The Startup CPG Podcast

Lindsay Hancock
I designed these really with the Target shopper in mind. The mom who's got too much on her plate is rushing through the store and, you know, wants to feed her family something that isn't full of junk that still tastes really good. I want you not to have to give up quality or taste by taking a shortcut. I mean, you're a mom just like me. We got too much to do and not enough time to do it. And sometimes you just need a win. And so I want this to be the win that you can grab and make your daughter happy, make my boys happy, and just something simple that you can pick up and you know that you can rely on.

00:46
Caitlin Bricker
Hey, everybody, this is Caitlin Brooker, managing editor at Startup cpg. We are back with another founder feature. Today, I'm sitting down with Lindsay Hancock, founder of My Better Batch, a clean label cookie mix designed to taste just like homemade cookies. Lindsay's taking us behind the scenes of her journey from helping build a company acquired by Kind Snacks to starting over as a single mom at 40, shipping her first order in April 2024, and somehow baking thousands of cookies in an Airbnb to prep for her first ever trade show. Hint, hint. It was the Startup CPG section at Expo West 2025. We're talking Target accelerator wins, the reality of being a solopreneur in CPG and why she's heading back to Expo West 2026 to be a part of the Startup CPG section for a second year in a row. As always, enjoy. Hey, everybody.

01:42
Caitlin Bricker
Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Kaitlyn and today I'm here with Lindsay Hancock, founder of My Better Batch. Lindsay, welcome to the show.

01:50
Lindsay Hancock
Thank you. It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

01:53
Caitlin Bricker
It's great to have you here. I have you here virtually and I'm going to see you again in a few weeks.

01:59
Lindsay Hancock
Yes. It'll be here before we know it, won't it?

02:01
Caitlin Bricker
Oh, my gosh. It's the event of the year, pretty much. Expo west, this is what everyone talks about. Everyone's planning for this for basically a year leading up to it. So before we get to that, can you tell us what my Better batch is?

02:17
Lindsay Hancock
Absolutely. So we sell a cookie mix and it is a clean label cookie mix made with non GMO ingredients. And I designed these mixes to taste like homemade cookies. Usually there's a really distinct difference in a cookie that's made from a mix that you get off the grocery store shelf and in a homemade from scratch cookie. And my goal was to Bridge that gap. So to give you a shortcut that you could feel good about taking and feeding to your family.

02:44
Caitlin Bricker
And they are excellent. That's what we chose to give Santa.

02:47
Lindsay Hancock
You heard that? I can't see that. Enjoyed them.

02:50
Caitlin Bricker
He loved them. We got the chocolate peppermint ones from Target, and it was. I gotta tell you, I was so overwhelmed with the options that were in Target, from the candy to the cookies to all of the things, all of the baking mixes. And then I saw your product on the shelf, and I was like, oh, I don't even need to read the label. I already know it's good stuff in there. This is coming home with me. And it made my life so much easier when I saw you in the sea of products, because I just knew I can trust this product. We're going to love it. My daughter's going to love it. I feel good about the ingredients. Let's do this.

03:25
Lindsay Hancock
Well, that means so much to me. I mean, that is why I created this brand. And so to hear that resonating, that means a lot.

03:32
Caitlin Bricker
Why did you choose to create my better batch?

03:34
Lindsay Hancock
You know, sometimes I wonder that. I spent my career in food. I started on the retail side and then made the change over to the manufacturer side. Had an opportunity to build a company from the ground up that we sold in 2019 to Kind Snacks. And then for the next couple of years, had an opportunity to be able to be part of something much bigger than I had ever been part of before. At that time, things were changing for me. Professionally, we had been acquired, and every acquisition, there are changes that take place. It wasn't bad. It was just change. And also, simultaneously, my personal life was kind of was falling apart. I ended up going through a divorce that I didn't see coming.

04:16
Lindsay Hancock
And I felt like, you know, here I am, a single mom at 40, and I am asking myself, like, what do I want to be when I grow up? Do I want to continue down this path, working for a brand? And there is, you know, so many positives associated with that, especially when you're part of thriving company like Kind Snacks is, or do I want to start something of my own? And so that was kind of the catalyst. Like, it was time for me to. To take a risk, and I chose to go down this path.

04:45
Caitlin Bricker
Thankfully, you did. I mean, I feel like a lot of us have these moments in our lives that we look back on, and in that moment, they probably feel like, wow, my life is over. And I don't want to speak for you, but maybe it felt like that for you during those tough times. But look what's come out of it now. Are you able to look back and say, this actually changed the trajectory of my life?

05:06
Lindsay Hancock
Absolutely. I think when you're going through it, you're exactly right. It feels like you're never going to push through it and that it is a negative experience. And how on earth am I going to turn this into something good? Looking back now, it was a gift. Each thing that I went through was a gift that allowed me to move on to something else. The way I describe that part of my life is like the puzzle pieces, they were all thrown out on the table and I just needed to put the puzzle pieces back in place and they were going back into place. They were just different places than they used to be. And so that takes a little bit of getting used to. But yes, definitely look back now. And I'm very thankful to have gone through that time in my life.

05:47
Caitlin Bricker
Good for you. It's good to have that perspective too, because you can really see the timeline of your life coming together and coming full circle in many ways. So what does it feel like coming from a company that was acquired by somebody so large, like kind to now becoming. Are you still a solopreneur? What does your business model look like today?

06:08
Lindsay Hancock
Yes, it's a small team for sure. And I use a lot of outside consultants that are kind of like special, allow me to work with people that I can't quite afford to have on my payroll just yet, but are experts in their area. And so yes, I mean, I am operating with a bare bones team right now and we've been very fortunate to grow and gain momentum relatively quickly, especially in food. We shipped our first order in April 2024 and so we're not even two years in yet. And 2025 was a huge time of growth for us and we've got some incredible momentum as we go on into 2026.

06:47
Caitlin Bricker
I cannot believe April 2024 was your.

06:50
Lindsay Hancock
First product at the door, to be honest with you. We started shipping in April 2024, but that was orders through our website. There really wasn't any distribution gained until December 2024. That was through the Sprouts Forager set, which, you know, that was the 90 day stint in the Forager set where they allow new brands to be in store. And that was a great opportunity for us to kind of be able to test like, does everything work? Does our supply chain work? Can we get product there? You know, and so were in most of their stores with three flavors. And so that was 90 days, but that was in and out. And so, you know, it's great to have, but it was an ongoing business. And then we really didn't see additional distribution until we started shipping in April of the following year.

07:34
Lindsay Hancock
So last year, 2020, 25 to thrive market. And then we slowly began adding retailers. So here in the Southeast, we added Lowe's Foods and the Fresh Market. We were very fortunate to start working with Target very early on. They became an early adopter of my better batch, which, you know, I designed these really with the Target shopper in mind. The mom who's got too much on her plate is rushing through the store and, you know, wants to feed her family something that isn't full of junk that still tastes really good. And so that was a huge opportunity for us. I actually, believe it or not, last year at Expo met the Target accelerator team in the startup CPG area. They came through and as a result of that, I was accepted into the Target Accelerator program.

08:21
Lindsay Hancock
So I was one of four brands in their cohort last year, food brands. And that was a huge opportunity for my little business.

08:29
Caitlin Bricker
Wow, that is an excellent segue because you were in startup CPG section in 2025, so that's a huge win for you getting into the Target Accelerator program through that connection that you made at the show. What other wins did you have in our section?

08:48
Lindsay Hancock
So last year's Expo was our very first trade show. I've been to Expo many times, but it was brand new for me being there with my better batch. You know what's funny is I really took for granted the fact that up until this point, I've sold a ready to eat product. I've never sold a product that requires preparation. I'll tell you, I made thousands of cookies in my Airbnb to get ready for Expos last year. And when I tell you thousands, I am not exaggerating. So I wasn't quite sure what it was going to be like for us. I had never been part of the startup CPG section of any show, but it was a great experience for us. There are several opportunities that came out of those couple of days at Expo West.

09:29
Lindsay Hancock
There was a lot of traffic, which is exactly what you want. You know, you want to have people coming by. Not just people. You want to have the right people coming by. I believe that quality over quantity for sure. But it gave us an opportunity to get our product in people's mouths and get them to try it and get excited about it. And so we met many retailers we began to form many relationships. And there's product on the shelf today because of those interactions.

09:57
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. I never considered the logistics that would go into preparing your cookies for a trade show.

10:06
Lindsay Hancock
Yes, it is complicated. I mean, I go and I just shipped my pallet. My pallet actually just arrived for this year and I'm shipping stand mixers. I mean, just all the things that I need to be able to make the product. You know, hopefully someday we can find a better way to do that. But we needed to make sure that we had enough cookies to share. And I think we ended up making about 2,000 cookies that we cut in half. So we had like 4,000 samples total.

10:34
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. And did you go through all of them? Yeah, just read all of them. I think that speaks volumes to the volume of traffic that comes through the booths and through the section.

10:46
Lindsay Hancock
The show is just. It's immense. And so you just kind of wonder, especially as you're picking your booth, like outside of Startup cpg, when you are, you know, you're working on getting into the show, you're looking at different sections and you're just kind of unsure, is this going to be a spot that gets a lot of traffic? What I know about being in the Startup CPG section is you guys do so much to be able to drive traffic to the section. And like I said, it's not just any traffic, it is the people that we want to talk to. And so that is huge for brands that have the opportunity to be part of that, not just for Expo, but for all of the events that you guys are doing right now.

11:23
Caitlin Bricker
We're so grateful for the partnership with New Hope to be able to have that section and offer this to the brands, because it's huge for us, it's huge for you, and it's worked so well that you're coming back for a second year and you're going to be back with us again in 2026.

11:38
Lindsay Hancock
Yeah, it's kind of like having kids. I kind of forgot, you know, with you have another kid because you forget what it was like having the first one. And now I'm thinking to myself, oh, my gosh, I've got to start baking again. I've got a lot of baking to do when I get out there.

11:53
Caitlin Bricker
What are you hoping to achieve for your second year at Expo?

11:56
Lindsay Hancock
So I think it is. It's continuing to cultivate relationships that have started. I mean, I've been very fortunate to be in this business for a long time, not just selling cookies, but just generally speaking. And so you Know, this is a big small industry is what, how I like to describe it. And so, you know, you get to see a lot of friends that you only get to see once or twice a year. And so that is really nice. But to continue to cultivate relationships that we started last year and then to meet some additional retail buyers in some of the places that we are not yet and would like to be.

12:28
Caitlin Bricker
What are some of your dream retailers? Who are you hoping to meet at Expo this year?

12:33
Lindsay Hancock
Oh, that's a really good question. You know, one of my dream retailers right now is Wegmans. And that is up in your neck of the woods, right?

12:41
Caitlin Bricker
Yes, it is.

12:42
Lindsay Hancock
So Wegmans has always been a great retail partner and they've always kind of been on the forefront of what is new and coming out. And so I would love to be able to have our product on the shelf there. I've been working on H E B. I feel like this is a great product for H E B. We've begun to cultivate that relationship and there's a couple of others that are on my wish list out west. And so, you know, I think it's not just building, it's also the cultivation of relationships that's so important. I don't have the ability to be able to go see all of my customers every year, you know, nor is that really a reality these days. It used to be that you could sit in front of buyers once a year for the category review.

13:21
Lindsay Hancock
We just don't have the luxury of doing that these days. You know, everything is virtual if you get that. But just that face to face interaction, you just can't beat it.

13:28
Caitlin Bricker
Right? And now this is going to be your second rodeo with us. When you look back at your experience in 2025, what are you going to continue to do in 2026 and what do you think you'll do differently to make this a better experience?

13:44
Lindsay Hancock
I think what we did last year worked. I think getting the product into people's mouths is what I am focused on more than anything. I think being able to show, you know, sometimes as a new brand, an emerging brand, we don't really have data to be able to show to support what we're doing. And we don't have, you know, a huge list of customers who have our product on the shelf. And so the conversation becomes really kind of difficult when you're having those first conversations in the first couple of years because you don't have what, you know, legacy or brands that have been around for a long time. Do. And so I think this year what we really can focus on is the growth and momentum.

14:21
Lindsay Hancock
We still don't have a ton of data, we don't pay for the data, but we do have some retail wins. We do have new retail partners. We are able to show that we've increased our points of distribution and we are able to show we've had some really incredible press over the last year, including winning the Good Housekeeping best snack award for best congratulations. Yes. And so like all of this, we had a really good call out article in Parade magazine also in all recipes during the holidays. And so just being able to show that we are growing and we have momentum and that I think is what I'm looking forward to most this year that I wasn't able to do last year.

15:02
Caitlin Bricker
I love it. I love it. Do you have any advice for first time exhibitors at the show?

15:09
Lindsay Hancock
Wear really comfortable clothes and shoes? No, I think make the most of the time that you have. I mean, we spend a lot of money to be there. Even being part of the startup CPG section, it is a huge investment for small brands and it's really hard to know whether that investment is worth it or not. And so my advice to anyone who is there for the first time is you really take advantage of your time there. You could show up when the show starts and you could close down, you know, 30 minutes before the show ends. I would not recommend doing that.

15:44
Lindsay Hancock
I would recommend, you know, being part of some of the events, trying to sign up for some of the meetings that you guys are setting up right now, which I'm kind of late to the party on but need to get on that because I think today's a deadline. But to really just take advantage of being there in the presence of other brands and also retail buyers and media and influencers and just really make the most of the time that you have.

16:08
Caitlin Bricker
I think you make some really good points because I think there's always that feeling from brands. They're like, oh, it feels like it's slowing down. Maybe I should break my booth down a little bit earlier. A, typically at trades yours you're getting fined if you break down earlier. And B, every single show I hear of a brand who has a, an all star retailer coming by who they were hoping was going to pass by their booth, that does it in that last hour that they would have missed if they packed themselves up, that is.

16:38
Lindsay Hancock
100% accurate and be there until the bitter end. So I had that happen last year. I mean, we are on the Shelves at Metropolitan Market. And that was because of an interaction. I didn't even have an interaction with the buyer from Metropolitan Market for my category, but I did for another category in the store. And he tried the cookie, and he loved the sample that he had, and he was able to help me make the connection with the buyer. And had we left a little bit early to, you know, try to get a head start to the airport, we wouldn't have had that conversation.

17:11
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. I mean, that says it all.

17:13
Lindsay Hancock
Yep. For sure.

17:15
Caitlin Bricker
So let's wrap this up. Is there anything that you want to share with retailers who might be attending Expo west or not attending Expo west that you want to share? Is there anything that you want to share about my Better Batch to these retailers that are listening?

17:30
Lindsay Hancock
What are you waiting on? We are ready to do business with you. We are in booth 8910, and I'd love to be able to meet all of the retailers that are there. I'd love to be able to share cookies. I mean, there's nothing better than having a warm cookie right out of the oven. But, yeah, I'd love to be able to have meaningful conversation and figure out if it's a great match to work together.

17:52
Caitlin Bricker
I'm excited for you. I can say, like I mentioned before, it was just such a breath of fresh air to be able to grab your product off the shelf with so many options that are out there that are just not great. These truly did taste and feel like homemade cookies without all the effort. So thank you.

18:09
Lindsay Hancock
I think, you know, mixes, I want you not to have to give up quality or taste by taking a shortcut. I mean, you're a mom just like me. We got too much to do and not enough time to do it. And sometimes you just need a win. And so I want this to be the win that you can grab and make your daughter happy, make my boys happy, and just something simple that you can pick up and, you know, that you can rely on.

18:33
Caitlin Bricker
I love it. So where can everybody find my Better Batch online? What's your Instagram? What's your website?

18:38
Lindsay Hancock
Yeah. So we are at My Better Batch on Instagram and TikTok and all the things. Facebook, LinkedIn. I post often on LinkedIn. I do a little weekly series that I call a real CPG Journey. But just kind of a look under the hood of, hey, I'm going through this, and this is what it's like, and it is not. Although a lot of times what you see is rainbows and unicorns on the outside. It's not all rainbows and unicorns. And it's hard. And you know, when you have a small team like I do, it's hard sometimes to get validation that you are making the right decisions.

19:11
Lindsay Hancock
And so being part of a network like Startup cpg, being able to go to these shows and be amongst other brands that are similar and different to you and being able to kind of share and get feedback, I mean that it's just super valuable because we don't have the luxury of doing that internally.

19:29
Caitlin Bricker
We are so excited to have you in our section again. We cannot wait to see what comes out of this show because last year was just a smash hit for all of the brands in our section. We have so many exciting things going on. You touched on it from the one one meetings to ally rally to the industry leader dinner. There are definitely more that I'm forgetting right now. We've got something going on pretty much every night at the show.

19:53
Lindsay Hancock
I think it's also, I mean, you gotta take advantage of the things that are there, but also know you don't have to do everything. You don't have to be at everything, you know, for fear of missing someone. I mean, there are plenty of people there. And so, you know, just by involving yourself in some of those things and being present, there will be value for sure.

20:13
Caitlin Bricker
And like you said, quality over quantity. Your sanity is worth everything.

20:17
Lindsay Hancock
I would rather have 10 great contacts than a thousand not great contacts. And so that is really important.

20:28
Caitlin Bricker
That is great advice because that's a lot of time spent doing research and outreach.

20:36
Lindsay Hancock
Yes, yes, absolutely.

20:38
Caitlin Bricker
Well, Lindsay, I'm excited to see you soon in our section. I unfortunately will be snacking on your cookies the entire time, so I'll definitely be hitting the gym too.

20:51
Lindsay Hancock
Looking forward to it.

20:52
Caitlin Bricker
We're looking forward to it too. Thank you so much and I'll see you soon. My pleasure.

20:56
Lindsay Hancock
Thank you.

20:57
Caitlin Bricker
Thank you.

20:57
Lindsay Hancock
You.

21:00
Caitlin Bricker
All right, everyone? Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, do us a solid and leave us a five star review on ratethispodcast.com startup cpg I'm Caitlyn Bricker, the host of the Founder feature series and editor at Startup CPG. Feel free to find me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack and get on my radar. I'm always keeping my eyes peeled for new and emerging brands to spotlight. If you're a potential sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipstartupcpg.com and finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already. We would love for you to join our free CPG community on Slack. You can sign up via our website@startupcpg.com see you around.