Nooish’s Smart Approach to CPG Product Development
(Listen on Apple or Spotify. Full transcript below.)
Sarah Nathan's journey with Nooish, a modern Jewish comfort food brand, offers valuable lessons about the power of taking your time to get cpg product development and brand strategy right .
The CPG landscape is filled with rushed product launches and hurried timelines. But one founder's patient approach to CPG product development is challenging this norm.
As someone who works with food brands every day, I often see founders rush their CPG product development process, eager to get to market quickly. But my recent conversation with Sarah Nathan, founder of Nooish, highlighted why slowing down can actually lead to better outcomes - both for your product and your bottom line.
The Real Cost (and Value) of R&D
When we talk about CPG product development, we often focus on speed to market. But here's what's interesting about Sarah's approach: she spent a full year on R&D, and she did it smart. Instead of immediately investing $50,000 in an R&D firm (a cost that many founders don't initially factor into their budgets), she bartered services and focused on truly understanding her product. This patient approach to CPG product development meant she knew exactly how to scale when the time came.
Flipping the Traditional Model on Its Head
Here's something that really caught my attention: most founders come to me with a product they want to sell, and then work on building a brand around it. Sarah did the opposite.
Her CPG product development process started with a clear brand vision for modernizing Jewish comfort food. This led her to literally invent something new - freeze-dried matzo balls. From a financial perspective, this approach helped her create something unique that could command premium pricing, and offered logistical ease that would help the bottomline.
Making the Numbers Work
What I love about Sarah's CPG product development strategy is how she thought through the financial implications from day one. She deliberately created a shelf-stable, lightweight product, knowing that frozen distribution costs can eat into margins quickly. As a CFO, I see so many brands struggling with distribution costs, but smart CPG product development decisions like this one can make or break your unit economics.
Building an Authentic Brand That Scales
I always tell founders that brand authenticity matters, but of course it has to work financially too. Sarah's approach to CPG product development considered both. She took time to perfect not just her product but also her branding, creating something that resonates deeply with consumers while maintaining strong margins. This is exactly the kind of balanced approach I encourage founders to take.
The Bottom Line
I know there is celebration around brands that do things fast - and that creates pressure to launch quickly. But Sarah's story shows us that patient, thoughtful CPG product development can actually set you up for better long-term success. When you take the time to think through your product, brand, and financial strategy holistically, you're much more likely to build something sustainable.
From my perspective working with hundreds of food brands, this kind of careful, considered approach often saves money in the long run - even if it means taking a bit longer to get to market. Remember, it's not just about launching; it's about launching something that can actually grow and succeed.
Get the Full Story
Want to hear more about how Sarah Nathan turned her patient approach to product development into a breakthrough brand? Listen to my full conversation with her on the Good Food CFO podcast.
We dive deeper into her R&D process,
Discuss the specifics of her manufacturing decisions, and
Explore how she's building sustainable growth on her own terms.
Plus, you'll hear what happened when we tried her innovative matzo ball soup right in the studio!
Listen on Apple or Spotify. Full transcript below.
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Episode Timeline
00:00 Introduction to the Good Food CFO Podcast
02:57 The Importance of Sponsorships and Partnerships
05:48 Transitioning to a New Office Space
09:00 Introducing Sarah Nathan and Nooish
11:53 The Concept Behind Nooish's Matzo Ball Soup
14:45 The Journey of Product Development
18:07 Building a Brand Story
20:56 The Pre-Launch Phase and Patience in Business
24:10 Feedback and Community Engagement in Naming
27:56 Navigating the Pre-Launch Process
30:42 Understanding Unique Market Needs
32:36 The Importance of a Strong Brand Story
33:58 Educating Customers on Product Value
35:52 Strategic Partnerships and Promotions
38:08 Tracking Sales and Customer Engagement
40:00 Expanding into Grocery Retail
43:47 Building Relationships with Retailers
45:41 Maintaining Control Over Business Decisions
48:22 Lessons in Finance and Manufacturing
51:03 Where to Find Nooish Products
Full Episode Transcript
This episode of the Good Food CFO podcast is sponsored by Settle.
Welcome to the Good Food CFO podcast. I am your host, Sara Delevan, and with me as always is our producer, Chelsea Stier. Chelsea, welcome to season 13. Yeah, that is amazing. And we're actually kicking off this season with an episode that you did with Sarah Nathan, who is the founder of Nooish. But before we get to that, we have a few things to talk about.
Yes. First and foremost, I want to talk about our sponsor. You may have heard at the top of the episode that this episode is brought to you by Settle. And I am so grateful and excited about our partnership with Settle. They are a service, a tool, a resource, if you will, that I use in my consulting business with a number of clients. And this partnership really came about organically.
which feels really, really good and I'm going to talk about that in a second. we have sort of dragged our feet for lack of a better wording on advertisements and sponsorships for a while, Chelsea. And we didn't come to the decision of doing sponsorships and ads lightly. And I want our listeners to know that. I want them to know that the only...
folks that we will accept as sponsors and advertisers on this show are those that I would truly use myself or recommend to founders that I work with and that I know. And I know so many of the listeners of this podcast personally. I have seen in the past that a trusted advisor can make a recommendation and people trust that. People are like, okay, I should learn more about this company. I should utilize this tool. And so it's
important to me that there is, you know, transparency and that there is a true value that would be brought to our listeners, you know, by the folks that we partner with. And that is why Settle, I think, was a really wonderful, great choice. As I said, I utilized Settle for a number of my clients at Sarah Delevan Consulting. They had reached out for a testimonial and I was like, happily, like, I will definitely write a testimonial. You know, this is a tool I think lots of founders should utilize.
And through that conversation, was sort of like, hey, would you be interested in sponsoring some episodes of the Good Food CFO podcast? And they really quickly jumped at the opportunity to support us. And we have talked about how Baba Yacht memberships, purchases on the Good Food CFO website, ratings and reviews, those are all ways that business owners can help support the podcast, help to keep a lot of our content
you know, free and super low cost. And having sponsors and advertisers simply helps us to do more, to be able to reach our goals and create more of the content that we think is so, so important for good food founders to have access to. Before we go onto our next topic, I do want to say that as with any recommendation or piece of advice you might hear on this podcast, there is no one size fits all solution, right? So I recommend that any
brand or product who sponsors this podcast, advertises here in the future in support of our mission that you definitely check them out, but see if it truly is the right fit for your business and your brand before you move forward with working with them. Sarah. And I just want to reiterate what you said. We're so excited to have Settle here with us this season. And as you said, they were just as excited and so quick to jump in and be a part of this season with us.
Yeah, they are super supportive of not only CPG founders, but those of us who are working in the industry to support founders. can't say enough how, like you said, how quick they were to say, yes, let us help support what you're doing and what you're bringing to CPG brands in particular. so, yeah, it just feels like a perfect partnership. Yeah, I love that. So Sarah, it's looking a little different behind you.
Should we get into the new office? Yeah. So if you're watching on YouTube, things look sort of similar, but also quite different. First of all, there's no art on the walls yet. We're recording this very shortly after I've literally and physically moved into a new office. If you missed the bonus episode where Chelsea and I talk about the move, I encourage you to go listen to it. It's full of thanks and gratitude and some stories about...
the beginnings of both my consulting business and the Good Food CFO business and brand and podcast. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone and to sort of pause and think about this moment in time. It was a really fun episode, emotional episode to do. But yeah, we have officially landed in the new office. We live next to an elementary school. So you might hear little ones in the background occasionally.
we, again, we've just moved in. like certain things have not been put up in the room yet. think we'll, the, the sounds will get buffered out, over time. But if you hear some little ones, little kids playing in the background, that's why. You're not going crazy. Yeah, you're not going crazy. It's not you. It's literally like in your ears. And I also want to say that like, we're going to replace the art over like the white little piece of furniture.
Here, we're going to do a little tour of the office on socials, possibly on YouTube. I'll fill you all in on why we're looking for a new piece of art there. But I just want to put it out there if you all know any independent artists, we'd love to have something special go there on the wall. yeah. And Sarah, this is the first episode ever on the podcast where you're in the same room as the person that you're interviewing. Yeah.
Okay, again, in case you missed it on social media a couple of weeks ago, Sarah Nathan, the founder of Nooish, who I'm talking to on the podcast today and I were doing a remote interview like we always do. And my computer had a full and utter meltdown. The audio stopped working, the sound stopped working. It was like I literally had to write on paper.
and holds it up to the camera to communicate with Sarah. It turned out my computer just needed to be restarted. But in that sort of meltdown of what was going on, she let me know that she was going to be in LA and perhaps we could do an interview in person and she could bring her soup to the podcast.
and we could enjoy it together and have our conversation. And that is exactly what we did. So I've never been so happy that things went so terribly wrong. And I will say that we were not set up for two people to record in one room. We're working with one microphone. You will see that I have like, mainly it's the side of my face in YouTube, but you can see Sarah, can see Sarah's product in the conversation, I think is just as good as ever, but I'd love to do more in person.
interviews and we'll upgrade our systems, if you will, to hopefully be able to do that. But I wanted to talk to Sarah because not only did she create an amazing product, but she actually invented something. She has invented freeze-dried matzo balls. They never existed before. And she's turned them into an easy to make soup just like ramen.
Imagine like a cup of noodles, but this is really high quality matzo ball soup that is actually delicious as well. I wanted to not only talk to her about how she created her product, but I also wanted to talk to her about how she's building her business because her approach is informed by her decade of experience as a leader in both the CPG and the Jewish culinary space. Often we have founders here who have...
maybe some industry experience, but sometimes there's just people working in other industries who have a passion for food, right? And to hear her take and her approach, I think, you know, is really interesting. And I think founders are going to get a lot from it. But to give you a little bit of info on her background. So she ran programming at the Chobani Incubator. She was category manager at National Co-op Grocers, had her own consulting agency called Bloom CPG.
and was fractional GM for Goodonia Hydration, among many other things in the industry. And as a Jewish community leader, she was a producer on the great big Jewish food fest. She hosts CPG Shabbat dinners, and she's bringing community together at major conferences like Expo West and the National Restaurant Association, among a lot of other things. You are going to hear in this episode how much pride Sarah has in her Jewish heritage and
You know, it really comes through. It's really a beautiful thing. And it's a gorgeous combination of innovation, invention, CPG and community. Yeah. It's one of the things that really drew me into the conversation was hearing Sarah talk about how, you know, a lot of people come to CPG because they have a product, whereas she really came from a place of having a brand story.
Yep. And wanted to create the product that would fit into that brand story. And as you said, she literally invented freeze dried matzo balls, right? Like, I just think it's a really cool product. Yeah. Like if you listen to the whole thing and then you think back on it, it's like, she connected all of these dots to create a product. You know, I think she says in the episode at one point, like something about like luck or like
timing or something like that. And I'm like, no, this is you created an amazing thing and you thought it all through, you know, choosing multiple soup as her first product in what I'm sure and hope will be, you know, a broader product line someday. It in hindsight just seems so genius to me because of the need that it fills. And she shares in the episode, like, who is buying this product and how
giftable it is and how parents are sending it to their children at school. Friends are sending it to one another when they're sick and people are buying it for themselves. It's such a well thought out product. It's such a well thought out approach that I think that, and I hope that founders will hear this episode and go, how can I think about my product in this way? And how can we, even with an existing product, approach
new ideas, maybe change things up a little bit if you're hitting a roadblock that Sarah has avoided. It's just a really, really, I think, great conversation. I'm excited for folks to hear it, Chelsea. I feel like we've gone on long enough. We should just let people hear the episode, but clearly we're just so excited about it. I think we should get to it. Yeah, let's do it. Good food founders, let's talk about cashflow.
The metric that truly determines your ability to grow your business. We all know that figuring out your true costs, your margins and projecting cash flow isn't always as straightforward as it could be. When your data is scattered across systems, it is easy to lose track and leave money on the table. That's where Settle comes in. Settle is the only platform built for CPG brands that combines inventory, payments and procurement into one unified system. And they offer integrated financing for your invoices to help extend your cash
Runway. Settle helps you make smarter decisions and keeps your business on track to grow sustainably. Head over to settle.com slash good food to learn how brands like carnivore snacks use settle to manage their cash flow and growth. Sarah, welcome to the new office. It's gorgeous. I'm loving it. It's super cozy. Thank you. And thank you for being my first ever in person podcast guest. I mean, we had to have soup together. How can we not? I mean, I've never been so thankful that a podcast went
horribly wrong ever before. This is a great opportunity. I'm so happy to finally meet you in person. Thank you, same. I have tasted this soup in the kitchen when we made it and I just want everybody to know that it is so, so good. If you've been seeing it on Instagram, like I had for a while before being here with you, like it is as good as people say. I had a beautiful reaction to it. It's so good. I have sort of known you.
since before you launched Nooish, we had like a phone call together with another person. I followed you on Instagram just as a result of being a part of that conversation. And when I saw that you were releasing this product, I was like amazed. Can you tell people who don't know what Nooish is, like all about this soup and how you created it? Yeah, so Nooish is a brand of modern Jewish comfort food.
Nooish is a of a melding of new and Jewish, nooish. And our first product is instant matzo ball soup. Traditionally, making matzo ball soup takes over an hour or you gotta find the deli if you even can or, you know, all the alternatives are pretty underwhelming. So no one's making instant and I love instant ramen. I love instant lentils, all the instant foods and people are able to make them so high end now.
And I thought, why is this beloved food only eaten sometimes once a year because it's so difficult to make and how can we make it more easy, more accessible and more fun and relatable and everyone can enjoy it? Sorry, I'm eating. I can't help myself either. get it. Yeah. So I have to say, I mean, just to comment on the soup, just like for another moment, the matzo balls are so flavorful. I've only had matzo ball soup one other time. It was delicious. It was at like a restaurant deli here.
sort of in the Beverly Hills area. This, like when you think about like a ramen or something, it's kind of salty, delicious. We love it, right? But like this tastes like homemade. And it's so, so, so good. Where did you get the idea to do this? Like did you see a freeze dried or like a matzo ball somewhere or did this just come to you? Yeah, so I've been in the...
consumer packaged goods industry for almost a decade now. I helped run the Chobani Incubator. I was a category manager for National Co-op Grocers. I had my own consulting. And then on the other hand, I was also really involved in the Jewish culinary space. So as a producer on the Graving Jewish Food Festival, which is a virtual 10 day festival right at the beginning of the pandemic. I'm also the culinary coordinator for a Jewish food retreat every year in Georgia. And then I saw all of my friends elevating their own cultures food.
Siete, Maya Kaimal, Fly by Jing, a Dozen Cousins. Nobody's doing that for Jewish food outside the kosher aisle. then it was really, took, that was the impetus of all of this. It wasn't really like, oh, I have the product idea and let me create a brand. It's like, I had the brand and the mission and the, you know, the feeling of wanting to spread Jewish joy through food to make it, you know, more accessible and relatable, not only to, you know, Jews who've maybe fallen out of
their own identity because there's not so much that feels represented to them or to the mass market that really maybe isn't so introduced to these types of foods. And then being a frozen buyer, said, okay, I'm never going to do frozen or refrigerated supply chain. I wanted something that felt very Americana, that didn't need a lot of education that maybe you might have heard of or had a best friend or went to the deli or an ex that had fed it to you.
similar to how a lot of these other traditional foods kind of come up to the market and something that wasn't holiday specific. So many Jewish foods are so holiday specific. It's something that people love to eat mainly on Passover. Kind of, if you think about it, similar to tamales. And tamales are eaten year round, but really like Christmas is the time when the whole family comes together, does the long process, but people love it all year round. So I would say that matzoh ball soup is very.
Similar to that, I knew that the want for all year round was there, that the people weren't doing it because of how hard it was to get. So that was kind of the light bulb moment of how do I make this shelf stable? And then probably took another two years to really R &D it and get it to where I wanted it to go. I think it's a good point to pause on this idea of thinking about not wanting to have a frozen product. And in case people aren't following the train of thought there,
to freeze your product, to transport frozen product, to ship frozen product if you're going direct to consumer, it's expensive. The whole process becomes more expensive. So when you have something shelf stable and light, it becomes a lot less expensive to get your product to the customer, right? There's less of a dilemma about like, are we going to charge for shipping because shipping is so expensive? Do we need to sell like 10 of these? You know I mean? To make it worth, you know, someone purchasing it from us. So
Thinking about that in relation to how you create your product is really, really smart thing to do. Thank you, yeah. So a couple of months ago, I'm going to read from my notes here. I saw that Sunset Foods held their Sunset Innovator Awards and Nooish won Best Brand Story. We talk about that brand story, the importance of that a lot here on the podcast, because I think without that, especially when you are, a unique product that people are not familiar with, and B,
a more expensive product on shelf compared to other, let's say like freeze dried soups, how important that could be. Did you spend a lot of time on your brand story? What was that process like for you? Yeah, I think that the brand story was very, it was at the heart of why I was doing this. So it came very naturally and organically. It's not something that was, you know, manufactured. I think there's a, mean, I have a lot of pieces.
of the story to tell. is that, like I said, the story of me being in the industry and understanding those components and the gap in the market. And then there's the component of the, I've moved around a lot of different places and I always, a lot of times when you think about cultural stories, it's always like my grandmother's recipe or this is what happened at home. of course I have that, but for me was that.
I was moving a lot of different times and Passover, you said your husband's favorite holiday was Thanksgiving. For me, it's Passover and it's almost like the Jewish Thanksgiving to me or friends giving where you can just invite anybody and everybody who just needs a home, needs a seat, Jewish, not Jewish, whatever. And it's so welcoming. And that's where I started really playing around with different recipes. I would do miso ramen, matzo ball soup. would do matzo ball soup with kawaii. So that's where...
that part of the story comes in, really, especially right now, obviously I was developing this far before October 7th, but that feeling of anti-Semitism was already there for me, that feeling of not feeling truly excited and joyous about culture, because it almost felt like you needed to hide it or needed to tone down who you were in some ways. I like, I want people to feel the joy that I feel and I want them to...
see something on the shelves that gives them the okay, just say, you know, I can be really proud of who I am in my culture. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. So you started working on the brand in January 2023. officially launched in September of 2024. And I think this is so important to talk about this pre-launch phase and the work that you put in, sort of the figuring out that you do before you launch.
Can you share a little bit about the work you did in that phase and sort of the big decisions perhaps that you made in terms of like, how are we gonna launch this product? Where are we gonna launch this product? Yeah, so I think my 100 % biggest learning, what's like the biggest overall learning of being in this industry for long and working with so many small brands is patience. think. That's a hard one. Yeah, but I think that that's what allowed me to do things right and take the time that really needed to be.
taken was that I did not put myself on a schedule. Of course, launching right at Rosh Hashanah was great, but it wasn't the Rosh Hashanah before, it was the one after and it took me a whole other year and I just said, it is better that I get this right. For me, it started with the R &D process of the product.
having built so many wonderful relationships in this industry, I actually, I bartered my way through that process. For the first year, I think I spent money just on ingredients. So I think when people immediately go, yes, you could go to the R &D firm and pay $50,000 and maybe I would have gotten it out a little bit quicker, but I now know so much about my product and what works and what doesn't and going, you know, I'm working right now on, I self-manufacture.
working on moving to a coman hopefully soon. Like I'm in the process of vetting and trying and now that I have my standard operating procedures down, I'm able to have much better conversations than I could a year ago with them. So I think that that and people told me that element was important but seeing it in person and doing it in person I think was really good. And then the branding for me being a cultural item. Yeah, getting the branding right was so important. Yeah. You know, there are brands
that are Jewish out there and I love them. They have amazing branding. more, it might be more Kitch, more Yiddish, more Hebrew. really, there's 15 million Jews, 15 million ways to be Jewish. I wanted anybody who looked at this to say, I see myself in this. Or if you're not Jewish to say, I get what this is. I see myself in the plate, in the, this could be played at anybody's home. This could be, this could fit on anybody's table.
You know, and there's elements of like Jews invented the comic book industry. You know, they came from World War II here and wrote about fighting the Nazis. And I'm sure you Nazis would be spoken about on this podcast. But you know, so it's got like that energy. It has the collage energy of the 1950s Jewish cookbooks. so it's one of those things that feels Jewish. If you know, you know. And then if you don't, there's nothing like Star of David, White and Blue. Yeah, that's about it. So getting there was
probably harder than R &Ding the actual product. I have everyone from children to millennials to grandparents that identify with this product and with the branding. No one really feels like this is not for me. so I think that's one of the most challenging things to do and the thing that I was really happy I took my time with. Yeah. Did you have many iterations? Yeah. will say I'm very proud of my Polish heritage. It makes me feel a certain way to eat.
homemade Polish food and I like take a lot of pride in that. This speaks to me in like, this is nourishing. Like I kind of get like welcoming, nourishing. Like this is for everyone. This is for you if you want like a hug from food. It's sort of the vibe. Exactly. I call it a hug and a cup. Every culture has a soup and dumplings so people can totally relate to that. I mean, it's also, it is a Eastern European.
food, it's not necessarily just Jewish, that's probably also why you feel that way. I love it. So you also shared with me prior to this podcast that you got some help with the naming of your product in the sense that you shared ideas for names and got feedback from people. I think this is another really kind of fun and important thing to share.
Because a lot of people, myself included, when you're sort launching something and you're going through the naming process, you can feel either like, hmm, maybe I need to protect what I'm doing. Maybe you are unsure about the naming or some of the, even the branding, things like that. So putting it out to people to get feedback and their thoughts can be a very scary idea. But you embraced it and you went for it. So I think if you have something that's so unique to you and who you are, which I think is honestly one of the
ways that brands work, that no one's gonna take your idea. No one has the time. This is already so hard. I really, I don't really worry about IP. Maybe I should worry a little bit more about my recipe and stuff. I'm always like, and I do with the recipe, but like the naming, the putting the idea out there, the letting people know, I'm like, this is so hard. Nobody is gonna like feel like that's a great idea. Let me just take it and be able to launch it a month.
So I put it out on LinkedIn. put a post. It's probably my most engaged with posts that I've ever put out. People kind of had known that I was like toying around with stuff for a while. And I finally put out, I did not say what it was. I just said, Hey, I'm doing, doing this brand. I probably said around Jewish joy. And I would love to get people, it doesn't matter if they're Jewish or not. If you would like to get on a 30 minute call with me and are willing to brainstorm with me, just like.
brand identity, who the customer is, you know, all of that. I would love to pick your brain. I mean, people, people I knew, people I didn't know, people who are tagging people, reached out. And in two weeks, I probably had like 50 calls. And yeah, so just sat on like Zoom after Zoom. And when I would go through the list of names that I kind of had as an idea, you know, okay, whatever. And then I'd say nooish and people would get it right away. I'd get the chuckle.
And I was like, okay, this is it. So I think being able to test in that way and see the response from so many people really hit the nail on the head. Yeah, I think that's great. I love that advice and how open people were like, yes, I will give you some of my time for your idea. I think curiosity got the best of that. That's fair.
You go through this pre-launch process of really figuring out the recipe and how you're going to make this product, really diving into the branding and the brand story, brand strategy. How did you launch? What channels did you launch in? And I've heard you say that you think that Nooish has a lot of untraditional or unconventional opportunities for growth. Can you talk a little bit about that too? Yeah. So I think one of the reasons too that I wasn't so stressed about
getting it out at a certain time is I wasn't working with the co-man so I didn't have to put out a huge run at the beginning. I'm self-manufactured right now, which I think is a benefit to at least start with self-manufacturing, that it, you know, build out that understanding of your customer before you feel the pressure of just getting, you know, rid of product for product's sake. And I also know how hard it is working with UNFI and KeHe, so I wanted to make sure I had product that felt very omni-channel, that wasn't like that was my go-to-market strategy.
and it's been awesome. this is a giftable item, a very giftable item. Matsumoto soup is a love language. So people send it through spoonfulofcomfort.com or Goldbelly, Zabars, Zingermans, Cantors, know. It's $150 for two quarts of frozen soup. The supply chain sucks. But people do it all. And it doesn't really taste great either sometimes, but people do it all the time because...
their friend just had a baby or someone died in the family or they're not feeling well and they really, they feel that need to send that love language. And so I was like, there's nothing in a price point that really feels like, that's such an immediate, easy, my friends say I'm going to send this to them right now. And so the direct to consumer in terms of gifting, the parents sending to college students, especially over Rosh Hashanah, Shauna was like, that was 90 % of my customer base and seeing the notes.
the parents write to their kids, I know you'll get through this. Like, you know, here's some soup for comfort or, know, what, like, I hope you're celebrating the holidays and that you share this 18 pack with all of your friends and your sorority or, know, whatever it is, it just, like, sometimes they're heartbreaking, but they're so, it makes me feel like I'm really filling such a need state. And then there's like, so yeah, Hillel's at college has actually started ordering them.
organically because they have suit programs that have terrible supply chains and they realize how much this speaks to the customer and how much I'm saving them time and money and resources. So yeah, like not many CPG companies could like get Hillel's reaching out to them. And yeah, some really interesting every like all these little teeny shops when I used to work at another brand that would get a lot of press and these little shops all over the country would buy them. So like, that sounds unique and novel and whatever.
it was always like impossible to get a real reorder from them because it was like, it was not what it didn't fit a need state. The product I have like really people can see the immediate want or need and how much it saves them the time and brings them that comfort that I've gotten reorders in the two months I've been launched from pretty much every one of these accounts that has purchased from me. That is such a big point, I think as well, like.
with all due respect to all the amazing like jam companies, for example, there are so many jams in the world, right? Or even like, you we've had amazing nut brands that are, you know, come on the podcast or work with us. You have to be really unique and I think fit a need that is not currently being filled for your brand to really take off. And I say that because there are amazing products that
maybe don't have a strong brand story, where people just don't understand, or it doesn't have that like need fit that something like your soup does. And it can be a struggle. It can be hard to get that reorder like you're saying. Like it's a great product, it's really cute, but it's like not something you need to have in your pantry or, you know, think of off the top of your head to send to your children or someone in your family. This soup is like so unique.
It just, it just checks all the boxes, right? And I think I'm just saying this out loud right now, just like to, to, to speak to other brands and other founders who might be listening, who are like, I have a great product and I think I have a great brand story, but why isn't my product moving? I think you have to be sort of honest with yourself sometimes about like how many other versions of this are there and is mine truly a standout and, and, and what place do I hold in people's lives?
Not to sound cynical, but being in this industry for so long, I always said this is the lowest barrier to entry. Just because you make spice nuts on the holidays and all of your family and friends think they're God's gift to Earth doesn't mean that their neighbor next door in the town next to them is doing something similar. And it's special to them because it's special to you doesn't mean that there is necessarily a need or a way to break through. And this industry is so...
I would not be doing this if I didn't literally invent something that I would be So bummed if it didn't exist. Yeah, was a calling I literally had to do it because either someone else would do it and I'd be so bummed It wasn't me or no one would do it and I'd be really bummed it wasn't out there So I don't want to say don't go into this. Yeah, it's a wonderful loving industry, but it is very difficult and I'll say I'm also always
There's always things to learn. It's not that I got this perfect. I would say my soup is priced on the higher end. that is because I home make soup so you don't have to. I am saving someone over an hour of time. To me, I think it's magic. is like literally scientific magic. It's space food that I'm able to make soup, like freeze dry it.
and then you can like rehydrate it and it keeps the texture, the taste, the nutrients. Being in this industry, I thought it was very important to use really clean, high-end ingredients. So when someone gets to make this at home in two and a half minutes, instead of, they're not gonna find it cheaper at the deli anyways, but schlepping to the deli, even if they make themselves, how much is your time worth? That I get the pushback. So I think for me, the education piece I really wanna work on next is,
having people understand what does freeze dry mean? They're so used to cup of noodles being a dollar and a nine. So what does that mean? What's it going to taste like? What's the nutritional value? What are the high ending ingredients? What's that value? And again, the people who get it, get it. But I've also had plenty of people who said genius, like literally they'll write on the comments, genius. They'll type in nooish.co. They'll come back and they'll decide to write another comment below it. too expensive.
Again, I'm still selling plenty a day. I'm not worried. And people have told me when the second people stop saying too expensive is when you are too cheap. know? People are always going to say that. So it's not a big concern of mine, but I do think that I think it's priced right. I just think there's opportunities to educate the customer more. And that's a great learning. Yeah. I mean, you've got the Real Salt brand, which I'm familiar with. I've got some in my cabinet for Lap and Barrel, you know, for the spices. So
Yeah, I think the people who get it get it and the people who don't either won't or they just don't know. Right. And so you have to especially if they've not tasted it. Exactly. So the driving trial thing too is been, you know, a unique one. think because I'm still self-manufacturing, like I said, I don't have that huge amount to give away. I'm already I'm selling in a way that makes me happy and that I'm making money from each sale. I'm not like giving away a bunch for free.
but I do find that the trial helps. So whether it may be some coupon codes that will help me understand where the customer is coming from, how do they hear about it, I think that can be really valuable. I'm doing a partnership next week with Schneider's Deli in Chicago, a very cool hip deli that if you order $35 worth of catering, they'll put in a free soup. So I'm still selling them the soup, it's just at a lower cost than I would most of my wholesale accounts. So I'm both not losing money and I'm driving trial, maybe just more.
breaking even for my money. So I think those opportunities that you can find, you don't have, I don't think you have to jump at every opportunity that's like, Goop's having a holiday party. Can you send a hundred? Like you don't, I've done so many of those things, but you just don't, people see it. They, maybe you'll get something from it, but you can't really, you can't track it. You're not there to sell your own brand. I think really choosing the right opportunities to, you know,
not just throw things up at the wall at the beginning can really help you understand your customer better. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm just sort of thinking about like you, you know your customer to the extent that you can say this is a good opportunity for me. This is not maybe the right fit right now. Yeah. Or that if I know something's not, if I don't know whether it's the right fit, there's always going to be opportunities to test that when I'm
I have more opportunities to test. Why not stick with the low-hanging fruit, stick with what I know and then branch out a little bit. I did a holiday market on Saturday that was not the right fit. And so I sat around and sold maybe 20 in two hours where yesterday we did another one in New York in the Upper West Side where we sold
Order a minute and we sold over 160 in three hours is a five-hour thing I could have probably sold double if I hit we didn't sell out and my products also great because When you buy a four-pack or however many buy two even if it's two at a holiday market You're sharing it with someone else. So my one customer is never
It is always either word of mouth someone saying how excited they are about the product or they are so excited to gift it to someone else or try it with someone else. So that's been a huge unlock. Yeah. When you talk about tracking is something like working with Schneider's like are you, is it reorders? Is it, how are you tracking? I think that's something as a CFO, when someone does a promo or someone does a marketing event or something like that, there's not a lot of tracking.
that gets done and it's like, how did that go? We don't know. Well, should we invest it again in the future? It's like, I want the data. So I'm just curious if you're tracking or kind of what metrics you're looking at there. so that one, I don't have a huge process in place. We're going to do a co-marketing campaign where we're both going to post on social, but I haven't given them like a coupon code to say like reorder or postcard. Honestly, maybe I should go email them right now after this and do that. That's not a bad.
idea. I was just really happy with the email they were going to put out and the social media that I felt like it was worth it. Because I'm doing these small tests all over, I can see when a piece of press comes out and it's local to Michigan and then I start getting lots of Michigan orders, I can really understand where that's coming from. So I feel like if I start getting lots of orders within the area.
That's kind of like a way to track because I don't have too much going on right now. I'm able to to keep that within I mean, I think the more you kind of go brick and mortar the really the harder it is to yeah the track and yeah people I think they said people need to see something like eight times before it really clicks So I also get the comments will go. my god. I have to have this ordering now So I'm on other sites they might absolutely and I am selling all those other sites. They might be ordering on those other sites
but they might just be like excited about it and then like waiting for that coupon code to come up or waiting for them to really have the needs date. Yeah. And see it again. So you launched on your website. You mentioned that this is like an amazing gifting product. Can you talk a little bit about how you've decided to grow? Do you think you'll go into grocery retail at some point? I'd love to get some insight into your thoughts on that. Yeah. So I think it's just having the right opportunities. So yeah, I started on Shopify.
getting the TikTok and the Instagram and the press and all that has allowed for a lot of more specialty stores to reach out. And if they're really excited about the product, at first I was on fair.com. immediately without asking put me on their front page, hot products. Oh, we're gonna put you on here for three weeks. We're gonna offer free shipping. Well, if you're familiar with FAIR,
It's quite a big commission. It's 15 % on any order where people just find you versus a direct link plus a $10 flat rate. And I said, you know, I have not had the opportunity to make my list to do the outreach so that I can say, hey, I already talked to this store. We already have built this relationship. This is a direct sale because really that wasn't going to be my focus. So that's something I would really recommend if like you're taking the time.
Definitely like even if you're not gonna go right away, but that might be something in your strategy Build up that list first so that you can show fair and be like this is I I don't really want to pay commission on these because it can get very expensive and those stores are Again, I think they can be great. I love that I can tell someone oh you live in Santa Barbara go to Eddie's you live in Beacon go to Stella's like and these are places where people really they have my customer base People are really excited about it
and they're able to have a higher price point because they're specialty and people understand that there. But I shut down my fare. And so it's possible there's plenty of people who said, oh, notify me when she's back in stock. I don't even know. I could have all these accounts that I don't even know. But the ones that took the time to reach out to my website, say, hey, I see you're sold out on fare. I really want you or I saw you on whatever. Those are the ones that I know how much they really want me. I was in silver the other day.
walked into a store that has me and they were like, was wearing my nose hat and they go, my God, are you Sarah? Like they were so excited to meet me. They were so excited that I took the time to come in. Yeah. So I do think it's hard when you're in so many of these stores all over the country that you can't have those relationships always. But I, I try to reach out on Instagram and say, Hey, how's it going? I, was small business Saturday. said, Hey, can you, if you send me a picture of
my product at your store. will, I'm going to create a whole reel of all the places I'm in. I'm going to highlight you so that it shows this way of showing a partnership without just calling me like, how's it selling? Do you want to reorder? It's like building that partnership was important. And then sunset foods. mean, winning best brand story. They put me on an end cap till the end of the year for free. So that's been a great relationship. It's direct. I am able to, yeah, really be out there. They obviously sent an email out.
And so I'm, especially in the Jewish neighborhood, selling very well. Already in three weeks, I've sold over 200 units and keep selling. They've reordered. then I met the National Jewish Museum in Philly. They ordered and then sent an email out. within three hours of them sending an email out just about my brand, they decided to do it themselves. They called me and they were like, we need another order. And they've now done that a couple of times. So again, not many CPG brands that would be...
in the National Jewish Museum. And so there are all these little things that work, central markets reached out, home goods reached out. So I think this is opportunities for direct. If it's the right thing and it works for them, it works for me. I believe in distribution. just self-manufacturing makes it very difficult. You and I talked once before for I think almost 30 minutes. It was a failed attempt, as we mentioned at the beginning of the episode.
And you explicitly said in that first conversation, like margin is important to you. You know that like tiny margins make this business difficult. I'm remembering that from the first conversation and then hearing you tell your story about fair. That's very bubbly. It's very building a business on your own terms because it's, it's. I just want to echo like you saying like, okay, yes, I could have a lot of sales here, but it's not on my terms.
It's not, you know, I may have reached out to these people and I'm paying fair, you know, this commission for work they hadn't done, or just in general, like I don't feel like I need to utilize fair to reach new customers. And so I can do it without paying this 15 % plus $10. And I think especially young founders, people who haven't been in the industry as long as you have, would be afraid to do that.
And so hearing you tell that story, think is really beneficial for other founders. think it's exciting to be in all these small stores, but I added up all of the small store revenue and then my one invoice from Sunset. I was able to do Sunset on my own terms. And I was like, they equaled each other. It's a lot more work to do all of that individual communication than the one store that I can really focus on, that I can be there in person, that I could be going to do demos, that I could talk to people.
So I think that, yeah, I think that depending on your own terms, yeah, if you're losing money and it's stressful for you, like right now, you know, with the self manufacturing, I have some bottlenecks. Like I could really be, I'm out here in California, I went to Nosh Live, I'm going to stores, I'm meeting with you. I'm getting stuff done while my kitchen stack is working. Now, if I was there, I would probably be able to...
switch out the freeze jars maybe more often to get one more run. It's definitely money I'm off the table, but it also would be very stressful to me to like, if I was selling and saying yes to too many places to feel sold out, to not be able to like really get to my direct consumer customers, to not be able to have a life. I am dating someone who lives four and a half hours away.
I'm 1000 % in this business. work 18 hours a day on it. But I think I'm almost, I'm mitigating my stress because I know I make bad decisions when I'm stressed. I'm doing it on my own terms and I know I'm building a sustainable business. I'm making money. I'm building the right relationships. I'm talking to the right people. And I know the demands there. I have not turned the faucet on. Every influencer has come to me. Every store has come to me.
press pieces come to me. And yes, that is very unique. So that generally doesn't happen. Guy Ra has always asked, is it luck or is it preparation? And I think it's both. I picked this product specifically knowing that people love writing about matzo ball soup. That people are going to be so stoked that this is so new and cool and viral. And that's not going to last forever. I will have to pay for men's ads and I will have to give promos to stores and all that.
I'm gonna ride the wave. Yeah, I can and on my own terms. Well, you're riding the wave of the work that you did. Yes. Right. Of the brand. I mean, you could have launched this with a lackluster brand story. Yeah. You could have launched it with, you know, branding on the packaging that didn't resonate with people. You could have launched it and it could have tasted bad. Right. Like all of those things are not true for your product, which makes the wave possible. I could call it Jewish space food.
put it on TikTok, maybe gone viral for half a second, but I wanted to build a lasting brand that can really expand to other products and aligns. Yeah. So there's like future ideas for, yeah, that's exciting. I won't ask you any questions about that. We'll keep that a secret for now.
Okay. So you shared that one of your biggest finance lessons was that things change day to day, like on a daily basis and that you need a lot more help keeping track of all of it. And so, you know, this is a finance focused podcast. Can you share a little bit about that lesson and maybe what you're doing to, to help? I'm still figuring it out. I probably will want to talk to you, Sarah. you know, I think the self manufacturing piece is it's not like, okay, I found, and even when you find a command that's changed all the time, it's not like.
I found a Co-man, they're making this process. They can make in a day this many are getting made. I have the bottleneck. I'm making the balls and then I'm freeze drying them and I can make way more balls than I can freeze dry. so how am I calculating the hours of labor? Now I'm paying more for storage. So it's not a clear in a month, I'm paying this much for labor and this many cups are coming out of it. Right now I'm lucky that I have a product that has a long shelf life.
or that you can have balls and then keep them in the freezer. So, you know, I'm working on really figuring out, like sometimes I'm like, okay, let's just make so that like we have, you know, which is not always what I recommend to everyone. know, a lot of people really have to balance that a little bit more. So I would, I'd like to like really have a better understanding.
of that, but again, that goes with the like being Zen, being patient and knowing that it will all come together and really still, I think that's where the like profitability and everything I do gives me that buffer. That if I know that every cup that I'm selling is bringing some money in that I'm not breaking even and I'm not losing, then I have that buffer to say, okay, sir, you have a little bit more money to put.
into some more inventory or that if you have to pay this, that it's not the end of the world. I'm thinking, okay, here's my runway and it's so imminent. Every month I am covering my costs and all of that. So yeah, I'm just trying to keep Zen. Yeah, it's a process. And I think you bring up a good point that, know, oftentimes we're costing our products.
as we're getting started, right? And like, okay, I can make a matzo ball in this amount of time. It takes this long to freeze dry it. know, broth takes this long. So here's my nice little process. You know, no, and then this is my labor costs. And then, you know, here's my price. And it's like, as you start to ramp up as production changes, as you need more people, as you buy equipment, all of that is in flux. And I think just my advice would be if it's impossible to predict, just look back, have a bookkeeper.
and then look back over the last month to just say, did I do, how did things turn out? Would I do anything differently in hindsight? Can I learn anything from this as I go forward? And then just keeping an eye on your cash, like cash flow, like you just mentioned your cash runway, you know that it's not, you know, eminent that it's gonna run out. That's a good thing to know because it gives you that freedom to go, okay, need this and we're growing and so I can spend this money.
and future investors or, you know, if that ever comes to pass, they are going to want to see, you know, that and that information as well. So I think it's amazing. I could talk to you forever. I know that our founders who are listening would love to hear more from you, but we have to wrap up. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast, for being willing to do a redo. Of course. And my pleasure. I love this. Thank you. And for coming with soup. I'm going to, mine is still, hopefully still warm. I'm going to finish my last months of all.
Where can people find Nooish and how can they order? Nooish is on nooish.co. We're on a bunch of other gifting platforms too if you want to send our product with other lovely products that you've probably seen on this podcast. Great idea. Like hereheremarket.com. We're on bariatricpal.com. So if you just have bariatric surgery, apparently this is a great option as well. You know, and our store locator. And then you can find us on Instagram or TikTok at nooishfoods. I need it. Well, cheers. Cheers.
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