#252 - The Rise of Laurel's Coffee: Whole Foods, Wegmans & 1,800 Target Stores in Two Years

In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Daniel Scharff sits down with Isabel Washington, founder of Laurel's Coffee — an A2 dairy canned latte brand bringing coffee shop flavors like Dirty Chai and Matcha to retail shelves. Isabel left McKinsey in February 2024, launched in August 2024, and has already landed Whole Foods, Erewhon, Wegmans, and a chain-wide 1,800-store Target launch coming this August. That's not a typo.

Isabel shares the full origin story: how her public health background shaped her "better for you" philosophy, why she spent her first six weeks at 40 hours a week on calls with anyone who would talk to her, and how she cold-emailed the Whole Foods refrigerated beverage buyer three months after launching — and got a response almost immediately. She also breaks down what A2 dairy actually is, why so many self-described lactose intolerant people may actually be A1 sensitive, and why Dirty Chai became their best seller at Whole Foods by 1.5–2x.

Daniel and Isabel also dig into the consulting-to-founder pipeline, the art of running parallel work streams instead of sequential ones, what it felt like to say yes to a national Whole Foods launch with $10,000 in the bank, and why she nearly took a terrible term sheet before waiting it out for the right investors.

Listen in as they cover:

• Why chickpea-to-oat comparisons feel familiar — and how A2 dairy works the same way for dairy drinkers
• The McKinsey skill set that let Isabel go from idea to retail shelf in six months
• How a five-sentence cold email landed a national Whole Foods authorization
• Why Dirty Chai outsells everything else — and what that taught her about flavor strategy
• The difference between what a Whole Foods buyer cares about versus a Target buyer
• What a national Whole Foods load-in PO actually looks like (hint: not what you'd expect)
• How DSDs helped her avoid the deduction and build-back chaos that kills early-stage brands
• Why she said yes to Whole Foods with $10K in the bank — and what she'd tell founders about that
• The Target launch, upcoming Costco roadshows, and what's next for Laurel's
  
  

Whether you're a founder trying to break into top-tier retail, a consultant thinking about making the leap, or just someone who didn't know they might not actually be lactose intolerant, this episode is for you.

Episode Links:

Laurel's Coffee Website: https://drinklaurels.com
Isabel Washington on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabeldwashington/
Laurel's Coffee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/drinklaurels/

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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.

Isabel Washington
What's been so great about our products, I think contributed a lot to our retail growth and authorizations has been there's not one thing that resonates so with Whole Foods. With Charlie, he was super bought into A2, believed it was the way of the future, loved what were doing. So that's kind of how he saw things. But the Target buyer, Allison, and her team over there, they really like the flavor piece. So. And now as we think about, like our growth at Target, what those future skus could look like, it's largely revolving around flavor, which I guess a 2 is just kind of a component of our brand, but it's more like what flavors are missing, what are global flavors? What are their buyers coming to stores to see it?

00:52
Isabel Washington
I think it's a very delicate balance between not having something so crazy like a blueberry snickerdoodle, and also remaining like on trend and true to our consumer.

01:06
Daniel Scharff
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the startup CPG podcast. Today we are talking to Isabel Washington, a former McKinsey consultant turned founder of Laurel's Coffee, which is an A2 dairy canned latte brand bringing coffee shop flavors like matcha and dirty Chai to retail shelves. She launched in August 2024 and already landed major distribution with Whole Foods, Erewhon, Wegmans, and has a huge 1800 store target launch coming up this August. That is such impressive growth. I wanted of you to hear how she scaled so early and broke into top tier retail. It was so much fun to talk to her. I Learned all about A2 Milk. We also chatted about what skills translate from management consulting to cpg. Okay, here we go. All right, welcome everybody. We have one of my favorites here. We've got Isabelle Washington from Laurel's Coffee. And Isabelle, I'm jealous of you.

02:02
Daniel Scharff
Let me tell you why, because I also ran a beverage brand at some point and I never got into Whole Foods. And you just showed up on the scene and it seemed like you were born right into Whole Foods. I was like, what? Geez, how did you do that? It's amazing. So can you start off with a little bit of intro about yourself and Laurel's coffee, and then I want to talk about how you managed to do that.

02:24
Isabel Washington
Of course. That's too kind. Isabel, of course. Founder of Laurels. We launched back in August of 2024, which feels like yesterday, but also a thousand years ago today. You can find us in Erewhon and Bristol Farms and Gelson's and Whole Foods, but it wasn't always that way. So been a really Great ride. Grew up in la, live in la, so west coast through and through. Happy to be here.

02:48
Daniel Scharff
Daniel. It's funny when you talk about time that way. Cause I'm like August 2024. I think if you're talking about calendar dates it feels like it wasn't that long ago. But if you're thinking about in the lifetime of an entrepreneur, I have shed my skin so many times since then and re evolved as new. I'm like, no, that was like 12 lifetimes ago. August 2024. Geez.

03:11
Isabel Washington
Yeah.

03:12
Daniel Scharff
Least I was a baby then. Okay, so as a former management consultant, I just love when there are other consultants out there getting it done because I really value a lot of the stuff that I learned in consulting that almost like nothing specific but also everything at the same time. So I wonder, can you just tell me a little bit about your overall background and especially what have that really maybe prepared you in ways for this journey even though I don't think anyone's ever fully prepared?

03:45
Isabel Washington
Sure. So I went to USC here in la. I was a public health major there. Had a thousand great internships everywhere from Amazon Pharmacy back when it was called that to worked in hospitals. Really love the public health system and honestly I kind of think that's where better for you overlaps. I'm a big believer in the dose makes the poison and that people should be more knowledgeable about what they consume. But you can have a little sugar here and a little fat here and a little seed oil here and it's more about moderation. So big proponent of that really got that for my education and then I joined McKinsey out of undergrad. A ton of consultants randomly are now in the CPG space.

04:26
Isabel Washington
So it's kind of funny to see how that's I guess a pipeline now, but worked with a lot of really great consumer brands, large ones like Gatorade and Barry's Boot Camp and a lot of really Lululemon launching their sneakers. So a lot of really fun consumer brands there. Got to see how these big billion dollar conglomerates think about consumer and obsess over details in consumer journey and how that's even relevant in the stages when you're doing ten grand a month in revenue.

04:54
Daniel Scharff
Okay. But I'd love to just talk a little bit more about management consulting and the skill set that comes from it. Because I think about it all where okay for me, gosh, I got put through the wringer. I did three years in management consulting. This was post mba and I came in so green. I didn't really know about anything. I didn't speak business at that point. But first, you just put in a lot of hours, right? And you're working on big problems. There's high pressure. And everybody who is directing you has done this stuff before. But I would just call, like, let's say the pace of work is very fast. And that's something that you really get comfortable with is just being able to, like, you don't have the luxury of.

05:33
Daniel Scharff
I think in some jobs that I've had before, of, like, oh, you get given a big task, like, oh, okay, I'm gonna, like, think about it for a while, and then I could, like, maybe put it off and do some other stuff and go for a walk and think about it. Like, no, I need this in an hour. You just sit and do it and like, oh, you don't know how to do it. We'll call someone and ask them how to do it and then do it. Like. So I think also the resourcefulness that you really are forced into because you might get put on a project.

05:58
Daniel Scharff
I remember getting put on a telecom project and they're like, just so you know, I told them you had five years of telecom background, and I was like, cool, I see there's a Telecom for Dummies book on your shelf. Could I have borrowed that, please? And then sure enough, you're like, on the project. But you just work so hard and you call every expert at the company that you really get pretty dangerous on that topic very quickly. So, yeah, like, pace of work and urgency about stuff, resourcefulness. And I think overall, what that kind of stuff did to me, is it actually, for better or worse, makes me feel like I can learn and do almost anything, even, like, maybe to a fault. I'm like, yeah, you, like, are we down a chef? I'll get in there, I'll do it.

06:37
Daniel Scharff
I'll chef some stuff up. Like, well, what do you need from me? I can learn it, but I think especially in this CPG world and to be a founder, I think it's a really good kind of discipline to come with because, oh, there's a lot of stuff in there. Like, you don't know. It's your first time through. You have to learn so much and problem solve. I mean, you come from one of the best reputation firms out there, obviously. Was that kind of, like your experience or other skills that you feel like you really brought along with you? I know McKinsey also is maybe, like, a lot more strategy than maybe the stuff that I was doing. So did that help you design the strategy?

07:08
Isabel Washington
Yeah. I think that you articulated it perfectly better than I could have. I think something and every time anyone asks me, because, you know, something I don't talk about a lot is went from idea. I left McKinsey in February of 2024 and we launched in August of 2024. So there's plenty of people who will spin their wheels on brands for two years. You see it on LinkedIn all the time. Like, I've been developing this for six years and the longest amount of time, and I think for that, in my first probably six or eight weeks when I had left McKinsey, I spent 40 hours a week on calls talking to anyone that would talk to me.

07:42
Isabel Washington
I mean, listening to this podcast, not even to kid you, listening to this podcast, reaching out to people on LinkedIn, emailing them, food scientists, coffee houses, like the leisure guys, anyone who would get time with me. And I think that is such a consulting trait. And I think that where a lot of people and the ability to make decisions quickly. I'm sure there's plenty of times where you were like, this is not my best work, but the client meeting's in 20 minutes and this is just what the client's gonna get. Like, sometimes you just have to put things forward and iterate, get feedback, constantly learning. Even to your point, were talking about like formulation issues earlier. Like, the product just has to be iterative. Nothing's ever going to be perfect. You're going to change Food scientists.

08:25
Isabel Washington
Like, I think that's just so much of a consultant perspective. That and the ability to email quickly. Even you and I will email multiple emails a day within the hour. It's crazy how long so many people can take to get back to you. Days, if not weeks. So I think there is a speed component there as well.

08:42
Daniel Scharff
It's so funny because I remember when I was in that time of life, maybe you'd work with a client or something and they'd be really proud of themselves. They're like, I actually make it a policy to get back to every single person within 24 hours. You're like, 24 hours? My whole life has changed in 24 hours. I'm like, on to the next project. Yeah, I need to know right now, like, what's going on? Just tell me. Yeah, it's a funny thing that's kind of hard to explain to people outside of consulting. But it's just the pressure is very real because if they've hired you, it's because the stakes are high and their expectations are high. And then the people who are managing you on projects, their expectations are very high because they're just like, well, I did that when I was at your position.

09:21
Daniel Scharff
You're going to work very hard on this right now. And like, what do you mean weekend? Like, what's a weekend? No, just work on this. It's so funny. I, like, I had no ability to set boundaries at that time and like, I don't know, I'm going like camping this weekend. I really can't work. Like, sorry. Like, you'd have to have something where you actually could not be connected to Internet. Like, I probably went sailing a bunch of times. I've never been sailing my life. But like, you know, that's like the only way you could defend not working on a proposal all weekend, even if you're not on a project. So anyways, I like commiserating with my former management consulting comrades. So I think that's really cool context because you didn't spend all of that stealth mode time that a lot of people do.

10:01
Daniel Scharff
You just decided, I guess, that you were going to do this and then went about being your resourceful, high pace of work management consultant self and then came out to market with something that really hit very quickly. So do you feel like it was a lot of that background that helped you just settle on something that was good right out of the gate? Like, how did you get to this idea and the key ingredients and the branding so quickly and effectively?

10:27
Isabel Washington
Yeah, I think another consulting term is work streams, where all of the things are moving. You're working on multiple things at once instead of like, I think I meet a lot of entrepreneurs all the time who are like, okay, so first I'm going to work on my idea for six months and then I'm going to work on my formulation for six months and then I'm going to do this the next. And all of a sudden they're 24 months down and still don't have a product in retail. So I think it was like, okay, you know, at 12:00 clock I'm meeting with my food scientist. At 12:30s, the branding, like, it's really just working on all of these things again, understanding that they all connect.

10:59
Isabel Washington
Like, you're not going to have your finished nutrition panels until you have your finished formulation, but you can have an idea and start working, especially recognizing that everything's not going to move as fast as you want to and that designers might take a week or two weeks to get back to you on a new concept, Everything moving quickly at once. But I do think that a lot of it was, how can I not overthink this? How can I get a V1 like again, back to consulting? Like the first version of this deck, at least an outline. And look for us, it was going into Erewhon pretty much like, I think we're on shelf three weeks after our first production run.

11:32
Isabel Washington
So getting into Erewhon and then thinking about it, spending a lot of time, I did like 50 demos in 40 days or something like that, getting feedback from all those people who would talk to me and then taking those learnings into our V2 of a product. And we launched a new package design in January. And constantly iterating to where we are now. And we're probably on V100 of the product, frankly, and there's probably a thousand more to go.

11:55
Daniel Scharff
I like that. The idea about the work streams and like pushing project plans resonates a lot with me also. When I first was getting more into operator roles in cpg, I remember looking at a project plan with an ops team and I'm like, how come you can't just start these four things already? Like, you don't have that info, but you're not going to have it for a while. Can't we just like start this and start that and like really pushing them? And I felt like it was the management consulting pressure of stuff that would like make me push them. And ops people, they will let you do that. Like they're like, yes, that makes sense, you can do that also. But ops people, they don't always like, try to offer up the very pressurized timeline that you would like for them to have.

12:34
Daniel Scharff
And so just like it helps you, I think, really like, I don't know, troubleshoot a lot of project plans that don't necessarily have the overlapping work streams that you and I like. So, okay, I am a very lucky boy because in front of me here I have a lovely lineup of Laurel's products. So can you maybe as I'm enjoying a sip here, could you just describe what I'm tasting for people out there? And I'm starting with the Laurels. A two dairy classic latte.

13:03
Isabel Washington
Yes. So we have three products, all are made with a two dairy gut friendly form of dairy. So it's actually the bulk of our formulations, about 50% milk in that. So very similar actually kind of to what a latte would be. In the classic. We have some vanilla extract, organic cane sugar, no artificial sweeteners or anything like that. So really trying to keep it close to what you would Actually get at a coffee shop if you went to one which is milk, sugar and vanilla extracts.

13:33
Daniel Scharff
So I'm not a milk expert, but yes, like when I taste it tastes quite milky. It tastes like very high quality milk to me. And obviously I taste the coffee in there as well. For me it's like pretty smooth, I would say. I mean I'm just looking then at the nutritional label. Like it's not overly sweet. Like I think some of the canned or bottled lattes can be like. I know, I feel like this is a safe space for me to admit as a teenager I was really into those Starbucks bottled frappuccinos. I think they might have 30 plus grams of sugar in. Right. Like maybe it's like a 10 ounce bottle or something like that. I mean they're like crack. They're, they're good because I think it's just like. Okay, yeah, it's just like a lot of sugar.

14:24
Daniel Scharff
You put that much sugar in anything, it's going to be pretty good. Like so I think, okay, I'm looking at your label, I see a lot less. So I think it's like 5 grams of added sugar. Yeah, a total of 10. But it just tastes very, it's like creamy and high quality and it's sweet in a way you can enjoy but not regret.

14:44
Isabel Washington
Yeah, I mean I think a lot of coffee companies try to add a bunch of sugar to cancel out the acidity of coffee. And obviously acidity oftentimes correlates with the quality of coffee. It also goes back to cogs at the end of the day. But those other processing agents, of course using full fat milk kind of helps add the natural sweetness, especially as it's heated through the process to bring out a little bit more of that caramelization. But I do think overall it's a pretty, I mean biased of course, but it was formulated to feel very balanced and you're not getting too much of any one thing.

15:16
Daniel Scharff
And can you tell me a little bit about a 2 milk? I did not know a lot about it before except that I think it was just always supposed to be one of the highest quality milks. Like when I worked in global chocolate, I was working a lot in China and there were just a lot of stories about how receptive the Chinese market was to a2 milk coming in from I think New Zealand. Interesting just because it was so high quality and everybody really trusted it and it was a huge thing. And now I think more because I learned about it through you using it and stuff. I just now I Understand, people look at it as being easier on the gut, I think, than some other kinds of milk. But can you just give me the A2 overview?

15:57
Isabel Washington
Yes. So at refers to specific beta casein protein. So all mammals are AT animals, including humans. It's why we can breastfeed. Sometimes people who can't drink like traditional dairy MOA can drink sheep's milk or goat's milk. It's because those are also A two animals. So it really refers to a specific protein that our bodies can't break down, which is called an A1 protein. Most traditional blends of dairy, you know, if you buy from Horizon or Clover, Sonoma or any of those will be blends of A one and A two. So a lot of people who think they're actually lactose intolerant are actually what's called like A one sensitive. They can actually find comfort a lot of times in drinking A2 milk.

16:40
Daniel Scharff
How would you know that about yourself? That's a, like, first of all, I find it kind of amazing when people even figure out that they're allergic to something. I would just be like, I don't know, my stomach hurts a lot. Like, you don't have an internal chat GPT to correlate all the things that you ingest and when you feel bad. Right. And I don't know, maybe a doctor can figure it out. But that's kind of amazing. Like, how would somebody figure out that they are A1 sensitive? But A2 is okay.

17:06
Isabel Washington
Yeah, I mean, no one ever goes, like, people call themselves lactose intolerant, but no one ever goes to doctor actually gets a test. Like, I think people are just like, oh, you know, I eat ice cream, my tummy hurts, or I get gas after eating pizza or something like that.

17:18
Daniel Scharff
By the way, I'm really worried that the answer here is that an influencer told me, but I think it actually might be true. Like, I heard about it from an influencer.

17:25
Isabel Washington
It could be. I'll usually tell people outside of the context of laurels, like, just go. You can buy really small, like eight ounce cartons of A2 milk at the store for three or four dollars. I usually tell people to just give it a try. I mean, there's so many A2 products on the market. And of course, like, people are already eating ice cream, they're already eating pizza. Like, instead of eating Ben and Jerry's, like, just go buy Alex and see if it hurts your stomach after. Instead of drinking LA cologne, buy Laurels, like, see if it hurts your stomach after. So I think There are a variety of products in the marketplace that people can try.

17:56
Daniel Scharff
I'm imagining an event series that you could curate that would be somewhat similar to when people go on ayahuasca retreats and then they're in a circle. And I've never done it, honestly, but from what I hear, you get administered the ayahuasca, and then a little time passes, and then absolutely everybody has a lot of stomach issues, and then, okay, there's an experience. So I feel like you could just do that, though, with the A2. Just like, okay, I'm going to be your shaman.

18:22
Isabel Washington
They're like brand trips to help you.

18:24
Daniel Scharff
Find out if this is actually just an a water, A two thing. Maybe some similar effects.

18:30
Isabel Washington
Yeah. Our new influencer event, we'll have to see.

18:33
Daniel Scharff
All right, I'll sign up. I think I'm good with most of it, but this does feel pretty good going down. Okay. And then I'm gonna continue my laurels journey because I have two other lovely cans here. So I've got in front of me Dirty Chai, which feels like a giving myself permission to do something kind of fun and dangerous. It's Dirty Chai. All right, let's go. Can you tell me about this flavor and why you decided to launch it? I know it's a pretty popular one for you.

19:00
Isabel Washington
Yeah, it's our best seller at Whole foods by, like, 1 1/2 and 2x in some regions. So it's not my favorite. If it honestly up to me, I would have killed it. So I'm glad that it lived to see another day.

19:12
Daniel Scharff
Why do you think it's so popular for Whole Foods? Do you think some people are choosing your brand based off that flavor, or do they like Laurels and then they end up coalescing around that flavor?

19:22
Isabel Washington
Yeah, I think it's the flavor piece because I think if you really look at the category, at Whole Foods, you only have the two SKUs. We have classic and Dirty Chai. So if you're looking for a vanilla type flavor, there's La Colombe, there's Poppin Bottle, there's Starbucks. But Dirty Chai is the only one on shelf. It's a flavor profile familiar enough to people. Maybe it's their favorite drink, maybe they've seen it at a brick and mortar coffee shop, but they've never seen it on shelf. So it's, like, familiar enough to Spark Curiosity. It's 3.99. You can pick it up. It's not a huge financial commitment, and I think that's really what's driving a lot. I mean, it is. It's what's driving a lot of our sales.

19:56
Daniel Scharff
It's pretty interesting to me to think about that because, okay, I worked at a company that had cookie dough that was in the fridge. And the number one flavor for you is going to be chocolate chip. That's just what happens in that category. And then you talk to the chefs of the company, and there are a million things that they could make that just maybe aren't going to get picked up. And like, okay, we also had a bunch of different kinds of mayo and dressing. Really obscure, incredible flavors that unfortunately, there's just not much of a market for. If this were on Amazon, we'd be talking about search frequency. Right. It's just sometimes people are just, yeah, like, okay, that, like, awesome sauce flavor that you have. What's up? Whatever.

20:39
Daniel Scharff
Is just like, yeah, it might be your chef's favorite, but actually, no one's going to pick that up off shelf. They're not looking for it. Whereas for you, it seems like it wasn't necessarily the best move for you just to go after the most classic flavor profiles. It's actually having something that's differentiated that is bringing you a lot of interesting customers and probably a lot of incremental sales to the set as well. If I'm the buyer looking at that, I'm like, yeah, I need this product on here, because there are a lot of people, if I don't have this dirty chai flavor, they're going to a different set, maybe.

21:09
Isabel Washington
Yeah. I mean, it's the Koia playbook. Right? Like, I feel like a lot of people, even if you look at that set, to kind of draw parallels. Protein, overwhelmingly. Mocha, vanilla. I think they're really the first ones in the beverage set. I mean, outside of, like, soda, obviously, but I guess in the more, like, milky beverage, to really innovate on flavor. And I don't have their sales data, but they do have the cookies and cream. They have Matcha. They have all of these flavors that I think brings in a consumer who doesn't resonate with the mochas and the salted caramels. Even in the coffee set, the innovation you're seeing with protein and lion's mane, like, it's still the same kind of flavor variation. And I think that does resonate. The Starbucks mocha Frappuccino is still, like, number one in the entire world.

21:54
Isabel Washington
But when you're thinking about what the next kind of wave of coffee drinkers are, people who are driving that innovation at the brick and mortar, it is the younger Gen Z female who's ordering like these crazy experiential drinks in the brick and mortar space. But they're not seeing any of that innovation. They get to shelf. So that's my big bet.

22:13
Daniel Scharff
All right. Okay. So now I've moved to the matcha latte, which is this lovely kind of mint color, which honestly, I'm not a matcha drinker, but this is nice and smooth. Educate me a little bit, please, on the taste profile for a product like this. Like the. Again, I don't drink a lot of Matcha on its own, but when I drink this, maybe the way it's combined with the A2 dairy, like, I sort of get a little notes of like mint. But I don't know if that's just because I'm looking at the color. A little bit of grassiness as well, but just. Yeah, still, like, overwhelmingly smooth.

22:44
Isabel Washington
Yeah. So what's interesting about matcha, I mean, it's a very complex plant. Every, like, it'd be very similar to coffee and honestly, probably very similar to yerba mate is how the. The light changes where it's grown. The soil. It just brings in so many different complexities. So something else that's interesting and unique about Matcha RTD specifically is that, and this is back to the iteration piece, is that ours doesn't have any green tea in it. If you look at pop and bottles, any of the other ones on shelf, they do because it gives it kind of a more balanced flavor. But I do think that there is something to be said. I mean, our Matcha Skew has so much matcha in it, so you are going to get a lot of that grassiness.

23:25
Isabel Washington
If you're used to a coffee shop matcha, it's gonna be way less sweet. So we're actually right now thinking about how we can kind of formulate it to be something that people are a little more familiar with on shelf.

23:35
Daniel Scharff
It's pretty good. I don't know.

23:36
Isabel Washington
It's my favorite. I love how light it is. It's really light.

23:39
Daniel Scharff
Tastes pretty good to me. I don't even really like matcha and I'm like, I can't put this thing down. Yeah. Maybe just for some reason, I do pick up kind of a little bit of like almost like mint chocolate chip from it with the creaminess of it.

23:52
Isabel Washington
Interesting.

23:52
Daniel Scharff
I'm just like, this is. This is delicious. Nice job. So when you talk to your friends now from the consulting world and they find out what you're up to and they're like, whoa, that sounds hard. What's that? Like what do you tell them about it? Like, what are the things that you've learned so far at this point in the journey that someone might not expect?

24:09
Isabel Washington
Well, they're all in business school so they're probably having way more fun and they're probably not jealous of me at all actually. But I do think I could probably never go back to corporate job and a lot of my friends who are at McKinsey and didn't go the business school route are looking for startups. It's just so tactical, which I think you can also probably appreciate in the way that I mean you're physically holding something, you can go to the store and see it on shelf, you can send it to your friends and they can experience it. That's very different. But there's way less thought that has to go into like how is this actually matter? You can very easily, if we go on promo, we're going to move this many more units.

24:47
Isabel Washington
If we go out of stock, we'll move this many less units. Like the thought, it's just such a shorter like thought pattern relative to consulting. I remember that there'd be so many things that we'd work on a year, 18 months in advance and I'd see the news one day and I'd be like, wow, it took that long for it to come to fruition. So everything just moves so much quicker. But also the stakes are lower in a way where it's not a billion dollar company but also a lot higher because it's my company, I want it to do well and I'm the sole decision maker and I want to do right by my investors. And it's just a little bit of a different thought pattern. It requires a lot of accountability in that way.

25:25
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I like hearing you talk about it that way. When I was in bigger cpg, I remember I would do, I was kind of like an internal consultant for a while even inside of the industry and I would do a clever analysis that would save us $30 million. And I would present it and everyone's like okay, cool. And I don't know, no one really cared. And then I was running my own brand and there was nothing that I was going to do for very many years that would ever have that big of an impact. But I would get into one chain of eight stores and we would friggin party like yes, this is amazing. It felt so good and everyone cares so much. Like the highs are so high and you just get to do so much, you get to solve so many problems.

26:10
Daniel Scharff
And it's sort of like if you've ever seen the Matrix with Neo and he, like, plugs in a cassette and learns a new skill. He's like, I know kung fu. It's like that. Every time you solve a problem, you're like, now I know how to do that. This is amazing. I'm, like, growing all the time. So I think this industry is particularly fun, even though there are so many challenges to scaling a product as well, which is something that we all experience in a lot of different ways. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about what are buyers saying right now about your kind of a product and especially a 2 dairy? Like, when you're talking to them about a 2 and being on trend and all that, are they just pretty much nodding along? Do they have questions about it?

26:52
Daniel Scharff
How do they receive it?

26:53
Isabel Washington
Yeah. What's been so great about our products? I think contributed a lot to our retail growth and authorizations has been. There's not one thing that resonates so with Whole Foods. With Charlie, he was super bought into a 2. Believed it was the way of the future. Loved what were doing. We worked with Alexander Philly Farms at the time. They're great partners. Loves them. So that's kind of what how he saw things with the Target buyer. Allison and her team over there, they really liked the flavor piece. So it was actually kind of perfect timing, because Chamberlain Coffee, before they decided to kill their RTDs, they had shown Target dirty chai and Matcha, which was so nuts, but then decided to kill their RTD's. So the buyer was super excited to see those flavors kind of come around again, and that's what resonated with them.

27:45
Isabel Washington
And now, as we think about, like, our growth at Target, what those feature skus could look like, it's largely revolving around flavor, which I guess a 2 is just kind of a component of our brand, but it's more like what flavors are missing? What are global flavors? What are their buyers coming to stores to see it? I think it's a very delicate balance between not having something so crazy like a blueberry snickerdoodle, and also remaining, like, on trend and true to our consumer.

28:13
Daniel Scharff
How did you land on those flavors, by the way?

28:15
Isabel Washington
I mean, my own biases pretty much of going to coffee shops in LA and seeing, like, okay, what were flavors that were on maybe five years ago? You'd have to explain to Barista, like, a dirty chai is a chai latte, but it has espresso in it, but now it's kind of found a permanent place on menus. So that's kind of how we honestly formulated that flavor. And then Matcha was really just based on a lot of feedback we have when we launched with those two SKUs. Initially, the number one thing we hear is people trying to limit their caffeine intake. They don't want to drink coffee. They wish there was a tea option. So we kind of saw it as a way to bring in people who want Matcha or want like a tea option or like now Laurels can be stackable.

28:57
Isabel Washington
You can drink your coffee in the morning and have your Matcha in the afternoon. They have a little bit different use cases. So that's kind of what it inspired that next flavor.

29:04
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. Stackable. Interesting way to put it because it's not so much caffeine that you couldn't have a couple of these if you wanted. Even it's 80 milligrams. I mean, Celsius has 200 in a similar sized can. So which. Very high amount. Yeah. Interesting. And so you mentioned Charlie, the refrigerated beverage buyer from Whole Foods and getting in there so early, but how'd that actually come about? Because again, it's so impressive for somebody to just launch right away and pretty much be getting looks nationally from Whole Foods. It's an amazing accomplishment. For the life of me. Couldn't figure out how to really get on their radar other than just being another person submitting into the portal. How did you actually make that happen so early on? How did you make the contact?

29:52
Daniel Scharff
How did you manage to really make an impression and get samples over in a world where everybody in the world wants to be on Charlie's radar?

30:00
Isabel Washington
Yeah. I mean, he is a good guy, but I will say is he does read his email. I cold emailed him, like literally just. We were three months old in retail at that point and I emailed him during the review period. Had followed the calendar and stuff online and had just reached out, kept it short. It's like, hey, it's Raleigh. Nice to meet you. I'm Isabel. We launched in August. We have two SKUs. It's probably like five sentences total. He responded almost immediately. And we set up a call maybe a few weeks later, and that was the story.

30:36
Daniel Scharff
I wonder if he had a specific need in his mind already in the set for your kind of a product or if he just immediately picked up what you were putting down.

30:44
Isabel Washington
Yeah, I mean, he had shared that he'd seen kind of the decline of alternative milks in other categories. The increase. I mean, Alex Ice cream has just had insane growth in Whole Foods and beyond. So I think that he kind of understood that A2 products have legs to them. And I know that you talk about this all the time at grocery runs and elsewhere, but it's so personal to him. Like, he had been to Alexandria Family Farms. He loved the family. He was bought into that mission. He liked that they were our partners. And that's what kind of resonated with him, was that personal piece, I think, is what got it over the edge.

31:19
Daniel Scharff
Okay, and so how did that actually come about, that kind of a partnership? And maybe you could just tell me a little bit more broadly about building the actual product and the sourcing and how you put all the pieces together.

31:30
Isabel Washington
Yeah. So at that point, we're still very. I mean, were three months old, so were talking to Charlie, and I remember I was very much like, I think a lot of beverage entrepreneurs are. And this is never financial advice in any way, But I remember were on the call, and he was like, so do you think you're manufacturing? And, like, do you have the money? And all of the responsible vetting questions? And I was like, yes, Charlie, of course. Of course we do. Of course. Of course. Now we have way more money than you could ever imagine.

31:55
Daniel Scharff
I'm looking at it right now. It's sort of like a, you know, Richie Rich, like, gold coin situation.

32:01
Isabel Washington
Yeah, exactly. And. Yeah. And how's your supply chain? Which, again, so irresponsible. And hope Charlie never listens to this, but so many things that I was like, I have to say yes. I mean, this is an insane opportunity. We're four months old, and a national retailer wants to launch us nationally. So it was a lot of. I mean, dairy sourcing was probably our biggest thing. Identifying every etude dairy supplier in the country, Learning more about things you can claim on labels and not claim on labels, all that fun regulatory stuff. Having honest conversations with our suppliers, Even though I just was dishonest, but we.

32:40
Daniel Scharff
Can bucket that under fake it till you make it. There's. That's not a. That's not lying. If you're faking it till you make it, that's just hustle.

32:46
Isabel Washington
We did.

32:48
Daniel Scharff
We love you, Charlie.

32:50
Isabel Washington
I think it's like, at some point, you kind of have to commercialize the business and have real conversations with your suppliers, like, hey, we probably can't even. Alexander family Farms, like, they're trying to grow their retail business so they wouldn't be able to supply us with the thousands of gallons of milk that we would need every quarter to be able to build our retail business. Which led us to kind of splitting our. I mean, we're amicable. You know, there's no beef there, but they just weren't a good supplier. So it was really auditing your OPS process, making sure now we do buy coastal fulfillment. We have three PLs on both coasts. Our co packer has facilities on both coasts. So it's just really having a rock solid supply chain, Especially now with tariffs and the strait and all of these uncertainties. More than ever.

33:35
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. I mean, I've never gone through that kind of a launch with Whole Foods, but we did a podcast with our friends from leisure and got to learn a lot about what that looks like operationally, and they had a lot of learnings along the way as well. Was that challenging for you? What was that like? I mean, how did you get through it unscathed and it was okay and you got everything? Did you have a lot of lessons learned?

33:56
Isabel Washington
Yeah, I think probably the biggest thing. And before Whole Foods, were in maybe 115 doors. So I think that for us, and we did it very cautiously, we mostly work with DSDs to fulfill whole Foods for us. So we're with Rainforest from Maine to Florida, and then we work with dsds here in California. And that to me is what made me comfortable because everyone always talks about unfi and deductions and build backs and. And all these things. So I wanted to make sure that I was working with partners, that I felt like I had a direct line of communication to have been handling our other business for a while. And there had just kind of been a mutual trust and respect there. I'm. I wouldn't say.

34:40
Isabel Washington
I mean, I think that we're kind of anomalies in the way where we don't get crazy deductions or crazy build backs or I think a lot of that. Like, we have five UNFI DCs open now, so I think a lot of that is just being on top of ops, making sure that working with a great 3 PL so that orders are fulfilled in full and on time, as they say. But probably the biggest thing is the trade spend, staying on top of that. What works in one region doesn't work in all.

35:07
Daniel Scharff
Like what?

35:08
Isabel Washington
Even like marketing. Like, if you're thinking about influencers and the coasts just get assaulted with all of the fun trends and influencers and gifting and there's 40 Whole Foods stores in Florida and there's another 40 in the Pacific Northwest and a bunch in Texas. So I think just making sure you have a marketing plan and a promo plan that can kind of support that, especially in regions that you don't already have a presence. But I mean, it's funny, I was telling someone this the other day when you're a young brand and you can probably relate to this. Daniel. I guess maybe not with Whole Foods, but other retailers. You think that this brand that's in Whole Foods must have just got like a million dollar po and that it's going to be this like massive life changing amount of money.

35:48
Isabel Washington
But I think our initial Whole Foods load in was like 150,000, which is a lot of money and a lot of product, don't get me wrong. But I remember being like, oh, I thought that this is going to be like my expectations were widely off from what reality actually was. And maybe now that we're on the other side of those 500 doors, I can have this perspective because we're launching target and that's 1800 doors, so that feels like 3x and now that's on to the next thing. But I do think that it's a lot more manageable than people think if you're ready for it. And I think that where a lot of people get stuck is not being ready for it.

36:23
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, that's pretty interesting. Yeah. Because I've never done a launch like that, so I didn't know what a typical PO size would be. But that's like how many cases per sku per store would that be for an initial order? It's not a ton.

36:37
Isabel Washington
No.

36:38
Daniel Scharff
Right. Like I'm just guessing it's like 6 to 10 or something like that per. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, they're not going all. And they're waiting. They're going to see that sell through and then they're going to keep ordering. So that's kind of better in a way.

36:51
Isabel Washington
For sure.

36:52
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. Right. If that's one of your first accounts. National Whole Foods. Yeah. Okay, let me take it nice and slow because you can get that national like the Sprouts innovation set po. And it can be like that, it can be even bigger, but it can be a one time po. It's just like, whoa, that is a lot for your supply chain to withstand is just having to scale up and scale down that quick.

37:11
Isabel Washington
Yeah. One of my friends just got a sprouts innovation po and it was like 700 grand or something crazy like that.

37:17
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. More expensive product. Yeah, for sure.

37:19
Isabel Washington
Yeah.

37:19
Daniel Scharff
I mean amazing opportunity for sure.

37:21
Isabel Washington
From zero to that. Yeah.

37:23
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. Cool. Okay. So I wonder, what kind of lessons learned do we have already? Obviously, it's gone extremely well for you. Very few people out there can launch a brand, get whole foods, get 1800 targets. But I'm sure there are a few things that, looking back, you would feel like you could do even better the next time around.

37:42
Isabel Washington
Yeah, I think. And this is not unique advice. It's always going to cost twice as much and take twice as long than you think it's going to. That's true for everything. I mean, it could be true for hiring. It's true. Our Whole Foods launch was delayed. Like, that's true for just about anything. The second piece of that is that what looks from the outside to be great and a great business. And it's not all that it seems, especially for people with these fundraising announcements and everyone raising so much money and, like, all of these great things. I mean, even for us personally, like in the early days, like, I mean, when we got even our Whole Foods authorization, we had no money. We probably had like 10 grand in the business bank account.

38:25
Isabel Washington
It was wildly irresponsible for me to have said yes to that in hindsight. And it's horrible financial advice. It's insane survivor bias in the way that I'm able to be like, oh, yeah, like, we did that and it worked out because, you know it did, but oftentimes it doesn't. So I think, like, really only say yes to opportunities that you have a pretty clear line of sight to how you're going to get it over the finish line. There's a ton of creative financing options, venture angels, family offices, funding lines of credit, PO financing, whatever it is. But I would just be really clear on how, especially if you're building retail, because it can be a lot of product. If we got a $700,000 sprouts po, like, we would be in trouble. And we're 18 months into it.

39:16
Daniel Scharff
I just was kind of wondering how much do you think your background really gives you a huge advantage in those kind of discussions? I'm like, if I'm sitting, I'm like a VC with a bunch of money, and somebody with your background comes and you've had the success and you have the McKinsey background. I'm like, oh, this is a smart person. They are going to figure this out. I mean, I just imagine that your hit rate about getting conversations that you want must be pretty high when they see that.

39:38
Isabel Washington
Yeah, good getter, bad closer, I'd say. I think I was actually On a call with a VC earlier, I was like, if I was building a business to raise money, I would not have done it in beverage, because it's a category that a lot of people are not terribly excited about. But I do think that McKinsey helps, especially for people who have a finance background, who went to business school, who understand what it is. But I think more than anything, I mean, you just have to have a willingness to not die. And in the words of our favorite Alex Michelson, he was like, you just have to live long enough to see yourself get lucky. Which is entirely true. The authorization you need could be around the corner. The investor you need could be around the corner. Again, horrible financial advice.

40:19
Isabel Washington
If you have ten grand in the business bank account, like we did when we said yes to Whole Foods. But the willingness and grit to figure it out, I think is more endearing than anything else.

40:29
Daniel Scharff
I like that. And even just sometimes. Yeah, being around long enough for, like, your turn to come around. Meaning, like, maybe the trends shift really in your favor all of a sudden. People are really opening up opportunities for your kind of product, and you're the one who's still around. I look at something like energy right now, and I think about that because energy, which I was in, got extremely competitive. Like a few years delayed after Celsius having all the success that they did because they had pulled in so many new consumers into the set. It was absolutely on fire. And I was launching something. And then a little wave kind of happened after that, I would say, where just so many. Everyone was launching energy. I think there was a massive spike in all that, but then it kind of slowed down.

41:14
Daniel Scharff
I think everybody felt all that competition. It became very crowded, very difficult. Buyers weren't taking a lot of different stuff on set because it was all kind of a sea of the same. Now I feel like actually it's a good opportunity again. So I feel like the people who were at it and had a good product and they're still around now, the buyers are kind of like, yeah, we're actually now looking for something that's like that but organic. And we're interested in high quality options. Like, yeah, eventually, if you stick around, all right, I can happen.

41:42
Isabel Washington
Yeah, you just have to live long enough to see yourself have your day. And the same is true. Yeah. With trends, with investors. I mean, two months ago, were really close to taking a awful term sheet from someone just because I was so tired of waiting and fundraising. And we hung out for investors that are honestly better than I could have imagined. And really great people, but it's hard to wait, especially when there's so much noise on LinkedIn and there's this beverage brand who has like half the monthly revenue that we do and has raised 3x the amount of money. And it's. There's stuff like that's always frustrating to see. But your time will come, which is always hard to say. It's always hard for me to hear personally, so I can only imagine how hard it is to be hearing it now.

42:27
Daniel Scharff
Well, cheers to a very long life for Laurels. And to you. I think it's going to go incredibly well. Honestly, very few people that I know personally have been able to scale and grow as fast as you have. So huge congrats to you. Sounds like for any buyers out there are a lot of UNFI DCs carrying the product and any more words about just your overall growth strategy?

42:49
Isabel Washington
Yeah. So big year ahead for growth for us. We're launching Target Chain Wide in August, so we'll be at a lot more places. All three SKUs too, for people who are curious to try all three.

43:02
Daniel Scharff
How are you so calm, though? If I'm launching Target in August, I'm losing my frigging mind right now.

43:07
Isabel Washington
Well, it was actually supposed to be in May, but they pushed it back to August, so now I. Now I can go back to being calm. We have Costco roadshows though, next month, which are starting to stress me out, but that'll be an exciting warning.

43:22
Daniel Scharff
Well, you used to do 50 demos in 40 days, so yeah, I know.

43:25
Isabel Washington
What's a roadshow, but that'll be a great learning opportunity as well, so. Really excited for that. But, yeah, hopefully somewhere near you.

43:34
Daniel Scharff
That's amazing. Congratulations. It's really impressive. I love following along and really, gosh, am I like a Matcha person now? Did that just happen? I don't know. I can't put it down. All right, well, big congrats. Thank you so much for coming on the pod. It'd be great to have you back, maybe post Target launch and we can find out all the good learnings from that as well.

43:54
Isabel Washington
Yes, sir. Chat soon.

43:56
Daniel Scharff
All right, thank you. 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 and you should join. 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. Buh. Bye, Sam.