Kate Harvey - From Breaking News, to Breaking into Retail

On this episode, we’re joined by Kate Harvey, the co-founder and CEO of Bare Bones, a category-defining brand on a mission to make nourishment more accessible, flavorful, and functional. 

What started out in a small kitchen has evolved into a national brand with innovative products like shelf-stable broths, instant protein sticks, and collagen-fueled hydration powders.

Kate joined Shelf Help where we dove into how Bare Bones went from frozen bone broth to an omnichannel platform brand. Kate breaks down the co-packer horror story that nearly derailed their Costco launch, the multiple iterations of their visual identity, and how she thinks about shelf placement, demos (or lack thereof), ExpoWest, and driving velocity.

We also get into on-the-ground tactics that are working right now and what trends Kate is tracking.

Episode Highlights:

🥣 From journalism to bone broth founder
🧪 Early R&D and finding product-market fit
🧃 Why form factor changes everything
🚫 The co-packer horror story that almost derailed a Costco launch
🎨 Packaging design change that unlocked +40% velocity
🏬 How Bare Bones thinks about demos, displays & shelf location
🛒 What Costco taught them about scale
📈 Sampling strategies that actually work
📊 Tactics that are driving trial right now
🌿 Trends Kate is tracking across the store

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Table of Contents:

00:00 – Intro
00:38 – Bare Bones intro and origin story
02:36 – How Kate’s journalism background set her up for success in CPG
04:01 – Building Bare Bones with her husband
06:03 – Formulation and R&D - the first form factor (frozen bone broth)
07:43 – Expanding into the powder-stick format
11:48 – Learning lessons from a co-packer nightmare
14:44 – Visual identity and packaging design
22:01 – Rebrand learning lessons
25:08 – ExpoWest, what it’s actually good for
27:40 – Where bone broth sits in the store
29:29 – Costco
34:26 – Demos and sampling
36:48 – On the ground tactics that are working well as of late
38:14 – Brands and trends Kate has been tracking lately

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Links:

Bare Bones – https://www.barebonesbroth.com
Follow Kate on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherinepoythress/
Follow me on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/
Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support.

Transcript

0:02

today we're speaking with Kate Harvey who is the co founder and CEO of Bare Bones a brand focused on offering protein and hydration in a convenient easy to use format which we're gonna dive into here in a second prior to Bare Bones Kate had a bit of a unique background she spent quite a long time as a journalist I'm excited to dive into as well just for the the listeners that aren't that familiar with Bare Bones in terms of origin story why behind the brand core products you guys offer and maybe just throw out a few places that people can get their hands on them and then I will go from there sure yeah thanks Adam I'm excited to be here so Bare Bones started in 2013 where husband wife founded team uh company my husband Ryan was an exec he was a chef in fine dining in San Diego and found that that lifestyle wasn't conducive to his interested in health and nutrition and so he found himself drinking stock from the

back of the stove during service at 9: 1:00

10 in San Diego and he realized not only did it taste good but what it was really nourishing and supermarkets didn't sell anything like this a true chef quality stock so he started making a chef quality stock on our stove in North Park and freezing it and shipping it nationwide and he called it bone broth to set it apart from the stocks that had been sold in conventional retail for decades prior and so that's kind of our origin story we started in bone broth but really we are not a bone broth company we are about convenient protein and delivering it in delicious formats and delicious flavors so we now have our liquid bone broth line and instant bone broth line and we recently launched a collagen drink mix that's delicious uh it comes in lemonade fruit punch and passion fruit flavors so I came on a little bit after Ryan started I was a journalist at the San Diego Union Tribune I think it was called UT San Diego at the time I covered retail and small business and I had through my work met the owner of Jimbo's Naturally which is a very beloved natural and specialty retail chain in the San Diego County area and so through that relationship we had our first meeting with a retail buyer and got some feedback on the product and the packaging and that was kind of how I got involved and eventually quit my job we moved up to Oregon to set up a broth factory and an old sushi restaurant and I came on full time awesome that's a your experience in journalism played a part in the success you're having as an entrepreneur in this CPG space today oh my gosh I wish it had contributed more I will say that um I think certain skills I developed as a reporter have really been an asset to me as a founder one of which is just deep curiosity about everything and lack of like a confidence in asking questions and not knowing the answers yet I think that really helped us as we started out I thought I understood business and I thought I understood the retail side of business when I made the move over but I quickly Learned that there's a lot of opacity and a lot of nuance to both consumer packaged goods and to running a business that I just I'm not sure you can fully grasp it until you've lived it so um I probably came into bare bones from that job with more confidence than I should have but at least I was curious yeah I think that's probably a good thing there's coming in into some level of yeah I don't know faking it till you make it it's a part of part of the entrepreneurship journey to a certain extent yeah for sure I say all the time if I had known what I was getting into I never would have started I would have stuck with my journalism job which at the time was really rough on me it was like emotionally taxing I would have stayed there yeah building a business with your honestly the greatest blessing a lot of people remark like I could never work with my husband I could never work with my wife and because it's all we've ever known it doesn't feel that hard to us actually bare bones predates our marriage we didn't get married until June of 2014 so we were colleagues in the business before we were yeah and for that reason we just kind of I think in a new relationship and a new season of a relationship it gives you a lot of permission to revisit ground rules and expectations and all of that and I think we were just lucky that the business predated everything and we were able to sort of build the marriage around the business in a way that benefited both and gave us like safe spaces to we could compartmentalize if that makes sense yeah that makes sense yeah yeah so that said it is a challenge like it's it's hard especially when things are tough with business it's hard to leave that at work and not allow it to bleed into every conversation that you have but over the years as we've built out the team Ryan and I have gotten progressively better at establishing and maintaining those boundaries and we just have a very open honest dialogue if something for example yesterday we were on a like a date day we went to a spa and then we had lunch after and as we were just talking over lunch Ryan mentioned something about the business he's like like let me know if you don't want to talk about work right now like okay and we just have a very open partnership that way like it just they do bleed into each other for sure but we're both okay saying I don't want to talk about that right now that's great that's awesome a good setup which is great I I believe the original first and original form factor was the was the frozen liquid format did it take a while it's like hone in that you guys are happy with that you want to bring to market and curious what that process was like oh that's a great question you know those early days I don't think it was that hard um partially because we were the only people doing it and Ryan had his chef experience and background he knew how to make a high quality bone broth a high quality stock and it's it's not rocket science it's just taking fresh vegetables and like high quality animal by product and like simmering it for 24 hours there were some challenges in the early days with when to add the vegetables to the simmer so that they didn't taste burnt or scorched beyond that it was really not challenging our biggest challenges were how to package it for consumption and how to ship it safely so that the packaging didn't get compromised or so that the product didn't get compromised and those were certainly the biggest challenges and we were so married to this idea of we really rejected like the science of food cause neither of us had a background in the science of food we rejected the idea that you could make this product shelf stable and that was one of our early like mistakes I think not being more open to and curious about how the science worked um we really should have gone shelf stable in those earliest days and one of our biggest competitors did go shelf stable in the earliest days and they captured a ton of market share because they did that that makes sense one of the reasons you made the not necessarily pivot is that you still have the liquid version but the expansion into the uh that you expressed what LED you to finally make that decision to make this expansion or pivot we got consistent feedback from our consumers that the liquid bone broth was delicious they loved it but a it was really expensive and b kind of inconvenient they wanted to be able to fly with it and take it on vacation take it to the office take it backpacking send it to school with their kids and there just isn't a really good or convenient way to do that with a liquid liquid anything let alone bone broth and so we had been considering ways to dehydrate or create create a powdered form of our bone broth and we actually for a very short period of time because we couldn't figure that out we just launched a collagen powder okay to give people the same nutrients but in a convenient format what really was our unlock and this was actually 2019 one of our angel investors introduced us to a gentleman who has a very close relationship with Kinder's which is a brand that does a lot of business at Costco Costco had come to Kinder's asking them to make an instant bone broth for them it wasn't in Kinder's wheelhouse it wasn't on brand for them and they were looking for a partner to bring this instant bone broth to Costco for them for their request and so these two investors got together and they were like I know the perfect brand and so they kind of we entered into a relationship with this team and they helped us innovate and develop the recipe for our instant Beef Bone broth which we launched in of of all times it was like Memorial Day weekend of 2019 it's hot it's not the ideal time to launch a bone broth but we launched it in Costco and on Amazon simultaneously and within a month that instant beef bone broth was the top selling beef broth on Amazon which is pretty monumental for us and it just it kicked off this flywheel that has never stopped man that's that's awesome was it to maintain the same flavor and the same experience that customers were getting in the liquid format to convert that into the the powder format was that a tough process sure yeah you know it's funny a lot of people assume that we take our liquid bone broth and we just like dehydrate it right that is not what happens it's a totally different supply chain and process of manufacturing so we're starting with the individual ingredients that are already dehydrated or spray dried and agglomerated and we're mixing those to make an entirely new product that does have the same nutritional profile as our liquid bone broth so in a lot of ways it's easier in some ways it's harder and we are learning a new every month how much how difficult it really is to make this product in a way that tastes good and performs well and can be packaged in a convenient way we've kind of been baffled honestly that we don't have more competition and it's because it really is challenging to make a dehydrated bone broth product tastes delicious so yeah it was a process I think we went through at least 12 iterations of the instant beef bone broth before we launched that and several months later we launched instant chicken bone broth but it was not we weren't thrilled with it it wasn't the perfect final formulation it is now six years later and we have launched what I believe is our final version 6 formulation of instant chicken bone broth that's what I'm drinking right now and it's it's delicious but it took us six you know six years and six versions to figure it out yeah that's a bit of a journey nightmare whatever you want to describe it you went through with a with a I think you might describe it as a co packer middleman so we don't have to catch that whole saga in detail but maybe just based on that experience what are some recommendations you might have for some other up and coming founders and brand owners that are about to start the search for a co packer and once they find one actually engaged with one oh man yeah that that's it's a tricky one there are a lot of pitfalls with co manufacturers because I alluded earlier to the opacity of this industry it can be hard it's not like you can get on Google and find a co manufacturer very easily and vet them and determine if they can make your very specific nuance product in the way that you want it made it's just not a thing that exists it is getting a little bit better but co manufacturers are stuck in the 20th century and so to get an introduction to one or to find one can be really challenging I recommend working with an outsourced operations agency there are a lot of those out there many of them really really good that's in fact how we got started with our co manufacturer so starting with an outsourced ops team who are really good at supply chain and have already vetted a lot of co manufacturers who do a lot of different things it can match you it'll save you a lot of time and heartache in the end to do it that way versus trying to go out on your own and find a command yeah when you do get introduced to a co manufacturer it is absolutely mandatory that you make an in person on site visit during production make sure that the name on the building matches the name on the contract that you're signing and yeah those are those are two of the big ones and then on the contract have an attorney review it always have an attorney review it you will it will save you a lot of heartache it's expensive but it's worth it because this is your bread and butter this is this is the heartbeat of your company if your operations and your co manufacturing relationship are toxic in any way it can ruin you totally those are all really helpful really helpful hopefully it helps at least one person if they listen to it yeah and I'm happy to answer questions about any of those outsourced operations agencies who can help you I know of at least 3 that are really good um and in fact that first ops consultancy that we hired our VP of operations came from there so nice yeah she stayed on with us after they sort of dispersed and she came on in house yeah that's great yeah I interviewed um Chris Bauer I'm not I'm not sure if you're familiar with catapult really help brands find co packers and kind of commercialize their products shifting gears a little bit talking about visual identity packaging update sample when you're thinking about back to that original kind of packaging designer kind of key variables that were top of mind for you in terms of that original version and maybe another way to look at it what were some of the key things that were included in that brief with whoever you worked with to actually design the visual identity and packaging are we talking OG OG back in like yeah we can talk about that one and then and then maybe the or maybe the current version which everyone you feel like is yeah yeah well I'll I'll give you a little background on the OG just because I think there were some missteps along the way so the original packaging design for our frozen product line was done by somebody who she was a designer in the restaurant community in San Diego and she didn't have a whole lot of experience in packaging design outside of like maybe alcoholic beverages so it was interesting and she kind of LED the process and her process was she went into Whole Foods Market and sprouts and stood in the broth aisle and was looking at what are the colors that people are using the textures and the visual like the imagery and trying to find a unique angle that would help us stand out on shelf and that was what sort of drove her and also how could we tease out this idea of bare bones and sort of like that ancestral ritual surrounding how you take the bones of an animal and simmer them down so what we came up with was a very sort of Egyptian inspired hieroglyphic inspired like visual identity that was really rustic and masculine and um maybe didn't follow the rules of great packaging design so we we used that for several years and that was fine cause we were a very mom and pop homegrown brand and we were just selling direct to consumer when we took our first round of investment a couple years later our investors felt very strongly and they several of them came from CPG they felt very strongly that we needed to do an a brand overhaul and so we worked with um agency out of Austin called Tarmac P Tarmac and they sort of helped us restart the brand in a way 2020 I think is that right no this this one was 2016 to 17 OK OK that they helped us with that got it yeah so we've been through now three major overhauls of the brand that one we felt was a really solid it was a really solid brand and that gave us the bare bones blue which we feel like we have a lot of equity in now but then in 2020 shortly after we launched the instant Bone Broth we felt what we needed to evolve a little bit further because a lot of the prior identity had been built around just bone broth and we really leaned into the animal imagery on pack and we we found that was off putting to consumers they didn't want to see the face of the cute little cow before they drank the beef bone broth so um we worked with Mac and Roni Ron and Mackenzie they're a couple a married couple in New York and they they sort of helped us to tweak our visual identity and it works so hard for us now and we removed the animal from the front of the pack we removed the we had a window that you could view the broth through and the liquid bone broth and we just we gave it a much cleaner design we used vegetable illustrations and for the instant Bone Broth we we showed the instant Bone Broth stick on the front of the pack and um yeah our velocities surged after we did that yeah I think I read it was like 20 to 40% which is pretty crazy yeah it was wild and that's on the liquid bone broth the instant bone broth it was harder to do like a before and after of velocity because again that was primarily a club and Amazon brand or Amazon product line at the time yeah and so when by the time that that the latest rebrand in 2020 we're gonna do this like what how long did that whole process take of going to the rebrand when you felt like it was it was ready to bring to market man that I don't recall one of our one of our philosophies at barebones is always be improving and um we're always in pursuit of perfection and so we're kind of always working on packaging that said these big packaging overhauls that we've done like two or three of now I think each of them took at least 4 4 months to dial in the actual packaging and design and agree on a direction and then a few months to apply it to all of the packaging and then you're rolling it out which is always messy so a year a year and a half it's a long process and it's really painful but worth it yeah maybe the most recent one in 2020 what were some of the more like decision points that were more contentious internally or required the most debate whether is that's just between you and Ryan or maybe with with that team or yeah yeah so one of the one of suggestions from one of our investors was changing the name that's OK yeah we were just bare bones with bone broth under the name sometimes one of the investors wanted us to become Bare Bones Nutrition and we felt that that signaled something different from the actual strategy and the heart of the brand our approach is always to deliver nutrition but we're food first food and flavor first um and positioning it as bare bones nutrition made it feel like a supplement brand so I would say that was the most contentious but it wasn't even that contentious um we're really really fortunate that our investors have been very deferential to us over the years and given us a ton of autonomy in running the brand and then there was a little push back on we use a lot of white as the backdrop to our packaging and it's a little bit counter intuitive because most brands in CPG look at a white package and they think private label but we really wanted to communicate the cleanliness and the like bare bones we've stripped everything out that you don't need and we're delivering everything you do need so there was a bit of debate around the usage of white in our packaging design those were the two biggest contention points yeah that makes sense that those those don't surprise me now that you've gone through this sounds good yeah let's just say I was a a a new brand leader to fast growing CPG brand like Bear Bones but maybe a few years behind I told you I'm considering a packaging refresh what would be like a few questions or questions you might ask me just to help me decide even if this is the right strategy to do in the first place one would be where are you selling your product and 2 why do you think that you need to do a packaging refresh what are the data points that are making you suspect that or feel that three what's your budget for a packaging refresh for what is your brand strategy and that's something that we're learning now in a way that we hadn't before as we're going through yet another visual identity refresh a strategy should drive everything so if you don't have your strategy dialed in you're just treading water and spinning your wheels to evolve that visual identity you need to have a really good reason to do it because again it's expensive you're inevitably and we have a kick ass BPO operations inevitably we end up having to throw away tens of thousands of dollars of packaging every time we change it and then another thing to consider is who is your regulatory compliance partner because it's you want to make sure that you're in full compliance with all of your regulatory agencies when you make any packaging updates because again you just you can't afford to make mistakes right totally no those are all very helpful as you were thinking about whether it's the most recent one or some of those other ones how did you think about like you know obviously you want a fresh look for a reason but also like legacy brand elements for you know the existing customers that really resonate with the brand and also you know when they're walking down the aisle making sure they can continue to find it and not get lost hmm yeah this is always we call it it's high stakes right the bigger you get the bigger of a deal it is to make a you know a change so really identify what the brand elements are that people recognize and resonate with and preserve those as much as you can and or hint at them in any evolved identity so for us we we felt on the last round of packaging that it was our bare bones blue that was really the thing that people identified as this is bare bones even if they couldn't see the logo didn't see the logo maybe didn't read the packaging they knew that was bare bones so that's one of the equities that we've really held on to through every packaging design round that we've done that yeah that makes sense I think you I'm correct if I'm wrong but I think you did like that most recent the 2020 rebrand you did like kind of that big unveil at Expo West seem like it's a great event for these type of things cause you got all the important stakeholders in the same place and you can get you know get their attention but it seems like on the maybe on the flip side because every brand is there there's so much going on it can it can potentially be hard to rise above the noise to a certain extent yeah I have such mixed feelings about Expo West I will say if you're planning to go to Expo to get new business and have an ROI I don't I don't think that is the purpose of Expo West anymore it's certainly not what it delivers for brands for us um when we go to Expo it really is to get eyeballs on something new that we're doing and to get early voluminous feedback on what we're working on or what we've launched so for us launching that new brand refresh at Expo was it tremendous success we um you know we made this big backdrop that had the new packaging on it it was really unmistakable and um eye catching and it drew a lot of people in and they gave us their feedback on the new packaging meanwhile you know to speak to the difficulty of rolling over to new packaging we were handing out samples in the old packaging so we were getting feedback it was almost an a B test on the two packaging designs and um we just we got a lot of confirmation that we were on the right track to make that packaging switch the other great thing about Expo is we got product into a ton of people's hands and when you have a physical sample that you can send home with people they remember that in a way that they can't remember just grabbing a little like cup sample cup of something they have your website information on the package so when they get home to the piece of their home they're trying your sample that they're reading the packaging they're visiting your website it's a lot more stickiness to it so yeah it's it can be successful know what your goals are in going to Expo because it's a heavy lift and it is um it's a lot of money yeah it's gotten a lot more expensive from the past few years from what I know yeah I will say the times the years we haven't gone to Expo have been our best years financially that tells you something I guess mm hmm in terms of launching and retail once you at least I'm the bone broth I think you shifted to the powder form where in the store did you like cause it feels like it could potentially sit in soup I guess or maybe like the supplements aisle maybe just like the beverage aisle I'm curious like where did you envision it did retailers have a clear vision of where it would sit were they initially unsure where you guys aligned or maybe that's a more straightforward answer than I think it is there there was a lot of discussion about that and a lot of uncertainty and when we first launched the instant bone broth into traditional retail my preference was to a B test it in nutritional supplements and in the soup aisle when we pitched it to our soup buyer at Whole Foods she goes oh no I think this is actually beverage and we were like uh okay this isn't even one of the considerations and we we felt strongly it did not belong in beverage what I knew based on my experience as a consumer and running sales for Bare Bones is that consumers you want your product placed in the most adjacent spot to what people will be looking for when they discover your product if the most natural for someone to be looking for a liquid bone broth discover that oh hey here's this much more convenient and much more affordable version of bone broth I'll buy that as opposed to someone going into the beverage aisle looking for an energy drink or an electrolyte mix and finding a savory bone broth it just didn't feel like a natural fit so we felt very strongly and we advocated very strongly for our suit buyer to take the product line and I think that's proven out especially now with the way grocery prices are fluctuating mostly in the upward direction um having a more affordable bone broth option next to the liquid bone broths that are getting more expensive by the day is working out really well for us that's great that's great that's that's super insightful I know Costco I think got wrapped up in that original a co packer fiasco but it sounds like eventually got on the shelf I've had a fair amount of success there you know Costco's a bit of a different channel than other ones and yeah I'm just a bit about that journey of getting on the shelf of Costco just in terms of maybe that first buyer meeting getting the commitment and then once you got that commitment all those all the steps in terms of actually leading up to a successful launch oh there's so much to Costco there is a lot of urban legend around it some of that urban legend is actually true the the challenge with Costco well I'll start with like here are the wonderful things about working with Costco they're easy in terms of they place a purchase order it's a full truckload of product you send the truckload of product they pay you in 15 days they have like two or three ways that you can support your product your item in their warehouses so it's pretty simple versus and you're not going through a middle man you're not going through a distributor it's a very direct relationship and it's a lot it's like big orders challenges with Costco they don't want to comprise more than 20% of your revenue because they're very protective and this is one of the things I do love about Costco I'm a Costco superfan as a member and a consumer and now as a supplier they're very protective of your financial security both their suppliers and their members for the longest time Costco wouldn't even allow the use of a credit card in their warehouse yeah I remember yeah so they they're that they don't want to comprise more than 20% of your revenue is to protect you as a brand they know that they're kind of a fickle customer in terms of they they can move quickly they can approve an item and have it in their warehouses in a month if you can produce it that's not true in any other retailer that I know of really so they're very nimble but they also can drop you equally quickly once you sell through the item they're on to the next one that's part of the treasure hunt atmosphere that they create at Costco so they don't ever want to jeopardize your longevity as a company so that's a challenge they also are very hard on price they do their comps they know their comps they're gonna know by unit what you're selling for on Amazon and at Walmart and at Sam's Club and at Kroger and and they're gonna grind you down if they feel like they're not getting the best price other challenges from a channel strategy perspective is if you're selling your products in Costco it's the best price in town members are gonna go in and they do have a lot of business members who will go in and buy up a ton of your product and turn around and resell it on Amazon and compete with you on your brand on your product listings and drive down your margin so that's one of the challenges and I don't know if I fully answered your question no these are all really helpful though no to winning in Costco and especially that may be unique to Costco partnership with your buyers the merchants love to be a part of and have input on packaging and how you communicate about your item and how you display and merchandise your item they also really know their members they have a lot of insight into how their members shop what's important to them um that is invaluable so developing those close relationships with your merchants is the key to success we've been really really fortunate to have some fantastic merchants who we have a direct relationship with and they have championed our items like if we did really well in their division they went out and championed us to other divisions got a volume by so we're talking now instead of one or two divisions picking up the item you've got nine divisions all at once selling the item talk about economies of scale it's insane so as much as possible make sure you have a great broker for Costco because a great broker can make or break you they need to have a strong relationship with your merchants and they also need to trust you as the brand to come into those meetings because you also don't want them gatekeeping those relationships you wanna rely on your broker for insight expertise and like guidance but you don't want them owning those relationships and the Costco buyers don't want that either right so that's really important and the key to success there demos and sampling strategy in general how big of a part of that has been your guys we are historically we have not been a brand and selling items that do well with sampling so until we launched the instant bone broth we really didn't do any sampling we attempted it in Whole Foods Market to be a good partner Ryan and I would go in ourselves and do sampling at like the Hillcrest Whole Foods in San Diego so that we could get a feel for how to run an effective sampling program and it just it was very off putting to a lot of customers because they they would see our like Cambros or our air pots and think oh coffee and come up and find that we're serving meat juice instead so we really lean into sampling in retail ever interesting and with mixed success those have never really driven velocity it's more of an awareness thing for us personally just again because of that initial reaction to being served meat juice what has been the huge unlock for us is taking those instant sticks it's a single serving of instant bone broth or collagen drink mix and finding partners and who service a similar demographic to ours partnering with them to get those samples into the hands of their consumers we've partnered with the Lift Box for example we've partnered with Snack Magic all of these like subscription box type things where people are looking to discover new items that meet their health needs or make their health journey more exciting so that's been a huge unlock for us we're also partnering this year with Mammoth March which is this long distance like tracking event that they do all over the country we've partnered with them to provide samples for those events that's been the type of sampling that really drives velocity in every channel for us and brand awareness and again it's that take home thing too so then your brand is sticking in their minds what have you guys found in terms of and what have you found or some of the key kind of tools or strategies you found that have the most impact the biggest things tactically lately well it depends on the retailer but almost universal this is a universal truth when you do deep discounts you drive trial so having a deep strategic promotional cadence in store has been our most effective strategy outside of that it really does depend on the retailer at Whole Foods Market we have found off shelf display to be incredibly effective it's also highly competitive to get off shelf display like end caps or they call those wings it's competitive every brand wants that placement it's also incredibly expensive so you need to know your ROI analysis and know how much it's really gonna cost and what velocity lift you need to see after for it to really pay off in recent years investing in digital retail media has been the second most effective strategy outside of that make sure your packaging talks for you make sure your pack it is it is the most important marketing you're ever gonna do in store out of store anywhere make sure that your packaging is working its butt off those thing all three things really make a lot of sense last question for you Kate any specific brands or just trends in general across CPG overall that have peaked your interest or caught your attention or things that you're tracking at all always you know for a long time it was the sparkling water which is still somehow growing I think like the sparkling water category has always been really interesting to me um and I had this idea for a brand if if it had the band with to do this married sparkling water with like aromatic bitters so supportive of your gut health kind of a thing I think someone's already doing that I've run out of time to be the first to market on it um so yeah sparkling water category super interesting hydration in general it seems like most people are eager to address their hydration needs in various ways um and there's a lot of interesting innovation coming out that way and you've got all kinds of electrolytes and collagen drink mixes um that are playing in that space another really interesting one is the grain alternative pastas and anything that has protein infused into it or delivers a lot of protein a significant amount of protein like Bonza is one of my favorite brands right now because my kids don't eat much of anything that we like to eat they don't like vegetables they don't like to eat meats a lot of times so like how do I get protein into my kids bodies besides bone broth obviously so Bonza's really interesting and Googles and like all of these I just think it's super interesting when a brand or brands come into a sleepy category and find a way to disrupt it and there are so many categories in the store still ripe for disruption like who's making the better for you Jello nobody hey point never I yeah yet to hear one about those yeah but it's just I'm fascinated by any time some someone's disrupting totally yeah I'm on the same page oh yeah Kate along with you specifically and then also best place to follow along with bare bones as well probably the best place to follow me is on LinkedIn I'm Katherine Harvey on LinkedIn and Bear Bones you can find us on LinkedIn on Instagram at Bear Bones broth and on Facebook at Bear Bones Broth and then our website has all of the retailers you can find our products and we have a really slick store finder can explore our story our why our recipes and find other ways to follow us there awesome well thanks Kate this has been awesome appreciate the time yeah thanks Adam how do you feel like maybe looking back and now sounds like you guys got a good for some of those challenges that that I know you spoke a fair amount about that journey they're similar they really help you know packaging design that need for like balancing keeping some of those familiar I think yeah I guess this is probably more applicable envision this product line would sit what do you feel like is the key to in terms of where you've gotten the brand to today we did do a lot of demos at Costco in the early days what's the best place for people to follow