Nice Cans

0:00Charlotte Langley:Welcome 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.

0:42Charlotte Langley:And 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, I have Charlotte Langley.

1:27Charlotte Langley:She is the CEO and founder of NiceCans and genuinely someone I love following online. So I'm super excited, Charlotte, to finally have you on the podcast and talk all things NiceCans. Oh, well, it is my absolute pleasure to be here. and nice to be face-to-face with you finally. We've been chatting through all the different channels and doing mutual digital parties, so it's nice to see you. Yeah, it's nice to see you too. We are going to dive into Tin Fish, and this is a category I'm personally curious about. I was vegan for 15 years, like hardcore, but I started to my diet, and I genuinely feel better, so I've been so curious about Tin Fish.

2:15Charlotte Langley:Your product really stood out to me with the flavor profiles and how easy it was to make a delicious dinner with just like popping open a can. I was like, oh God, I can do this. Yes, you can. Yes. And so I would love to hear going back a little bit, what was the idea around Nice Cans and what did you want to do differently in this space that is consistently growing, but also was such a sleepy category for so long? Great question to start. Also, I find it super interesting because, you know, it was a sleepy category. And before I started Nolice Cans, I launched another brand called Scout Canning, which was acquired in 2023.

2:59So I've been an expert in this field for a while.

3:02Charlotte Langley:Yeah, super fans, which still exists in some way, shape or form across America and some certain locations. But I started that company in 2014 before canned anything was even considered sexy, delicious, or interesting. And it's sort of funny because you say like, what makes nice cans different? Or what like puts like, how did nice cans become to be, come to be? And I was going, okay, after Scout was acquired in 2023, I kind of sat back and I went, I'm not done in this category. Something is missing. And for me, defining like the sticky spot for me was in the why nice cans came to my market or came to market or came to be was there are so many cans out there that aren't delicious.

3:44And I say that like just very bluntly. A lot of product that we consume in the market is mass, right? It's made for mass grocery. It's made for mass export import product. It's not focused on the quality or the integrity of the ingredients. And as a chef first, like my background is culinary. I've been a chef for, feels like forever, but anyway, you know, I wanted to really focus on the quality of every single ingredient in the tin and balancing unique flavors. And I was like, you know what? It's not just delicious. It's boldly delicious and it's fun and it's cheeky and it carries all like the brand sexiness, sassiness personality that it needs to be in market these days.

4:20But the foundation of it beyond the environmental and ecosystem scenario that we can talk about later is it's absolutely delicious. Like number one, I was like, what's your brand differentiator? You know, you get that on questions all the time, I'm a pitch deck or what makes you unique. I'm like, taste it. Like literally taste it.

4:38Charlotte Langley:And I had your product seated at a launch dinner that I curated with all really cool CPG brands. And genuinely, I had people come up to me and they said, oh, because they hadn't tried it yet. And I was really blown away with the flavors. They wanted to know more. And then also people were like oh she's behind scout like she was any gossip yeah they thought it was like really cool again it was like all cpg insider industry friends and they thought it was really cool that you had this new brand coming to market and really the flavor was was a big talk of of people experiencing it well thank you i'm really i'm really glad to hear that it's always important to have people like peers validate you like you know peer peer rapport is very important and um the guy who's doing reviews on my right now um tin fish with tyler uh he's amazing and he was like girl it feels like you've been cooking over the stove all day long and then i just cracked it open and like you know it welcomed me into my home like it was a scenario of you can taste the care that went into the back end of the like r &d the recipe development and it took me a long time to get to hone those in to make it chef's kiss perfect and speaking of chef's kiss your background you are yeah you're brilliant I'm a chef and you are currently on top chef Canada yes top chef Canada launched two days ago or Wednesday whatever or they launched on October 14th as I was prepping for today I'm like holy shit that was a perfect timing like how cool is that and I know before we were pressing record, you were sharing a little bit more about that.

6:27Charlotte Langley:So I would love if you could touch upon your culinary background and also how, I mean, we have to talk about being on Top Chef. Well, yeah, of course. That's where all the gossip comes from, all the juicy tea. Well, I've been a chef for over 20 years. I have been, I always say things like I fell into it, like it's a happy accident. It was by accident I fell into culinary, but it was a place, a channel that's always been very creative for me. Plus it also puts you in a platform where you have access like access to consumer to the consumers whether it be guests in your restaurant or my evolution into creating consumer packaged goods and the where like the the why started with I was cooking sustainable responsible seafood in restaurants all across Canada and elsewhere and I was like how do I feed more people delicious responsible cuisine you know like I'm doing all the legwork I'm sourcing certifications I'm like talking to small fisheries like all that stuff how do I get that to market so my evolution of like restaurant culinary chef event coordinator i've catered 10 million weddings like that it just that happens um and they're fun and it became like you know let's evolve into the world of the cpu that she landscape because it can be a hard place to get creative when you're making a new product for commercialization because of how commercialization exists right you can just like walk into a factory and be like oh turn on the stove but like let's fry that over here and like you know puree that and add it back to the pan the steps that you take when you're creating product, which is like a little tip here, is you have to apply a different sort of lens on how you're going to make or create something because of commercialization and then what happens there.

7:56So that aside, Top Chef, as you said, what good timing? Free holiday. I just launched a fundraiser and I'm trying to raise some capital for nice cans. These are some tools that I've added to my toolbox levers that I'm trying to pull to do as much as I can and have as much fun and be as visible to the market as possible. And when I said, sure we do Top Chef I said oh god I don't know if I want to do this like it's a very vulnerable place right like let's say you drop something or mess something up everyone's gonna see right it's on television it's on television so it's a very vulnerable landscape to be on but I think that's what makes people so um like they maybe not to sound like kind of like silly but I think that's why they like me so much it's like I'm vulnerable and I'm kind of real and I'm relatable I'm a human.

8:42I'm not like some glossy celebrity that, you know, I'm not Hailey Bieber making chips or whatever people are making these days. Like I'm pretty, I'm really relatable. So fun experience, super wild. Top Chef Canada is, goes a mile a minute and you show up on set and it's like, boom, first, first like elimination challenge. Let's go. They don't prep you or, you know, there's no handholding. It's like, and you're off, go, you have 30 minutes to make this dish and you're doing it. So it was super cool. I hope you get a chance to see it. I'm trying to find the link to share with everybody. So I'll let you know.

9:17Okay.

9:17Charlotte Langley:I'll definitely keep an eye out for that. And if you find it, please send it my way. I'll add it. Absolutely. So also something that you touched upon was sustainable seafood. And I genuinely got that from your website, following you online, having your product. I could really deeply get that sense of your passion and how this is a very important piece of what you're bringing to a larger market, but also making it really mindful of how you're doing it. So I would love if you could touch upon that, like what, what is common practice say in the seafood and what you really wanted to do differently with Nice Cans?

9:59Well, I'd like to start with an example, like a live example of what can I happen if you don't mind. I co-pack, right? So I have a co-packing partnership with a company called Jose Gourmet. A lot of your listeners may already know this company. They're amazing. They're a great, great small cannery in Portugal. So when I first started working with them, I said, listen, guys, like, are you MSC certified? That's a global NGO certification standard for wild seafood. And they were like, no, we're not. And I said, okay, well, in order for us to collaborate, which I really hope we can figure out is you have to become certified.

10:30So I kind of encouraged them to go through the certification process. At that time, I don't think they really saw the opportunity or the value. It wasn't really important to them. Like not that sustainability wasn't important to them, but their certification, like there's 10 million certifications out there, right? Like it's a lot of work. So from there, they found certified sardines. They became certified. Great. I'm also the MSC chef ambassador for Canada. So my MSC team was like, yeah, Charlotte, like woohoo, bring it on board a new fishery. From there, the port where the sardines are harvested, like where they pick them up in the morning, every morning, I was like, why are you looking for MSC sardines?

11:05So then they're like, well, this new client, Nice Cans, is looking for this product. The port got certified. And then, weirdly, June 21st of this year, 21 or 28 fisheries, I have to check my math here, 21 or 28 fisheries all became MSC certified across Portugal. Every wild sardine fishery in Portugal has become certified because the domino effect and how consumers can actually make an impact on how we consume sustainable responsible seafood so now guess what just happened in my supply chain this is like a weird this is like a willy this is like this never happens is i found cost savings because when my msc certified studies were super hard to find because there's like one place and these two places in the world now the entire nation and now all these people are going to probably start calling them which is fine but now the entire province or country has access to us to certified sustainable sardines so it means there's a price opportunity and cost savings that showed up in the first six months of my launch like how cool is that that's and then it's not cool and like right now i'm trying to figure how to tell that story because i have this like i just told it to you very quickly but because i want to share with people how important this is to like supply chain management traceability through fisheries like all the things that are brutally important to me like foundationally important to me how do you weave that into your storytelling and your brand not everybody cares about sustainability like they're not like oh that's my first reason to choose something it's usually like number two or three on the list usually it's like you know visual appeal or interest taste price and then other bonuses so when it comes to this like species like that i that's what i do in the background that's something you don't really see in the brand is like me working to develop these things and why I launched with Portugal starting they're on the rise for a lot of reasons you know Fish Wife, Wild Planet, tons of other amazing brands out there are launching these species and as a tide rises all ships all of us rising together this species has become more accessible and more or more of interest so like this is a great time I think this is a great species to start with but from then on I'm working on other regional sustainable products and more diverse species offerings as I grow but I'm not like big enough where I can just like drop launches every every couple of months at this stage which is fair

13:25Charlotte Langley:and I feel like it's fair a little also burnt out of things always coming to market they're like wait I have to wrap my head around this and so something that you touch upon as far as cost saving do you mean cost savings to you because now you have more options of where to source or cost savings to the consumer because now people are more competitive with pricing? What's going to happen is that initially it'll be a cost savings to me. So for my business, we'll see an improvement in the margin overall, which is important to show as you're scaling up a company. Like you start at a 28 % margin or whatever.

14:00I'm just picking a random number and you can show you increased to a 32 % margin in the first like six months of sales. That's amazing. And as I'm trying to raise money, oh my gosh, do not disturb. As I'm trying to raise capital for the company you know those are things i need to have in my back pocket to say look what i've done you know look at my success rate blah blah blah so then i get to translate that to my market and that's going to look like you know deeper holiday discounts when the product like it's not going to happen overnight where i just do it and turn it on it'll be hey distributors hey air one hey whole foods hey you know etc um here's a deeper discount for you you can extend that to your consumer make it even more accessible and I fit like kind of in the middle I'm not like you're$4.99 and I'm not like you're$14.99 I'm like$9.99$10.99 I kind of sit in the middle

14:48Charlotte Langley:it was in the middle yeah that's strategic also I'm sure but also approachable like it's not huge you know consideration of picking it up but also you could tell it's a nicer higher end product like you said it's one it's in those spaces that consumers are looking for the better quality products but also making it still an accessible price point exactly so making accessible sustainable seafood available to every like to every everyone is a part it's been a part of my mission for like 15 years it's like how do I find a way to create this product and make this product so everybody can enjoy nutritious, delicious, sustainable products.

15:33Like it's beyond like the I've got the sexy, cool new brand. It's way beyond that. It's foundationally a much bigger story.

15:40Charlotte Langley:Yeah, no, and I totally got that from just your content and your packaging. And just I could just tell when you're sharing your stories on reels, you know, and explaining things that passion really does come through. just for consumers to be if someone isn't aware necessarily around the importance of this sustainable seafood can you just very simply explain why this is important if someone is in this category or you know just as a consumer of why yeah your radar well i would say that very simply the ocean is a regenerative space right so if we care for it and respect how it works its cycles, it does regenerate.

16:22If we continue to take overtake one species or if something's really popularized, like, you know, big guy tuna, something like that, the species doesn't have a chance to keep up with us. But if we like let things run cyclically, seasonally, you know, then we can watch a healthy, a healthy ecosystem sort of thrive. So when we put a more demand on more biodiverse species, you know, this helps the other species thrive, get back into business. you know there is always a concern of over consumption of anything um but i would say that about balancing your consumption with a variety of species you're just going to help the ocean take a break the consumer at the end of the day demands what we're making you know i'm not like oh i'm going to make this and like i expect the consumers to want it i'm responding to a trend in the market where i'm going to fill that hole you know i'm like okay i see the demand is there let's find it let's make it a little bit you know my way make it my version and that's going to help but increases demand for sustainable seafood practices elsewhere.

17:21So it's really lucky. And I know I talk a lot and I say cut me off, but there's one thing that I find interesting these days is it's not even the consumer necessarily asking for these products. It's grocery. It's grocery in mass because all these larger organizations from Walmart to Costco, Whole Foods to Longo's, you name it, Sprouts, whoever, they all have like ESG reports they develop every year. Like we have to hit these targets to hit these reports to hit these things. So we're contributing to a better future for people. And it's a part of their sort of internal miss, I guess, these larger companies that are expecting these certification standards, these qualities, etc.

17:59And the innovation within that space. So it trickles down, right, from the grocery to the consumer. And if we can find ways to make it more accessible, like people like myself and others, then we are winning a bit more than we were a couple days ago.

18:14Charlotte Langley:Was that a change of, say, when you launched Scout in 2014 to 2025 coming to market with nice cans? Did you see a shift of just retailers wanting more sustainable options? Absolutely. For example, when I launched 2014, I got in my kitchen very illegally, which was also hilarious. I had no idea what I was doing. you know from 2014 to i think it was about 2021 maybe when i saw it for the first time i was driving down the highway and there was a billboard and it was cloverleaf or oceans brand and it said msc certified it was a huge billboard those things cost bank right it's like 15k for whatever the hell like i don't even know what they cost massive cost to put this billboard up and i never thought i'd see a can of tuna with a global certification standard next to it and that was what they were trying to promote like that didn't happen 10 years ago no one cared about that but now because with scout we were like I mean he's certified ANC certified our great like all that foundational stuff which I'm still doing has made it household like you have to have these things now right now it's just standard something standard which is good which is great yes it's a positive I know I have to let you go but I would love to hear just a little bit about your strategy getting this product to market.

19:41Charlotte Langley:I know you're in Air One and really growing here in the US and also Canada. Could you give us just like top level of how you're going about creating this energy behind the brand? Yeah, absolutely. I am pushing so hard from the back end, for one, as you would expect. My communications are plenty and I really put myself out there. So for example, I reached out to everyone i was like hey guys she's here let's go and they were like oh we had no idea and then i'm going oh shit now i have to find someone that can fulfill this product like in the states you know it was like sort of working a little like heart before the horse but basically what i'm trying to do is find the most um joyful natural collaborations when i ask somebody to say hey you want to do something with me and they say i don't know or maybe or maybe that could be for q2 of next year i usually pass someone's like yes absolutely let's go how do you make this happen these are the people I'm leaning into.

20:40So it would be very much like open collaborations and kind of calling on some old friends, being like, hey guys, I'm back. Let's see what we can do here. So for example, I won a really fun award this year. I'll be launching into a national distribution across the US in Q1. And this is going to be, it's almost too big too soon for me in all honesty, but I'm really tackling the approach. So there's been an offer for quite a large scale of distribution. and among that is also some new SKUs lined up and don't forget it's not a boldly delicious tin fish brand it's a boldly delicious canned food brand I'll leave you with that okay I'm intrigued

21:20Charlotte Langley:I love a sweet um no that totally makes sense and again your reels of just I just was commenting one and I genuinely am saving it to make it just make that it's so good I I need to make it it looks so good. And again, someone just getting into cooking fish and all that good stuff. I was like, Oh, I can wrap my head around this. This feels really approachable. Question, what piece of advice really quick that you would share to someone who's just in the really early stages, maybe in that kitchen at home, coming up with an idea, just you have such incredible experience, something that you would leave someone who's in the really early stages.

22:04okay, I've talked about this since we started talking, and I was thinking to myself, you know, there's so many things I could say here. I usually say it's going to take longer, and it's going to be more costly and more expensive than you think, so be patient with yourself. But also what I really want to say is, what is your secret sauce, truly? And the secret sauce could be the flavor. It could be the product itself. It could be how you communicate. It could be how badass your financial landscape looks, like how your data room looks. It's a whole bunch of different things. So what is it that you're going to lean into and create in your model that is your secret sauce?

22:39And I find when you're so like in your own product development or in your own brand, sometimes it's hard to take a step back and look at what is my secret sauce? Like, what is it in here that I'm really good at? Or what is so amazing about this brand?

22:50Charlotte Langley:Right. So take a step back and go, what is your secret sauce? What am I really good at here? What is going to make this so delicious and unique to me, my market, et cetera? If you're not solving a problem or if you're just creating a product to create a product, you know, that's fine. But why not create something that has like authenticity, integrity, all those words that we like to use to make things magic. That is such a great piece of advice. As for pre-launch CPG food and beverage brands, that's something I'm always emphasizing to founders. So I'm going to send this to my clients of saying, listen to Charlotte.

23:29Charlotte Langley:Excellent. Yeah. This is pretty great advice. So thank you so much. My pleasure. Last question for real this time, where can people shop Nice Can? Justnicecans.com. You can find it there. And Amazon's coming soon, but that's so much work. But yeah, justnicecans.com. And yeah, and maybe where else? I guess you could go to Air One and find it if you're in the States. And there's a bunch of small independent retailers across America that also have it as well. So check your local bodega. Always my favorite is supporting the community buyers and yeah, or social media. You can find me on just nice cans on Instagram, Tik TOK, et cetera.

24:06Charlotte Langley:Perfect. And I'll link it in my shop, my store. I highly recommend it. And thank you again, Charlotte. Congratulations on top chef. Thank you.

24:19I really appreciate you including me in your podcast and it's been a pleasure. It's been a thrill.

24:24Charlotte Langley:Same here. 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. 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.

25:10Charlotte Langley: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. Next 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.

25:54Charlotte Langley: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. And as always, thank you so much for listening, shopping the brands featured on the show and following brands I'm working with.

26:35Charlotte Langley:It means so much. See you on the next episode.

26:42Thank you.