Rotten CEO Michael Fisher

https://eatrotten.com/collections/all-candy

A more natural candy option! 

What if candy could be delicious and more natural? 

60% less sugar! 

Packaging trials and tribulations and more great lessons! 

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Packaging Today Podcast 

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Transcript

0:15

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is a founder and CEO of a company called Rotten, which is a really cool brand. Mr. Michael Fisher, welcome sir. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Always love to chat about packaging. I was excited to research your company. first of all, your branding is really cool. your products are very popular and congratulations on your success. I thought it was awesome how you had t-shirts and all kinds of other things besides food. I think that's a smart idea. I know my son, who's 12 would. Eat up those t-shirts and I would too. They're really cool. But, I did want to talk a little bit about your background. you've, about two years ago founded this company and, your background seems to be pretty full of entrepreneurship, or founder mentality. And I'd love to speak to that a little bit. Can you tell us a little more than that? Yeah. so before Founding Rotten, I was in an entrepreneurship fellowship called, venture for America, which was this awesome program. Unfortunately today no longer exists. but it brought young people to emerging American cities. To develop the startup ecosystems there. So it would bring young people to go work in startups in cities like I was in Charlotte, they were in Columbus and Detroit and Birmingham, places outside of the, Silicon Valley bubble. bring young people there, work in startups, and then support those people as they potentially went on to create their own companies. in those cities and create jobs and build that up. And so that was super exciting to me when I first learned about it and really wanted to be a part of that. so ended up moving to Charlotte, worked for an e-commerce startup called Care. there, was, one of the first employees and, was, was able to really help lead a lot of the e-comm and growth there. So that was a ton of fun. And I think took from that, joining something super early stage, seeing it grow, being a part of it, gave me even more of the entrepreneurial bug than I had before where I was just like, I really wanna start my own thing and build something from scratch, from nothing. And, it's been. A very steep learning curve, but a lot of fun. Congrats on your success, and I think you have, obviously, you have the mindset that is required to start a business on your own and be successful at it. It's not an easy thing. I know, but, I would like to talk about Rotten. Would you call it a candy company or a brand? it seems to be more than just gummies and, I'm really fascinated to learn, what is it, what do you make and, what's the focus there? Yeah. So we do, we think about ourselves like a candy company. so we make freakishly delicious candy with way less sugar, gut friendly prebiotics, and zero synthetic dyes. so that's the gist of what we're making and selling. it's, gummy candy, sour candy, all in the better for you format. So lower in sugar, you have the fiber ingredients in there, and then the natural colors. but I think as you noticed, a big part of our goal was to build this awesome, fun brand, that had enough, depth to it that it could actually exist outside of the, Products we were selling today. And ha had the mindset very early on that we wanted to build out these characters in this universe and that, we had the assets to go have our own cartoon show one day. I think that was like a big guiding light, in building the brand. Great idea. Yeah. and like you said, you, you've got t-shirts and hats and, other brands. I really appreciate the fact that it's less sugar. I looked on your site it's 60% less sugar, which is really awesome. And the way you were able to accomplish that was through natural ingredients like monk fruit and other things like that, which as somebody who cares about. My health and my family's health. I really appreciate that.'cause we do enjoy candy and do to, have occasional, gummy bears or, worms or anything like that. But what a great idea and, kudos to you. I. Now this hasn't all been, rainbows and, unicorns. you've had some issues with packaging and I wanted to talk about that.'cause I think a lot of founders say this packaging stuff is really hard. And so maybe they could learn from what you guys did and if you could speak to that. Yeah. so when I was starting the brand. Sustainability, was, and still is very important to me. And so I wanted to be able to incorporate that into what we were doing with Rotten. so that started my sustainable packaging journey, which the more I got into it, the more confusing it, actually started to feel. I. Would reach out to everyone I could find and ask them who the best sustainable, flexible film packaging suppliers were. I would talk to those people. I was reaching out to some of the manufacturers of the actual films that these suppliers were. Then, converting and using, like just trying to soak up everything I possibly could and understand if there was a solution that would work for us, which at the time, we were really set on using compostable packaging. it tied into like our brand super, the name rotten and packaging that rots. And, it just felt like this great alignment. I had my mindset on it that's what we were gonna do, and I, did a lot of research and work to try and find an option that did work. However, being a startup, you often are making decisions quickly. You don't have time to. Run a trial and put your product in it and see how it ages and all the things that, you should be doing. But at this phase, how quickly you have to move. It's, it just, it's impossible. And obviously that adds risk. And so I think for us it was a big learning experience. today we, we no longer use compostable packaging. It's something we'd love to bring back and we're, we have conversations with people about it and we're open to new development developments in the space. But I think, in, in hindsight, and I had this feeling even going through the process of looking for sustainable film was there were so many other things on our plate too. Like even getting a formula that worked and commercializing that formula and manu and getting it made in a way that we liked the end result and there was quality to it. And, getting our first distribution, figuring out how we were gonna market. there was already so many other things on our plate. To then add what is not a small thing, but a big thing, which is sustainable packaging and being innovative with packaging. it was a lot. And so I think it was a very hard decision when we decided to move away from that film, because it felt so core to our brand. But it definitely was the right decision for us because it allowed us to focus on getting some of the other fundamentals of our business. Right. From the product to the brand, to the marketing, to distribution and sales that hopefully we can get to a place where we do have the bandwidth again, to really start investing in and exploring in sustainable packaging. But I know that was a long answer, but hopefully a helpful context on some of our journey. I commend you for your efforts. this is not an easy thing to do, to be more sustainable in packaging, and it does make perfect sense to have compostable packaging for a brand called Rotten. I think that's ideal. but like you found out, compostable packaging isn't really there yet, all the way and. As much as we would love it to be. there's a lot of, research and trials that need to happen and, especially for someone like you that has a product that is very natural and very focused on natural ingredients, you need to have those oxygen transfer barriers in your films that are nearly bulletproof. I saw the shelf life on your packaging now is 18 months. Which is incredible and, what it needs to be, because of how distribution works. I understand that process. But, so good for you for trying and I'm glad that you were able to recover. and I think you're right. Someday compostable packaging will be there. I, yeah, and I think for a lot of products it is there. it's so specific to your use case, what you're looking for, right. What your margins can support all of that. So like I also want to be very clear that our story is not a knock on compostable packaging or sustainable packaging. It truly is just in our case, what happened to us. right. Definitely recommend that if you are considering it for your brand that you know, you go down that path with your own unique case. Of course. Yeah. Oh, and I would never say anything negative, other than, make sure you consider all the whole scope of life of the product. We, we always say there's nothing sustainable about spoiled foods. Yeah. And there's nothing, sustainable about damaged goods, Yeah. So the packaging number one must perform. Yeah. Number two, be sustainable. yeah. Right. And I think you found that, and your new packaging is probably what, drop off recyclable or is it Yeah, I believe, yeah. Yeah. Store drop off, which is great. That's a great option. It's becoming more popular, at the Sustainable Packaging Coalition event. They just launched a new label for that, which is cool to see. So that's something I would encourage people to. Look up if they're using a material that could be, recycled at a store, drop off location. But I wanted to go back a little bit to a macro thought here. you're obviously very good at, startup phase and running a company. What advice would you have to somebody that's starting a new business? I think, in the context of what I just shared, Everything is going to be so hard. So pick your battles. don't try and do everything all at once. in our case we were developing a custom formula for a better for you candy. that's enough of a, an uphill battle and a challenge. That. I think we just tried to do too much all at once. and so I would say, yeah, just prioritize and focus. Great advice. Great advice. and I loved how you reached out to a bunch of different people and different companies and communicated with them. That's advice that I give often when asked about new packaging ideas. Say, Hey, talk to people who've been doing it, and they will most likely help you or advise somebody, that is smarter than them about whatever situation you're in. Yeah. that has been, A big unlock for me. people are, most people are very willing and wanting to help. and definitely reaching out to experts, not just with packaging, but with, a lot of different parts of my business, has been great. the advice and mentorship that I've gotten. I agree. I think I, first time I heard that was from Steve Jobs actually. he talked about his story and how he reached out to the gentleman at, Hewlett Packard when he was starting out. He's and they gave him an internship. I love that story and I think it's really important to remember that, it's. Not only is it smart, but it's just a way easier path to, to reach out to people who have done things before. Avoid a lot of those missteps. let's talk a little bit about your products. what's maybe your most popular, Item. And do you have anything new coming out that you'd like to tell us about? Yeah, so we have, four products right now. Two gummy worms and two gummy crunchies. The gummy crunchies is our new, crunchy gummy. So we've got flavored crunchy pieces on the outside with a gummy center. Our most popular, people definitely lean sour, so both our sour worms and the sour crunchies, like sour is definitely trending and people want that more fun, interesting taste and things that are a little bit more sour than what you might find on the, mainstream market. And on the roadmap, we definitely have some exciting things we're working on. I think continuing to innovate with textures, multiple textures, trying new things in the non-chocolate space. we're seeing a lot of growth specifically in that part of the candy industry, which makes sense 'cause I've heard that, that the cocoa, Bean or the raw material is becoming Yeah. Incredibly expensive due to these, recent shifts in the economy. Yeah, exactly. it's a combination both of that pricing dynamic. And we're also seeing, younger generations prefer, like gummies, sour chew, all the like non-chocolate items, at a higher rate, than the older generation. So I think it's a. both things are really working together there. I'll be sure to buy some of your, I was looking at the mix pack. that looks cool to me. I'll try that. Yeah. And, we'll do some videos, testing 'em out for you. Oh, perfect. I what, in, in that vein, what's the best way to purchase these? I saw there on Amazon, you've got your website. What else would you suggest? Yeah, I think I. Most available to anyone. It's gonna be Amazon and our website. we're in a bunch of grocery stores, airport stores, other kind of specialty placements like Zoomies. we have everything listed on our store locator on our website. So if you're interested to see if there's a store near you, check that out. I love that Zoomies is still popular. That's so cool. That reminds me of high school. Yeah. Wonderful. I know they've been an awesome partner and, I dunno, the fun thing about Candy is, it's sold at the checkout of so many different types of stores, so there's a lot of different partners that we can have, for distribution. Great. thanks again Michael. Really appreciate your time and congrats on your success. Awesome. Thank you for having me.