The Startup CPG Podcast


Think Misfits Market is just a place to offload short-coded inventory? Think again. In this episode, Daniel Scharff sits down with the Misfits Market buying team — Steve Edelman, Jessie Kimsey, and Emma Dineen — to pull back the curtain on the "new" Misfits Market and what it really takes to get your brand into their curated assortment.


From the treasure hunt experience they've built for subscribers to the live brand pitching session at the end, this one is packed with insight for any emerging CPG brand looking to crack e-commerce.


You will learn:

  • How Misfits evolved from rescued produce to a tightly curated grocery destination of ~1,100 SKUs
  • The three pathways to get on their platform: opportunity buys, LTOs, and replenishment
  • What a winning pitch email actually looks like (hint: know their assortment before you reach out)
  • Why transparency about your pricing, MOQs, and operations matters more than a perfect margin
  • What categories they're actively looking to fill right now: dairy, frozen, charcuterie, and more
  • Why some brands that underperform elsewhere absolutely soar on Misfits — and the "1 in 1,100" advantage
  • Live brand pitches from the audience — and which ones made the Misfits team's eyes go wide



Episode Links:

Brands who pitched:

  • Vital Halva — Brooklyn sesame bar, 19g fiber, 12g protein: https://vitalhalva.com/
  • Veggie Vice — Freeze-dried veggie chips (zucchini & salt, broccoli sour cream & onion), viral on TikTok: https://www.veggievice.com/
  • Nout — Macadamia nut butter with black sesame and matcha: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nout
  • Aveyo  — Avocado mayo made from actual avocados, 75% less fat/calories than oil-based mayo: https://www.aveyolife.com/ 
  • Little Gourmets — Fresh, veggie-rich, globally inspired baby food: https://lilgourmets.com
  • Ptashka — Fully cooked frozen sweet & savory crepes: https://www.ptashkacrepes.com
  • Pezzy Pets — Pet treats made from invasive species sourced from fishermen and hunters: https://pezzypets.com/
  • SAYSO  — Stick pack cocktail/mocktail mixes, dehydrated, low sugar: https://drinksayso.com/
  • Reclamation Foods — Upcycled Korean-style bone broth, shelf stable, jiggles in fridge: https://reclamationfoods.com/
  • Pantry Gems  — Single-tablespoon tomato paste portions: https://pantrygems.co/
  • OH MY!  — Spoonable dessert butter in jars and squeeze pouches, gluten/dairy free: https://eatohmy.com/collections/dessert-butters
  • Hot Girl Sauce— Squeezable chili oil bridging chili crisp and hot sauce categories: https://thehotgirlsauce.com

Reach the Misfits buying team directly: 📧 procurement@misfitsmarket.com


Connect with the guests:


  • Misfits Market Website: https://www.misfitsmarket.com/
  • Stephen Edelman, Sr. Director Category Management, Misfits Market 
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenedelman/
  • Jessie Kimsey, Associate Director Vendor Strategy & Category Innovation, Misfits Market
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-kimsey-80023266/
  • Emma Dineen, Category Manager, Misfits Market
    Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmadineen/
  • Shop Misfits Market: https://www.misfitsmarket.com/hp58

Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.

Show Links:

  • Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)
  • Join the Startup CPG Slack community (35K+ members and growing!)
  • Follow @startupcpg
  • Visit host Daniel's Linkedin 
  • Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.com
  • Episode music by Super Fantastics

Creators and Guests

Host
Daniel Scharff
Founder/CEO, Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Steve Edelman
The earlier stages of Misfits, we had a lot more of those closeout opportunities that came in there. That's been part of that evolution, where there's a facet of that still exists within our site that's part of the opportunistic side. A larger part of our assortment's actually moved away from that. And that's where when we talk about bringing in, working with brands, if you want to bring in a closeout opportunity, we will 100% take that opportunity, discuss it with you, decide if it's the right fit for our customer. But I want you to think about us as more than that now.

00:40
Daniel Scharff
Hello, friends. Are you ready to learn about the new Misfits Market? We recently got to do a webinar with their buying team, and oh, my gosh, was it good? We got to learn all about what goes in their boxes. How do they look for brands, what are the opportunities out there that you can apply for, and what is it like to work with them? Although this was originally done as a webinar, it's going to work great as a podcast. And even at the end, we have some brands live pitching them, so look forward to that. All right, here we go. Hello, everybody. I'm Dan Yon, the founder of startup cpg, and I'm so excited to be here with our friends from Misfits Market today. Probably a lot of, you know, Misfits Market, probably you've applied to try to work with them at some point.

01:24
Daniel Scharff
And today what we really want to do is just demystify how they work, who their shoppers are, who their team is, and also really welcome what I would call the new Misfits Market, because there have been a lot of really exciting changes here that I'm excited for all of you guys to hear about. And I'm also excited that at the end today, we might have time for a couple brands to quick pitch this team as well. So stay tuned for that. But just to kick us off, Steve, could I pass to you to start up the introductions and also maybe you could tell me a little bit more about what is this new Misfits Market?

01:55
Steve Edelman
Yeah, no, absolutely. So my name is Steve Edelman. I am the senior director of Grocery category Management. So I oversee the whole category management team here within Misfits. I'm going to pass over to Jessie and Emma and then I'll kick us off right into the what about Misfits?

02:10
Jessie Kimsey
Yeah, I just want to say hello to so many familiar names in the chat. I'm so giddy right now just reading through. So hello everyone. I'm Jessie Kimsey, the associate director of vendor strategy and category innovation here at Misfits and I focus on finding and launching great brands, especially emerging ones like you and really partnering on a lot of successful go to market strategies so we can have a win partnership.

02:37
Emma Dineen
Awesome. Hi all, I'm Emma. I am one of the category managers. There are five of us running this whole ship. So on a day to day we're looking at our category performance including our assortment, healthy launches and just overall items, how they're performing across replen ltos and opportunity buys which we'll get into.

02:57
Daniel Scharff
Emma, what are your categories?

02:59
Emma Dineen
I manage Dairy alt beverage and coffee and tea.

03:02
Daniel Scharff
Those are some good ones. All right. Okay, Steve, so back to you because I really am interested. I've known about Misfits for a long time and I think probably the early days my impression was more that it was really focused around things like produce and rescued items and you know, short coded stuff. But I know there's been a big evolution. Can you tell us more about it?

03:23
Steve Edelman
Yeah, no, absolutely. We even evolution has evolved since I've been here. I've been here just about two years now. We did start that way. We started out with rescue produce, getting in surplus products. But where we've evolved, especially over the years, really creating a tightly curated assortment. An assortment that is built around unique finds, products that can come in but also helps to build that reliability for our customer. Where went from a lot of opportunistic buys into a really strong replenishment assortment that allows the customer to build those routines and.

03:52
Steve Edelman
But what we found a lot of success in is also through these unique, innovative items that allows our customers to constantly come in and find this treasure hunt experience that has done really well for us, which is, you know, Emma's been a great addition to the team and getting that for the beverage team. But one of the biggest evolutions we had was transforming Jessie's role last year into really focusing on small brands and innovation and making sure that we always have our polls on what's next. And while we do care about our mission and we still play in those spaces in rescuing, it allows us to really be able to bring in newness while still being mission accretive across the different platforms.

04:30
Daniel Scharff
That's cool. It sort of sound when you say it like that, it sounds to me like yeah, you can get all that stuff. But also it's like stitch fix, but for cool new brands. Like you can get a lot of cool new stuff and wrote to try new things. Is that a good way to think about it or is that not right at all? I don't know if you guys use Stitch Fix, by the way. You look pretty fashionable, so maybe, yeah,

04:48
Steve Edelman
I think when you think about Stitch Fix, it's all about curation and that's what we do really well is making sure that we're getting a curated assortment. And even as we've been thinking about the feedback that we're getting from our customers right now, it's the assortment that is getting people in there and what's driving them. And all of our cms, not just Jessie, have done an amazing job of curating small brands unique items into there. And because we are curated, we're constantly rotating as well, which means that you get higher exposure which when you're on our site. But our customers get exposed to thousands of items throughout the year, which keeps them coming back in, excited to see different flavors, evolutions of products.

05:24
Daniel Scharff
Okay, so from shopper perspective, you guys have a subscription box, you can change things. What are they typically ordering, what kind of frequency, what kind of products are usually in their box, how do they assemble it?

05:35
Steve Edelman
Yeah, so we have a couple elements that come in within the box. We have a weekly and a bi weekly customer that comes in here. With the customer we have the ability of doing your auto recurrence just like you would have. So the customers add their favorites in, it's automatically added into the box. But one of the cool things about us is we have an algorithm that tracks how the customers are shopping and allows us to put items that they haven't seen before, infuse them into their box automatically. So when they come in, they get a box built for them based on their tastes, their preferences, innovations, items that we want them to see.

06:07
Steve Edelman
And then from there they go through and they build their boxes in order to get to their overall subscription, which is, you know, they all have their own unique delivery day. So we become very much part of their routine. And a lot of our best customers, we're the start of that. So we get to start their foundation of what they're going to go after for the remainders of their shop.

06:25
Daniel Scharff
I love it. Okay. That's very exciting for brands. And probably if you're an emerging brand and you're listening to these folks talking about this, you're cheering because you're like, that sounds like more opportunity for me. And, and you know, like we love rescue produce and just having a way to use some of the short coded inventory also that I love that. Cause there's no greater waste in this world than a brand having to pay to destroy product because it got to the expiration date. That's like the saddest thing ever. So it's amazing you can still do that. But also hooray. Also way more opportunities for emerging brands with you guys. So I hope everybody joins me in cheering for that.

07:01
Daniel Scharff
So Emma, Jessie, I would love to just ask you, on top of everything that Steve just said, before we get into some of the more details about you guys, is there just something you would like to share with everybody about misfits? Like here's something I want all of you brands to really understand about who we are, what we're like. Emma, I'm going to start with you.

07:18
Emma Dineen
Yes, I would say just to add on to Steve's point. Our goal overall is to have a very curated assortment that makes just shopping easier. We want to take away that just overload of decision making that you have in a regular brick and mortar grocery store and have the customer really trust and know that we are vetting our products and offering you the best staples possible per category and just matching their values overall. And beyond that, when it comes to newer brands, we also are giving them an opportunity to be on our shelves earlier than when they would see them at a regular brick and mortar. So super curated. And Jessie will get into that a bit more too.

07:58
Jessie Kimsey
I like to kind of piggyback on what Emma was saying, like to give perspective to how our platform like how big it is compared to walking into a brick and mortar where you're faced with like 20, 30, 40,000 SKUs. We have 1200, 1100 I think ish in groceries. So we really do put a lot of effort into putting forth what our customers really want to see their values led, they want discovery, they're curious. And so pairing that with strong go to market plans that match goals and budget like both ways using like proven merchandising tactics that we know drive, trial and repeat. That's how we want to help brands win. We want it to be like low barrier to entry. We aren't strict pay to play. We have great options to really help brands launch, learn quickly.

08:52
Jessie Kimsey
And really we have a great marketing team to help us as well. They're wizards so helps bring the story to life.

08:59
Daniel Scharff
So I think that's a good segue to ask what everybody, the couple hundred people who are on this webinar currently would like to know, which is how do I get to be one of those 1200 SKUs in your assortment, what are you looking for? What are the kind of brands or certifications or qualities that is going to make a brand a great fit for the new misfits market?

09:21
Steve Edelman
Yeah. So I'll start at the high level and sort of like where we look at it and I'm going to pass it over to Emma and Jesse as well just to go through what they see and how they review from the CM side. One of the easiest ways to get in through is we have an email box is procurementispitsmarket.com that email actually comes directly to me in my inbox. So I review that for the whole team and as we see brands come in I will parse that out. My request is if you're sending in through that, just give me more details, tell me your story. I love to hear the stories because that's where it allows me to be able to vet that and send that over to the team.

09:52
Steve Edelman
The secondary pieces are the trade shows which we go to almost all the major trade shows and we're even picking some on them up as well which allows us to be able to go see, get the pulse on the market, what's coming in. And the team comes back and spends a lot of time vetting the products that they saw, deciding where it falls in and that allows us to play in. We typically have three areas to get into the assortment. We have our op buys which are quick in and out pulses. They come in and out 4ish weeks. Our LTOs that come in seasonally plays limited time offerings, they're to come in and then we have our replenishment skus where we're going to bring them in, build a repetition which gives us a lot of levers for products to be able to come in.

10:31
Steve Edelman
So if you're new, you're exciting, you want trial, we can bring you in a trial element and then build you up so that we're not over investing but not underinvesting as well. And we can get you that feedback and help you grow and evolve as well as a brand. As we're learning from you can learn from us.

10:46
Daniel Scharff
Okay, so just to clarify, so the first one up buys that would be opportunity buys meaning that actually could be that category of short coded inventory. And so if you have that definitely you can email their team with information on it. It is nice if you give them the full info that they need. Pro tip for people like where is it? How much of it do you have? All of that critical info that they're going to have to ask you anyway, so might as well put it in the initial email to them. The second one you said lto. So that could be limited time offerings like flavors for a particular season or product that might be right for the holiday season.

11:19
Daniel Scharff
Stuff like that you're going to need to have in your assortment for what your shoppers are looking for around some of those key holidays or summer grilling season or Halloween, stuff like that. And then the third one, which is what most brands probably are always looking for is replenishment, meaning semi or permanent items that you keep in the assortment that you can sounds like maybe try first to see how it goes if it really resonates with people but hopefully look with an eye toward maybe the brand can get permanent placement with you be one of those 1200 slots. Was that a good summary of it?

11:51
Steve Edelman
A hundred percent. And a lot of our brands actually play in multiple spaces. Well, we'll anchor the brand in with a replenishment skew and then rotate in opportunistic skus ltos. This way there's constant innovation and excitement for our customers and they know they can always find you. So that's a nice sweet spot that we offer is the ability to really give a lot of exposure to your portfolio but in a much more directed way.

12:13
Daniel Scharff
All right, perfect. Jessie, Emma, anything you want to add onto the that question what kind of brands you're really looking for? More from the CM and assortment perspective, Maybe for the replenishment side.

12:25
Emma Dineen
I think just overall the biggest factors that we're looking at for assortment decisions are probably pretty self explanatory. We're starting with the fundamentals of just taste, ingredient integrity, quality and just overall impact from there. This is I think goes for Jessie as well. Like we want to look at a product with a clear lens on discovery and innovation and just making sure it has like a very specific role that it should be playing within our storefront. So there are a few different factors there. Like it could be a discovery driver which would fall into like innovation, newer to market brands, category expander. Like Jessie said before, like our assortment is so tight and small sometimes we may not be covering a subcategory within pantry or anything dairy. There's some spots that we're trying to play into but logistically a little bit more difficult.

13:13
Emma Dineen
And then lastly like trade ups as well. Like that's what's so exciting about being able to test with smaller brands is we could jump on a product that may already exist in our assortment. But this alternative May be unique in format, flavoring, overall functionality and just still be differentiated from the existing product but offer a nice alternative to the customer that may be already buying that and potentially they may come back and buy both products still from there I think we then like validate the fundamentals. So looking at the price value, fit, margin of course and then like expected velocity within the subcategory and also supply reliability, we'll get into that a little bit more. But we want to make sure that we're in a good spot.

13:57
Emma Dineen
Although we're partnering with smaller brands, we want to make sure that like they are ready to be at the scale that we're at before moving forward. And then lastly just choosing the channel that we think is the best launch path. So like Steve said, deciding if a brand should automatically be replen, whether it's worth just having as an LTO to see if it really sticks and is worthy of a continuous trial and then those opt buys just making sure we're always jumping on good deals to incentivize the customer to come back, be able to capture value and of course just overall helping us fight food waste, which is the ultimate goals.

14:31
Daniel Scharff
Emma, what does the perfect email pitch to you look like? I just feel like also when you're looking at something like mishits, you can go on the website and just see what's in the assortment. And for me as a brand I would be approaching it like dear Emma, here's my brand. It's the only brand that does this. We're doing really well velocity wise at these retailers. By the way I looked at your assortment, I noticed that in my category you don't have anything that uses avocado oil. That's the thing that we have. It should be incremental. You have that hole in your set based off how you were talking about it. That's like how I'm reading. Like yeah, we can just present you with stuff that you're missing, maybe that you might not even know about.

15:05
Daniel Scharff
Is that a pretty good way to approach you?

15:07
Emma Dineen
Absolutely. Yes. I think you nailed it. We are, like I said, a very value driven business. Like we want to partner with brands that are aware of what we stand for and similarly like have the same values. They're looking at our assortment, they're shopping it, they're understanding who our customer is. And overall, just if a brand is coming to us with the pricing, with the minimums where they're shipping from, like logistical details like that makes our lives a lot simpler to be able to analyze a product off the bat figure out if it's an easy fit and then is a much quicker just launch to market if we do think it's right for our assortment.

15:46
Daniel Scharff
All right, Jessie, you must have some thoughts to add on to this lively discussion.

15:51
Jessie Kimsey
I said I've been around the block, but I think I know our customer very well. So I think, like, when brands reach out, the understanding of, like, how our assortment looks current state and like, proving the need there for the product, like knowing your why and explaining that in a very clear and concise human way is really important. But speaking to our customers and how their values led. They care about impact and flavor and quality, and they're open to trying new things. They have really strong sense of curiosity. So that really makes misfits like the perfect launch pad and like testing ground really for emerging brands ready to build awareness and loyalty. And we have an audience that's across all 48 states, every single zip code we reach. So it is a great way to really test and learn.

16:42
Jessie Kimsey
We're a guinea pig retailer is what I. I usually say.

16:46
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. And pro tip for a brand, maybe that gets to the point where they're having serious conversation with one of the category managers. Maybe go try it out for yourself as a shopper, order a box. Worst case scenario, even if you don't get in the assortment, you still have a nice box of lovely food that you can enjoy. But I think that stuff can also really go a long way with a buyer. Not just to ingratiate them and say, look, I buy your product, but just so you understand, because you will have insights from having received the box and shot the assortment, that you can relate to your brand and how you can.

17:17
Steve Edelman
Be a good fit.

17:17
Daniel Scharff
So one question that came in through the chat was around the economics. And so I wonder if maybe you guys could give a little bit of an overview of how does it look like to work with you, maybe dependent on which one of those opportunities you're actually looking at. So brands have a good idea when they're approaching you, what does it look like, how does the supply chain work, all that stuff.

17:37
Steve Edelman
Yeah. So I'll take a start in here and then I'll pass it over because Jessie, the side that she looks at on the innovation may have a slightly different lens. Similarly with Emma when it comes in. And the unique thing about us is that, as Jessie said, we're not a pay to play requirement to come in with us. The nice thing about coming in a highly curated assortment is you're already getting increased visibility. We have four fulfillment centers outside of BWI, Chicago LAX as well as San Antonio which covers the 48 contiguous states. So when we think about the items that you're going to come in, when you come in, you start working with. As Emma said, we're going to want to understand your MOQs because we have our category management team and then we have our inventory planning team.

18:16
Steve Edelman
And what they're going to do is they're going to take a look at your product, where it fits in and get an idea of what your forecasted volumes are going to look like and where you're necessarily going to be the fit. And some vendors come in and they come to all four FCs. Some can come in hyper fits in certain locations, especially if they have flavors that are more prevalent to be able to come in when you meet with the cm, you'll start out with them and then we do go through other packages and opportunities that allows you to be able to enhance your experience with us. But from there I will say the cms are major advocates for all the brands that come in. It's been one of the things I've been the most impressed with.

18:50
Steve Edelman
The team that we do have is how much they ingrain themselves in their relationships with their brands, the products, the flavors. So it's really coming in, getting to know them, get your product in there, help set that expectation because the CM is going to go to bat for you and then work with the inventory planners to make sure that you're getting that visibility. From there I'm going to pass it over to Emma to sort of walk through. Once you're with the cm, what does that look like from sort of like this setup and then the build out and going into launch.

19:18
Emma Dineen
Yes. So going off of that I think first like looking at a product, just deciding if it's the right fit, like through taste, quality, ingredients, everything. And then from there we'll kind of measure whether once launching an item is worthy of replenishment just depending on the repeat placement overall, just dollars of course, velocity that it's able to drive and just able to provide us with consistent value as and then for optvis and ltos we just really need like a clear reason to buy. And that's where like margin comes into play. Like we have our everyday standard margins that do vary depending on the category.

20:00
Emma Dineen
But generally with opportunity buys like we are looking for sharper deals, we own all of that inventory so even if it is shorter, dated, we're buying it out fully and committing to try to address the costing and sell through it in order to prevent it from becoming waste. So that's a commitment we make as well. And then just the seasonality, like, that's generally like on a rotation basis. It could be like a packaging play as well. We started playing into Q4 seasonality a little bit, and those negotiations can start now or they can be in Q4 and we can be a lot more reactive. But overall, it is pretty dependent on, like, what role the specific product is able to play.

20:45
Emma Dineen
So I would definitely recommend people just to reach out to us directly with their economics and pricing and we can see if it's the right fit.

20:53
Daniel Scharff
That's super helpful. And for anybody who is paying attention to our retail tracker, you could learn from it that Misfits mainly likes to work with people direct. So there are a few big questions that have been popping up in the chat about do you go through Unfi Khee? What's up? I think you do typically want to work direct with people, especially if you're buying a truckload of short coded inventory. That's gonna be the most efficient way to do it. And if you're not on the retail tracker, what are you doing? Guys, go check it out. We have the review calendar for every single retailer out there. And for someone like Misfits, it says open because it's an open review, which is, hooray, good news, you can submit.

21:26
Daniel Scharff
So, Emma, like, I don't need to know your specific margins or anything, but I have heard in this channel, other closeout retailers, I've just heard, they have kind of a model of like, yeah, they really want to have a very low price for their consumers. I don't know. I think, like, this is not insider info, but, like, for someone like, I don't know, that big one in California, they like to have a 75% discount versus the retail price and they want a 75% margin, something like that, I've heard. Which means, okay, if your SRP is four bucks, then they want the SRP to be a dollar in the store and they want a 75% margin, which means they're going to pay you 25 cents for it. Which is not crazy in my opinion.

22:03
Daniel Scharff
Because if you're trying to sell short coded inventory, that's a lot more money than getting nothing and having to pay to destroy it. Should people look at you guys as that sort of realm of the world or is it going to be like, really substantially different from that? What's a way for people to just ballpark, think about it.

22:19
Steve Edelman
Yeah. So I'll start out there. And I think that's been part of our evolution. I think the earlier stages of misfits, we had a lot more of those closeout opportunities that came in there. That's been part of that evolution where there's a facet of that still exists within our site that's part of the opportunistic side. A larger part of our assortment is actually moved away from that. And that's where when we talk about bringing in, working with brands, if you want to bring in a closeout opportunity, we will 100% take that opportunity to discuss it with you, decide if it's the right fit for our customer. But I want you to think about us as more than that. Now we're looking at that curation of giving that excitement.

22:53
Steve Edelman
And I would say from the time of the imperfect versus misfits in the customer that is evolved with us, that customer has become as Emma's described, as Jessie described, a customer is really into trying unique. They trust us to curate the items, the assortment for them. Which means that like from an economics perspective, if you're pushing closeout product, we're going to discuss it in that way.

23:14
Steve Edelman
But from the other sides we're really looking at how do we build that value for the customer by bringing them unique flavors, Exploration and understanding that when you work with smaller brands and emerging brands, sometimes there's not going to be an economy of scale that exists on their end, which means that we're going to bring them high quality product, but it's a high quality product that's meeting them where they're at versus looking at a brand that is able to scale at a highly efficient way that's going to come at it with a much lower price point. Our customer has evolved to understand quality and value doesn't always need to be mass scale and therefore this ends work very closely with you to understand how that fits into our own economics where we can place you.

23:54
Steve Edelman
And we're very tight on what those slots mean for the customer so that we have a wide variety of ranges of price points and availability and accessibility to that. Which means if you're a product that is very high end, we still want to talk to you. If you're a product that is entry level but has great quality and a great story, we also want to talk to you. And if you're someone who's changing your packaging and you're looking to get rid of it, we want to talk to you as well. And that's where the guinea pig retailers comes in is because we can trial in many different ways and give you that exposure.

24:24
Daniel Scharff
Okay, great and tactical question, but you mentioned MOQs before for things like opportunity and LTOS is does it start at a couple pallets but it could go up to a truck or something like that. What are the typical volumes you might you've done with brands historically?

24:40
Steve Edelman
It'll be item specific. Again, that's where like we have products that come in the cases, half pallets, layers. Especially if it's something that we're trialing and testing it out because we also want our customer to expect the get it before gone mentality that you may get something, you may see it may be here today, not tomorrow. And then other instances where we're working with you where there's a high level of efficiency, we'll maximize the trucks and making sure that we're getting the best rates for our customers. So again it's the beauty of working with a retailer like us is that we are hyper flexible and because we're an e commerce model, we have the ability of turning ourselves off before we get to a point where there's a negative customer experience of adding in the box.

25:21
Steve Edelman
So if we start to get low, it becomes unavailable for purchase. So the customer that picks it gets it and they don't necessarily see all the sellouts and then we'll just order up more on the next wave.

25:31
Daniel Scharff
Okay, got it. So next question. Jessie, if a brand is lucky enough to get to work with you on the replenishment side, hopefully trying to get on that permanent misfits market placement, we love it. What do they need to do to actually prove that out? What are you looking for from that brand when they're trialing with you? Is it what kind of velocity do you want to see? What kind of support can they do give us all the good stuff?

25:53
Jessie Kimsey
I think you can kind of what we have to see everything in a timeline, right? Like 12 weeks of selling, you should have a good idea of like if there is traction and momentum and within that 12 weeks we can obviously look at comp items to see if it's performing within the commodity up to par. And as far as like what sells stands out to me, I want clarity and differentiation. Like give me one sentence, tell me what it is, why is it special? Who is this for? Know who you're targeting and then does it fit with our customer values? Of course. That's like number one. So has to taste good, thoughtful ingredients, unique story that's exciting and ultimately helping build a better food system. So we like to test and learn really quick.

26:41
Jessie Kimsey
So pricing and landed margins obviously like that is important to match our financial goals internally. But yeah, I think understanding that there's a level of maturity across those areas and then the backbone being like the operations. Are you ready to rock and roll? And if not be transparent because that's like number one for partnerships with me. Like you were speaking of unit economics. Like I want to know. Tell me and we will figure out what's good for me, what's good for you and what's good for the customer as far as pricing. So I just did a roundabout.

27:17
Daniel Scharff
That's good, that's helpful. So let me ask you another tactical question, but it's an important one. What is in and what is out in terms of like certifications that you really want to see or you don't care about kinds of packaging? Like yeah, we don't like maybe don't have a jumbo size or like we don't do glass or we can't do frozen. It has to be shelf stable. Yeah, some stuff like that like yeah, it's good for brands to know before they apply if they wouldn't even qualify based off some of those things.

27:45
Jessie Kimsey
We do have sourcing standards so we can follow up with a link on that. It's on our website. But obviously that is number one sustainable packaging that is nice to have. As far as like certifications go. We don't have strict requirements on that angle. But I'd say gold star if you're upcycled. Certified. Putting a plug in.

28:08
Daniel Scharff
I know you guys do like upcycle. I remember one year at Expo you did an upcycled competition to see who could come up with the coolest upcycled idea concept and that I think was very cool and ahead of the curve. Also since we're just seeing so many cool upcycled stuff really start to pop now.

28:25
Steve Edelman
One thing just to add on there just I heard you say we now do all modalities so we are ambient. We also do all chilled and fresh and we just launched frozen. So we are frozen within Chicago as well as our BWI market as well. So we are a full end grocery store online for our customers so they can get their full shop. There isn't any limitations. We have. We also launch personal care as well as household vitamins and supplements pets. So we cover not just grocery but all even the adjacency categories as well.

28:55
Daniel Scharff
That is awesome. Also shout out Maryland because I'm from Maryland and I just. There's not a lot in this CPG World that really comes from Maryland, so love that. Also, how does that work with the shipping, by the way, if I'm a consumer and there's dry stuff coming and there's frozen stuff coming, how do you actually handle all of that? What's the consumer experience of it? Is it different boxes, is it dry ice within the pack or those like, you know, refrigerated packs that come in?

29:20
Steve Edelman
Yeah, so I just got my box literally like an hour ago, so I just unpacked it. So our dry and our chilled will be in the same box, but they're separated out by. We actually have the ability to be able to return the boxes back. So we keep that sustainability element. We keep the ambient to the side stays out there. So they say dry. And all of our chilled goes in with ice packs in a sealed pack. That helps to keep it all cold and chilled for the items are going to get in there frozen. New innovations for us of launching that comes in a separate box with dry ice heavy insulation for the customers. This way the customer is able to get their frozen separated, they're chilled, they're dry all together and they're all be able to separate it.

29:58
Steve Edelman
Our operations team has done an amazing job of being able to curate those pieces together so that your chilled is always cold, your dry is always dry, and your frozen stays frozen.

30:08
Daniel Scharff
That is amazing. Do you guys have any other very cool initiatives like that coming up? Like where is this? It just seems like all of these cool features and capabilities you guys are adding on, it's going in such an exciting direction. Anything else on the horizon or in five years, where do you really feel like this is going to get to?

30:25
Steve Edelman
That's a good question. I think from like the horizon perspective, at some point it's going to be just continuously growing the assortment. So when I first came into here, were even more curated. I think Jessie, were about like 400ish items at the latter part of 2023, early 2024, and then we scaled up into the thousand 1100 SKUs. Right now our frozen assortment is between 135 and 150 SKUs with room to be able to add more onto that as well.

30:54
Steve Edelman
So part of this is as we're building it out is we want that curation, but we know that there's going to continue to be that meaningful growth into the assortment that allows us to be able to add more items, be able to hit some of those pockets and staples that we have with our customers where maybe they're not as much of a velocity, but they're a reputational piece so we have to carry them. But we want to make sure that we're able to move and be efficient in the other items. So that to me is the further evolution of what we get to is we get to continue to expand and add more items and hit more of those niche pockets.

31:26
Daniel Scharff
That's so exciting. And a lot of brands just started typing in the chat very excitedly also, like, what about this? What about this? I love to hear that.

31:34
Jessie Kimsey
Let's touch on some things that we did the past year that like and plus, we launched our program that gives subscribers deeper discount accounts, more value, and then we have a lot of stuff in the works with our own brand odds and ends. So as you talk five years down the road, like Impact is number one. We want to save more food. So what a great way to do that to lean into private label. We all know like the industry that's growing so quickly. So we're going to lean into that from a mission quality, value perspective. And then we are on the cusp of launching Snap. So which expands access. Accessibility is huge to us.

32:11
Daniel Scharff
So that's awesome. That's so exciting. I wonder if you have an example of a brand that you've onboarded recently that you feel like was just such a good fit for your shoppers and for your platform. Maybe you could highlight what that brand is or what it was about them that you felt like was just such a hit for you or made it such an obvious yes.

32:29
Jessie Kimsey
Oh, boy.

32:30
Daniel Scharff
I know. Just to put you right on the spot, I have a trick that I use when I am asking a question that you have no idea that I was going to ask is I just talk for a while, like I'm doing now. I'll ask the question right up at the front and then I just wander around and I go in a big circle just talking about who knows what. And then I come back and usually by the time I'm done asking the question, I've given everyone enough time to remember what their favorite new brand is. So, Jessie, I feel like you just got there.

32:55
Jessie Kimsey
Yeah, yeah, I did. So, June, pistachios. I'm going to shout them out. The fattest pistachios you've ever had. It's a joy to crack open these pistachios and just the taste is so forward and quality. And they came in to the partnership really eager to invest, like, really eager to understand what sort of success we've seen in other areas that we could like lift and apply to their launch strategy with us and it's been a huge success. So from that launch for as an example like we can really tap into and like copy a lot of that success for other spires but.

33:36
Daniel Scharff
Well, that looks good. I was looking at a June salt and pepper pistachios.

33:40
Jessie Kimsey
They have dill pickles. Number one.

33:42
Emma Dineen
I was gonna say Jessie, the pickles are my favorite.

33:45
Daniel Scharff
That looks amazing. I gotta try those. Okay. Emma, what about you? Do you have one locked and loaded.

33:50
Emma Dineen
I know I'm like, it's like choosing a favorite child, you know, it's very hard. But I think their beverage is a category that there's so much innovation, there's so much room for play and trial and just being able to like adjust an everyday habit into being more functional is something I'm really honing in on. Functionality in beverages at a total has exploded. We recently launched in January at least like eight new beverages that have all done really well. But like Laurels A two ready to drink lattes. Want to give them a shout out because that's a product, you know that's existed in the market as a ready to drink just canned iced coffee. But they put an innovative spin on it by offering it with a 2 milk which is better for people that are lactose intolerant.

34:40
Emma Dineen
It tastes delicious like the matcha chai and coffee concentrate is like true matcha chai, really strong and delicious. The packaging's great and just overall is like a very aligned value and brand wise as a partner. Another shout out because I'm drinking it right now. All phenoms, Jessie and I are addicted to this product. So delicious. It hits all the points of lion's mane L theanine green tea. So it's more of like a stable caffeine intake. But yeah, overall I saw in the comments someone asked if we are willing to play into categories that essentially don't exist yet and that is definitely something we're looking for. Someone else I saw in the chat that I met recently at Fancy Fair. It's a sparkling bone broth which I will share. I know he's in here.

35:33
Emma Dineen
I was a bit hesitant to try because like that is a very strange concept but it's delicious. It's something that I could see becoming a part of like my everyday routine that you would never think that it would be a product to exist. So we love to jump on that. That's part of Jessie's new role as being our lead of innovation is really capturing these trends. These new to market brands that are really like breaking barriers within categories and creating new categories that don't exist yet. So that's something we get super excited about and is always on our radar.

36:07
Daniel Scharff
Okay. Someone said that the name of that one is Morrow.

36:10
Emma Dineen
Yes, that is correct.

36:11
Daniel Scharff
That sounds cool. I have got to try that. That's new to me and I see a lot of stuff and that's a brand new concept. That's cool. Steve, what about you? Is there one that you want to call out as a recent success? Something that you're obsessed with? What's in that box that you just ordered? You want to show it to us?

36:25
Steve Edelman
I should have done that. I should have kept it going. Honestly. I have a ton. I have to go to my sister's birthday afterwards. So I ordered a ton of things for charcuterie getting in today. So shout out to John, like the curation of new deli meats and the ollie stuff that we have coming into our produce team for the vegetables, especially the prepared ones because I don't have a lot of time to chop up their product and then odds and ends our products in here. I have a lot of our dips and cheeses that are going to go into there. I think in general from a brand perspective.

36:52
Steve Edelman
And one thing that I I've called out with a lot which goes into the highly curation pieces, we are finding that brands that maybe don't do as well at other retailers or are hidden just soar in here. And the one that I always use is minor figures as the example of they're a product that is above and beyond, you know, our best product in that category. And it is one that hides in a lot of the natural channel and the retailers. But even here when we've stacked it up against the big players, it blows them out of the water. And when you ask me what's in my box, I had three of those in my box.

37:24
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. Why do you think they over index so much with you? Not as much competition on the shelf.

37:28
Steve Edelman
It's because it's easier to find. And I you think about like were going through like the numbers of like with us, there's a 1 in 1100 chance of your product being found. If you're at a Super Walmart, there's 1 in 100,000 chance of your product being found. When you get it down into smaller categories in the way the curation comes in, you're only competing maybe against once or two, but you're on a level playing field. You're not competing against facings. And I came from a traditional background. I evolved into startups and E commerce before coming here. But here you're on a level playing field. You're stacked one up against each other. It's easier to find. Your story gets out there a lot better. And how you work with everything and how you work through telling your stories.

38:07
Steve Edelman
And the cms, it allows us to be able to elevate it. And I say this coming off of our Q2 go to market meeting where we literally are just shouting the names of all of the brands that are coming in and the stories and we get marketing hyped, we get psych merchandising hyped. And you'll see as you go through our website, we're featuring all of these little bulletins and stories and telling people about it. But then we get you out in emails and blasts and all of these, which really allows you to be able to succeed. And that's why when we talk about what works and what doesn't work, there are things that may not have work in the market or aren't supported by data that just blow us out of the water here.

38:43
Steve Edelman
And I think about one of the big stories for us was like Mezcla. Mezcla came in here, we built a really good relationship with them and they've been a really good mainstay for us of growing and trust and exploration that has allowed us to be able to take a brand that didn't have a lot of notoriety but was amazing, great quality and have them be a really big cornerstone. And that's what we're always looking for. That's where our evolution came is we're looking for those brands to really be able to explode on our site and then they get to become the mainstays and then we build our assortments around them.

39:15
Daniel Scharff
That's very beautiful. I love to hear that. And before we go to let some brands quick pitch, I would like to ask is there anything you guys are looking for right now though? Anything where you're like actually, you know what hole we have that I've identified, There's some white space or just something you need a lot more of because the products are really hitting in that category. Any needs, if you got a problem, you know, we'll solve it right now on them. There are probably some brands out here in the audience that have it, but anything you want to call out, Emma?

39:41
Emma Dineen
I do. I have a selective ass, which I don't know if it would be relative for this group, but running the dairy Category. My goal is to have a more regional strategy, so having more focused cheeses that are coming on the east coast from Vermont, in the Midwest, making sure we have the best Wisconsin cheese possible. Fresh milk as well. We recently launched a bwi, so that's a space we've never been able to play into before because of shelf lives. Just overall, like, very small windows that we're able to offer a product. But it's a big gap in our assortment.

40:16
Emma Dineen
So looking for more dairy expansion that is truly, like, as close to the farmers as possible, we want to highlight those stories, elevate brands that are hitting the organic standards and just upholding the high values that are hard to hold in the dairy category. So that's my special request to cheese, yogurt, milk. You can send those requests my way.

40:41
Daniel Scharff
All right, get ready. They're coming. Clear your inbox on LinkedIn, because it's about to get blown up. Jesse, what you got?

40:48
Jessie Kimsey
Oh, my goodness. Obviously, I'm looking over, like, what's innovative in every category within groceries. So, like, my eyes are wide open all the time. When we see innovation, it's such a big buzzword. Like, what does it mean? Do you introduce a new flavor or cuisine that really expands a category? Do you solve a real customer problem than what is already out there? Like a sea of average. And then sustainability led, like, upcycled, rescued inputs, like, that's something that will always stay, like, near and dear to our hearts. So. And it has to taste good. I think I've said that, like, four times now. But really looking for a lot, like, as we get into charcuterie, season hosting and picnics, like, anything that fuels that, what I like to call lazy gourmet, you know, lazy, like, special elevated convenience, kind of.

41:44
Jessie Kimsey
So really hopping on that. But. So that didn't really answer a category. Specific, but overarching.

41:51
Daniel Scharff
I like it. And it helped everyone get to know you better, which is a good thing. When they come to pitch you, they'll know what you're into. Steve, you want to add anything on to the wish list?

41:59
Steve Edelman
This is, I would say, the biggest request that comes to us from marketing every single day is the compelling stories, the reason, the why. If you're coming in here, we love talking about brands, and it's been the most impressive thing for me coming into the scene as I've been exposed to so many unique small brands that I didn't hear of or I didn't try. And what we're trying to do is really push them this year as much as we can. So when you're coming in, we're looking for the stories, the whys behind it, what gets you compelling. Because it's not just the CMS that are here that are doing this, but I will say we have a very passionate foodie team all around us between growth and marketing and support.

42:35
Steve Edelman
And I saw some questions on, like, what we do to support the small brands that are coming here. We'll tell your story, but to tell your story, we need to know your story and we will do that and we'll be your biggest advocates in here and then also making sure that your story gets out there.

42:49
Daniel Scharff
Beautiful. All right, I'm bringing in some people to pitch. Let's hear your 15 to 20 second pitch. And we're going to rapid fire try to go through a bunch of people. So we've got Dave up. All right, hit us with your pitch.

43:01
Dave - Vital Halva
I don't have a product with me right now because it's in the other room, but this is our Brooklyn sesame. Bar that loves your gut with 19 grams of fiber and 12 grams of protein. That's 15 seconds. I'm being really mindful of your time.

43:14
Daniel Scharff
Nailed it. All right, thank you and extra points for ending on time. All right.

43:19
Riddhima Kapoor
Hi, I'm Riddhima. I'm the founder of Veggie Vice, where. Freeze dried veggie chips. So literally just zucchini and salt and broccoli, sour cream and onion that you can crunch on the go. More super viral on TikTok and would. Love to chat more.

43:34
Daniel Scharff
All right. I like the ASMR component as well. Dave, you're up.

43:39
Dave Morley
Hi, guys. Hey, I'm Dave. I'm one of the co founders of Newt. So I have autoimmune disease. How to give up peanut butter. My girlfriend's Chinese love the black sesame dessert. It just wasn't healthy. So together we made a macadamia nut butter with black sesame. We also have matcha. So just trying to make a functional food interesting.

43:54
Daniel Scharff
Love it. You guys are so prompt. Really appreciated. All right, who is up next? We've got Tony. Come on down.

44:01
Tony
Hey, how you doing? My name's Tony. My product is avocado mayo made from actual avocados, not avocado oil because it's made from avocados. It is 75% less fat and calories. Than any oil based mayo. And I'd love to talk to you more about my getting my product in. Thank you.

44:17
Daniel Scharff
All right, Nice job. This is going great, guys. Our startup CPG brands are just well trained Shibani you're up.

44:24
Shibani
Hi, I'm Shibani. I'm the founder of Little Gourmets. We offer fresh, veggie rich, globally inspired baby food. And we're based on the research that shows the high correlation between our early. Foods and future eating habits. So trying to improve the food for our kids.

44:38
Daniel Scharff
I like that topic because I ate trash when I was a kid and I still love trash. And I see some people I'm very close with their kids and they're just letting them eat trash also. I'm like, don't let that what happened to me happen to them. Maybe give them some better stuff. All right, Keeping it rolling. All right. Jenya.

44:56
Jenya
Hi, how are you? I'm Jenya. I'm the founder of crepes. We have sweet and savory crepes. They come fully cooked, frozen. All you do, just warm them up, oven, microwave real ingredients, no artificial cause and flavors. And we have amazing flavors. Apple, spinach, mushroom. And I think it's 15 seconds. Thank you so much.

45:15
Daniel Scharff
I love it. I would crush those after a night out on the town. I'd come home and just nuke that whole thing and just destroy it. All right, Mike, you're up.

45:24
Mike Mitchell
Hi, everyone. I'm Mike. I'm the founder of Pesi Pets and we work with fishermen and hunters from around the world to turn invasive species into pet treats for dogs and cats.

45:34
Daniel Scharff
That'll show them for being so invasive. I like it. All right, thanks, Mike. Okay, and next we have got Allison.

45:42
Alison
Hi, everyone. We are say so. This is Lazy Gourmet for cocktails and. Mocktails, our brand new format of stick packs. Literally all you do is pour and. Stir for a low sugar cocktail or. Mocktail made with real ingredients. We're sustainable because we're dehydrated. We really believe the future is not going to be shipping water or glass. And these would ship perfectly in your boxes.

46:04
Daniel Scharff
All right. And she did just say so. I love it. I was telling you guys how good the audio is on this platform. Like you can just hear the grains in the say so just like trickling down. It's so good. All right, come on down. What you got?

46:17
Edlin
Hi, my name is Edlin, founder of Reclamation Foods. We make an award winning Korean style bone broth. We're upcycling bones from processors that would otherwise go to waste. We actually have two. We have an opportunity buy, but also replenishment possibly. We've got beef, pork and then we. Have old packaging that we kind of are getting rid of. That's the opportunity by we're also releasing a chicken flavor, and it actually jiggles in the fridge because of all the. Collagen content, but it is shelf stable.

46:43
Daniel Scharff
All right, good job. I saw some eyes go wide on that one. I feel like you said some of the magic words like upcycled. Okay, we're going to do a couple more here and then we'll have to wrap. So I've got Andy now.

46:53
Andy
Yep. Cool. How you doing? I'm the sales director for my forest foods. We specialize in harvesting whole mushroom mycelium to make a plant based breakfast meat. The bacon is the best selling thing in the natural channel across the whole country. It's really taken off. It's really clean. Five ingredients, and we do all the farming ourselves in upstate New York in vertical farming system, so it's very sustainable. Great use of acreage up there too. And we also do a my pulled pork, which is brand new. I don't know if you can see. That a little bit. Yeah. Got it upside down. Yes. There we go. That's our brand new item.

47:20
Daniel Scharff
All right. Nice job. Okay, Gina, you're up.

47:23
Gina
Hi, I'm Gina, the founder of Pantry Gems.

47:26
Oh, we're gonna talk. I'm really excited. So I'm doing single tablespoons of tomato paste because I cook a lot and I'm sick of wasting tomato paste. Usually use one or two tablespoons, and then you're like, what do I do with the rest of the can? So I came up with a solution that's never been done before.

47:42
Daniel Scharff
All right, nice job. You got it before you even pitched. Okay. Okay, you're up.

47:47
Amanda
Hi, guys. How are you? My name's Amanda. We do the first and only dessert butter. It's the first spoonable, snackable dessert in a jar. But we also just launched them in squeeze pouches, so all of our flavors come available for lunchboxes and anything that. You need when you're on the go. And gluten free, dairy free, no refined. Sugar, no seed oil. All good for you. And it tastes fantastic.

48:05
Daniel Scharff
It does taste fantastic. I just had it recently. It's so good. That is true. Okay, here we go. By the way, it works out pretty well. You'd think, just calling so many random people up from an audience, we don't even know who they are. You'd get some odd ones, but I don't know. People are always doing such a good job. I'm going to do the last one here. We've got Janice coming up, and I'm sorry for everybody that we missed. But there were so many people who wanted to jump up to talk to this awesome team.

48:28
Janice
Hi, I'm Janice. I'm the founder of Hot Girl Sauce. We're bridging two high velocity categories, Chili crisp and hot sauce. We're trying to drive chili oil out of being an occasion use category and really make it more approachable and just more fun for all consumers. We're also bringing in unique formats, really with the first squeezable chili oil. We also have a really unique flavor catalog with a habanero for chili oil as well. And we're really just a better for you made for everyone condiment.

48:56
Daniel Scharff
Nice job. Only hits here. Everything was a hit. I love it. So coming back to the Misfits team, anything, any commentary on the overall pitches you saw. They were great. Overall. Anything that you know stood out to you or that you want to comment on.

49:08
Steve Edelman
Fantastic pitches. Hopefully we get a list. I tried writing everything down as quickly as possible on this one. Honestly, the one that said that for me that I'm is the broccoli crunch, the sour cream and onion. Very curious on that one. I have a little girl who loves everything salty snacks and I'd love to give her broccoli instead of a cheese puff. So very excited to see that one.

49:28
Daniel Scharff
All right, Pantry gems hits on every customer value proposition that we have.

49:33
Jessie Kimsey
Egwene, I'm going to reach out on the bone broth because you did use every single buzzword in my head. Yeah. Nice. Cool.

49:40
Daniel Scharff
Emma, anything you want to add?

49:41
Emma Dineen
I mean no, I just, I loved everything. Not a ton that was touching my categories which makes it a little bit easier. But as a consumer I would love to try everything. Just want to say thank you to everyone. That was so interesting. I wish we could do that all the time. It would make our lives a lot easier. Sourcing wise. But excited to have a lot of great follow ups and discuss those products with the rest of our team and.

50:03
Daniel Scharff
We should do it all the time. So reminder to everyone, you can get in touch with the team. It's procurementisfitsmarket.com and mention the webinar mention you heard about them here or if you're listening on the podcast, mention that and I bet that they will give you extra special love when you do that. So I want to thank especially the Misfits team for joining us today. This has been really a treat and if somebody gets in with them because of this, let us know. It'll be great. All right, thank you everybody. Bye. Well, my friends, we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast, the top globally ranked podcast in cpg. As you may know, we're not just a podcast. We're a community of brands and experts. We're a community of brands and experts. And you should join.

50:48
Daniel Scharff
You can sign up @startupcpg.com you'll then get an invite to our online Slack community. You're going to hear about amazing events near you, all of our special opportunities to get you in front of buyers, investors, brands and more. It's a free community. So what are you waiting for? I will see you there or on our next episode. Bye bye.