The Hampton Grocer

0:00Samantha Sherman: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.

0:44Samantha Sherman: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.

1:29Samantha Sherman: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 am talking to Samantha Sherman. She is the founder and CEO of the Hampton Grocer. One, starting things off, love the brand name. And two, my girlfriend, without even realizing you were coming on the podcast, bought your granola the other week. I've been eating it. It's delicious. And Samantha, I love following you on social media also. Thank you. You are such a refreshing voice and very genuine. So welcome to the podcast. And I'm really excited to nerd out about all things that you're building with you today.

2:15I'm really so excited to be here too, Kelly. And I've been following you for a long time and I love what you're doing. Just like pulling back the layers of the onion of this crazy world of CPJ.

2:26Samantha Sherman:Amazing. Well, thank you. To kick things off, let's just dive right into granola. It's a crowded space. I feel like people have a lot of opinions about their granola, of how they like their granola. And so I would love to hear first of just what you wanted to do different in this space. Like the idea that you had that light bulb moment of like, wait, I'm not quite finding exactly what I want. I would love to hear what that looked like. Sure. So I'm going to be honest. I didn't have that moment of I am going, I'm looking to like make this product and this is what I want that I can find on the market.

3:09My original recipe is my mother-in-law's granola recipe.

3:14Samantha Sherman:Really? Yes. Yes. And this entire Hampton Grocer company, my business started 100 % accidentally during the pandemic as a farm to front door grocery delivery service, hence the name, the Hampton Grocer. So my mother-in-law had been making granola for a really, really long time. I was enrolled in the Institute of Integrative Nutrition with the goal of being a health coach. And my husband and my mother-in-law suggested that since I was trying to meet clients by shopping at local farms in the Hamptons that, you know, I make something of my own instead of buying stuff from all of the local other vendors.

3:55Um, and that's how the Hampton grocer was really born. And the granola came into play as a gift for my clients in the Hamptons during the pandemic.

4:04Samantha Sherman:Already obsessed with this storyline. Okay. It's like, people don't believe me that like purpose, this was, and I'm going to, I haven't really told, I haven't said this often, but I also wasn't a granola eater. Like I wasn't a granola girl. Like I, I obviously I am now, but I wasn't going to the grocery store and buying granola. Like I was ordering it when I went to a really nice restaurant, like on a menu instead of an omelet. Um, my mother-in-law always had it in the kitchen, but like, I was never like a diehard granola girl either. That is embarrassing. Like, Is that bad? No, this is perfect.

4:43Samantha Sherman:Perfect. So it was really coming from giving a client a gift and building your health coaching business. How did it become then the business, right? And what made you want to say, wait, hold on. This gift that I'm handing out is actually the thing that I'm going to double down in? So I'll give my husband credit. Honestly, he like, once my mother and my mother-in-law and I made the granola for the first time together, I packaged it in beautiful glass jars. I do still sell it that way. In addition to my pouches. He said, I think you're going to be in a granola business. And I laughed in his face.

5:26I said, Andrew, I'm going to be a health coach. I just need to graduate. I'm going to like sell this gift it, meet, meet some people. I'm like, that's it. But I'm forgetting the question initially. Shoot.

5:37Samantha Sherman:Just how, how did you know that this was the thing that you wanted to do instead of maybe health coaching or double down in? Totally. So I knew that it was the thing to do. As soon as I started gifting it, people wanted to buy it and then suggested I sell it at a local farmer's market. So my first step was gifting to influencers in the Hamptons. Everybody was there during the pandemic. I was living in my in-laws home. Um, and then going to the local farmer's market within a month of starting my business, I was like, listen, there's only one way for me to know at this weird time when like, you can't really give samples or communicate.

6:18And like, things were really strange starting a business right now. If people come at the farmer's market, they buy my granola and they They come back and they buy it again. Okay, this could be a viable business model, right?

6:30Samantha Sherman:So simple too. And I admire your hustle and creativity because it was such a weird time. However, I feel like there's so many brands that I interview that started during that time and they had to, from the beginning, think outside the box. They had to get creative. And I would argue, I don't ever want to go back to that time. However, what I will say is that that type of creative thinking really helps birth some really cool ideas. Yeah. I could not agree with you more. Like a really innovative time when you have to work around these parameters. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. I'm obsessed. I'm bought in.

7:16Samantha Sherman:I know that your background was also in restaurants, right? And then you wanted to be in health coaching. started sampling, realizing, wait, this granola is a thing. People, they're wanting it. They want to buy it. So what was the strategy to first go to the farmer's market and then start going into retailers? I find it at Union Market here in Park Slope, Brooklyn, but I would love to hear how that was because again, it was just such an odd time to be. Totally. or anything else. Yeah, totally. Um, so I didn't go into any retail with the exception of farm stands for, for about like a year and a half, honestly.

8:03Um, I was making it in my home kitchen illegally. Then I was making it a Mexican restaurant and I didn't even have e-com when I was doing the farmer's markets. Like there was no shipping of granola.

8:18Samantha Sherman:find me here because this is where you could only find it. I was posting on Instagram. Okay. That's how I was trying to build my customer base. And again, I had no intention of this becoming a business. And I gifted the granola to my friend, Katie Lee, um, who is a celebrity chef. I was shopping for her during the pandemic and she texted her too. She's the best great talk about authentic boss lady she is the gold standard for authenticity when it comes to like influencers in my in my opinion she's become a friend but there's a lot of noise out there but like I listened to Katie because I know she's no BS and she I think she texted me and she was like hey I'm going to post your granola on social I think she has like close to a million followers she's like where can people buy it I was like at the farmer's market she's like okay well maybe like I said okay I'll figure out how to ship so I talked to my developer we figured out how to ship on the website I had no boxes I had no granola made except for a few cases for the farmer's market and within like a day of her posting on her story I had thousands of dollars of orders wow so I really do credit her and she doesn't she like won't take it but with with like the inception of my business like I didn't I never thought I would go beyond the farmer's market I was really doing it so I keep busy and like maybe do it on the side but that's what really like put me on the map and then I realized the power of social and gifting and the platform and And I was like, I just need to do this more.

9:56And that's really like how everything started to snowball. So I started May 2020. I was by August 2020, I suspended my grocery delivery services and was laser focused on granola.

10:10Samantha Sherman:Incredible. So when you were, you touched upon gifting and outreach, and I feel like so many founders who are listening now are in the really early stages where they know like, okay, I know this concept. I know that this is a thing. Do you have any advice or tips, just how to be strategic about that? Because your example is like, what people dream of happening, right? Which is I love that piece of the story. But just overall, how you started getting it into people's hands or continue to get it in people's hands. I would love to hear just your approach. Yeah. So continuing to get it into people's hands, I will say my one piece of advice, if you have a great farmer's market near you, and I say great because there are some farmer's markets that are just like not bustling with people and like you don't have the ability to sample and get feedback.

11:08if you have a great farmer's market that's close to you and you're able to like get in or just if you're able to get into the farmer's market right and get feedback from customers to your face in real time and either whether you're sampling a food product or like you're doing a skincare and you're sampling like a lip balm i talked to somebody recently that wants to make a lanolin lip balm i was like this is a great thing for a farmer's market there i don't know of a lanolin nip, is that how you say it? Whatever. But I think that the farmer's market approach, it's definitely not for everybody, but it is a really great way, like one day a week to just put your product out there and say, listen, I'm going to give myself three months, whatever the farmer's market season is.

11:53Maybe it's three months, maybe it's six months to just test the waters and like be a sponge. Like look at how many SKUs other vendors have, right? Like I didn't know you were supposed to have more than one flavor because people will buy one of everything. I had no idea. I started with one. And then the guy next to me was like, listen, I have four flavors of kombucha because the people around here, if they like it, they'll buy all four, you know, and something for them to try next time. So that would be like my one piece of advice. Again, it's not for everybody, but I think it's my second piece of advice.

12:23And not everybody's going to agree with me here, but But don't take on outside investment for as long as you possibly can and just do it. Grind. People are probably like, you're crazy. I still haven't taken on outside investment. And my approach has always been crawl, walk and run. Like, I think I'm still crawling right now. Like how I've built my business. I'm walking, but like people are like, oh, you're everywhere. I'm like, but I'm not really. But that's always been my approach. So I would say farmer's markets to beta test your business, right? Get real feedback.

13:01Samantha Sherman:Which is great. I totally co-sign on that. And it's also so fun. And if you have a product, you are the number one salesperson. And so that's the best place to practice your pitch. Because at the end of the day, you're going to have to be pitching to buyers if you really want to take this somewhere. But pitching to randos on the street is 10 times easier, but you can perfect your pitch. Yes. Absolutely. And with taking outside capital, your approach also is a really refreshing one to have on the radar for emerging brand founders, because I feel like it was just such a sexy headline of what you could raise right out of the gate, which I think it just depends on resources needed or what type of product it is or what the goals are, what the founder is willing to give up.

13:52Samantha Sherman:But the brands that are founder led, that could be really scrappy, doing as much as you can. I've just heard really great success stories of what that looks like for them in the long run. Yeah. I also think like what you're saying, like piggybacking on that, like, I think you also really need to decide what does success look like to you? Because success to you might not be the same thing as success to me. Like success to me is, you know, I can have a business, spend time with my children, not have the outside pressure of outside investors right now because my kids are so small. I couldn't I couldn't deal with it.

14:33I know that I wouldn't be able to deal with it. So I think it's really defining, you know, what success looks like for you right now and then in five years and in 10 years. Like in 10 years, I don't want my business to be where it is right now. Now I want it to be much bigger, but I knew when things started really rolling and I was pregnant with my first kid through two years ago, that that wasn't the time to take on outside investment for me because I knew like how I wanted to be present. So I think that's something to think about, like what success really means for you.

15:04Samantha Sherman:Which is totally fair. And we touched upon a few things, but I would love to hear also of just your time and how you manage it all. again why I love following you on social is that you're very honest like you have one baby here you're like I gotta feed the other one you're you're driving to the farmer's market or I want to say you had like a buyer's meeting and you had like an epic travel day and I'm like oh my god I was really invested I'm like I hope she closed the deal that was really wild day and you're very genuine and I love that. And I think you're from Jersey, right? I'm from New Jersey.

15:45Yes.

15:45Samantha Sherman:I'm from Long Island. Similar vibe. Very similar vibe. So I love like that when someone really has that passion and hustle, but just strategically, like how, how are you managing this? I know that's like probably the billion dollar question, but just on a really day-to-day being able to show up in all these ways? I'm not.

16:10I have an amazing nanny. I have an amazing husband. My son is in school from nine to 12. I work when I can. And I try to put as little pressure on myself as possible to like get everything done. Right. Like I don't know how to describe it. It's, it's really, really hard, but it's like hard in like all the best ways. So I'm not getting anything done. I feel like most days, like I'll get lost in a spreadsheet for two hours, but those are the only two hours I have to work until 7. Um, I have a great support system. That's how I'm able to get stuff done, but I guess I get a lot more done than I think you're getting shit done.

16:54Samantha Sherman:You are. I mean, I genuinely, I'm such a nerd for all this stuff. And I've been seeing your product pop up more and more. And so that's why I even reached out and like, I like her story. I like her product. And I see how you've been building. And I've just been seeing your product grow in distribution. What has been that strategy too of how you've been growing outside of the farmer's market? so I like to like laser focus on things right so my initial laser focus was granola okay great we're gonna laser focus on farmers markets like building our customer base and like meeting people and getting feedback great and then then so let's say three years ago I was like I just want to be in every natural food store and gourmet grocery store in like the New York metro area and that's been my strategy I'm not looking like west coast right now because I don't have distribution there nor do I have the cash to support it.

17:51Like, I think that's also something that a lot of founders, myself included, did not understand at all is how much cash it takes to go big, like regional, even national, forget it. Like if you don't have so much money in the bank, like you can't, I had a, I had a sales team laugh at me on a zoom. I was like, Oh, like, you know, I love to work with you guys. I can afford to pay you, but how much cash do I need in the bank to support, you know, getting to this next level with you guys, aside from like inclusive of free fills and all of that. This is with a distributor. This is with a sales, like a sales team, like a regional

18:33Samantha Sherman:team. And they were like at least 350 ,000 cash in the bank. And I was like, so how do people do without investors? And they laughed at me and they're like, they don't. And I was like, okay, great. And I'm not trying to prove that you can't do without investors because my goal is to get on that track in the near future, right. To raise capital because to get to the next level, I recognized that I need it unless, you know, someone drops like a million dollars on my volvo later today. Like, let's go. I'll take it. I'll take it. Um, but you know, I think that's something that a lot of people, myself included, like I said, did not realize in the beginning is like how much money it takes to get outside of like the independence.

19:19So I've been laser focused on getting into like the independent grocery stores locally, like instead of.

19:26Samantha Sherman:Is a strategy that I personally really love for early stage brands too, so that you're building the data, you're building relationships, you're getting real-time feedback. You can visit the stores yourself. You're building again, those relationships with such a huge piece of the pie to get the ball rolling. And I, I will no wonder why I keep seeing you everywhere. I mean, this is where I'm shopping too. So you're shopping at the locals, natural gourmet artisanal, like that's, that's my thing. Yeah. And so that totally makes sense. Another thing that you're doing that I thought was really interesting is a skew for lactation.

20:13Yeah.

20:14Samantha Sherman:And that now knowing more about that, you went to IAN and the health coaching background and just your passion. How did that come about and like how you're threading that needle too with the brand? So that came about, I thought of the idea before my son, who is now two and a half was born and I made some batches and it was disgusting. I was like, this is disgusting. These ingredients that people are saying that you should eat brewers. Yeast tastes, can I curse? Tastes like shit. Brewer's yeast tastes like shit. And these ingredients that are in like most lactation support products. And I had to put so much sugar to mask the flavor.

20:54So that's why there's so much sugar in so many lactation support products because brewers yeast tastes terrible and you need to cover it up with something. So I was like, let me look into other alternatives because granola inherently oats flax, coconut, almonds, all these galactagogues, right? Like they naturally support lactation. So let me find another powerhouse ingredient that we can like double down and I'll make more Odie blend. That's larger clusters, easier for a mom to eat. And so I gave up when, after I have had my son, Simon, then I was pregnant with my daughter, Ruby. I texted a friend, Nikki, who is very involved in the mom and better for you, better for you, baby space.

21:35Um, she works for hatch and I told her, and she was like, you just got to do it. You've been talking about it for two years. She was like, just do it. What's the worst that can happen? I'm like, well, the worst that can happen is I'll lose a lot of money, but she's like, but okay, but you tried. And like, you tried to do it. So I came up with this formula instead of brewer's yeast. I use moringa, which is an African superfood. It's been around for centuries and it has a similar taste to matcha. So like a herbaceous, it's a green herb. It's a leaf. Yeah. And people put it in their smoothies. It's like a widely used supplement.

22:11And so I developed this lack. I, it's called lacanola, my lactation support crack lacanola. I launched it. I was eating it, you know, when I gave birth to my daughter, I had personally never really struggled with a lack of supply, but I did see serious dips depending upon like what was going on in my life. And at the very least the Lactnola made me feel good. So I was like, you know what, if at the very least having a granola that has super clean ingredients, and it's going to maybe support your lactation on top of doing all the other things like drinking water, having a good diet, et cetera, et cetera.

22:53Let's go. Like, let's do it. It's working for me. It worked for a bunch of my friends. So I tried it and it's doing well. How am I weaving it into everything else is really hard, honestly. I went through IVF with both of my kids. So I'm very conscious of people's sensitivity towards, you know, baby, all baby stuff when you're not expecting it. So I really didn't want to, which makes it much harder, by the way, weave it into my Hampton grocer normal stuff. So I started its own, you know, Instagram so I can keep all of that like NOLA content on another page. Um, because I personally know how triggering like that type of thing is.