The 'Daughter' Building A Cultural Food Empire

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. In this episode, we're joined by Nadia Luce Fellman, the founder and CEO of Dumpling Daughter. When a competitive figure skater, Wall Street analyst, and third-generation foodie sets out to share her family's cherished recipes with the world, the result is Dumpling Daughter, a bold new voice in Chinese-American comfort food. What began as a beloved local restaurant has since expanded into a nationally distributed CPG brand featuring frozen dumplings, bao buns, and sauces that celebrate generational flavors.

0:52In this episode, Dumpling Daughter founder and CEO Nadia Lou Spellman takes us on a journey from her Boston roots and business school days at Babson College to the high-pressure world of Wall Street and ultimately back to her cultural heritage in the kitchen. Along the way, Nadia opens up about honoring her family's culinary legacy, including her mother's legendary fine dining restaurant Sally Lings and what it takes to build a brand defined by authenticity, innovation, and uncompromising quality. From the challenges of food manufacturing to the nuances of flavor storytelling, she gives us an inside look at redefining premium in the world of ready-to-cook cuisine.

1:35Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am honored to be sitting down with Nadia Lou Spillman, who is the founder and CEO of Dumpling Daughter. Nadia, great to see you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, you're not too far away from our office here in Newton. Weston is how many miles away? Two. Two? I didn't realize it was that close. Probably, yeah. If you go the back roads, I'm born and raised in Boston. Okay. And actually was born to a house in Newton and then moved to Weston when I was three. I did not know that. You went to school in Boston too, yeah? I went to Babson College. Amazing.

2:09Amazing. Babson's College is well known as being the best business school in New England, one of the best in the country. Did you study just general management or entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship. Did you have an idea? Did you have a project that you had to focus on, a brand that you had to create, a company that you had to create when you were in college? Yes, we had to write business plans. So I was constantly writing business plans for restaurants and actually devices for cooking. Devices for cooking? Yeah, like gloves, heat proof gloves. Okay. Interesting, fun things that I felt like were necessary.

2:44And every year you have to write a business plan at Babson. Okay. So I was always thinking in the lines of food, food products, devices, restaurant concepts. Interesting. But you didn't go right into the food business. I mean, you were always kind of in the food business. And I want to talk about your family history in a sec, but you didn't go directly from college into food. There was a time in banking. Why do you feel like you wanted to get into the finance world as opposed to launching a business from the outset? I guess Babson did influence me. All of my peers were going into banking. Okay.

3:20And we were all watching Wall Street, the movie. And everybody felt like we had to go to New York. So, you know, you just go to New York. And my parents really encouraged me to do something different. I actually wanted to do restaurant consulting out of college. But my father said, who'd hire you? You're 21. You have family experience. No, go get a real job. And so I went into banking because there were so many opportunities and it was fun. It was fun to get a paycheck and to live in New York and have everything at your fingertips and be with your friends and explore the city. You learn a lot by going through the motions.

4:02It's all the beginning of the journey of being an adult and managing your money and having freedom, true freedom. It was a great time. And I learned so much about myself and what I liked and didn't like. I observed the people that I worked with, my boss, and I realized very quickly that I did not want my boss's job. And so finance was not for me. So during that time, I did my job, but I also figured out what my next step would be, which was definitely and undeniably in food. What year was that that you said, I'm going to start Dumpling Daughter? Well, I had an idea for frozen dumplings even back when I was at Babson College.

4:44And I spoke with my late father about it. We sat, we ate dumplings together. And through my experience at Babson, it was always in the back of my mind. And when I was in New York, I was looking for dumpling shops. When I was working in banking, I was looking for concepts that I kind of imagined in my head and dreamed of, and nothing quite fit the bill in my mind. And I was thinking, do I want to sell frozen dumplings? Do I want to go into the quick service restaurant business? Because that was really up and coming in the 2005s to 10s. And New York was booming with all different kinds of food. and I started jotting notes in my journal right out of college while I was in the cubicle in the office, reading the New York Times, following the New York Magazine on what was hot and just taking notes on what inspired me, what was interesting to me, where I saw opportunity.

5:49And that is when the brainstorming really was very intense when I was in New York. And so when I moved back to Boston upon marrying my high school sweetheart from Weston, I thought, I think this is time to really refine and focus all of these bullet points into some business plans. So I took all these ideas and I wrote various business plans and I started showing them to people that I trusted. And they said, you're Chinese. Look at your culture, your heritage, your upbringing. It should be dumplings. It shouldn't be pasta. It shouldn't be burgers. It has to be dumplings. And so that's when I started looking for the first location.

6:31You thought about burgers, huh? Oh, yeah. There's a burger place in New York that's just, I crave it all the time called Corner Bistro. Okay. And it's in the Lower West Side. And I would love to have a Corner Bistro in Boston. I still think about it. Is it like smash burgers? No, it's big, thick, juicy burgers that are served on paper plates. And that's all they do. Burgers, grilled cheese, and French fries. Corner Bistro. Yes. Lower West Side, you said? Yes. Okay. I'm going to New York pretty soon. So now you got my mouth watering thinking about that. But you always have my mouth watering when you're talking about Dumpling Cotter.

7:07We had lunch brought in earlier this week. You were so gracious to send us this incredible spread of food. and everyone was raving about it. And it was clear that you and your team know how to make great food. And you have a family history that is steeped in making traditional, delicious Chinese food. Your mom is a bit of an icon here in the Boston area. Your family history, how much did that actually influence your journey and your interest in getting into this space? If you could talk about your mom, your mom's influence on Chinese cuisine here in Boston, and that'd be amazing. Right, I was raised in a family where food was really the focus.

7:52We would gather every night for family dinner, and on the weekends, we would go out to our own restaurant or go to great restaurants in Boston. And by your own restaurant, you mean the family's restaurant? Yes, my parents had a white tablecloth, fresh flower, French service style Chinese restaurant. Which was called? Sally Ling's, and it was the first of its kind in Boston and arguably one of the most high-end Chinese restaurants in the nation at the time. And at a very young age, I was watching Julia Child have her birthday celebrations there. Martin Yan, Yan Can Cook Channel 2 was coming to Boston to eat there.

8:36The governor, Yo-Yo Ma, I knew how special it was. I had to wear a fancy dress to eat there and meals would last for hours, course after course. And when I think about those traditions in the family that we would have to the restaurant, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle who are also restauranteurs, these memories are the sweetest, most wonderful times of my life. And so the culture, the joy, the traditions, like these are the things that when I think back to are very emotional for me and that I really value. And that's why I think food and family is just so strong in my life. I couldn't have done anything else.

9:28We can't live without food, but if we can live with luxurious food, we really are kings and queens. The frozen aspect of what you do speaks to the convenience of your brand. Fresh dumplings, fresh bao buns, you see them in certain places. But again, the frozen aspect just allows families to be able to have it at their fingertips in a really convenient way. I almost feel like there's pressure, perhaps, and maybe I'm wrong, to sort of Americanize what you do to meet that modern consumer. to be able to give them that convenient way to make dinner. Did you feel that pressure when you were building the restaurant and certainly when you were developing the CPG brand?

10:18No, I did not feel pressure to go away from authenticity ever. And I think it was because I was raised with honesty and transparency. and what I love, I'm going to serve that. I'm going to serve it to my kids. I'm going to serve it to my friends. I'm not going to do something that I don't think is absolutely delicious. And transparency, clean products, premium is delicious. And so I love being able to serve the current times. My parents had very high-end restaurants in the 80s. they were glamorous. And now people are busy. They're on the go. They're doing so many things at once, but smart people want to eat healthy and convenience doesn't have to be unhealthy.

11:13Good food can be effortless. And that's what dumplings are. The customization beyond just boiling your dumplings is our sauces. And so you had at the office dumplings with different sauces. It's really fun to be able to empower the mom, the dad, the college kid to boil some water, cook some dumplings just as easy as pasta and put the different sauces and garnish with herbs. You know, that kind of fun at home activity is delicious, convenient. I really think it's my calling and my job as the next generation to serve the people, but in the way they need it today, because that's what my parents did.

12:01And I'm really happy that we were able to make the dumplings in a manufacturing facility that really tastes like my grandmother's handwork. The dough is al dente, a little chewy. it's truly the northern style dumpling that my grandmother would make me when I was little. And we were able to simulate that in a factory. And yes, when I opened the restaurant, people said, well, you're Sally Ling's daughter. Everything must be handmade. Everything must be art. A dumpling is a work of art, but in order to sell many and thousands and tens of thousands in one night, you have to make them by machine. And machine-made products are more consistent.

12:49They're cleaner. And you can't achieve a price when you're making them by hand that people can afford. And so I thought about that when I was writing the business plan. Everything needs to be machine-made to my spec, to what I would want to eat. And the flavors have to be so on point that people are just gonna love it, have fun with it. And it just brings me so much joy that our family's recipes are now in many homes. Were you selling all these products out of your restaurants or were you direct to consumer? Were you in supermarkets at that point? Right in 2020, we just immediately started making things that people could take home and prepare at their convenience.

13:37And I think all the right people, luck plays a big role and all the right people came. Owners of supermarkets were coming to Dumpling Daughter for takeout and buying the frozen. And it was fascinating to see people see us in all these different channels. And so that's the feedback, right? Literal actions, not structured, but people calling, emailing and saying, I loved this. Can you do more of that? Can you box it up for my supermarket, Volante Farms in Needham, a family generational supermarket that I love and respect said, can you box these up for me? I said, you know what? In fact, I'm designing a box for direct consumer nationwide shipping.

14:18So let's just throw it in that box. You know, I think when things happen and you feel like, oh, there's an opportunity, you take it. And it becomes multi-pronged, but it was never planned that way with a business plan. The business plan was one restaurant. It was one restaurant. Okay. When you go from selling your dumplings to a Volante Farms, and then you get a call from or you knock on the door of, say, a much larger retailer like a Market Basket, which is a regional grocer here in the New England area that does quite a bit of business, you can't necessarily say yes, I would think, because they're going to ask for orders that are significantly bigger.

15:03Going from, again, yes, we'll sell to these small local businesses to we're going to sell to chain retailers. How did you process that? How did you strategize around the opportunity? I think that when we started selling in the gourmet smaller supermarkets, we were seeing an incredible opportunity because we really didn't know what we were doing. I was a restaurant person. I was selling dumplings for$18 retail a box, which nothing in the freezer aisle is$18. How many dumplings were? 22. Okay. And I did it because the supermarket said, oh, our customer will pay that. And I was going to customers like Roach Brothers and Market Basket and say, hey, look, I have got dumplings for$17.

15:55And they laughed and said, no, no one's gonna pay that. You have to decrease the size of the box. Did you just walk in or did you have contacts there? Yeah, you know, you network your way through. And, you know, I started with a store manager of the Roach Brothers next door to my restaurant and then got to the buyer. And for Market Basket, it was through a partner that worked with them already. And I think that you learn along the way. And people actually really like that you adjust and you change based on their feedback, just like in the restaurant business. Now I'm getting buyers feedback. And I think that that is so valuable to build relationships.

16:34And so when we scaled up, I knew that a lot of small emerging brands would go straight to the Whole Foods or to the natural segment. But my mom and I always agreed, dumplings are for everybody and they should not just be in the most expensive supermarkets. And so Market Basket was a major goal for me because I knew how many people shopped there and how many people walk through that store. And because we sold at incredible velocities at small markets, I thought if this were in market basket and it was priced appropriately, this would sell way beyond expectations. And so scaling up was just a matter of telling your team, this is what we're doing.

17:18We're going to figure it out. And the backstory is, is that my mom used to own a small factory in New Jersey that made the dumplings for the restaurants. And my sister was running the factory for my mom for Dumpling Daughter. And so we were vertically integrated very early and we were able to refine the recipe and perfect it. Did you get a good price from your sister? Oh boy, was that hard. It was so hard working with family. At the end of the day, I said, we're incredible because we did it and we're incredible that we stopped. Oh, you don't deal with that anymore? No, because we outgrew the factory.

17:58Oh, wow, okay. And so my mom invested in this factory because quality was my biggest focus right when I opened the restaurant was I wasn't getting the quality of products that I needed to serve to my customers. And so my mother bought the factory that was making the dumplings for me in New Jersey, put my sister in there and they built a team to make the dumplings for Dumpling Daughter. And that's why we were also able to control our products so well and also fulfill D2C nationwide shipping off the bat. We were able to make our sauces because it was a family factory. But when you take on a customer like Market Basket, you need to find co-packers and you need to find help.

18:44And so we quickly moved to a bigger factory and we said, you know what? We know the recipe, we have the machines, you're just gonna help us. And so scaling up is really just the work of the team and building the capacity and moving factories. You have to grow. How did you get to a place where you felt comfortable that the quality you were getting from your mom's factory was going to be the same at your co-packer? I think that's all eyes on the manufacturing. Having somebody on the dumpling daughter's side in the factory, watching over the quality. So every time they did a production run, you had someone there?

19:23Yes. Because for me, what keeps me up at night is bad quality, right? Because premium and fine quality is the focus here. And so I want to make sure that everything's perfect. Before I had my sister, once we moved factories, we need somebody in there. Did you hire an operations manager to do that job or did you already have someone on your team? No, when you're small, you really start with people that are willing to do anything. And we can always talk about what makes a great dumpling and cook it off the line when they're making it. And so everyone took turns in the process. And everyone that works at Dumpling Daughter absolutely loves food.

20:02And so, you know, we're all willing to put on the hairnet and go in there and just oversee the process. But as the quantities become larger, and as you figure out who you need to hire, you hire the right people and put them in the right place. And so only this year have we had a full-time person doing that. But before that, it was really whoever was available. So whoever was available to get in their car and drive to Jersey. Correct. I mean, I think that's brilliant. I think you're a hundred percent right about when you're starting out, you have to have people that are willing to do jobs that they weren't necessarily hired to do and do things with an entrepreneurial mindset.

20:41that I imagine it could be sometimes difficult for folks who aren't necessarily the most assertive or have the most assertive personality to talk to a manufacturer about something that may not be as perfect as it should be. Did you feel like you had to train everyone to represent Dumpling Glotter in the same voice that you had? Was it very much hiring people that had the same kind of personality and tone of voice as you? Or was it really about, does this person believe in the brand as much as I do? I think that the team and the people are truly the ingredients to the success of the brand. And I can't emphasize that enough.

21:23Everybody that is dedicated and on our team, there's a piece of them in Dumpling Daughter. I learned that from the restaurant business. The restaurant business is like a lemonade stand, right? Everybody that has access to the product from the person that cooks it to the person that packs it to the person that washes the dishes and sees if there's food leftover that the customer didn't eat. Everyone sees a stage of this service and of this product. And I've learned that from the ground up running a restaurant. And now this company with dedicated entrepreneurial thinkers that they have access to every point.

22:07And that's why when you're growing the team, I think it's so important to involve everyone and to let everyone know their feedback and their opinions are valued. And I think that bringing on people that are inspired by the brand and the idea and by my story is really important because they buy into it. they are invigorated. They wake up thinking about it. And I'm so lucky to have that from the restaurants up to the corporation and the people in the office. Everyone understands what our mission is, is to serve high quality premium comfort food and to share this story. And I think it's so important to empower people.

22:50And there was a situation once where someone didn't speak up because he was not sure. And then we did two pallets of flavorless dumplings. There wasn't enough salt in the dumplings because he wasn't gutsy enough to speak up. And we had a meeting about it, the whole team. And I said, every single mistake is a learning opportunity. It's okay. We learn them now because when we're making 50 pallets, that's when we can't make those mistakes. So let's learn them now. and I never berate or get upset about anything. Nothing is worth getting upset about unless somebody is actually hurt or sick, right? And so we always take it back to the table and we have a meeting about it.

23:37And I wanna empower people to make decisions. And also if they don't feel comfortable saying something or speaking up, come to me because then I can understand and I can speak about it. And I think this is where working with people and understanding what it's like to be in their shoes and telling them, you know what, I'm here for you. That's the kind of leader that I'm trying to be. And I think it's really rewarding because people see my compassion. And I really like leading in that way because it really instills teamwork. Just like I was in the first restaurant, working the line with everyone, serving food, busing tables.

24:17I mean, you have to be in it with your people. And that's the joy of it. you know, the grind is the most fun part. Your employees, as great as they are, have another job too. And that's to be advocates for the brand. And you yourself are a great advocate for the brand and an ambassador for people to understand what the brand is all about through you, through your experiences, through social media. You are all over the Dumpling Daughter Instagram page. And it's really cool to see because you're not only the founder of the company, but you are a consumer of the products. You know, I see you eating dumpling daughter food and it's great.

24:56It's not like, oh, I'm arm's length away from the brand as the founder. You are literally in it and eating the food. How did you get comfortable with it? Were you always comfortable being the face of the brand and being someone who was going to be perhaps the most visible part of it? I am an extremely passionate person. And when it comes to food, even more so, I'm also very emotional about food, as I said before. And if I'm needed to be on Instagram, if I'm needed to be at an event, I'm showing up. I'm always showing up wherever I'm needed and wherever I can add value. And I've learned that being self-aware is really big too, knowing that you can hire people that are way better than you at certain things.

25:43And I love hiring people that are better than me at many things. And I think my job and what I'm best at is being Dumpling Daughter, the brand. And I would never make food that I wouldn't serve my children or eat myself. And we eat Dumpling Daughter three, four times a week. And why do something if you're not completely 100 % immersed and in love with it, right? I wouldn't be able to do anything else. and I love being able to serve and having convenient, beautiful comfort food accessible to all and empowering people to create dishes at home and show off to their friends and family the way I did when I was little.

26:34I would make dishes and show off to my friends or my dad, my mom. It feels so good to bond over those moments and the brand is all about nostalgia. You know, it's really about the childhood comfort, those memories and the traditions that we have as a family. And I can't wait to instill them in my kids. And my biggest joys actually are making dumplings with my mom and my kids because they're watching me make them. I'm not as good as making them as my mom and they're not as good as making them as me. And it's really fun to see the progression. It is so fulfilling. And I love being the face of Dumpling Daughter because nobody else could do that.

27:25You are the Dumpling Daughter. I am the Dumpling Daughter. And I love it because people wanna see what it's like to be a mom, an entrepreneur, a leader, a founder, a restaurant owner, a cookbook author, all these things that I find great joy in, people want to see the backstage part. They want to see what I do to function in my life. And so I even post things about my meditation and my spiritual side and my lifting and all the things that I need so that I can be prepared for my kids and my team and always putting me first. And I think Instagram is a beautiful way to share how moms and entrepreneurs, we can really do it all.

28:10And I like that. A lot of my followers are women. And this year, we're really going to start leaning into collaborating with brands that are like-minded, women-owned, and things that I personally enjoy in my life. So the brand is really about our family and about my upbringing and all the things that make me so happy. And I hope to just have that privilege to continue spreading it. Do you run your own social media strategy? Do you outsource it? It feels like you're intimately involved so intimately to the point that You decide what's going to be posted and what's not going to be posted. I have a manager that I work really closely with It's funny.

28:48I actually don't scroll on instagram. I don't look at instagram and so she knows what's trending She knows what's fun and cool right now Because I don't scroll and I don't look I will get on there and i'll post a story and then I'll get off. Because my social media manager said the activity engagement is great when you do something personal. So I want you to get on there and do something personal. Try to do it once a day and I'll take care of the rest. But yes, we do discuss what we're gonna do this month. 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.