Founders Feature: Heidi and William Schneiders of Tea Jams

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0:53The jams are made with whole fruit, whereas the jellies is really going to be a lot of sugar and a lot of just juice and concentrates. That's why I wanted to make a jam, is because it seemed weird to make a product just full of sugar. That's why our product has 40 % less sugar and only organic whole fruit. That also allows you to just have more vitamins, nutrients, things like that. Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today we're talking with Heidi and William Schneider, co-founders of Tea Jams, the world's first organic fruit jam infused with tea.

1:33After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America and creating Earl Grey Syrups for Mother's Day brunches that had quilting groups braving, Chef William turned his syrup into a jam with 40 % less sugar than traditional options. Meeting Haiti on Hinge and growing their relationship alongside their business, these newlyweds have handcrafted nearly 20 ,000 jars between the two of them while keeping their full-time jobs. From landing in Harney & Sons gift sets to transforming their jams into mocktails at farmers markets, they're building a pantry staple that does way more than sit on toast. Their energy is absolutely infectious and I am so here for it.

2:12Enjoy.

2:16Hey everybody, welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin and today I'm here with Haydee and William Schneider, co-founders of Tea Jams. Welcome to the show. Thank you. So excited to be here. Thank you for having us. I'm so excited to have you. I don't think I've ever had guests who have just been so giddy and like really, truly so excited to be here before. So I love the energy already. Thank you. Thank you. We approach life like that. We consume awkwardness. It's infectious, truly. I'm like, this is the best pick me up for 2 p.m. Okay, thanks. All right. So I'm familiar with Tea Jams because you were a Shelfies finalist for 2025.

3:01So congratulations. It's a huge feat. Thank you. Thank you. I know we're so excited. Can't believe it. We made it that far. Out of 1 ,800 brands, it truly is impressive. It really, really is. So gotta give you guys huge props for that. Thanks. We did a win, but there's always room for improvement. So that's another thing to strive for for next year. Always. I love the attitude. Okay, so for anybody who's not familiar with tea jams, can you just give us a brief little description of what tea jams is? Of course. My name is Chef William, the owner and creator of Tea Jams, the world's first organic fruit jam infused with tea.

3:43We're fully dedicated to tea infusions. Our jams have 40 % less sugar, 100 % depth of flavor. we love it as a jam on pastries transform cakes also just add water and transform your drinks into mocktails cocktails lemonades things like that it's a cia chef curated jam with a purpose full of taglines as well i like to say i make everything beautiful inside the jar and my wife here haiti makes everything beautiful outside the jar dynamic duo that is so cute okay so i'm hearing chef william am i gonna have to like yes chef you throughout this episode no i'm not really good with authority although i did graduate the culinary suit america i always was like more friendly to deal with than your average stereotypical chef that's for sure.

4:38I could totally get that vibe about you. Okay so Chef William tell me about your background. You just mentioned you went to the Culinary Institute of America. What brought you to tea jams? Give me the background story on you. Well after graduating the culinary I ended up doing some traveling down to Miami then over to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well stopping in Orlando and the Hawaiian Islands of Maui and the Big Island. From there, I gained like a vast knowledge of cultures and flavors. And that led me back to New England, where steeped in heritage, surrounded by the Harney and Sons factory, which is located in our small town, their tea is everywhere.

5:25Everywhere you work, you're going to be surrounded to buy their tea and there was one location at a local inn called the inner lake and i worked a breakfast program to breakfast with william and we would get all these big groups in and i would make them wild breakfast creations and infuse syrups with the tea and just create memories and traditions with that and then from there we kept adding fruit and more flavor and then we just transformed ourselves into the tea infused jam line. And he likes to make it for Mother's Day brunches. So from the interleken breakfast, he got a lot of feedback. I didn't know him then just yet.

6:07But like a year or two afterwards, he made into a jam instead of just a syrup, just because everyone loved the flavors and he wants to create that pantry staple. As a chef, he always seemed to use that. So over time, Tea Jams has like grown into what it is. But we've discovered so much of the jam itself as we've gone on with like customer feedback and just our friends and family. So then now that's became from a syrup. Now it's become a six line jam. The first dedicated line of infused jam. You know, it hits different, I think, from a consumer perspective. When you see something for the first time, a brand can tell me over and over they're the first to do anything.

6:49but when I hear it it's like yeah just like the world's best cup of coffee like everyone has the world's best cup of coffee right but I had this experience with tea jams where I truly when you tell me it's the first jam infused with tea it was my first experience with a tea infused jam so it it hits it hits different thanks for seeing that it came a long way you know there's a lot of trial and error but we like to say we take great products and make great products and when you started with the grape product from there you know how bad could it be but eastern european countries and we've had a lot of our customers say that they've sweetened their tea with jam before but it's never been the actual mixture of both and with time we actually discovered together that well you discovered it but discovered it with time how to you could just drink it just add water and it becomes a tea again so that's in itself he's like innovative like disrupting the tea and jam industry which has kind of been asleep for a little bit I feel I don't know I'm just saying and now taking your traditional grandma jam to something that you really use every day and are excited about put the quarter in we could keep going I have more questions for you too but I to know about your background, Haydee.

8:07Where do you come into this? What were you doing prior to Tea Jams? Well, full-time, I'm a special education teacher. I have my master's degree in the education field, but I've always dipped my toes into like blogging and content creating for like the makeup world. I'm more into who I was into the social media marketing aspect. That was actually what I majored in in college before I switched to being a teacher. So it's always been like a passion project of mine. On our first date, actually, he showed me like his labels for the first three flavors. I'm talking about this business that he's starting and my mind just started going a million miles an hour because I was just passionate about it.

8:48So I would blog in the wellness world. I've actually written for a CPG brand, Pulp Pantry. I don't know if they're still around, but they were on Shark Tank. So my background is like a little bit of everything, but it's really into branding and the marketing aspect of stuff so our relationship has kind of grown with t-jams i like to say like when we got engaged we went to visit our first retailer in miami so that was fun everything is like connected with t-jams so we're like growing with it hinge okay you are the third couple that i've spoken to that has met on hinge and then either started a CPG brand together or came together and grew your CPG brand.

9:31So you're the third. We had Figa Foods first as a guest, then Uso Sparkling Tea, and now you two. Pretty cool. Oh, we love them. And we were in the same section of them for fancy food. Look at that. Yes. We should host a Valentine's thing. CPG thing. Oh, you're so good thinking of ideas on the spot like that. you see yeah so that's what i was doing a whole relationship that is awesome okay so you were talking about like the traditional grandma jams and jellies and i have a question maybe more geared towards chef william what is the difference between a jam and a jelly and why would i want to pick up a jam over a jelly from the store shelves Mainly the biggest difference is going to be juice.

10:19The jams are made with whole fruit, whereas the jellies is really going to be a lot of sugar and a lot of just juice and concentrates. That's why I wanted to make a jam is because it seemed weird to make a product just full of sugar. That's why our product has 40 % less sugar and only organic whole fruit. That also allows you to just have more vitamins, nutrients, things like that, and less just natural sugars, I guess. right we don't need to start our morning with so much sugar as much as everyone else thinks we should right that's a really great point i feel like i've been seeing a lot more people leaning into having more savory breakfast options but it is nice to have like that little carb hit from some fruit but if you can do it in a jam form without all that added sugar it's a pretty nice balance so when we're talking about added sugar how much is somebody looking at in a serving size for tea jams tea jams is just uh five grams added sugar for a tablespoon of jam most other jams sometimes range from double to 10 to 17 grams of sugar per a tablespoon they also add like a lot of other things like the citric acid and the dextrose and things like that where it's like we just want to use organic lemon juice organic cane sugar organic fruit and just real fruit pectin so that's like most other we're always surprised what else is in a jam and it's like wow some weird things are in here without needing to be in there yeah yeah so you mentioned that this kind of started out as a syrup and then turned into a jam can you talk to me about what the iterations looked like from when you started out as a syrup to landing on being a jam company and maybe the ingredients that you played around with along your journey yeah the original dish was like a french toast stuffed with cream cheese and strawberries and then i made a paris tea syrup to put on top and my mother requested that every mother's day that was like her staple dish and when i brought that to breakfast with william in the morning at the hotel i was making earl grey syrup or the paris syrup and all these quilter groups would come in and say oh my god it's the best thing ever and then from there i was like i was thinking it would be harder to sell a syrup than a jam and then also researching you know like what can i do with this what route do i want to do i've always wanted to create a product of my own since graduating the columbus of america my father once was like you know your lives would have been so much better if i followed in the family business and i was like well our lives are pretty great but it's good to know you know i have the ability to take the next level and so like from there the hunger started and that's what started like okay we have something here with the syrups and then once i added in the fruits and made it into the jams it was like okay now you can do things with this because the depth of flavor was like something that other jams didn't have so that really made it like the pantry staple opportunity from there which is cool just so proud.

13:30He grew up through the Harney and Sons factory. So like he mentioned, the tea was all around. So that was like the natural route to go. And building that relationship naturally was so fun to see from the outside. So that's a natural pairing. Wow. We'll be right back. Are you going to crush it on Amazon this year? It's such an important channel, but it's so hard to do alone. And most agencies are a total ripoff. We can't afford$5 ,000 a month and a commission on our sales. They just don't get it. That's why I love our partners at Daybreak. They are full service, meaning they do the creative work, the listings, the logistics, and of course, all the ads, all with the most reasonable retainer out there.

14:10I work with them personally. I'm so grateful we have such a good partner to recommend out to you, our community. They do evaluate your product first to see if it might be a fit. So if you want them to have a look, email them startupcpg at daybreak.agency and they'll do a free audit for you. Good luck, everyone.

14:30Speaking of natural pairings, I think I've seen some cool collabs that have happened via Instagram. I think I saw Allin, the cake brand, was chatting with you guys about the tea jams. Tell me about some collaborations that you've done. Maybe, Hadey, this is a better question for you. Some collabs that you've done for tea jams with other small brands and some dream collabs that you might have in your brain. So first and foremost, getting into the Harnam Suns website and having, I guess, unofficial but official collaboration with them where it's their tea and our jam. So they're selling it like for Mother's Day.

15:10They started selling that. And now holiday gift sets. Seeing such an established brand like that collaborate with such a small brand right now starting like us was a dream come true. So that was really cool. So, but smaller brands that are at our, let's just say level, I think Startup CPG was the first resource we had to bridge us through that world. Him being a chef, of course, he's in the food realm, but as a special education teacher, like, hello, can anyone help me? I don't know what this means. What does SRP mean? And all that, all that stuff. So finding out that other people are in this space, just finding things out like us was amazing.

15:48So we've hosted our very first pop-up with Baker Island Foods, which is a granola brand and a cookie brand. Sour milk yogurt was there. The olive oil was there. So discovering these brands that are just as passionate and like innovating their own industries in their own way has been really exciting. So that was our most recent one, which we actually hosted on our one year anniversary. So that's just another, wow, we celebrate team with our. Congrats. That's sweet. Let's see, who do we want to collaborate with? Oh, well, our idea has always been to collaborate with other tea brands, eventually.

16:24So Harney & Sons was the original set. But eventually, we've spoken with Wild Orchid or Rossi Tea, things of that nature. Different brands from all different types of demographics to kind of bring that world of tea and John together. You did make mention of small brands, small businesses. when people throw around the term small business what does that mean to you and how small are small businesses really go ahead we like to say we're pretty small we are the two people in this tgms empire um we're always surprised when we go to say like banks or things like that and trying to get loans and they're like well do you have two million dollars in sales and it's like that's your small business loan program and i got there we feel like we have a pretty good concept to get there but the moment we're not there yet but we're still shocked at how many jars we've sold over the four years we've had in business and the amount of product that goes through harney and sons we've even sold jars to japan and things like that we feel like we're pretty big but not like to be not big enough to be registered as a small business is even shocking sometimes does yeah the limits or the standards it's like you said just shocking that we don't reach those standards just yet when we feel like every win is like such a huge win as a small business um so we feel like that term needs to be changed small business needs to be medium business and the start like bro is actually small because we could be making sales and getting traction but it's still so much more to gain.

18:06Yes. Refresh my memory. Sorry if you've mentioned this already, but how long have you actually been in business selling products to customers? Yeah, officially four years, but we were still working our full-time jobs. So just this last year is the first year that Will was actually able to fully dedicate most of his time to T-Jams. So that's a win. Eventually, we're working towards both of us being able to full-time take on T-Jams. So that's the next thing four years strong getting bigger every year doubling in size which is great and it's still just been the two of us yeah a lot of people have like co-packers already and we're always surprised like we're surprised how much work we've done just the two of us whereas we feel like a lot of people would have maybe paid out another route and gotten a co-packer but we're doing it ourselves and that's what the best part about dgens is yeah and he hand crafts everything in small batches so that's something else that's impressive we've calculated and he's made almost 20 000 jars over time of jam one man so it's always quality we're in that space where okay when we scale up how can we keep that same quality and love that he corresponds each jar continue that quality you know handcraft talk to me about scaling what does your retail strategy look like or what does your dtc strategy look like?

19:25Are you planning on getting into more retail stores? Are you wanting to stay DTC? I have no insight into this. So tell me what's going on in your sales world. We're trying everything. You know, we don't like to limit ourselves. So at the moment, it's a lot of trips to the kitchen to make jams and a lot of trips around the local area trying to get sales and as well as online. we do a lot through fair like i said arnie and sons always buys a lot when there are a couple locations in millerton new york as well as soho in manhattan but a lot of it is just keeping up and great this order's bigger great ad or is bigger and like the next step like we're really taking every step on our way to the top nourishing the relationships we do have we kind of went reverse backwards we started with wholesale because we had that opportunity and relationship with Harney & Sons.

20:19But now we're really focusing on like farmer's markets, the education portion of tea jams. The name in itself says what it is, but there's so much depth to tea jams that the farmer's markets really helped us nail the education portion. We're selling our jams as lemonades to showcase how versatile they are. And it's just brainstorming how, what are the many different ways that we could showcase this one product, this one patchy staple? Because that's what it is a staple you could use it for dessert you could use it for your morning yogurt you could use it to marinate a fish or a ham so the possibilities are endless with just one jar so i think that is our biggest focus yes we're different and unique but we want everyone to just go grab that that jar jam like hot honey or yeah like hot honey you think of hot honey oh you think of just one brand to throw on the pizza or to put on whatever you like right cottage cheese or but we want to be that one staple product yeah that's not just a jam it's so much more than that so yeah getting the education portion out and community-based you know farmers markets getting that cult following that really understand our jam and it's a goal from there i'm curious have you had the opportunity to partner with any cafes or restaurants with tea jams yes actually we actually do the farmer's markets and some local cafes in beacon new york have been stopping by a lot and being like how do i get a part of key jams and it's awesome because they make say matcha lattes all the time and we're that new jam for their matcha lattes they specialed us recently with the blueberry all gray supreme and their matcha latte which is really cool yeah so a few local cafes shout out to cafe holly shout out elixir um they took a chance and they actually were customers first and then they became retailers and put put us in their menu and it works because it adds that extra different like what is different about this matcha it's a blend of tea in there you just wouldn't my next goals are to really get our tiny jars into a lot of hotel settings like in their room amenities baby jar those little baby jars are perfect and adorable and then also we'd really love to get into like some cocktail recipes and things like that our mocktails are great at the farmer's markets but we also love cocktails but we do drink it just throw in some mint leaves add water and have a delicious mocktail it's so fun you just love it that is such a good point it would be such a great way to elevate even just like a soda water instead of just getting like soda water with lemon you could get soda water with lemon and tea jams and still feel fancy check and it's a whole new drink yep and with organic fruit you're getting your antioxidants and your fruit intake there yeah there you go and then if you have the tequila you're getting whatever that's giving you to whatever you want yeah that's temporary good That leads you.

23:23There you go. There you go. All right. So I want to wrap this up. But before, I need people to know how to find tea jams. We need to get more tea jams into people's hands. So where can they find you online? If you're still doing farmer's markets, where can they find you? Let us know all the deets. Awesome. Well, we're in every Sunday Beacon Farmer's Market. If you're around in New York, find us. It's always fun at the time. we're on tjams.com you can find us on instagram t underscore jams horny and son's websites their flagship stores oh horny and son's soho if you're in new york soho new york city we're there oh i just got into murray's cheese grand central terminal which is really big for us because that's where we would take the train to meet up that is true very cool t jams on a charcuterie board is just so good we just wanted to say that we're really excited about tea jams product has come a long way and we're so excited for all the many flavors that we have ahead all the opportunity that's out there we're really excited i am very excited for you guys i think it's great that you're having so much fun doing this and especially as a two-person team producing so much jam i think it's great that you still have your sense of humor and can still be here laughing at almost 3 p.m.

24:52That is the best part. Yeah right thank you so much and thank you for always making us feel like we're so in this space sometimes it's hard starting out saying hey the new kids on the block are we welcomed here but we feel so welcome and appreciated and like we're doing something right so thank you for that. You are. I'm so here for tea jams. So thank you both so much. This has been a lot of fun. I'm excited to see where you're going to be at in a year. Well, us too. I'll talk to you soon. Every winner.

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26:09Thank you.