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Chris Lerohl | UpRoot Food Collective
83 Plays7 months ago
In this episode of Aisle 42, we chat with Chris Lerohl from UpRoot Food Collective. We cover a whole ranges of subjects like… his vision for the future of digital and local shopping, food innovation, quality ingredients, story telling, consumer trends, local food making and we talk about yummy dumplings and meat pies too.
To learn more about what Chris and his team are doing go to https://uprootfood.ca or https://honestdumplings.ca or https://southislandpie.ca.
To learn more about Corwin Hiebert and why the Aisle 42 podcast exists visit https://www.ethicalfoodgroup.com.
Here’s a summary of this interview:
Corwin Hiebert and Chris begin the podcast discussing technical setup and acknowledging this as their first podcast episode for Ethical Food Group (EFG). Chris's company is part of the Ethical Food Group family. They discuss the successful collaboration between their teams and the positive results from their collective efforts.
Vision for Future Grocery Stores
Chris imagines a grocery store with a focus on innovative products that have detailed ingredient stories and high quality.
Company Products
They produce gourmet Chinese-style dumplings and New Zealand-style meat pies under the brands Honest Dumplings and South Island Pies, featuring creative flavors and both regular and limited edition products.
Challenges of Scaling Quality
Discussion on maintaining product quality as production scales up, with comparisons to international standards like those in Japan.
Uproot Food Collective
Chris explains the role of their Uproot Food Collective in supporting local food brands, particularly during the pandemic, and the subsequent focus shift back towards their core products post-pandemic.
Local Food Economy and Sustainability
The importance of supporting local food economies, clean label products, and sustainability are emphasized.
Consumer Behavior and Direct-to-Consumer Sales
Chris discusses changes in consumer behavior, particularly the stability and benefits of direct-to-consumer sales, and the impact of food shows on their sales and consumer interaction.
Challenges in Meal Product Development
They touch on the regulatory and logistical challenges of developing meal-focused products that can meet consumer needs for convenient, nutritious options.
Celebrity Endorsement
Chris expresses a desire for a shoutout from "How to Dad," a popular New Zealand influencer, aligning with their brand's cultural and humorous aspects.
Conclusion
The interview wraps up with a discussion about the potential and importance of maintaining creativity and innovation in the food industry.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Chris LaRoe & Uproot Food Collective
00:00:00
Speaker
This is aisle 42. In this episode of aisle 42, I chat with Chris LaRoe from Uproot Food Collective. We cover a whole range of subjects like his vision for the future of digital and local shopping, food innovation, quality ingredients, storytelling, consumer trends, local food making, and we talk about yummy dumplings and meat pies too.
00:00:26
Speaker
You're going to enjoy listening into this one. Here's Chris from Uproot Food Collective. Okay, Chris, this is the first conversation on aisle 42 with a company that is a part of the Ethical Food Group family. So congratulations on being the first EFG-er
00:00:46
Speaker
person in the room. Our teams have been working together for a while, so it's been cool to see everything that's come from all the hard work. Thanks so much for jumping on the podcast. No, thanks for having me. That's exciting. I didn't realize we're the first one in the group there. So as you'd expect, I want to kick things off with a question that's a bit of a zip folder for you, given your role in the food industry, but it's how we roll.
Vision for Innovative Grocery Experience
00:01:11
Speaker
Chris, if you were to imagine the perfect grocery store of the future, what would it look like?
00:01:16
Speaker
Oh wow, that's a great question. I think to me it comes down to having this level of innovation in there and this new revamp that every product in there has this level of detail in its ingredients and its story.
00:01:31
Speaker
authenticity and and just really takes a different approach than what's out there today and i look at some of the products that are in the local markets and everything from stuff like ours to the other amazing brands that there's just so many innovative flavors and it's such high quality and
00:01:48
Speaker
The deck is clean label most of the time and I just think it would be a place that has this amazing creative, innovative and delicious flavors and probably a lot higher quality than what's there today.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, quality is a tricky game because as brands get bigger, as their production processes get bigger and more robotic and their inputs have to get simplified so that they don't have any disruption to their flavor performance and the chemicals start to come in in order to keep these things on shelf longer. Yeah, it can be a tricky game.
Balancing Product Quality with Automation
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's interesting, though, like you go to somewhere like Japan, and I think that they have in general, maybe a higher quality of grocery than than what we have here. And they seem to manage to do it with the equipment. And I know, like, like I look to our experience with some of our products that as we've added some automation with our dumpling machine, I think we actually got a better product.
00:02:45
Speaker
out of it now than what we did when we first started, because you have that consistency in the quantities and you have these consistencies in the ingredients that maybe weren't there when we were at a really small scale or in the farmer's market. But I think it definitely, companies have to grow with that mindset to maintain the quality and that's not always the case that they maintain it and do it, but I think it can be done.
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, so true. Listeners are probably wondering what do you guys make? So let's get into it. What products, what food products do you and your team make?
Exploring Uproot's Brands: Honest Dumplings & South Island Pies
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, so we have a couple different brands. We have two main ones are Honest Dumplings and South Island Pies. Honest Dumplings, they're gourmet Chinese style dumpling, creative flavors like maple pork belly. We have the traditional pork, ginger beef dumplings, some amazing vegan ones like a Kung Pao tofu, a roasted cauliflower curry. And we have both regular and gluten free options in that.
00:03:50
Speaker
And then we do a bunch of kind of more smaller scale early earlier stuff like spring rolls and every once in a while some other kind of more exclusive limited editions that we sell on our DTC. Our other brand is the South Island Pies. So they're New Zealand style meat pies. So puff pastry stew like filling. We have some incredible flavors in that. Our regulars like a steak and cheese or steak and mushroom or
00:04:12
Speaker
a Greek, which is a spinach, but a spanakopita kind of thing. Or, um, and with that, we have lots of limited additions as well, whether it's Jamaican beef or a steak bacon mushroom or butter chicken. So we have lots of, lots of different flavors. And I think a big part of what we try to do is bring out kind of this constant rollout of new flavors and get people a new different experience within our product.
00:04:36
Speaker
So good. I've tried all your products. Well, not all of the flavors. You just mentioned some flavors that I didn't know existed, so now I'm a little cheesed off. But talk to me about some of the beginning times.
Success Story: Honest Dumplings at Farmers Markets
00:04:50
Speaker
I'm aware of your story almost more peripherally, but the farmers market and that ecosystem of sort of being out there at the street level
00:04:59
Speaker
sharing your food with people, getting people excited about food, getting people excited about local food. That's a really big part of your story, isn't it? Yeah, for sure. When we went to start the company and knew nothing of the food industry, the natural first step was launching in the farmer's market.
00:05:19
Speaker
And my wife and I actually started on a stumplings and then down the journey we ended up merging with cell phone pies. But when we started on a stumplings, we had had a whole bunch of our friends and family that had had our dumplings or raised dumplings and had loved them and we didn't really know how it would go. And so we made a whole bunch, put them in a package and brought them to the farmer's market and
00:05:44
Speaker
You know, it was right away they started just selling like crazy and we had a lineup and everything was going and I remember like just this excitement because we had Ray I think was more was more prepared than me and it like made a ton of product I was like, oh we're not gonna sell that much like you don't need to need to worry but she was working like all night basically making stuff that I was packaging and yeah never forget that first day of just the the sheer excitement and everybody was
00:06:11
Speaker
was stoked about it and even more so the week after when we start to get repeat purchases that was i think even more exciting like anyone can sell someone something once when someone comes back then you know you have something. That's so good and the food collective is so much more than just.
00:06:32
Speaker
two plucky brands that are growing quickly.
Transition to E-commerce During the Pandemic
00:06:35
Speaker
Talk to us about the ecosystem that you guys are building. You've done a lot of experimenting. And when you look at the future of the grocery store, I know you have plenty of opinions, even more than what you've divulged so far. So talk to us a little bit about the food collective and what does a collective mean when it comes to the food world?
00:06:54
Speaker
It's interesting, it's kind of evolved over time and changed, pivoted a few times in our journey. I think when we first started looking at it, it was really around, hey, how do we leverage what we're doing and work with other companies? And I came from the tech industry where there's a lot of technology accelerators and incubators and that type of thing. And at the time, there wasn't really anything in the food space. So my mindset and some of our partners were really looking at things.
00:07:21
Speaker
to say like, hey, could we build almost an accelerator type model? And that was really the focus. And then when the pandemic happened, a lot of our colleagues or the companies that we knew who were selling predominantly through farmers markets or really niche grocery lost a lot of their sales. So we kind of pivoted to this e-commerce side of things. And the challenge everyone was facing was
00:07:43
Speaker
was sales and distribution and so really uproot focused on that. We developed our Ecom extensively, took on I think at a peak like 85 brands or something like that and had like 600 SKUs and expanded across Alberta. But then what we found was kind of once the pandemic went like things opened up again that everybody started going back to the farmer's market and we kind of just became almost like every other store out there.
00:08:09
Speaker
So we look to say, how do we pivot this and how do we change our model again? And really, there's a lot more margin in your own products than these other brands. So we start to focus more on our brands and focus on South Island Pies, on the stumplings, really driving their growth. But at the same time, maintaining some services. We help with distribution for a bunch of brands between Edmonton and Calgary and vice versa. We have company Little Bear Gelato that's been producing in our space for the last
00:08:38
Speaker
kind of two, three years, really just working, finding different ways that we can help or work with these other companies in some capacity. But really it comes down to this idea of that by local food companies working together, we can make something bigger and make a bigger difference and compete better in the market.
00:08:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think local is one of those aspects of the food industry that sometimes can be tricky because as a food company grows and becomes more successful, part of that success is to expand well beyond their backyard and they need to be selling in other states and provinces and cities and countries and they need to grow in order to make more money to keep doing what they need to be doing.
00:09:18
Speaker
Especially to if they're what they make is desirable and fits a consumption occasion or a health need or there's all these different aspects of food company success. But there's something to be said for.
00:09:32
Speaker
a culture, an ecosystem for local brands to be able to not only land in the farmer's market, but to sort of expand beyond the farmer's market and to get onto local grocery store shelves or have access to consumers that they don't normally have access to. So it's a sandbox that is always evolving and changing. And I know that even the work you do through digital storefronts and direct to consumer like sales off your websites and other websites,
00:10:02
Speaker
These are important places for people to connect with, learn, and buy food.
Direct-to-Consumer Model Insights
00:10:09
Speaker
What kind of thing are you seeing when it comes to the consumer's experience around buying online? Is it shifting dramatically? Are you seeing sort of more longer trends that are easier to navigate?
00:10:22
Speaker
I think now it's pretty steady and there's a huge place for direct to consumer models. I think it's funny because we still do some shows as well. So we kind of have the retail side, still doing some shows or markets and then the D2C. And the D2C is really steady and it's really a nice effective tool, especially with limited editions and seasonals and finding this way to extend the lifetime
00:10:48
Speaker
value of our customer base by bringing them innovative, cool things that they can't necessarily get elsewhere. Not that we don't allow it to go into those retail channels if we have limited editions, but not all the retailers are able to pivot or be able to handle that volume of limited that we like to make that our customers love.
00:11:07
Speaker
so it's pretty steady and strong.
Marketing Through Food Shows
00:11:09
Speaker
We also do a lot of shows so right now we just did a gluten-free show in Edmonton and Calgary and it's the first time I've been to one where it was really specialized around gluten-free and that was super exciting like we just I couldn't believe it how much we sold in that it was like a five-hour show and
00:11:27
Speaker
and we did almost like ten grand in sales in five hours it was like the most incredible thing like hundreds of customers buying and trying your product for the first time and i think part of sharing that is really it's a bit of a testament to that not everybody wants to buy to see that spent a lot of money advertising through that but then going to the show still is a way for people to connect and try and meet you and see and so i think some of the shows are really good and then
00:11:54
Speaker
Obviously the retail side important to that's where everybody is every day and even in the shows in calgary we often here is like off where you available in the store i don't wanna buy online but i wanna be able to get it like having that multi channel kind of approach i think is really important then.
00:12:11
Speaker
Another thing just I love about shows is it seems that when you go to say sample at a grocery store, it can be a lot of effort and a lot of work and then not necessarily a lot of people coming there trying to buy. When you're at a show, you have this opportunity where it just seems people are more willing to try or buy or kind of you get a lot more density of people. And so you can actually run a show almost as a, as a marketing kind of tool, but it's one that makes money or break even at least and
00:12:40
Speaker
let you expand your brand and your awareness and all that as well.
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, consumers need to have the stuff, you know, they need to try it. They need to chew it, swallow it, get a sense of the flavor, the texture. They need to sort of imagine it being a part of their lifestyle. And those things, those are experiential things that aren't easily communicated or exchanged, you know, through an Instagram ad or an email blast or whatever. But I want to come back to the thing you said about
00:13:12
Speaker
buying food off your website that is limited edition or unique i think that's one of the things that i get excited about when i see food companies saying to their you know their most loyal consumers the ones that are buying right off their website i would i don't maybe they're not the most loyal but there's certainly a direct connection to the food brand.
00:13:30
Speaker
A lot of food companies kind of say, well, you can buy this on shelf or you can buy it off for a website. There's no difference.
Enhancing Consumer Engagement Online
00:13:37
Speaker
You know, we're going to throw it in the box. Maybe there'll be some packing foam chips with it, but that's the experience. Whereas others there, whether the unboxing experience is unique or more importantly, the product is unique and that the only place they can get it or the easiest place they can get it is from a website. I actually really liked that play because I think it,
00:13:57
Speaker
It makes the whole effort worth it. It's different and it can be very fun. Now again, we're in the food business. I'm always buying stuff online. It's because I love it. I drive my wife crazy because there's always some box of food sitting at our front door or back door or whatever.
00:14:14
Speaker
That I think is an opportunity for consumers to really get access to something that they don't only have. So the food brands that are being really creative with it, do that. Buy those products, buy those special editions, because it's really, really fun.
00:14:29
Speaker
It's fun and for sure. The feedback we get from customers is unreal. Everybody has their favorite limited editions and their favorite products. It's fun having the econ because you can see the repeats, but you bring back Jamaican beef that's not always available. It's like bam!
00:14:46
Speaker
just everybody goes in and like puts in orders and you can see it's those same customers that bought it the time before and it's fun. I think as much as the consumers love it and part of it is we love it too. Like some of the limited editions that we end up making is like I'm like I miss this pie and I happen to plan production so I'm gonna put that in there. But I think we as the founders too like I think a big part of the inspiration was like we didn't set out necessarily to build like a big food
00:15:14
Speaker
conglomerate i think in the early days and ray had this passion for dumplings and jamie had this passion for meat pies and like the meat pies in new zealand they always have different flavors and they're in a bakery and like there is this kind of creative element or creative aspect of that and
00:15:31
Speaker
Ray, when she started the dumplings, it was very much the same where it was like, hey, that's dumpling the platform. Let's bring some exciting flavors. And so as much as it's about consumers, it is also, I think for us as this creative element and something that keeps us excited and passionate. Because I remember the first time I went to the fancy food show in California, where my mind was open to the amount of food innovation and all the products out there. But one thing I noticed was it seemed like
00:16:01
Speaker
Everything was still kind of, it's like they're trying to develop it to put it on the shelf and then it's going to not evolve and you're going to try and sell as much as you can. We didn't want to build that kind of food company. We wanted to build a food company that maintained innovation, maintained creativity, and kept coming with new flavors and updating the product as we go along.
00:16:22
Speaker
I love that. And we just came off the, off a food show, a big industry food show. And it was, I got asked a lot of questions around sustainability. I got asked a lot of questions like, what do you mean by ethical? And these are great things to explore. I feel like, you know, there's some baseline aspects to the food industry that all, you know, kind of needs to rise or baseline when it comes to healthy food and good food.
00:16:48
Speaker
and food that doesn't hurt the planet. I mean, these things we all need to push as consumers. We need to push our demand and our interest in these things. And the three things that stand out to me the most are local.
Sustainability and Clean Labels in Local Foods
00:17:00
Speaker
I do think that as much as possible, not every industry, not every food product can tap into local necessarily. But I think if at all possible, I think we should be celebrating and supporting local companies
00:17:12
Speaker
Local economy living wages for people that you know are in our backyard. I think it's really important I also think organic I think that we need to keep pushing towards organic ingredients and I know it's not easy whether it's margins or access or Performance, you know, not every ingredient, you know is easily handled that way but we need to keep leaning towards organic ingredients and ideally down the road regenerative organic and
00:17:41
Speaker
Then the third one is clean label, just labels that have less weird stuff in it, less science, less chemicals, less preservatives, less, you know, the weird stuff that we can't pronounce. So when you think about those three things, what is it about your ecosystem that's leaning into some of those areas? Yeah, for sure. Um, I think local food in general typically does better on the clean label side of things.
00:18:08
Speaker
You know, it's a constant challenge. And I look at like honest dumplings is probably a bit more clean label than the South Island pies. And we try and do it as much as possible to have everything that's organic that has kind of that clean label and push that. But sometimes there's limitations in terms of the ingredients or what's available at the time. So you have to make some compromises. But I think or sometimes it's something really creative that you just
00:18:38
Speaker
you're okay to step down from that like a donair pie or something like that that maybe isn't as quite as clean label, but it's something super delicious. But in an ideal world, like if we could find that same ingredient and it could be clean label, we would choose that every day, 10 out of 10 times.
00:18:55
Speaker
So it's always a balance as a producer trying to find the right ingredients, find the right supply and managing that. I think sustainability is huge. And even just the fact that if you're buying something local, it probably is inherently a bit more sustainable because it hasn't been shipped as far. It hasn't had that kind of transportation aspect. Utilizing all of our products, utilize local wheat and meat and that type of thing where you're for sure getting more sustainability
00:19:22
Speaker
I think as the company grows and as we scale and as consumers support local more and more, it's almost easier for those local food companies to then increase their ability to be more sustainable and have that clean label. If you're selling the volume and have the profitability, then you can make better choices as you go along.
00:19:45
Speaker
Just on that front, like honest dumplings, when we first started, it was all kind of handmade a hundred percent. And the price point was $15 for a dozen bags or for a dozen dumplings. Sorry. And everything was all kind of clean label organic, which we still maintain today.
Economies of Scale for Local Brands
00:20:02
Speaker
But now we've been able to, as we, because enough consumers are supporting our products and supporting our brands, that we've been able to drop our price from 15 to $10 because we have that economy as a scale and we have that manufacturing.
00:20:14
Speaker
that kind of equipment that allows us to improve our margin to pass that back to consumers. So I think as much as the onus is on producers to be able to make those decisions, the more consumers support local, support those choices, then the easier it is for the producer to be able to prioritize those key aspects and then really scale the business and grow and make this product more readily available.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's voting with our wallets, right? It's as consumers signaling to, well, the grocery store and ultimately to the food manufacturers that
00:20:50
Speaker
what we value is better products, better ingredients, better performing food. And one of the things I really like about what you guys are doing is that you're in more of the in the meal space. And I say that because I think there's in the food industry, it's very like snacking is a great category. It's very fun. It's very cool. We all love great snacks. And the next cool snack, well, it gets eyeballs.
00:21:18
Speaker
But there's something to be said for making food products that serve that, hit that meal occasion, that feed a family, that gives enough nutrients to support a day's activities kind of thing. And so I love the fact that, in fact, my wife and I were just talking about your,
00:21:36
Speaker
South Island Pies a couple days ago. She's like, so you can buy a whole bunch and put them in our freezer? I'm like, yeah, we could buy a whole bunch and put them in our freezer. She's like, that would be really helpful. So I think the opportunity for food companies to lean into the meal categories and to provide the sustenance that consumers need and then to inspire them in such a way that consumers feel like they can vote with
Market Opportunities in Meal Categories
00:22:03
Speaker
their wallets.
00:22:03
Speaker
I think it's a part of the ecosystem that's important to lean into. So just wanted to say that love that you guys are doing that. Oh, thank you. And I agree 100%. I think that's probably one of the biggest opportunities lies in the industry. I think part of the reason that it's more maybe there's less in it is the challenges associated with developing that type of product that's either frozen or refrigerated or
00:22:29
Speaker
And often maybe contains me turn off but but just the regulatory requirements and all that make it very very difficult which at the same time gives it. More of a of a kind of market opportunity and i can tell you hundred percent that consumers are looking for this we know from our product page.
00:22:48
Speaker
That's awesome. Okay, I got one final question for you, but it's an easy one, so you don't have to worry. If there was one celebrity that you would love your South Island pies to get a shout out for, what celebrity would that be? Oh, that's probably...
00:23:04
Speaker
Pretty easy, I think. I don't know if you're familiar with the how-to dad on Facebook or anything. He's a Kiwi and he is often doing things with pies because that's quintessential in that New Zealand culture. I think it would be pretty fun if there was some sort of activity or shout out from the how-to dad in New Zealand.
00:23:28
Speaker
I think there's enough people here that see it, but I think just for Jamie and myself who follow him and see his stuff, and he's got this funny kiwi humor, it would be just amazing that it just goes along with what we're trying to build. That's so good. And you didn't say Rynald Reynolds, so you get bonus points. He's second, right? He's second, yeah. Deadpool's second, I know.
00:23:54
Speaker
Chris, thanks so much for doing this. Appreciate you and your team and everything you're doing. And I love knowing that we get to collaborate on cool stuff and food. So thanks so much. Yeah, I know. Thanks for having me. And that's a wrap on this one. Thanks for listening. To learn more about what Chris and his team are doing, go to UprootFood.ca, where you'll also find links to South Island Pie Company and Honest Dumplings. That's it for me. I'm Corbin Hebert. We are Ethical Food Group, and I'll see you in the future.
00:24:36
Speaker
you