- 6 minutes ago
Vanessa Phillips, co-founder and CEO of Feel Good Foods, grew up in the restaurant industry before turning a personal health challenge into a national frozen food brand. After being diagnosed with celiac disease, she set out to recreate the foods she loved, building a career that blends hospitality roots with consumer packaged goods innovation.
Watch now to learn how a lie at a family reunion became a national brand, the Whole Foods moment that changed everything, and why belief beats credentials.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
Watch now to learn how a lie at a family reunion became a national brand, the Whole Foods moment that changed everything, and why belief beats credentials.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
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NewsTranscript
00:00I don't know what I want to do with my life. And she said, well, why don't you just manifest
00:04something? And I said, you mean lie? She's like, you could call it a lie. I just started telling
00:09everyone that I had just launched a food company and everyone was asking me. They were so intrigued.
00:14By the end of the weekend, I had fully conceptualized this entire business plan.
00:26Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Sean Walchef.
00:31This is a Cali BBQ media production in life, in the restaurant business, and in the new
00:36creator economy. We learn through lessons and stories. When we started this show, we had a
00:41mission. We wanted to bring the greatest storytellers onto the show, the greatest entrepreneurs,
00:46hospitality professionals. And today we have one. Her name is Vanessa Phillips. She is the CEO of
00:53Feel Good Foods. She has a restaurant background and an incredible story. If you're a restaurateur
00:59that's looking to get into the consumer packaged good space, we are so excited to have an expert
01:04on the show. Vanessa, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
01:10So you grew up in restaurants. I did. I did. Yeah. I too grew up in restaurants.
01:16And when I was growing up washing dishes at my grandfather's breakfast business, I remember
01:22making, for those that are watching on YouTube, making a promise that I actually wouldn't work
01:28in restaurants. And yet here I am many, many, many years later, I own three restaurants in San Diego,
01:35and we have a media company that we built on top of our restaurant. So we think of restaurants much
01:40differently than the standard picture that I just showed of me washing dishes. Can you bring me back
01:45to when you were a little girl in your family restaurants? Yeah. So I grew up in New York
01:51City, which I like to consider the food mecca of the country. And my father owned quick service
02:01restaurants. So he owned a chain of bagel stores and Chinese restaurants. And then I just gravitated
02:07always to people in the restaurant industry. So a lot of my friends' families were in the restaurant
02:12industry. And I just grew up always loving food, working in restaurants, and dreaming that one day
02:21I would own a restaurant. When you were dreaming of that one day owning a restaurant, let us know when
02:29you actually got in to be in restaurants. So my life kind of took a little bit of a pivot
02:35because when I
02:35was in college, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. And prior to my diagnosis, the type of restaurant
02:43that I thought I would own included a lot of gluten and, you know, just didn't have any of my
02:51own
02:51dietary restrictions like thought of when I was thinking and dreaming up the menu. And when I was in
02:57college, I was diagnosed with celiac and, you know, went on at that time, you know, a very restrictive
03:02gluten-free diet. So things changed for me really quickly. I didn't lose my interest in food at all.
03:09In fact, I remember going, when I went on the gluten-free diet, I started working even more
03:14in restaurants and I became really fixated on selling the specials and describing all the menu
03:20items that I couldn't eat. I would just go on these like elaborate tangents where I would be like,
03:26oh, you have to have the porcini ravioli, even though I couldn't eat it. You know, so I was,
03:30I would just be dreaming even more about, you know, the foods that I missed. But, you know,
03:36soon after my diagnosis, I opened Friedman's in New York City inside the Chelsea market.
03:42And the menu really consisted of all of the nostalgia that I missed since going gluten-free.
03:50Wow. And when you opened up the restaurant, when you opened up Friedman's, did you expect that type
03:57of response? Did you know how big the community was and the consumers were out there looking for
04:03these types of solutions to their diets? Yes and no. When I went on a gluten-free diet,
04:09I started working at my dad's Chinese restaurants and I made a lot of the Chinese dishes at the
04:17restaurants available in a gluten-free version, which at the time was really unheard of.
04:20And that response was truly overwhelming. You know, we brought, you know, a lot of the favorites
04:28back to consumers been a gluten-free version. So like General Sao's chicken and, you know,
04:33a lot of different like noodles and sparabs. So I saw that there was a community in New York City
04:39during that time that like me was looking for gluten-free food. But Friedman's really,
04:45it exceeded that, you know, it was so much bigger than what I had done at the Chinese restaurants.
04:51We were attracting people from all over the world. We had a guest book where every gluten-free
04:58customer would sign their name and their email address in the city they lived in. And we were
05:04blown away that people were truly coming from all over the world to eat at Friedman's for the gluten-free
05:10food. So that was definitely the light bulb moment for me. And what was even better was the way we
05:16were able to really bridge the gap between consumers who were gluten-free and then consumers who weren't.
05:21My partner and chef at the time had no dietary restrictions. He, you know, went to culinary school
05:28and worked at some of the best restaurants in New York. And he, you know, really wanted to stand behind
05:34the food he was putting out there and also, you know, be able to share it with his chef friends
05:39and be able to eat it himself. So we really built a cult following around offering gluten-free food,
05:46but also just delicious food. And that was exactly what we brought to feel good foods years later
05:52was gluten-free food, but really just delicious food made with simple ingredients that, you know,
05:58anyone could enjoy. So the legend has it that you started making lasagna and delivering it by
06:06bicycles. This was, this was how you launch a consumer packaged goods business is make lasagna,
06:13take orders and deliver it by bicycle. Step one. Yeah. I, I didn't think the lasagna would ever
06:19become a consumer food brand. I, um, I actually was, um, going to a family reunion one weekend
06:28and I was in transition between jobs and I was on the airplane and I told my mom, I said,
06:35you know,
06:36we're going to this family reunion and I'm not working. And I, and I was very young. I was in
06:41my
06:41early twenties. I said, I don't, I don't know what I want to do with my life. And she said,
06:46well,
06:46why don't you just manifest something? Just make something up. And I said, you mean lie?
06:50And she was like, she was like, you could call it a lie. And when we landed in Los Angeles
06:58for this
06:59family reunion, I just started telling everyone that I had just launched a food company and that
07:06I was making gluten-free lasagnas and everyone was asking me, they were so intrigued. They were
07:10asking me all these questions. What's the name? Well, what's the menu? How do you get it to people?
07:15Well, long story short, by the end of the weekend, I had fully conceptualized this entire business
07:21plan. I was so connected to this business that wasn't really a business that I got back to New
07:27York and started making lasagnas and truly started doing everything that I had said that I was doing
07:34at that family reunion. Um, and that was my start in, in creating gluten-free food. I definitely was
07:41making it in my studio apartment. I was buying all the ingredients at grocery stores. Um, and I,
07:47you know, was getting, I remember going to bed one night and I woke up the next morning and I
07:51had 22
07:52orders for gluten-free lasagna with absolutely no idea how I was even going to make it in my, you
08:00know,
08:00400 square foot apartment. Um, but yeah, that was, that was my start. And from there I went to
08:09Friedman's because I had more capacity at Friedman's to make more than lasagna and to, uh, leave my studio
08:16apartment. That is incredible. Where did those 400 orders come from? How did people know? How did you,
08:21what was your go-to-market? My go-to-market strategy was really, it was really elaborate. I, I actually,
08:28so at the time the gluten-free community was really small, um, but it was like very viral and
08:34every gluten-free person was, you know, looking for the next best delicious meal. But, um, I remember
08:40I'm advertising, it was $500 to create an ad on a gluten-free mall. Okay. Um, and from there,
08:51an online website or what, what is that? Okay. Yeah. It's an online website. And from there, it just,
08:59the orders started rolling in. It's amazing. Like the conversation with your mother
09:05to manifest this business idea. How did you get the name feel good foods? Was that,
09:11was that part of the weekend or was that after the weekend? The weekend name was actually food matters.
09:18Ah, I like that. And, um, one of the many early lessons I learned was about trademarking a name. So
09:25food matters was trademarked. Um, so we couldn't, we couldn't keep going with that name and feel good
09:32foods actually was thought of by a friend. We had a party one night and we gave everybody lasagnas to
09:40eat and everyone had to talk about what that lasagna made them think of and put a name or words
09:49in a hat.
09:49And then we read all of the names allowed and feel good foods was one of them. And we quickly
09:57checked and it was not trademarked. And that was how we came up with the name, feel good foods.
10:02That's amazing. Did you know that toast powers over 140,000 restaurants across the United States,
10:09Canada, and UK? It's an incredible company. I'm on the toast customer advisory board. They are
10:15proud sponsors of this show, restaurant influencers. We couldn't do it without their support.
10:19They power our barbecue restaurants in San Diego. If you have questions about toast,
10:25if you're thinking about bringing toast on to be your primary technology partner at your restaurants,
10:30please reach out to me. I'm happy to get a local toast representative to take care of you.
10:34You can reach me at Sean P. Welch on Instagram. Once again, thank you to toast for believing in the
10:40power of technology, the power of storytelling, the power of hospitality. Back to the show.
10:46Yeah. When you're launching a consumer packaged goods business, where do you go? Where do you go
10:53to learn? How did you learn? How did you figure it all out? What would you tell yourself back then
11:00now that you're part of the journey? I'm still learning.
11:04Yeah. But you're, I mean, you're in Whole Foods, Costco, Target. I mean, people can enjoy these amazing
11:09recipes, you know, basically nationwide, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're in, you know,
11:15close to 25,000 grocery stores and that like still blows my mind. I didn't go to business school. I
11:21did
11:21not have any CPG experience. I was just truly obsessed with making this happen. I, you know,
11:31when I was younger, my parents called me stubborn. I mean, maybe it was just, you know, an insane will
11:37and drive, but I would not give up on this idea. And I was so loyal to it and nobody
11:45in my life
11:45believed in it truly. I mean, it, it was, um, something that I think fueled me even more.
11:52Um, and I remember, um, we, the first product, the first food that we launched, the first SKU was
12:02gluten-free dumplings. And we made them by hand. We made them in our restaurant. We had tested them
12:07on the menu as a special. People loved them because they were super unique at the time.
12:12It was also really relevant to me in my life because I grew up eating dumplings and egg rolls. And
12:18I used to tell my parents, I know I'm allergic to something. I just hope it's not dumplings or egg
12:23rolls
12:24because I can't imagine a life without eating this. Um, so when I went gluten-free, that was what I
12:31missed most. And when we developed the recipe for the dumplings, I, I had no business plan. I put them
12:39in a Ziploc bag. I sent them off to Whole Foods. I, um, you know, printed up some mock-up
12:46packaging of
12:47what I thought the packaging could look like. I mean, I, I, my friend designed it. So it didn't
12:53have any of the, you know, USDA legend. We didn't have a co-packer. Um, and I just sent it
13:00off to
13:00Whole Foods. And, you know, it's really interesting now because I, I had no reason to believe that they
13:09were going to respond with a yes. Truly. I mean, why would they, right? It was, it was, it was
13:16a lot of
13:17hope. And I believed in the idea, but I didn't have a, you know, an in with Whole Foods. Yet
13:24I
13:25knew inside me that they were going to say yes. It's amazing. Because I just, I knew that this
13:32needed to be brought to market. I believed so much in the brand mission from day one. And I was
13:40so
13:40excited about just the quality and the taste of the food that I remember thinking, well, how could they
13:46say no? That would be crazy. That is so amazing. The Ziploc. Do you have a photo by chance of
13:53what
13:54you sent? No, you know, I'm not a big picture taker and I regret it now. You know, we just
14:00did the
14:00throwback to 2016. It went like viral on Instagram. Everyone was like 2026 with the new 2016. And I was
14:08thinking, I wish I had taken more pictures throughout my journey. Yeah, for sure. Um, bring me, bring me
14:15into when you found out. They said, yes. How, how did you find out? I remember I was with my,
14:19my partner
14:20and he was driving and I, um, started crying, happy tears. Only time in my life, I cried happy tears.
14:27Um, and he like kind of swerved off the road. He got so, he got so freaked out. It was
14:36really
14:36exhilarating. And you know, that first win, there's nothing like it. There's no win that ever comes close
14:43to the excitement of that first win. It's such a special moment. Um, as an entrepreneur,
14:50you know, that first, yes, it, it trumps every no, um, that I ever got. And we ended up, um,
14:59that was, so we, that was when we made the decision to focus full time on feel good foods
15:04and transition away from the day to day of Freedman's, which was really hard to do. I was
15:10super, super connected to Freedman's. I still am. It's, you know, my first born. Um, but I,
15:18I knew that feel good foods was really going to take everything I had and then some. So we launched
15:25in the North Atlantic region of full foods. It was 27 stores. And that was my full time commitment
15:32at that time. So I ended up moving to Boston and at that time demoing, which is like when you
15:39go into
15:39the store and you sample the product was free. So we demoed every day, twice a day, we did, um,
15:48two shifts, we did 11 to three and then four to seven. And I like to think of it as
15:53like the best
15:54of times and the worst of times, because for four months we demoed every single day, just every person
16:03that I could see or would see, I was offering them a gluten-free dumpling. And four months later,
16:11our sales were so impressive that we went national pretty quickly.
16:15That's incredible. Can you bring me back? You tears of joy. I mean, that's what every entrepreneur,
16:21when we jump off this cliff, we hope for, to your point, all of those knows that eventually become
16:26a yes. And that somebody else believes as deeply as you believe when you go from tears of joy,
16:32when did the weight of responsibility of, I have to move to Boston and now I actually have to
16:38execute and pull this off and start to do the work that most people are unwilling to do those
16:44two days, you know, every single day sampling literally as many dumplings as you possibly can.
16:50Bring it, bring us, bring us through that. Yeah. I would say within five minutes,
16:54so maybe I wiped away the tears and then, you know, that, that reality of, oh, I know very little
17:05sets in. Yeah. It's, it's constantly a roller coaster. It's, it's, you know, you, you have the most
17:12incredible high one minute and then the lowest low the next minute, and you just constantly are ping
17:17ponging all day. I have learned so much. Like I said, I'm still learning so much. I often credit
17:26though my lack of knowledge as one of, you know, the, the best attributes that I had going into this
17:33business, because it's kind of like a child. I always would look at my son and I would say, wow,
17:38he has not been scorned yet. So he, he is just free to jump off a cliff, not thinking that
17:46he's going
17:46to hurt himself. And I, I always envied that about him and children in general. And I, and I feel
17:53that
17:53I was sort of like that when I was starting my company is I really had no idea what was
17:58ahead
17:58and, and all the things that could go wrong. And that was great because I had tunnel vision
18:03and I just, I just went for it. And along the way, there were definitely, um, a lot of surprises
18:10and a lot of challenges, but I was way on my way at that point. There was no U-turn.
18:16So I just kept
18:18putting one foot in front of the other. Do you have a story about something, some failure that you
18:23took along the way, something that was hard and difficult that you had to persevere through?
18:27Yeah. You know, the one story I, I, I tell a lot because it just never gets old is our
18:34first
18:35production run. So very, very, very first production run. It was 25,000 cartons, which
18:42is a very small run. Um, and it was the pot stickers, the dumplings, which was our first
18:48product. And we printed them, we packed them and we shipped them to, to grocery stores. And
18:56we started right away getting, um, consumers reaching out saying that they were making them
19:02and they were turning to mush. And I was freaking out, um, couldn't understand why that would happen.
19:10And I picked up a box and I turned over the back and I was rereading all of the reheating
19:15instructions. And I noticed that I left off a really crucial line, which is cover pan with lid.
19:23And if you're making a dumpling that's made from rice and you're adding water and oil and you don't
19:30cover the pan with the lid, the water's just not going to evaporate. So we, we were horrified
19:40and we ended up, um, having, you know, another 10,000 cartons that were at our, um, facility
19:49that were about to have product packed in them. So we made a stamp. It was like a really ugly,
19:55bright red stamp. And my partner and his parents, his, his parents came to the factory with him and
20:03they hand stamped thousands of cartons, thousands of cartons with, with a stamp that really like all
20:10capital letters that said cover pan with lid. Wow. That is, yeah, you have to do by any means
20:19necessary. Right. Right. So today I would probably chalk the packaging and I would just reprint new
20:26packaging. But when you're a startup and you're, you know, really scrappy, that's not an option.
20:33What have you learned about branding and packaging?
20:38So I, you know, I mean, that was your billboard. You know, I've had, um, a lot of lessons around
20:44packaging because especially when you're in the frozen aisle, you have a second to capture
20:50your consumer and to get them to focus on what it is that you're trying to tell them. And whether
20:58it
20:58be the, the product name or the, the, the, whatever you're offering, but you really have a split second.
21:04So you really have to, you know, tell that story wisely. Um, and we've had so many different
21:11iterations of packaging over the years. Our brand has evolved so much. I love the way the brand
21:18speaks to consumers today. When I look at our packaging from when we first started, it's,
21:25I'm like, Oh, wow. You know, um, no, we've, we've grown up a lot. And, you know, I also think
21:32that
21:32the brand has matured. Um, our consumer has grown. It's, it's way, you know, more broad than it was
21:40early on. It's, I'm not just speaking to gluten-free consumers. I'm, I'm speaking to
21:45consumers who, you know, are looking, they're like, I call them like the curious consumer.
21:50They just want, they have higher values. They're looking for something that from a taste standpoint
21:55and quality standpoint is better than what they're traditionally used to finding in the frozen aisle.
22:00So the brand really has to speak to that. And it's been an evolution for sure.
22:07How about the Costco deal? Was that, was, is that the big leagues when it comes to? Yeah,
22:14no, I, no, I don't know if there's like one big league. I mean, I think that, you know, Walmart
22:19pretty big. Walmart is. Yeah. I mean, I think Walmart is, you know, uh, uh, great. Um, you know,
22:27we've got, um, eight, eight snacks at Walmart. Um, you know, whole foods, we have a really big
22:34presence at whole foods target. Um, you know, they're, they're all great because they're all
22:40attracting, you know, whoever their consumer is. Right. So like sometimes like if you, you know,
22:46pump the public shopper isn't necessarily the whole food shopper. Right. So like for me,
22:51like I don't really play favorites with retailers. I just want to be able to have the widest reach
22:57possible. Um, and you know, when, when, when I have a consumer that says to me, this is where I
23:04live, this is where I shop. Those are my merchant orders to get feel good foods in their grocery store.
23:10What, how, how do you get in front of retailers? Is there, I love getting in front of retailers.
23:18What, what, what are you, what are your tips? Um, I just reach out to the buyer.
23:25Well, you know, my whole foods buyer was actually laughing recently. He was like,
23:30I think today we'd be afraid there's anthrax in there. I don't think we would eat that. Um,
23:39there's, you know, getting in front of retailers and having those meetings, those buyer meetings
23:43are so fun. Um, I still get such an adrenaline rush from it. I love cooking the food. I think
23:51that
23:51the best part of feel good foods is experiencing it by eating it. So it's always really fun to,
23:59um, be able to see the reaction from buyers and, and we keep it, you know, it's really collaborative.
24:04You know, we, I love to just eat and to talk and to really ask them firsthand what trends they're
24:11seeing, what their shopper is looking for. And we kind of just piggyback off one another. And
24:16oftentimes at this point it's, it's a meeting and it could be also like an innovation session.
24:20And I share with them my insights and then they share theirs. So it's a really, really fun process.
24:26I love it. What's your dream for feel good foods? What's the, let's man, let's manifest. And we can
24:31look back on this, send it to your mom. Uh, kind of just more, right? Like more at all.
24:39Like how do you make a CPG brand global? A lot of relationships, a lot of buyers.
24:46Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a lot of footprint, but, um, no, I, I think that,
24:52you know, one of the things that I love about just the name in general, feel good foods is when
24:56we
24:56first launched, we got a lot of pushback from, you know, investors when we were raising money or
25:02even just, you know, retailers, they said, Oh, you have dumplings, but feel good foods doesn't think,
25:07I don't think of a dumpling company. And I said, Oh, dumplings is just our start,
25:11right. I want to create a brand that I can grow into, not grow out of. And what I love
25:17about feel
25:17good foods is I think it means something different to everyone, but also there's so much we could do,
25:24right. I mean, it, the innovation pipeline is truly endless. Um, I think we have permission to go
25:30anywhere as long as we stick to our guardrails and the guardrails are pretty simple, really. Right.
25:37I mean, it's, it's simple ingredients. It's always delicious. And it just so happens to be
25:41gluten free. It's amazing. If you guys are watching this, thank you for subscribing. Thank
25:46you for watching. We appreciate you. Uh, we are on a mission. We're going to be telling stories
25:51all over the globe this year. We're very excited about that. Thank you to toast our primary
25:56technology partner for sponsoring these episodes. If you guys want to get in touch with me, it's at
26:00Sean P wall chef. Instagram is the fastest. I'm weirdly available. If you know,
26:05other entrepreneurs, storytellers, people building in the CPG space, uh, creators that should be on
26:12this show, please let me know. Vanessa, what's the best place for people? Can people buy feel good
26:17food? Can we, can you buy from your website? Ship direct? No, no. But if you go to, if you
26:23go to our
26:23website and you punch in your zip code, um, like I said, we're in, you know, close to 25,000
26:28grocery
26:28stores. So very high chance that it's at a store near you. Um, so check out our website, but also
26:34it's
26:34edible foods, um, Kroger target public's Walmart, thousands of other stores. Amazing. And you guys
26:41do a phenomenal job on social, uh, follow feel good foods. Um, thank you so much, Vanessa, for
26:47taking the time. You have an incredible story. I can't wait when I come to New York city to come
26:51visit Friedman's, um, looks amazing. Sounds amazing. And, uh, we're grateful for you for coming on the
26:56show. Thank you so much. As always guys, stay curious, get involved and don't be afraid to ask for
27:02help. We will catch you next episode. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. If you've
27:08made it this long, you are part of the community. You're part of the tribe. We can't do this alone.
27:13We started, no one was listening. Now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all over
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27:45to work with you and your growing brand on digital storytelling. You can reach out to me anytime at
27:51Sean P. Welchef on Instagram. I'm weirdly available. Stay curious, get involved. Don't be afraid to ask for
27:57help. We'll catch you next episode.
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