The CPG Insider Who Decided to Build a Better Sandwich Bread with Ryan Mulligan of Morty's Brands
LISTEN ON: APPLE | SPOTIFY
Ryan Mulligan spent 12 years in consumer products and consulting, building deep expertise in the CPG industry. He knew how brands were built, how products got to market, and what it took to scale. What he did not have was a brand of his own. That was always the plan, and after reaching a career inflection point where the only path forward meant giving up that dream for good, he decided it was time.
The product is Morty's Naturally Leavened White Sourdough Bread, a shelf-stable sandwich bread that looks familiar on the shelf but tastes nothing like what you are used to finding there. And the name? Morty was his late dog, the reason Ryan and his wife met and fell in love, and the perfect symbol for a brand built around family.
After completing the Food Business Bootcamp®, Ryan is deep in the work of turning that vision into a business: securing retail space, finding a co-packer, and building out the brand assets he needs to show up at the Summer Fancy Food Show.
Subscribe to the Food Means Business Podcast with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones to hear the personal stories and "secret ingredients" of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.
Tune in to hear…
How 12 years in CPG consulting prepared Ryan to start his own brand, and what it still could not prepare him for
What makes Morty's Naturally Leavened White Sourdough Bread different from anything else on the sandwich bread shelf
What surprised him most about starting from scratch, even as an industry veteran
The financial tightrope of going all in on a food business while supporting a family
Why there is never a right time, and why that is exactly the point
To get more Food Business Bites right in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter at thehudsonkitchen.com.
About Eve Chery
Eve Chery is the founder of C'est Si Bon Pikliz and the owner of Kreyol Catering. With over two decades in higher education, she has built a career helping others navigate life's biggest decisions. In January 2023, she made a bold move of her own, enrolling in culinary school full-time while working and raising a family. She graduated with a 3.7 GPA, earned the leadership award in her cohort, and secured an externship at Blue Hill Farm, one of the world's top farm-to-table restaurants. Rooted in her Haitian heritage, C'est Si Bon Pikliz is a spicy pickled condiment that has been a staple of Haitian kitchens for generations.
Connect with Eve Chery and C'est Si Bon Pikliz:
Visit the Morty’s Bread website
Follow Morty’s Bread on Instagram
Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
Visit Hudson Kitchen
Follow Hudson Kitchen on Instagram
Connect with Djenaba on LinkedIn
-
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:36)
Today, my guest is Ryan Mulligan. Hi, Ryan, how are you?
Ryan Mulligan (00:40)
Hi, Djenaba, how are you?
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:41)
I'm good, thank you. So we met because you were interested in Hudson Kitchen, but also you just completed our eight week food business bootcamp. Give us a little bit of background about yourself before we jump into what your product is.
Ryan Mulligan (00:53)
Yeah, absolutely. So I have been passionate about food my entire life. I started cooking around the age of 10 or 11 and was sort of just off to the races from there. But that passion for food translated into a 12 year career in consumer products, which I learned a lot during and was really passionate about the industry, but just ultimately decided that what I really wanted to do and what I've always wanted to do was to start my own.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (01:23)
Awesome, tell us about this product.
Ryan Mulligan (01:25)
Yeah, so our first
Ryan Mulligan (01:27)
product is Morty's Naturally Leavened White Sourdough Bread. It's a shelf stable sandwich bread that looks and feels in many ways like your stereotypical packaged bread that you'd find on the shelf. But I think you'll find that it tastes way better and it's a way more high quality product than you're going come across.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (01:46)
I completely agree, like the look you gave me last week is gone already. So
Ryan Mulligan (01:51)
That's what I like to hear.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (01:53)
why was now the time to start this business?
Ryan Mulligan (01:58)
So I've been in consulting for about the last seven years and I kind of got to a point where I didn't really see myself moving forward in that career path because it kind of got to an inflection point where I would have had to have gone all in and sort of given up any aspirations to do anything else. And I really wasn't prepared to do that. I got into consulting and really I got into CPG 12 years ago because I always had the goal of, you know,
Ryan Mulligan (02:28)
doing what I'm doing right now and creating my own product. So when I saw the bootcamp or heard about the bootcamp actually from Djenaba, because I came in to learn a little bit more about Hudson Kitchen, I was like, this is exactly what I need to be thinking about and how I need to be thinking about approaching this.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (02:47)
And give us your company's called Morty's brands or Morty's sandwich bread. Tell us who Morty is and how the name of the company came to be.
Ryan Mulligan (02:56)
Yeah, so Morty is my late dog,
Ryan Mulligan (03:00)
or my wife and I's late dog, and he's actually the reason my wife and I met and fell in love. So we always joke that Morty was the reason we had a family and the brand we're starting is very family focused. So we figured he was the perfect person to name it after.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (03:20)
Nice. So what most, what surprised you the most about starting your business? I mean, it's been, I know it's been a couple of months since you've kind of really been all in on that. So give me, give me some ideas.
Ryan Mulligan (03:30)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, even it even being sort of veteran of the industry, I had never actively been on the very early stages all by myself. So I just figuring out just where to go first and what to do first can be really intimidating because, know, you're figuring out where can I buy the equipment that needs to that I need to produce my product.
Ryan Mulligan (04:00)
where is, the production facilities that are going to be able to accommodate my production? In addition to finding funding, which I'm very much in that stage right now. So there's just a lot of stuff that even if you are, you know, veteran of the industry or knowledgeable of the industry, if you haven't really started from the ground up, there's just so much that you kind of have to learn on the fly.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (04:24)
Yeah, that's definitely true. What do you think has challenged you the most?
Ryan Mulligan (04:31)
so I sort of in a delicate position where, I want to do this full time, but right now I have some financial constraints where I can kind of, I've kind of been able to do it full time, but at the same time, I'm probably going to need, you know, some, some income soon. So just balancing that sort of.
Ryan Mulligan (04:55)
tightrope between wanting to be all in and then the financial realities of what that means. So it's been great because I think having the time I had over the past first half of the year or quarter of the year to work with the bootcamp and work in Hudson Kitchen and really dig in and focus on my brand has been great.
Ryan Mulligan (05:21)
But you know, it's just those realities and financial pressures of having a family and having to pay rent.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (05:25)
Yeah,
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (05:26)
I'm sure like everybody can relate to that for sure.
Ryan Mulligan (05:29)
Yeah.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (05:30)
What do you think you learned about yourself in the process?
Ryan Mulligan (05:34)
Um, I think the biggest thing I learned is that I'm not alone in being crazy enough to want to do this. Um, I think, you know, going through the bootcamp with the cohort was really fantastic because. You know, got, I got to meet a group of people who are as passionate about their product as I am about my own, uh, who are as eager to learn and wanting and willing to do this. And, you know, you, kind of see, well, you know,
Ryan Mulligan (06:03)
I'm not that far behind in terms of where my product is, right? Everybody has to start somewhere. And starting with a group is really great because you can kind of learn the lessons from one another as you go through it.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:16)
Yeah, that's so true, so true. Where do you see the business in the next three to six months? What is your immediate plans?
Ryan Mulligan (06:23)
Yeah,
Ryan Mulligan (06:23)
so there's a couple of things that are up in the air. We're working on securing retail space.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:27)
Nice.
Ryan Mulligan (06:27)
We're in the final stages of the negotiation there. The challenge that I'm having right now is I'm building out my assets. throughout the boot camp, I really wanted to focus on the product. And it was very solely focused on let's make sure the loaf is ready to be commercially produced. I have the formula right.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:48)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Mulligan (06:49)
If I'm
Ryan Mulligan (06:49)
able to find a co-packer, I can go to them with the specific formula that I want to produce. And I did some work on the branding side and through the program, which was great. But I need to sort of take that a little bit further and get a website up and get socials up. So I'm working through that now. And the goal is to have all of that sort of completed and tidied and ready to go by Fancy Food in June. So that's really.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:13)
Nice.
Ryan Mulligan (07:15)
That's really the focus right now. then securing, hopefully securing the retail space and figuring out some of the retail outlets is also an agenda.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:27)
And what piece of advice would you give someone that was just kind of just like you, you had you were kind of thinking about starting this business and kind of took the steps move forward. What advice would you give them?
Ryan Mulligan (07:38)
There's never a right time. It's never going to be easy. And everybody is in the same boat you are when you start. So, you know, I have contacts in the business. I've been in the business for a long time. And I wouldn't say that I'm any further along than anybody else that I went through the cohort with. So it's always going to be hard.
Ryan Mulligan (08:07)
Right. It's not when you, you start it, there's never going to be like a golden path that you just follow down. And, you know, there's no pickups or headaches or, you know, moments where you're sitting alone on a park bench thinking, why did I decide to do this? Um, but it, it's, know, if this is really your passion, that's really what you want to do. Um, just go ahead and get started because once you do, you'll see that you kind of start to build momentum.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (08:33)
truth. So at Hudson Kitchen we have a tradition where we ring a bell when we're celebrating something so wondering what you're celebrating.
Ryan Mulligan (08:41)
I mean, celebrating completing the bootcamp,
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (08:44)
you
Ryan Mulligan (08:45)
a successful demo day, that was a great experience to be able to present my product and my ideas in front of that many people. Hopefully ring the bell once I've secured this lease and I can actually start producing. But that's what I'm hoping to ring it for the next time I'm in.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (09:06)
All right, sounds good. So let everyone know where they can find out about you and Morty's sandwich bread.
Ryan Mulligan (09:11)
So very soon you'll be able to find
Ryan Mulligan (09:14)
all about us at mortysbrands.com. And that's the same on all of the socials as well. So we're building out the content and the assets at the moment. And we'll hope to have it up in the next couple of weeks in time for Fancy Foods.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (09:28)
Great, sounds good, thank you.
Ryan Mulligan (09:30)
Thank you.