How A 'Small Town' Is Paving A Probiotic Path To The Big Time

0:10Hello, friends. I'm Ray Latif, and you're listening to the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Corey Deans, the founder and CEO of Small Town Cultures, a mission-driven brand that markets premium fermented foods. For a brand with a diminutive name, Small Town Cultures has big ambitions. Based in upstate New York, Small Town Cultures was founded by entrepreneur Corey Deans in 2017. The company uses regionally sourced ingredients to make fermented foods that contain no vinegar nor added sugar. Packaged in clear glass jars with minimalist labels that are designed to showcase the vegetable's natural color and crispness, small-town cultures markets red onions, turmeric kimchi, and traditional sauerkraut, among other probiotic-rich products.

1:10The brand is distributed nationally at a variety of natural, conventional, and independent retail chains, including Whole Foods, Price Chopper, Earth Fair, and Central Market. Corey, who created the brand after struggling with a personal illness and later realizing the health benefits of fermented foods, has sought to build small-town cultures as a company that can expand the appeal and accessibility of gut-healthy products among consumers across the country. In the following interview, I spoke with Corey about how her passion for probiotics led to the development of small-town cultures and how she sought to create a brand that stood out from both legacy and upstart players.

1:52She also talks about her response to Jessica Alba's DM on Instagram, how she manages the complexity of both production and sales and marketing, and how she assesses new retail and distribution opportunities for fermented foods.

2:10Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with Corey Deans, who is the founder and CEO of Small Town Cultures. Corey, great to see you. Hi, Ray. Thank you for having me. This is exciting. Isn't it? Yeah. We're here in the studio in Marina del Rey at Nosh Live Winter 2024. I'm so happy you're here. You were already upstairs listening to some of our main stage content. Anything in particular that you saw that was interesting? You know, it was just nice. We're a mission-based company. We're looking to expand the appeal and the accessibility of probiotic-rich fermented foods.

2:40I was listening to Jennifer Gardner speak, and she was just talking about how everything kept coming back to the mission, how her team, every single person was bought in. And when a decision had to be made, it was made based on that. And I feel like that's something we've been trying to do and to hear somebody who has taken their brand so far and still has so much more they want to do. And to hear that they're kind of implementing the same concept. It was refreshing. It felt good. I felt seen. Yeah. So, so far so good. Yeah. Jennifer Garner, one of the co-founders of a brand called Once Upon a Farm.

3:11We're on stage with the CEO of the company and co-founder John Foraker. Before we hopped in the mics, you said you passed by her. Didn't have a chance to hand her a jar. Did you? No. I didn't. No, no. Next time I see her in the hallway. I got to think though, she's probably seen your product at Whole Foods. I certainly would hope so. I mean, we try to have branding that kind of sticks out and draws your eye to the fermented food set. So I would hope that she has noticed us and hopefully seen us. That is the number one reason why I was interested in your brand when I first saw it. Just spectacular, beautiful packaging.

3:43Your products that come in these 12 ounce glass jars with a white cap. They're clear glass jars. You can see the delicious food that you make. I'm holding in my hand your Wild Ramp Kimchi, which I just want to just get a spoon right now and started eating out of the jar. I assume I have the same kind of story that you hear from a lot of consumers in that the packaging just drew my eye. Yeah. And, you know, we just kind of looked at the category and did the opposite. Everything was in squat jars. Everything had this big, large label. Everything had farm branding. Now the categories move more towards plastic bags and plastic tubs.

4:21So we really wanted to stand out and we really wanted to kind of show value visually you can see the value of the product without me being there telling you about it I'm telling you right now like our products are delicious they have value you're gonna love them but how do we speak to a customer when I'm not there selling it so that was kind of the whole thing was to relay that in a minimal clean process that is one of the best explanations of what great packaging design is all about I'm communicating the value of what we're selling without me actually being there to tell you that this is really good.

4:56You can see the ingredients. You can see, now this is the sliced red onions product that you have, which is this like just gorgeous pink color. And you have the ingredients on the front. It says red onion, water, salt, sumac berry, and white tea. That's it. And my mouth is watering. And whenever that happens, that's a good sign. But you pick it up and you're like, okay, you know what? I'm going to take a shot on this because it looks good. It probably tastes good. It's going to be good for me. And for me, that's all you need to sell me. on. Yeah. And you know, some of our other products are, we do sliced jalapenos, we do cut carrots.

5:28So you can look through the packaging and you can know what to do with it. And that is kind of part of our mission. When you think of accessibility, it doesn't just have to be on the store shelf where you shop. It doesn't just have to be at a price you can afford. You also have to know what to do with it. So when you look at a sliced jalapeno or red onion, you just top things with it. Like, you know instinctively what to do with it. So we're kind of trying to lower that barrier to try fermented foods and to get the deliciousness as well as all the probiotic benefits. Were you always in jars? I mean, we'll back up a little bit and talk about the origins of the brand, but was this always your package design?

6:02Yeah. You know, the package design definitely morphed over the years. We've always been in these 12 ounce tall glass jars. We've always wanted to have this transparent label. We used to have kind of a label that went over the front of the jar, whereas a small label and went up and over the jar with the ingredients on the back. but you know having the customer be able to see through and get hungry just looking at the product was always very important so it has more you know once we went to the transparent label our logo we had designed and we wanted it based on Nike right like what what better logo to base your logo on than Nike because it's iconic right and you don't have to know anything about Greek mythology or Nike you just see it and you know it's Nike now like our logo is a vessel it's a bowl that has movement.

6:48It has life and it has bubbles coming out of it. It's a bowl of bubbles, but I don't care if you know if it's a bowl with bubbles. You might think it's a whale or Tweety Bird or stomach, but you know it's small town cultures. So that was like very important to kind of come up with a logo that was totally different from everybody else and, you know, communicated the modernness of our brand. There is something Nike-ish. There's something bowl-ish. There's definitely something that speaks whale to me, but I hope this doesn't offend you. It kind of looks like a gut almost. Yeah. And you know, is that, was it intentional?

7:21No, no, it wasn't intentional. I asked for a modern looking bowl with movement and bubbles and to be based on Nike. And then I wanted it so that we could put other colors or textures with it. You know, I wanted it to be versatile. So as we continue to evolve as a brand, we can do different things with it. And on my hat, I made it into a yin yang. So we just want something versatile that we could play with and have fun with. I like it. I like it a lot. Your interest in fermented foods. I talk about this with entrepreneurs all the time. Yes, you might enjoy eating something. You might enjoy drinking something.

7:54Does that mean you have to start a food company or a beverage company? In your case, it meant yes. Yeah. So I was very sick. I was very sick with Crohn's disease. I had a foot of my intestines taken out. I was on gnarly medication. I was just always, always. Your intestines taken out? Yeah. Small and large appendix. Wow. Yeah, I have the scars to prove it. It's like I was always sick and my doctors, all they wanted to do was get me to remission. They were never looking for actual health. It was always just like make her not feel as bad. Something to address the symptoms versus solve the problem.

8:25Exactly. And they told me after the surgery, when I got a foot of my intestines taken out, that it could easily come back. It's going to come back right where the scar is on either side. And I was like, oh, great. So I get to look forward to doing this again. And I get to be in fear from now until then that this is going to happen again. And I was just like, there's no way to live. So then I decided to heal myself with probiotic rich fermented foods. With these, you kind of get like this full colony of probiotics, not just the main ones you might get in a pill, but like full colony probiotics.

8:55And it worked. And then, you know, because it worked, I got myself off the surgery cycle. I no longer have Crohn's. I don't take any pills because of that or any medication. I adopted it into my diet. And it was at that time that I was like, oh, I don't actually like fermented foods at all. I was just eating it for the health benefits. Wait a minute. Now I have to back up. So you started out not enjoying fermented foods. No, not at all. Was it because it was just a vinegary thing or? Yeah. So this is a while ago, right? So at the time. How many years just for context? 13. Okay. At the time, the market was a lot different.

9:31You would get soggy sauerkraut and bags yes you would get very traditional kimchi that I now love but at that time it didn't speak to my flavor profile my palate I was a picky eater so I didn't like it then the term fermented wasn't nearly as mainstream as it is today so that probably was I think part of your hardship we'll call it in finding something that was palatable yeah it didn't work with my basic diet and you know the term fermented it always is kind of wild to think about you're eating a lot of little tiny microbes like intentionally, right? Yeah, billions. And you're doing it intentionally.

10:07But I mean, we evolved with that. We've moved past it now, but it was something to kind of get past. But you know, that's why I started making mostly single vegetable ferments, because that's what I enjoy eating. Fermented red onions are pickled red onions. Like that's easy. You can put that on anything. I made them for myself and for my family for a number of years. So I didn't start the business for a while. And I was always waiting for someone else to do it. I was like, why is no one else expanding the product line? Why is it always sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickles? Like, that's not what I feel like eating every day.

10:36I want more variety. I want the things that I'm making at my home to be able to buy at the store because it takes a lot of time to make fermented foods. And then there's always, am I doing it right? Like, I feel very comfortable with that now, but when you're fermenting at home, you know, there's some trial and error. You're learning. So I was waiting for someone else to do it and no one did. So I was like, fine, I'll make it. And I had these recipes and anything I do, I do tend to overdo. So like when I was coming up with the recipes initially for myself, because nobody else was making them, I would like make four iterations of something in four separate jars.

11:10And I would try them all and I'd be like, okay, I like this one. And then I would make four iterations of that. So by the time, you know, years rolled by, I felt pretty good about what I was making because I had spent so much of my personal time and energy trying to make something that I could feel proud about and I could share with friends and family and kind of like share the word of probiotic rich foods. What year was it that you said small town cultures here's my brand? Yeah so 2017 I think we started it started small mostly still research buying packaging defining the recipes trying to get certifications and things like that.

11:462018 kind of entered the market I think and I feel like doors open before when I'm like one or two steps back, they're opening ahead of me. So I'm always kind of going through doors before I think we're ready, but it seems to be okay. So like I made some stuff, I brought over to a local nice market and I gave them samples. It's like, Hey, would you consider carrying these as a local brand? I was a customer. So they said, sure. Like they were very familiar with me that they would at least consider it. So they put them back in the fridge. And then I guess randomly this distributor, a regional distributor came in and they were doing a tasting and she let him taste it.

12:26And then he was like, oh, I've been looking for this. So he was saying, he said he had been looking for a product like this and they did specialty cheeses, imported meats, things like that. So a boutique brand regional did fit in with something he would like. And he said he was looking for something like this and he would reach out and he did. And we had a distributor before the store even brought us on. I was like, okay, let's go. We've got a distributor. Let's start selling. That's outstanding. But you know what? It started with you being proactive and going to a store, a local store that you knew the owners, or at least you knew the operators there and saying, hey, can you take a chance on my brand?

13:04So it wasn't happenstance. It was more that you created the opportunity by being proactive. Yeah. And there was, of course, years of work beforehand as well. Like it didn't just materialize. Like I have thought about it a lot. We had done a lot of the work before I even made that first introduction, but it still was a little bit wild. I just remember manufacturing this first much larger order than we were capable. And my parents were there putting on the tamper evidence seals and my sister was there and like we all were in it and we were doing it and we're getting the accomplished. And to be clear, you were not in your home kitchen doing this.

13:41You had a facility. Do you have a shared kitchen, a commercial kitchen at the time? Yeah. So my sister owned a vegetarian lunch restaurant. It was tiny. It was the best use of space I've ever seen. I would say it's about the size of this set. And it's like a hallway kind of restaurant. Perfect place to open a fermented foods brand. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I needed something and it was free. And I had a baby recently and she said I could use her kitchen in the off hours, which meant seven at night until seven in the morning. And then all day Monday, she was closed on Monday. So I had access to a free commercial kitchen.

14:17I had recipes. I had a distributor. I just had to stay up all night and produce the stuff. And that's what I did probably for the first year was just work every single Monday and then stay up overnights to get the product out. At what point did you say we need more space obviously right away but we actually got asked to leave using this kitchen for free because we weren't really on her lease and the landlord asked you okay yeah the landlord asked like your sister's like get out of here no no the landlord was like hey we didn't agree to this 24 7 operation thing you have going on machinery and stuff you know cutting machines so yeah we did get asked to leave.

14:54And that was when we renovated the first floor of my house and a two-car garage. The two-car garage became our warehouse. So half of it was cold storage. And the other half was where we stored our packaging materials. And then the first floor of the house became our commercial kitchen. And we were there for a couple years, probably two years. Why did you feel like you needed to manage and control production? Why not outsource it? Oh boy, I tried. I tried so many times to find a co-manufacturing partner. They either wanted to ferment in plastic or put us in plastic packaging wise. Our standards of production just didn't fit with what they were doing.

15:30And you know, there is a bit of a control thing. I want to make sure that the product's fresh. I want to make sure that our ferments are exactly the way we intend them to be. So far, we're still manufacturing in-house. We plan to continue to expand our manufacturing in-house, but it doesn't mean that every year I don't visit looking for a partner to help us manufacture it. And, you know, as we move, we're based in the Northeast. As we move and start selling more on the West Coast, shipping from the Northeast to California, cold storage does not make a lot of sense. So we will continue to revisit that.

16:08More than anything, you want to have faith and trust in the partner that you have. So sometimes that's not something that happens overnight. That takes a lot of time to find the right person, and to find the right team to say, you're going to make the same thing that we make and that we've been making since 2018. Yeah. With fermented foods, one of the things people that haven't already adopted them ask is like, well, what do I do with them? How do I use them, right? So there's that education. And we are looking to expand the market for fermented foods and we're looking to kind of push it out and offer fermented foods in more convenient ways so that it's not on the customer to know how to use it.

16:46we want to present that to them by partnering with other companies to make it easier. So for instance, like a salad company, like a salad kit company, like how great would it be to be in a salad kit where you're getting your probiotic and then you also, you know, it tastes delicious. And all this is because small town cultures is growing really, really fast. And you are expanding into retail. You said you're doubling in sales every single year. But when you started out, did you have a target consumer? Did you do an analysis of the market? Did you understand the category as well as you do today?

17:21And that's obviously, that's kind of a leading question. Obviously you didn't, but how much of the category did you feel you understood versus how it has evolved since? Sure, sure. So I think that I was the target market at the time. We didn't have the data we have today, right? So like data is amazing. Do you buy data? We have in the past, mostly now we're using the distributor, retailer and internal. But it has given us a lot of insight into our customer and where we're going and where we want to pursue. I think I know that I'm not very good at most things. But then when I am good at something, I should pursue that.

17:58And I think I'm good at seeing white space. So I think I can see where the problems are, where there's not something. And I think I can come up with a decent solution. When we're looking at target markets, I think it's still me. I am the target market. I am middle income. I'm not affluent. I shop at conventional stores as well as natural stores, and I'm a value customer. And that is what we're trying to do is bring a product that will speak to a broader audience, not just people who already love fermented foods, but people who maybe have heard of them, maybe are fermented food interested or curious, and speak to them and have them try it for the first time.

18:36There's a lot of nutritional value. There's a lot of health value in these products? Are people willing to pay the price? What's the price point per jar? Our SRP is$6.99. There's one of our natural retailers has us at$7.79, I think, $7.89. We have a little bit of a gap. We are competitive within our space. So we would be competitive within the refrigerated pickle and fermented food space. We're actually kind of a bit lower for our quality than some of our other competitors. I would say if you're looking at a fermented red onion and comparing it to a pickled red onion that's pasteurized on store shelf we're double that so we're not really competing there yet where are you regionally in terms of retail so right now regionally we're mostly in the northeast we're with price chopper and tops and whole foods in the northeast it's so interesting that you're in price chop oh that was my goal that was always well i'm the target market and price chopper is northern new york conventional and they have a gorgeous produce section you walk in the produce section and it's beautiful and you're like, oh, you can start planning your meal for your family there.

19:39So it was actually, it was my target. If you would have talked to me like two or three years ago, like on my porch, you know, it's just me and you talking, you know, like it would have been like, oh, we're going to be in price chopper. Now we want to repeat that success. Did you advocate for the brand to be in produce or was that something? Okay. So how did that conversation come about? Fermented foods had many homes. I think when we first started, everybody wanted us in dairy and deli because you know you make sandwiches with it I guess or hot dogs or whatever and I think it's also kind of a high volume part of the store maybe they're looking to enhance the you know traction for those types of foods velocity for some of those foods but that might be my guess so you know I just I didn't actually ask I just always was like we're going to be merchandised in produce where people make those healthy decisions for their family I think that At Dairy and Deli, it's cold.

20:32It's behind glass. Produce, well lit, colorful, fresh. Like produce is our jam. Yeah, we love produce. So I think sometimes that conversation about where your brand, your product should be merchandised can be a tough one because your retail buyer at the end of the day or the merchandising director is going to say, thanks, but I'm going to put this where I think it's going to sell best. How do you get them on board? How do you get them to see what you see for the brand? We'll provide our numbers and our sell through and will, I think, just honest conversations and passion. We do have data, I haven't looked at it in a while, between what we were doing in dairy when we first started compared to what we can do now.

21:09I think produce actually really likes us because we have a one-year sell-by date and our jars are tall and thin, you can squeeze them in a set and that is something you don't see in produce a lot. You can see big, bulky packaging, big bags of lettuce, things like that And they have to turn those things really quickly. Now we'll turn, but we don't spoil. So. Well, I interrupted you when you said price dropper. I was just so interested in the fact that you were there, but price dropper, Whole Foods, mostly in the Northeast. You're also out here in California as well. Are you looking at Middle America as a target for the brand?

21:41Are you there already? Yeah, we're in Whole Foods in the Rocky Mountain region and the Southwest. And then we're doing natural and independent in the Midwest as well. And then going down into Texas. So we're slowly, strategically kind of working our way west. Essentially, Whole Foods, when you go under category review with them, you tell them, almost like what you were saying about merchandising, like where are you going to be merchandised? You tell them where your strategy for where you'd like to be and how it works best for you. And then they just pick the SKUs they want and put them where they want.

22:11So I know you have to do a certain number of demos at Whole Foods, but I think what they're hoping for is that you're going to do as much support for the brand on shelf as you can. What is your brand support strategy for retail? Because, again, this is something where, yes, the beautiful packaging might sell it, but a scoop in someone's mouth will really seal the deal. Yeah, no, we definitely love demos. We love Whole Foods because they make it easy to do demos and to support your brand. And outside of that, because we are kind of trying to relay the value, we strongly believe that somebody tries it once they will continue to buy.

22:46So we just needed to get it in their hands that first time. So it could be a demo, but often it's going to be just that sale tag, man, that sexy sale tag with that like dollar off. It gets somebody to try it for the first time. And then they're like, oh, actually, I like this. You know, like I can see myself eating this. I know exactly what to do with it. So we do a lot of in-store, in-store TPRs, and we even do some like Dangler coupons and stuff like that. So I think that for us, we've made the decision to just represent the value of the product. And that really is our marketing at the moment.

23:20So we're not doing paid influencers. We're not doing anything. We just are putting trust in that people will continue to like the brand once they try it. So that is, that's what we're doing as an emerging company. I know there's a lot of ways we could be spending money. That's the direction that we see the lift, that we see the plateau afterwards, after the lift. And we like what we see. So we're just going to keep doing that. I know that we need to get out there more with education, with partnerships, things of that nature, getting this in front of people's eyeballs in other ways. But so far, just getting it in their mouth has been really effective.

23:55That's kind of where our marketing dollars go. Quick break. If this episode has you thinking about what's next in food and beverage, explore BevNet and Nosh Insider, our subscription platform with deeper insights from the BevNet team. Visit tasteradio.com slash insider to learn more. Yeah, going back to how to use the product, I think that's where influencers, paid or otherwise, can be really, really helpful. When do you think that that is a part of your marketing strategy that you will engage? Or how has your marketing gotten to a point right now where people are like, oh yeah, this makes a lot of sense.