The Startup CPG Podcast

Christine McNerney
I really view thrive market as a resource for people. So whether it's for parents who don't have time to get to the store and want to shop online and have it delivered straight to their door, or maybe they have kids with specific dietary needs and it's hard to find those products elsewhere in the stores that they're shopping. Maybe the prices are too high at those stores and they want to make that switch to the non gmo food or the cleaner alternatives and home health and beauty, but it's just not available for them. So I really see us as a resource for a lot of people across the US. I also see us as a resource for discovery. We have a lot of new products, new brands, innovation. We are really hyper focused on making sure we drive innovation every day within our assortment.

00:50
Christine McNerney
And then lastly, a resource for education. That's a really big piece of a lot of what we try to do at thripe market. When I think about a retailer, it doesn't fit. Fit right for thrive market. I just feel like we're really a place for people to go for all these different avenues and resources that they need.

01:07
Daniel Scharff
Hello CPG ers, another great one for you. Today I chatted with the thrive market team, Jason who oversees food and beverage, and Christine from home health and beauty. We really dug into the ethos behind thrive market and why consumers choose to spend their hard earned dollars with them. A lot about their high ingredient standards and product reviews and so much more. Also, these are just cool people. I'm so excited that we got into a lot of fun facts about both of them and their overall thrive market teams, who in my opinion, are just some of the best people out there. I hope you enjoy this journey, learning all about Thrive market as a retailer, how they work with brands, how you can get on their radar and so much more. Enjoy. All right, welcome everybody to the podcast.

01:52
Daniel Scharff
Today we are joined by two very distinguished guests from Thrive Market, a magical destination for a healthy and sustainable living via their online grocery store. First, we have Christine McNerney, the vice president of merchandising ops for health, beauty and home categories. She's been at thrive for ten years. That's quite a tenure. Christine and her team are responsible for adhering to thrive markets sky high standards, including banning more than 700 ingredients throughout the home health and beauty offerings. We've also got Jason Beddart, the vice president of merchandising for food categories. Jason has a wealth of experience in category management, e commerce, sustainable sourcing practices and a lot more. He leads a dedicated team. He ensures that every product in thrive market's food catalog meets their high standards as well and aligns with their company's core values.

02:48
Daniel Scharff
So everybody, please join me in welcoming Christine and Jason. Thank you guys so much for being here.

02:54
Jason Bidart
Thanks for having us.

02:55
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, so I thought maybe let's just go right in. I would love to hear some career stories. You guys have quite a cool past. Maybe Christine, do you mind going first and just take a little bit of time and tell everybody who is Christine?

03:08
Christine McNerney
Yeah, and thanks for the pun to introduce me. I don't know that I've had that before.

03:13
Daniel Scharff
I'm always here for that.

03:15
Christine McNerney
I love it. So, yeah, so I actually started my career in fast fashion. So I worked at a last year on an e commerce company called Little Black Bad. I was there for about two years or so, and when I left the company, I was an associate buyer for footwear, jewelry and cosmetics. And I left because the company actually pivoted strategy. They no longer needed an internal merch department. So there I was in LA looking for a job fresh from New York.

03:46
Daniel Scharff
What is a merch department, by the way, for anyone who doesn't know what that means versus buyers versus category managers?

03:53
Christine McNerney
Yeah, it is. It's both like visual merchandising and category management there. It was also a little bit of buying too. So placing PoS managing inventory, but it was a little bit all encompassing. And you'll hear us kind of refer to the same terminology here at Thrive market too. But yeah. So I was looking for a new job, Sasha, who's actually our CTO here today at Thrive market, and a co founder. I worked with that little black bag. So at that point, he was already at Thrive. Thrive market, was looking for a buyer category manager type role. So he recommended me to interview for it. Obviously he went, well, here I am today at thrive market almost ten years later. So I joined the company as like, that buyer category manager role.

04:36
Christine McNerney
So really helping to source for the full category, negotiating EDL Peas, setting pricing for the products. Honestly, even just like pitching to brands who thrive market was because were so new on the scene. And then additionally, like receiving an inventory, our warehouse was in the same space as our office, picking and packing members orders, reconciling pos and invoices. Like you name it. At the time I was doing it, were lean and mean. So I think I was employee number 14 at the company at Thrive market, but then continue to progress in my category manager role. And so over time, helped build out the merge structure here at thrive market.

05:15
Christine McNerney
So were able to hire more buyers to focus on the grocery side of the business while then I continue to focus on home health and beauty, so also being able to hire more category managers on the hhb side as well. So I continue to manage the categories, launch categories here at thrive market, like hepatitis extract, the entire pet supplies category, cosmetics and just continue to drive that business for thrive and then ultimately developed into the senior category manager level. And then once I entered into the director level, it became more about cross functional initiatives and driving bigger project strategies and company strategies.

05:53
Christine McNerney
So having broader impact outside of my home health and beauty scope that I was used to, I was still managing categories at the time and had category managers applying, but was able to kind of step up and take on more responsibility. So was in the director role for a bit and then into the senior director role. And I know I'm giving you all these steps, but there was quite a lot of tears and thrive at the time.

06:14
Daniel Scharff
I love it. I love hearing the details.

06:16
Christine McNerney
Yeah. And I call out a senior director only because that was a pretty big change in my role at the time. Up until then, I was managing only the branded side of our business, so I wasn't as involved in the private label side. Once I became senior director in 2020, that's when the own brand we call now owned brand came under my umbrella. So now I was managing both the branded side of the business for home health and beauty alongside owned brand. So thinking about our private label roadmap and what makes it on there and what does product development look like and how does it sit alongside our branded assortment. So that was a really exciting step in my career here at thrive market and kind of like brings me to where I am today. I'm in a senior leadership level here.

06:58
Christine McNerney
I'm vp of merchandising now for home health and beauty. Over the years, I've been able to hire more of category management team. So I don't manage any categories any longer, which I do have days where I'm very sad about that. But just leading the home health and beauty team on category management product development to drive financial success for thrive market, but then also just really curate a really high quality, affordable, amazing catalog for our members.

07:24
Daniel Scharff
Awesome. And who is on your team? Like, can you tell us what are the names of the buyers, what are the categories that they each manage?

07:30
Christine McNerney
Yeah, for sure. So Kirsten Ratcliffe is our senior category manager for beauty and personal care. She also has an associate category manager, Clara Guerra, who helps support her on some personal care categories. Mary Zinnie, who's our senior category manager for vitamins and supplements. Nico Levinson, who manages home babies and kids and pet Helen Min, who manages our wine category, because, yes, I do get wine. Also on home health and beauty, which is very exciting. And then Aaron McCarthy, who is our senior product innovator for own brand for all of home health beauty.

08:04
Daniel Scharff
Okay, perfect. And then last question, which I think is an important one, is I can see because we're on video in your background, you have a lot of dancing oriented posters. There's a dance fever. I think there's, like a flower getting jiggy. I don't know. Jesus.

08:17
Christine McNerney
Herring. Yep, yep.

08:19
Daniel Scharff
Now, do you have a dance? A passion for dance?

08:22
Christine McNerney
Yeah. I say, I would say what? I will tear up a dance floor. My wedding's coming up in August, and the number one rule is you are not allowed to be shy on the dance floor. So I think so.

08:32
Daniel Scharff
Okay. I'm available as a dance party starter for hire. That's my alternate. My alter ego is karaoke Mc dance floor party starter. I'm here, not just CPG. Guys, I have two dimensions.

08:46
Christine McNerney
I might be hitting you up.

08:47
Daniel Scharff
Okay. Also available for the wine tasting. Okay, Jason, coming to you. Same question. Can you just take us through this pretty epic career that you've had and talk a little bit about some of the stops along the way?

09:01
Jason Bidart
I've been in grocery retail for 22 years now, going back to bagging groceries, mopping floors, and scrubbing toilets when I was 16 years old in high school. I have a degree in economics from the University of Florida. And I was actually on my way to law school, but I got caught up in this little thing called food retail. Through college, I worked for a retailer called the fresh market. I was a front end manager, and I was a deli manager. Had lots of fun as a deli manager. That's where I really discovered my passion for food. As you know, at the fresh market, they do a lot of things in house where they're making recipes and I'm putting out the freshest products. I discovered I had a lot of fun doing all of that.

09:42
Jason Bidart
When I graduated from college, I was offered an opportunity to become a category manager. So I moved from Gainesville, Florida, to Greensboro, North Carolina, and I thought, hey, I'll just do this for one year and then I'll go back to law school. And here I am now, 22 years later, still working in food retail. Now, I worked for the fresh market as a category manager for five years after college in deli. And prepared foods. Kind of dubbed myself the corporate chef back then because I did all the recipes in house, working with external partners on recipe development, working in house on developing recipes that our stores could execute on lots and lots of fun. I did a little bit of chef training in the mix, got a lot of, I would say, training through food magazines and watching the food Network.

10:28
Jason Bidart
And then I decided I needed to make a change. So I was moved over to a another small retailer that is very much mission based. It's Earth Fair, based in Asheville, North Carolina. And that's where I cut my teeth in the produce route. I was a produce category manager and learned a lot in terms of logistics aspect of the grocery. So the produce business is probably 30% products, 70% logistics, getting things where it needs to go as quickly as possible. So that's where I learned a lot in that journey, and then again had bigger aspirations. So our CEO and CMO for Earth Fair made a move from Earth Fair to fairway Market in New York City. And that's where I got to experience the Big Apple for seven years. They brought a few of us up from Earth Fair to handle merchandising.

11:21
Jason Bidart
So I was their vice president of fresh foods as well as I took on the organic grocery department. So fairway is an iconic retailer in New York City, and they've been around for 90 plus years. While they're still fairway now, it's different ownership, but I came in and helped clean things up through their first bankruptcy. Spent several years after that building a team in the organic grocery department, in the fresh foods department. And then my last two years there, I took on private label. I was the vice president over own brands, tasked with rebranding fairway, rebranding products and growing that, which eventually led to a second bankruptcy, which was a liquidation, where fairway was bought as a brand fairway. Five stores were purchased, and this was the start of the pandemic. So it was crazy times. We stores were crazy busy.

12:16
Jason Bidart
But then I also got approached by thrive market. Of course, knowing were going through a bankruptcy, I was looking for an opportunity. And Thrive market was always on my radar. Having been to Expo west, having been to grocery shop, where I saw Nick speak actually in, during grocery shop, there was an audience of probably a thousand people, and thrive market was giving away bottles of wine, and there were five seats in the entire audience that had a card underneath it were awarded a thrive market bottle of organic wine. And I was one of those five people. So when I was approached by Thrive market, I knew it was fate having won that bottle of wine at grocery shop. So I interviewed and actually hit COVID.

12:59
Jason Bidart
While I interviewed virtually and just was super impressed with the team, Christine was actually one of the people that had interviewed me. I knew if I came to work for Thrive market, I would have this amazing partner on the other side of the business, having just spent an hour with Christine.

13:16
Daniel Scharff
And you both love wine, it sounds like.

13:18
Christine McNerney
Yeah, we both love wine.

13:21
Jason Bidart
I got a job offer, took the job offer, was eventually supposed to move to Los Angeles during the whole chaoticness of pandemic, but as the time moved on, we decided to become a remote first company. So I lived for two years in New York City, and then for the last two years have been living in Denver, Colorado, and about to pass my four year anniversary with right market as the vice president over food merchandising, which encompasses all of our non perishable food, frozen meat and seafood. We do a small, fresh business out of our reno facility, and then that includes branded and private label. I have a team that works under me that develops all of our amazing thrive market private label food. And then, as you know, we have a superstar.

14:05
Jason Bidart
James Wren, who's my director of Branded Food, who runs our category management team, entails, since you asked the question, Heather brand, he's our senior category manager over frozen meat and seafood. Caleb Halsey name all his categories, but he's our senior category manager for a subset of food categories. Kelly Bond, who just became a full fledged category manager, we just promoted her from associate category manager. She's been doing an awesome job with our bars category, and she's about to get a lot more business under her belt, a lot more brands. And Christine, dang, does cereals, granolas, a lot of breakfast categories, beverages. She's on the team. She's been with thrive market for, I think, almost eight years, and she's our longest running team member for food. And then on the private label side, I've got Jordan Trainor, who, senior product innovator.

14:55
Jason Bidart
Lisa Schilling, senior product innovator. And Ali Schmied, product innovator. That's awesome.

15:01
Daniel Scharff
I love that team. I'm very fortunate to say I consider at least most of the branded team friends of mine who, they're so supportive of our events. We had that CPG yacht party here out of the marina in December during Bevnet, and Christine and Kelly both came on that. And we're talking to brands. Not every day you get to pitch a buyer on a boat, but once you get your sea legs, then you're ready to go. And, yeah, we got some cool footage of that going on. And James also came to our last meetup in LA, which was at a very cool independent grocer called Carla's on the east side, and he showed up and everybody was just so thrilled to see him.

15:39
Daniel Scharff
And Caleb was probably the first team member of yours that went to an event of ours back when he was in Austin a long ways back. And then Twee, who's also at Thrive Market, has just been a huge supporter of ours over the years and just, yeah, one of the loveliest people in the industry. So I love your guys's team, and I hope I get to meet all of the private label people and all of the health, home and beauty category managers, too, especially since we're trying to ramp up how much content and engagement we can get with the non food and beverage buyers as well, since just kind of by nature, that's my background, so we end up doing a lot of that.

16:17
Christine McNerney
My team is incredible. So anytime, please just reach out. We would love to support and attend any events alongside the food team, too.

16:23
Daniel Scharff
Yes, please. And yeah, for anyone wondering, we do events in 15 different cities on a quarterly basis. So that's 60 city based events that people can attend throughout the year and all the major Us cities and a couple international ones as well. So speaking of cities, Jason, to stereotype you, I was looking at you. You've got the beard. I'm like, Denver, Colorado? Yeah, makes sense. Like New York City. Oh, okay, interesting. So, like, when you were in New York City, what kind of a guy are you? Are you a lower east side guy? West Village? Upper east? Like, what was your, where were you there and what were you up to?

16:56
Jason Bidart
Yeah, I lived lower Upper west side. So Lincoln center is where I started out, and then I ended in house kitchen. So I like to be in the heart of things. I had an amazing friend group. We were all very close to each other and kind of lived that friends experience where, like, were at each other's places all the time. We weren't in the same building, but were at each other's places all the time. Late nights, ordering pizza and coming from the bars and things like that. So when I grew up in Gainesville, Florida, and then spent some time in North Carolina, and I always knew I wanted to be in a bigger city, I was destined for bigger things.

17:33
Jason Bidart
Having spent some time in Asheville and then moving to New York, I loved the fast pace of New York City, but I also crave the ease and access to being outdoors, which is why I decided on Denver, which is a good mix between larger city, awesome food seeing here, and I'm just 30 minutes away from hiking in the mountains, being from a mile high to being two to 3 miles high really quickly.

17:59
Daniel Scharff
That's awesome. And you mentioned a couple cities that are great cities for us also. We actually just launched our North Carolina chapter with a meetup in Asheville, which we're really excited about. And your old friends from Earthfair helped us do that. So it was at their location. Everybody got to meet their team. Those guys are awesome as well. And then we will be launching our Denver chapter. So for some people, you might have heard it here first, but ahead of Newtopia that's happening at the end of August, we're going to launch our Denver chapter. So we'll have to definitely get you involved in that. A great time, long overdue, I think, for us to be in Denver. So very interesting to hear. And I'll.

18:35
Daniel Scharff
I mean, I'm avoiding the temptation just to start talking New York City bars with you because it sounds like you really lived it up. I feel like when I lived there, I don't know, I didn't have an apartment big enough to have anyone over to my place. My friends didn't either. But it sounds like you definitely did it right. But I will try to focus on thrive market since everybody wants to hear about it. So I would love to hear from you guys. Maybe, Christine, you could start what is thrive market in your view, in your experience? You've been there for a long time. What is it? What do you hope people get from it?

19:02
Christine McNerney
I really think we're much more than a retailer. Like, I really view thrive market as a resource for people. So whether it's for parents who don't have time to get to the store and want to shop online and have it delivered straight to their door, or maybe they have kids with specific dietary needs and it's hard to find those products elsewhere in the stores that they're shopping. I mean, I know from being a thrive, we've heard time and time again for members that even sometimes just their local conventional grocer could be 45 minutes to an hour away. But I also think we're a resource. Even if people do have that, like maybe in their local options, there aren't a lot of the products that they want to be eating.

19:38
Christine McNerney
Maybe the prices are too high at those stores and they want to make that switch to the non gmo food or the cleaner alternatives and home health and beauty, but it's just not available for them. So I really see this as a resource for a lot of people across the US. I also see this as a resource for discovery. We have a lot of new products, new brands, innovation. We are really hyper focused on making sure we drive innovation every day within our assortment. So I think we're really a hub for people to come to that. Like once they buy their tried and true pantry staples, that they can really start to discover and play around on site and learn about new trends and things they may not really see elsewhere. And then lastly, a resource for education.

20:17
Christine McNerney
That's a really big piece of a lot of what we try to do at thrive market. For those who don't know, we have shop by values on site. So we have a lot of, like, you can shop by certain diets or certifications. So being, you know, if someone doesn't know what a keto diet is or a paleo diet, we help educate our members on that. If they don't know about regenerative, organic, like we want to be that place for, to educate people to continue to vote with their dollar and the assortment that they want to be shopping. When I think about a retailer, it doesn't fit right for thrive market. I just feel like we're really a place for people to go for all these different avenues and resources that they need.

20:52
Daniel Scharff
That's awesome. I'm curious to see how you guys educate on things like regenerative because it took me a while to understand what that was. I had to host a podcast about it and then go see a movie about it and it's like, oh, this is awesome. I get it now. It took me a while though. Yeah, that's awesome.

21:10
Christine McNerney
Cool.

21:10
Daniel Scharff
Jason, anything from your experience that you would add on to that? Just about overall thrive market and the experience?

21:16
Jason Bidart
Yeah. Coming from a mixture of retailers, I think the closest one being earth fair in terms of the standards. What we do here at thrive market is we just take standards to a whole nother level. So our food catalog is 100% non GMO, and that's not just a brand coming to us and say, yeah, I'm non GMO without the any sort of certifications. We don't require certifications, but we do require the brands to verify and provide documentation that all ingredients are derived from non GMO sources. Some brands will try to get past it saying, well, the GMO material is not detectable because it's been processed out. Whether it's refined soybean oil or corn, we make sure it's derived from a non GMO source. So we. We do the legwork. We make sure every aspect of animal welfare is being upheld.

22:10
Jason Bidart
So we take standards to a whole nother level. We're also on a mission. So, as Christine said, we're a resource, but one of the big things is trying to make products healthy, sustainable products, affordable and accessible to everyone. So we try to have the best pricing out there. We are a membership model. So members that come in and pay that membership fee, we want to make sure there's a lot of value that comes to that membership. And then on top of that, for every paid membership, we also give out a membership to whether it's someone in need that's low income or a first responder. We have a gives program where you can apply for a Gibbs membership where you get exclusive access for free to our catalog to all the amazing member deals.

22:55
Jason Bidart
So you've got that ability now to afford these products that some members may not have otherwise been able to afford.

23:02
Christine McNerney
Yeah.

23:03
Daniel Scharff
I mean, just thinking about how much you guys care about the standards, I wonder, is there, like, maybe one standard that each of you is especially passionate about for your categories or just for thrive as a whole? You know, your alarm bells go off if somebody is close to that standard or you see it a lot, or people always try to sidestep it, maybe like the non gmo one. Any. Any particular standard you want to call out?

23:24
Christine McNerney
I would say on the home health and beauty side, similar to non gmo, I would say RSPO for palm oil and sustainable sourcing for coconut. There's quite a lot of home health and beauty ingredients that are palm and coconut derived. And oftentimes, brands are not expecting us to. To ask for the certificate or the affidavit stating that it's sustainably sourced. And so it's something that we will not negotiate on. If they cannot provide it, we will not be onboarding it. So that's. That's a biggie for us on the home health and beauty side.

23:54
Daniel Scharff
All right, Jason, what about you? Is it non gmo or something else?

23:57
Jason Bidart
I mean, there's so many that I'm passionate about. I think the. The ethical sourcing pieces is really key. As Christine said, there in the. Even in the food side, there are a lot of commodity products, coffee, cacao, coconut. That's just got some really questionable practices throughout the world. So being able to really dig in with our suppliers and let them know if they don't meet the standards, how can they meet the standards? How can they do better. So it's not just about saying no to brands that aren't meeting standards. It's also helping them through the journey where they're doing right by people, doing right by planet in turn. It's, it's not just going to help them get on thrive market, but it's just going to help them do better as a brand overall and continue to make the change throughout the industry.

24:47
Daniel Scharff
It's cool to hear about that because, you know, I was a beverage CEO and I went through the formulation process and you know what that felt like? It was like, okay, here's what we want to do. Here are some of the specifications for it around calories, around the kind of, you know, sweeteners you can and can't use. And it needs to be organic, that kind of stuff. And then, you know, give them some concepts or ideas they're going to come back with. Great. Like here's what we're proposing and this works well with our flavor systems and sweeteners to hit the specs that you're asking for. And okay, then you finally agree on what it's going to taste like and you get the recipe for it and then at that point you got to go find all those ingredients, right.

25:26
Daniel Scharff
And so, you know, I'm not sure it would be obvious to brands like, hey, I need to learn about all of these ingredients. Actually it's not. Just let me find a place that I can get it. But yeah, each one of these suppliers could become really important when someone looks really into what's inside of our can or package. And actually for me it was super interesting because I probably didn't do it exactly that way. It was more like we kind of trusted. Okay, well, it's organic so these are all going to be really responsible, which I think in the end they really were. But you know, once I started going on the websites of all of the ingredients providers, like, yeah, I want to learn about this company.

25:58
Daniel Scharff
And then I just, seeing the amazing stuff actually that all of them were doing behind the ingredient and just learning where it comes from and, you know, their processes and, you know, how they take care of the communities that they're in, it was really awesome and inspiring just to see all that quality. But then also I just learned a lot more about my product because of all the stuff that was in it. So just a side note, I love for people to just really get on their ingredient providers websites and get on a call with them. That actually is the coolest thing, especially your primary ingredients. Like, yeah, get on a call with a person who gives it to you, and they will tell you some amazing stuff that really can influence how you talk about your product.

26:37
Daniel Scharff
So that was a lot of fun for me. So, you know, I know a lot about what goes into, like, food and beverage, I think, because that's what I've been working in. But honestly, like, health, home, beauty, this kind of stuff is pretty new to me, and maybe it'll surprise a lot of people. As beautiful as I am, obviously, I don't actually use a lot of beauty products that I don't really. I don't really know what works or, like, what to look out for. So, Christine, the question I always have is, like, food beverage, you know, if you like the taste, like, even if you're not paying attention to, like, does this beverage really give mental clarity or not? Like, generally, I mean, one of the primary reasons, you know, food, like. Yeah, because does it taste good or not?

27:16
Daniel Scharff
But, you know, with beauty, like, you don't have that immediate sense. I mean, maybe, you know, if it feels good putting on or something. But, like, you know, for maybe first timers like me or people who are more experienced in the category, like, how are they even going to know if a beauty product is going to work, right? Because it takes, like, a while for it to probably take an effect, even if it is one of those products where you could see it or not. Like, I don't know. For me, I feel like I could use a special goop clay moisturizer for three months, and maybe, I don't know if I would even be able to see the difference, because even if I did, I would have been looking at myself in the mirror every day.

27:49
Daniel Scharff
So, like, how do consumers know what they like and don't like in a category like beauty? And how does that influence how they're going to shop your set?

27:57
Christine McNerney
Yeah. And I will say, too, just from a. A merchandising approach, like, how we review it fundamentally. Like, between food and home health and beauty, the core responsibilities are still the same.

28:08
Jason Bidart
Right.

28:08
Christine McNerney
When we're sourcing products like you heard on our side, on home health and beauty, we're still, first and foremost, making sure that it hits all of our high quality ingredient standards before I could even go through the next gate. And it's a similar approach on going through the member experience. So the same way you would taste a bag of chips on the food side, we're going through the product experience on our side, too. So how does it smell? Which I know might sound silly, but, like, do we think our members are going to like it. Is it off putting? Does it smell good? What is the texture of it? What's the viscosity of it? What's the color of it? That also has a pretty big impact on people too, like how they react to it.

28:48
Christine McNerney
Is the experience what we would expect from their product type? So again, this might sound silly, but if it's a foam cleanser, is it foaming on my face the way I would expect it to? And do I think members will be disappointed by it or not? Or when they like the level of foam hydrating product? How did my skin feel after? So it's a lot of the same core philosophies to your point. Some products do take more time. So things like serums, for example, we'll spend more time reviewing them. Others, like cleansers, you kind of know right away if you like it or not. But we also really need to be cognizant of the fact that there are so many different skin types out there. So for us, we can determine, like, for our skin types if we liked it or not.

29:25
Christine McNerney
But that's where, like, going through the actual experience is really key. And then reviewing the formulation and ingredients, ensuring that there's efficacious ingredients listed in the right order on the inky so that we know that the formulation is really strong too.

29:39
Daniel Scharff
So when people come to thrive market, which I know has always been growing like crazy and really disrupting the space, do you think first for health, home and beauty, or for food and beverage, or is it both? You know, how are they hearing about it? Because, you know, okay, like Amazon in the early days was, oh, you go there and get books. And then they expanded into just everything, and now you can get anything. But how do you think people are coming into the thrive market ecosystem?

30:03
Christine McNerney
We know most people are coming in through grocery. I would say some of the areas where some of the higher first order products are things like protein powders on my side, so still something, you know, ingestible, something that they're using in their everyday routine. So on the home, health and beauty side, it's coming in through grocery. But then pushing that discovery to the rest of the catalog to show them like, hey, look, thrive market can be your one stop shop. And also, again, like tying back to the education, a lot of people start with food, right? Like, you're consuming it's going inside of your body.

30:35
Christine McNerney
I would say over time, they then start to realize, like, oh, maybe I should think about what I'm putting on my body as well, and so that's where home health and beauty comes into play, of being able to give you that offering of better for you skincare and body care, too.

30:49
Daniel Scharff
That makes a lot of sense about, you know, things like supplements, protein powder and skincare. I mean, also, I really do care about the ingredients in these things that like live on my skin or, you know, or you hear a lot of bad things about maybe some other products out there. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And I remember, yeah, James Wren actually talking to me once upon a time about how you guys hear from consumers. And it's like, no, this is not B's. Like our consumers are very vocal about ingredients, especially what form do you hear about that in? Is it mainly through the reviews or do they like proactively email you talking about certain ingredients or complaining that there are certain products on the site that they don't agree with?

31:31
Daniel Scharff
How do you guys get all that input from them?

31:33
Christine McNerney
Sometimes product reviews, oftentimes through our member services team. So we have an incredible member services team that flags all questions, comments, concerns from our member base. And yes, they are very passionate. So we are doing a lot of this work for a reason. Like our members really care. And so we'll get a lot of questions about, you know, if there is an ingredient that they've heard about in the media or certain influencers, they'll reach out and ask us why we carry that product with that ingredient. And so we use that as an opportunity to educate on why we get that quite frequently, actually.

32:07
Daniel Scharff
That's. Yeah, and for anyone who hasn't been on the brand side, like if you're getting a bunch, if you just get one of those, you might be like, okay, we need to answer that question. If you get a bunch of them, then, you know, that's when maybe it surfaces up to the product manager and they're like, should we change this? Yeah, maybe. I mean, that kind of stuff really does matter. The input that you get from people. And hopefully everybody has a good way to aggregate all of that info.

32:27
Christine McNerney
I will say too, just to add, it's informed our ingredient standards over time too. I mean, the ingredient standards is a living, breathing thing in my mind. And we are always iterating and it's certainly informed how we've adjusted or made changes to our standards as thrive market.

32:43
Daniel Scharff
That's great. It's great when you can be welcoming to it rather than defensive because, you know, you get, you'll get really good input from people who know a lot and they might know a lot more about one specific ingredient than you can know about all 700 of the ones that are on your list. So that's great to hear. And then I'll add one thing to.

33:00
Jason Bidart
That actually is like, it. Not just the ingredient standards, but also if it doesn't affect our ingredient standards, it may affect new values or filters on our site. One thing that comes to mind is seed oils, for instance. They're, they're everywhere throughout the food industry, and it's hard to replace seed oils with olive oil or avocado oil all the time to add a cost effective way. But then we added a filter because we heard from a lot of members that they were trying to cut seed oils out of their diet. So then we added a filter to the site where you can now filter foods that do not contain seed oils.

33:35
Daniel Scharff
To me, it sounds like that would be incredibly impactful for them. Like, if you're one of those consumers, you're like, finally. Okay, this makes my shopping experience a lot easier. So I bet that, I bet your data team came back with a bunch of like, oh, actually, yeah, they're definitely only shopping with us now because that's a huge tool for them. And then, Christine, last thing I wanted to ask you for now is around, like, what are the top products that are selling out of your categories? Or like, you know, what are some of the big trends that you're seeing right now in terms of what consumers are doing in your categories?

34:07
Christine McNerney
Electrolyte powders. So hydration has not slowed down, not one bit.

34:12
Daniel Scharff
I've got one right here that I'm drinking. I'm all over that trend. I love it.

34:16
Christine McNerney
Yeah, I would say too, all things babies and kids. So we are receiving a lot of what we call wellness parents joining thrive market. So some of them babies and kids areas in our assortment is the highest growth areas in the catalog. So things like food, gummy vitamins, bath soaks, kind of all across the board. Anything for the parents is really doing well for us. And then lastly, I want to call out our own brand, Rosie in home. We are just, it is just continuing to take off. And I think the trend there, or the need that were hitting there is that its a really effective quality brand for really sharp price points. And our members are just really resonating.

34:59
Christine McNerney
So the lavender liquid laundry detergent specifically, which I know Jason is a major fan of and buys like five at a time, but those core items continue to do really well for us at home.

35:10
Daniel Scharff
I feel like if we ask about ten more questions. We'll discover Jason is the most interesting man in the world because he's out there hiking and skiing, probably in Denver, but also rips it up in Hell's Kitchen in New York. He loves to smell like lavender. What else, man? Let's hang out, dude. Sounds like a good time. Christine, thank you. That was a super helpful overview and cool to hear about your private label as well. So on that topic for Rosie, how do you decide what to focus on? What products you think that you guys should iterate on? Is it based on sales data you see or based on competitive stuff that you see? Or is it walking around the trade show and seeing some new innovation and thinking like, yeah, we could launch something like that?

35:57
Christine McNerney
Yeah, I would say it's sales data. So looking at both internally and spins, but then also just thinking about, like, what is in people's linen closets and under the sink. Right? Like, what are those everyday cleaning type of needs that they need? And so, like, even just walking down in the grocery store in the aisle, like, what's in Clorox and what's in place all, like, obviously never formulate to those ingredients, but, like, what are the conventional things that people are buying and use every day? So that's a big, big part of it. And then to your point, at the shows, kind of just trying to keep a pulse on where the innovation and trends are going. So for Rosie and home cleaning, specifically looking at different formats and specifically waterless formats.

36:39
Christine McNerney
So we're seeing things like laundry detergent sheets popping up, we're seeing more tablet formats. So just keeping an eye on that to see how the members really resonate with those innovative formats. And just a bit of a learning curve for some of the categories.

36:53
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I love tablets. Back to that electrolyte trend, I think, like, hydration 2.0 for me is the biggest one impacting my life. Anyways, I'm working from home. I can just sit here and just be hydrated as hell all day. And, you know, I'm also at home so I can be near the bath and wear. If I'm drinking this much, like, water and staying hydrated, I'm gonna have to, you know, pop in there a bunch. And then it's just, it feels so good because then I don't have to one just honestly carry as much stuff, like, I don't have to go. And even if I get stuff delivered from thrive or anyone, like, I don't know, it's a lot of stuff like move into the fridge, whatever, throw it out. It feels not that sustainable. Tablets are. They taste good.

37:30
Daniel Scharff
The ones that I get are awesome. And, yeah, I mean, they're. And I don't know, water is kind of boring tasting by itself, and then they liven that up for me. They don't all taste amazing, but, you know, I found ones that do. And so I love that trend just for so many reasons. I expect to see that go a lot. So not surprising, but very cool to hear that is really trending with you guys. Okay, Jason, my friend, I have a bunch of questions for you. So just to actually, to start off one of those last ones, what are some of the most common food and beverage items in a thrive market basket? And, like, what are some of the biggest items you think even draw people initially to become customers?

38:09
Jason Bidart
Christine's going to laugh at this one, but our top selling item by units is actually our thrive market brand, taco seasoning.

38:17
Christine McNerney
We laugh, but I'm also a purchaser of it, so I get it.

38:22
Jason Bidart
It's interesting because we sell so much of it. So our algorithm catches on. We do a lot of recommended for you on site. So sometimes I could be buying lavender rosy liquid laundry detergent, and then it's going to recommend that I also buy taco seasoning just because so many of our members add it to their boxes. So the algorithm catches on is like the other 90% of members that have shopped with us have put this in their box. You might like it as well. Even though I'm not buying anything pertaining to taco seasoning, it's helping people discover that we have an amazing taco seasoning and the number one item by units that we sell.

39:00
Daniel Scharff
That's cool. And I'm hopefully they're not getting confused and thinking that they should put it in with their laundry.

39:06
Jason Bidart
No, I hope not. But I mean, so, I mean, our private label is, I think, a big draw in terms of when you become a member and you're looking through our website and you see that we've got over 800 thrive market brand items on the site, and we're trying to do something really different with our own brand, where we're up leveling just the experience that the member has, whether it's through sustainable packaging, delivery format, whatever it is. So when you look at some of our first time members coming in and ordering a big majority of their box is actually our own brand products because they're seeing a great value and they're seeing a lot of products that resonate with their lifestyle. Christina talked about we have a really big membership base that are kind of these wellness champion parents.

39:54
Jason Bidart
They're coming in and trying to find products not just for themselves, but for their family, for their kids. So looking at our snacks category, some of our biggest growth areas are in snack pack single serve formats that are very suitable for kids, very suitable for on the go. That's an area where I think James has done an awesome job in our snacks court category, growing that. It's become a very substantial portion of our sales. The other one is, it's unbelievable how many meat sticks we sell. We've got a big brand chomps on site. We've got our own brand in meat sticks, and it just seems like we have no end in sight. How fast meat sticks continue to, as members look for just high protein snack options, like that meat stick is going to continue to be the go to for them.

40:41
Jason Bidart
So I would say the big drawer is just the pricing that we have of our products, the quality that we have with our products. We carry some of the big name brands like Chomps and Simple mills. We do a great job filtering them on site where a member can shop for, whether it's the gluten free value or if it's low sugar or low carb value. So it's just, I think the mix of products and us meeting the member where they are in their health journey, for sure.

41:07
Daniel Scharff
You mentioned some of these wellness oriented people buying for their families. Like when people ask you, who is your target customer or the most customer demographic, is it a lot of that or are there other characteristics that you guys have noticed about who comes to you?

41:23
Jason Bidart
Yeah, I think the overwhelming member profile that we have is a female shopper shopping for her family. So we do have some single household individuals coming and just looking for healthier options, looking for affordable prices, looking for things that they don't have access to in their local markets. But overwhelmingly, our shopper profile is a female shopping for household of a family.

41:48
Daniel Scharff
It's a beautiful thing for the people who are just like, yeah, I want to make sure my kids are starting out right, you know, not getting probably hooked on b's food, probably the way that, like I did when I was a kid, and I think I refused to eat anything but cereal until I was about 14. And it was not better for you cereal, it was worse as possible for you cereal. So that's really nice, especially because it can get so expensive if you're just trying to basket shop at places like Whole Foods, you know, that also have high ingredient standards. So that's a really beautiful thing. And how are they finding you most of the time? Is it word of mouth? Are they seeing you in articles? Are they responding to ads?

42:27
Daniel Scharff
Like, I imagine during the pandemic, you guys got a huge bump also. But like, how do people really find out about you?

42:33
Jason Bidart
Huge bump during the pandemic. And it's continuing to be just a huge bump for us now. We have embraced social media as an acquisition strategy. We've some of our best performing, I think acquisition ads are on TikTok, through Instagram, through Facebook. So we do, I say, very little media. We've tried tv campaigns, we've tried billboards. It was awesome. See thrive market, billboards and bus wraps and in New York City when I first started. But I think overwhelmingly we're a digital company and I think meeting people where they're in front of their screens, where they can click directly from an ad over to thrive market has been a really great strategy for us and people just being aware of who we are.

43:17
Jason Bidart
And I think the clear messaging that our acquisition and marketing team have put together that we are the destination for healthy, organic products at amazing prices. It's just been resonating with members.

43:30
Daniel Scharff
Awesome. I love it. Great. And so just to kind of get into some of the more tactical stuff that I'm sure any brand listening is dying to ask, now that they have heard about what an incredible retailer you guys are. So let's get to the good stuff of Jason. How does a brand get one of your team members radars is that I know you guys have the campaigns source, I think through rangeme. Right? You do campaigns through there, which I think is your main channel. I also know that it can be good to try to actually meet your category managers and get their attention at a trade show or meet them at an event. And, you know, they're all very friendly people who love to take an interest in products. They're all incredibly passionate about CPG and, you know, better for you stuff.

44:13
Daniel Scharff
But yeah, what's the best way for people to, you know, get a shot?

44:17
Jason Bidart
Yeah. Rangeme is definitely the best place. We have instituted in the last several years a category review calendar that keeps our category managers focused on reviewing products at the right time of year. That way, we're not introducing soups in the middle of May going into summer. We're not bringing in on Christine's side sun care and sun and bugs type items in November. So that keeps it really organized and allows them to focus really heavily on the category at hand during key periods of time. Why we like going through rangeme is that they're able to quickly say, hey, this review is happening in three months.

44:58
Jason Bidart
I'll get back to you, to a brand so that things don't go unanswered or things don't fall through the cracks in an email box that you can imagine us working with thousands of brands now we're maintaining those relationships and to add in new brands on top of that into an email box just makes things pretty chaotic. So again, like I said, range means the best way to get in front of us if you're a prospective brand. We also, we love going to startup CPG events, we love going to expo. We love that as a way to put Facetiming with our current brand partners. But also it lets us discover and explore just new products that we wouldn't see otherwise. That may not be on range, me, that may not have a budget to be part of their premium platform.

45:40
Jason Bidart
You can, although it's free to submit to us. A lot of brands like to utilize their premium platform, but it just allows us to discover. And then, of course, walking the shows, there's always that tug on the backpack from someone that's not exhibiting at a booth that stops you and tries to give you samples that are in clear plastic bags with no ingredients and they're just like, hey, try this right now. I think this is right for thrive.

46:04
Daniel Scharff
And meet me in the alley. Yeah.

46:07
Jason Bidart
And then you start asking questions and then they discover that maybe they need to have a little bit stronger pitch when they come to us because they haven't visited the range me where there's a lot of stop gaps that clearly show our ingredient standards and what we will and will not accept.

46:22
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. And I've had brands ask me like, hey, when is it too early for me to pitch? I'm usually like, if you have the product ready, that's a good time to pitch. If you pitch something that's a concept or, yeah, and like a little, you know, sandwich baggie or something like, buyer's not going to know what to do with that. Like, okay, but it's not like a real thing yet. So I can't give you a real opinion. I need to see the packaging, I need to try the product and, you know, be able to ask questions about it because you don't have like a queue of things of like, okay, yeah, then go and make it and then we'll carry it. Like, it doesn't really work like that, unfortunately.

46:55
Daniel Scharff
But I also was just laughing, remembering when James came to one of our last events. Like, I like to make sure he can get around and actually see all the brands that are demoing at our events. Like, okay, great. Like, I'll walk you around a little bit. And that, I think, was the first sense of what I got to experience, what it's like to be, like, the body man for a celebrity, because, like, everybody, including some people with the plastic baggy approach, were jumping in, like, wanting to chat with them a bunch. Like, okay. And then after five minutes be like, okay, hey, I just need to borrow James for a minute. Like, okay. I need to, like, walk you around to all the people. But he is so nice about it and, you know, just really passionate about all the brands.

47:33
Daniel Scharff
And I, like, I love seeing some of them then, like, really get a chance to tell him the story and about the products. And so thank you. I really appreciate that you guys do all of that, and you also just have such interesting team members as well. I remember I got into an interesting chat with Kelly on your team about rowing because, like, she came to our event that was here, and they're like, kayaks outside, and then it turns out she was a coxswain. And I was like, that movie had just came out that was boys in the boat last year, which is an amazing movie. It's, I mean, a little cheesy, like, almost, you know, like, I don't know, Disney movie ish about, but it. But it is really cool.

48:09
Daniel Scharff
It's about the University of Washington men's rowing team that ended up winning an Olympic gold. It is, like, awesome story. I was like, oh, did you see that? She's like, that's where I went. I went to University of Washington. I was a cox in there, and I was like, oh, did that really happen? And so she was like, actually, yeah, it was pretty true to form, but I could always.

48:26
Jason Bidart
Championship rings for that, too. Yeah, yeah.

48:28
Daniel Scharff
That's so cool. Awesome. And so the next thing I wanted to ask you about was actually distribution, because that's a question we get a lot from brands, is like, okay, if I get to work with you, how is that going to work, especially brands on the earlier side? Do you work with distributors mainly, or do you prefer people to go direct to work with you?

48:47
Jason Bidart
Yeah, I'll answer on the food side, because that's a little bit different on the home health and beauty side. But we have two options. You can go direct with us, or you can go through UNFI distribution. We have a really great partnership with UNFI where they do a lot of support for us. And if it is a new brand that's not in the unify portfolio, they'll bring it in for us, which is great. We pull out of three warehouses with them, Rockland, Greenwood in York, and they'll set the products up, whatever, and just as long as we give them a forecast and we're hooked for inventory, but they do a great job. But we will also, we'll sit down with the brand, we'll review moqs, we'll review kind of our projected, our forecasts on how well the products are going to do.

49:30
Jason Bidart
And if we can make direct happening where we're not bringing in too much inventory, that might put us in expiry or along inventory situation. We want to make sure we're keeping the freshest inventory, we're keeping product turning on the food side. So if we can bring it in direct, it's cost effective for us. Where we can then pass on any sort of savings to our members in lower retails. We will look at taking brands direct as well. And what is it when you say.

49:56
Daniel Scharff
Like on the hook for inventory, when you're talking about Unfi? I've always been curious how that works. So you guys are kind enough to help somebody get in to unfi York or whatever, and then you have a forecast and then the inventory ships. Like that means then basically UnfI saying to you, hey, like you got to make sure you pull all of this through. Because from a brand perspective, we're like, am I going to be responsible if it doesn't all sell through? I've been in that situation. I think when I went through Kehe for the sprouts innovation set is I was terrified because the first, at the beginning, they didn't pull all of it through. And I'm like, there's so much there, like, what's going to happen? And then fortunately, they did end up pulling the second half of it through.

50:35
Daniel Scharff
But it was a very, that was very scary.

50:38
Jason Bidart
We give a forecast and they purchase according to that forecast. It just means that we're going to have the inventory available that we think we're going to sell. We don't have to pull it all at one shot, but we want to pull it and making sure that we move through it within the expiration time. But again, we are on the hook for if we sell, unify order 1000 cases, they're going to make sure we pull that thousand cases. They may order 1500 cases, but we're on the hook for a thousand whatever, we give them forecast and those other 500 they may utilize to pitch to their other retail partners and things like that, if they believe it's a brand that's going to resonate with other clientele. But if we give them a forecast, we're on the hook for the product.

51:19
Jason Bidart
And that's with new products as well as anything that we have existing as well that we bring through. Unify.

51:24
Daniel Scharff
Got it. That is actually super interesting to hear. Probably that is just routine for you, but from a brand, we don't really know how that works. So that's really cool. Cool. Christine, what about you? And first, just coming back to that question about sourcing and how do you guys discover brands? Is it similar to how Jason's team might be looking at it or, you know, there are other opportunities for people and I don't, honestly, I don't even know which trade shows you guys might be going to. But, yeah, what's that process like for you guys? And then also the distribution part I'm curious about.

51:51
Christine McNerney
Yeah, it's largely the same in terms of sourcing. We also have a category review calendar, as Jason mentioned. So we're timing that up to make sure we're launching at the right times what our biggest categories and biggest opportunities are. Submissions go through range me. We're attending trade shows, so really largely the same. Some other trade shows that we attend. We've attended like, indie beauty expo shows in the past, or edict lives, I will say. Actually, I feel like there is a huge opportunity for the natural products industry to have a more dedicated show to home health and beauty. There's obviously, you know, people at the different expos, but I just really think there's such an opportunity to have, like, one hub for our categories that we can have more vendors attend. But that's probably a different podcast, a different topic.

52:37
Daniel Scharff
No, I'm interested in that, though. And then. And just remind me again, what goes health and beauty? I think I have a sense for what goes into those. But specifically, what does home cover? Again, it's not, I mean, like, I don't think we're talking about if I went to the home department of a Sears or whatever, I might find a kerring coffee maker. So it's not that.

52:52
Christine McNerney
But what is it exactly that it is household supplies. So things like trash bags, paper towels, bath tissue, and then household cleaning. And then we have some like, food storage containers, food wraps, sandwich bags, things like that. So, and then in terms of the distribution, we actually work a little bit more heavily on the direct business side. We don't have to worry so much about the expiration, obviously, like food does in certain categories. But a lot of the home, health and beauty brands aren't like use really to that distribution model. They're very used to working directly with retailers, especially when you think about brands in the beauty space who are more used to working with either other clean beauty retailers or retailers just outside of a brick and mortar type of traditional grocery store.

53:39
Christine McNerney
So we work pretty heavily on the direct side of the business that works for us. If there is a circumstance in which the Moqs are too high, though, we'll take the same route of saying like, hey, would you be opening to going through unify? That will ensure that we could actually get this partnership up and running. Here's what will be required. But then that kind of takes the pressure off of us in terms of how many units we need on hand to make the business run.

54:03
Daniel Scharff
Okay, great. And then when people are submitting, whether it's through rangeme or just talking to your team, what do you want to see in that submission beyond? You know, the basics of like, you need to have a good product, good differentiation, explain your ingredients, all that stuff, but specific to how they're going to make sure people see and try the product. So you mentioned the sampling program. Anything else in terms of promotions or marketing programs that people can participate in that you think really make a difference and give you confidence to bring on a brand?

54:34
Christine McNerney
Yeah, I mean, we have a whole marketing package dedicated to just new items. So we have new items, emails that goes out to our members once a month. So we always strongly encourage that. We have the various promotions that we talked about and the GWPs, we also have the new page on thrive market, which is where they will live for 60 days. And that's one of our highest trafficked pages. So actually nothing the brand needs to do but just kind of something we provide for the brands to get a stronger foot forward when launching. But we do really want to make sure that brands know when you launch on thrive, it's not always just about launching, sitting on the shelf and you're going to be wildly successful. You do have to get out there, get your brand in front of the members.

55:15
Christine McNerney
And so like I mentioned, the new items, emails, we have promotions every single week. We have what we call tent poll events every quarter, which is our really big, I mean, sometimes seven days long promotions. We just ran one for plant based and organic. So we will always recommend at least once a quarter to be participating in either category specific or diet specific type of promotion. And then where it makes sense, we highly recommend gift of purchase, I would say at least twice a year if the brand can afford it and make sense for the product format because that's going to be again, the really impactful way to drive that trial and get it into the hands. It's in their house, it's on their shelf. Like they're looking at it every day.

55:56
Christine McNerney
And so we really find that drives the highest ROI for our brands.

56:00
Jason Bidart
Got it.

56:01
Daniel Scharff
Awesome. Okay, great. Jason, what about you? Anything to add onto that for your categories?

56:06
Jason Bidart
Yeah, I. On the food side, as Christian said, our members are coming. They're coming in through the grocery side, they're coming in through food. I would say have a brand plan for like work with our merch marketing team to put together a year's worth of just promos and activations. You could participate as little or as much as you want, but you can't not participate. So we do work with smaller brands. We work with them to whether it's reduce marketing fees, making sure that they're only in the most important sales that correspond to their products. And then again, a lot of brands on the food side would rather give free product that they've already produced versus writing a check with for marketing. So that gift with purchase activation is really key for some of the smaller brands that come through.

57:00
Jason Bidart
Like I said, it's a lot easier just to ship free product than it is to potentially write a check for thousands of dollars for a marketing campaign.

57:07
Daniel Scharff
Got it. Awesome. You know, just a tip probably that you give brands out there also, or just at least, you know, anytime you're applying to a retailer, it's good to go into the store if you can because it makes a difference when you're talking to the category managers. I know same applies for thrive market. So for brands that are serious about it, maybe try it out as a consumer, you can get on there's I think a low membership fee and then you get access to really good value prices on high quality products and maybe check it out, experience the consumer journey for yourself. And I think like a cough, you can cancel also if you need to, if you just want to try it out. But I mean, nothing like getting to actually walk in the consumers shoes and experience all of that.

57:49
Christine McNerney
Wouldn't you say thrive market so much you're not going to want to cancel?

57:53
Daniel Scharff
Exactly.

57:54
Jason Bidart
It is 30 days risk free. But in this day and age, there are a lot of products that are really tough to ship and especially since we only use ground. So it's sometimes in a truck or in a warehouse for two to three days before it gets to our members. So I think looking at the catalog on kind of what you're competing against, also ordering a box with the products that are in your category and see and how they come to you is a great way to say, hey, I differentiate from this brand because my product is not going to leak or it's not going to get crushed. It's a more stable packaging. So knowing that type of stuff is really useful.

58:29
Daniel Scharff
Awesome. So maybe coming to the end here, any, are there any brands that you particularly love that are coming through thrive market that you like to order through there? Or maybe one that you're excited that's gonna. That you're hoping to get onto thrive market, but any that are in your fridge and your pantry, in your cabinet or wherever you keep your home health and beauty products, typically any that you're a consumer of that you especially want to call out.

58:54
Christine McNerney
I feel like this is like trying to pick your favorite child situation you're making me right now. I love the indie Lycoq ten toner. I use that every single morning, every single night. It has aloe in it, hyaluronic acid, the coq ten. So it's really hydrating and soothing. So I use that after I wash my face first thing before I start the rest of my skincare routine. So I would say that's probably one that stands out to me on home health and beauty.

59:23
Daniel Scharff
All right, Jason, how about you?

59:25
Jason Bidart
Trying to think. I don't know why the brand's blanking, but I. We actually discovered them at the startup CPG event at expo at the bowling alley there. It was a ground chia or, sorry, ground sesame butter. What was it? What was the brand? Do you remember?

59:40
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, rooted fair.

59:42
Jason Bidart
Rooted fair, yes.

59:43
Daniel Scharff
Awesome. Oh, they'll be so excited to hear that.

59:46
Christine McNerney
Yeah.

59:46
Jason Bidart
That I. Caleb had samples sent to me and I've already gone through the jars they sent. I like to make sourdough bread here at home. I have a sourdough starter that's been going for several weeks and I. Every morning I've been eating that on my sourdough toast and I actually ran out day before yesterday. So I'm really eager for Caleb to bring on the rooted fare that set, that ground sesame, but it was absolutely amazing.

01:00:11
Daniel Scharff
Oh, that's so cool to hear. They're such lovely people. They'll be so jazzed to know that they're front and center for you.

01:00:17
Jason Bidart
Yeah.

01:00:18
Daniel Scharff
So just closing out here then, is there a good way for people to, you know, follow along with you guys or thrive, should they give you a follow on LinkedIn or, you know, I'm sure people would just love to stay connected with you and thrive in general. What do you recommend for people?

01:00:30
Christine McNerney
Yeah, LinkedIn is always a good resource, obviously too, for any brand interested in working with us. Check out range me. Even if you're not submitting today, our category review calendar is published. We're probably going to be adding more resources there too, just around working with thrive market. So I would say those are probably two of the main touch points for us.

01:00:48
Jason Bidart
Yeah.

01:00:49
Daniel Scharff
All right, perfect. Well, unfortunately our time here has come to an end. This was super fun for me just to learn a lot about you guys and a lot more about thrive. Just one of my absolute favorites out there. And again, just really from all of our hearts, thank you so much for engaging with our community because those kind of brands, you know, like rooted fair, are the ones doing incredibly hard work to try to bring all of these better for you products out there into the world. And you guys know how hard it is, you know, especially these days, to do all of that. So even, I mean, them just hearing how much you like the product will probably recharge their energy canister for the next year.

01:01:30
Daniel Scharff
So thank you guys again, we really appreciate it and I am really looking forward to hopefully seeing you at the next trade show or one of our local startup CPG events. So thank you again.

01:01:40
Jason Bidart
Thank you.

01:01:41
Christine McNerney
Thank you so much.

01:01:44
Daniel Scharff
All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast today, it would really help us out if you can leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I am Daniel Scharff. I'm the host and founder of Startup CPG. Please feel free to reach out or add me on LinkedIn. If you're a potential sponsor that would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipstartupcpg.com dot. And reminder to all of you out there, we would love to have you join the community. You can sign up at our website, startupcpg.com to learn about our webinars events and Slack channel. If you enjoyed today's music, you can check out my band it's the super fantastics on Spotify music. On behalf of the entire startup cpu team, thank you so much for listening and your support. See you next time.