Gelée

0:00Zoe Messinger:Welcome to the Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. This is the podcast to discover stories behind your new favorite CPG brands. Each episode brings you behind the scenes of the brand and founder story, learn what sets them apart in the marketplace, and their strategy going to market. We talk about plans for growth, practical advice for an emerging brand founder, and where to shop products that are making waves in food, beverage, wellness, beauty, and beyond. You'll also hear from industry experts, brand builders, investors, and operators you should absolutely have on your radar if you're building a CPG brand today.

0:44Zoe Messinger:I'm your host, Kelly Bennett, a Brooklyn-based brand strategist with a front row seat of what makes an emerging CPG brand stand out. Whether you're building a brand of your own or love supporting what's next, you're in the right place. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator-powered retail activations. They are connecting everyday creators with CPG brands to generate shelf-level awareness, drive in-store momentum, and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most. Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you.

1:29Zoe Messinger:Now, let's dive into the new episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. Today, I have the founder of Gelee, which is this stunning product that's been on my Instagram. I've saved it to mood boards so many times. Zoe Messenger, she is the founder and CEO. Zoe, I'm so happy that you're on the podcast today. Thank you, Kelly. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. You're so welcome. So for anyone who isn't familiar yet with your brand and your very cool product, can you give us an overview of what makes this different? Yeah. Gelee, I mean, in its simplest, is Jell-O reimagined for the body, brain, and spirit.

2:22it. Using principles of bone broth, the ancient wisdom of collagen and gelatin, mixed with the modern alchemy of creation, luminosity, and harmony, I would say. Um, but really like added simplest it's, it's jello in a completely different lens inspired by 16th century gelatin, which was the medicine of the times. um so it's using really um high quality grass-fed pasture-raised beef gelatin and a few other ingredients like apple cider vinegar freeze-dried fruit powders that still have all of their integrity and all of the vitamins and minerals uh and creating a a jelly like jello

3:28Zoe Messinger:jello uh with no added sugar and it's beautiful also it really is stunning I was going through your product photos just yesterday and I'm like wow I've never seen jello look so stunning and it's very artistic and contemporary and I just love your lens so before we dive so much back into the actual product, I think it would be great to give people a sense of your background because when I was also reading about your background, connecting the dots to the product I was seeing, I was like, oh, this totally makes sense. So can you walk us through your career prior to starting the brand and then what made you want to make the leap into founder CPG land?

4:17Totally. Well, at first, I would say, above all, I'm an artist. And I've always been fixated on the process of creation and creating something from nothing and the world as a canvas, right? And looking for that canvas. Instead of going to art school, I ended up going to business and hospitality school at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. And I focused in food and beverage. And when I graduated, I moved to Europe and I ran a food truck in Milan and Amsterdam. And then I moved to LA and again, torn in what direction to go, I ended up cooking in restaurants. And I, my first big job was at Kismet, which was a really eye-opening job.

5:09I had cooked in restaurants prior but this was this was a real as an adult young adult restaurant job uh for sarah kramer and sarah hymanson and their roots in the culinary world were pretty amazing you know working for dan barber and the dining group marlo and sons and so the vegetable centric uh female run kitchen experience and also cooking for an amazing pastry chef there and learning under her. And then I went to Friedman's with Liz Johnson and helped open that up. I was on the opening team and that was another whirlwind of an experience because there was maybe like three cooks all day, kind of five.

5:55So we did everything like prep and it was a full immersion and a really like intimate mentee mentor kind of container. She had worked at Noma and many other places around the world. And I feel like I got a really in-depth training.

6:21Zoe Messinger:Okay, all of those experiences also sound like movies in the sense of like the adventure and graduating college and taking the leap and moving to Europe and having a food truck and then moving to LA and all the restaurants you just mentioned. What was that vision that you had at that time of why those certain projects? I know that you're very much an artist and you could see that as a through line, but what was for you the bigger picture that you were working towards and what you were wanting to experience? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think there's like twofold. So first, I grew up in a really food driven household.

7:07My mom and my parents are both very artistic, but also business minded. And my mom went to Berkeley, like in the late 70s was a photographer and a press photographer and ended up catching the first iconic picture. I say iconic because truly this photo is iconic. You can Google it. She took the first picture of Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower at Chez Panisse when they opened Chez Panisse. And I have the chills. No, I have the chills too, because it truly, and I've said it before, but it really provided this kind of behind the scenes blueprint for my entire life. like this intimate connection to witnessing the artist, witnessing, you know, because Alice was the artist and Jeremiah, they were, they were, she was also, she is the chef, but like there was this synergy of art meaning culinary and, and also this, this love that lives in the kitchen and love exuded from your soul into what you eat.

8:12And that I'll get into that with Gillet, but like that, That's really my philosophy on life and my philosophy and my brand and infusing that soul and spirit.

8:26Zoe Messinger:What a cool connection too that your mom took that iconic photo. And I truly felt – I got the goosebumps when you said that. I mean, these are icons in our space. She didn't know, right? And that was the beginning. We didn't know who Alice was going to go on to book out. Jeremiah working at Starz in San Francisco. Like these are all things that happened before their time. And then also, food to me has always been a meditation. Working with my hands. I'm a really tactile person. like when you were talking about dyslexia I feel like in school I I was always a good student but I was the class clown I was a goof because I couldn't focus because I wasn't working with my hands and I'm a really physical like I need to be touching earth touching things creating touching the paintbrush touching the plate whatever my canvas may be and I knew that I wanted to cook.

9:40I wasn't sure what that meant. Like if I was going to have a restaurant or a farm to table place off the grid one day, which maybe will still happen. Or if that meant I was creating artistic things with food-based ingredients, or if that really meant like working for chef's table in production and writing and being around food. But I knew that that was pretty core to my DNA.

10:11Zoe Messinger:Right. So how did you land on gelatin? Because I'm obsessed also. I really am seeing this as like a cool Netflix series of a culinary experience and art. um what made you land on gelatin and wanting to also okay we'll start with gelatin I have so many follow-up questions I'm so intrigued by this story uh what what got you there yeah it's a it's a man we could talk for hours about this but really like the inception before what I would even tell most people the inception is, is 15 years ago, before anybody understood bone broth, I was living in Europe and I was like trying to reset my body. And I was saving bones and cooking down stocks and making bone broth.

11:08And Mark of Conora of Brodo and Hearth opened up his window and I was obsessed with it. And I was like, I was telling my boyfriend at the time, like, this is genius. Like he's so ahead of the curve. He's a disruptor. Like he understands that collagen and, and these amino acids can like totally regulate your blood sugar and your, you know, and reduce inflammation and all the things and like reduce your, your sugar intake, whatever. I was kind of fixated that I was going to go to LA and open a bone broth window because nobody had done it. And he said, wow, that's a big, maybe, you know, like, are you sure you're ready.

11:48And then I thought, okay, I'll start cooking in restaurants. And I still was ruminating on this idea of bone broth, even though it's always sunny and hot in LA. I was like, there is room. This is before Erewhon was making bone broth.

11:59Zoe Messinger:Yes. And before anybody was packaging bone broth. So I've always been obsessed with the basis of gelatin, right? At its simplest form, which that is bone broth. If you put bone broth in the fridge, it becomes gelatin. and yellow as most people are familiar with it from the 1960s the American eye is not gelatin it's a host of and you know food dyes and weird things that are stabilizing it to create a jelly like thing which also I'm obsessed with jelly like texture I'm obsessed with texture I've always loved jelly, like Taiwanese jelly candies and goo and gummy mouthfeels. Um, but, um, so, so that, that is the beginning.

12:52And then really what happened was kind of a, a whole like holistic crash of my system. It was COVID, right before COVID, around COVID.

13:09Zoe Messinger:I was going through a lot of life changes. Everybody was, obviously. My nervous system was feeling dysregulated. Everything just wasn't quite in harmony. And I've always believed and know to be true that food and the earth is medicine and that humans and we are unbelievably astonishing beings truly like when you think of what we are created of and made of and the things that the human body and mind can do um it's pretty it's pretty breathtaking honestly when you when you let go of like what the world thinks and like diets and fads and what everybody else thinks, which is getting to my another topic that's important to me, which is intuition and understanding that when you trust yourself, you can heal and like rebalance.

14:08It's quite powerful. And I I basically went on a journey of recalibrating body, mind, and soul using the amazing natural elements of Mother Nature and the body and the sun, the moon, the stars, bone broth, really good ingredients. um touching earth and using my hands and sinking my whole system in this really kind of sacred container where it was almost like an electrician right like a like red and blue wires that are crossed and they weren't using and it was me trying to block out all the noise um and listening to my internal dialogue and re rewiring them. Yeah. And what was born out of that was, uh, it was summer.

15:14I was going back to LA, uh, and I had been connected to somebody that was part of this keto company wanting me to consult on, on something. And they were playing around with, making like sugar-free gelatin infused things for celebrities and producers. And, and I started ruminating on bone broth and, and, and, you know, if you were to freeze dry the bones and if the bones were ground and wow, that's gelatin. And it's not quite, it's not collagen. It's actually a really highly absorbable form of that. And I basically started, I opened in my alchemy den. And I had all these scales. I mean, I looked legit like a drug dealer.

16:07I had all these drug scales and all these white powers. And I was playing around with creating fruit forward, delicious snacks that could be a tool in your recalibration and in your life to find that luminosity and that strength within. Very cool.

16:27Zoe Messinger:So taking all of that really like deep rooted, beautiful visualization of the brand, what was your strategy of making that palatable or digestible, recognizable quickly for a consumer, right? Because that's the fine line in CPG versus say like a culinary brick and mortar type of experience to say CPG, you have to kind of put it in clear parameters. I would love to hear how you are or your strategy high level of getting this product into people's hands and having them understand, okay, this is sure like a Jell-O like product, but it's different. I would love to hear what your point of view of going about that?

17:18Yeah. Well, first I want to challenge a perspective that maybe a lot of your listeners have and a lot of founders that relate to their product, but I don't consider Gillet a CPG product.

17:31Zoe Messinger:Oh, okay. Like it is, but it's maybe my perspective and relationship with it that has guided me and the way I have been building this brand. I have a really intimate connection with it and I lead with art and I lead with soul and I lead with with expressing the brand through that lens um even though at its core it is CPG but I think that I kind of all along wanted to flip that perspective on its head and lead with beauty and and healing and the simple form that it is that can be so complex or so simple. It really has, I always say Jalé is your manic pixie dream girl. It can be anything you can infuse it with Mezcal.

18:21You can infuse it with psilocybin. You could put chlorophyll in it or magnesium to sleep, or you could just have it played. I mean, it's, it's a canvas for my expression, your expression, whoever wants to be expressing within it. But I knew that it was avant-garde and experimental and a little bit before its time, though I think I hit right on the wagon of this gelatin revolution. Right. But I think it took, that was a pretty intense deep dive into finding the right partner to help me take this really disruptive product and make it palatable and figure out how to brand it. So after a lot of exploration, I ended up working with Roanne Adams of Row & Co, who is really special and significant to me.

19:31And we did a deep dive with her. She's a small team and on figuring out how to bring this to market. And there were so many different directions it could have gone. You know, I think it was, is this a little store where you're picking out your powders and your teas and you're creating a take-home jar where you're like infusing like this kind of modern medicine world, which still might happen. Or is this in a big moon juice-like jar that it's bulk and it's almost like flour sold in bins? Or is this a beautiful, you know, single serve? and I remember the moment which was really close to the end of this of like jolet is almost ready to to it was getting you know about to be manufactured and it hit me like oh my god I think I have to reimagine the box the jello box from the 1960s because that is that the that america knows jello right like that is something that they'll relate to in right and but they won't they won't be scared by what i'm putting out there they'll understand it but they'll still have intrigue and roanne and i had talked and she was super sure that we should showcase gelet on the box.

21:06Um, just, you know, like jello is, and I wanted to do it in my lens of art and modern luminosity. And so I, I photographed the bunts with a photographer and styled them. I, I style all my shoots and, um, it was pretty amazing. And we got these bunch shots and they felt like like little pieces of art that would sit on the sculpture of MoMA

21:34Zoe Messinger:PS1 and totally it looks like sculptures of art I absolutely got that reference so for you what is your lens of growing because when did it uh hit market so I launched last August 8-8 on the Lionsgate portal. That was like the official. Oh my gosh, of course. Feels very on brand. I love that. Yeah. Leia the Leo in full force. I love it. So it's been just a year. It's been just a year, although I have been working on it and doing events with Gelee for a year plus. I had a pop-up in LA called Hot Tart that I started during COVID. And I was making these one-off pastries. I'm also a writer and I was selling serialized chapters of a serialized murder mystery that I would sell with my tarts.

22:37So the first was a Basque cheesecake. I baked actually like 80 of them out of my little bungalow. I thought I was going to burn it down. And people would, I wanted to Creek community. So my family would come pick it up on my lawn and then they'd get their story and I'd wax seal it. It was really fun. And I had taken a long gap when I was home in Pennsylvania during COVID and kind of creating Jalé and went back to LA. And it was Valentine's Day, maybe two years ago, I think. And I did a Campari spritz Jell-O mold.

23:12Zoe Messinger:Ooh. And I floated it. That sounds delicious. I floated Harry's berries, strawberries and marigold flowers in it. And I borrowed my like all my neighbors on the block their refrigerators because I didn't have it because I did these giant jello mold cakes. And I and that was kind of it blew up. And that was when I knew I had something really powerful. And then the next while I was working on Gelee, I ended up doing an event for the Biennale in Venice, Italy at the Gritty Palace where I floated. I've always done these experiential edible art and gelatin experiences since I guess since that pop up.

23:59And I floated an entire aperitivo in Gillet at the Gritty Palace for the Venice glass week because Gillet looks like glass. And I worked with an artist and we put on this amazing – like I did a prosciutto and melon where I made a jelly melon.

24:18Zoe Messinger:Oh, my gosh. I need to look up photos of this. Yeah, there's a lot of photos. I shot with a dear friend and an amazing photographer named Paolo Abate and he's Italian. And it was one of those situations where I dropped into his DMs and I was like, I absolutely love your work. I'm doing this crazy event, very avant-garde. I speak a little Italian because I live there. So we were chatting in Venice. I wonder if you'd be curious. You know, like I never thought in a million years would this guy respond. And he was so intrigued by it. He came over. He shot the event and all on his iPhone and videos.

24:55That's his style. And we became – he's a great dear friend. And now we have a relationship, a really special one. And it was amazing. It was amazing. So cool.

25:08Zoe Messinger:I know I have to let you go because we're at time. but I want to make sure that I capture what piece of advice you would share with someone who is creating something that is different, that is really that artistic lens, and they're creating a product. What piece of advice have you learned of helping you in creating that product to go to market and explaining it, but also staying true what it sounds like very much is important of staying true to your creative artistic roots. I would love to hear any piece of advice you would share with someone. I mean, the first thing that came up when you said that is really, really listening to and sticking to your intuition.

26:04There are so many decisions you have to make when you start and run a company. It's like most of my exhaustion comes from decision fatigue. And there's so many perspectives. But if you are creating something that you feel is important, and in my case, like this is not just because it's a good idea. This is because I want to help people. I want to infuse the world with something that creates joy and play and is good for you and makes you feel good. And because I'm so connected to my creation, I think you gotta, like, no matter all the voices, it's like, you have to stick to your intuition and, and get clear on, on, and from the beginning, I would say, though I've, I've gotten so overwhelmed with things, I really have had a clear vision.

27:01And I sat down and I remember my first conversation with Roanne and Ro and co. And I sat in the room and it was, I knew it was the right, the right person to work with because we sat down and we did a guided meditation and then a journaling of my vision. And I wrote it down. I still, I could literally, I'm actually, ironically, my book, my computer is sitting on my big journal. Hold on. I'm going to show you this because it's really funny that I wrote my vision in.

27:29Zoe Messinger:Okay. Perfect. is underneath your computer underneath my computer and I wrote this this whole world of gelée like narnia like the way I imagined it then was opening this door into this lush green world where you walk down and your feet were on the earth and like vines of wild roses were going around you and there were springboards of gelatin like I truly wrote this down and I I don't think it's that far off. No. Well, thank you so much, Zoe, for sharing your time and insight. I'll put a link in the show notes of where people can shop the product. And I just appreciate you so much. This was really a great conversation.

28:15Zoe Messinger:It's so fun. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you, everyone, for listening. And I'll see you on the next episode. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator powered retail activations they are connecting everyday creators with cpg brands to generate shelf level awareness drive in-store momentum and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know i sent you if you're new here hi i'm kelly bennett a brooklyn based brand strategist working with first time CPG food and beverage founders.

29:00Zoe Messinger:I have a front row seat of what makes an emerging CPG brand stand out because you're not just building a product, you are building a brand. And you want to make sure that is one that consumers love and retailers remember. That's where I come in. I've recently advised brands like Frankly Good Coffee, She's a sauce, a new non-alcoholic cocktail line that's coming to market soon, and a hormone-conscious deodorant because food-adjacent brands count too. If you are bringing a new product to market, please reach out at withkellybennett.com. Thank you so much for listening and sharing. You can follow me on Instagram at withkellybennett, and you can follow the show at Emerging Brands Podcast.