Rachel Mansfield: Culinary Creator and Co-Founder of Cadootz

20:57Rachel Mansfield:Wrote a book. Hold on. Just for our audience, Clarkson and Potter is like a big deal. It's an amazing, amazing publisher. I had like such a wonderful experience working with them. It was great. It was a dream, but it was one of those things where I was like, is this my life? Like, this is so crazy. And I remember being so excited and telling my doctor and he had written dozens of books and I came into my appointment so excited. He goes, Rachel, I'm really happy for you. Just remember, you don't write a book to make money. So this will basically take you out of money as you're writing it. I was like, ha ha ha.

21:28Rachel Mansfield:Okay. But he was right. Writing a cookbook is a lot. you have to hire the food stylist, the photographer. But the thing with my first book, Just the Good Stuff, and I'm so proud of it. Like it's right next to me right now, but I developed it and created it when I didn't have kids. I'm sorry. I'm laughing because thinking about how I cooked before kids and now for kids. I totally get it. Hence the uncontrollable laughter. You're cheating. Like I have a chapter in Just the Good Stuff of cooking for one person because my husband worked in accounting and he wasn't home during busy season. So I was constantly cooking for one person.

22:00Rachel Mansfield:It was homemade crackers, go figure, homemade pop tarts, homemade marshmallows. I'm not making things from scratch. I have three children. I gave birth to my first son, January 2019. My book came out a year later. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm promoting a book and it's not even like relevant anymore for my life. So it was actually like a big learning lesson for me because like the cookbook process for those who don't know is two and a half to three years from start to finish by the time you write your proposal to the point where your book comes out. So my book came out and I was so proud of it and so excited, but it wasn't like an accurate representation of my life anymore, which is kind of a weird feeling.

22:38You're like detached from this thing that you invested so much time and energy in. Exactly. But you know, also I feel like ultimately though, that's a sign of growth and also gives you something to work on the next thing for. I also want to point out that like creators, internet personalities, like anyone who came from the digital world was not always respected as much. It's also a real vote of confidence that this legacy storied publisher bet on you. Not that we should look for external validation in that way, but it's still kind of nice.

23:10Rachel Mansfield:Yeah. Okay. So in addition to your own brand, you and your husband also branched out into another space together, Venture Capital. What in the world are you guys up to? Is it just the desire to continue to diversify? Is it that you just saw a hole in the market? Like what were you thinking? A little bit of all of what you just said. So when I got pregnant with Ezra, my oldest, I had around the same time said to Jordan, I think we should start investing in some of these companies that I'm so passionate about because I was helping scale them just like through my platforms and working with them and like doing what I can to get more like consumers to buy them and like help give them advice and really help them grow.

23:51Rachel Mansfield:And I also was familiar from my beverage company job that like when you walk the aisles of the grocery store, that these brands, especially like the smaller startup brands, when you pick them up and you look at them, like there's people that are investing in those brands succeeding that are trying to like help scale them. And I wanted to get involved in that. My first investment was Hugh Kitchen, the chocolate company. And I had cold called email the former CEO and said like, Hey, my name's Rachel. I'm obsessed with your chocolate. I would love to see if you're fundraising and get involved. And they so kindly opened up their office to me.

24:26Rachel Mansfield:I went and met with their finance team and they're like, listen, we're about to close our one and only round of financing. We would love to have you come and invest. And they called me a strategic investor. like, oh, that's cool. A strategic investor. I don't have a finance degree and I'm not in investing, but someone is calling me a strategic investor. Let's keep investing in more companies. This isn't just like, you know, you pick up every brand and you reach out to them. Like it's very methodical. There's a whole like diligence that you do over each of these brands. Like you look at their P &L and you look at their margins, you look at their distribution.

24:56Rachel Mansfield:There's a lot. The brands though, that I was very, very passionate about, I would reach out to them to see if you could invest. Which by the way, I just want to point out is a through line in your career. Like you did that for the beverage company. I mean, you really have a history of being proactive and how that pays off. Thank you. That's so sweet. So you would say like, is this a brand I care about? Is this brand that's doing something interesting? I feel like from your consulting side to like, that must've given you a unique lens about evaluating, what sort of key indicators would you look for when you were deciding about whether something was a good opportunity or not?

25:38Rachel Mansfield:So my husband and I, we're the ultimate yin-yang couple, where I look at everything like the consumer lens. I trust my gut. Like I'm more like getting feedback on my Instagram community, like getting to know if someone likes a brand or a product. He's very analytical. Like he dives into the numbers. He dives into the spreadsheets. He looks at everything. And we invested personally in 10 companies. Then we started our own venture fund where we were investing our money, but also other people's money. And that's where our diligence really started to get streamlined because we're not just investing our dollars, like we're investing money on behalf of other people.

26:12Rachel Mansfield:And our goal with that is I wanted to bridge the gap between consumers and their favorite brands because I had access to like Q Kitchen and Serenity Kids and Midday Squares and Lalo and all of these amazing brands. And I was always brought in as a strategic investor. And I was like, wow, well, like my passion for that chocolate could be the same as the person standing next to me at the grocery store. Like, why do I only have access? So then that's where great shit was born. And we fundraised fund two when I was pregnant with my third. And we fundraised not from like small family offices, like your typical investors.

26:46Rachel Mansfield:We fundraised from like other consumers through like my platforms and just word of mouth and friends and family. And we fundraise our first fun, fun one. And then now we're doing fun two, which we're like almost to our fundraising goal, which is like a whole other beast of a business trying to fundraise money is not easy. And so cumulatively, we're investors now in over 20 companies and mostly within the food space. Some not, but mostly. As you're personally evaluating, as you're talking about some of it is gut, can you give me an example of a company where you're like, oh, X was doing Y and that was just a home run for me?

27:22Rachel Mansfield:I think that Serenity Kids is a good example for me. For those of you who don't know, it's like a baby and toddler pouch company, like baby food, but my seven-year-old still eats the pouches. He like loves them. But most baby pouches were fruit and like oats and just like sugary, not as nutrient dense ingredients. And when I saw a company like this, I was like, oh wow, like they're actually making like whole food, no sugar pouches for babies and toddlers. Like this is what our kids should be eating. and they shouldn't just be eating fruit. If I was eating fruit pouches all day, I'd be starving.

27:55And also if your blood sugar is crashing because it's spiking, like fruit is obviously very important and good for you. But also if you're having fruit and nothing else, especially if you're not having like the full fiber that you cannot have as a baby because you're not crunching into that apple because you don't have teeth. It's wreaking a little bit of havoc or spiking certainly your blood sugar and then you crash. So you're gonna have erratic moods and all of that stuff. Whereas if you have that protein lens on things, then you'll have much more stable glucose, right?

28:26Rachel Mansfield:Exactly. And so we were always just looking for brands that were like disrupting the industry. We invested in brands that can sell themselves off a shelf. Like I don't want someone to pick up one of the brands that we're investors and be like, wait, what am I supposed to do with this? And we've made mistakes. Like we've invested in two brands that are like, why did we do this? But we always just look for brands that can sell themselves and that are made with like good quality ingredients and their margins are good. It's a profitable business and it's on the trajectory to be profitable. Like you don't expect you to be profitable for your first few years, but you're like on that trajectory.

28:57Rachel Mansfield:And I also look for like who their mentors are, like who's backing this company before this, like what's their background. I'm like a gut reader. So I could talk to a founder and have a good idea within a few minutes of talking to them. If I actually think that like they have what it takes to scale that brand. Interesting. I like that. So was that piece a side hustle for your husband? Oh yeah, good question. Where does Jordan come into play? So Jordan was working from home during COVID and he was miserable at his job. He was doing like account operations at a hedge fund and he was working those crazy long hours.

29:30Rachel Mansfield:So one day I went for a walk in the morning and I was talking to my past managers and I was like, I really think I need to hire someone. I need to like branch out. I need to like expand my team. And she's like, well, what about Jordan? So I was like, that's a good idea. like you don't trust anyone more than you trust. Hopefully that you stress more than you're significant other. I mean, at least I do. And so I walk in my apartment and I'm like, Hey, do you want to just come work with me? And he's like, what? So we flushed out like what that could look like. And it's been a learning experience working with him for the last four years, but I don't trust anyone more than I trust him.

30:04Rachel Mansfield:He gets me, he gets my business. So he helped me with a few things at first, then the venture arm really was like what he was focusing on. And then I was doing a lot of like the calls and the fundraising and like, I'm a lot more extroverted. Then we decided to start our own company. And then that's his main thing with great shit. So talk to me about your own company because you have a brand new venture and I'm really excited to hear more about it. So talk to me about the ideation process, what you thought was missing, why you were ready to jump into this. I can only imagine that you had such great information in your head from the VC side of things and the investing side of things.

30:49So talk to me about it.

30:50Rachel Mansfield:So when we fundraised for fun one, we said we were going to find healthy kids snack companies and we found a couple, but we didn't find what I was looking for. I wanted like nostalgic, crunchy, delicious snacks, shelf stable. You pick up the box, you snack on it, like you pack it in the lunchbox. You could pack it in their snack bag. And I wasn't finding what I was looking for. I wanted something with protein. I wanted something that was organic. I wanted something that didn't have seed oils in it. And it wasn't existing. There's a lot of amazing snack brands out there. I consume them probably on a weekly to daily basis.

31:25Rachel Mansfield:But nothing was checking off the boxes for what we wanted and what I, as a mom of three, want to pack for my children. So I walked into our office. I said to Jordan, we're going to start a snack company. We're going to make every snack that we want to feed our children that I can't find. And then we're going to sell it. So that was over three years ago. And it has taken us over three years to get to this point. Like we quickly or slowly learned why no one else is doing this. But I'm so happy it took us so much time because I'm so incredibly proud of it. It is so good. I was eating it last night as I'm like packing my kids' lunch boxes.

32:02Rachel Mansfield:So we launched three savory crackers, a cheddar cheese cracker, a ranch cracker, and a sea salt cracker. And they all have five grams of protein. There's no seed oils. They're organic. They're kosher, which my online community is looking for kosher snacks. So I was like, I'm your girl. It's kosher. The rabbi said it is. We're good. And they're nut-free. They're seed-free. I could put them in my kids' lunchbox because preschool is very strict with allergies. And the kids love them. Like my kids are asking for them for breakfast. And like, I don't want to sell something that kids don't like. I'm not going to tell you my kids like it if they don't like it because kids don't lie.

32:38Rachel Mansfield:So we're really excited. It's out in the universe. Okay. Well, what is the brand called? Oh, sorry. Oh my God. Great. Who hired me? It's called Cadoots. C-A-D-O-O-T-Z. So how did you come up with that name? Why that name? So naming a company is really hard. Yeah. Everything's taken. And there's like trademarks. There's this, there's that. And I was so naive. I was like, I'm going to name it Smiley Snaps, the most generic name that you could possibly want to name a company. Okay. It took a long time for a reason. Like our youngest son, his name is Cooper. And I always have like playful terms on like what I call him, like Kugi or Kooks or whatever.

33:15Rachel Mansfield:And one day just Kadoots just like rolled off my tongue. And I called, we have a third like founding investor that has been with us like since the day I thought of this idea. And I told him the name and he was like, no. But like, I was obsessed with this name. It's special. It's different. Listening to your child say Caduce and my youngest, Cooper, he calls it Doots. It's the cutest thing in the world. Well, it sounds like an instrument sound almost in some way. Like, it's so funny. Like, Caduce. Yeah, I love that. That's like one of our like ways to describe it. It's like a playful sound that like enlightens that in you, which I think is really cool.

33:51I think that's amazing. Okay, so while obviously you had a lot of things to figure out in terms of like getting the recipe right and all of that and finding the difficulty of having it meet the nutritional profile that you wanted and all of the other things, how did it start? Walk me through recipe development for a CPG brand.

34:10Rachel Mansfield:I love that question because the cheese cracker was first. Cheddar was always going to be the hero products, at least to me. Then we learned about like the cogs and the cost of goods sold for product and margins. And, you know, we've always been like judging someone else's margins. But then when we saw our own, when we get into retail, we're like, we're screwed. We can't do this. Like you made something too expensive, essentially. We formulated the entire product. Actually, like over a year ago, we were like, okay, my God, we're done. Like we could launch in a few months, like we're ready to rock.

34:43Rachel Mansfield:Then we like dived into sourcing all the ingredients and all the costs and all the certifications and everything. And we're like, we're so dumb. Like this isn't going to work. So that's data. It's like, take a moment to be like, okay, let's pause. Like, what are we going to do? And everyone's like, Rachel, what are we going to sacrifice on? Which one of these pillars are you going to get rid of? And I'm like, none. And I stayed true to everything we wanted, which the team was not happy with me. They're like, Can we put natural flavors in it? I was like, absolutely not. Can we use enriched wheat flour?

35:12Rachel Mansfield:I was like, no, are you new here? We are making an organic, clean, pure, whole food protein snack for kids. Like I can't go against what I have been saying that I'm going to do. Otherwise I don't even want to do it. So it was a challenge to get to this point. As we were perfecting cheddar cheese, they sent us a 50 % reduction in cheese cracker. And we tasted it. We're like, this is like a sea salt cracker. This is actually really good. That is amazing. I would never have thought to reduce the cheese and then it turns into something entirely different, but that makes sense. Yeah, because we use organic, like actual organic, freshly shredded cheddar cheese.

35:50And that's the protein.

35:51Rachel Mansfield:That's the protein. And we use organic milk protein as well. And so when you take the cheese out and reduce it, it's not as cheesy, but then if you increase the spices and you use like all organic spices and seasonings, it is so delicious. And I love sea salt crackers. Like I'm a saltine girl. I love oyster crackers, like anything that's like a salty cracker. So the sea salt now is my favorite. And then ranch, I wanted to do something different. And my kids love like herby ranch dressings, like love that kind of vibe. They love this flavor. For the ranch base, what was the cracker formulation for that?

36:27Like, do they all vary? It's just the amount of cheese that's in it. Like, what is the process there?

36:31Rachel Mansfield:So there's no cheese and sea salt. oh i know which i sometimes people like oh is it dairy free i'm like no because you use organic milk protein but the way your body is digesting the organic milk protein isn't the same as it would be as you're eating cheese huh so wait can we go back to margins now how did you figure out the margin piece of this because i feel like that was the cliffhanger that we left earlier how did you get the margin to where you wanted it to be or needed it to be while also having the same quality and not sacrificing, did you think like, oh, we'll just have the cheddar be a loss leader and then we'll make up for it in other products here and there?

37:10Or what was your strategy?

37:12Rachel Mansfield:So we switched a couple of the ingredients and when we did, it made the product even better. Like at first we were using hemp protein and then we were like, let's try organic milk protein because it's actually like more nutritious and has more protein. And the hemp protein we realized was like drying out the cracker. So when we made that switch, it helped us, not only helped us with the cost, but it also just like made the texture and the consistency of the cracker even better. And this is where it's like, it was worth the weight and worth the like ups and downs because like I'm a hundred times more confident in this cracker than I was in the hemp cracker.

37:48Didn't help us as much as I'm sure

37:49Rachel Mansfield:our investor wants us to be. But we know that like, as we scale a company, the ingredients, the costs go down, everything goes down. Because you have more buying power. Exactly. So we're setting ourselves up for success in the future, which is like where our finance background for this really comes in handy because we know like, don't just suck it up and figure it out in a couple of years. Like you have to figure it out now. Yeah. Also, by the way, what a wonderful situation because rarely when confronted with a major problem that's messing with our margin, do we find a substitute that improves the margin and the product.

38:27That feels like a really lucky situation. So good job, you guys.

38:32Rachel Mansfield:Thank you. It was hard. It was not an overnight success in that sense, but yes. So talk to me about testing. Obviously you have three in-house testers who are children. Once you felt like you had hit your three final formulas, what gave you the confidence to know this is it, this will work? Like you knew that the nutritional and flavor profile was there, but how did you know kids would like it? I was like wheeling and dealing kadoops around this town. Like it was nobody's business. I would call my friends be like, Hey, can I come over? I'd make them close their eyes. I would give them a cracker.

39:05Rachel Mansfield:I had endless tastings in my backyard. We had surveys of like people, like kids giving feedback because you know, there's a lot of baby and toddler foods, but like we're really targeting like kids. And their taste buds are different from adult taste buds because they're younger. So they taste things more acutely. So when they think something is spicy, it's because they have all those brand new taste buds. Exactly. So it's not a one-to-one of an adult to a kid. So you can't even like test it on yourselves ultimately that that much. No. And like Jordan and I were like making ourselves sick. We were trying so many crackers.

39:39Rachel Mansfield:Like it got to the point where I was like, I can't participate in the next tasting. Like you're going to have to push it a week for me or I can't do it because we were eating so many crackers. But we went to our R &D with our team. We sat at that desk. I think that I ate over 200 something crackers that day, the first tasting we ever did. And I was like sick to my stomach. And also like us trying these is not helping us. Like, yes, we could do the first pass. We can narrow it down to three options. But once you have those two to three options, that was when we were like, let's bring in kids. We also have a group of families called the Caduce Crew.

40:13Rachel Mansfield:So they've been helping us in the R &D for this. And we've been sending them samples and they would send us videos of their kids and their reactions just for us to like actually see if a kid likes something. So nailing down the product was so challenging, like so much more than I thought to the point where I'm not scared that someone's going to copy what we're doing because I'm like, good luck. That's funny. So by the time this episode comes out, it will have just officially launched. talk to me about the launch strategy and then talk to me about what kind of expansion and scale you're planning for in 2026.

40:51Rachel Mansfield:Yes. So we have a verbal commitment from a large nationwide retailer that we're hopefully going to be launching in, in June. That is like a surreal moment for me. Even if I was allowed to say it, I wouldn't say it because I'm too nervous. Meanwhile, when I was like four weeks pregnant, I was like telling everybody, but I wanted to do this very methodically. I want to do this slow. I want to do D2C to start. I want to get to know our customer. I want feedback. I want to know the case that are happening. I want to know like the issues. I want to get to know Mary that lives in Louisiana that buys our product.

41:24Rachel Mansfield:And if you sell first on Amazon, you don't get any of that customer data. Like I don't know anything about anyone that's buying the product. And as someone who's built platforms off of like relationships with my community. It just doesn't feel like genuine. So we're starting with D2C. And from there, we'll expand into like other e-commerce avenues and then other retailers. But you know, when someone picks you up off of a shelf in a grocery store, and they try your product and they don't like it, they're not going to buy it again. But if someone buys something from your website, and they don't like it, they're likely going to write to you and tell you that they don't like it and why and you're going to get that feedback.

41:59Rachel Mansfield:So I think it's just like really important to not bite off more than you can chew. Yeah. And I'd rather start smaller. So D to C is where we're focusing. Okay. I like that. Where do you see this going? Do you have products that you want to make that you can tell me that won't compromise your R &D? Like where do you want this to go? I love snacks. Like my friends laugh at me because like we'll go out to run a few errands and I have like two snacks in my bag. Like I am a snacker. I always have been. I blame my mother and my father because they eat every two hours. I'm always snacking. So I want to expand into snacks.

42:35Rachel Mansfield:My goal and my dream for Caduce is to create all of the delicious nostalgic snacks that like we love and kids love, but just make them organic and with better ingredients that you can trust. Like I want someone to be able to just pick up a box that says Caduce and they don't even have to look at the label. They just can trust the ingredients that are in it. So that's our ultimate goal. I can't say any of the specific products because I don't want to jinx it. Fine. But I do love this. And I have to say, as a parent who has fussy eaters in her house, and I have one child where it is a struggle to get protein in her and who loves crackers and snacks in general, I have tried so many different things and she is just not having it.

43:21So I'm personally really, really excited because any additional way to get protein into her, I will take it. So thank you for making this.

43:30Rachel Mansfield:Oh my God, of course. I'm definitely sending you some for your daughter. Thank you. With the protein, like there's only so many like string cheeses, meat sticks, and like bars they could eat for protein. And when they eat just like a traditional cheese cracker, they come back 30, 40 minutes later if they're still hungry to like eat something with substance. Like my kids love fruit. They eat it every day. They're like, I really would like for you to pair this with something else. If you're having an apple, have a little peanut butter, have something on the side. They are understanding that because they recognize they're hungry.

43:58Yeah. I talk to them about this all the time. Kids Eat in Color does a really great job on Instagram of talking about not assigning value to foods, but just talking about this is a fast energy food. This is a slow energy food. So we're always talking about them. The cracker is great because it's fast energy, but then you have to pair it with something that's a slower energy, like peanut butter, and trying to get that through to them because I don't want to convey like crackers or like carbohydrates in general are bad because food is not good or bad. It just is. But like, how do you say it in a way where they understand like two things have to be complimentary to give you that well-rounded snack break?

44:33Anyway. Okay. So there are three questions that I ask everyone who comes on. And the first one is about mistakes because we all make them through the course of our career. We don't always talk about it. We tend to give the highlight reel. And I think it's really important to talk about mistakes because women need to hear about resiliency. They need to know that you can feel like that your life is over and then you can bounce back from that. Tell me about a mistake that you've made at any point in your career and what you've learned from it.

45:01Rachel Mansfield:I think my biggest mistake is not having more help. I'm a perfectionist. I own it and I know it. And I really stink at outsourcing for my brand. I'm awful. I am very in the trenches, but with Kaduts, I am going to be an outsourced queen, and I'm going to continue to hire people that are smarter than I am and better at things so that I can focus on what I am supposed to be doing. So I think my biggest mistake is just not expanding my team to have more help. As a Virgo, I feel you very deeply on this. I have a friend who used to say, only do what only you can do. And while that's not true in the beginning days when you have to do everything, I think like that is kind of important as you scale.

45:49It's like, are you the only person who can do this? If the answer is even like 17 % no, like that's the sign that you need to like train someone else or hand some of that off because there will be so many things that you're the only person who can do it. And that's where you should be spending your time.

46:04Rachel Mansfield:I love that. I'm giving myself that advice as I'm saying it. I need that. I need to hear that. I think we all do. Okay, so a lot of the folks who listen to this podcast are in their first lives, and they know that they want to do something different, whether that's in the same industry, but moving into an entrepreneurial role, whether that's changing industries, whatever it is, but they're scared, and they haven't made that leap quite yet. As someone who has pivoted herself, what advice would you give someone who's standing there on the precipice thinking about it, but just hasn't made that leap quite yet.

46:38Rachel Mansfield:I like genuinely feel so bad for people when they are like in that pickle and like in that position of where like they want to take the jump, but they don't believe in themselves enough to do it. And I'm like, just do it. You know, I watched this with my husband for a while. I watched this with a lot of my friends, some family members, and I just like want people to believe in themselves a bit more. And it could sound hypocritical because I don't think I would have ever left my job to pursue my own brand. I think I would have done both for as long as I could. And that really like forced me to take that jump.

47:06Rachel Mansfield:But I think because I know that like it can work out, but just try it, especially at a younger age, because it's a lot harder to take a risk when you have children and you have a family, but like when you don't, it's like the time to take that risk. Agreed. My last question, also my favorite, which is if you could get in a time machine and go back in time and speak with your younger self and give younger Rachel some advice at any point in your career, what would you say to her? And would she listen? I think I would go back in time to like high school and college. So it's not really in my career and just tell myself like, you're going to do great.

47:46Rachel Mansfield:Just enjoy yourself. Don't be so hard on yourself. Just go live your life because responsibility is coming at you. And even before I had kids, like just live your life, like travel, take the risk, live, sleep, like don't set an alarm for no reason. Why did I ever set an alarm before I had children? That's a great question. So yeah, just live my life and enjoy myself and don't be so hard on myself. Rachel, I think that's advice that we could all really use. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. I am so excited for your launch. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down and chat with me.

48:24This has been such a pleasure and I am just really excited to see where everything goes.

48:30Rachel Mansfield:I will be rooting for you from LA. Thank you so much. This is a full circle moment for me. So thank you so much for the opportunity to come chat with you.

48:45That was the founder of Caduce, Rachel Mansfield. For more inspiring interviews with women like Rachel, head on over to secondlifepod.com where we have so many more for you to peruse. If you like today's show, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review us. We love seeing you spread the word on social. And now you can tag us in your posts. We are at Second Life Pod on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We always want to know who you're interested in hearing from on the show. So send in your requests to hello at secondlifepod.com or you can DM us on Instagram.

49:24I'm at Hilary Kerr. The show is at Second Life Pod. Our DMs are always open. I'm Hilary Kerr, and you've been listening to Second Life. This episode was produced by Hilary Kerr, Summer Hammeris, and Natalie Thurman. Our production assistant is Raven Yamamoto. Our audio engineers are at Treehouse Recording in Los Angeles, California, and our music is by Jonathan Leahy.