Laoban

0:00Welcome to the Emerging Brands podcast. Sharing the stories behind brands you'll want to shop next. I'm your host, Kelly Bennett. I am a New York City-based brand strategist for CPG food and beverage brands. In each episode, I'll take you behind the scenes of founders that are building better for you products and bringing them to market. it. Also, I talk to brand builders, retailers, industry experts, and tastemakers who help bring those cool products to your shopping cart. You will hear stories of real-life founders, their launch strategies, and practical advice you could use to grow your own brand or simply discover what's next on shelf.

0:42And the best part is you could shop all the brands featured on the show. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator-powered retail activations. They're 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. Now, let's dive into the new episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. Today, we're diving into the freezer aisle of the grocery store, which I find as a really interesting space because it's been a little dusty and a little old for a while, but there's some really cool brands that are innovating in the frozen aisle.

1:42And I have Patrick Coyne. He's the founder and CEO of Laoban, and we're going to dive into the brand he is building with his co-founder, Tim. So Patrick, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

1:57Patrick Coyne:Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. You're so welcome. So let's start off with the opportunity you saw in this space. Like you said, it could be kind of boring or people think it's not as quality product that you could find in Frozen. Yeah. I would love to hear what was happening behind the scenes when you came up with the original concept. Yeah, we've had kind of a roundabout path to this point. So we started out actually as a restaurant, like a little dumpling shop in Washington, D.C. Very cool. Yeah. So that's how we kind of first started out about eight years ago. The initial inspiration came from teaching English in China.

2:40Patrick Coyne:There was a dumpling shop outside my school that I just loved hanging out in. uh we called the guy that ran it lauban which means boss so it's kind of like an homage to that guy and that experience um so yeah this was at the time like in washington dc you had like sweet green and kava and these places kind of coming up and so yeah our original idea was like let's do you know kind of like a chinese street food version of like sweet green essentially um Um, and so we started down that path, uh, Tim Ma and I, my co-founder, um, opened a bunch of locations and then in the pandemic kind of had the opportunity to like catch our breath a little bit from like opening more locations, uh, and kind of took a look around and said, you know, there's kind of the same opportunity in frozen food as we've been seeing, like on the brick and mortar restaurant side where like it's kind of due for a refresh, um, and like kind of bringing the same approach with just better flavor, better ingredients, kind of that like modern brand approach to things.

3:43Patrick Coyne:Yeah, so that's kind of how we got started. And yeah, I mean, we saw that opportunity where like, there hadn't been a lot of excitement, you know, in that space for quite some time. Yes. So do you still have the brick and mortars now? We still have one inside Union Market, which is the big food hall here in DC. very cool so at the essential launch pad of how you were figuring out what products to go to market in the frozen space yeah for sure so that was like the testing ground right so we had like those years of feedback of like making the food serving it to people and like getting the feedback instantaneously um like right in front of us so yeah for us that was like you know a really good way to like work out the products, the recipes, like what people liked, what they didn't like, how to even talk about the product.

4:33Patrick Coyne:Like when someone walks up, you know, you have like four seconds of their attention. So like you really get kind of the key talking points and key selling points down. So yeah, that was kind of how we initially like figured out what people liked really. Very cool. And so you have a co-founder and how did that then create the brand itself? yeah so he's the the culinary talent um he's a like classically trained chef um so yeah he had been a chef in dc for a long time and had more like fine dining type restaurants um so like five-time michelin awarded um but he also uh comes from a family of chinese restaurateurs um his uncle paul had this kind of legendary chinese restaurant in new york in the 70s and 80s um and there's actually an exhibit in the smithsonian american history museum about tim with his uncle Paul um so yeah Tim has yeah super cool he's right next to Julia Child's kitchen and uh the Goya family so they're between those two icons um yeah so Tim is the culinary partner so yeah he kind of brings that like culinary approach to things in terms of like how we're building the flavor um like seasoning like in layers um and the way that we you know started making things like it's the way that he makes in the kitchen and so we've maintained that same approach as we've kind of scaled on the cpg side of like still using the same ingredients the same process as much as we can and like maintaining that quality and that kind of like technique i guess um and so that's i think been maybe a key difference that we're not like designing this industrial process where it's like how do we make a million dumplings this shift and then like optimize whatever it's more like this is how we make it in the kitchen let's maintain that same approach as we scale the chef crafted and his background in culinary did catch my attention too because to me that's a very clear differentiator especially i think in frozen where again usually the very quick assessment is like oh it can't be that good or right quality right and so i think it's really clever how you all have brought a product like that to market and then also leveraging brick and mortar to then create a product into cp yeah what was your background i know that you mentioned teaching chinese uh sorry teaching english in china which yeah definitely not teaching chinese yeah yeah yeah well i i taught english in china too oh really I need to brush up a lot on my Chinese, but that experience was super life-changing for myself as well.

7:16Patrick Coyne:Where were you in China? Sorry, what part of China? Oh, no, Sichuan in the Chong. Oh, fun. Yeah, yeah. Super cool. So definitely opened my world color-wise and just in all the ways, but food was such a huge part of that experience. So I have such a deep place in my heart for, for culinary coming from China there. I think also just in general, it's such a vast experience and just Northern China to Southern China. I guess Chengdu in particular, right. It's such a different experience. So yeah, I could talk about that for hours, but what was your background? Yeah. Starting the brand. Yeah, so definitely not in food at all, or even like consumer.

8:06Patrick Coyne:So yeah, this, my time in China was right after college. So after that, I came back and worked in like, management consulting and like venture capital investing. So yeah, things nothing related to food or consumer, but had always wanted to start something. And I kind of had that experience in the back of my head. And so that was ultimately was like the inspiration that I kind of drew from. Very cool. And so when you were starting to realize, okay, we've done brick and mortar, we've done, you caught your breath during COVID, which was a big reset button for so many of us. What was the strategy as far as now getting into retail, which is a whole different beast.

8:48I also was a partner of a restaurant too. That world was so different from CPG at times.

8:55Patrick Coyne:Yes, yes. What was your strategy getting this product into people's hands? Yeah, I mean, I think at the start, it was just like we couldn't sit still, right? So it's like from the start, we were doing like takeout and delivery and like curbside pickup. And we were making meal kits. And so we naturally just started throwing frozen dumplings into Ziploc bags. And so that was just like how we kind of got started was like, let's just, you know, keep like keep moving. and just kind of adapt for like the current situation. But yeah, with like our products in particular, there's a lot of stuff that has to happen.

9:34Patrick Coyne:So since there's meat in it, it has to be USDA inspected. So that was like a whole process of getting like the regulatory sides set up, getting all the packaging like designed, made, like figuring out who makes packaging, right? Like where do you even go to to like get pouches made? So yeah, just kind of like figuring that stuff out, like asking friends asking other people we knew like in the business in the industry um and then yeah it just started with like me loading up a cooler in the back of my car and like driving around dc to these local grocery stores just like walking in and asking them if they wanted to start buying them um and yeah so it's kind of just how it got started was like from the ziploc bags to the packaging driving around eventually like driving to baltimore to richmond virginia eventually driving up to New York, which was harrowing, like AC turned all the way up, like with frozen food, you don't want to.

10:29Patrick Coyne:Yeah, so like driving as fast as I could up 95. And then yeah, so just like kind of just going, just like starting, right? Like just throwing things in a car and driving and talking to people and selling like door to door, essentially. Was the fact that you started from restaurant to CPG catching retail buyers attention? Was that something they found as a differentiator or was it more so the chef crafted I would just love to hear what was really yeah your attention I think it was I think it was kind of everything like I do think people were looking for stuff like this like I think you know as we were talking about before like there hadn't been a lot of innovation or like new products in this type of in like in this category in frozen food for a long time and so I think people were already kind of looking out for like oh what's just like a modern approach to like frozen food or dumplings or whatever so i think that was a big part of it i think our our first version of the packaging was very very different um it was in these kind of like pastel colors and didn't have any photography and like the um the type was very small so it was like extremely different from anything else that was out there that people had seen and so i think there was like a natural curiosity like oh yeah this is different like let's give this a shot and then I think the fact that we had like the restaurant and Tim's background I think it all kind of like contributed um but yeah I think like by and large people were kind of ready for something like this and so um like a lot of the early you know conversations like people just kind of got it right away and then a lot of those early stores like we sold a lot a lot of dumplings um I think more than we could have ever imagined.

12:11So they were seeing, okay, people are gravitating towards this. They're rebuying it. And I'm sure that then really piqued their attention. And they started seeing a product move. Something that you just mentioned of your packaging, how when you first started, there was no photography on it. It was small. It just looked very different to what your packaging is today what has been the shifts or what lessons learned yeah in making sure that maybe the communication is clear or just that next layer of people who maybe don't have the same awareness of the brick and mortars I would love to hear more about yeah yeah for sure I know is on a lot of

12:55Patrick Coyne:founders minds yeah and it's like been like um I think I guess more targeted like to the purpose So in the early going, like when we were first getting started, like, I think the point was to really stand out and to really like accentuate the differences. And so I think that that first version really accomplished that of like not having any pictures. Like there was nothing else in Frozen 2 that didn't have a picture or wasn't like clear and see through and you could see the product. um and so it was um it worked for people who were willing to invest in curiosity like people who were willing to walk up uh to a shelf pick something up like read the front read the back like consider it right and then put it in their carts and so like that was really good in that early phase where we were in like the foxtrots and the central markets and met markets and like even up to like the point where we were in Whole Foods, where you had shoppers who were willing to invest in that curiosity, like they had a natural curiosity when walking through the grocery store, which is like why they're in those types of stores.

14:01Patrick Coyne:And then as we like shifted more to like, the targets and the Walmarts of the world where you don't have the same like, level of curiosity or willingness, and it has to be more like, you know, you're communicating what it is and sparking like appetite appeal in like two seconds. Then I think we've had to kind of shift how the packaging communicates. And so that's really like where the big shift happened. What has been some lessons learned that you mentioned Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, these are dream retailers for so many founders listening to this podcast. I would love to hear your insight in making those shifts from startup ziploc bag yeah being in those major retailers yeah i mean i think a big part of it is just like uh knowing that you're not going to get it right and being open to the process of learning and improving um like i think a lot of times the impulse is like oh we're not gonna we're not gonna launch we're not gonna start until everything's like perfect or until everything's like lined up right and like that almost never happens and in our in our case it's like we just need to kind of get started and like know that we're going to get things wrong but like figure out what we're getting wrong and what we're getting right and so like do more of the things that we're getting right and fix the things that we're getting wrong um and so yeah i think that's been like the approach all along is like we probably started in Walmart, you know, before we were ready, in quotes, but like who is ever ready.

15:40And so I think it's more just like doing, getting ourselves as ready as we could be.

15:45Patrick Coyne:And then like keeping a really, really close eye on, again, what's working, what's not, and how do we fix things as quickly as possible? What has been some things that you learned, say, going from the foxtrot to the Walmart's of just about shopping behavior or messaging that really spoke to consumers? Yeah, I think, and we were just talking about this the other day, like, the number one piece of feedback or question or like type of communication that we get is always like, what's the best way to prepare these at home? Like, how do I cook these at home? Like, I tried it this way. Is there a better way?

16:20Patrick Coyne:And so I think we've been really keyed in on just like the overall user experience, like the customer experience of bringing it home, cooking it and eating it, and making that as like simple, straightforward, rule proof as possible. Like the widest tolerance of like, I cooked it for three minutes versus five, but it still came out okay. Or, you know, like really designing around that in-home user experience, I think is how we've improved the overall like brand experience over time. Consistency too, right? Because that type of consumer, I would say probably who are in Target, Walmart, Whole Foods probably too, families, they want something consistent, tried and true, not reinventing the wheel, putting something frozen also to save time by and large.

17:12So that makes sense, that leaning into the experience of it being foolproof, that yeah, that totally makes sense. Has there been any other lessons learned of just going from restaurant to CPG?

17:26Patrick Coyne:Oh my God, so many, yeah. I think, I mean, for us, it was like, that was a really good way to start, like to do the restaurants first and then go into CPG just because restaurants are really hard and there's like always things going wrong and there's like a million points of failure every single day. And so I think like starting in that way where you like almost have the assumption that like something's going to go wrong something major is going to go wrong a lot of minor things going to go wrong every day and so it's just like you build that kind of mindset that mentality of like i'm just going to roll with the punches because i know so many things are going to go wrong like our delivery is not going to show up this morning and so we're not going to have like chicken right so we have to like figure out how are we going to get chicken are we going to how are we going to like whatever tailor the menu today because we didn't get that delivery.

18:22Patrick Coyne:And so I think, yeah, starting that way and just having that kind of built-in mentality of like, we're going to roll with the punches. We're going to always make the best of the situation. Like it's never going to be perfect. I think has suited us really well. Again, like just in terms of like having that, that like test and learn that like make the best of it approach. Very cool. Last question, where can you stop your dumplings? yeah so i think the easiest place for folks go to laobandumplings.com laobandumplings with an s dot com and then go to our store locator and it'll show you what like where the closest store is to you but whole foods nationwide sprouts uh target walmart um depending on where you are costco and then all the awesome independent local grocery stores the places like met market central market new seasons.

19:13Patrick Coyne:Like we just love those types of stores and we're by and large in all those stores. So incredible. Well, congratulations on growing and expanding and being in all the top retail dreams. And thank you again for sharing your story. Yeah. Thank you so much, Kelly. We'll have to catch up on Sichuan another time. Yes, please. I would love that. 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.

20:06Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you. Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Emerging Brands Podcast. It really means so much to me that you listen to this show, share it with your friends and support it. Before I wrap up, I just wanted to give a shout out to a few brands I want you to keep an eye out for that I'm working with. First up is She's the Sauce. She just launched her pre-orders sold out, which is incredible. This is a new protein pack fiber-filled sauce line starting with a creamy ranch and honey mustard skews. It's made without seed oils, gums, fillers, so it's a cleaner, better-for-you option that tastes incredible.

20:54Next is Cotto, a new cottage cheese dip that's reimagining the classics in a modern way. Then we have Nomi, which is a better for kids brand, making mealtime way easier. Next, we have Frankly Good Coffee, who is expanding in food service and specialty retail, bringing their air roasted, small batch, unique blends to more people. And I'm kicking off brand strategies for a new pudding brand, ready to drink beverage, and a baking brand and a few more in the works that I'm really excited to share about soon. If you are a CPG food and beverage founder and you're ready to launch a brand, people wanna shop, head to withkellybennett.com for the details.

21:41And as always, thank you so much for listening, shopping the brands featured on the show and following brands I'm working with. It means so much. See you on the next episode.