Brand Slam Episode 4: Learning How to Grow and Market a CBD Brand
On episode 4 of Brand Slam our guest is Liza Cohen from Nature’s Nosh. Nature’s Nosh is a dried fruit and nut bites infused snacking brand infused with hemp-derived from CBD.
Brand Slam was created by Retail Voodoo to help CPG entrepreneurs in food, beverage, and wellness reduce their struggle with brand growth in the face of Covid-19. Using the auditing process models created by Retail Voodoo to develop Brand Ecosystems, (which we’ve used for some of the world’s most beloved brand and featured in the book Beloved & Dominant Brands,) we will benchmark Nature’s Nosh and provide strategies to help Liza and her team regain brand traction.
More About Nature’s Nosh: The idea for Nature’s Nosh came to founder Liza Cohen in 2017 (around the same time that she began culinary school), while vacationing with a friend’s family. On this trip, her friend’s mom would sneak away from her grown kids each morning to smoke CBD as her form of relaxation and pain-relief. The idea for Nature’s Nosh was immediately born and the mission was clear: They aim to remove the negative stigma associated with cannabis consumption while making it healthy and convenient for consumers to reap the natural benefits of this functional ingredient.
David Lemley
David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.
Yes, 2020 has been a … well, we’re not sure what kind of year to call it.
While it’s still not business as usual, businesses still have to do many of the usual things, like planning for 2021. And if there’s one thing you should have on the to-do list for your natural food or beverage brand in the next year—before product launches or new channel strategies or investment opportunities—it should be brand strategy.
Brands in 2020 are placing too much emphasis on commercialization and not enough on strategy.
Look, I recognize the importance of selling products or services and getting to market ASAP. But it’s risky business because it is less disciplined to chase an opportunity than it is to create opportunities based upon clearly defined strategic goals. By focusing on strategy-first, businesses can take the lead on branding and positioning, then translate those needs into new products, services, experiences, and personalization opportunities to grow both revenue and positive consumer-relationships.
Brand Strategy as a Smart Business Investment
If you’re going to spend dollars anywhere, brand strategy is where to spend them first. This is where your ROI will come from; every initiative that is strategic in nature will generate a return. Strategy anchors every decision your leadership team should make about the brand and every tactic your marketing team should deploy.
When you know the brand’s DNA, you can confidently make bold moves that might look risky to outsiders. You can stretch your product offering in just the right way that will a) make sense to current customers and b) attract newcomers into the tribe. You can renovate the brand’s identity or packaging so that it stands out in the category. You’ll be highly attractive to investors because you deeply understand who you are and have your act together.
The Process of Developing a Brand Strategy
Natural-brand companies that come to us for guidance have a shoot-first and aim-second mentality. They’re facing a challenge or crisis: Competitors are taking their lunch money, or retailers are shelving their products on the bottom row, or investors are sniffing around but shying away from a deal.
Perhaps you’re in a similar position.
In which case, allocating time to “do” strategy feels like you’re stuck in the starting blocks while the rest of the runners are halfway down the track.
Our work with naturals brands, though, is more like a cross-country race than a sprint. Without the right plan, you’ll come out of the gate too hot, burn out, lose your footing, or pull a hamstring. All are sure-fire ways to lose—or not finish—the race.
So what does this strategy work look like with our clients? It starts with our competitive audit. Not a category audit, mind you, which only looks at the other products in your immediate category. We look holistically at everything—necessities, experiences, luxuries, and other stuff—that competes with your brand for your core consumer’s dollar, time, and attention.
We look at all seven platforms in what we call the Brand Ecosystem to see where your brand wins or struggles.
Our brand strategy work looks externally to audiences, both those you have and those you hope to reach. Brands, especially those founded by visionary CEOs who pioneered a novel product, have a tendency to think that a consumer thinks about their brand 24/7. Most only think about them in the moment of need—at purchase, or when a product is needed to solve a problem (it’s raining; I need my Patagonia jacket). When brands forget that that moment of inflection with consumer happens on an infrequent basis, they over-inflate their importance to the universe. What’s more, leaders at naturals brands really believe in their products, and so they think that consumers automatically do, too.
It also turns the camera on the internal corporate culture. Your brand’s success is limited or unleashed by the people within your organization; we help companies align their people to their purpose.
It takes a fair, unbiased, honest perspective to bring actionable insights—instead of just guessing or making assumptions based on what you see in front of you. That’s what we bring to the table. We’ll help you discover what you don’t know.
A strategic brand foundation focused on body (the competitive environment), mind (your promise and the way that you keep it), and soul (your people) renders your business essentially future-proof. It makes decision-making easy.
A solid brand strategy is like a flight plan. Sure, you might eventually fly the plane from LA to New York, but without a navigational plan and waypoints, weather data, technical inputs, and the right fuel load, you have no idea where or how you’ll get there.
You run every other aspect of your business with a plan—finance, operations, sales. Why operate without a plan for the brand itself?
We can help you research, aggregate, analyze, and create a plan. It’s what we’re good at, and our clients see phenomenal growth when they dedicate the right time, investment, and people to building a strategic brand plan. Ready to go? Let’s talk.
David Lemley
David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.
Diana Fryc traces the origins of her current role as Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Retail Voodoo to some pretty diverse places. From working with Jane Goodall to bringing an environmental focus to strategic marketing, the binding agent has been focus. She’s learned that the only way to have an impact — regardless of where you are in the market — is to know your audience intimately.
“Marketing is easier now because we know who our audience is — we know who we’re talking to…Specialization allows us to speak to exactly what’s happening with our prospects at their business-level.”
In this episode, Mark speaks with Diana Fryc, Partner and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Retail Voodoo, about how her firm has evolved over the years, culminating in focused expertise in brand strategy for natural and wellness brands.
Diana Fryc
For Diana, a fierce determination to pursue what’s right is rooted in her DNA. The daughter of parents who endured unimaginable hardship before emigrating from Eastern Europe to the U.S., she is built for a higher purpose. Starting with an experience working with Jane Goodall to source sustainably made paper, she went on to a career helping Corporate America normalize the use of environmentally responsible products and materials before coming to Retail Voodoo.
Brand Slam Episode 3: Learning Where to Invest Marketing Funds as a Start-Up Food Brand
Learn the category audit techniques these leading brands have leveraged to average triple-digit growth.
In this episode you will meet Red Plate Foods founder, Becca Williams. As a true advocate for the allergen-avoidant community, Becca and her husband started Red Plate Foods to create a plethora of bakery-fresh desserts, and food-service favorite foods for an audience looking to avoid the top 8 most common food allergies.
Brand Slam was created by Retail Voodoo to help CPG entrepreneurs in food, beverage and wellness reduce their struggle with brand growth in the face of Covid-19. Using the auditing process models created by Retail Voodoo to develop Brand Ecosystems, (which we’ve used for some of the world’s most beloved brand and feature in the book Beloved & Dominant Brands,) we benchmark Red Plate Foods and provide strategies to help Becca gain brand traction and learn where to start on her plan for growth and brand traction.
David Lemley
David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.
School closures – and tentative re-openings – have compounded stress levels for families, while COVID-19-induced economic anxiety is also straining household budgets. So how can food and beverage brands come up with enticing – but affordable – recipes, products and culinary solutions to make life easier for parents when long-established routines have been upended?
What does the ‘new normal’ look like for families and has this crisis given a boost to direct to consumer brands targeting babies, toddlers, and young children? Will the recent growth in interest in kids’ multivitamins continue, or is it risky to assume that buying patterns in 2020 provides a useful indicator of where consumers are heading in 2021?
Find out the answers at FoodNavigator-USA’s third Food for Kids summit – which is transitioning from our usual face-to-face event to an interactive broadcast series.
The series will bring five category-focused events, including:
The Consumer Panel
Kids and the Plant-Based Trend
Beverage Trends
Innovation in Action… Meet the Trailblazers
Meeting Children’s Nutritional Needs, from Foods to Supplements
David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.
Food as medicine is not an out-of-the-box idea now. But back in 2011, it was not conventional thinking. After watching a friend struggle with food-related illness and attending the journey of wellness self-discovery, Christy went on a mission to change the diets of us all. The goal: refocus people away from diets fill with processed foods and bring back health empowerment through food choice . As she says – knowing what you’re eating may be the first step of and most powerful form of medicine.
Join Christy Goldsby, CEO and Founder of Honey Mama’s and I, as we discuss how her love of baking, innovating and caring for people developed into a healthy indulgence brand with the express goal of spreading vitality and playfulness into everyone’s life.
Innovation and change doesn’t happen in one moment. – Christy Goldsby
In this episode we learn:
The genesis of the Honey Mama’s brand.
How Christy’s health experiences combined with her baking background turned into a passion for caring for people beyond her immediate community.
How slowing down and being present can be a powerful leadership tool.
The long-term vision and impacts Honey Mama’s wants to make in the world.
Why brands producing snacks should innovative and promote healthy snacking.
How indulgent treats can boost our immune systems to prevent illnesses in more than one way.
Fundraising during COVID and how Amberstone Ventures is poised to help spread Honey Mama’s vision.
The Simplicity of Life and Health in a Bite-Sized Moment with Christy Goldsby, Honey Mama's
About Christy Goldsby:
Christy Goldsby, CEO & Founder of Honey Mama’s, an award-winning premium melts in your mouth delicious, honey-sweetened cocoa bar in the refrigerated better for you indulgence category. Growing up in a family of cooks, bakers, farmers, and gardeners, the kitchen was always a place of celebration, creativity, nourishment and joy for Christy. She started Honey Mama’s as a way to share these celebrated family traditions, a passion for healthy living, and a love of the natural world. She was determined to create a treat that exudes vitality and playfulness, something you’d as likely take to a formal dinner party as enjoy on the hiking trail or share around a campfire. Made with pure honey as the only sweetener, Honey Mama’s are full of everything delightful: bold, deep flavors, and decadent textures and are naturally free from gluten, soy, dairy, and grain, allowing your body to thrive.
Honey Mama’s – “We create opportunities that empower well-being for all people by making treats that are fun, nutritious and delicious. They are an invitation to be present, playful, open, and genuine. Our bars are full of bold, deep flavors, decadent textures, and are free from gluten, soy, dairy, and grain, allowing your body to thrive and your taste buds to celebrate. Made from five whole foods, Honey-Cocoa Bars are perfect to grab as a snack between meals, buy as a gift, or serve at your next dinner party.”
Amberstone Ventures – We started Amberstone to support entrepreneurs building breakthrough food and consumer product companies. We partner with brands at their earliest stages, providing the capital and insights necessary to scale efficiently into category leaders.
Diana Fryc
For Diana, a fierce determination to pursue what’s right is rooted in her DNA. The daughter of parents who endured unimaginable hardship before emigrating from Eastern Europe to the U.S., she is built for a higher purpose. Starting with an experience working with Jane Goodall to source sustainably made paper, she went on to a career helping Corporate America normalize the use of environmentally responsible products and materials before coming to Retail Voodoo.
Every demographic group has faced its own set of challenges during the COVID-19 crisis, from health concerns to economic hardship to personal stress. But experts suggest that millennials have been hit especially hard.
So what you think you know about this demographic group—and how to reach them—may have changed in this unprecedented time.
First, let’s do a quick review of the generational breakdowns:
Gen X (born between 1965 and 1980) are the children of the Baby Boomers; the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Gen X would peak in population in 2018 with 65.8 million people. The youngest Xers are 40 this year.
Millennials (born from 1981–1996) are now the largest adult population in the U.S. They range in age between 24 and 39.
Gen Z (born from 1997–2015) ranges in age from 6 to 23; as of 2019, there were 67 million Zers in the U.S.
The Paradox of Millennials
The millennial generation has been heralded by marketers for its spending power. This cohort’s collective annual income is estimated to exceed $4 trillion worldwide by 2030. But these 20- and 30-somethings have always been a tricky bunch to market to, because they’re a giant walking paradox.
They consider themselves to be tastemakers, but they’re extremely price-conscious.
They want the finer things, but they’re putting off major purchases like cars and homes (preferring instead to lease or rent).
They’re interested in health and wellness, and are heavy consumers of natural food and beverage products, yet they’re more concerned about the results of those products than the products themselves. In other words, they’re willing to accept artificial sweeteners in pursuit of a keto lifestyle.
They want brands to uphold values they share, but they’re not willing to sacrifice convenience and price.
Just 30% say they feel loyal to certain brands, but that loyalty tends to be longstanding and powerful. We describe their loyalty as a slow burn—they fall in love with brands gradually over time; in the meantime, they’re willing to “date around” and try out other brands and products.
Millennials are Getting ‘Walloped’ by the Pandemic
Financial analysts and demographers suggest that millennials are being “disproportionally walloped” by the COVID crisis and its fallout, particularly related to employment.
“With this current recession, millennials — especially younger millennials — were more likely to lose their job than were older generations. And since millennials are more likely to rent than older generations, the looming eviction crisis will be worse for millennials, too.”
“The oldest millennials lived through the 9/11 terrorist attacks and entered the labor market in the recession that hit around the same time. They spent their early years struggling to find work during a job recovery, only to be hit by the Great Recession and another recovery. And, of course, yet another recession.”
Furthermore, millennials (particularly women) are assuming responsibility for managing school at home for their children. And they’re more likely than other generations to be returning to their parents’ home to live during the pandemic.
Is Your Pre-COVID Understanding of Millennials Still Relevant?
The short answer is, probably not.
Certain influential aspects of their buying behavior remain: They’re the first digitally native generation, so they’ve always been comfortable browsing and buying online. That preference has solidified during the crisis. And their desire for curated, personalized products and experiences hasn’t changed.
The key to increasing (or maintaining) your brand’s relevance with millennials in the new normal is this: Don’t go back to business as usual. This is the time to understand some new truths.
Millennials want brands to be more human—but still highly curated and well designed. (There’s that paradox again.) In other words, they want brands to reflect their own reality: put together on the outside, but also honest, real, and authentic.
As they’re tightening their belts, millennials are becoming even more price sensitive, even as pre-COVID research indicated that they were cost-conscious to begin with. They’re more inclined to buy private label products than before. And they have become more likely to join a loyalty program or use coupons (a 30% jump compared to pre-COVID habits). Previously, millennials shunned those discount programs because they were something their parents did. Now is absolutely the time to review your pricing, promotion, and loyalty strategies to respond to these changing consumer needs.
And if we combine the previous two points—outward appearances and value consciousness—we get a third change in millennial shopping habits. They’re still willing to pay a premium for technology, fashion, and CPG items that they believe help them to look or feel better even in these trying times. And they are cutting corners where they can on the stuff that nobody really sees—like pouring low-shelf booze into the empty bottle of premium vodka or wearing a designer shirt with sweatpants for a Zoom meeting.
As COVID has driven shopping online, it has forced brands to get savvier about delivering a great online experience to consumers. Millennials always had high expectations, and now that we’ve all been exclusively buying online for the past 8 months, the bar has been raised.
Brands must figure out how to reach all consumers—and especially to overdeliver for millennials. COVID has added friction to everything they do in their lives, from fitness and fashion to friends and family. Millennial women in particular are bearing the brunt of managing education for younger kids and sacrificing their productivity or career or self-care in order to keep the family solvent. The key to wooing them and winning that valuable long-term loyalty is to reduce the friction. Make it easy for them to find, choose, and learn to love you.
Your brand can’t afford to overlook or miscommunicate with this cohort, because the efforts you make now have a long tail with millennials. Let’s talk about how you can connect with them.
David Lemley
David was two decades into a design career with a wall full of shiny awards and a portfolio of clients including Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nintendo, and REI. His rocket trajectory veered when his oldest child faced a health challenge of indeterminate origin. Hundreds of research hours later, David identified food allergy as the issue and convinced skeptical medical professionals caring for his child. Since that experience, David and Retail Voodoo have been on a mission to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system for all.
Those of us outside the walls of Frito-Lay have not necessarily considered the brand aligned with natural foods, environmental stewardship, or considered a small business advocate. But little did we all know, that this mammoth tanker of an organization has been quietly growing a passionate army of stewards ready to take on some of businesses biggest issues including healthy food innovation, food instability, small and women-owned business finance and mentoring, environmental stewardship and so much more. The number of business initiatives PepsiCo and Frito-Lay has been developing to make a positive impact in business and the lives of the most marginalized is staggering.
Join Ciara Dilley, VP of Marketing, Transform Brands and Portfolio Innovation for Frito-Lay North America and I, as we discuss how she is harnessing the resources of a multi-national to affect positive change in the food and beverage industries — starting with the Stacy’s Rise Project and venturing into other initiatives. It turns out that Frito-Lay may be becoming the largest Citizen brand in our category, and they’ve got just the right person to lead the way.
When we support women-owned business – the world will become a better place. – Ciara Dilley
In This Episode We Learn:
Ciara’s passion for Female Founders and woman-owned business.
How she uses Frito-Lay strengths of brand, product, and voice to empower and support female founder brands.
The power of Stacy’s Rise Project and WomenMade initiatives.
Why Stacy’s Rise Project is bridging the funding gap for female-founded business.
How Ciara uses stewardship initiatives to grow employee engagement, retention, and satisfaction.
How the impact of the Frito-Lay initiatives complement and supplement the work being done in the Naturals industry.
Frito-Lay is Changing the World of Business for The Better with Ciara Dilley, Frito Lay
About Ciara Dilley:
Ciara Dilley – Vice President of Marketing, Transform Brands and Portfolio Innovation for Frito-Lay North America, leads the company’s ever-evolving and diverse portfolio of Transform Brands – including Stacy’s, SunChips, Smartfood, Popcorners, and Off the Eaten Path. Also overseeing Frito-Lay’s portfolio innovation, Ciara is making it easier than ever for consumers to discover new flavors, ingredients and brands powered by purpose. Ciara also leads our Sustainability agenda, championing our focus on more environmentally friendly packaging solutions.
A seasoned veteran with more than 20 years of industry experience, Ciara’s passion is supporting women, both inside and outside the walls of Frito-Lay. In addition to being personally involved in a number of initiatives that involve coaching and connecting businesswomen, Ciara recently led the launch of WomanMade, a PepsiCo initiative developed to advance female founders in the food and beverage industry through funding and exclusive mentoring opportunities.
Since joining Frito-Lay in February 2019, Ciara has led Stacy’s Rise Project – a flagship grant and mentorship program by the female-founded Stacy’s brand – to flourish as an industry best-in-class initiative, awarding up-and-coming female entrepreneurs with hundreds of thousands of dollars in business grants and providing them with unprecedented access to PepsiCo people and resources to achieve long-term success.
In addition, under Ciara’s leadership, Smartfood popcorn added Smart50 to its lineup – featuring 50 calories or less per cup – and underwent a full brand redesign that involved a complete swipe of its social channels and packaging updates across the entire portfolio.
Prior to joining PepsiCo, Dilley leveraged her experience in communications and innovation to grow major international consumer brands including Diageo, Campbell Soup Company and Kellogg Company.
Media Contact – Frito-Lay Brand Communications: Jen Crichton, jen.crichton@pepsico.com
Show Resources:
Pepsico – An American multinational food, snack and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo has interests in the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other productsFrito-Lay – an American subsidiary of PepsiCo that manufactures, markets, and sells corn chips, potato chips, and other snack foodsStacy’s – Stacy’s Pita Chips is a brand of snack products based in Randolph, Massachusetts, specializing in various flavors of pita chips. Pita chips are slices of pita bread which are baked until crunchy.Stacy’s Rise – Created to help bridge the funding gap for female founders, Stacy’s Rise Project™ has been connecting and empowering women business owners for years. That’s why Stacy’s is sharing our resources with other female-founded businesses like those founded by these 30 women. Support them by adding their products and services to your cart.Pepsico Foundation – As we strive to become a Better company, we are helping nurture that potential all around the world by leading the way toward a more sustainable food system, from investing in sustained nutrition, to promoting safe water access, effective waste management, and women’s empowerment.Kelloggs – An American multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. And the original plant-based well-being company.Greenhouse Accelerator – Support food and beverage entrepreneurs through a collaborative mentor-guided business acceleration program.Hello Alice – Step-by-step guides, expert resources, and collaborative communities of fellow entrepreneurs to find funding opportunities and experts for small business.The J.E.D.I Collaborative – The OSC² J.E.D.I Collaborative of industry peers and experts is leading this project for the natural products industry to frame the business case for embedding justice, equity, diversity and inclusion into our entire food ecosystem. Our intent is to take a positive, forward look vs. a “fix what’s broken” position. We seek to understand the deeper issues and to devise an outline for the best solutions. We will clarify the systemic issues that require courage and thought leadership and define immediately controllable issues we all can address as an industry and in our day-to-day operations. We will develop a step-by-step approach to serve as a model to facilitate and inspire the industry to commit and take action. We will develop a reporting tool to demonstrate the impact of the project on progress. We believe the benchmark reporting will result in an increase in productivity in an increasingly multicultural marketplace.Untamed by Glennon Doyle – In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, the activist, speaker, bestselling author, and “patron saint of female empowerment” (People) explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet others’ expectations and start trusting the voice deep within us. Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World by Melinda Gates -A debut from Melinda Gates, a timely and necessary call to action for women’s empowerment.The Boss Network by Cameka Smith – Our mission is to promote and encourage the small business spirit and professional development of women of color. The BOSS Network is a community of career and entrepreneurial women, who support each other through content, online programs and event-based networking.
Diana Fryc
For Diana, a fierce determination to pursue what’s right is rooted in her DNA. The daughter of parents who endured unimaginable hardship before emigrating from Eastern Europe to the U.S., she is built for a higher purpose. Starting with an experience working with Jane Goodall to source sustainably made paper, she went on to a career helping Corporate America normalize the use of environmentally responsible products and materials before coming to Retail Voodoo.
Ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages is a category where consumers are continually demanding more from the brands they bring into their homes and lives — especially Gen Z. Features, benefits, and ingredients are table stakes, and as the natural products industry continues to become increasingly competitive, Brand has become more important. How a brand operates in relation to employees, environmental footprint, and business ethics that are paramount to this group.
Straight from the center of the naturals universe in Denver Colorado – join Linda Appel Lipsius (Co-Founder of Teatulia) and I as we cover everything people, planet, and profitability and how a B-Corp certification helps brands like Teatulia lean into their missions. Learn why Linda says “Gen Z will save the world.”
In this episode we learn:
Linda’s journey and aha moment creating the Teatulia brand.
What Gen Z and Millennials expect from brands and employers right now.
That investment in company culture and employees can have a higher than expected ROI than other typical “benefit” investments.
What a B-Corp is: It’s importance to and impact on business.
How the tips and tools that B-Corp provides can help brands become better business leaders.
About trends in beverage, functional ingredients, and innovation in powdered/crystalized beverages.
Living Your Truth: Linda’s B-Corp Story featuring Linda Appel Lipsius, Teatulia Organic Teas
About Linda Appel Lipsius:
Linda Appel Lipsius is the Co-Founder of Teatulia Organic Teas. Since 2006, she’s been working with her partners in Bangladesh to bring premium, 100% Organic, direct-sourced teas & herbs to the United States. Teatulia produces innovative, delicious & award-winning hot teas, foodservice iced teas & canned RTD teas that are sold throughout the U.S in grocery, foodservice, and online. Lipsius has built a universally-respected brand known for doing things better. From the 3,000-acre regenerative tea garden itself to Teatulia’s stunningly sustainable packaging to the long list of awards Teatulia has received for quality and using business as a force for good. Named one of Food & Wine/ Fortune’s 20 Most Innovative Women in Food & Wine, one of Denver Business Journal’s Outstanding Women in Business, and a frequent public speaker, she is a leading voice on topics ranging from entrepreneurship to sustainable business practices to the food & beverage industry in general.
In 2012, Linda also started the mama ‘hood,a resource for new & expecting moms & their families, and opened Teatulia Tea & Coffee Bar next door to Teatulia’s Denver Headquarters. Previously, Linda was VP International with Orange Glo International (OGI) – makers of OxiClean, Kaboom, Orange Glo and Orange Clean – and Account Manager for Young & Rubicam. A Denver Native, she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Columbia University in New York City and her MBA in Finance from New York University before moving to Washington, DC, London, Los Angeles then back to Denver.
She currently lives in downtown Denver with her filmmaker husband and her two children. In her spare time, Linda hangs with her kiddos, escapes to the mountains, devours movies & books, runs, cycles and practices yoga to keep her head & heart clear.
Teatulia – Organic hot and ready-to-drink (RTD) teas and beverages. Teatulia’s single-garden direct, sustainably grown teas hail from our very own tea garden in the Tetulia region of Northern Bangladesh. We created a new tea-growing region, nestled between Assam and Darjeeling at the base of the Himalayas, which has introduced the unique flavor profile of Bangladesh teas to the rest of the world.B-Corp – Certification for businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. B Corps are accelerating a global culture shift to redefine success in business and build a more inclusive and sustainable economy.Athleta – Clothing that integrates performance and technical features for active women and girls. A division of the GAP.Jeni’s Ice Cream – An artisan ice cream company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Jeni’s has over 40 branded ‘scoop shops’, and retail distributors nationally.Built from the ground up with superlative ingredients.Wisdom Supply Co – Environmental office and school supplies. “We curate + design products that prevent waste, for good. Waste is a design flaw.”Patagonia – An American clothing company that markets and sells outdoor clothing. The company was founded by Yvon Chouinard in 1973, and is based in Ventura, California.Kehe Distributors – With more than 5,500 employee-owners and a 16-distribution center network across North America, we’re one of the largest and most respected national fresh, natural & organic and specialty food distributors.Kroger – an American retail company founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the United States’ largest supermarket by revenue, and the second-largest general retailer, operating nearly 2,800 stores.Costco – An American multinational corporation that operates a chain of membership-only warehouse clubs. Everything you could want in but and a $1.50 hot dog!Rise Coffee – A New York-based nitro cold brew coffee company specializing in nitrogen-infused organic coffee and sourcing Fair Trade organic beans from Peru’s Chanchamayo Valley
Diana Fryc
For Diana, a fierce determination to pursue what’s right is rooted in her DNA. The daughter of parents who endured unimaginable hardship before emigrating from Eastern Europe to the U.S., she is built for a higher purpose. Starting with an experience working with Jane Goodall to source sustainably made paper, she went on to a career helping Corporate America normalize the use of environmentally responsible products and materials before coming to Retail Voodoo.
Learn the category audit techniques these leading brands have leveraged to average triple-digit growth.
In this episode of Brand Slam we will cover how better-for-you brands can move from First and Only to Beloved and Dominant.
As covered in David’s book, Beloved and Dominant Brands, the brand ecosystem allows you to develop a realistic, unbiased assessment of your current state and your market opportunities based upon competition, your company culture, and your brand’s strengths and weaknesses. This analysis combined with a deep understanding of the changing nature of consumer preferences provides the platform on which brand strategy is built.
Watch as we host a Q&A with David Lemley, focused on solving a brand’s pain points across the brand ecosystem. Pain points that we have been hearing from the market this year. The tools and tips we will offer will give you insights on the areas of your brand that you can impact immediately, and how to plan for the future.
Brand Slam was created by Retail Voodoo to help CPG entrepreneurs in food, beverage and wellness reduce their struggle with brand growth in the face of Covid-19. Using the auditing process models created by Retail Voodoo to develop Brand Ecosystems, (which we’ve used for some of the world’s most beloved brand and feature in the book Beloved and Dominant Brands,) we uncover key areas that we have seen brand’s struggle at each touchpoint and how to overcome.
Diana Fryc
For Diana, a fierce determination to pursue what’s right is rooted in her DNA. The daughter of parents who endured unimaginable hardship before emigrating from Eastern Europe to the U.S., she is built for a higher purpose. Starting with an experience working with Jane Goodall to source sustainably made paper, she went on to a career helping Corporate America normalize the use of environmentally responsible products and materials before coming to Retail Voodoo.
