The Startup CPG Podcast

Sam Lejfer
Did I want to give up using whole food ingredients? No. But these are decisions that I made as CEO. It made it much more difficult, like I could have. There are opportunities to go with certain contract manufacturers if I had compromised my values and like created a product that wasn't up to my standards. But I'm thinking at this, like, not just like, I don't want to be a one hit wonder. I don't want to be on a shelf for like one season. I want to be here for like a long time. And to me it's more important to like build a foundation, build some sort of infrastructure. For me, it's like a very small scale where I can do things the way I would say is right, do things the way that align with our values and build and grow from there.

01:00
Caitlin Bricker
Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, editor at Startup cpg. We are back with another founder feature. Today you'll meet Sam Laifer, founder of Lucky Day. Lucky Day is making organic ice cream that is worry free and feel good to eat. With no common allergens, refined sugars or gums. Lucky Day makes everything in plastic free containers and in small batches. In their allergen friendly kitchen, Sam shares how food allergies led to creating this brand and their journey from idea to production. We talk about balancing trends with core values and how fear, courage and spirituality shaped Lucky Day. You'll hear how Sam stays true to the mission through and through. I hope you love this conversation as much as I love eating Lucky Day. As always, enjoy. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast.

01:54
Caitlin Bricker
This is Kaitlyn and today I'm here with Sam Lafer, founder of Lucky Day. Sam, welcome to the show.

02:00
Sam Lejfer
Thanks Caitlin. Thanks so much for having me. What an honor.

02:03
Caitlin Bricker
We are very happy to have you today. I'm super excited about your brand. I've been sampling it since we met up the other day and it's unlike anything I've tasted before. You had me at maple sweet and no refined sugars. But there are so many other things about it that I enjoying and not seeing on the market. So I'd love for you to introduce yourself and Lucky Day to our listeners. Tell us what Lucky Day is.

02:28
Sam Lejfer
Thank you. Yeah, my name is Sam Lafer. I'm the founder of Lucky Day. We make dairy free frozen desserts using organic whole food allergen friendly ingredients and everything is packed in plastic free compostable packaging.

02:44
Caitlin Bricker
Very cool. The compostable packaging is something that I don't think I see when I look at the ice cream. Aisle. So how did you land on compostable packaging? Tell us about that.

02:56
Sam Lejfer
Sure. Well, I want to shout out, there's a brand called Sacred Serve. I don't know if they're still around, but they were a composable brand so they kind of paved the way. I saw them like online a few years ago. So essentially all the ice cream packaging that you see on shelves, this paperboard that you think is recyclable, is in fact not recyclable because they're either single or double poly coated. So on the interior and exterior of these paperboard containers, there's a line of plastic. So most commercial recycling facilities actually cannot recycle these paperboards and it just ends up in landfill.

03:38
Sam Lejfer
So like I grew up, we would go through so many of these ice cream pints and then we would take our pints to the sink, we rinse it out using water and then put it in the recycling, thinking like we're, we've got this whole circular system, in fact, we're just wasting water and this all ends up in landfill anyway. So to me, like when I started Lucky Day, I wanted to be as eco friendly and mindful as possible throughout the entire supply chain and how consumer experiences it too. And I wasn't going to compromise packaging. So we found, after like a long search, a supplier who has a plastic free. Now people are like. Because there's pfas everywhere, they say, like no intentionally added pfas, but it's effectively plastic free and it's actually home compostable.

04:26
Sam Lejfer
You don't need to even like industrialize or put it in an industrial compost system. You can put it in if you compost at home in your home compost.

04:35
Caitlin Bricker
That was going to be my next question to you. If I compost at home, can I throw it in my home compost? Which I feel like is impressive because typically I find that when I go to say, a juice bar, the napkins, well, maybe not the napkins, but the straws and the utensils and their bowls, their serving containers usually say they're compostable, but not for a home compost. So that's pretty cool.

04:58
Sam Lejfer
It is.

04:59
Caitlin Bricker
And you mentioned that it's allergen friendly. Why allergen friendly and why ice cream?

05:06
Sam Lejfer
Totally. Well, this is where lucky day becomes personal for me. So I found a lucky day. I guess my story starts in 2017. I had hit this like total rock bottom, physically, mentally, spiritually. I had, I've been like very depressed and I had all these like physical ailments. From like chronic fatigue to terrible GI issues. And I did not know, like, what was happening with myself. So I actually ended up entering like a, my first treatment program. And, and in this program I'm like. As many people do when they decide to like, turn their life around, I committed to eating, like, very clean foods and just like changing my life from the inside out. So I started with my diet and I was like, okay, I'm gonna go hardcore Paleo, thinking this would heal me. In fact, I was actually getting much, much sicker.

06:00
Sam Lejfer
And like, I could not get out of bed. My stomach pains were so excruciating. And I, I had an almond milk smoothie with almond butter. And next thing I knew, I had a full blown anaphylactic reaction that like, nearly took me out. And I grew up in a household, were always aware of allergens. And because my younger sister has a life threatening peanut allergy. So it was something that's always like, been on like, top of mind for us. And then I was like experiencing it myself. It was very traumatic. And I did all the allergen testing after this. Like, I turned out, thankfully, okay, I'm here today. I'm a, I'm a miracle in many senses. And turned out I had several food allergies. So not just tree nuts, but soy, sesame, wheat, all tree nuts, peanuts and chickpea, if I didn't mention.

06:51
Sam Lejfer
So it turns out, like, I thought I was doing myself a favor by like this paleo diet and like eating a ton of almonds. And it turns out like I was poisoning myself. So I cut out allergens for my diet and throughout, like my whole, like, recovery journey, and it's been like a spiritual and like a quite literally physical recovery journey. Like, I had to really start being intentional about the things I put in my body. And I became like, obsessive about reading ingredient labels, starting with like my favorite food, ice cream. Like, I'm from Boston. We eat more ice cream per capita in Boston than anywhere else in the world. Like, we as a family, we'd go to JP Licks like every night. Growing up, like, it was just like the social scene. It was such a part of our culture.

07:39
Sam Lejfer
And after, like, I had this experience with the allergies, I could not find a product on the market that I could eat without getting sick. So most of the plant based alternatives, at least in this area, were made with tree nuts like almonds or cashews or soy even. So those were no good. And I also, like, have a sensitive stomach And a lot of these other alternatives, like even coconut, which I, I would continue to eat, were all filled with these inflammatory ingredients, like, dare I say, seed oils or these gums. Like gums. Truly, like every time I eat gums, like I, I feel it in my stomach. And then the worst offense is the sugar alcohols and the inflammatory sweeteners. Like every time I have a sugar alcohol like it causes such GI issues for me. And Inulin was the other one.

08:35
Sam Lejfer
So even if it's like organic Inulin, like at the end of the day, this is like for me at least a very inflammatory alternative sweetener that is very highly processed. And you know, after cutting out, you know, the allergens, the alternative sweeteners and the gums, there wasn't anything left for me to eat in the ice cream aisle. So that's really where Lucky Day was born. That was a very long witted answer.

09:01
Caitlin Bricker
I think you did well there. I'm following the story and I find it fascinating that you basically started from everything and then boiled it down to zero and now you boil build this brand that works for you, but can obviously work for other people. I was laughing when you were talking about seed oils because they're four letter words now. You just don't talk about seed oils with some people. So for you to be creating this ice cream that's now appealing to a massive population who is looking to stay away from seed oils, but it's also something that's self serving in a very good way is pretty cool. And the gums I find fascinating too, because gums are everywhere and I did not realize it until we talked the other day.

09:46
Caitlin Bricker
I was like, wow, I was looking at your ingredient list and I was like, this is so different from what I would typically eat when I grab something in the ice cream aisle. You aren't using gums, you aren't using seed oils. You've gotten this very simple recipe. Has there ever been a point in your journey creating Lucky Day where you've thought, okay, I'm gonna revert back to more conventional ways with ice cream because it just might be easier and it might be more appealing to other people. Has there ever been a point where you've considered that?

10:17
Sam Lejfer
That's a great question. Yes, there have been like a few times. So I guess I should say Lucky Day manufactures everything in house. So we have our own commercial kitchen where we produce everything, start to finish. And, and that's includes like our base mixes for all three of our SKUs and our inclusion. So two of our flavors. Our chocolate fudge brownie has fudge brownie bites and then our snickerdoodle has cookie bites. So we produce everything in house. And that's for good reason. It's because I did a long contract manufacturing search and which is a long discussion I can have. But we spoke with many and a lot of people in the industry and I think a lot of other founders and brands that have done this kind of search can probably relate.

11:07
Sam Lejfer
Like not every contract manufacturer is going to A pick up the phone for you and then B stop their, you know, their production with brands that are giving them continuous business to make room for your brand. Some startup that is brand new right off the ground trying to do something different, which in our case was not use gums. So we would speak with contract manufacturers and say we don't want to use gums. Like for me that is just like a non starter and for them you have to use gums. Like gums is a non starter because they've tried it before, I don't know how many times.

11:48
Sam Lejfer
But for them to like not use an ingredient that they're using in every single other one of their production that they know works well to stop their like their operation to just give this startup a chance that has no POS whatsoever, it makes no sense for them. And was I going to compromise on gums? No, because I don't think gums are a part of the future for lucky day or you know, just looking at trends and just like taking a step back and looking at like what's really good for human health. I don't see gums really being on the radar for long term human like functionality. I guess it's just like I don't see the functional purpose of it in terms of being a human being that needs to like operate in this world. So no gums. And the same thing with allergens.

12:37
Sam Lejfer
Like a lot of companies weren't so comfortable with the allergen aspect. Like I wanted to be able to make claims around allergens which we just couldn't with certain manufacturers. And the other thing was like we use whole food ingredients which I, I think is a huge thank you. Like I love that we use whole food ingredients. When I get raw materials coming in, I'm getting hulled hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds in its whole form. I'm not getting any like pre processed mixes, I'm not getting any. Even like ground chia would make things much easier. But I get the whole thing and for a Lot of these contract manufacturers, they just don't have the infrastructure in place to be like doing wet grinds of chia hemp and sunflower seeds on their facility. It's just not a part of their operation.

13:25
Sam Lejfer
Their job is to just oftentimes pasteurize a mix and then batch freeze it or continuous freeze whatever they have on site. So did I want to give up using whole food ingredients? No. But these are decisions that I made as CEO. It made it much more difficult. Like I could have. There were opportunities to go with certain contract manufacturers if I had compromised my values and like created a product that wasn't up to my standards. But I'm thinking at this, like, not just like, I don't want to be a one hit wonder. I don't want to be on a shelf for like one season. I want to be here for like a long time. And to me it's more important to like build a foundation, build some sort of infrastructure.

14:09
Sam Lejfer
For me, it's like a very small scale where I can do things the way I would say is right, do things the way that align with our values and build and grow from there. I'm not gonna like, yes. Getting on certain shelves of certain retailers is a part of our business plan and our dream. I would rather take things a little bit more slowly, do them right, prove it out, see that there's traction, then rush a product to market, burn a ton of cash to get there for a product I don't feel good about. And that's just me. Every founder, like their mission might be different, but at the end of the day, we're creating everyone in cpg. Not just lucky Day, we're creating food products that human beings consume and metabolize. It becomes a part of them.

15:00
Sam Lejfer
It gives them energy and nourishment, whether we like that or not. And I mean, that's the function of food. And like, that's a responsibility. And it's a responsibility I take very seriously.

15:13
Caitlin Bricker
I gotta say, when I was eating the sunflower chip last night, I had an experience that I've never had with ice cream before. And I mean, never. I've probably been eating ice cream since what, like, I don't even know what a fair age to start eating ice cream is, but basically my whole life I was eating it and I had maybe 10 spoonfuls and I was like, I feel good. I don't need to sit here and just mindlessly eat a pint of ice cream like I would have prior to lucky day. And I Posted about it on my Instagram story. So I'm glad you mentioned your retail relationships and what your plan is because I had several people respond and ask where they could get it. One was from North Carolina, one was from. I think she's living in New York now.

16:01
Caitlin Bricker
She's like, I might just have to order online. But right now you can't order online. So what is your plan? Because people want to get their hands on Lucky Day. So I'm just curious what Your retail and D2C strategy is for getting more ice cream into people's hands.

16:19
Sam Lejfer
Well, we would love to expand our retail and distribution footprint and it will happen over time. Right now you can purchase Lucky Day. We're at six local retailers in Boston. Cambridge Naturals has been a great partner. Shout out to my good friend Ikki Sargasson, who's been a great friend of Lucky Day and me personally. Pemberton Farms, Thistle and Shamrock, also in Cambridge. Deborah's in Concord, City Feed in Jamaica Plain, and then the Assabet Co Op in Maynard. So six stores in Greater Boston. You can also find us at several farmers markets. So if you're in Boston, that looks like the Natick Farmers Market, Central Square in Cambridge, Copley Square, Kendall Square, Brighton Farmers Market, Newton Farmers Market. So we'll be doing like the whole farmer's market circuit in Boston.

17:12
Sam Lejfer
And our goal is to really, you know, build our brand here in Boston and hopefully by 2026, 2027, we'll be able to expand into other regions. We just don't have, like, the distribution and like, operational infrastructure in place today for us to, like, reach New York or North Carolina. We are not doing DTC online. We're doing DTC in person. I have a lot of respect for the companies that can do DTC for us. Like, frozen shipping is cost prohibitive and from an environmental perspective, it's just like a lot of packaging waste. And I just don't like the amount of like, dry ice. I think that there's ways to like, use dry ice safely and. But I just have, like, concerns from like a, a health standpoint with touching that stuff.

18:06
Caitlin Bricker
Why am I not surprised?

18:08
Sam Lejfer
Yeah, well, I'm a little bit obsessive over the toxins and the chemicals, but. But I try to take my obsessions and put it towards something like, useful and productive versus ruminating and obsessing over things I can't control, which is something I used to do.

18:24
Caitlin Bricker
So I like hearing about how small scale you are because I think it is admirable. I Don't know if many people start their CPG journey and they're like, I just want to keep it local. I don't want to grow and be in massive retailers. I don't want a national footprint. So how did you actually start with lucky day? Did you create this just for yourself at home, or did you have this idea and know that it was something that you wanted to launch to the public?

18:50
Sam Lejfer
That's a great question. It started kind of like, as a selfish endeavor. Like, I bought, like, a tabletop or benchtop ice cream machine, and I just started experimenting, and then I just did a little bit more research. And like I mentioned before with the allergens. Like, I grew up in an allergen aware household. It's something that's always been on our mind. And I start. You come across, like, market research. And there's this McKinsey report that everyone in the allergen space loves to reference. But it. It finds that, like, 32 million Americans have food allergies, which is a lot. And then because allergies don't impact just like the people who have food allergies, it impacts everyone around them. So.

19:33
Sam Lejfer
So if you have a partner or a child or if a parent of yours or if a friend of yours has a food allergy, it kind of dictates what you buy and what you eat and what you have in your household or where you go out to dinner. So that report said that 85 million Americans are influenced by allergens. Even if they don't have allergies, it dictates their purchasing decisions. So, like, that number is 1 in 4Americans are somehow impacted by allergies. So from like, a. A market research perspective, we saw, like, an opportunity there. I start small scale because going back to, like, what I want for lucky day, like, you have to start to do, like, a national launch requires an incredible amount of capital that I just don't have, or I don't have, like, access to it either.

20:25
Sam Lejfer
I originally, like, did my business plan and business model. Like, it. It had, like, a national expansion by year two or three. Like, I worked with some consultants, like, very accomplished consultants in the industry. And, like, we built this whole business model that, you know, this national expansion, like, pretty quickly to get that national reach. That model had us burning two and a half million dollars of cash. And that's just so much money. That is so, so much money. It's like, well, how am I gonna, like, cover that gap? Like, I personally, Sam Laifer, does not have anywhere close to that kind of money to fund this. Does my, like, how strong is my network or am I just gonna like cross my fingers that some random VC fund is gonna like come in and save the day and like fund this thing?

21:17
Sam Lejfer
Like, as much as I believe in myself and believe in my mission, I'm just like a guy. Like I don't have like the business chops or the business resume to like go to a VC fund and say like, I'm gonna burn two and a half million of your dollars, but we're gonna come out on the other side. Like, as much as I believe in this, that's just like not a sound, rational like, business plan. And on top of that, like that VC model that we built is just not really, I think what I want to do. Because I think that when you grow so big like that and you're taking a lot of outside capital, your investors are going to want a return on their investment in a certain amount of time.

22:00
Sam Lejfer
And in order to do that, you might have to like make some compromises. Like I would need to get my costs down significantly. I need to get my costs down, period. Like, that's just running a for profit business. Like I need to get my costs down. But to really scale it and see the types of returns that a lot of investors are expecting, I would need to like, seriously like reformulate. And that was not something I wanted to do. So I've altered my business plan to something that's just like a little bit less of a crapshoot. The success rate of CPG brands of startups is not great. I know several CPG founders that like, over the past two years, it's really hard, but they've had to close their brands, close their business.

22:49
Sam Lejfer
It's a business at the end of the day and I would rather see this thing play out as long as I can, doing it as much my way as possible and giving like this current like vision a shot.

23:05
Caitlin Bricker
I'm curious because you mentioned that you're just a guy, but you're a guy that's doing something different. So talk to me about how fear and courage and even ego might play into the entrepreneurial journey. What do you have to shut down and accept on this journey?

23:23
Sam Lejfer
As a founder, These are questions I deal with every day. Like fear. Fear can make or break you and oftentimes like, it will break you because there's so much uncertainty in this, I mean, in life there's so much uncertainty and I've just like had to like push through my fear or just address the fear and avoiding it isn't going to do anything. Or masking it isn't going to do anything. It's. I gotta face it full on. And that it's going to mean, like, fear of failure. I mean, like, this thing might fail or something might flop, but I have to just, like, let go of that fear and give it a shot. If I'm held up in my fears all day long, like, I know what that looks like. It looks like what it looked like before I was in recovery.

24:08
Sam Lejfer
I was just, like, alone, isolated, in bed all day, just, like, riddled with anxiety. And now I need to, like, address these fears. And that looks like something different depending on what the situation is. But I guess, like, the fear of, like, not, like, going back to the contract manufacturer. I was so, so set on finding a contract manufacturer to produce this product because I have no kitchen experience or production experience. Like, it just made total, absolute sense to outsource this. Getting over the fear of, like, what does this look like if a co packer doesn't do it? What does this look like if I do this myself? That is something I had to let go of. And then I. I've turned this into just like, my superpower. Like, it is epic that we are doing this in house.

24:57
Sam Lejfer
Like, I don't have to compromise on these things because we're doing everything in house. And a big thing going back to that was just, like, ego. It's just like, I thought I was gonna lead this brand in a certain way. Like, I had a particular vision for what it was going to look like. It looked like I was going to use a contract manufacturer, at least in the beginning. And putting my ego aside and taking a step back and just looking at things holistically, like, zooming out and stop thinking so much about, like, the optics of, like, what it looks like to manufacture in house or how is this going to look like from year one? Am I not going to have that big bang of a launch the way I wanted to?

25:40
Sam Lejfer
Once I just, like, let go of that and started thinking big picture, then I was able to, like, make this decision and move forward. Because it was months and months of just thinking things were going to be one thing and accepting that it was not going to be that.

25:56
Caitlin Bricker
Well, I'm sure that's going to resonate with a lot of founders. I think a lot of founders feel isolated on this journey. Or I've heard from a lot of founders that maybe their family and friends just don't understand why they're doing what they're doing and don't really have faith in them. I have really enjoyed speaking to you. I really like the fact that you're sticking to your values and you're leading with purpose and opening up a brand new allergen friendly world in ice cream. So something I really like to ask founders is how did you find startup cpg?

26:31
Sam Lejfer
That is a great question. I. I don't know specifically what led me to start up cpg. It may have been like Google SEO, like just looking left and right for resources. It may have been my cousin who had a CPG brand. I don't know, like one of many avenues. I was looking at startup CPG and then, yeah, I think that could have been it. When I joined the Slack Channel, there were less than 10,000 people, so.

27:00
Caitlin Bricker
And we are close to, I think 28k right now. Yeah, that's really cool. So you've told us where people can find Lucky Day if they're in the Boston area. What about people who are not in the Boston area? Where can they follow along on the Lucky Day journey? Where can we find you online?

27:18
Sam Lejfer
Definitely. Follow us on Instagram @eatluckyday and on our website. You can sign up for our email list. We'll be actively sending emails out. I don't think I have single email yet. I just think that like the less emails, the better. Right now. I don't know about you, I just have. My inbox is out of control.

27:36
Caitlin Bricker
Completely agree. It's called a newsletter for a reason. You share it when there's news.

27:41
Sam Lejfer
Yeah, but I would love to figure out how I can get to because a lot of people out there have food allergies or gut issues or if they're like me, like a lot of eco or climate anxiety, I'd love to get them. Lucky Day. It's like finding a way to do that in the next like two, three years that doesn't compromise our values or require like an incredible amount of investment is going to be hard. But definitely follow along the journey and if anyone's ever in Boston, reach out. I'll hook you up with a few pints. I'd be glad to do that.

28:15
Caitlin Bricker
Amazing. And maybe it will be out of the back of your van like I got the other day.

28:21
Sam Lejfer
Exactly. Well, hopefully in like two, three years, that van I'm driving is going to be an electric van and there'll be a window where I'm serving that ice cream from.

28:32
Caitlin Bricker
I see the vision. Sam, thank you so much for joining us. It's been so fun talking to you. I'm really excited to see where Lucky Day ends up locally and then who knows where you'll end up in two to three years.

28:46
Sam Lejfer
Thanks so much Caitlin for having me. I hope you to see you again soon too.

28:49
Caitlin Bricker
I'm sure you will. I need to re up.

28:52
Sam Lejfer
Yeah. Bye. Bye.

28:58
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 Caitlin Bricker, the host of the Founder Feature series and editor at Startup CP. 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.