Emily Schildt, Founder Pop Up Grocer
Emily Schildt, Founder Pop Up Grocer shares how she created a destination to discover new grocery items and emerging brands. Emily shares why they focus on better-for-you products, packaging design, and rotating features. And the backstory of their first ever pop up. Pop Up Grocer is one of my favorite shops in New York City, and it was cool to learn how Emily built the brand and gives opportunity for new brands to emerge.
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0:02 Hi everyone. Welcome back to a new podcast episode. Today I have a very special guest. This is a founder of a brand that features emerging brands and is a brand that I've been following and just deeply admire. 0:17 So Emily Shultz, I'm so happy that you're on the podcast today. Hi, thank you for having me. You're so welcome. 0:24 Well, first I want to say pop up Grocer is just from the branding to the curation to the storytelling. Telling your social stunning really is. 0:37 Well, thank you. You're welcome. I appreciate that. And I am training myself to just say thank you and not reply with the negative things that I see as a perfectionist that I am. 0:52 You're right. It is great. It really is great. It really is great. And from someone who used to curate, I had two restaurants. 0:59 So I know so much of like everything in the placement and when someone walks up to the door and what they see and even when they open the door What do they see and I just really appreciate when someone pays attention to all those small details where most people Probably admire it and look, you know, 1:18 it's just simple, but I really love how you have so much detail and just really beautifully executed. So awesome. I have no training in it whatsoever. 1:30 I'm just neurotic. So it works. So that kicks off the first question is what is the story behind the brand? 1:41 Like how did this happen? And for anyone listening who's not familiar yet with pop up grocer, a little bit of just what is pop up grocer? 1:50 And how did this start? Yeah, so pop-up grosser is what we call the destination to discover new grocery items. The last four years, we've existed as 30-day pop-ups who basically traveled to a city who introduced people to somewhere around 120 new brands, just over 400 products, and then we scoop. 2:13 So it's like a physical advertisement, if you will, for brands that are under the grocery umbrella, So food and beverage largely but also home pet and body care and in March on the third so three months ago now we opened our first permanent location here in New York and that will in essence function 2:36 as a never-ending pop-up. So we're teaching people that it's the stuff that pops up every few months and the physical space is permanent. 2:47 We're here to stay. I love that. And what made you want to make that shift of having a pop-up location and now having a flagship location with popping up the product? 3:00 Yeah. I guess what got me into this whole Shebang to begin with, which is just curiosity. The 30-day model has worked and it's been really fun and for the brands that we feature it's been a really effective way for them to familiarize themselves with consumers in a new market. 3:21 But we were also really curious if we could function still as a one-time event, but also as a regular destination for grocery shopping, at least for certain items. 3:37 We don't have produce and we don't have get those things online, the things that you're familiar with, the things that you purchase consistently, you can go to your local farmers market, which is really the best place to source your produce. 3:57 So then what you want to supplement those two things with is an experience and the discovery products. Love it. And how did you start the brand? 4:07 I'm so curious because again, it's so up my I love looking at new consumer package goods and especially grocery, so how did this start with your curiosity? 4:18 Yeah, I mean I was using grocery stores in a very certain way, largely because I've been in this space professionally in my career. 4:30 I worked in brand marketing for consumer package products, for food companies, so I would go in a grocery store, not just to buy things transactionally, but to discover new ingredients, to discover new formats, almost like a museum, if you want to really inspire my creativity to educate myself on the 4:54 competitive landscape. And so I became really familiar with all of these new products as a result of doing that intentionally. 5:04 But I realized there wasn't any one central location where I could go and I wouldn't have to scour for them that it was just set up for discovery. 5:14 So like most great things, I naively just thought, well, I'll create it. I wouldn't do that now so I don't know, I guess I had more energy five, four years ago, five years ago but But yeah, I didn't have any money, so I formed a business model that we have, and I opened it as a pop-up because, you know 5:41 , I just, undergoing, like, a full grocery store. I just wasn't even known how to do it, but a 10-day pop-up seemed for whatever reason, like something I could achieve, so that's where we began. 5:54 I love it. And did you start in New York City with your first pop-up? Yes. April of 2018, downtown. Love it. 6:03 And how did you get the initial brands to buy into the concept? Or were they looking for something like that? 6:11 And you were able to just say, hey, I have this new idea. I would love to hear a little bit of that, too. 6:19 Yeah, at the time, I understood from working with clients that many brands at an early stage, basically they create this product, they create their identity, let's say both of those things are great, you know, it tastes great, it looks great, but they're really challenged to just get it in people's 6:44 hands. So I knew as much and you know I only had a handful of clients and I ended up having like 100 brands in this first pop-up, but once I started sending it out to them and you know word got around that I had this idea. 7:01 It was really well received, which I think yeah, it's totally crazy, like who am I and what the heck is a pop-up grocery store that people committed to participating in the first, but I think it really speaks to the need that they have so strongly to just very simply get on a shelf and be seen and experienced 7:24 by people. To start activating their brand, putting it into people's hands, having them sample it, if that's part of it. 7:31 But just so you were seeing the gap as far as great products, great branding, great, great taste, but just having it accessible and having people know about it and filling in that gap with a curated experience. 7:45 Exactly, exactly. I love that. And so now that you have the flagship location in New York City, that's stunning. Like I said, one of my favorite places to go and just hang out and look around and buy and shop, get coffee. 8:00 I know that you have a new rotation of products. And I would love to hear a little bit more of anything that you're really excited about, some things that call your eye, some things that you're seeing that are doing really well. 8:12 I would just love to hear about the new rotation. Yeah. So like I said within this store, we will every few months bringing in a new set of brands. 8:25 This time we kept about 30 on from the first rotation. Okay. And 70 and totality. So, you know, some are around 140 entirely new ones. 8:37 For many of those brands, where they're very first shelf, you know, they might be sold online, but it's their first time at physical retail. 8:47 And there are so many I'm excited about. I mean, this is the hardest. This is the most popular and hardest question I ever have to answer is like, you know, favorites. 8:59 Personally, as much as I probably shouldn't admit, I don't really snack that much. I know I'm like the snack queen and then I know a lot about snacks, but I'm a meal girl. 9:10 So I really love the salmon sausages that we have, I think beyond the sausage format that the fish is coming in, they're exceptional and they use pieces of premium cuts of salmon that would otherwise be discarded so it's like upcycled. 9:31 Okay. To use and it really adds a lot of flavor and type quality. So I love the salmon sausages. We also have a brand called Flings out of Canada and they are finally making a better for you pop tart. 9:48 So, oh, I saw that on your social. Yeah, it actually has like a good protein content. I think it's pretty low in sugar, high in fiber. 9:57 So, you know, it's something that like you can feel unashamed or give yourself a had on the back about still for eating for breakfast and what else am I loving I mean generally we're seeing a lot of Southeast Asian products a lot of Indian products specifically so there are a number of those in the 0:19 store that I'm really excited about there's a brand called Drouche which is started by a number of women I think three I think they might even be sisters and their spices studies say that so that also was right up my alley I liked to cook a lot. 0:37 So yeah I mean they're we really I think people think they can come to Papa Grocer 2 and like get chips and candy bars and you know all better for you and they certainly can but we also do really run the gamut we have full breadth of of products. 0:55 There's another one I'm excited about actually is a cold brew, like under eye serum, which I'm marketing perspective is I don't even know if there's actually cold brew in it. 1:07 Like, I need to educate myself more on this product, but I just think that the way that they have named it is really smart. 1:13 And I'm very about. I'm intrigued. Yeah. Is it something with the caffeine? Yes, it must be caffeinated for sure. Yeah. 1:22 The brand And it's good, weird, and it just launched. I think we're their first shelf queer owned brand. So I love that. 1:30 Okay, well, I'll definitely be picking those up. I love that. Cool. Is there any trends that you're really excited about? 1:37 I know that you said Southeast Asian brands, anything else that's like catching your eye? We're seeing a lot of continuation of trends, you know, the making over of classics. 1:55 I think those are becoming a little more laser targeted at like nostalgic items of a millennial's childhood like an Oreo. 2:05 So there's a direct hit now for better for you Oreo or cheese it. It's like a direct remake of that specific cracker. 2:15 But yeah, the, the better for you indulgence or nostalgia trend has sustained, obviously, you know, mushrooms keep finding their way into products and just like everything, and now has a functional benefit. 2:37 And yeah, generally I would say it's a little more, it's a little more of the same, which which maybe just means that people are, you know, there's your products market fit. 2:50 Well, and also experimenting and refining and just from products probably that launched even just a few years ago, better access to different products and quality and also getting so much more feedback from customers and just refining to, I'm sure. 3:06 For sure. Just perfecting that. There's something that you're doing that, I think is incredible. It's the fun that you started. 3:14 Can you tell me more about that because I thought that was just such a great way of also helping open the door to more founders to build emerging brands and I would just love to hear how that started and what that looks like. 3:29 Yeah, so Papa Grocery the the concept has given back a portion of our sales from K1. Originally we donated to local organizations within the city in which we would pop up. 3:46 We felt like that was a way that we could kind of unite ourselves and support a community that we were otherwise sort of stepping on their toes a little bit. 3:57 And then we sort of refashioned our charitable component in in 2020, to more align with our mission, which is to provide these emerging brands and their founders with visibility and exposure. 4:14 And so we establish the fund on an annual basis. We award one founder recipient with a combination of cash and services. 4:27 So this year's recipient is founder of an oral care brand called Minty. Last year we awarded the founder of a jerky. 4:40 Why am I blanking on what the protein is? It's plant-based jerky. Anyway, I don't know, Friday brain. Prior to that, a functional staff ran called, well, jackfruit is the jerky. 5:00 Oh, jackfruit jerky. So yeah, we identify a founder who could use support and areas in which we are rich and a product that we really believe in on an annual basis. 5:18 That's incredible. And so I saw that they are also marked within in the store, like the Minty products remarked. And again, it's just that extra care and attention is something I really admire and something that spoke to me with pop-up grocer that just really connecting those dots and giving more opportunity 5:38 to people to get on shelves and that you are really one of those major first destinations that brands can go and connect with to get their product out, which is, I love it. 5:49 Love it. So what would you share with someone who's starting an emerging brand, especially in the grocery space, who's maybe just starting out in their kitchen right now and like refining their recipe or just creating the beginning stages of their brand? 6:06 What would you share with them? Don't do it. Yeah, genuinely. I would say CPG is a really tough business and increasingly a very expensive capital intensive business. 6:29 So I would just ensure that it is something that you want to do as a business and it is not something that you could just retain as a hobby. 6:38 Like hobbies are great. We don't have to monetize everything that we enjoy doing, you know? Right. On many hard days, I'm like, you know, I'm not really curating cute groceries anymore. 6:48 I live in Excel spreadsheets and I spend my time thinking about how to be a better leader and I constantly trying to hire and source more capital and squeeze a little more money out of the margins on our croissants. 7:03 I'm actually not doing the things that I set out to do. So that would be my advice is I would just really ensure that your passion is actually met with a fit in the market for what you're creating and that you have where you are willing to set out to find the skillset that is needed to be a good operator 7:24 to actually make it successful. That is such solid, tactful advice that I think that we get so lost in the brand and the name and you know all the fun stuff but then you really also have to be diligent with the operations systems. 7:43 That's something I find too, just as a brand strategist. There's only so much we could do as far as marketing, activations, building a brand, but if you don't have the systems in place behind the scenes, you could only go so far. 7:56 So I really love that advice and I think that's something that needs to be spoken about more, especially in the early stages of getting a good foundation from the beginning and then how that really sets the tone for the rest of the growth of the brand. 8:11 Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying I hope that there's like a passionless market. No, you need, you need the passion to go through it. 8:18 That's what's right. That's what's gonna motivate you to do what is really difficult every single day. Yeah, you need both. 8:26 You need both. Well, thank you so much, Emily, for coming on. I just recently changed the name of my podcast to Emerging Brands with Kelly Bennett podcast and you were my first guest with the new name. 8:37 And so I was like, well, this is a sign because you are curating such an amazing opportunity to activate emerging brands. 8:45 And I just thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. Yeah. Well, thank you. And thank you just for being a supporter of Public Bracer and for coming into the store. 8:55 Of course. Thank you so much. And I'll see everyone on the next episode.
