Positioning Your CPG Product in a Crowded Marketplace with Kara Rubin
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Kara Rubin has spent her career championing thousands of better for you brands.
During this conversation, she shares her journey in the food business including: leading the Northeast Region Grocery division of Whole Foods and managing brand and product strategy for Just Water. Kara also talks about her current role as CPG advisor for JPG Resources and as co-founder of Makor Partners as well as gives advice to emerging and established brands on how to create and maintain a strong foundation.
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...
The universe’s role in the trajectory of her career in the food business
The one thing that she can do all day as a CPG advisor
Her advice to brands on the importance of building relationships, maintaining focus, and standing out in a crowded marketplace
How she values self-care and embraces the flexible schedule that comes with entrepreneurship
If you want to learn more on how your product can stand out amongst the competition, be sure to tune into this episode:
Links mentioned in this episode…
Just Water
About Kara Rubin:
Kara is a better-for-you food and retail industry executive and purpose-led brand strategist. She spent a decade leading one of the largest regional business units for Whole Foods Market in the United States. And she was part of a senior leadership team that turned the JUST Water brand from the brink of insolvency in 2017 into a recognized leader in the sustainably bottled water category today.
Kara is now an advisor to clean-label and sustainability-forward CPG brands and natural-channel retailers. She is a Founding Principal at Makor Partners, where she works with brands, investment groups, and manufacturers looking for expanded perspective on the CPG landscape in the US. She is also a Strategic Advisor at JPG Resources, a firm that provides innovation strategy, R+D, supply chain, manufacturing, and consumer research insights and execution expertise to food and beverage brands of all sizes.
Connect with KARA:
Visit the JPG Resources Website
Visit the Makor Partners Website
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
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Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:01.719)
Hi, Kara, welcome to the Food Means Business Podcast.
Kara (00:04.802)
Thank you so much for having me.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:06.783)
I'm so glad that you're here. So I'd love to start off with you telling a little bit about your story and your career trajectory. You've been in the food business for quite some time, for I think your entire career. So I'd love to just hear about you.
Kara (00:21.486)
Um, sure. Thank you. Yeah. It has been a long time. Um, I, I started out in the, in the grocery business. Well, actually that's not true. I started out, uh, working for an importer. I grew up in Maine and I had been living here. I moved back up there and, um, to, to do some work with this importer and get my, uh, sort of.
toes wet in the food business. It had been something I'd been trying, I'd been contemplating for a while. And what I thought would be sort of like an internship for a couple of months ended up being pretty much a whole year. And then I came back to the city and shifted over to the retail side. So I worked for Gourmet Garage for a little over a year when it had a little bit of a bigger presence than it does now in...
the city and then I shifted to Whole Foods, which was my, that was really the anchor.
Kara (01:23.89)
experience. And I was there for basically a decade and ran the regional grocery business unit for the Northeast region, which encompasses more or less all the stores in the in the Tri-State. Well, it did. It's the definitions of the regions have changed relatively recently. But when I was there, encompassed essentially most of the stores in the Tri-State area.
with the exception of a few in South Jersey and a few in sort of North Eastern Connecticut, I guess. And when I was there, I was responsible for the grocery department, which is essentially everything in a box in the center of the store. And I had folks on my team who were responsible for evaluating the product mix and making decisions about products that...
would, you know, that we're excited about, that we're on trend, that we're local. There's, you know, there's always been for a long time, there's been an emphasis on partnering with smaller local suppliers at Whole Foods. So that was always a priority. And they were also evaluating the product mix for products that were just under performing and needed to be called out in order to make room. And the other half of my team was more operationally focused. So out in the stores, making sure that everything, although all the wheels were turning.
as we expected, as much as we could hope for at least. And when I left Whole Foods, I shifted over to the brand side. I was the VP of brand and product strategy. So heading up marketing and product development for Just Water, which is a sustainable bottled water, Adirondack Mountain Spring Water in a Tetra Pak carton, which is a, you know, which is a...
Well, the one we were using was over 80% plant-based materials. And I left just, I guess it's coming up about two years ago. And since then I've been doing advisory work with brands in the space, both coming from outside the country when sort of one channel of consulting I'm doing with a business partner is Makor Partners. And we're working with brands that are based outside the US.
Kara (03:42.466)
that want to at a minimum sort of understand what to expect about approaching the US market. And in a lot of cases, we're actively working with our clients to navigate the process of getting product to the US and introducing their brands to appropriate buyers in various retailers.
I'm also doing some work with JPG resources, which is a great group of folks based out in Michigan, many of whom have come out of Kellogg's. The JPG headquarters is in Battle Creek, which is where Kellogg is headquartered.
Kara (04:29.102)
place where literally anyone, someone who just has a recipe and an idea all the way up to the biggest JPG enterprises in the country turned to JPG for help around formulation, supply chain management, and co-packing navigation. That's what JPG has always been. And over the years, since it was founded about 15 years ago,
We've expanded that practice area out on the front end especially to include more strategic thinking around product development too. So you can now come to JPG for support thinking around where white space exists, how you could potentially fill it, and then obviously that leads very organically into the next phases of product development and commercialization.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (05:21.643)
Got it. So what made you decide to move from retail and onto the brand side?
Kara (05:30.35)
Um, there isn't much about the, well, the food, the food business is wonderful in so many ways, but it's also very hard as everyone who is in the food business knows. Um, and, and retail is hard in, uh, in a whole variety of different ways. Um, you know, the hours are rough, the, uh, you know, they're, so much of, of the work that you do for a retailer.
often hinges on what's broken that day, what machinery has broken, which I'm sure you can empathize with operating. Any space in which you're operating with machinery that can be fickle, you're running into those problems. I think this is a challenge also for anyone who gets into a business initially driven by a passion.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:07.775)
Yes.
Kara (06:29.57)
there are a lot of points at which that business, you start thinking like, where did my passion go? It becomes less about that and more about some of the things that you didn't necessarily expect you were getting into. And for me, it had just been 10 years is a long time and it was time to do something new. And I had done so much work with so many fantastic brands over the years that was sort of an angle on the food business that I...
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:35.015)
Hehehehehehe
Kara (06:58.178)
I wanted to try and I wanted to get some experience trying to build a brand myself. And so going deeper, narrower and deeper rather than being spread broadly across an entire grocery department full of brands.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:15.191)
So what skills did you take from working at Whole Foods and kind of translate into working for Just?
Kara (07:23.162)
Well, I think just, you know, overall knowledge of the industry and knowing how to navigate Whole Foods, knowing how to navigate retail, period. I mean, there's a lot about Whole Foods that is not dissimilar from every other grocery retailer. At the end of the day, there's, you know, you're taking, certainly in my department, you're taking a box of something and putting it on a shelf. And there's a, you know, there's a lot of, there are lots and lots of steps that come before that. And there are a lot of steps that have been taken.
have to happen to get that box to turn off that shelf, which is what the retailer wants to see. And we can talk about that. So I think that kind of intelligence and experience was really valuable. I learned a lot on the job at Just for sure, because I was focusing on brand marketing and delving into the details of how you do that.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (07:59.263)
Hehehe
Kara (08:19.062)
You know, it's a very particular both art and science. And it's fascinating that part, the brand design part of building something to sell in the world. I think it's truly fascinating thinking about who you know, who your consumer is. You know how they live their lives and how is your product going to fit into their lives in a seamless necessary way?
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (08:47.127)
I was looking at Just and I was thinking like, in my mind, was looking at Just a little bit challenging just because it's water. because it's water. Like there, I mean, there's so many choices for water. there, I mean, there's so many choices that brand successful because it's at the end of the day, end my tap or I can get a bottle of Poland Springs I can get a bottle of Pull & Springs or something like that. something like that. So like, can you talk about who was a target customer for them a target customer for them and like what made that brand so special? like what
Kara (09:13.326)
Sure. So I think we, you know, we, I started at just, I don't know if you remember, there was a campaign over the summer, I think it probably was 2017, around getting rid of plastic straws. It was a campaign called Straws Suck. And that's right when we, right, that summer was, we had started just right before then. So I think there was,
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (09:32.885)
Yes.
Kara (09:41.838)
there was a certain amount of momentum that we were able to capture that was in the zeitgeist at that point. I think something clicked, at least among a certain cohort of consumers who just became more aware of plastic in their lives. And I think it's only gotten more so the evolution of so many different, especially beverage brands, shifting away from plastic bottles.
has been exponential over the past several years. I think we were trying to lean into the feeling than the emotional element of a brand. And one of the first things that I was able to do when joining Just was overhaul the packaging, the design of the packaging, not the carton itself. When we started, there was
just had a lot of story, it does have a lot of story elements to it. However, the packaging as it stood when we took over the business, it was hard to digest that very quickly. There were a lot of words on the package. So what we undertook was an exercise in sort of, again, understanding.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (10:59.133)
Yeah.
Kara (11:07.274)
a bit about who our consumers were. It's a small company. We weren't able to do a massive multi-hundred thousand dollar project to understand who our consumers were. But we did the best we could. We worked with an agency who was able to help us think through that and synthesize the storytelling in a much, much more succinct and visual way. We converted to a lot of iconography and
and thought very hard about word choice and narrowed things down to phrases. And the first phrase of which on the side of the carton was you just did a good thing. So there's a clever use of the word just in there. There's an emotional like pat on the back. There's a...
motivation for not only just picking the product up, but looking at it and sort of reading through the flow of the narrative. And I think that everything we did sort of snowballed from that. And it was, you know, it was about engagement with our, with our customers on a, on a certain level. I wanted Just to sort of, there's a celebrity element to Just as well, which we can talk about, you know, it's a little bit of a different angle than I think a lot of brands end up.
brands that pursue celebrity relationships in the sense that the brand, the product, the idea was the idea of Jaden Smith originally. And the Smith family were the primary shareholders of the company. I think that there was...
in my mind, an opportunity not to walk a line between leveraging that relationship, but also making sure that the brand was relevant to a wider swath of people for exactly the reason that you mentioned, because it is a very fundamental product. Right? And that category is so massively competitive that you have to be distinctive. So our carton was distinctive visually.
Kara (13:30.39)
The storytelling was distinctive and I think there was a little bit of badge value there, both in terms of the celebrity affiliation and also, again, riding that wave of sort of increased and heightened awareness of plastic to be carrying a bottle of water that looked like that telegraphs something about you. So...
you know, that was the, those were the lenses that we leaned into.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (14:04.715)
So then you decided to leave Just and move to working with multiple brands. Talk about that decision and yeah, talk about that.
Kara (14:14.506)
Yeah, I think I do. Is there any sense? I think, you know, my career has evolved. I...
Kara (14:22.39)
I mean, I try to be planful about the way I think about my career, but at the same time, so many things have happened to me over the years that have just happened unexpectedly. And I sort of believe in the universe, teeing things up in the way that they're supposed to be. And it's based on experience, because that's what's happened for me. So I, you know, I...
I'm at a point in my career where I feel like I have, you know, a decent amount of experience to bring to bear. And I really enjoy thinking strategically and in partnership with different people about their products and bringing, again, bringing my perspective, especially on the, not only the retail side, but also the brand building side, pairing all of that knowledge together.
and helping folks establish their own foundations. That's essentially what we're doing at Maker Partners. Our intentions are not to be the permanent team that a brand hires. We help them create this very sort of rock solid foundation here with an understanding of how businesses operate in the US and how infrastructure works here.
But ultimately the intention is that they're going to either, they're going to build their own full-time team, which we would then hand off at that point. So I think that it's exciting to be able to work with a variety of different brands.
Kara (16:11.054)
I find it invigorating and I think it would be a little hard to go back to a single thing. Most days. Some days are a little too hectic, but most days I think it would be hard to go back to a single focus.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (16:24.339)
I agree, like I really enjoy looking, having a peek inside of a bunch of different businesses. It's a lot of fun, for sure.
Kara (16:30.302)
Yes. Yeah. It's always, and I feel like it's just always a learning experience for me too. Like I, yes, I bring, I bring my knowledge to bear for sure, but I'm learning so much about different category silos and different features of different products and how things are made. It's just, it's fascinating. I, one of the things I love about working in this industry is, is going to food production facilities. I just, it's like mesmerizing to me to watch those machines work.
And it's like kind of like an exercise in doing that in so many different, again, different kind of category verticals on a daily basis. So it's fun.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (17:13.067)
What's the one thing you could do all day?
Kara (17:17.298)
I think, you know, coming back to that brand design element, you know, thinking about the personality of a brand and how that, how that can come to life in the world is, um, there's a part of me that probably should have been some kind of visual artist. Maybe that taps that a bit. And I really, I really enjoy that, that way of thinking. I'm also, I'm, I'm a writer. I, I like thinking about the way in which, um, words can be.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (17:33.492)
Hahaha
Kara (17:48.146)
words can be used so evocatively to channel what a brand is, what it stands for, what a product is and means.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (18:00.683)
So if you were working with a new brand today, like what would you, what's the first thing that they should do? They have this great idea, the product, so let's say it already tastes great, they have a name, like what are the things, what's gonna help them like foundationally kind of just be okay? I feel like there's so many different things to be concerned about.
Kara (18:20.814)
Yeah. I think at the end of the day, and this probably is universal focus, I think it's really, and I think this is what part of what my business partner and I do at Maycourt is help brands stay focused or understand where their product's going to fit in the U.S. market and stay focused on that. I think you hear all kinds of cautionary tales about businesses
someone gets really excited about it, Walmart, and all of a sudden they have a PO, this massive PO from Walmart, which on the surface might seem great, but it creates this waterfall effect that can be enormously challenging at a minimum, if not destructive, ironically, because the question then becomes, well, how do you produce all that inventory, and how are you going to get it there, and how are you going to pay for the ingredients that you need?
to make that inventory before you get paid by Walmart for all of that product, those finished goods, that cycle can be massively destructive. So I think focusing and growing reasonably, I think we're emerging on the backside of a decade basically of time where there's been a tremendous amount of equity investment in.
in this sector and I think frankly there have been some pretty unreasonable expectations placed on food businesses. Expectations that are maybe more like, and I'm not a finance person, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me as though there have been some expectations that are more aligned with, you know, technology businesses and things like that.
that couldn't be more diametrically opposed to food. Like we're talking about things that at some point in time originally like grow in the ground and are affected by weather and climate change and human beings, a lot of them, and a lot of machinery that breaks down and trucks that break down, you know, it just, you can't, if there's, you know, if you've printed it, if you've done a packaging run and there's something wrong with it, you can't just redo it overnight, right?
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (20:13.751)
I'm sorry.
Kara (20:42.878)
I think that the expectations in our industry about growth and about the pace of growth, at least, maybe just need to be recalibrated in a lot of cases, at least.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (20:42.925)
I think.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (20:55.411)
I think the other side of that is LinkedIn. You see people posting, we got into this store, we got into that store, we got this investment. And it's this rush to do the things that other people are doing and not going back to what you talked about before, which is just focusing on where you are and how you're gonna grow your business.
Kara (21:13.534)
Yeah. Yeah, just I don't like great. More power to you all. I either all I think for every and I've seen more of this recently. Certainly with the you know, the change in for a lot of people's changing changes and fortunes recently, I think there's more of an inclination to
say, you know, great, congratulations. I'm curious what else is going on behind the scenes though, behind, what's the backstory there? Because nothing's ever perfect, nothing's ever that rosy. There's always something that's causing someone to lose sleep even when they're posting, you know, great news, right? So I just, I would counsel folks to just try and remember that as hard as it is. And at the end of the day, frankly, like,
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (21:57.837)
Yeah.
Kara (22:09.334)
I don't have a ton of time to spend scrolling through and posting on LinkedIn. Like, if there's someone who's spending a lot of their time doing that, I guess I would wonder what else is going on in their business if they have that much time.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (22:28.194)
Agreed. Well, how can brands position themselves in a crowded marketplace? It seems like there's like, I mean, you've worked with thousands of brands, you know, with Whole Foods and your other parts of your career, but I'm wondering, like, there's so much out there. Like, there's so many waters or chips or dessert or whatever. Like, I'm just wondering, like, how can they...
really position themselves to be successful.
Kara (22:53.922)
That's really, really hard, especially these days. I think while we went through this period of time where there was a lot of money being focused on this industry, I think there's also a zeitgeist thing happening around food and people pursuing building businesses on
you know, on an idea, on a recipe, on something that's meaningful to them. And that's amazing. Um, but you have to, you have to go in eyes wide open. I think it's, I don't know if it's, um, I mean, I'm not a gambler, but is it like similar to gambling where you basically give yourself a budget of money and time that you're willing to put in of your own at the end of the day or your close friends and family, because that's where it has to start.
Right? No one's going to ante up millions of dollars to hand over to you before you've proven something. And that proof process takes money and time. And it's probably going to be both of those things are probably going to be your own as a very early stage entrepreneur. Right? I know, you know, and it just, and it again, it that time understanding of the of what
spectrum is, I think is important too. Like it can, it can take years. And to be realistic about how you build that business, I think a lot of it, what it means is not necessarily making the food, although obviously that's really important. It's being, it's you're your own best salesperson as well. So hitting the pavement and literally walking around to businesses that you can
touch and feel and develop a relationship with that. I can say even in my prior role at Whole Foods, and I even, you know, you still see it today, like the relationships that you can build with buyers really can impact your success at store level, ultimately. It's not the only thing, certainly, that impacts your success, but it's certainly a contributing factor. And that happens at every level. So...
Kara (25:18.798)
creating a product that you're proud of that tells a story that's meaningful to you and taking that story out to your farmers market, to your local markets, to any space where it's relevant, where people are going to engage with it in a positive way, is where is the place to start. And you develop momentum from there. And you develop...
fans from there who talk about your product. And, you know, that's the, that's obviously the original idea of what an influencer is meant to be. And I think there's, I want to believe that there's still something there in that, and that idea of friends talking to friends about the things they've encountered that they like. But it happens, it happens small. So.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (26:05.959)
Now that's true.
I think that's the thing is like you are on a LinkedIn or some other platform or you go to some event and you see the successful person, but you don't realize that they were selling at a farmer's market, one farmer's market, they kind of gotten themselves started and kind of in some local stores and kind of built up from there versus just like I'm in Whole Foods all of a sudden. And I think that that's what's missing. What people don't see. You don't see the beginning, right?
Kara (26:32.138)
Yeah, you just see the shiny object that has been very molded and polished and refined over time for sure. And it's probably still in the process of being molded and polished for sure. You know, hopefully, you know, I mean, it's with any industry. Like, there are a lot of...
It's very difficult to find success, right? But the ones who do, if you look at the evolution of their packaging, of their storytelling, of their brand identity over time, it changes and morphs and grows and matures.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (27:19.735)
for sure. So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk to you as an entrepreneur about what you do for self-care and relaxation.
Kara (27:34.304)
Actually, I mean, that's one of the things that I deeply appreciate about the work that I'm doing now because it allows me the flexibility to carve out time when I can. I'm not prescribed by specific, I mean, I guess a lot of people aren't these days. I was going to say I don't have to be in an office from nine to five.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (27:56.205)
Right?
Kara (27:58.294)
But that flexibility is hugely important. I have two kids who are almost 13 and nine and a half. And the time that I have to spend with them and to be able to carve out a half an hour, an hour, whatever, in the afternoons when they're home from school to spend time with them, do homework with them, whatever the case may be, that's enormously valuable. And I also do manage to carve out at least a little bit of time to...
I've started, I swam in high school and college and I've just recently started swimming again. So I'm trying to make that pretty religious on a couple of mornings a week. And, you know, and just, I probably could be better at it, but can't we all? It's hard.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (28:47.185)
Yes, for sure.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (28:52.135)
awesome that you're swimming again. That's great. So at Hudson Kitchen we have what we call the money bell that we ring when people are celebrating something. So wondering what are you celebrating? Could be personal or professional.
Kara (29:05.142)
You know, I think, disclosure, you'd given me that question in advance, and I was thinking about talking about swimming again, I guess. So I guess I jumped the gun on myself there. Yeah, I mean, it does feel good. It's like it's, like I said, I swim in high school and college. I haven't really swum consistently at all since college, and that was a long time ago. So it feels nice to have that kind of rhythm back.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (29:12.361)
No.
Kara (29:35.775)
And it's a great form of, it's a great respite actually, cause I've been thinking about getting, they make waterproof headphones that you can listen to. Yeah. And I've been thinking about getting some, cause there are podcasts, few podcasts I listen to pretty consistently and whatnot. But.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (29:44.891)
Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, yeah.
Kara (30:00.574)
It's also kind of nice to just not have anything in your ears for a half an hour. Um, and, and just turn off and I, you know, it's, it's something that I think I, I appreciate it. And I like having that headspace, that free headspace.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (30:19.051)
I agree with you, I'm the same with working out. It's a nice, I feel like it's the only time during the day where I'm completely present. I should be ashamed to say that, but it's true. Like.
Kara (30:30.991)
Yeah. Well, not necessarily present, but just not distracted or not fractionate, whatever the word is. You know, having your attention split between so many things is challenging.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (30:47.863)
So Karen, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Please let everyone know how they can find out all about you and how to work with you.
Kara (30:49.814)
My pleasure.
Kara (30:55.618)
Perfect, yeah. I can be reached on LinkedIn, K-A-R-A-R-U-B-I-N, and my Maker Partners is Kara at MakerPartners, M-A-K-O-R partners.com, or JPG is Kara.Rubin at JPGresources.com. And I'd love to talk to, I'm happy to talk to anyone about where they are in their journey in this industry and, you know.
I think another thing I bring to bear just to come back to that is the network at this point, you know, this industry, like I said, is, is wonderful in a lot of ways. And one most, one of the most significant ones is, you know, the people are really genuine and, and want to help others. So I think, uh, you know, again, if I can't be helpful through one of my, my businesses, then, um, you know, I might not know someone who can, so happy to, happy to connect.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (31:39.799)
Agreed.
Djenaba Johnson-Jones (31:53.803)
Thank you.
Kara (31:55.123)
My pleasure.