For the Love of Food: How An Engineer Became a Food Entrepreneur with Myles Powell
LISTEN ON: APPLE | SPOTIFY
From the very beginning, Myles Powell has loved food. But STEM felt more practical than going to culinary school, so Myles became an engineer. His love of food and cooking never diminished though, so while working a full-time engineering job, Myles built his CPG company on evenings and weekends, and nearly a decade later, Myles Comfort Foods is still growing.
In this episode, Myles Powell of Myles Comfort Foods shares his origin story–including a short stint on a cooking competition show, why he went back to work after initially quitting his full-time job while building his CPG company, the many growing pains and pivots his business faced, and his best advice for other would-be CPG entrepreneurs.
Plus, Myles explains the two nearly opposite ways that he decompresses from the entrepreneurial grind and shares some exciting personal news!
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...
[01:11] How Myles’s lifelong love of food landed him on a cooking show in 2013
[04:38] The first steps Myles took to turn his CPG idea into reality
[08:17] How Myles decided to change his product offering
[12:28] How Myles discovered and then refined his target audience
[16:42] Myles’s #1 piece of advice for anyone starting out
[19:22] How Myles decompresses from the grind of entrepreneurship
If you’re a CPG entrepreneur who is building your business in addition to working a “regular” job, be sure to tune into this episode:
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About Miles Powell
Walking down the stairs approaching the kitchen, the oven door opens with a creak sending its “food is everything” warm, cozy scent throughout the house. Fast forward fifteen years and I am no longer seven or eight, but twenty-three and I found that living on my own, a frozen meal did not emit the same comfort level vibes I had become accustomed to in my parents home..
I decided to embark on creating a food experience that not only I could feel good about eating, but one that I could share with friends to honor the tradition of a home cooked meal. I saw an opportunity with the Food Network with “America’s Best Cook” in 2013 and the idea blossomed.
Propelled forward on a mission to share traditional whole food ingredients in a convenient meal, Myles Comfort Foods was born. It is my hope that you share this with a friend, heat up your favorite Myles meal and are transported to your own community table roots with family and friends.
Connect with Myles Powell:
Visit the Myles Comfort Foods website
Follow Myles Comfort Foods on Instagram
Follow Myles Comfort Foods on Facebook
Connect with Myles on LinkedIn
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
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[00:00:00] 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.
[00:00:20] Join our community of fellow food business owners and subject matter experts. First 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.
[00:00:32] All right, Myles. Welcome to the food means business podcast. So happy that you're here. Happy to be here. Great. So I would love to start with your story. Tell us like how you became a food entrepreneur, why you became a food entrepreneur.
[00:00:44] Myles: Yeah. You know, it's kind of cliche, kind of simple. Like I just love great tasting food.
[00:00:50] Just as simple as it gets. Right. And I grew up in a family where food was everything, right? Like the dinner table was just such a special place. Like all [00:01:00] of my. Fondest memories are at the dinner table. And as I got a little older, I began to appreciate the art behind it and the process of getting food to the table.
[00:01:11] Right. And it became food just became like the emotional thing for me. Right. It was like my emotional reaction to everything. Like I just took so much. When you talk about lunch, I just get excited and it became my world. So much so that I actually ended up on the Food Network back in 2013 on a competition series called America's Best Cook.
[00:01:32] And, you know, I was an engineer full time, but when I did that show, it was like destiny, right? It was just the world told me, this is your path forward.
[00:01:42] Djenaba: Did you have to take time off of work to do the show?
[00:01:44] Myles: Yeah. And it was really awkward because at this point I've been working at this job for maybe about a year and I told my boss, I'll never forget, I was sitting in his office.
[00:01:53] I said, Hey, cause I was on the NBA, right? So I couldn't tell anyone. And I said, Hey, I'm doing this thing. [00:02:00] I'm going somewhere and I can't, I don't know how long it could be a day. It could be two days. But I'm going to bring my work laptop with me and I'll keep in touch. And I think I gave him a hint and he said, that's fine.
[00:02:11] You'll do your thing. So that flexibility was, was awesome. I wasn't going long. I was gone for two days.
[00:02:18] Djenaba: But not many people would have taken that as a response instead of, you know, you not, not really saying what it was. So it's kind of speaks to the type of person that you were working with. Agreed.
[00:02:29] Really good dude. So you mentioned, um, growing up food was everything. So what types of foods did you guys eat around the dinner table?
[00:02:37] Myles: I mean, it was a variety, but like the hometown's favorite was just like Southern based comfort food. So I've got this plate that if you told me what my favorite meal was, I could, it's top of head, right?
[00:02:48] It's fried chicken, sweet potatoes, Mac and cheese, collard greens. Like that plate there is. Literally the best thing in my life, you know, and so it was, you know, and meals that were [00:03:00] like that, where it's just comfort meals were always my favorite meals at the table.
[00:03:05] Djenaba: So you mentioned that you were an engineer.
[00:03:07] Why didn't you go to culinary school instead of, you know, college, did you think about that?
[00:03:12] Myles: No. So I grew up and I was good at math and science. So my parents were just, Hey, you know, kind of the traditional path, go to college, get a good career, you're set. Right. At the same time, they told me that.
[00:03:24] Entrepreneurship is kind of the way. So my initial thought was I'm going to be an engineer. I'm going to build out my own engineering firm. And then as I'm going through college, I'm slowly realizing that I don't like engineering and I'm, and I'm not great at it. But what I understood later in life was that I love the challenge of it.
[00:03:44] And it was that four year curriculum that taught me to love a challenge. So once I graduated with his degree and started working, I'm like, I don't love this in the least bit. And so I became this like challenge seeker and when I thought [00:04:00] about food and how it's such a passion of mine, I thought about building a business around food that seemed like just a mountain of a challenge and it was like two and two and things just kind of work together that way.
[00:04:12] Djenaba: So you. We're on food network show. It didn't last very long. What kind of led you to stick your foot out there and launch something?
[00:04:24] Myles: So I, before the food show, I was already feeling like I'll want to do a food business. Like it was starting to sow some really early seeds. And this is before. All of these accelerator programs and all of this wealth and info.
[00:04:38] So at the time, and I didn't know anyone doing this at the time, it was just me and Google, right? Just like researching what to even do, how to start. And I started out with a food blog and this food blog that I was doing. Gaining some attention. And that was sort of like the encouragement for my peers being like, Hey, this guy is doing something [00:05:00] and you keep sharing it with the world that ventured into funny.
[00:05:05] I would like go visit friends out of town and cook. Like that was, I'm going to come over and cook and then we'll, we'll do, we do whatever.
[00:05:11] Djenaba: Well, you're, you're the best friend I would have had you over.
[00:05:18] Myles: And then, so what I fell in love with was barbecue sauce, just to create a Process behind sauces in general and just naturally I started sending it out to people to have them try it and the feedback was incredible and that was kind of like a light bulb moment. I want to, I want to build this thing up like this is what I love doing.
[00:05:36] And then
[00:05:36] Djenaba: what
[00:05:37] Myles: happened? So.
[00:05:38] Djenaba: Well, we'll talk about how you got started. Like I know you mentioned you, you kind of sent it out to friends, but when did you start selling the product?
[00:05:45] Myles: So I started out the line of barbecue sauce online. This is, you know, obviously before TikTok, this was like early Instagram days.
[00:05:53] So it was really Etsy. Was my shop and I had a, and then I developed that into an online shop. And that was like [00:06:00] the first iteration for a few months. And this is back when I didn't know a thing about wholesale, right? I just knew I had a product. I hired a branding person locally. We put a brand together.
[00:06:09] I did, I did my trademark and now I'm this sauce brand out of, at the time, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, right? So I'm selling it to friends and coworkers, really small mom and pops. No, I not the slightest idea what it means to sell to retail, right? But I'm just, I'm just. Winging it. And for the first, I'd say year and a half, that's what it was.
[00:06:30] Right. Cause I was at the time still working this full time job. I was in grad school, so my schedule was just jam packed, but I was trying to just figure this out and, you know, attended my first trade show. Right. And it was just all these things that I was doing. You're just learning the hard way, really learning by doing it was kind of like trial by fire.
[00:06:48] And then I ended up moving to DC because I wanted to be in a bigger metropolitan market to sell my product. And then that's when I got more in tune with. Working with retail, [00:07:00] working with distributors. But once again, I'm still part timing and I'm still building it up brick by brick, making a bunch of mistakes along the way.
[00:07:08] And then three months into being in DC, I quit my job because I just, I had the itch. I was like, at this point, I've been doing this for two years. It's not growing. I gotta do something. And I tell this to people because at that age, I was 26. Six, I believe I was in love with this. Or of being a full time entrepreneur, the freedom, right?
[00:07:32] Like do whatever I want, kind of a trap if you're not ready for it. You know, I found my, I remember I found myself doing things during the day that didn't matter because I could, right. I would, I would go to a coffee shop in the morning, put together a social media plan for three hours, come home and take a nap.
[00:07:49] That's not going to get me sales. Right. So like it's these, and then, and then I did that for a few months and then realized. I need money. My DC is expensive. [00:08:00] And so I dove right back into working another job. Um, really tough time in my life because I just felt like I made this huge error, but at the end of the day it was necessary.
[00:08:11] Djenaba: So how did you go from barbecue sauce to mac and cheese?
[00:08:17] Myles: Yeah. When I was in DC, I was selling barbecue sauce and farmer's markets and that kind of handful of retailers. And when I would do these markets. You know, a farmer's market might go from like 9 a. m. till 2 p. m. Between 9 and 10 30, no one was coming to my table because like, no one's trying to buy barbecue sauce that early.
[00:08:37] What they were buying is like foods that they could eat on site or bring home and heat up like ready prepared meals. So I started bringing mac and cheese and, and making wings, right. To pair with the sauces to the market. And they were just like flying. And then it was this light bulb moment of like, Oh, I'm going to These, especially Mac and cheese.
[00:08:57] If I go to grocery stores, I can't find [00:09:00] the Mac that I grew up with. Like it's all crap. It's dofus and I'm like, it's not Mac and cheese. So I had this concept that took it to one store. That was my first DC retail partner. They were called Glenn's at the time. And. She was great. She was like, all right, she was selling my sauces.
[00:09:19] And she's like, okay, we'll, we'll put this frozen Mac on the shelf. It outsold five to one in the barbecue sauce. So that was like, okay, that's my product.
[00:09:27] Djenaba: So where were you producing the product? Were you doing it yourself or did you have people helping you out?
[00:09:31] Myles: At the time myself, I was in a shared kitchen space in DC.
[00:09:35] When I was doing it full time, I'd be producing, you know, throughout the day. But when I, when I went back to, to, uh, engineering job, I would do the job during the day at nighttime, making mac and cheese five,
[00:09:45] Djenaba: six days a week. So how did you figure out frozen? Because it seems to me that that is a challenge trying to, and, you know, ensure that a frozen product actually tastes good once the customer beats it up.
[00:09:59] Myles: Yeah. So this [00:10:00] was a lucky break for me, I guess, where, and this, I guess this is how I do this a lot, right? Where I just kind of dive straight in and I just made, I made Mac and cheese in my shared kitchen. I put it in a tin. I froze it, a couple days later I ate it, and I was like, just as good as I would have made it as fresh, right?
[00:10:18] And I was like, boom. And then it got into like packaging to kind of preserve shelf life, but the fact that I didn't have to add anything to it to make it taste great post frozen was like a moment of, okay, I've got something here.
[00:10:35] Djenaba: So talk about growing the company because now you're in a much different place than you were, you know, several years ago, what kind of steps did you take to grow the company and what challenges do you have along the way?
[00:10:46] Myles: Well, there were a lot of steps and a lot of challenges, honestly, and I'm still going through those. I mean, nowhere to begin. I'll just, I'll, I'll start with, it's a lot different selling to 10 stores versus 200. You learn a lot more about [00:11:00] the industry and about your own brand. Yeah, I think a lot of us. Go into this being like, I have the best tasting product and the kind of you draw a line, but that's it.
[00:11:11] The brand is so much more important, almost more important than the actual product itself. They both have to be on a high level. And as you get onto a shelf, you have to kind of put yourselves in the position of a consumer. Like. Why would they buy you if they don't know who you are? And that's the hardest piece.
[00:11:30] Like if you're walking in the grocery store, you're in a day with all these products, what's going to make someone stop and go, I want to try them. That's like unlocking the key to the city and brand stall because they never figured that out. They don't know who their target audience is. They don't know.
[00:11:45] They don't know why they exist in the market. What makes you different? What makes you better? Why, who, who is buying your stuff from the, to the point you need to know that customer better than they know themselves. And we're still, and even at this A stage, we're still learning [00:12:00] that about our own product.
[00:12:01] So I think one of the biggest lessons was, as you try to grow, is trying to figure that out. Because if you don't, you're not going to last long. You're going to spend a lot of money you don't have to spend, be in places you don't belong, different retailers. And I had to learn that by, once again, the hard way, putting my product somewhere and then being like, it's not selling.
[00:12:19] Oh, because no one here cares about frozen mac and cheese, right?
[00:12:25] Djenaba: So talk a little about your target audience.
[00:12:28] Myles: Yeah, so this is a newer revelation because I built this brand based off of me in my mid to late twenties at the time, which was busy professional who likes to cook, loves eating, but sometimes just doesn't have the time, like maybe once a week and now they're shopping in frozen, trying to find a replication of what do you make at home?
[00:12:51] And that's the paradigm shift that we're trying to preach is traditionally frozen has been. Number one, convenience. Number two, [00:13:00] quality. We're trying to bring quality back to the same level where you're not walking down the aisle and thinking to yourself that you're making a sacrifice. It's like, Hey, I can be proud to put this in my basket.
[00:13:12] I'm going to be excited to eat it when I get home. So that's, that's primary consumer personality. The secondary is the moms and dads of the world who have a busy lifestyle, of course, and they have a kid coming home from school and that kid's going to be hungry and they're like, I need to get him something quick, but I'm not going to get him something that I'm not proud of because I don't want to feel that guilt.
[00:13:36] It doesn't have to be healthy in terms of like some brand really rely on the health aspect. Right. Mac and cheese is not a healthy product. It shouldn't be right. So our thing is clean label. And this is what parents want. They want to be able to recognize what they're feeding their kids. And as long as it has a nutritional value.
[00:13:58] Djenaba: Right. You want to be able [00:14:00] to flip the package over and actually be able to read the ingredients. Exactly. Yep. Yep. I was like that with my kids too. Yeah. So what does success look like
[00:14:10] Myles: to you? I think this is where my ambition gets the best of me because I don't feel like we're successful. We have wins along the way, but success for me is number one is profitability.
[00:14:23] And number two is feeling, I don't want to use the word comfortable, but feeling, yeah, you can use that word comfortable with the brand and the company as a whole. I think entrepreneurship is just such a battle. It is an anxiety driven, stressful battle. Success is way too up and not deal on that, and that may not go away until we get acquired.
[00:14:45] Very, very possible. But I think along the way, I do find many successes, right? Sometimes it's very important for me to take a step back and remember four years ago versus now, like remembering now that I can look at out my window and [00:15:00] point in all these retailers that have my product on shelf where four years ago I had zero or five years ago I had zero, and I was trying to figure out.
[00:15:08] So it's a mental, when you ask that question, it's always a mental, like, well, are you talking to the super ambitious Myles? Are you talking to the Myles needs to relax my two different people?
[00:15:23] Djenaba: But I think it's both because one thing I read this book called the gap and the gain, I think it's Dan Martell and another author.
[00:15:29] And they talked about, instead of comparing yourself out to others, And what their success looks like comparing yourself to yourself. So you just said like four years ago, you weren't in all of these places. When you look at it that way, it feels so much better than you, than you say, well, here's this other frozen brand.
[00:15:45] They, we started at the same time and now they're, you know, in twice as many stores or whatever it is.
[00:15:52] Myles: Yeah. It's so easy to get sucked into that. You know, I'm, I'm on LinkedIn all the time. That's the one place where you'll find that. Right. But the more you're in [00:16:00] the game, you re hear these stories about how they got there and you go, okay, that's not, that wasn't, I didn't have that path available.
[00:16:07] Right. I do like to look at other brands in terms of like ideation, but you are absolutely right. Try not to compare how you got there or is this how they got there and the time behind it. Because then once again, there's been so many brands that have just had this rocket ship growth and they just collapse.
[00:16:25] Right. So you just got to run your race.
[00:16:28] Djenaba: I mean, we're kind of seeing that now, and you mentioned like profitability being the most important and it really is at the end of the day, it is the most important thing. What advice would you give someone that's just starting out?
[00:16:42] Myles: The number one piece is know your why.
[00:16:45] I see that all the time. It's so important because really think deeply about why you're doing what you're doing. So get away from this concept of like, Oh, my family and friends say I make the best XYZ. [00:17:00] Listen, that's subjective. It's subjective. What's going to keep you in the game when things get tough, like what's your North star?
[00:17:07] What's that? What do you want this to become? Like, are you willing to sacrifice a lot? Right? Because once, and I'll kind of go back to my earlier mistakes, people say, Oh, I want to be free of my nine to five. You think you do. Right. And then you get into this and you're working 12 to 12. Right. And the hardest part is in a nine to eight.
[00:17:30] I worked nine to five problems, seven years, 80 years. And nine to five, if you mess up, like you can go home on a weekend and show up Monday and you're still getting paid. I mean, unless you get fired, but I'm just saying like, there's some security there, right? You don't have that pressure. In this game, you're solely responsible for decisions that could alter your, your life.
[00:17:57] It's, it's a high, intense, high pressure [00:18:00] situation. And the more you grow, the harder the decisions get with the more impact they have. So I tell folks, listen, this is a very aspirational, great thing to do. But just don't expect to walk in the park, like, and that's why knowing your why is so important.
[00:18:15] Because if your why is, you're so like dialed into that and you're, and you're like, you're about it. Then when things do get tough, you can hang in there. That makes a lot of
[00:18:24] Djenaba: sense.
[00:18:25] Myles: What do you love about being a food entrepreneur? Sharing my food with the world. That's why I do demos today, because I love the moment that people take a bite of what I created and the mood change and how it sometimes it lifts their entire day.
[00:18:39] That's what drives me. The hearing people say, Oh my God, I love your product XYZ, my kids love your product. That's such a more, it makes me feel good because I know what it did for me as a kid and as an adult. I want to, I want to see that in others and I want to get people, I want to get people to enjoy food again.
[00:18:57] You know, I think with downward days, we're so [00:19:00] in a good, it's good and bad, right? We're really conscious about what we eat, but it also makes it very stressful and it makes us almost afraid to go grocery shopping and afraid to eat. And then I want to get people to be like, Hey. Don't over, you shouldn't have to overthink this.
[00:19:16] That's why we do it as clean label, home cooked. Like this is something that you should be able to zone out on and enjoy.
[00:19:22] Djenaba: So what do you do for relaxation and self care? Like, I feel like you're so busy. We talked about, you know, you talked about working 12 hour days. There is that sacrifice of the free, you have the freedom, but then, you know, you're still, you're working harder for yourself and you work for somebody else.
[00:19:36] And for sometimes for, you know, there's no money or a smaller salary than you were making before. Right. So I wonder, like, how do you. Take care of yourself to ensure that you can keep going because you mentioned the why and that's fine. But if you're, you know, kind of burnt out, it's not really gonna, gonna move you forward.
[00:19:54] Myles: Yeah. And transparently, I had burned out multiple times where, and this is where being so ambitious comes with, [00:20:00] it's a double edged sword, right? Cause you're pushing, pushing, pushing. But then you do burn out my way of self care is actually working out. And the reason I do that so much, and I I'm actually a personal trainer as well for this reason.
[00:20:14] Djenaba: So saying that my personal trainer certification, Hey, I'm going to laugh when I got it. Go ahead and go ahead. I'm sorry.
[00:20:22] Myles: When I'm at the gym. It's like in a controlled environment where I know if I put a hundred percent in accurate wise, I get a hundred percent results. Entrepreneurship is not like that.
[00:20:33] Right. Cause there's so many other factors involved. So the gym is a mental thing for me. Like I go in there to just feel like I'm in control almost. Right. And it's, it's, it's there 45 minutes a day that I can just do something that I know I'm good at and I'd love doing. Cause I love, I love the feeling of it to come accomplishment.
[00:20:55] And the other way I relax. Is I eat, right? If I'm having a really bad [00:21:00] day or a good day, like it's so funny, I mentioned this earlier, my reaction to some situations is go find food last year. I had a situation and this wasn't anything, uh, intense, but I had a, I was trying to board a flight. Early morning flight got canceled.
[00:21:15] My meeting got canceled. Really bad morning. First thing I did when I left the airport was like, I'm going to the diner and I got waffles. Right. And I got waffles and I felt bad. Right. That's that's how I treat everything.
[00:21:28] Djenaba: Um, I am the same and I didn't realize this until recently, but I have things I like to eat.
[00:21:33] It doesn't matter. It could be a good day or bad day. It doesn't matter. But there's certain things I like, like sometimes I'll order, um, Garrett popcorn from Chicago and have it delivered. Cause that's like the thing that me or like, I like sweet sometimes. So like, I'll also get like, you know, the jelly belly jelly beans or something like that.
[00:21:46] Or just something where I'm like, I'm, this feels comfortable. This feels really good to me. But yeah, I totally get it.
[00:21:51] Myles: Yeah. That's why, yeah, that's why I'm doing what I do because it's like the equalizer. Like you, you, you get it in front of you, take a [00:22:00] bite and then just whatever you're doing, just kind of mellows down.
[00:22:03] Djenaba: Yes. And I think to me, the gym is important too. I feel like it's the. One time or during the day when I'm present, like I, because you have, you can't just be lifting weights. You have your mind somewhere else, right? So like, you're definitely, you're sitting there, you're present. You're it's a sense of accomplishment, especially early in the morning.
[00:22:21] And then I also really love the community of being there and seeing the same people all the time. So
[00:22:26] Myles: agree.
[00:22:31] Djenaba: So at Hudson kitchen, we have, we call it a money bell that we ring when we're celebrating something. So we'd love to know what you're celebrating. It could be personal or it could be professional. It's a pre celebration, but I'm getting married in a month
[00:22:40] Myles: and a half.
[00:22:41] Djenaba: Oh, congratulations.
[00:22:43] Myles: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:22:44] So obviously it hasn't happened yet, but that's, that's great. I'm ringing it already. .
[00:22:50] Djenaba: That's amazing. Is your fiancee in the food business also?
[00:22:55] Myles: No, no. She's staying away from this, this monster to food business . [00:23:00] And then, so that's like a personal money bill on the business side. Uh, we're expanding Whole Foods business to Atlanta and Texas later this month.
[00:23:08] So Great. That's, congratulations. That's be pretty nice too. Thank you.
[00:23:12] Djenaba: Awesome. All right, well, Myles, thank you so much and let everyone know where they can find out about you and Myles Comfort Boots.
[00:23:19] Myles: Yes. So we are on Instagram and TikTok at Myles comfort foods. That's Myles of the Y and then comfort foods.
[00:23:27] com and find us in your local Whole Foods target mom's organic. There's a store locator on our website. On our website.
[00:23:36] Djenaba: Thank you.
[00:23:37] Myles: For sure. Thank you.
[00:23:41] Djenaba: The food means business podcast was produced by Hudson kitchen. It is recorded at the studio at Kearney point and mixed and edited by wild home podcasting. Our theme song is by Damien to Sandy's and I'm your host, Djenaba Johnson-Jones. Follow Hudson kitchen on Instagram and Twitter. At the Hudson kitchen and to get food business bites right in your inbox, [00:24:00] sign up for our newsletter at the Hudson kitchen.
[00:24:02] com forward slash newsletter. Listen, follow, and leave a review on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts until next time.