Leverage Your Corporate Experience to Build Your Food Business with Christina Dorr Drake
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Using Your Corporate Experience to Build Your CPG Brand…
Many food business owners have made the jump from the corporate world into entrepreneurship. Some of the skills we’ve learned and contacts we’ve gained in our previous careers can be really helpful when starting a business, and we can pick out the best parts and use them to inform how we run our businesses.
In this episode, I’m interviewing Christina Dorr Drake, CEO and founder of Willa’s Oat Milk. Christina shares how she made the transition from an ad agency to creating a CPG business with her sister, how she’s been able to market her products on a budget, and how she’s incorporated her grandmother’s values into the business and set it apart from the competition in the plant based milk industry.
Christina also shares her advice on how to overcome a personal setback in the midst of starting a business. Life can throw so many things at you when you least expect it, but it can also give you perspective on your personal and business priorities and how to keep moving forward.
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.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
[00:44] Christina’s transition from the corporate world to starting a business with her husband and her sister around an oat milk product influenced by her grandmother
[06:05] How Christina was able to commercialize the product and get Willa’s Kitchen up and running, and her advice to anyone facing a personal setback in the midst of starting a business
[11:41] Christina shares how her oat milk is a shelf stable product and how she sets herself apart from the competition in her industry
[15:59] How her previous corporate experience at an ad agency has informed her current business, hiring a team, and marketing her products
If you want to hear more about how to leverage your corporate experience into your CPG food business, be sure to tune into this episode:
Links mentioned in this episode…
Good Food Award Winner: Willa’s & Raaka Organic Dark Chocolate Oat Milk
About Christina Dorr Drake:
Christina Dorr Drake left the corporate world and co-founded Willa's in 2019 with her sister and named the business after their Grandma Willa, who always stressed the importance of using real, honest ingredients to make delicious oat milk.
Connect with Christina:
Willa’s Kitchen: Organic & Non-Dairy Oat Milk (Use promo code HUDSONKITCHEN for 30% off your purchase)
Follow Willa’s Kitchen on Instagram
Connect with Christina on LinkedIn
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
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[00:00:02] Djenaba You are listening to the Food Means Business Podcast, which features the personal stories and secret ingredients behind what it's like to abandon your day job to start a CPG food and beverage business. I'm Djenaba Johnson-Jones, former marketing executive turned entrepreneur and founder of food business incubator Hudson Kitchen. Join our community of fellow food business owners and subject matter experts to learn and laugh with us as we explore a startup world that's a little more culinary and a lot less corporate these days. Hi, Christina, Welcome to the Food Means Business podcast.
[00:00:36] Christina Thank you so much for having me. I'm a big fan and I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:39] Djenaba Oh, good. We did all a ton of research on you. I can't wait for you to share your story with our listeners. So first, let's start with your corporate to entrepreneur story. We'd love to hear how you made the transition.
[00:00:50] Christina Yeah, I had been on the ad agency side of things for over a decade and I made the scary leap to start a business with my sister and eventually, you know, pretty quickly after that, my husband got on board. At the time, I was learning a lot about our broken food system, about Americans' relationship with food or kind of lack thereof, lack of connection to where ingredients come from, a lack of connection to just, you know, enjoying the taste of real ingredients. And at the same time, I had been a plant based milk drinker for like a really long time, and my grandmother used to make oat milk using real organic ingredients that you could recognize like vanilla extract and sea salt. And I just had this gut feeling that there were a lot of people out there like me, who were looking for a plant based milk that was actually made of plants and was truly, you know, healthy and sustainable and also tasted really, really good. It was a super scary leap of faith.
[00:01:49] Djenaba Yeah, I can imagine having taken my own leap. I know how crazy that is. It's such a crazy feeling, but such a great feeling to actually create something from scratch and so nice that you could honor your grandmother in that way. I have to ask you, what's it like working with your sister and your husband?
[00:02:04] Christina There's definitely some major pros, so we really trust each other. And equally, we're really fortunate to kind of all come to the table with really different skill sets. Growing up, Elena was really good at math and she was really into chemistry and I really enjoyed the humanities and I was kind of like, How did this happen? We're so different. And now with me having a marketing background, she's a chemical engineer, and then Rusty's got a background in entrepreneurship and freelance work and sales. It's just feels like such a fortunate, you know, thing that happened that we all come to the table with really unique skill sets. We have a lot of trust in each other. We had to learn a lot about working together and setting aside any grudges from our childhood. We all see therapists sometimes together, which I very strongly recommend.
[00:02:53] Djenaba I love that. I see a therapist as well every Thursday at 11, that's where I am. And it has been amazing kind of to help me with the growth of myself within the business. So that's fantastic. So I love that you guys go together also. That's great.
[00:03:06] Christina It's almost like a proactive thing, right? It's I work through those issues because as an entrepreneur, especially as a CPG entrepreneur, every single day there's a fire and a stressful situation. So yeah.
[00:03:21] Djenaba And so what about you and your husband? Like, do you say, okay, it's 5:00 now, we're not talking about work anymore and we're kind of moving into personal time. Is that how it works?
[00:03:29] Christina I wish it was 5:00. That's like a life goal. Maybe someday, but we do, we really do try to set boundaries. You know, at dinner time, one of us will often be like, okay, I've like three work things to talk about, and then we're going to call the boundary. And yeah, it's not easy, especially in the early days of the business when, you know, you don't have a lot of resources, you don't have a big team, you know? So sometimes it's just like you just have to constantly try to navigate making sure that you are setting aside time for each other. And same thing with my sister and I. You know, if we're only talking about business stuff all the time, like that affects our relationship. We're better at working together when we also hang out together as sisters and friends. Yeah, it's just we haven't figured out the perfect formula, but it's just always trying to make time for each other as well.
[00:04:17] Djenaba I'm not sure there is a perfect formula.
[00:04:21] Christina That makes me feel better.
[00:04:23] Djenaba So let's talk about your grandmother for a second. So she seemed to be a really big influence in your life. And I had read that she made this oat milk for the family, and I'd love to hear a little bit more about her and about that product that she created and that you brought out into the world.
[00:04:36] Christina She was a huge influence in our lives and I think actually in many, many people's lives who who she taught, she was just a real force. We often talk about how she was real honest and uncompromising, just like Willa's, but she was also incredibly warm and kind and had this brilliant idea when her kids and grandkids were having stomach or couldn't digest dairy to make oat milk. And she was always interested in food and often said that if she had gone back and been able to have had a career, she would have become a chef. And so it feels really amazing to be able to honor her in this way. And it also creates this really amazing sort of lighthouse for us. You know, we say everything we do has to live up to our grandmother's name, so we want to create the healthiest and most sustainable products. But they also have to taste the best, you know? And so every decision we make about sourcing or whether to use an ingredient or whether to use organic ingredients or not. All of those things are really making sure that they live up to our values and her name.
[00:05:39] Djenaba Yeah, that's really great. I haven't tasted the product yet and I can't wait to order it. I was showing my husband last night because he's vegan, and so I was like, okay, it's oatmilk because he makes his own sometimes.
[00:05:48] Christina Oh, good for him.
[00:05:48] Djenaba That's really interesting. Oh, they they have chocolate. Definitely have to try it out.
[00:05:53] Christina I'm not going to lie, that one's my favorite. It's so good. And it took a lot of testing to get it right because cacao can be really bitter, but we didn't want it to be a sugar bomb. So finding that balance took a while.
[00:06:05] Djenaba So you came from the ad agency side to talk about how are you able to commercialize the product? I mean, you really didn't have experience in the food industry when you started, as do a lot of the people that we speak to on the podcast. I'm just curious as to what your story is in kind of getting yourself up and running.
[00:06:17] Christina Yeah, I think any founder who's got, you know, like a career where you go to work and you feel like you know what you're doing and then starting a business is kind of a rude awakening because every day there's a million things you could be spending your time on and there's a million things you've never done before. Whether it's like figuring out the FDA rules around packaging or incorporating. And I just started reaching out to my whole network and asking everyone I knew who they knew, who was a founder of a company, even if it was a tech company and I just started getting intros and meeting fellow founders in the food and beverage space. And I got a lot of really helpful advice about the pitfalls to avoid, which I think in CPG are more important than the advice of what to do. The advice of what not to do is almost more important. And so yeah, we started by just doing a ton of market research and consumer testing. You know, we had my grandmother's recipe, but my sister Elena and my mom did literally hundreds of versions of that to make sure that we had just nailed it. And it worked really well with coffee. And I think that's super, super important. Like the more research you can do in scrappy ways with your friends and family blind taste test, which are really putting yourself out there in a way because you're like, Here's all of our competitors and then here's our recipe and nobody knows which one is which. But it's better to learn that stuff through research than when it's sitting on the shelf and not moving. So yeah.
[00:07:38] Djenaba Absolutely.
[00:07:38] Christina Did a ton of research.
[00:07:42] Djenaba That's great. So you started the company and then you had a personal setback. So can you talk a little bit about that?
[00:07:47] Christina Yeah, 2020 was just I felt like I was getting blindsided by one thing after another. In January of 2020, I was 36 and I did a self-exam and discovered a lump. And then I essentially got my first mammogram ever and my whole world just kind of came crashing down. I learned I had early stage breast cancer, was so grateful that we caught it early. And I'm now cancer free. And thankfully I was able to work full time through chemo and radiation and lumpectomy surgery. So I feel really grateful for that. But it definitely put a lot in perspective and it was also during the pandemic. So it was an extremely lonely, scary, scary time. And we had also been spending the whole year before that getting ready for a launch and offices, co-working spaces and coffee shops. It was sort of like, okay, how many shoes are going to drop here? You know what I mean? It was like one thing after another. But I also feel like that year taught me more about myself than any time of my life. And it really helped me realize that there are no dress rehearsals in life and this is it. And I want to leave a really positive impact on people and the planet. And looking back at sort of like in some ways it's surprising that I didn't want to just like give up in the midst of all of that. But it actually fueled me more and made me want to do it that much more and also really validated our feelings around using really clean ingredients, using organic, creating the healthiest and most sustainable options we can, and just continuously improving on that and really doubling down on our values.
[00:09:19] Djenaba I love that it helped you gain some perspective and really prioritize and focus. That's fantastic. So and I'm hoping that you're doing much better.
[00:09:27] Christina Yes. Yeah, I have hair, that's huge. I'm doing great. Thanks.
[00:09:35] Djenaba Good. I'm glad to hear. And what advice would you give to someone that has a personal setback? Because, like, life is going to happen in the middle of your business, like your personal life is not going be perfect because, you know, like your business has all its ups and downs, your personal life will have those ups and downs as well. So anything that you can share to give some insight into how you're able to deal with it.
[00:09:52] Christina Yeah, when I was diagnosed, I was kind of feeling powerless because all of a sudden all these things are happening to you, You're getting all these tests and they're just rushing you into these different medical treatments that you don't even have time to kind of research and understand. And I felt like I needed to have some agency and my own treatment plan. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to start taking time every day to do the things that will make me feel good, whether it's meditating or journaling or working out or taking the time to cook like a really delicious plant based meal for myself or trying a new recipe. And then I realized, Oh my gosh, I'm only giving myself permission to do all these things that make me feel good and help me get through these really difficult times because I'm going through cancer treatment. And I was like, That's so messed up.
[00:10:40] Djenaba It really is. You should be doing those things anyway, right?
[00:10:41] Christina Right. And as an entrepreneur, it's so hard what you're doing. Like you don't quite realize how hard it's going to be until you're in it. And you need to take care of yourself so that you can be there for the brand, for your team, for your family, for yourself. Because, you know, it's really hard to see the forest through the trees if you're not and even just make wise decisions through whatever comes your way. So I try to really advocate, especially for entrepreneurs, because I feel like we get a lot of messaging around, you know, needing to drive ourselves into the ground to be successful, and I think it's the opposite. You have to take extra good care of yourself because this path is is so hard.
[00:11:21] Djenaba You're definitely correct. It's something that I'm learning because I think a lot of business all the time, like constantly and it's like taking the time out to actually do something. So I get up early and work out so I can start my day on a good foot. So yeah, I totally get that.
[00:11:34] Christina Yeah, if I don't work out, I'm going to like, die of anxiety.
[00:11:38] Djenaba Exactly. It's a form of therapy, I have to say. I think so. I was surprised that your product was shelf stable, so I was like, Oh, they have four ingredients, so that's fantastic. So it's like really healthy. No waste that I read. And so how is that possible, that it's a shelf stable product?
[00:11:54] Christina Yeah. So when we when we started this brand, we had so many questions about the category. I mean, the plant based food category is enormous, but a third of it is plant based milk, and it's the fastest growing part. And so there are all these new options out there, which is wonderful. But so many of them seem to have forgotten why these products exist in the first place, which is we have healthier, more sustainable, more environmentally conscious alternatives. And we've kind of just started talking to everyone in the industry to understand what was going on. We noticed, you know, a lot of nut milk didn't have a lot of nuts in them. And in the case of oat milk, there was so much sugar and none of the benefits of the oat were present on the nutrition label. And what we found was that's because oat milk is usually made without sugar and the healthy parts of the order are discarded as food waste, which is a cause of methane and greenhouse gases. So we figured out how to use the whole entire oat, and doing that essentially meant redesigning the whole way that oat milk and plant based milk is made. It gives it this really rich taste that makes it zero food waste, which iss also very hard to do. And I think with that, if you want to create something different from what everyone else in your category or in this industry is doing, you're going to have to kind of go into it with a lot of curiosity and openness to learning and also a lot of patience and openness to testing because we had folks tell us, Oh, if you want to do this, you're not going to be able to use shelf stable packaging. You can't use your grandmother's recipe with oats, vanilla water and sea salt and have it work in a shelf stable carton. And we thought, well, as anyone tried it? And so I think it's going into it with both lots of questions and lots of curiosity and also openness and patience, because testing and learning takes time. But at the end of the day, yeah, the packaging technology creates a vacuum seal so we don't have to add any artificial or preservatives. Our unsweetened original is essentially my grandma's recipe and uses the whole oat. And then our dark chocolate is super clean as well. And you know, it's the opportunity you have as an entrepreneur to ask the questions that everyone else is afraid to ask. And so kind of have to be willing to also have the patience to reinvent the wheel and rewrite the rules as you go.
[00:14:11] Djenaba I love that because like you have people telling you you can't do something and you're like, No, I'm going to figure out a way. And that's what we do as entrepreneurs. We figure out a way that's right and that's fantastic. So let's talk about Big Oat or like your big competition, because there's a lot of big players now in the market, you know, as point these milks get popular. How do you deal with the competition and how do you set yourself apart and differentiate yourself from them?
[00:14:34] Christina It's really sticking to our values. And the reason we set out to do this in the first place. As a marketer, I knew what I was up against. I could see that these other brands had. I mean, we're like a teeny small fraction of the size that they are in terms of resources and marketing budget. But I think that what we entrepreneurs bring is just maybe a closeness to the consumer and more of an interest in what people are actually looking for versus just what's easy and profitable. And you can still create a really honest company that is profitable and has values in the right place. But, you know, in our category, there are a lot of copycats and a lot of folks that are kind of doing a lot of the marketing for us, getting awareness out around oatmilk and plant based milks in general. We're really grateful for that. We're happy to come in and offer something that we think many people like us are looking for. 60% of plant based milk drinkers are health conscious and also one that tastes really, really good too. And if your product speaks for itself, I think that's half of it. You don't need as much marketing if you've got a really good tasting product that is delivering on what people are looking for.
[00:15:49] Djenaba It's true because your audience, your customer, will tell their friends and tell the world how great your product is. So it's true. Like that word of mouth is really important. You're right, it all goes back to a great tasting product. So let's talk about your experience in business. So you came from an ad agency. I would say that my corporate experience has informed how I run my business and the way I've created my business. And I would love to hear about how your corporate experience has helped inform yours.
[00:16:16] Christina Working on the agency side was an excellent training ground because it's a super, you know, you tend to work in a team with really collaborative folks who are coming from all different kind of backgrounds and skill sets, and it's very fast paced. I think that that has been a big piece. We have a small but mighty team. We're super collaborative. At the same time, I really wanted to create the kind of company that I would want to work for. And so we can't offer the biggest salaries ever, right? We can't offer a huge office with all the amenities, but we can offer flexibility. We can offer, you know, openness and honesty and kindness and new opportunities to learn and grow. And so I really, really want to create the kind of company that that I would want to work for and that that our team would want to work for. And I think, yeah, you kind of take your background and you take the pieces that were really wonderful about it and then you take the other pieces and you're like, How can we improve upon this now that I've got the opportunity to do that?
[00:17:19] Djenaba I love that because I was even thinking just around hiring and salaries, like you have an opportunity for pay equality because it's your own business and you control what's going on. So maybe it's not the biggest salary but you know, that it's equal across the board for your employees. I think that's great. Can you talk a little bit about employees? I know that your sister and your husband, but you have other team members that you're working with now.
[00:17:39] Christina Yeah. So we have Laura on our team, who's also an engineer, and Elena and Laura are the ones that are the brains behind figuring out how to use the whole oat, figuring out how to use cleaner ingredients. They're amazing experts in a multitude of ways in this industry. And then, Elena, Rusty and I, none of us are very good at logistics. So one of the first things we did was we hired a woman, Terry, who is amazing. She's like the most organized person I've ever met in my life, and she has is just like awesome ability to learn and total can do attitude. And she manages our supply chain and logistics, which as we've seen the last couple of years has been critical. I mean, it's make or break for CPG. And then we have a really great intern program and we pay our interns and we give them tons of room to bring up ideas and we give them so much in terms of bandwidth that beyond what I would have had as an intern or I did have as an intern. And that's been really, really fun to see, just like them grow and create such amazing contributions to the brand and our content. And then we have lots of partners and contractors and amazing advisors who are fellow founders that have helped us learn about all the pieces that we didn't know going into this.
[00:18:55] Djenaba Can you talk about your intern program just because I think about hiring interns, But I kind of a little bit nervous about it because I feel like I want them to have a really good experience and to be able to spend a lot of time with them. So I'm just curious as to how you guys handle it.
[00:19:07] Christina Yeah, that's super challenging. I mean, I generally tell them upfront I might only have one meeting a week with you and I wish it could be more. And every time I can get together for coffee or if you want to reach out to me, I'm always available via text or phone calls. It's really tough. As a founder, you're sort of having to be ruthless with your time and you also want to be there for your team. So what I try to do is give really clear guardrails for what the expectations are and also give springboards so that they know where there's room for them to come up with ideas and where we're trying to solve problems that they could help contribute to the ideas and solutions to. And then I make sure that they're super connected to the rest of the team so that if I'm in wall to wall meetings from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., there are other people that they can reach out to for help or to brainstorm with. So that's how we handle it. It's not perfect, but of course, but I think it's that or we don't have an intern program and I'd rather have. There you go.
[00:20:11] Djenaba That makes sense. So let's talk about marketing. So I read that you have a pretty lean marketing budget, so I'd love for you to talk through how you market the business.
[00:20:19] Christina Yeah, I mean, going into Willa's, we invested a lot of our own money and our savings and we fundraised with angels, but we haven't raised a ton of money. And it turns out redesigning the way aat milk is made is quite a big endeavor. So a lot of our funds that we raised really went into R&D and have continued to and so we had to get really, really smart and scrappy with the marketing budget that we had. One piece was making sure that, okay, if you have to design packaging, you might as well design packaging that's going to work really hard and stand out at shelf. And that was something that I prioritized. We worked with a designer named Ansley who did a beautiful job, and then I think.
[00:21:01] Djenaba It really is gorgeous, by the way. It's wonderful.
[00:21:03] Christina Thank you. Thanks so much. That was a big bet for us in the early days, and I think it was very much worth it. The note of big bets, we try to do really small tests. So if it's a promotion in store or if it's some kind of sponsorship or if it's a partnership, we try to do small tests and try to learn as much as possible from them before spending more on them. I think it's really easy as a CPG founder to be told by investors, Oh, you should be coming up with all these different SKUs and you should be, you know, spending money here and there and you constantly have to kind of go back to what's like the bare minimum that I need to do to see if something's going to be successful and then spend more on it. And so that's been a big piece. And also just yeah, we have tons of ideas on our team about new products. But every time you launch a new product, you're spreading everything thinner. So a lot of those are kind of waiting for the right opportunity to come along.
[00:22:02] Djenaba Thank you. So we have what I call the money bell at Hudson Kitchen, and it's in our lobby and we bring it when we want to celebrate something. So I'd love to know, like what you're celebrating right now.
[00:22:14] Christina Willa's dark chocolate oat milk just won a Good Food Award out of 2000 products, which is a huge honor. We're super excited. It was the only plant based milk to be a finalist, and it was a real labor of love. We wanted to create a chocolate milk that you could actually feel good about drinking and chocolate milk kind of represents the worst of this industry. It's like the highest sugar content and cacao represents the worst of humanity. I mean, it's just the cacao trade is associated with child slave labor, human trafficking. It's awful. So we're really excited because we partnered with Vodka Chocolate, which is a Brooklyn based chocolate company, and they sourced this beautiful single origin Peruvian cacao from these indigenous farmer cooperatives. They have really direct relationships with them. And it's this really nutty flavor that we combine with maple sugar. And it took a long time to get the taste just right. But we're really excited to have received this honor. And then we've got some big retail launches happening in the fall, which I'm too superstitious to talk about just yet, but stay tuned.
[00:23:20] Djenaba Well, congratulations. That's great. I can't wait to hear about those. So definitely following you on the socials to find out what's going on.
[00:23:25] Christina Amazing.
[00:23:26] Djenaba So, Christina, please let everyone know where they can find out all about you and Willa's Oat Milk.
[00:23:32] Christina Check out willaskitchen.com, that's W-I-L-L-A-S-K-I-T-C-H-E-N.com and if you make any purchases there definitely use the Hudson Kitchen promo code, HUDSONKITCHEN for 30% off and then Willa's is also available on Amazon and lots of retailers like union market and Erewhon and foxtrot and more retailers to come.
[00:23:59] Djenaba Amazing thank you so much.
[00:24:01] Christina Thank you so much for having me.
[00:24:04] Djenaba The Food Means Business podcast was produced by Hudson Kitchen. It is recorded at the studio at Carney Point and mixed and edited by Wild Home Podcasting. Our theme song is by Damien de Sandys, and I'm your host, Djenaba Johnson-Jones. Follow Hudson Kitchen on Instagram at thehudsonkitchen and to get Food Business Bites right in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter at thehudsonkitchen.com/newsletter. Listen, follow and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. Until next time.