From 75 Stores to 3,500: Inside My Better Batch’s Retail Growth

0:00And this time I got really creative with how I reached out to people. I did things like go on LinkedIn and find the CEO of the company and send them a message and say like, hey, I'm Lindsay. I'm starting this brand. I have reached out to someone on your team but must not have gotten to the right place. Are you able to direct me? And interestingly, like those types of things got me to the people to be able to have the conversations.

0:31Welcome back to Retail Remix. I'm Kate Robertson, Editor-in-Chief of Retail Touchpoints. The baking aisle has looked the same for decades. Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines, familiar boxes, and familiar prices. Then, Lindsay Hancock walked in and saw something everyone else had missed. Lindsay is the founder of My Better Batch, a premium baking brand shaking up a category built on convenience. She'd already sold a snack brand to Kind, so she knew the CPG world. But this time, she did things differently. She went retail first, redefined what premium means on a crowded shelf, and added more than 3 ,000 points of distribution in a single quarter.

1:13Target, Kroger, Albertsons, triple-digit growth, and a path to 6 ,000 distribution points. How'd she pull it off? Let's get into it.

1:26Lindsay, thanks so much for joining Retail Remix. Let's start with your last snack brand, which you sold to Kind. Tell me more about your background in CPG. Yeah, absolutely. So I was employee number one of a company called Creative Snacks. And the way that I described that time in my life, I was the only one dumb enough to join our founder when we had no products, no customers, no space, no nothing. That was in 2009 as the economy was kind of crashing down around us. And the founder of Creative Snacks thought it would be a great time to start a new food brand. The good news about food is that when times are good, people eat.

2:02And when times are bad, people eat. And so it turned out to be an okay time for us. So yeah, we did trail mixes, nuts, granola, confections. We mainly sold in the bulk format for a good portion of the 10 years before we sold a kind. So if you've ever scooped your own trail mix, that was the type of product that we sold. So yes, brew that company over the next 10 years and ultimately sold it to Kine Snacks in 2019. Had an opportunity to work for Kine for a couple of years before I decided that it was time to step away. And so I served through the Creative Snacks days. I did everything there was to do.

2:39In the beginning, I handled our accounting. I even got certified to drive a forklift. I told our founder when I started, I will do anything you want but sales. And I ended up as the SVP of sales. during the time that we were acquired. And then I ended up on the sales leadership team and executive team over at Kind. So Kind was a tremendous experience. They are an incredible company doing incredible things. But one of the things I learned about myself during that time is I am not a big company person. I don't fit in a box very well. And so when you're with a company of that size and magnitude, you know, everybody has the things that they specialize in and you got to stay in your lane.

3:18And I just realized that that was not the environment that I was going to thrive in long term and had an opportunity to walk away in December 2021. I did all the things that people tell you not to do. I quit the job before I had a job. I didn't know what I was going to do next. I had been doing some consulting, starting to do some consulting. And so I kind of had a buffer. I knew a little bit about what I was going to do next, but wasn't sure of the long term plan. But yeah, that was kind of what led then to my better batch. Wow, that's so interesting. Just a question about the sales thing, because this is something I also am very resistant to personally.

3:56I don't want to be, I don't want to sell things to people. Do you have a different perspective on that now? Are you more comfortable selling things? Yeah, I think, you know, I think back then I answered that or that wasn't really a question. It was more of a statement that I gave him than, than what do you want me to do? But I think I probably responded that way because it was an area that I didn't feel comfortable in. And I think over time, that area of my expertise grew and it grew almost without me knowing what was happening. And there were a couple of times that I vividly remember that our founder typically would go in the beginning, would go on these sales calls.

4:34And he had been in Bentonville meeting with Walmart several different times. And there was a line review and he was out of the country and he said, Lindsay, I need you to go do this. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I told you like anything but this. And he said, I'll tell you what, if you go, and if you get the sale, I will pay for your family to go on a trip to Disney World. And my boys were young at the time. And so I was like, okay, you know, I'll give this a try. And what do you know, I went to Bentonville, I got the sale, and we went to Disney World. So But I think over time, I just, I really, I knew every facet of that business.

5:13I had had the pleasure of doing like everything there was to do, operations, food safety, but knew how everything kind of fit together. And I think that's a unique skill set. So when you are sitting in front of the customer and you're getting questions about, well, can you do this? Or can you package that way? Or can you make that? You're really able to be very helpful as a vendor answering those questions because you understand the constraints of the business. So I think it's definitely a muscle that grew for me over time. So interesting. Okay, let's talk more about what made you decide to take the leap to start your own business at My Better Batch.

5:49You know, some days I wonder what I was thinking. So at the time, so 2021, while things were changing for me professionally, things were also changing for me personally. I went through a divorce that I didn't see coming. I just felt like, you know, at that point in time, all the puzzle pieces were kind of thrown out on the table. And I, it was my job to kind of pick them up and to put them back into place. They were just kind of fitting into different, different spots. And, you know, when I left kind, I did some consulting, I was trying to determine, you know, do I want to consult and work with small brands, emerging brands and help them to grow?

6:25Do I want to go back and work for another brand, you know, what I was so familiar with, or do I want to start something of my own? And there's certainly, you know, a lot of fear in taking risks. I mean, here I've got teenage boys, they are completely dependent on me. And that was a scary proposition for me. Simultaneously, what was happening in kind of a year and a half period was a lot of colleagues and advisors and just like trusted friends and family were coming to me saying like, what are you going to do next? and if you do something on your own, I want to be part of it. Like keep me in mind, I want to be part of it.

7:03And I don't think I realized how unique that was at the time. Looking back and talking to founders who are, you know, bootstrapped and trying to raise money, I realized that I was in a pretty unique position. And so it took a little bit of time for me to see that. But what I realized was that with the combination of some people who are willing to get behind the brand and kind of a passion in an area that I had never been before. And all of the life changes that were in the process of taking place, I felt like it was the perfect time to take a risk. That was kind of all that was happening at the time.

7:42I love to bake. I always lack the time to bake. And, you know, selling for Creative Snacks and Kind, I was on 120 flights a year before COVID. And so I was never in the places that I wanted to be with the people that I wanted to be with. I struggle with mom guilt. And so when my boys were little, I would go over the top and bake all kinds of crazy things for the school parties. And because I didn't want to be that mom who went to the grocery store to pick up something pre-made. The reality is my boys are oblivious to everything going on. And they don't really have an appreciation for the hours that were spent doing that.

8:18But it made me feel good. And it checked my mom guilt box. And so as I was thinking through that dilemma that I was faced with, I went to the grocery store and I walked up and down the baking aisle and I was looking at what are the shortcuts that are out there? And, you know, really, there's a couple of things on the shelf. I kind of divided into three categories. So mixes and mixes specifically, there's the value brands and those are the legacy brands that have been around forever. They're fine and they do the job if you really need them to. And that is what a lot of consumers know. There is also attribute-specific product.

8:54So that's where most of the innovation in the baking space has been. Keto and low sugar and gluten-free. And, you know, there's a lot of companies out there who are doing that really well. They've developed some really fantastic product. But that's where most of the innovation has been. And then there's the third category that is like the premium category. And there's companies like Ghirardelli who is in there. And there's a couple others, King Arthur. And so what I realized is that there was a really big gap for a great tasting premium product that at the end of the day tasted like a homemade cookie.

9:31So I really wanted to fill that need that I had, which was a shortcut that I could feel good about taking. I could feel good about serving to my kids because it's clean ingredient. But at the end of the day, if I wanted to take credit for it, nobody would know the difference because it tasted so good. That was kind of the catalyst to start working on recipes, to kind of pitch my idea to those same friends and colleagues and mentors that had been asking about what I was going to do next. And, you know, I was met with excitement as we were having those discussions versus, you know, I kind of knew, OK, we're on to something.

10:07I was met with excitement versus them saying like, oh, are you sure you want to be there? Are you sure you want to do that? Looking back now, hindsight's 20-20, you know, I think there's a reason why there's not a lot of brands in that space. And I think it is because those legacy brands dominate the space. And it is hard to break in as an emerging brand. And it's one thing to get to the shelf. It's another thing for customers to find you on the shelf in a space like that where you walk down the aisle and you see red and blue and you automatically know what brands those are. So that is kind of how I got to baking mixes.

10:45So interesting. I feel like, yeah, just seeing that gap in the market alone is such a genius thing. Like, you know, I think that people do sort of think of it as black or white. You know, you either make the thing or you buy the mix or buy the pre-made thing. And yeah, the fact that, you know, you saw that there could be this in-between space where perhaps you get a little bit of help, but It Tastes Homemade, I think is so smart. Were you entirely self-financed? Were you, like you mentioned you were pitching this to friends and family. Were you asking for investment at that time? Yeah, I knew, I mean, I certainly put my own money into this, but I knew that I needed to have a pretty sturdy backing to be able to get this off the ground.

11:33I, you know, my goal from the beginning was to get to the grocery store shelf. There's a lot of different ways to launch a brand and you can go that direction. That was what I knew. That was what I felt most comfortable with. That's where my relationships were. So to me, it just seemed like a no brainer. That's where we go. Or, you know, you can launch online. You could go the farmer's market route and build up, you know, some brand awareness. So there's a lot of different ways to go about launching a brand. But retail was where I was headed and I wanted to do so fast. And in order to support that, you need to have cash.

12:08It's not cheap. It is really expensive to get on the shelf and support the brand to be able to succeed on the shelf in the beginning. So how many products did you launch with when you first started? So launched with four flavors. We have a chocolate chunk, a classic sugar cookie, a double chocolate chip, and a celebration cookie, which is kind of our version of a Funfetti cookie. So a sugar cookie with, but it's got natural sprinkles in it, natural colored sprinkles in it. And so, and that is what we have today. So it's not like we launched too long ago. I had gone back recently to look at where we were in distribution this time last year.

12:49And at this time last year, we were in about 75 stores. And, you know, that was our first retail partner, first time getting on the shelf. And that was just a year ago. And then sitting here today, we have about a little over 3 ,500 different locations that we are in. And so we've really grown by leaps and bounds very quickly. that would not have been possible if we didn't have some cash to support it. And so how long did it take you to perfect those four flavors? And then it sounds like you got pretty serious about distribution pretty quickly. Yes. So, I mean, it took months of tinkering while I was tinkering.

13:34And for me, cookie mixes were more of a speed to shelf. I always baked cookies from scratch. And I knew that I certainly couldn't take my recipes as they were and turn them into a mix. What makes a homemade cookie, the texture of a homemade cookie, what it is, is cream together the butter and sugar. And it's the how you put ingredients into the bowl and how you mix them together. And when you have a mix, you don't have the luxury of being able to do that. Everything's dumped in. And then at home, you add those wet ingredients in. And so it did take some tweaking to get those recipes just right.

14:10But during the time I was working on getting them just right, I was working on the graphics for the packaging. I knew, you know, again, just in familiarizing myself with the competition, what was on the shelf, colors, I knew kind of the direction that I wanted to go in from a packaging standpoint. And so I was able to get my graphic designer started on that. I knew that we didn't want to manufacture this on our own. we couldn't manufacture this on our own and that I wanted to use a co-manufacturer to do so. So while I was still kind of finalizing recipes, I also was going and looking for a co-manufacturing part.

14:49So there's a lot of things that were kind of happening together. But I will say one of the most challenging things was finding a co-manufacturer. That was much harder than I anticipated it being. How many do you estimate you talked to before you found the right one? So I probably started in the co-man world is it is like an underground that it is hard to there's no like published lists out there of who these co-manufacturers are. And people are very protective of who they work with for good reason. Right. They don't want the competition to go to the people that they're using. And so I probably started with a list of about 25.

15:27And so I, you know, had to put the sales hat on once again. I would cold call it. I was emailing. I was not getting responses. And so there were very large co-mans and they were very small co-mans. And I was getting the ear of the very small co-mans, but I knew with the plan that we wanted to execute and getting to the shelf quickly, that the moment we landed a Target or a Kroger, we would have outgrown that small co-man and would have had to make a change. And so that was an area that I did not want to move forward until I found the right one. And I went through the process, narrowed down kind of the 25 to who would actually talk to me, right?

16:09Had conversations with who would actually talk to me and got to down to two, but I wasn't really happy with those two. So I got the list back out again and I started from the top again. And this time I got really creative with how I reached out to people. I did things like go on LinkedIn and find the CEO of the company and send them a message and say like, hey, I'm Lindsay. I'm starting this brand. I have reached out to someone on your team but must not have gotten to the right place. Are you able to direct me? And interestingly, like those types of things got me to the people to be able to have the conversations.

16:47And the people I was able to get on the phone, I was able to have very meaningful conversations with. I was able to sell them on me. I'm Lindsay. Here's what I've done in my past. This is what my plan is. Here is who I have involved in the business. And this is our growth plan and who we're going to first. And those conversations were able to move me further along. So it was quite the process. And, you know, a co-manufacturer doesn't have a huge appetite for working for an emerging, small emerging brand. We can't forecast product, you know, can't forecast production very efficiently. We don't have very much business.

17:26And so running production becomes inefficient. And so I was fortunate enough to find a partner that really leaned in. They saw potential in the business and really leaned in to support the business. And that was huge for us in the beginning. Wow, what a lesson in persistence and creativity Creativity and not taking no for an answer. Creepy stalker. I could be put in that category too. But you've got to find a way, just like we have to find a way to differentiate our products on the shelf. I had to find a way to differentiate us from everybody else who is making that same request. And I needed to find a partner.

18:04And so it just required creativity for sure.

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18:48You mentioned marketing earlier, or at least the design of your packaging. Tell me more about how you have gone about marketing My Better Batch and really communicating that difference to customers. So I would say we are very much knee deep in finding the right marketing tactics to support the brand. Supporting a established brand on the shelf is very different. You know, supporting a kind is very different than supporting a My Better Batch. And it's been a challenge. So, you know, one of the ways from a marketing perspective that we kind of went about things very early on was with our packaging.

19:29So most of the packaging in the category is in a gusseted bag. They don't stand up very well. They kind of fall over. And so I wanted to create packaging that was able to create a billboard on the shelf. And so we use a bag-in-a-box format. So more like brownies or cake mix that allows us to sit upright, take up a little bit more space, both height and width. and the design of our packaging is unique in that we've got images of cookies, these really great looking images of cookies that make your mouth water. In the upper right and left corner of our boxes, there is a little half cookie and the half cookie from one box fits perfectly with the half cookie of the box that's sitting next to it.

20:12And so we really wanted to create a design that popped on the shelf. If we got space on the shelf, I knew that those value brands around us we're going to have so many more facings than we would. And so it's like, how do we capitalize when we are given the opportunity to be able to be there? And how do we, how do we scream to the customer like, hey, we're here and draw them in to pick us up for the first time. So that was very intentional from the beginning. Also from the beginning, we got our social media platform started. I started those about a year before I even launched product. And the reason I did that was I knew there was a product coming.

20:47The people that were following us had no idea that there was a product coming, but I just started posting cookie content. I wanted to get an audience who was interested in the topic. So that way, when we did flip the switch and have a product to sell, we at least had a small group of people to start talking to. And so that was another tactic very early on. And so we rely on our social media platforms to help us build brand awareness and reach new customers. And then as we've been able to make it to the shelf, it becomes a combination of in-store promotions, digital marketing. You think about how we're all shopping on the apps today and digital coupons and keyword search.

21:26And so, and then I brought a PR agency on board very early on before I really probably could afford to do so because it was really important for us to build credibility as a brand. And that helped us very early on. We were able to get some great national coverage. You know, Parade Magazine calling us out, comparing us to Betty Crocker, all recipes. And so those have been really beneficial to us in just building trust and credibility, not only with consumers, but with the retail buyers who are making the decisions on what they're going to put on their store shelf. So it's been a combination of things.

22:06I'm still trying to get it right. Okay. We've got to talk about how you have landed on store shelves from Target to Kroger to Albertsons. I think you said 3 ,000 points of distribution in the first quarter of 2026 alone. Is that, do I have that right? In points of, so we're in about 3 ,500 retail locations, but from a points of distribution, we can, the way we calculate that is just flavor and location. And so if we have, you know, two flavors at 250 locations, that's 500 points of distribution. So we have well over 6 ,000 points of distribution, which I'm really proud of. And like I said, last year at this time, it was next to nothing.

22:52Wow. So who did you start with? Who did you know would get excited about My Better Batch from the beginning? So, you know, we started very early on with retailers that we felt like we could go and do direct business with. Going through distributors can be really costly. And so we were kind of strategic in who we were targeting first. Now, just because we were targeting those stores does not mean that those are the conversations that we started having first. So we are now set up at the major distributors, our Kroger's, our Albertsons, our Wegmans. Wegmans, they are all supported through those major distributors.

23:30So that didn't quite work the way that we wanted it to. Very early on, we decided last year, the spring of last year, to go to Expo West and get a booth. Again, something I probably wasn't prepared financially to support, but in that marketing conversation and building credibility and people seeing us, I felt like it was really important for us to be there. And so we had a really interesting conversation with the team from Target, the accelerator team from Target. Now, before that conversation, I had gotten an email through our website from the Target buyer. Now, anybody who is on the brand side knows that getting retailer to reach out to you like that doesn't happen very often.

24:15So the way that this message read through the website, I thought somebody was playing a trick on me, but it was, hi, I'm so-and-so from Target. I'm the baking buyer. I saw your brand and I would really love to talk about a partnership. Please reach back. Here's my contact information. Reach back out to me if you have interest in partnering with Target. Okay, right? So three weeks later, I was sitting in her office and it was the type of conversation where I knew walking out that day that we were gonna get distribution. She hadn't said that to me, but I knew from the conversation that we were having that that was gonna be really positive.

24:47So Target had decided to bring us in. The accelerator team who stopped by the booth really had no idea. They didn't come by because they knew that. And unbeknownst to me, I didn't know the function of the accelerator team from Target, but I was invited to participate in their accelerator program, which really helped us get prepared to launch at Target in August of last year. So Target has been a very early adopter of My Better Batch. They have really supported the brand and they are working really hard to be able to help us succeed. and that's not something that you get in working with retailers.

25:24It's a challenge and it can be really difficult. And so that level of support, the partnership that we have with Target is very unique. So that was very early on. And then just through relationships and having good broker partners, I don't have a sales team. It's me and I rely on brokers to help me sell. So just having those right relationships to stay on top of the opportunities that come up and help us facilitate those conversations. So, yeah, we just we went gangbusters very early on to be really excited and loud and proud about the brand. That's fascinating. So with the Target Accelerator program, were there any rules around exclusivity?

26:04Were they asking anything of you on that end or? No. No. And that can happen. That E word, that's like a bad word. And it's tough to, because companies like Target will come to a brand and ask for exclusivity on certain things for a period of time. And that can be really difficult. And especially for someone like me who has four SKUs, that would be really difficult to be able to do that. But in this case, no, they did not. And we didn't develop anything special for them. They were interested in two of our four flavors. And that's what's on the shelf today. So we grew last August, we hit their shelf 208 stores, which I was super proud of.

26:44And then we are now at about a little over 500, almost 550 Target stores. As far as like, to me, I see this journey all the time covering retail where people will very frequently start something new, start selling it online, and then maybe grow into wholesale or grow into opening their own stores or a combination of the two. why was it important for you to really focus on that retail strategy from the get-go? It's all I knew. It's what I felt. I mean, that is the honest answer. My expertise is not in e-commerce and building digitally. And that is probably one of our weakest areas right now as an organization.

27:28We do sell online and we do sell through Amazon and some online platforms, market. But I knew retail and I knew what it took to get to retail. So for me, it just felt like a no brainer. That's the way to go because that's what I know. And tell me more about the premium side of this business. Like how do you define premium? You talked a little bit about clean ingredients and the naturally colored sprinkles. Is that sort of where you are aligning yourself with that word premium? Yeah, so I think it's a couple of things. As I was looking at the competitive product and realizing what the gap was, I wanted to make sure that when I was having these conversations with retail buyers, that we had enough points of differentiation in our brand to be able to communicate, you have a gap on your shelf and here is how we can fill that gap.

28:21And so I worked really hard at making sure that there were enough of those things that differentiated us from the competitors. So the first thing was that we are made with non-GMO ingredients. So from the get-go, we got the certification, the non-GMO project verified certification. And so rather than starting one way and then switching our ingredients to be able to get that, we just, from the start, did that. And when you look at the national brands that sit around our product, that is not something that they have. And I think that's the way that consumers are going. And that's what retailers are looking for.

28:57And so with that then came, we were sourcing clean ingredients just by nature, right? From a premium perspective, it is the chocolate that we're sourcing, the semi-sweet chocolate. We're using real chocolate. Instead of chips, we're using chunks. Those inclusions that are inside of our mixes, we're not skimping on those. If you're going to spend a premium for the product, we want it to be a really indulgent product that you're not like looking for the chocolate in the cookie, right? So it's just, you know, making sure what we're sourcing is quality and then making sure that you're getting plenty of it in the mix that you're buying.

29:33We are a certified woman-owned business. I mean, that's something that I'm really proud of. I don't know that consumers are shopping based on that little logo in the lower portion of our box, but I don't think it hurts us in any way. And again, that is a differentiating factor. Just our story, it differentiates us. The fact that there's a real person behind the brand and there was a real need that this product was developed to be able to solve for, you know, we sit beside those legacy brands and they can't tell the same authentic story that we can. So I guess we could tie all of those things into just using all of those to create differentiation and create this premium elevated product that wasn't there before.

30:17So 6 ,000 points of distribution. I think you're reporting triple digit growth, four flavors. What are you excited to build next at My Better Batch? So I think, you know, because we have moved so quickly in gaining new retailers and gaining this new distribution, I feel like our focus needs to be a lot of people will say like, OK, do you have any new flavors or what are you developing? Where are you going next? Are you going to other categories? And I think there will be ways that we grow and we grow probably in the near future, whether that's through innovation, whether that's through doing mixes and other subcategories of baking.

30:59So there's some tinkering going on and I'm excited about what could be in those areas. I think where I'm focused and excited because I see potential is us really trying to make sure that the product that we have been able to get to the shelf, we can keep on the shelf. So we can generate the velocity that we need to be able to stay on the shelf. And that is a really difficult, like getting to the shelf is the easy part. Staying on the shelf is the hard part. And we just, we need for customers to be able to find us. And you think about your shopping habits and walking down the aisle. It's like we go, we have a list of things.

31:37Sometimes, you know, we're wandering and looking for new. And we're probably unique in how we shop versus how like the consumer who's going into the store to check the boxes of what they need. But they're coming with a list and they know what they want. And so us being able to grab their attention automatically becomes really hard, right? So we're there, but they're not looking for us because they don't know who we are. And so being able to build brand recognition so that people know the brand and recognize the brand and find it and pick it up for the first time. I'm really confident that once they pick it up and bake it and have that experience, that they'll come back and buy it again and they'll help us spread the word.

32:15But getting that initial purchase, it's been exceptionally difficult. And so that's why when you ask the marketing question, like we are testing many different levers right now to see what is going to help us move the needle. But I'm excited for the potential to be able to get that perfected so that we can drive brand awareness and ultimately drive velocity on the shelf. You mentioned before we started chatting that your son is also quite entrepreneurial and he, I think, started a photography business. Is that right? What do your kids think about what you've built? And yeah, I mean, it's pretty impressive.

32:51Well, thank you. So I have two boys. They're 14 and 18. That was another reason why I wanted to take the risk and start something is because I wanted them to be able to see that there are really great things that can come out of challenging times. And I also wanted them to see firsthand that like things are not just given to you. You have to work really hard for them. And so they're schlepping boxes with me. They're not always happy to do it. They're dropping off, you know, our e-comm orders at the post office. They're doing all kinds of things, but they are part of this with me and they do see what happens on a day-to-day basis.

33:28And yeah, my 14-year-old kind of got the entrepreneur bug and he has started his own little thing that I'm helping to helping him support. He needs to get his driver's license. That will make my life a lot easier. But yeah, I think it's a fun thing that they can be part of and hopefully that they are proud of. And so that's been really fun to watch. And he will love that you gave him a shout out. He's gone with me to a lot of, we've done some television interviews and so, and he's come with me and he is, he's been a really good sidekick. Excellent. Well, Lindsay, thanks so much for joining us today.

34:04Yeah, thank you.