The Secret To Winning At Target, Whole Foods & Costco? It Starts With 'Honey.'

0:10Hey folks, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Christy Goldsby, the founder of fast-growing refrigerated snack brand, Honey Mamas. When Christy Goldsby launched Honey Mamas in 2013, her vision for the brand was simple and straightforward, make superfood-infused delicious snacks accessible to more people. She will readily admit, however, that communicating the attributes and better-for-you nature of her honey-sweetened, refrigerated truffle bars has been anything but easy. In Honey Mama's first few years on the market, many consumers, Christy notes, didn't know what the heck the products were.

0:54And yet, the bar's creamy texture and indulgent flavors spoke volumes for the brand. Today, Honey Mama's is available in over 8 ,000 retail locations nationwide, including Whole Foods, Target, Sprouts, and Costco. The brand's traction in natural and conventional channels attracted the attention of investors, including San Francisco-based venture capital firm Amberstone, which led Honeymama's$10.3 million Series A funding round, which was completed in August of 2021. In the following interview, I spoke with Christy about how her initial experience as an entrepreneur influenced the development of Honey Mamas, why she emphasized demoing as the primary marketing tool for the brand, the evolution of the brand's positioning and packaging, how she navigated a retailer's devastating decision to discontinue the brand, and why handing over day-to-day operations was the right decision for the company.

1:53Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with Christy Goldsby, who is the founder of Honey Mamas. Christy, great to see you. It's really, really nice to see you as well. I'm thrilled to be in the sea right now, looking at you. Up and at them, up early, 8.30 a.m. in Portland, where you're based. You mentioned that you're a morning person. I am not. I'm a night owl myself. Not going out and getting wild. Just I do a lot of work at night, cleaning at home and then just busy work where they just did the job. Yeah. Those types of things, it's important to capture those times where you can both release what you need to get out of your mind and also just take care of the business.

2:33Yeah. Although I have one problem. I do snack a little bit too often at night. I do the same thing. That's what I snack. The longer I stay up, the more trouble I get into. Yeah. And I'm very appreciative of my snacks. And I'm very appreciative of the snacks that you sent me, including a new line that Honey Mama's is introducing very soon. Yes. I haven't snacked on these yet at night, but I'm sure I will. And these are these wonderful, amazing truffle treats. I'm going to pull this one. This is your chocolate cake variety. Yep. Talk about this line. And hopefully Mike, our CMO, will not hear me because he's going to come and read.

3:12Anyone who's listening to Taste Radio know that Mike Schneider is a fiend, a fiend, folks, for Honey Mamas. So, but yeah, please tell us about this new line. We appreciate his fiendom. It's been both like fun and entertaining and like a bright ray of sunshine every time I see Mike wherever I go. It's really fun to watch how much he eats right there. But yeah, so we are super excited to launch this line, the Truffle Treats at Expo East. We'll be at the Harvest Fest Boots. I think it's 920. So that day ahead of Expo East and we'll be tasting them out. It's going to be really fun and really exciting.

3:50This is a kind of a huge new line for us because it really is differentiated from the multi-serve line, which we've had for almost 11 years. But we'll be there. And, you know, I think the most fun thing about it for us is that it is going to be meeting consumers kind of where they're at. and we've been listening for a really long time about what people, what works for them. And it is super consumable. It's just this cute little one ounce bar that snaps in half so you can get two out of it. And it's on the go. And we've got three delicious flavors. We've got the mocha crunch, the chocolate cake and the cinnamon roll.

4:32And all of these flavors, I'm telling you, we have gone through research studies and, you know, both consumer research studies and in-house and then, you know, had them online and sold them in grocery stores as well, at least the chocolate cake, which is our number one. But the cinnamon roll, for example, you know, is topped with cinnamon. It is literally you put it in your mouth and you feel like you are having like the best breakfast you've ever had in your entire life. So it's super exciting for me to see this evolution of the company. And yeah, So we'll be launching it at Expo East. And it's very fun to be here on Taste Radio to be able to give your listeners the first little news of that.

5:13And Nash and BevNet have always been so supportive of us. And we're launching it in Target the week of 9-17 and then in Whole Foods Market in November. Outstanding. And then you can find them online as well. And I'm excited to hear everybody's feedback. Well, I can find them right by my side here on the side table because I've got three boxes And again, thank you so much for sending them. I can't wait to bite into this cinnamon roll for breakfast. That sounds amazing because I'm always that person with a cup of coffee, but no food. And I'm just like, I just need something. And this looks like the perfect little treat for that.

5:47A raw honey treat described as a raw honey treat, which sounds even better. Yeah. And each variety is made with either nine or 10 ingredients, real foods to be more specific. So very exciting stuff. Yeah. That call out was fun too, to kind of go in that direction. is like really kind of calling out how many real foods are in it and no fillers. Yeah. Christy, I speak with a lot of entrepreneurs for Taste Radio and just in general, and a lot of them are pretty young. They are in their early 20s. You know, occasionally we'll find some folks in their 30s. I was pretty interested to hear that you had started Honey Mamas, shall we say, later into your adulthood.

6:26And I'm wondering, I mean, do you think that the company would be where it is today had you started it in your 20s? Such a great question. I'm so glad that you asked that because I don't think it would be. I think that the fact that I was able to start it when I did, I had lived some life. I had worked as a restaurant manager for years and years and years. I had done front of the house, back of the house and restaurants actually my whole life. I had owned a bakery and coffee roasting company for several years. I had two kids who were in middle school at the time that I launched the company. And I really feel like that life experience really has shifted.

7:08Number one, I think my ability to know myself. And so that alone allowed for decision making that maybe when I wasn't as didn't have the experience, even just of the bakery, for example, that I wouldn't have been able to kind of, I might have been made a little bit more bold decisions that were around getting super attached to ideas and stuff like that. Whereas I think being in my mid 40s and being more seasoned, as they'd say, just having that sense of like, yeah, I know where to kind of get out of my own way here a little bit and allow for the broadest opportunity for success, you know, rather than, I don't know, thinking I could do it all and things like that.

7:51Yeah, I think the experience of owning and operating a business, as you mentioned, your bakery certainly can help you understand just the general basics of running a business. I think when some folks get into entrepreneurship, they're like, whoa, I didn't realize that you had to do this or this cost this much or, you know, margins are important or, you know, how you find suppliers and how you hire people, all these different things, I'm sure are so helpful when you get into CPG, if you've had that experience before. And, you know, with the bakery did come CPG. It wasn't just a standalone shop that you had.

8:26You eventually started selling frozen products. Talk about your interest in getting into packaged frozen products and what you learned from that experience. I think that it's kind of important to mention, you know, as you're saying that, is that one of my, I think, strongest personality traits is that I really get excited about ideas. and I don't shy away from things, especially when it feels like truthful to me to explore. And so we had the brick and mortar space, Blue Gardenia. We had coffee roasting and foot bakery. My mom and my sister and myself were doing that as well. And one of the owners of New Seasons was one of our regular customers.

9:10We didn't know who he was, but he approached us and said, would you, he loved these pecan rolls. Would you guys be interested in bringing these in the freezer section? It's this hugely growing category in the grocery stores. And, you know, I was like, I love this idea because I love that we could take something that's already so popular just in our bakery space and be able to offer to people all over, you know, and or regionally or whatever. And so we did. And we learned a tremendous amount from that just based on what it would require to manufacture a product versus having a brick and mortar space.

9:48So that really was kind of the original reason why we got into the that whole CPG in the first place was because an opportunity kind of came our way and we took it. And we did we got a grant we built out of, you know, we built out a little kind of manufacturing area in our bakery and we launched and it for me was this really exciting I kind of saw it as like a new opportunity to dive deeper into expressing what we already were doing really well at the bakery. That was kind of my connection to it. You eventually closed the bakery in the coffee roasting shop. And I have to think that that was a tough decision anytime you close a business.

10:33but getting back into entrepreneurship was also, to me, kind of a surprising thing. Because I think when people get that bug and it doesn't necessarily work out, it's just like, you know what, I just need to find something else to do with my life. But why did you decide to get into another business? What it was for me was there was a lot going on. For one thing, I had during this time that the bakery was struggling, we were kind of having a hard time as a business as a family and I had kind of stepped away a little bit anyway and I had done a cleanse with my best friend at the time who had a really severe autoimmune disease and I was just doing this cleanse to be supportive to her because she was really struggling and was not getting a diagnosis that was at all good it was called myocene and gravis and it was a lot like ms so I said I'd do this cleanse with her we do the cleanse you know 10 days later, two weeks later, really, I start feeling better than I felt in years.

11:34And I was going through all the stress and strain of the experience of having to leave the bakery and, you know, yeah, kind of moving in that direction of closing the bakery and family stripes. So the amount of emotional strain that I was under at the time, that in itself was so affected by the food, by changing my diet, I kind of couldn't believe it. And so she actually turned her autoimmune disease around. She learned that she was a celiac at that same time through that cleanse. And I felt better than I'd felt in a really, really long time. And it gave me the sense of resourcing that I didn't feel I had access to at that time.

12:16So there was a pretty huge aha moment that happened for me. So yes, the bakery was closing, but at the same time, I thought, I want to recultivate what we were offering, which is just a huge, really personal value of mine, which is connection with people, you know, that making things for others, I think, and I'm a creator in my heart of hearts. I'm a creative person. And I think that making things for people gives me so much joy, making dinner for people or cooking for people or baking any of those things. But I recognized, you know, number one, I had two young daughters, you know, who I really wanted to be financially independent as a mother.

12:56And to be able to create a livelihood that was not only something that would be potentially lifelong for me, but that gave me meaning. And that was really, really important. I think it kind of maybe this goes back to being 44. You know, I don't know. but I got excited about how can I create a product that kind of reminds me of my favorite things that we made at the bakery made this like pan forte it was like this Italian fruitcake thing very kind of dense and fudgy those types of like rustic like walking down a cobblestone street in France and you walk into a mom-and-pop shop and you get the most beautiful delicious whatever it and they fold it up with butcher paper and send you on your way.

13:42And that's like a daily experience. That was kind of what I was wanting to somehow figure out how to create and put out there in the world. It sounds like you saw the potential to have a big brand. I mean, talking about being financially independent. Yes. I guess you could be, even if you operated a small brand, there's plenty of them around. But when you first ideated around Honey Mamas, did you think it was mostly going to be a sort of regional, local artisanal brand? Or did you have these aspirations for it to be where it is now, National and Target and Costco and Whole Foods, which I'm sure is mind-blowing still.

14:24But, I mean, did you have that feeling that it could be that? It's mind-blowing and it's a lot of work. Every day. so I was thinking about this we were kind of talking about it before and what I really envisioned when I started it was when I first made the bars you know I had tried several different things and when I first made this particular recipe I was so elated because it literally hit the mark on all the different things that I was kind of wanting to originally go for and I ate it and I pretty much knew right away that this had potential to be a really simple line of products. I kind of saw the image in my mind of what that could look like.

15:07And it really was that like butcher wrapped, you know, thing. And it was like the same deliciousness as the fudge that I used to make with my grandma when all the time I was growing up. And so I applied to the Portland farmer's market pretty much within the first couple of weeks of figuring out that I I had a recipe. I had done all the numbers, figured out my supply chain and realized the retail price I would have to charge for it. I was like, okay, this has legs and this hits those margins that I knew that the grocery stores, you know, we're going to be as looking for, you know, it was like 35, 40%.

15:40So I was like, okay, I think this is doable. I applied to the farmer's market. They had rejected me three other times before when I applied those different product ideas because they didn't whatever. It was like a sauerkraut idea, a juice company, and then a salad company idea. There were all these like healthy concepts. What I loved about the Honey Mamas bars was that it was a product that had a very specific function, which was to nourish your body with super foods, really nutrient rich foods, but it was just simply a pleasurable experience. And it was functional, but it was like really about the joy and the fun and the deliciousness of it.

16:20And so when I got into the, I got into the farmer's market and I kind of thought this will tell me so much and I'm going to baby step this mofo. I'm going to baby step this business because I do not want to get ahead of my skis, kind of like we did with the bakery. Like we just kind of did try to do too much. And that was a huge learning. And so I got into the market, but I kind of was so excited about it that I really right away started you know i had my little package which i have right here with me there it is the original this was my yeah i brought this because i thought it'd be fun to look at and i just started dropping it off to oh just local co-op buyers and calling them up i was super nervous and calling them up and saying hey can i have a you know meeting with you this is what i sell i didn't even know which buyer to talk to and same with new seasons whole foods i actually met at the farmer's market, but because I was getting really positive responses from them and they were saying, yes, let's, you know, new seasons was like, let's, let's put this on, you know, in nine of our stores.

17:26And I think they had 13 at the time. And so I got that excitement around what I think I felt like I wanted to do was potentially be able to build a regional company. I think that that was about where I felt like I could touch. I felt like I would be able to have a sense of the growth and feel a sense of containment. And then beyond that, yes, I saw that, but I knew that that was going to require quite a bit of help going national. And then it has. I love the phrase, I was going to baby step this mofo. That should be like a bumper sticker, especially in our industry. Right. Because it is those small steps that you use as a foundation for building a business.

18:14Absolutely. You know, especially starting out in a regional grocery chain like New Seasons and figuring out what works, what's resonating, what's not working, how to talk to buyers. These learnings are all really, really helpful as you grow and scale. So going back to New Seasons, You know, how did you cultivate that relationship? What made it work? What made it something that you said, we can build upon this? You know, I think what really made the big difference was that I had no entitlement around believing that this was just going to sell if I just put it up on the shelf. I thought I'm in 150%.

18:53I was very present with the buyers and very committed and listening to what worked for them and what works for other successful brands that they see go on the shelf. You know, I'm this, this little tiny nut, you know, nothing handmade product. And so I'm like, I need to learn from these people. And I think that perspective was huge to be able to take that perspective and then go, okay, so they have a demo program. They're like, great, if you would just come in here and you will demo these, like, you know, gosh, usually people come in every couple months, that would really help to get it off the ground.

19:30And in my mind, I'm like, okay, so I'm going to double down on what they just said. And I'm going to go in every three weeks and I'm going to make sure that this product sells. And then I think also just listening to kind of what they're saying around looking at different parts of the stores and helping them, you know, talking with them about where does this product seem to fit? because it obviously was, you know, 2013. So there wasn't a whole lot else on the shelf. I just feel like that those relationships and always believing, you know, and going, yeah, I'm going to need to put 150 % into this out of the gate and then some.

20:05If I want to be successful, I'm not just going to plop it down. And really keeping that very lively back and forth conversation with the buyer. I just had a local business person reach out to me and she's like, hey, you know, do you know somebody who I could hire to do demos for me. And I just, she's, you know, really, really tiny still. And I just said, I hate to say this, this is not what you want to hear, but your relationship with that buyer and that consumer is number one. If you can hire somebody to help you make your product in your kitchen, rather than step away from the demo and the buyer, I would do that right now, you know, just because that's, that's golden.

20:43That's such great advice. And I do want to talk about demos and marketing in a bit. You had mentioned that there weren't a lot of products in a particular shelf in 2013. That's the refrigerated shelf. And we do see a healthy amount of refrigerated snacks in grocery stores today, but in 2013, 10 years ago, just didn't see many. And to explain to a consumer or a buyer why there should be a set or why this product is better for you than a traditional snack, take some education, take some really focused communication. Originally, or currently, they're described as refrigerated truffle bars. That was not the original communication.

21:25How did you describe Honey Mamas at the outset? Well, I described it as a delicious, nourishing fudge that was sold in the refrigerator. So that was kind of how I used to talk about the, It was called Nectar Fudge. That was the first name of the product. And really what would happen was they would try it. And then as soon as they tried it, they had their own experience understanding where it would fit to. The retail buyers you're talking about. Yeah, the retail buyers. And so that, I think, went a really long way for them to be like, oh, OK, this needs like new seasons, for example. It was like, oh, this definitely needs to be in the bakery.

22:06Most other stores, it's, you know, like whatever. It'll be dairy or whatever, just because that's what happens to be that grab and go, you know, healthy, healthy, better for you set. But yeah, I think that a lot of it is just this, this kind of in the early days, it was about this is this kind of fudgy made from five whole foods treat. And it's so funny because RX bar launched. I can't remember how many more, how many years after I did. and I just was just dying because he had that list of ingredients and that was his whole thing their whole thing and that's really was my original concept my first drawings that I have of the package was literally to list the ingredients because I'm like if you list these ingredients and you call it something fun people will know immediately what they're getting because I've never been able to use the word chocolate because I don't use cocoa liquor in the bars and And so I've always had to get, you know, creative with calling it whatever.

23:05So Coco Nectar Fudge was the first name. And it's always been confusing to people. So where we are now, where we are now, we've come a long way. Yeah, yeah. It's funny you mentioned RX Bar. I remember I was at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, and I think this was 2017. And I had seen their booth and I was like, wow, what is this? I'd never seen this before. and they had just shifted their packaging from this like big kind of like awkward logo on the front of pack that said rx bar to the logo on the top and the ingredients listed on the front i'm like wow this is amazing and then i think it was like two years later they sold for like 660 million dollars and it was just like what okay good idea pretty good idea yeah yeah i was kind of kicking myself on that one yeah but that was kind of the thinking originally with like how to sell it and you know, put the ingredients on because it was literally five whole food ingredients.

24:01When you were hearing from customers about why they were buying the product or when the first time they tried the product, were they talking about the better for you aspect of it? Were they talking about those superfood ingredients or was it much more about sort of this is a delicious, indulgent snack that I can have, you know, in place of a traditional snack? It was both. I was surprised at how many people though I would talk to. I would say upwards of, man, at least 50 % of the people who would come back in time again would say, oh my gosh, I'm a celiac or I cannot eat dairy or I cannot eat soy or I can, you know, or I have an autoimmune or, you know, like a lot of dietary restrictions.

24:45Those were really the core kind of early adopters of the products. And the fact that it was delicious was like, literally would bring tears to people's eyes because of the fact that so much stuff tastes like absolute crap that they would find at the grocery store. It just tastes like cardboard or it just was just did not have any love in it. You know, love is there, can be there. And so those were really huge. Those early kind of conscious eaters were critical, you know, as we have continued on as year in years and the social media started picking up and stuff with that as well. Then it became more and more about kind of more of this like life optimizer demographic, which is definitely our demographic now, but people, you know, and being able to hear from them on social media too, because this is like 2015, 2014, 2015, 2016, and people starting to just share, share, share, share, share.

25:43And a lot of it was about those consumers of feeling like really wanting to feel empowered, wanting to eat something that actually made them feel better, no matter if they had autoimmune or any of those things, but just simply choosing products that were clean and delicious, and then wanting to share it with everybody that they knew. That was like a huge part of that. I'd never heard that term life optimizer, but I like it. Someone who is looking to eat clean, healthy food, but definitely wants it to be delicious. I guess that's one part of being a life optimizer. I'm sure, you know, doing other things to benefit good health has a lot to do with it as well.

26:24Absolutely. And kind of just really efficient in what they're doing. You know, they're out there, they're, they're getting stuff done, they're moving and changing and sharing it with people. But I think it's really about like, I want the best that I can find for my body, but it really needs to be good and high quality. And then I'm going to tell like everybody that I know. Yeah. I'll be honest. I feel like the biggest opportunity for Honey Mamas, if I were an investor, would be in that indulgent aspect of the brand. I mean, certainly the good for you, the superfoods, the good for you aspect of the brand is huge.

27:00But to reach that everyday consumer, they want to love the taste of it. And it feels like there was a very specific point in this journey where Honey Mamas went from, hey, we're a superfood product to, hey, we're an indulgent product with superfoods. And it seems like that happened around the time of your Series A round. We started doing a brand refresh before we did the Series A, knowing that we had the Series A coming up. So we knew that we were going to have the funding because at first we were like, we can't work even with a creative agency. And we were really just, you know, looking at like local designers and things like that.

27:38But the biggest influence I would say that the investors had on that process was, yes, number one, finding investors who were really excited and saw the value of doing a brand refresh and also just being able to have the funding for it. And when we first started doing the brand refresh and looking at that, I knew I needed to pick a lane. And this was, you know, almost seven years into the company. And I had never changed the packaging, hadn't done any of that. It's probably not a surprise to people that you don't nail the rebrand on the first try. You probably don't nail the rebrand on the second try.

28:19In the case of Honey Mamas, I think you told me it took 20 tries. I don't remember if it was quite funny, but it was a lot. It was a lot. Really, you know, I think that there was so much to it where we leaned into each other as a team, our internal team. So really there was just like four of us. We would print out what the creatives would send us and we would literally go to the store. We would put these different ideas on our bars and we would line them up on the shelf. and we would, we might be in love with something that when we're looking at it on the screen or whatever. And then even if we print it out and we're looking at it in front of us, but when I put it on shelf, it had a completely different thing that I was actually going for.