330: Emily Sundberg

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I like buying things from stores that feel like you're getting a souvenir from like a specific block or a specific neighborhood. You know, like that kind of feeling that maybe they don't have a website or they don't have an Instagram. I don't know what that is. It's probably like a contrarian bias.

0:49This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rothbard.

0:59Emily Sundberg has a knack for writing stories that get people talking. The freelance writer and mind behind the business newsletter Feed Me has an expert eye for trends in the food space and beyond, like the return of whole milk and the rise of the shoppy shop. You know, those cute curated grocery stores that all seem to carry the same made-for-Instagram products. We wanted to have Emily back into the studio to talk about the year in food and drink retail, the products, the trends, and all the media that flows around it. Emily is truly one of our favorite voices on the food internet, and really online in general, and we were so excited to have her back into the studio.

1:35I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:46Emily Sundberg, welcome to This Is It Says. Hello. Hello. Hello. I'm so happy to be here for a second time. Yeah, you talked to Liza first. I've never met you, but I've read you. It's so cool to meet you. I know. I feel like I know you. We have a really good email correspondence going. Absolutely. And we have a lot to cover. Feed Me is your newsletter. It's a sub stack. You can sub. Please click that link and read. It's dope. Hey, let's just get just for our listeners. What are you trying to do here at the sub stack? So I started this newsletter about a year ago, a little bit over a year ago. And at the time, I had a lot of group texts where I was talking to friends who were either founders or invested in brands or just had a lot of interest in consumer business news.

2:26And I noticed that even the way that a lot of media outlets were talking about business, they were treating celebrities as founders as they talked about their tequila brands or beauty brands. And then they were kind of talking about founders as celebrities. So whether it was Emily Weiss or the Sweetgreen guys or whoever. And I saw this merging of pop culture and celebrity news and the way that business was being approached. And I also think that there's like this community of people that want to talk about this stuff, but it's not necessarily the way that, you know, like stuffy Wall Street Journal is reporting on different funds or investment firms.

3:14and people want to sort of like get into the personalities of these places and you kind of see how like Business Insider has owned this whole narrative of turning all of these capitalist movers and shakers into like bigger than like celebrities or just characters. Oh yeah, great word. It's much better than celebs because we don't really, we don't like them but they're characters in our lives. They're not like we don't want to be them but they're characters. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, you know, aside from these characters, I just generally think that people's spending habits and investment trends say a lot about society and culture at large.

3:53So I wanted to sort of play with that narrative a bit. And I started the letter and then about a month later I wrote a piece for New York Magazine that really exploded about shoppy shops. So I immediately got a lot of new readers from the tech world and the CPG world and just general New York magazine readers. And that sort of like set the fire to this thing. Yeah. Yeah. That piece was you published in January 25th to 2023. Shoppy Shop. It's now Lexicon. It's it could have been probably it probably is on the podium for word of the year. I mean, or term of the year. I didn't come up with it. My friend Neil did, who graciously let me use it in the title.

4:42And I want to make sure that he gets the credit there because he really started this whole trend of talking about these types of retail environments on his TikTok page. but it was like this perfect story where I didn't really have a take on these businesses. So some people thought I was applauding these businesses. Some people thought I was slamming them and it really just depended on the amount of exposure you'd had to them, the amount of humor you had and the way that you read the story. I agree. And I feel like a lot of the brands, like I love Fish's Wife. I mean, you write about that brand.

5:16I personally enjoy that brand and many people do you weren't really casting judgment but you did write about you were deflated a little bit by the sameness yeah i would say that like tends to be slightly negative yeah uh i think there's definitely um like a homogeneity to these retail setups like you don't want your wine store to look like your bakery to look like your bookstore to look like your hotel lobby like you want spaces to mean something more than just capitalizing on themselves like your wine store isn't putting graza olive oil on their shelves because they think that you want olive oil it's like to increase their aov right like they just want to make some money um and i also think like curation is a skill that a lot of these retail businesses haven't really um perfected like you You can't just go on this specific wholesale site that I wrote about, Fair, which is a massive, like, multi-billion dollar valued business.

6:19You can't just go on there and see top sellers and put them in your business in the middle of somewhere and call that having taste, right? It's just it might be a good business decision. You might move stuff because people are typically buying some of these CPG brands off of Instagram or off their phone. But yeah, so I was feeling deflated. But a year later, they're almost invisible. Like it used to stand out to me so much when I saw these brands like, wow, these are everywhere. And now it's like I don't even see it. It's they just sort of blend in. They blend into more of the mass and more of the mean and graduate, you know, moving towards the mean.

7:02And fair is interesting. And it seems like a really poor business model to like rely on the top 10 products on fair. Have you found that that's true? Like do meaning do consumers in general, can they see the shoppy shop the way you wrote about it and just like feel a little turned off by that? Some people do like you and I, we spend many hours of our day immersed in this world. of CPG, whether it's reading Andrea's tweets, Andrea from Snackshot, who's been on this podcast, right? Yeah, a couple of times. She's really smart. But like we see her stuff every day and we know what she's talking about.

7:37And none of it is really eye opening to me. It's like I'm grateful that she's putting language to what I'm seeing, but it's not like I'm necessarily learning. I get a lot of breaking news from her, actually. I think she's on some sick PR wires, but like I'm immersed in her world. She's immersed in mine. Like we share a lot of beliefs, but like my father or some of my friends who are doctors or lawyers or like aren't touching this world at all. They might want a Graza Christmas ornament. Like that might speak to them. That doesn't speak to me. Like I don't need that. Um, but for some people, they might see that as like a very special addition to their kitchen and almost like a signaler of being culturally aware where it's some of these brands are memes to me now yeah i think it's also uh to your point of folks who are not in the biz they they they're great gifts like it's they're like they're like affordable luxuries some of these products that we talk about and like we're always looking to gift yeah a year ago around like this time i was sitting in balthazar with my mom having lunch and there was an office having a secret santa next to us and two people gave each other graza olive oil and it was while i was still working on the shoppy shop story.

8:50And I was like, what, what's going on? Like if 10 years ago, I gave somebody a bottle of olive oil. One, we were like pre BA cooking home cook world. People would be like, why are you giving me a grocery? But two, like it wasn't, it wasn't like a signaler of anything. It was just like something that your grandma has and your dad has and your daughter has and your aunt like it's just like a normal thing um but but food and fashion have blended in the same way that like celebrity and business has and like we are it's it's all a story about a homogenous environment of capitalism right like everything's just nothing let's unpack that at some point maybe not now but i love emily i love that line uh but let's actually uh talk about the year of cpg and you know andrea has been on the show a few times dan fromer is going to be on the show soon again to talk about this world.

9:44Do you have a sense? Is there a food brand or brands that kind of won 2023? I mean, okay, so Graza did a great job. Every brand I consult for is like, how do we become Graza? And I know Kendall, who runs their social channels, they have done a really good job at a lot of things. But then they also hit some really big speed bumps with their founders get Andrew stepped in it for sure Andrew's been the show I text with Andrew quite a bit yeah he stepped in it for sure yeah I mean one of them was tweeting at me saying like you just don't get it and I was like what like okay like don't do that like you're just you know so things like that I feel lessons were learned in the grass HQ yeah yeah yeah um but other brands I really like I think um do you know the wine brand on me on me yeah definitely I think they're really cool I think like they hopped onto this boxed wine thing really well.

10:41I was actually at a friend's house for dinner the other night and he had a boxed olive oil. And I was like, OK, there's we might see more box packaging next year, which is exciting. Like from a shipping standpoint, it's less weight. I think it, you know, breaks down better in people's kitchens. Just also like a really fun packaging opportunity. I think that Big Dairy has been doing a good job. I've seen like a lot of hot blonde influencers promoting, doing stuff for like the American Association of Dairy. So there, and I wrote a story about whole milk a few years ago for New York Magazine, which also touched a lot of nerves.

11:20I see milk in a lot of marketing right now. Like I saw Haley Bieber's lip gloss brand last night post like a photo of milk with their like milky, glazy moisturizing product. So I think people have caught on that milk has a lot of emotions attached to it. And now the Dairy Association is like catching up to that. I would say, too, that the Wisconsin Cheese Board has done a really nice job as well, like as an adjacent industry in marketing domestic cheese and Vermont as well. It's pretty cool. Yeah, Vermont does a great job. I follow some of their some of the people in I guess like in that work in agriculture for the state.

12:00And they do a great job of talking about their farmers. um i think rose los angeles the edible brand has done some really smart partnerships the other day i actually said that sweet green should be looking at some of the people that they partner with they make a lot of sense in the culinary world and also have you noticed that there's persimmons on every um at every bodega now like i think big persimmon has done a really good job at like like bringing that fruit to to like every bodega in new york city this year i mean it's it's like a November through February fruit and, you know, catching the season as you would an apple season or even citrus in January for persimmon to make a move, you know, typically like an East Asian product.

12:42Or California, like all the California farmers markets have them in the winter. And it was always a treat when I was in LA in the winter to get them. But now they're at every single bodega in the city. And I kind of like that. Emily, what do you think about like sumo mandarin do you do you follow the sumo mandarin no so sumos have had about two years of real robust marketing campaigns are they the really sweet ones oh i mean so they look like they're like look like um you know they're like kind of have a little like knob at the top and they're okay they're very big and and sweet's not the word i would they like segment really well they segment extremely well the mouth feel is extremely good apologize uh listener for using that word and they are extremely balanced when you catch the ripe one.

13:28Okay. I think I remember some friends having those in the office at one time and them being like the hot item. Yeah, it's funny when that happens with produce. Like I was at a Christmas party over the weekend and they brought out the oishi strawberries and how like fruit can become a hype item, but it happens. It absolutely does. I feel like apples need to, you know, William Mullen, you know, great, great dude. He's the best. been on the show and you know has done great work with with apples and i feel yeah i just love i mean especially being new york state uh amazing apples okay on the flip side so we talked about some brands that are working you know let's just be real are there some cpg brands that maybe stumbled a little bit in 2023 i i just don't like brands that aren't solving a problem i don't like redundancy i don't like creating a brand for the sake of creating a brand and hiring people and then having to lay them off because it was just like a poor fundraising and business decision um i mean obviously daily harvest that was a big fumble um that was pretty awful shitty situation huh yeah not not great not great um like any of these brands that are getting their founders like way too involved like i hate that i think that they're you you need to put down the mic if you're gonna run a business and run your business you don't need to do pr in reference to the Graza situation that we were just talking about.

14:49Yeah, when the founder becomes the story and not the product, it obviously is problematic. And I think... So risky. You can steal a couple headlines in certain business pubs or maybe get on a podcast, but ultimately products should be dope and they should be focusing on that. Yeah. I'm getting pretty fatigued by energy drinks and canned coffee and alt milks. Yeah. I think we've missed the point on those. None of those are solving problems. Just people being like, I can do it too with nicer packaging. Did Celsius just destroy the energy drink category? I drink so much Celsius. I know. They did.

15:27It's a good product for sure. I drink Red Bull too. Sure. I mean, I love Celsius. I don't drink a lot of it, but it's a good product. But if you're doing boutique Celsius, you're kind of fucked, right? Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. But Prime seems to be doing well, too. Oh, yeah, Prime. I forgot about that one. And also that Panera energy drink. Like, I hope it doesn't leave shelves before I try it. But I do kind of feel like I'd be somebody who would die from it. Yo, there's a Panera, like, literally across the street from this office. I'm going to go. It's right. And I've thought so many times I'm going to go get that, like, triple caffeine lemonade.

15:58Do you think it's still there? Do you think it's, like, an end of the month they have to discontinue a thing? So interesting, you ask. It seems that they were very adamant that they were not removing it from shelves. Okay, I'm going to go after this. Yeah, hit me on the text with that because I want to know if it's there. Because, listen, what a great opportunity for them to not take it out of their fountain. Yeah. The fact that the guy died, which is really sad and terrible news. Somebody died from drinking this. But he drank like six servings. Right, right. I mean, yo. Which, yeah, yeah, that's going to happen.

16:28It's going to happen, yeah. I guess I'm not really a snack person. So some of these, you know. Stop it. I know, I know. Wait, really? Yeah. Are you intermittent fasting hive? No way. Good. Okay. No, I really like brands that were started like before 2005. Like I drink a lot of Coke. I like, you know, Clif bars, like vending machine snacks. But new stuff, I'm kind of a skeptic. We're dropping a story on New Year's Day about vending machines, just as a tease to you listeners out there. I love a good vending machine. Well, let's segue away from the products and towards retail. And I've asked this to Andrea Hernandez from Snackshot, Ellie Truesdale from New for Adventures, and many others on the show.

17:13But what, like, indie food retail or even big box food retail excites you, Emily? What do you categorize as indie food retail? So I would say Foxtrot and lower would be considered indie. So like under 10 stores. Okay. I'm saying it could be like 80 stores. Okay, you know what? I went into that store, Happier Grocer, the other day. Nice. And I went to this resort in Grand Cayman recently called Palm Heights. Same owner. Oh, wow. Did you know that? I followed your Palm Heights coverage. Great, great shit. Super fun. If you guys want to blow a ton of cash on the resort, it was worth it. Yeah, it's good.

17:49It's why your letter is nice because it definitely breaks away and you do like little micro themes. Yeah. So they're behind Happy Grocer. Happier Grocer. Happier Grocer. Yeah, I know the name. So it's on Canal. It's on the west side of Canal. And it's, they have, I would say everything they carry is in Erewhon. It is like the closest thing to Erewhon that I've been to in the city. And I walked in ready to hate it. And I really liked it. Yeah. I don't know if I can go back because it's just like, it was so, I think I need to wait a little bit because it was so shocking that that existed right there.

18:27Like right by the one, two stop on canal. So then I went, I went to Palm Heights and after I went to Palm Heights, I was like, like who the hell is behind this group and the more i researched it it was this it's this parent company like a holdings company called happier people and they have palm heights which is the resort in the grand caiman they have happier grocer which is a one-off which is a one-off so far and then they're opening they like bought a skyscraper in fideye that they're trying to get some cool businesses to get into for low rent and also create a co-working space and then they also have like a restaurant event space in Bushwick.

19:04I mean, the chess pieces are on the board for this company. Very fascinating. Yeah, the chess pieces are on the board. And it's really hard to figure out who's actually feeding the money into it. But if anybody wants to find that out, I mean, many people have tried. So yeah, it's it's cool. When you talk about these kind of these businesses that kind of like they see that pretty grocery and they invest these companies. Totally. So, yeah, I don't do Foxtrot. I don't do like a lot. I don't I don't I get like a bad feeling about a lot of those. I know that some of those are friends of the pod, but I just.

19:38No, it's not. It's all good. We have friends, but, you know, we don't have that many paid sponsors. Yeah, that's true. But when you do, you can just edit this one. I live in South Slope, Brooklyn, so I really like this place called Posto Italiano, which is like a really cute Italian market. I also like Russo's, which is a really great Italian market. There's a Mexican deli near me called Reyes. And they have a lot of like house-made hot sauces that I really like. I like buying things from stores that feel like you're getting a souvenir from like a specific block or a specific neighborhood. You know, like that kind of feeling that maybe they don't have a website or they don't have an Instagram.

20:23I don't know what that is. it's probably like a contrarian. It's probably like a contrarian bias or something. It's not contrarian. I like that you are thinking hyperlocal and you're not thinking about brands. One that comes to mind that I went to recently that I like is Big Night. Oh, yeah. Do you get itchy with Big Night? Well, I like Big Night, but I don't know if they like me after the Shopee Shop story. I know, but listen, you were doing journalism, you know, sometimes you're not gonna make friends. But like, listen, I liked it. I bought a few things, merchandise extremely well for like a very awkward side, like sheep store my friend edith actually just made these really beautiful postcards for them yesterday that she posted and and they're like illustrated in this really nostalgic um sort of like eloise at the plaza way which i thought was a really smart partnership because it's a little bit more sophisticated less like playful i think my problem with some of these stores is when they use words that sound like really childish like like like munchies like munchies or like bevy or like wine all day.

21:26Like, I don't, I just think that we as like New Yorkers have more language for a lot of these things. And I just urge all businesses to get a little bit more. Yeah. I'm so sensitive to copy. Yeah. And I just think that everybody should be speaking or thinking more highly of the people reading their captions and shopping their brands, just like thinking higher of people. I don't think everything needs to be so easy and roll off the tongue. I love that sentiment so much. I think that we're just like, it's almost like degrading to like speak down to consumers. It doesn't have to be a coastal thing.

22:05It could be your store in Madison, Wisconsin. Like people in Madison, Wisconsin are like sophisticated people. Don't need to say, it's not like wine mom merch. It doesn't have to be at the counter. Yeah, I saw something this weekend and I'm dissecting it. I put it in my newsletter this morning, but this olive oil brand, Brightland, had an ad for the holidays and it's like pop bottles of olive oil. And I get what they're doing. It's like popping bottles of champagne, but I just feel like if I was going to take out a full page ad in the LA Times and the New York Times and spend - A quarter of a million.

22:43Yeah, a quarter of a million or more. I would probably spend some of that on like hiring a really great illustrator and maybe make something that people might even want to like frame, like make a beautiful map or a diagram or something that people could have in their kitchen forever and like extend the use of it instead of pop bottles. Yeah, no, it's cool. And you're not picking on Brightland at all. And that's why I love your letter. I love Brightland. I think that they do a great job. They also have a really great product. I'm more like curious if that had a return for them. And if it did, yeah like maybe that's something that brand should be doing instead of like the top of uber advertising i mean they're going for mass when you when you get into the pages of the times and la times you're going for you know wide you're going for mass though of course a certain demographic yeah buy print correct you know the weekend edition of a print publication yeah yeah um let's talk about like big box retail in terms of food we're talking grocery stores is there is Is there a big box retailer that's interesting to you that you've been in recently?

23:45So we live in, I live in New York. It's not really a big box town. No. You know, it's like travel. It's like a, it's like a truncated target where you get in and then you're already out, you know, like why it's very small. I don't think there's a Walmart in the city, maybe in one of the other boroughs. I like Target. I think that they're doing a lot of great stuff with, with CPG brands. I think that they have some really cool incubators. I know Andrea was on one of the panels for them once. Yeah. And, you know, I just saw that Gia got into Target. Like, they are definitely investing in smaller brands and trying to get them to the masses.

24:24I have not been into a Walmart in forever. Well, let me tell you, Emily. I have. Okay. And how's that? So, and listeners, you may, this may be redundant, but I'm going to say it again. a second to Ben Van Leeuwen and another founder who will remain unnamed. And apparently Walmart pays really well in terms of like the way they operate and the way they treat baby brands. Yeah. So that's a good thing. I also like the way they merchandise baby brands. Yeah. I think it's really smart the way they do end caps with baby brands. It's not as smart as Target. I agree with you. Target is definitely the leader in CPG food for me, at least in the big box world.

25:01But I, and Albertsons is really nice too. I've been to a couple Albertsons and seen some cool things. But man, Walmart is good. And like to get some of these brands into like the ultimate, the masses is cool. I also think Walmart is known in the big box world for running a tighter ship and targets like a little bit messy. Like things are out of stock for a while. Things can be like broken and it'll slide for a little bit longer. But I follow a few people that specifically study big box and they're often taking photos of these places like, what are you doing? Or like Walmart's keeping this stuff super organized.

25:32yeah um i'm glad you mentioned end caps though because i think a lot of brands just think they they can like throw their their dumb copy and like a qr code on the on the end cap and it's actually a really cool opportunity to uh extend people's interaction with your brand and i notice a lot of brands in sephora doing this well and i think sephora also urges their brands to make the most out of their little like two square foot setup on the shelf but i'm excited to see more um CPG brands like play around with that. Yeah, it's cool. And as an aside, you just mentioned Sephora, your letter talks heavily in the beauty world, fragrance world.

26:08So if you're into that stuff, which is not our show, you should definitely check out your letter for that too. Okay, this is the media section of the conversation because we really are a keen observer of media having worked at New York Magazine, having done both sides of the coin, really leaving brand and editorial um i have to ask you isn't there just this huge opportunity we just like talked the last like 30 minutes about cpg we talk about andrea a lot shouldn't like there be a big cool like product food product like media company i don't know if anybody should be starting a media company right now with all the layoffs like i i think that people like andrea or even Dan, who you said is coming in and like CPG wire have a lot of opportunities to showcase the voices.

26:58That's a good job too. Yeah. Yeah. That does a great job of, of showcasing these people and having them interviewed and you guys do it too. Right. But I don't know if I want to open something every day that has just like food and packaging niche news and drama. Like there's also PR Newswire for that kind of stuff. And I would probably urge people not to like raise money for something that already exists in such a great form. Yeah. I think like there are snack podcasts that could probably be built out or like YouTubers, like, you know, lower investment media formats. But I wouldn't urge somebody to like, what was the one else?

27:45Like there was like the like that breakfast startup. Oh, yeah. Back in the day, of course. Right. I mean, we don't remember it. And then there's like like Eliza's doing something really cool with her cake scene. Right. Like she's doing something fun. It's a smaller media project. It's getting a lot of different perspectives in there. but I don't think like she would wisely take like raise a series a and expect to be able to pay back investors and I think that that's what happens a lot like again my group texts I'm friends with people who work in this space or did work in this space or have moved on to working for tech companies that manage a lot of brands in this space um and we tumble over this probably every few months we're like hey what what would it look like if this brand started to do a lot more of this like if if grub street launched a snack newsletter that would probably be smart see that's what i'm saying and i think just to respond to a couple things first i'm like when i said big i probably should have meant like two person yeah and and but like i think there's just a huge opportunity because we talk so much about snacking they're affordable luxury cpg is cool it's just like a new thinking you said exactly maybe there's more a way to do a podcast network around it maybe it's grub street as a snacks newsletter i like that and then in terms of like launching yeah like media is like low margin it's it's like you can't put vc series a stuff you know money behind media that's like the like we've been doing it long enough it just fails every time yeah yeah it's a really hard business and um i think that when you start relying on like a copy editor a web builder like a producer it's getting expensive so i think the ideal people to do it are the ones that have taught themselves how to build their own little world around themselves, like some of the people that we've mentioned already, and have them keep doing what they're doing and keep reading them and hope that the big guys that already have audiences are maybe hiring them to work on something.