, wasn't crunchy, just like that, like that pillowy white bread.
16:52Vanessa Phillips:It was something that, you know, you really just can't recreate, especially, I mean, maybe now, but, you know, early on my gluten-free journey, that was just something that I just could not recreate, like Wonder Bread. So I remember reminiscing. You're going to like texture now. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I would say that was something that, you know, bread in general is challenging. So, you know, we try different, like, sandwiches and stuff. But, you know, sometimes what I will say happens is we'll come up with an idea and it won't work. And then years later, it was one element, like one piece of that idea that turned into another idea that became our number one item.
17:36How often is that like a technology that needs to come online that you kind of have to wait for like the world to catch up versus something where you can say, well, we're going to like and have you done this? You're kind of saying we're going to we're going to innovate this like we're going to create this technology in house. Maybe it will proliferate to the world. Maybe not. But like we're going to do it versus we're going to wait.
18:00Vanessa Phillips:um i i don't know if we're so i think that it happens organically that we have to wait sometimes i don't know if we're so disciplined to say we are gonna wait because the world isn't ready i think it's really just it happens it has its own timeline and i have looked back over the years and been like wow i can't believe this product today really started eight years ago but i didn't realize it because we're constantly doing different iterations of things. We'll put things on a back burner and then something will come up or we'll meet someone and we'll be like, oh, wow, we should revisit that because, you know, so it's really just sort of like always in progress.
18:40Vanessa Phillips:We don't ever really like kill an idea. It's just we're always innovating. So it's that's why like even when you ask me, is there anything like it's hard because, yes, there are things right now that we haven't talked about in a couple years, but they could easily, you know, we could have like something could, you know, ignite that again and we could start working on that. You start thinking about jalapenos and all of a sudden. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also, we're always looking at, you know, different parts of the grocery store and where we can live. And then that opens up a whole new, you know, set of, you know, eating occasion and ideas.
19:17Vanessa Phillips:So, you know, an ingredient can become really popular or trendy. And they're like, oh, what about if we took that ingredient and did a spinoff like, you know, our mac and cheese ball or a jalapeno bite? So we're constantly having fun with it. And I think that one of the great things about feel good foods is we're all foodies and we all love to eat and we all love to talk about food. So that's like the fun side of the job. So there's never any shortage of ideas. Okay. So you've covered snacking and breakfast. is there like another eating occasion food territory that is in your sights or do you feel like there's a lot more green feel to kind of play in where you're at so breakfast is a newer category for us and we are expanding very quickly in breakfast we recently launched um i think like a week ago actually um in kroger we launched pancake and sausage sticks which is super fun and very whimsical and nostalgic and that's going to be going out you know nationwide over the next couple months.
20:15Vanessa Phillips:And then we also launched these breakfast biscuit bites with jalapenos, actually. Super delicious, really convenient. It's like a biscuit egg mashup. Very addictive. So breakfast is newer. We launched French toast sticks in April that honestly was one of the most explosive launches I've experienced in my career and couldn't even keep them on the shelf. And one of the things that I think from the gluten-free perspective is to be able to really take that position of being like we are the first gluten-free. So that helped with the French toast sticks. But also they're just so delicious that we very quickly start to outperform ones with gluten.
20:55Vanessa Phillips:So breakfast is new and we're really having fun because it is different than snacks. It's a different consumer. It's a different eating occasion. Obviously, it's very fueled on convenience. People don't have nearly as much time in the morning as they do when they're snacking or entertaining. So really trying to understand the consumer behavior within that category. And then, yes, there are other, you know, areas of the store where we're exploring and, you know, you might just see us pop up somewhere else very soon. Maybe. You have to come back and announce it when it happens. I will. It's a re-invitation.
21:33um you you've got uh like so much depth of uh that there's so much depth that goes into the product development process here right you've got like these kind of ingredient constraints and then you've got i'm just imagining uh but i'd love for you to kind of imagine with your or help me help me paint the picture you have to fry things you have to bake things you have to things. What does the factory look like? How much have you vertically integrated versus are you at a co-man? And maybe like as the young Vanessa sort of like opened the door into this world of CPG kind of like production at scale, what were the first things that surprised you about just like how it's made?
22:20Vanessa Phillips:Well, I mean, yeah, we have 30 SKUs. So we are not made in and all of them are very different. You know, there's a huge difference between a pizza bagel, a pot sticker and a mozzarella stick, right? I mean, they don't, none of the equipment overlaps. And they're all very specialized equipment. So every single product line, I mean, you know, we have our baked line, we have our bread, breaded, battered, fried line, and then, you know, steam line, but it's, it's, they're all very different. And they all are sort of their own beast. And it's, you know, like trying to, you know, do 18 courses with five different cuisines for dinner, right?
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23:01Vanessa Phillips:Like, it's just, they're all very, very different. So we, we really, we don't see a lot of integration, everything is separate, and every line is its own kind of living, breathing organism. And we, you know, we spend a lot of time early on, like really investing in getting the product, you know, up and running. I mean, I think today we've gotten better because now we really look at sort of like what our capabilities are and how we can innovate within sort of the framework that we have. But, you know, for example, the potstickers, that was something that we were working on before we ever launched for three years.
23:43Wow.
23:44Vanessa Phillips:Just because it was, you know, there's a really big difference between making them in a restaurant and commercializing them. So, and, you know, the gluten-free aspect is obviously a lot more, it's more temperamental to, you know, make a gluten-free dough or wrapper, whatever, than with gluten. Because obviously the wheat is like such a binder and it gives a lot of the city that you're just not going to get from gluten-free flours. So it is incredibly complex and we have a really expansive team that is just very dedicated to really figuring out how to commercialize all of these different products because they are all very unique and very different from one another.
24:27um taking us back to the ziploc bag story which i'm alluding to what you can tell uh how how scale ready were you at that point so the story the story is i'll tell them for short version but but you can illuminate um vanessa shows up with a ziploc bag full of dumplings to a whole foods meeting and like nobody knows if it's gonna work but they shockingly but not surprisingly say yes and the rest is sort of history
24:55Vanessa Phillips:like am I getting that mostly right yes that actually wasn't even a meeting I sent it in the mail oh you did yeah with like dry ice yes and no packaging and no packaging and okay wait okay keep going so yeah we had I think we had like a mock up on you know like that we printed just on like flat paper. It wasn't like a rendering of any sort. It wasn't in a box. And how ready were we? We were not ready at all. We were just like dollar bills stuffed inside as like dunnage in the box. How did you get that? It was actually crazy because I'm a really big manifester. So even though I had no experience in consumer food at all, or I didn't know anything.
25:50Vanessa Phillips:I sent it to Whole Foods with just a lot of hope. And I was like, no, this is going to happen. They're going to say yes. They're definitely going to say yes, because I believed so much in the idea and the brand and the fact that the world just needed gluten-free potstickers. And I also just knew that they tasted really good and that even if you weren't gluten-free. So I was elated, but I actually wasn't surprised. And then when I realized what I needed to do over the next six months, because, you know, when you get accepted into a retailer, it's not tomorrow. Although today you have to be very buttoned up and it's just a very different landscape and the industry is very different now.
26:32Vanessa Phillips:this was at a time when, you know, you were able to go to regions of Whole Foods rather than every Whole Foods. So we were fortunate that we got in at a time where it was a little bit more flexible. But the expectation was still the same that you were going to deliver and be, you know, ready at a date and, you know, have all your, you know, ducks in a row. So, but we did have some time. And I think it was about six months. And we just got like a crash course on everything consumer food related. And we found a manufacturer and we went all in. I mean, we really immersed ourselves in just the learnings of how to get a food brand launched.
27:19Vanessa Phillips:So it was a wild journey. and yeah, we definitely tripped up along the way, but we just kept going and we kept growing and here we are today with 30 SKUs and 25 ,000 stores. So it paid off. Are you an adrenaline junkie? I mean, I think probably, but I don't know if I would describe myself as an adrenaline junkie. I would say that I am a true entrepreneur. Yeah, highly risk tolerant. it. Risk is not something that stresses me out. I think what stresses me out is feeling that I'm not taking a risk. I completely agree. Weekends can be hard for me sometimes for that reason. Like, what are we doing?
28:08I'm like, what's the plan?
28:12Vanessa Phillips:Where can we go break something? Yeah. You know, I also, when I, you know, when I was younger, I was raised with parents that really taught me from a very early age to really celebrate mistakes. And yeah, I remember I had a teacher when I was young and whenever I would make a mistake in school, she would say, congratulations, you made a mistake. Right. So I think that that is something that, you know, is still with me today. And I, you know, because I mean, building a business, you are constantly making mistakes, you are also going to just get, you know, really beat down. Right. I mean, there are days where it is like, can someone please just give me a yes?
28:58Vanessa Phillips:Right. Like, I need something. but it fuels me. And when I do make a mistake or I do, you know, have some temporary setback or I fail a meeting or a product launch doesn't go as planned, you know, I always kind of just go with the, you know, motto of like, that's okay. Yeah. Yeah, I have, I love the congratulations anchor. I don't remember where I heard this, but I heard it at some point and I kept it. Like if something goes wrong, I'm like, Great. That's my word. I just come back to that. And then I'm like, okay, what's next? But there's always like, there's a lesson or there's an opportunity or there's like a close miss.
29:43Like, oh my gosh, thank goodness that didn't, you know, sometimes it's only in hindsight, but you're like, oh, I'm really glad that didn't happen because this other thing could happen instead. And yeah, it's just really interesting how much you can kind of manifest that outcome for yourself of just like turning problems into opportunities over and over and over and over again. And I think that's a big part of it, too, is just like reps, like reps on risk, reps on being beat up.
30:11Vanessa Phillips:It's also it's a mindset, right? Owning your own business is very personal, right? So it's very hard to take the personal out of it. But at the same time, it's also it's just it's a series of puzzles. And, you know, when you look at it that way, it kind of makes it a little bit less emotional and more like just you're continuing your education. It's just school that never ends. Like every day I'm like, here I am just facing challenges and trying to problem solve and keep my brain working. And when I take the emotion out of it and the idea that I'm doing this because it stemmed from this like personal struggle that I had as a kid and I look at it more just like continuing to solve puzzles, I always stay incredibly engaged in a really healthy way.
31:00Is there like a type of puzzle or game that you enjoy the most? Do you like puzzles that you're solving by yourself? Do you like puzzles that you solve with one or two friends or that are a big game that you're kind of playing around a table from the perspective of work, of course?
31:15Vanessa Phillips:I definitely am very much, I don't like solving puzzles alone. I would say that I'm more collaborative and I thrive off being with people. So I'm not someone that's like working in silos and I actually find energy through other people. So definitely solving puzzles together for sure. Otherwise, it's going to feel very lonely. And, you know, I think one of the, for me and my company, one of the greatest joys is that I love the people that I work with. And I'm always inspired by my team. I'm always learning from my team. I learn so much every day from everybody that I work with. So I'm not a big fan of working alone.
32:07Vanessa Phillips:We're a New York-based company. We're all in the office together. And so many great ideas come from collaboration and us just sometimes just sitting in a room and just talking it out. And we'll be like, oh, that was a great idea. It's just like somebody will just say something and we're all like, whoa, you know, like love that. So definitely I'm a big believer in everyone being together. And like humans in general, like we, I mean, I think that's why the pandemic was like so jarring because I think we're really social creatures. I mean, I definitely, I love my downtime for sure, especially because I do think so much, I exude so much energy professionally that I do love like spending a weekend and just chilling.
32:51Vanessa Phillips:But from a business perspective, I get a lot of inspiration from those who are around me. And we get jalapeno poppers, so we're really grateful.
33:03I was curious to going back to to the beginning of that Whole Foods anecdote. And I know the world has changed a lot in the past 10, 15 years in terms of just like how regional these tests are and kind of what it looks like to start a CPG brand or to survive as a CPG brand. But in that first moment where you're like, you get the thumbs up and the buyer's like, these are effing delicious. Yes, please. I will take them. Like, then what? Are they telling you I need 30 ,000 boxes of this by, you know, January 17th? Or like, what does that look like? And what does that starting MLQ look like? And are they giving you a chance to scale?
33:45And again, I know some of this might be like probably really good. They give you a store count.
33:49Vanessa Phillips:I think they do give you. So today, you know, I don't 100 % remember how we, I think what we probably did is whatever the minimum run was, we did that. Today, the algorithm is very easy for us because we know our average turns per store per week. So it's really easy, not easy, but it's easier to forecast and anticipate kind of what the product will do. There's obviously always unicorns and we're like, wow, that exceeded forecast. But, you know, we really have it down now where it's pretty much just like the math is in there. Um, but yeah, I don't, I don't even know looking back, like I can't remember how we knew what to produce on our first run.
34:36Vanessa Phillips:I would think that we got our store count with Whole Foods and we probably just went with whatever the, um, the minimum was. But one thing that we did do is, you know, we really didn't have anything to do except support it at Whole Foods. So when we first launched, it was in 27 stores and it was in the North Atlantic region, which was basically Maine through like parts of Connecticut. But the majority of the stores were in Massachusetts. So we moved to Massachusetts. We moved to Boston and we literally demoed every single day, every single day for like four months. Actually, we demoed twice a day.
35:11Vanessa Phillips:So the windows were 11 to 3 and then 4 to 7. And we demoed every day, twice a day. and we had nothing else to do. We had no employees. We were only in those 27 Whole Foods. So we were like, you know what? Why not? And we just traveled and we just drove from Whole Foods to Whole Foods to Whole Foods. And it obviously, you know, caused a surge in sales that was beyond what the organic sales would have been. But it also was so incredibly powerful. And I don't know if brands can do this today because I think that the barriers to entry into, especially with Frozen, into getting into the store is a little bit different.
35:53Vanessa Phillips:We just like walked in back then. I mean, we would schedule, we would call, we would ask to speak with the demo coordinator. I mean, it was a much simpler time. But we would like feel in our cooler, we would set up an induction burner, but it really allowed us to have an opportunity to really talk to our customer. And I always say like the key to being successful in this industry is like, know your consumer. like make your consumer your best friend i mean not literally but like just know your consumer because that is who you're essentially working for and those few months early on all i did was just talk to consumers i was like you love it tell me why what do you want next and i just did that all day and it was just an incredible demo program where i just cooked the product i fed people i got to witness their reaction firsthand.
36:45Vanessa Phillips:And I truly do not think we would be successful today or as successful if I did not have that four-month launch strategy. You know, I didn't have children. I was very young. And I just, me and those dumplings, we were everywhere. We just stood in front of the frozen aisle and we sampled until the cows. And it was really, it was it was like I guess you would call it today guerrilla marketing but it wasn't even it was just it was just an opportunity to talk to the consumer all day long right like some of that infrastructure existed there was a demo coordinator but the difference that you made was just freaking grinding it out and I man I'm so impressed I might be a little bit in love like stories like this are like how it's made and just appreciating how valuable it is to get real live customer feedback, not only to help with the product roadmap, but honestly, just connecting with other people gives you the energy you need to keep going the next day, right?
37:54Like I can't.
37:55Vanessa Phillips:It totally gives you energy. Like when I would see somebody cry because they hadn't had a pot sticker in 10 years, it would make me cry. You know, I mean, it's, it's just such a feel good experience, like no pun intended, but just to see how food can really light someone up and bring them back to a childhood memory or make them just feel included. You know, food is, I obviously, I work in food, but I just think food is such an emotional experience for people. So it's really awesome to be able to like help create those moments for people. So demos are an amazing, amazing tool. And obviously, not only doing the demos, but being able to be the one at the demos or really witness it for yourself is even better.
38:40Vanessa Phillips:But as we get bigger, it's obviously I'm only one person. I can't be everywhere and I can't be in the store. But having that experience early on really helped us create those like fundamentals. Wow, I have goosebumps. It's like really amazing. and just goes to show how much love and, you know, authenticity that you've put into the whole thing. Like to do that with your product day in, day out for months and months and months, like that is a love letter to the product, to the customer and to the whole mission. Yeah, totally. Yeah. What do you, okay, what, I know what your days were like 10 years ago now.
39:21What are your days like today? What does it look like when you fast forward from all that and that plane lands and what's the next plane that you're taking off?
39:31Vanessa Phillips:What is a day in the life for me right now? Yeah, a day in the life of Vanessa. It changes. Every day is like a new adventure. A lot of times I still go to most big sales meetings, which I love. I mean, that hasn't changed. I still love getting in front of retailers and selling the vision and the brand. I still get such a adrenaline rush from that, whether it be Whole Foods or Walmart or Costco, you name it. Like I love meeting with retailers. I love being able to talk about the innovation and the new launches and how we're going to support and execute. So that is something that whenever there's a retailer meeting, I try and go.
40:17Vanessa Phillips:And same with big launches. I love going and like being on the floor and seeing the product get made. So there's still like quite a bit of travel between, you know, from the product side or the retailer side that I still do. And then when I'm in New York, I have like a 15 to 20 minute walk every morning from my home to the office. And I typically feel when I get to the office, it's like just go, go, go all day. Just, you know, tons of meetings. But it's fun. You know, we're all kind of here together. And like I said earlier, it's just a lot of like fun collaboration. And, you know, it's it it helps, too, that like there's a kitchen in the office.
40:56Vanessa Phillips:So I do spend a lot of the day eating and, you know, testing out like new ideas and tinkering with stuff. Sometimes I'll eat, then hop into my office to do a meeting, and then go back into the kitchen and eat some more. But every day looks different. It's never boring. And there are some days, too, where I'll look at my calendar in the morning. I'm like, oh, I don't have that much on my calendar today. And then those days usually end up being the busiest. Why is that? It's not cool, man. Yeah. Yeah. um i was curious about at the beginning so you've got freedman's and and and then you've got kind of a recipe that you've developed there and then you decide that you want to commercialize that and go into retail did you ever consider naming it after the restaurant was it always very clear to you that it would be a separate thing did having that kind of like in your back pocket help to qualify or familiarize yourself, sorry, familiarize the buyer with like who you were and what your bona fides were as you were like sending in this bag of money wraps?
42:06Vanessa Phillips:We never considered naming the brand Friedman's. Actually, the idea for Feel Good Foods started before Friedman's. So if anything, it would have been the other way around. I think we did talk at one point about naming Friedman's Feel Good, but never the other way around. The brand name was intentional. And I remember being asked early on, like, well, your products are egg rolls and dumplings. That doesn't really sound like a Feel Good Foods brand. And that was always kind of, it was intentional in that we knew we were going to innovate beyond Asian foods. We knew that we wanted to build a brand where we could grow into it and not grow out of it.
42:51Vanessa Phillips:So I always thought that the brand would be expansive in the product offering. And I wanted to create a name that spoke to the mission. So today, I think that if you look at the entire brand portfolio, the name makes complete sense. But for a while, it didn't. But I always knew the long-term vision, so I wasn't worried about it. So for a while, people were like, huh. But but I think that the brand name speaks beautifully to what we are creating. Yeah, it really does. And I think it kind of brings, you know, there's this idea of comfort food or comforting food, but also foods that you feel good when you're eating.
43:37And the way that you're positioning the packaging as well, where it's really, it's fun. And it speaks to sort of the joy of the eating experience and not necessarily the constraint that you've put on all of it. And I have to assume that that was very intentional as well. Yes. Did that change as you got to know your customer better or your retailer better over time? Did you start with a certain kind of packaging direction and then?
44:08Vanessa Phillips:Oh, we went through a major rebrand. Our packaging, there was a total evolution and the brand looks pretty different today. But, you know, I also think that we learned a lot and we grew up. And when we started, I had a friend do it, you know, and it was like in my, you know, everything was like out of my studio apartment. So the brand, I don't think the customer, I wouldn't say that the customer changed. I would say that everything matured and evolved. And I think we actually, it expanded. And we realized that we were speaking to a larger audience than we initially had thought we were. And we really wanted the packaging to reflect that.
44:49And tell me a little bit more about what you learned, like, in that packaging and that kind of rebrand moment that, like, was working well at the beginning, but then you found either, like, was it a problem thing or an opportunity thing or a little bit of both that was kind of the solve there?
45:06Vanessa Phillips:I think it's just was like learnings and I don't necessarily think it was like one problem. It's that we live in a very different time now than we did in 2012. So I just I wanted to remain current as we grew into more stores. I wanted to make sure that the product, which is I think the most important thing ever in frozen food is that it was easy to find and I didn't want to get lost on the shelf. So I wanted to make sure that the packaging really popped. Also, like with Frozen, it's very different than, you know, another part of like center storage. You're opening the door, you're closing the door, you're opening and closing it.
45:41Vanessa Phillips:So the door really fogs up. So I felt that the white packaging was kind of blending in and people were having a hard time finding us. So that was the decision to move to a bolder color like yellow. You know, the one thing that is the same is we've always led with the food photography as really being the hero on the front of pack. because at the end of the day, like our products are not made in a lab. We literally have taken all of our chef inspired recipes and brought it to frozen. So I wanted to make sure that the food is what you see first when you look at the packaging to really, you know, invite people in and let them know that, yes, it's frozen.
46:23Vanessa Phillips:Yes, you can find it at your local grocery store, but like you are going to have a food experience like it is going to be culinary. And also, you know, none of our stuff, it's not, I mean, a lot of it, like you kind of do feel like you're eating out at home. It's a treat, right? So I wanted to, you know, the packaging to really reflect that. And the recipes themselves too, has that changed over time? Either you're following customer preferences or following sales trends, which are a reflection of that. Were there things that were working at the beginning that you've changed course on? Or have you found sort of like really steady, reliable recipes, too, that have almost never changed?
47:04Vanessa Phillips:Yeah, we don't really change recipes. I think the potstickers, when we first first launched, I mean, years and years and years ago, I think that maybe a little bit from when we first launched in 27 Whole Foods with scale. But in a good way, I think they got better because we became more efficient and we learned how to make it more like a traditional pot sticker. But that just came with just spending a lot of time overseas and really studying pot stickers. And I think that was probably the most challenging launch ever. Crazy food science, you know. So maybe our recipes have changed, I would think, for the better.
47:46Vanessa Phillips:But no, we've never like radically changed anything. thing. I think that we just spend a lot of time up front really working on creating delicious food that when we launch it, we know people are going to love. I mean, I can actually, I can't think of a better note to wrap it up on than that. Delicious food that you think or know people will love is like the whole, it's the whole ballgame. Thank you for sharing so much about the story. I just, I love the origin of it all. I love how you ground it out. And I'm so enthusiastic about the success that you found and just a really big fan and customer.
48:24So it's fun to meet the woman behind the show.
48:28Vanessa Phillips:Thank you. Thanks for having me. This was so fun. And yeah, it was a great conversation. Thank you. Take care. Bye. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Commerce is Chaos. If you're listening, I have a feeling you know just how much good at leaving a five-star review can do for a team. Drop us a review on Apple Podcasts and subscribe to Commerce's Chaos wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to subscribe to our sub stack, also called Commerce's Chaos, for more good stuff and actionable tools to build your business.
From the publisher
Vanessa Phillips is the Founder and CEO of Feel Good Foods, the #1 natural frozen snack and appetizer brand in the country. Her dad owned Chinese restaurants in New York City, and after a celiac diagnosis pulled her out of the hospitality career she'd always pictured for herself, she started making and and delivering gluten-free lasagnas.
From there, she opened Friedman's in Chelsea Market, using the restaurant as a place to figure out what actually tasted good to a real, paying crowd. When she was ready to go bigger, she mailed Whole Foods a Ziploc bag of homemade dumplings packed in dry ice, no meeting, no formal packaging, just a lot of belief. They said yes to 27 stores, and she spent the next four months showing up in person twice a day to demo the product herself.
That scrappy start is now a company with 30 SKUs in nearly 25,000 stores nationwide, and about three out of four customers buying Feel Good Foods purely because it tastes good (with gluten-free as a bonus!).
🔧 Founder Conviction Without Credentials — Mailing a retailer a prototype with no packaging, no meeting, and no track record, and being right anyway
📊 Restaurant as Live Test Kitchen — Using Friedman's as a real, paying testing ground for recipes before they became a CPG line
🤝 Ground-Level Retail Launch — Turning a small store count into real trial through months of showing up and demoing in person
⚙️ Packaging as an Operations Fix — Solving a freezer-fog visibility problem with a full rebrand, while protecting the one element doing the selling
📈 Category Expansion Discipline — Deciding when a new occasion, like breakfast, is worth the investment and when an idea stays shelved
🎯 Mainstreaming a Specialty Brand — Winning taste-first shoppers who make up most of the customer base without losing the original community
Whether you're building a brand out of personal necessity, launching into retail with no leverage, or figuring out how to take a specialty product mainstream, Vanessa's story is a fun, ground-level look at what it actually takes to turn a category-defining allergen-specific brand into something everyone just wants to eat.
Perfect for: Allergen-specific and better-for-you CPG founders, frozen and cold-chain operators, DTC-to-mass-retail builders, category repositioning strategists
Guest: Vanessa Phillips — Founder & CEO, Feel Good Foods
Host: Samantha Rose — Managing Partner, Hologram Capital & Founder, Endless Commerce
This episode was recorded live and is part of our series on operational frameworks that drive real business results. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.