Momofuku Is Extending Its Empire, And She’s Leading The Charge

[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hey folks, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Zoe Feldman, the general manager of Momofuku Goods, a brand of restaurant-grade pantry essentials launched by the eponymous restaurant group, which is credited with the rise of contemporary Asian American cuisine. Just a reminder to our listeners, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. One of the most influential chefs and restaurateurs of the past two decades, David Chang extended his Momofuku empire into consumer products with the launch of Momofuku Goods In October 2020. The brand markets four product lines – noodles, seasoned salts, crunchy chili oil, and bottled sauces – that are designed for at-home chefs and enthusiasts of Momofuku's acclaimed restaurants. While a majority of the products are sold via the company's website, the brand is rapidly making inroads at retailers including Whole Foods, Amazon, Central Market and Target. At the helm of the consumer division is Zoe Feldman, a former Chobani and Pepsico executive who led new venture strategy for both companies and is known for her advocacy of underrepresented entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industries. Zoe joined Momofuku In October 2021 and over the past seven months has managed a dramatic acceleration in direct consumer and retail sales. According to Zoe, the company is re-forecasting growth every three weeks. Remarkably, the brand's ascendance has come with almost no formal investment in marketing. In the following interview, I spoke with Zoe about the development of and vision for Momofuku Goods, the impact of David Chang's media presence on awareness and trial, why she can't hit the brakes on growth, even if she wanted to, and the reason that she only hires, quote, Swiss Army Knives. She also discussed the brand's role in the evolution of the ethnic aisle and why she's focused on the fundamentals of building a good business. Hey, folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with The New and only Zoe Feldman, the general manager of Momofuku Goods.

[00:02:34] Zoe Feldman: Zoe, how are you?

[00:02:36] Ray Latif: Hi, Ray. Zoe's shaking her head at me because I called her The New and only. I could have used another way to describe you. I could have used the incredible, the extraordinary.

[00:02:47] Zoe Feldman: Praise makes me uncomfortable.

[00:02:49] Ray Latif: It shouldn't.

[00:02:49] Zoe Feldman: I know, but what can I say?

[00:02:51] Ray Latif: You are special. in so many ways. Thank you. You're very welcome.

[00:02:56] Zoe Feldman: That's very kind of you. I appreciate that. And we've known each other for a long time, so I feel like you're probably not lying to me.

[00:03:02] Ray Latif: No, you know, I would never use those words to describe someone that I didn't think they applied to. So, but I'm just so happy you're here with me. We're here at BevNET headquarters in Newton, Massachusetts. We're downstairs in one of our four studios. So folks who are thinking about joining us for the podcast, please come out and see us because we do have these studios to use and they're pretty nice, right?

[00:03:25] Zoe Feldman: They're incredible, really beautiful carpeting. And Mike will make you an incredible latte. Shout to Mike for my incredible latte.

[00:03:32] Ray Latif: There you go. Mike Schneider, our CMO. DevNet Mike on Instagram and Twitter. He would want me to say that. It's been a minute. I mean, we haven't seen each other for three years. Is that right? Since 2019?

[00:03:44] Zoe Feldman: Yeah.

[00:03:45] Ray Latif: Okay.

[00:03:46] Zoe Feldman: There was the whole pandemic thing. It's actually still happening. It is still happening. Shockingly.

[00:03:50] Ray Latif: I actually said this in our recent recording for Elevator Talk, where I said, you know, we're in this next stage of the pandemic. We're not in the post-pandemic era. People are trying to push it that way, but we're still here.

[00:04:02] Zoe Feldman: Yes, we are. We're still here, unfortunately, yeah.

[00:04:04] Ray Latif: But a cool thing I learned about you during the pandemic was that you have a master's degree in public health from Columbia University in New York City, not the Columbia School of Journalism in New York City. No, no, no, no. And an area of concentration? Epidemiology. How about that?

[00:04:22] Zoe Feldman: became very relevant during the last two and a half years. Yeah, you know, public health, like most other institutions in the US, has gotten so underfunded in the last 30, 40, 50 years. I mean, in Europe, obviously, it hasn't. But in the US, super underfunded. But all of a sudden, in the last two and a half years, people care again. It's remarkable what a deadly pandemic will do.

[00:04:46] Ray Latif: People care again to an extent, I will say that.

[00:04:48] Zoe Feldman: Oh, yeah, of course. Now nobody cares anymore. But like at the time when we first sort of started learning about this, right, suddenly everybody cared and everybody was a public health expert. Really remarkable to see.

[00:04:58] Ray Latif: It was amazing how many public health experts I saw on YouTube.

[00:05:01] Zoe Feldman: Oh my God, I'm sure there were so many.

[00:05:03] Ray Latif: There were like dozens of them. And they were, you know, just in there at their home, like in front of their refrigerator. Totally. Yeah, it was incredible.

[00:05:10] Zoe Feldman: Very much like a lot of expertise that I just personally didn't even know existed prior to February and March 2020.

[00:05:17] Ray Latif: The most amazing thing is you didn't even have to spend all that money going to get your master's because you could have just done the same thing.

[00:05:23] Zoe Feldman: Isn't that crazy? I should probably ask for a refund. Actually, I did most of it on a fellowship, so I didn't pay for all of it, but I probably should have asked for a refund, dude. I mean, it's remarkable, right? I would say, and I think most people who study public health and like the history of medicine and society would agree with the statement, the COVID vaccine is probably the single most important discovery and kind of tactical execution of anything in public health and science, possibly in human history. polio vaccine up there, it's remarkable. So the fact that we didn't have people lining up around the block sticking their arm out because they were afraid of something they saw on YouTube, it's devastating. Because think about two generations prior to us, right? Everybody lined up around the block, stuck their arm out and said, give me this polio vaccine. So we only very recently crossed the threshold of fewer than 500 people a day dying. I mean, it's still going on. Really, it's remarkable to me that people just seem to no longer be paying attention.

[00:06:26] Ray Latif: It's incredible, to use a word.

[00:06:28] Zoe Feldman: You know what I really think this did? It opened up and exposed a lot of what everybody was talking about for a really long time. And do I think things are going to shift? No, I don't, unfortunately. I'm not an optimist, dude. I never have been, right? I'm a pragmatist, but I'm not. No one would ever say I'm an optimistic person or like, you know, have joy emanating from me. I think it's because I'm a realist. And what I saw was the cracks and the fissures were exposed in every part of our society, of government, of industry. And when you talk about the food supply, I mean, I was at Chobani when this happened, right? And luckily, the ability to create products were still there and were almost made heightened and more accessible and more democratized because of the pandemic. I know a lot of other companies that didn't have that same experience. And so you see it even now, it's two and a half years later almost, and there's supply chain issues. And I feel like at the very least, hopefully for folks in F&B, in the industry, they finally really understand. Marketing people, sales people that weren't involved in operations or supply chain, they finally, I hope, a little bit understand how precarious everything really is. Anybody who doesn't take any kind of important lessons from the last two and a half years is, I don't understand, they must be living under a rock. But also, like, what a remarkable second piece of bifurcation around what we kind of called, quote unquote, essential versus non-essential. And food is essential. Healthcare is essential, right? Transportation is essential, access to medicine, access to care, the basic sort of essentials. And I think that only gave me even more of a push in terms of trying to figure out how to successfully participate in, at Chobani, right? Or now oversee the operations of a food business. Because ultimately, it's one of the three or four most important factions of society, right? You have to have access to food. And I think it's something I'm hopeful that people start to understand a little more of. But like everything else, I'm a realist. So hopeful, but not super optimistic.

[00:08:27] Ray Latif: Well, you said something there. People have to have access to food. And I think I will add good in front of food. And I think that's something that's become very clear. It's actually surprising. I've talked to people who go to medical school and they talk about the lack of education for doctors about nutrition. Yep. And we're learning very slowly, very slowly, that food is the best form of medicine in so many ways. And, you know, I think you working at First Pepsi, which might sound a little weird, you know, to be helping society via a company like that.

[00:09:00] Zoe Feldman: But remember, when I started working there, dude, it was two months after I finished my graduate degree. Not even, sorry, it was, I think I graduated in May. I started June 16th, 2008, which was crazy. That was right when Indra was starting. She was the first American CEO of a multinational food company to say this whole performance with purpose thing. Okay, now it's almost 15 years later. How did it net out? I'm not the judge of that, but I spent almost eight years there. And it's so funny because the work that I started doing there that I really pushed hard on, and everybody there can attest to that, who is still there, who was there when I was there. It was the right work. It was just too early. And they were not the right people. I saw what was coming, it was how I was coming up alongside small artisanal food movements when I studied in grad school, for God's sake. But it's so crazy actually to think about that now. It was almost 15 years ago, which is just, I don't know, it's strange. But it's been sort of the root of all the work that I've done. So I think to push a multinational corporation into a direction of erring on the side of investing in healthier choices, I was 23. What did I know?

[00:10:13] Ray Latif: Well, I think you knew the obvious, right? And sometimes the obvious is hard for mega companies like that.

[00:10:21] Zoe Feldman: They always used to say it was like turning the Titanic, right? And to think about it now, it's kind of remarkable, but I think it was my own naivete that made doing that work both critical, but also like of the moment. I couldn't do that now.

[00:10:34] Ray Latif: We did get 7.5 ounce cans. We got smaller pack sizes, so we got that.

[00:10:39] Zoe Feldman: That wasn't exactly what I was working on, right? But yeah, dude, you know, I helped author the very first report that was basically what she called performance with purpose. That was essentially looking at, you know, how do you start investing in smallhold farmers? You know, Frito-Lay is, I think it was the second, after McDonald's was the second largest purchaser of potatoes, russet potatoes or Idaho potatoes in the US, which makes sense, Frito-Lay. And I was working on projects like going to a small farm in New Hampshire and trying to figure out how we could help the smallhold farmers start to grow potatoes for PepsiCo. And it was really obvious, right, that if basically 1% of their potato procurement was moved from large-scale farms to smallholder farms, they could almost single-handedly change American agriculture. And they didn't do it, because at the end of the day, it's all about the bottom line.

[00:11:29] Ray Latif: Well, things got better when you went to Chobani. Yeah, I'm sure you applied some of your experience there.

[00:11:35] Zoe Feldman: But you recently left Chobani. I did leave Chobani. I know. I know. It's weird. It's like now that I'm now that I'm 37, right? And I'm thinking about the fact that I started working in this industry at 23. It was such a like, think about when you started working. What was the year that you started working in food and bev?

[00:11:51] Ray Latif: 2011. Right. Yeah.

[00:11:53] Zoe Feldman: Think about what was happening then and what's happening now.

[00:11:55] Ray Latif: Lots of energy drinks and energy shots for me. You should have seen the BevNET coolers back then.

[00:12:00] Zoe Feldman: Dude, I know. I remember.

[00:12:01] Ray Latif: Yeah. It was, it was weird. But I mean, you know, Chobani and your work with Chobani, I think was so impactful in moving people toward better eating, toward understanding that you don't have to have, okay, I wasn't going to say you'll play, but you'll play, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, he's a remarkable human being. Hamdi.

[00:12:22] Zoe Feldman: Yeah.

[00:12:22] Ray Latif: Hamdi Alokhia, the founder of Chobani.

[00:12:24] Zoe Feldman: Yes, let's reiterate. He's a remarkable human being, and I have never felt luckier or more grateful than to work for him. And everybody has, you know, their shit, but he's a good man. And that is more than I can say for a lot of people in the industry that are sort of these giants. And The New what he wanted to do. And it's marrying this sort of notion of democratizing access to nutritious food. It was the incubator program that I, you know, shepherded and ran where we really had a focus on, as you know very well, diversity, diverse cohorts, diverse founders. We were the first people to say it publicly. And now I was on a call last night. I'm on the advisory board for REI's Path Ahead Ventures. And the woman who is in charge of it, who leads their corporate strategy group at REI, which is actually what I was doing at Chobani before I left as well, you know, she asked me to sort of help them put the program together about a year and a half ago. And I was like, wow, like the outdoor industry, which is the whitest industry in America, right? You finally have these people saying, we want to put some capital to work. We want to invest in founders of color, in queer founders. And I was like, a very small part of me. thought to myself, wow, I think I did something right.

[00:13:38] Ray Latif: You know, it's amazing that you're still placing so much of an emphasis on the work that, you know, you have been doing for so long, given the role that you currently have. Because as I mentioned, you left Chobani seven months ago, started working as the general manager of Momofuku Goods. You and I talked about this prior to getting on the mics. You've been extraordinarily busy.

[00:13:59] Zoe Feldman: Yeah. Operating a business is, I mean, I can take a lot. This is a whole other level. It never stops. It just keeps coming. And, you know, I took this job. I started talking to them a year ago, actually. And, you know, they'd had this very successful sort of initial run of products during COVID. None of them had CPG background, which is remarkable into and of itself, right? Because it's incredibly hard to do, as we all know. I thought about it for two or three months. I didn't think I was going to be offered the role. I was actually shocked when I got the call offering me the job. And it also happened to be occurring at an extremely weird time in my life, personally, last summer. So I don't know. I sort of had to really think to myself. kind of the penultimate of this incredible project at Shobani, which was launching nut butters with Adesio with Nave and Salem and was not the project in and of itself was so remarkable. It was the only other, it was Newman's own, but not Newman's own. It was two and a half years of work. It was hundreds of people. It's the single thing that I'm the most proud of. And it sort of kind of died on The New, which was just, I mean, devastating for me. Devastating. Probably the most devastating thing, like sort of setback, I think, in my career. Certainly had many of them, especially in the world of investing for those four or five years in between. Dude, it was just devastating, you know, because I think I wanted people to care as much as I did. And what I've realized sort of over the course of the last couple years is a lot of the time, people don't care about things as much as I do. And so for me, it felt like such a letdown, such a disappointment. And it sort of was a little bit of a nail in the coffin for me to say, okay, you know, we did this amazing thing together. I bird this kind of baby, help shepherd this into the world, and now I got to go. I learned that I love operations. I love the details. I love the nitty-gritty. I love solving really hard problems. I knew all this about myself, but I really got to put it to work. And as much as I loved the incubator, I also felt like that sort of had had its day. It was time to kind of move on. You know, I was involved in helping to write and lead the first strategic plan the company ever had in its history, which was an incredible challenge in and of itself. And I just thought, you know, I'm the person who likes to clean the toilets. I'm the person who likes to take shit apart and see how it works. Who made it? Where does it come from? Who made the Shore microphone? Who is this person? Where did these components come from? Why shouldn't I kind of, you know, try my hand? I mean, I've been in consumer for a long time. Maybe I could be really good at this. And I guess they thought so too. And I haven't slept in seven months. So yeah, it's weird. It's weird to think that I've spent my whole career sort of trying to kind of get things to The New level, The New level, The New level. And it always felt like there was an end point. You know, you do this project, you write a strat plan, you know, you write an academic paper, you have a cohort of an incubator, you know, and then there's an end. You launch a new product, then there's an end. There's no end here. This literally feels like I'm just going to be doing this for the rest of my life until I die. And I know that's not true, but it's very strange because there's not an end point.

[00:17:16] Ray Latif: Welcome to entrepreneurship.

[00:17:17] Zoe Feldman: But you know, it's weird, I'm not an entrepreneur, like I'm not a founder, you know, I got hired as an operator. I don't think of myself as entrepreneurial. I think of myself as a lucky schmuck who got handed this incredible brand that I literally grew up alongside, that I love so much. And somebody said, David Chang and Marguerite Bariskel said, we trust you here. and have given me all the runway, all the resources, and every day of my life, I live in terror and fear that I will fuck up and disappoint David Chang, who's my culinary hero, that I will disappoint a team of what was five and is now almost 20 people who I'm accountable for every day of my life, dude. And it's so funny because I've never really felt that sense of ownership and accountability like I have, but not like this.

[00:18:06] Ray Latif: Well, that's why I said, you know, welcome to entrepreneurship, because I think founders feel that way. And I hear those exact same words. And I've spoken with a lot of entrepreneurs. Yes, you have. I hear those exact same words from those founders. But you keep doing it. And you keep doing it because you don't want to let those people down. But I assume also because It's a rush. It's pretty amazing when things do work in a positive way. Right.

[00:18:32] Zoe Feldman: You know what it is, dude? I think it's like I've actually been thinking a lot about this lately. Like what's. Like, we're not making vaccines, you know. I recently got married.

[00:18:43] Ray Latif: Congratulations.

[00:18:43] Zoe Feldman: Thank you so much. Thank you. She's the best. She's a surgeon. She's an OBGYN.

[00:18:49] Ray Latif: Wow.

[00:18:50] Zoe Feldman: And she deals with high-risk patients in a public hospital. And I often think to myself, You know, if Dr. Mara Black, she comes home, you know, every night having dealt with, I mean, horrors that, you know, you and I can't understand. And I'm sitting here thinking about, OK, my Pouya chili pods, you know, are stuck in the miller, you know, for an extra 72 hours. And it gives me very good perspective. I no longer am a person who freaks out. And I think it was COVID. It was learning how to be by myself. It was really obviously with Mara, that's a big part of it. But it's understanding now that there are certain things that will require freak outs. stuff like that. Control the controllables, right? I can't waste my time or my energy because there's too many things. I would just be cowering in the corner. So I think it requires a lot of tenacity and a lot of patience. And I wonder a lot, why do I do this? I don't think it's the rush. I think it's the fact that I'm driven by two things. One, Just don't take this opportunity that's so incredible and not do a really fucking great job. I said I wouldn't say the F word. I'm so sorry.

[00:20:04] Ray Latif: I think if you used it twice, then it's fine. Like I said, we just have to hit that checkbox, let people know on Apple Podcasts.

[00:20:12] Zoe Feldman: That's fine. Sorry, not safe for children. You know, I'm driven by the fact that I love solving problems and puzzles. And I do think this is an extraordinary business and a brand. And I was handed the opportunity and I want to do a good job. But also, and I mean, this is a big part of it. I haven't sort of yet publicly talked about this, but it makes sense when you consider my background and my history. You still go into the grocery store and stuff says Oriental. It's 2022. David Chang was the guy who made it easier for everyone else to do the thing. He's been doing this 16, 17 years, like I've been talking about representation in this industry for 10, 12, 15 years. So it's like maybe it's finally caught up to him, maybe it's finally caught up to me that other people care about these things. So knowing that I sort of have that as well, the responsibility to help shepherd this incredible brand that was founded by an Asian American man. It's the opportunity to take everything I've learned, all the people that I've met over my entire career, bring all those resources to bear, to finally actually try and do the thing, right? It's like the speaking truth of power. I could say it all I wanted, but it's like, you know, okay, we were able to do it at Shobani through bringing diverse founders into the incubator program. It's fantastic. But I never really could wrap my arms around it the way I wanted to. Now I can, and that's pretty extraordinary.

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[00:22:24] Ray Latif: Let's back up for a second because I think there are some people who might even be surprised that David Chang launched a CPG brand. You know, I didn't, I'm embarrassed to say this. I didn't even know Momofuku Goods existed until I saw you went there on LinkedIn, until I saw you became the general manager. I know, stain on me, but I mean, it's a very fast growing business. You told me that you're reforecasting growth every 21 days, which is incredible. Yep. but the brand has been growing since its inception. Talk a bit about the history and the origins of Momofuku Goods and the vision that David laid out for the brand.

[00:23:01] Zoe Feldman: So it was spun out basically of, you know, Holdco, which is restaurants. It's him. It's his media company. And I have nothing to do with any of those things. But it was spun out essentially from a culinary lab that they had. And I remember this because I lived literally a block away for many years in the East Village of a space that then became Booker and Dax. But it was like the Momofuku Culinary Lab. And there were chefs and kind of culinary specialists who were tinkering around, you know, and creating different products. in the space, and this is six, seven, eight years ago, maybe even a little more than that. And I think the seed was planted then for them to want to do something in CPG. Then they partnered with a large multinational to do their Momofuku Samsas. That did not go over very well, so that was only in market, I want to say, for two years, but I may be wrong on that. It could have been fewer than two years. And during COVID, you know, with the highly unfortunate closure of the restaurants, obviously, given the pandemic, there were a bunch of folks on the restaurant side that got more or less seconded to work on really actually bringing CPG to life. So in May 2020 was when the first three SKUs, which were these seasoned salts came out very umami forward, really delicious. Dave talks about them as sort of like an alternative to salt and pepper, which I think is absolutely right. And after that it was soy sauce and tamari, and then it was sesame oil, and then of course the famous chili crunch in 2021, and then noodles, which is a collaboration with our Taiwanese manufacturing partner. So we are now at 13 SKUs, all shelf stable, very nice pantry assortment, sort of referred to as like the modern Asian American pantry, because it does take inspiration from a bunch of different cultures.

[00:24:44] Ray Latif: Where is the brand distributed right now? Where are you at retail?

[00:24:47] Zoe Feldman: So we actually just launched in Whole Foods Global.

[00:24:50] Ray Latif: Congratulations.

[00:24:51] Zoe Feldman: Thank you so much. Big, huge thank you to the sales team at Momofuku Goods.

[00:24:56] Ray Latif: How many SKUs? Is it all 13?

[00:24:58] Zoe Feldman: It's actually three noodle SKUs in our original Chili Crunch. Cool. So the business was 99% G2C in 2020 and 2021. And when I joined In October, I actually said I would not join unless I could bring My friend Catherine Wolf, shout to Catherine Wolf. Love you, KW. And thank you, Aurora. I needed to have a CPG retail salesperson. And right now, as I'm sure you can imagine, they're very hard to find. It's hard to find a good retail salesperson who has the background, the experience. you know, who are people who you like as human beings. You know, I couldn't take any of them away from Chobani, obviously. That was a big, a big no-no. So I actually wouldn't have taken the job if she hadn't agreed to come. She's amazing. And we got right to work. And so a big part of it, the first six months, I kind of laid out the first, it wasn't even 30, 60, 90. It was, okay, this is what the first six months moving backwards has to look like. QA, QC, regulatory, compliance, labels, food safety, good manufacturing practice, auditing all the co-men. finding secondary and tertiary suppliers, secondary and tertiary manufacturers, secondary and tertiary of everything, because you need to have a plan for the plan for the plan. And there were no contingency plans. And so my biggest fear and what kept me up at night for the first three months was supply. It wasn't demand because, you know, we would launch noodles and $700,000 of inventory would sell out in 36 hours. So I've always known that it wasn't going to be lack of demand and interest. It was going to be, it had to really shore up the foundation of the business, the operations and the supply chain. So Catherine and her team could do their job and make sure that they were able to have everything ready to go for retail partners.

[00:26:39] Ray Latif: 99% of the business was D2C and it became and is now a pretty good sized business. Yes. With almost no marketing.

[00:26:52] Zoe Feldman: Yes.

[00:26:53] Ray Latif: Okay. Everyone listening right now is collectively saying, how?

[00:26:58] Zoe Feldman: I mean, look, he created this brand and this business, right? Like he's famous.

[00:27:05] Ray Latif: I'm not famous. There's a lot of famous people who launch consumer brands that don't do very well.

[00:27:10] Zoe Feldman: I don't know, man. It's like, again, I think it's a combination of timing, of him and his profile. He's 2 million Instagram followers. He has shows on Netflix and Hulu. He has his own podcast. He is obviously the biggest evangelist for the brand. And we've built an amazing team. And there was an amazing team already from internal folks on the restaurant side, who we still work with every single day. Marketing, brand, culinary, legal, design, people who have real institutional knowledge of Momo. It's just sort of been this great amalgamation of a meeting of the minds. And I think it really is like being on the proverbial rocket ship. And I feel like I'd always heard people say the expression like you're building the plane as you fly the plane, which I was like, that's dumb and corporate. But holy shit, were they right? That is very, very, very true. And so when Catherine and I joined, there were only five full-time folks at Momofuku Goods, which is our CPG line. And now we are about to be 20 in The New month or so. Sales, finance, operations, supply chain, growth, everything that you would think. Because if I haven't learned anything in the last 15 years, then what am I doing here?

[00:28:19] Ray Latif: Let's jump ahead because I was going to talk about this later, but since you mentioned the team, you know, the company is nothing without the team. And I think that's been proven over and over again in CPG. You described members of your team as Swiss Army Knives. Yes. Everyone has to be a Swiss Army Knife. What do you mean by that?

[00:28:39] Zoe Feldman: If you don't want to answer customer service tickets, then you can't be on the team. If I'm doing it at midnight, I don't expect you to do it at midnight, but I expect that nothing is beneath anyone. Everybody has to put ego aside. We need all hands on deck all the time. And I've erred on the side of overcommunication, which has definitely kicked me in the ass a couple of times, but I do it because I want everyone to understand that we truly are all in this together. We are very flat. There's no hierarchy. We have reporting structure, but when I say it's loose, it's incredibly loose and not really enforced. And you want everybody to feel ownership and accountability and like they're all in it together. And I will say it's been very remarkable to sort of watch unfold. And look, people are putting in 80 hours a week, 100 hours a week routinely. The growth is so rapid and I don't want to make a mistake and over hire and then have to not retain folks. Like I'm incredibly sensitive to that dude. I just don't ever want to do that. So making sure they're the right people and they understand that they are going to have to do some tasks that maybe would not be, you know, be fitting of what they think their level is. Those are not the people that I want to join this organization.

[00:29:48] Ray Latif: How do you find those people? And let's talk about Gen Z for a second because We'll pause here because there's a little bit of a tangent. Zoe and I were chatting about Gen Z folks, and they're notorious for wanting to decide what they want to do and when they want to do it. I'm not saying all Gen Zers are like that, but there has been an issue with younger employees expecting that they don't have to do certain things. So A, how do you find those people? And B, you know, typically those people are younger because they don't have as many responsibilities. They don't have as many commitments and they can work late nights and they can work those long hours. So talk about that dynamic.

[00:30:32] Zoe Feldman: That's so funny, dude. I got my ass handed to me for so many years for so little money. You know, like, and now I just, it's interesting, right? It's like, I hate categorizing, obviously, people and generations, but there's definitely, you know, a shift. I think, look, if you're interviewing with me, I can tell pretty quickly if you're going to be somebody who will be a good member of a team of Swiss Army Knives or not. I've certainly interviewed a bunch of people in the last six months where I was like, oh, no, no, you will not suffer fools gladly, which is good, but also like you won't do the thing that needs to be done because you think that it's too beneath you. It's pretty easy to tell that even over a Zoom interview. It's just people's sort of energy and their cadence and their way with words and how they sort of present themselves. The Gen Z thing, I mean, all I know is that, you know, I'm not queer enough. You know, just being gay is not, it's not enough anymore, right? I have to be like some bastion of queer.

[00:31:39] Ray Latif: This is Gen Z-ers talking to you.

[00:31:42] Zoe Feldman: I just like I don't, it's fine, I guess. But it's interesting, right? Like when I think about sort of my career, and I think about feeling othered, I never really felt othered until it was made really apparent to me that I was othered. And now it's just full-on radical acceptance, which I both admire, but also as somebody who had to go through really hard things with respect to identity, right? It's kind of infuriating, but I'm glad that it's happening, I think, because at least that'll make it easier for people that come after, right? Like, I have a lot of friends, you know, with teenagers and I feel like they think that you can just be who you are and everyone will accept you. And what a lovely thing to think. I love that for them. That is never how I thought, but I love that for them.

[00:32:35] Ray Latif: You did mention over-communicating, and I think this is something that's really interesting because under-communication oftentimes causes a lot of problems. Over-communicating, as you mentioned, can sometimes cause some problems, but I think the reverse is the bigger issue in a lot of companies. When you are tackling this issue of how much should I say or how much should I not say, what's your strategy?

[00:33:02] Zoe Feldman: I think about myself at 25 and at 28 and at 30 and at 35 or whatever, all different phases of my career. And I think to myself, God, I wish I had known the bigger picture because maybe that would have helped me in some decisions that I made. So I believe in letting everybody on the team know this is what the bigger picture is. Because if they don't know that, what do they think they're working towards, right? It's sort of like everybody's kind of working in a vacuum. If we all understand that the goal of the year is X, Y, Z, these are why, these are the goals, this is why we chose to do things this way, it makes it clear for people, right? Like if I say, hey, we're really nervous about the port of entry situation because containers have gone up 10x. since the pandemic began, and I've inherited that problem. I want us to be able to figure out a way, I mean, I guess to kind of foresee it in the way that we best can to prepare for it. So maybe the woman, Alex Wong, who's amazing, who we hired a couple months ago to lead logistics and warehousing for us, She understands that I don't really want to risk any containers coming from Taiwan into the port of any port of entry in the U.S. in Q4 because there's going to be such a logjam because of the holidays. So instructing all the POs to be placed through the full year for all of our noodle products, right? It's making sure that everybody on the team understands that. Every function, customer service, marketing, sales, growth, finance, for a bunch of reasons, right? It impacts everyone, impacts cash flow, impacts tax and legal to some extent, certainly impacts sales, obviously, and growth on D2C. Those guys to be worried that we're not going to have enough supply because that in my mind is the thing we have to think about on a constant and consistent basis is how do we make sure that we have enough supply because the demand is there. So trying to think a couple steps ahead and really be strategic and not outsmart the global supply chain but do what we can. That is why I overcommunicate certain decisions to the entire team, because I want them all to understand this is what they're working towards now. This is why we're thinking about new noodle flavors in March of 2022, because it takes this much time. And then we have, I mean, you know, it's a lot of work and a lot of prep. I always want everybody to understand what the insight is into these big decisions that are being made.

[00:35:24] Ray Latif: These are complex issues, though. These are complex global issues that are affecting everyone. And I think in some ways they can be kind of scary. I think in some ways the topics can be esoteric in nature. Are you at all concerned that this is going to go over people's heads and they just won't understand it?

[00:35:40] Zoe Feldman: And on the team?

[00:35:41] Ray Latif: Yeah.

[00:35:41] Zoe Feldman: No. Because open door policy. Somebody has a question. Somebody wants to look at our P&L. Somebody wants to look at our retail sales plan. Everything's on Google Drive. Everybody has access to everything, except legal documents. Everybody has access to everything. We have a meeting every Monday. We do a monthly business review once a month. We do a quarterly get together in real life. Everybody knows what's going on. I don't ever want anybody to be surprised or say, hey, I didn't realize this or I didn't realize this was going in this direction. Every member of this team, everything that they do touches everything else and has a material impact on every other part of the business. So I want everyone to see and understand the mechanisms for that and the how and the why.

[00:36:23] Ray Latif: I've talked to founders who will say the same thing, that we have an open door policy so that, you know, an intern could come in and, you know, talk to the CEO about anything. I think that's probably a little bit more talk than walk in some cases, but it seems like that is very much what you want to happen. But then it also means that you have to deal with everyone's issues, no matter how small they might be. And that can be really challenging as a leader. Yes. And the buck stops with you on so many things. But when you're dealing with so many different personalities and personal issues, it can be kind of overwhelming and make you sleep even less, perhaps.

[00:37:00] Zoe Feldman: The first time I cried at this job was at the end of January because of a personnel sort of related issue. Dude, yeah, you know, I've led teams before and I think I've been a very good leader and I think folks who have worked with me and I guess quote unquote for me would say the same thing. I've always erred on the side of making sure everyone else is OK before I am. I've never had 20 people, like, it's terrifying. It's hard. It's scary. I constantly am worried sick that I'm not doing a good job, that I'm not being a good leader, that, you know, I'm fucking up. And that's reality as somebody who cares about other people. And I've certainly not been perfect and I've certainly made mistakes. Everybody knows they can call me and they take advantage of it. Trust me. This is like multiple text message threads with everyone on the team. I mean, everybody literally knows like I'm here. Call, text, anytime. We're all on Slack all day and everybody's remote. So let's think about that for a second. I came into this high growth business In October, sort of first time, you know, operator, overseer, have hired 15 people. We're entirely virtual. Everybody's all over the country and we're building this business. for a brand that is storied and incredibly well respected. I mean, when I actually say that out loud, I feel like I'm gonna have a panic attack.

[00:38:23] Ray Latif: You're the first person I think I've interviewed on the podcast, and we've done over 400 episodes, that has admitted to crying, you know, doing this.

[00:38:30] Zoe Feldman: Nobody's ever admitted to crying?

[00:38:31] Ray Latif: No, and I'm really grateful that you did say that.

[00:38:34] Zoe Feldman: Oh God, they all cry.

[00:38:34] Ray Latif: I think so. And, you know, I had this conversation with someone recently about how cathartic crying can be. It's still, no matter how people, you know, have evolved, I guess, in terms of mental health, it's still one of those things that's stigmatized. It's okay to cry, right?

[00:38:50] Zoe Feldman: Oh my god, yeah. You know, it's actually funny, and obviously I've talked about this publicly before, but dude, I've been on Zoloft for years. I love antidepressants. They're great. It's actually why I don't cry, because I don't really have the chemical ability to form tears anymore, which is pretty nice. But I cried because it was basically four months of pent-up frustration. I don't cry when I'm upset or sad. I cry when I'm incredibly frustrated, when I feel like I really can't control anything. And I think for me, when it comes to making sure that people are happy and feel safe and feel seen and feel validated, that's a huge part of my identity. If I don't have that, I don't know who I am. And so I think there was, you know, some misconception that maybe that wasn't who I was. And it's actually the first time in my entire life, personally and professionally, that I've ever had to deal with that. Anybody I've ever worked with, people who've known me for years, I'm, you know, err on the side of more empathy. I just... to have that sort of misconception, it was so awful and hurtful and so frustrating and I was so mad at myself and I cried.

[00:39:57] Ray Latif: It's all part of building a business, though, right?

[00:40:00] Zoe Feldman: Yes, trying is part of building a business.

[00:40:01] Ray Latif: Well, no, I mean, you learn on the job. I mean, you learn on the job how to be a leader. And again, going back to this question of you're not the founder of Momofuku. I am not. But you are, in essence, the person who is building and in charge of building this business. It's not David Chang. You are The New who's building this business. I mean, you talk to him, I'm assuming, on a regular basis. The buck stops with you. There's been a lot of different ways that companies have grown over the years, food and beverage, but business fundamentals have always won out, I think, when it comes to successful brands. And you and I talked about, we're in this to do things the right way, to build a business the right way. This is going to be kind of strange. I feel like I have to ask what that means. Yeah.

[00:40:54] Zoe Feldman: I mean, look at Bill Krillman.

[00:40:56] Ray Latif: Yeah.

[00:40:57] Zoe Feldman: Like he has built his business the right way. And he's an amazing human being. He cares about his people, cares about his suppliers. Product is obviously incredible. He is who I, you know, I want to emulate. Like when I think about doing business, I think about Hamdi to some respect. People who build businesses, who put their people first, suppliers, supplier partners, vendors, that's the way to do business. We were short on a glass bottle in November and our formerly current supplier could not get any for us for like six months. And it's the Boston round, like the red stripe that we use to make our soy sauce and tamari and sesame oil. I called, actually I texted, Michael Zuckerman, who I met when I was 24. When I was like on a road trip, you know, on a quest with PepsiCo to try and find, I don't even know. I honestly remember the context, but I went to the Zuckerman Honeckman headquarters in like central PA and I met him. And I don't know, I really liked him so much. And since then we've like sporadically kept in touch. He was my first phone call. Guess who our new supplier is?

[00:42:08] Ray Latif: Zuckerman Honickman.

[00:42:09] Zoe Feldman: Yes, sir. Because after 12 years, he remembered me and we were kind to each other. He pulled us out of a really bad place. You never forget that, right? You never forget that. And I think the most fundamental piece for me has been all the people I've met over the years. in the background who aren't the branded ones, aren't the loudest, aren't out talking about how amazing they are all the time, that quiet strength and that ability to work and operate, that's it, man. Why would you ever want anyone but those kinds of people surrounding you and in your corner? I know, you know, .0001% of anything, but the people around me and around Momofuku Goods, They are what makes the business hum. And what Bill's done is what I really hope to emulate with building this business is good, solid foundation, good operation, solid margins, very strong financials, happy customers. suppliers and vendor partners who respect us, who enjoy working with us. I text with people regularly. Literally, like the people who are procuring our ingredients, we text with each other. It's important for everybody to feel seen and respected. That to me is the fundamentals of building a business. It's not, you know, raising $100 million on a tech valuation because you say you're a tech company when you have a website. That doesn't make you a tech company, right? And I've been saying this stuff for a really long time, so it's funny, but it's also like it scares the shit out of me. Those are not good business fundamentals. Burning $5 or $10 million a month in marketing is not good business fundamentals. Those are flash-in-a-pan things, and they're not going to stick around. So staying power and changing the minds of the American public about what quote-unquote Asian or Asian-American cuisine is, that's a long game, man. That's a 10-year play. That's not a flash-in-the-pan, make a music video and then, you know, peace. Like, it's a very, very long sociological, anthropological game.

[00:44:12] Ray Latif: Anyone who's listened to this podcast knows I went to business school. I went to undergrad at BU and I always say it wasn't worth the money, but I did take a great class called business marketing. And the very, very first thing the professor said on the very first day is everything is relationships in business. And that's what you were talking about in so many ways and, you know, knowing Michael Zuckerman, but reputation is so important as well. And you've got to build a reputation with people that's based on trust, that's based on reliability. And I think the values that you're both aligned on, whoever is involved in that relationship, but it takes a long time though. I mean, have you, have you leaned on your reputation? Has that been an important part of your success on the job?

[00:44:58] Zoe Feldman: Yeah, oh yeah. And it's interesting, right? Because again, I'm going into Momofuku and with the exception of one of the people who I already knew, these are all new people for me, right? I've always been more of a known quantity wherever I've been, so it's a little bit odd for me. It's like I have to be a leader, I have to sort of hark on my history in the industry, but I also have to be kind of a new version of that. It's a little bit confusing. But reputation is everything. And it's the thing that matters most to me is that being good to other people. And I think that's honestly why I think that's why I cried. I think that's why. It's not the pressure of supply chain. It's not the pressure of running this business that's owned by David Chang and he was my hero for a million years. It's not that. It's that I am now accountable for holding 20 people's careers, livelihoods, happiness to a certain extent in my hands. It's very overwhelming to think about that. I've never had that before. And it's weird, right? It's actually very lonely. And I have a couple friends who have the same role I do in companies a little bit bigger than mine in the industry who I talk to on a regular basis. And we all feel the same way, right? It's like we need a support group or like a knitting circle for folks that aren't founders, but then they're operating these businesses. There's a tremendous amount of pressure and I think the three of us each have our own thing. Somebody worries a lot about performance, somebody worries a lot about investors and the board. I worry a lot about that, right? I want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing, and I feel very overwhelmingly accountable to the people that are now in this organization. And I know that I'm not doing everything perfectly, but I'm doing the best that I can. And it's the thing that's the most important to me, because these people don't know me from shit. Nobody knows my 13, 14 years. Nobody knows my career path. I mean, you do, like a lot of you guys who I've known for a long time in the industry do, but not these folks. So in a way, it's kind of like I have to start over. and prove myself again and again and again.

[00:47:07] Ray Latif: Relationships, reputations really matter, but sometimes you got to negotiate with these folks. You've got to do your job and act in the interests of your company, of your brand, of your employees. Negotiating is difficult. It's an important skill, but it's difficult. What's been most effective for you when you are going to the table and saying, hey, we need better terms on this or that?

[00:47:30] Zoe Feldman: Just be honest and transparent and be good to people. And again, I know it sounds so simple, but it's like I'm not going to there's no like, you know, leading with some kind of fist here. It's that these are human beings. They have businesses to run in a very difficult environment. I know people in the supply chain. A guy at PepsiCo is now their head of global supply chain and operations told me a couple of months ago this was the most difficult environment he's ever worked in. We are really in a very, very, very challenging time when it comes to operations and supply chain procurement sourcing. So have secondary, have tertiary, have people on your side, just be good to them. We have not had a problem with that. I think the only thing we've really seen that's been quite challenging has been negotiating basically costs around logistics, additional freight charges that are now being added to a lot of bills. But again, it's it's they're passing it on to us because they have those inflationary pressures as well. So at the end of the day, we try and negotiate really on those kind of additional up charges, whether it's because freight is more expensive or because, you know, the pallets are now getting more expensive. We really try and give the benefit of the doubt. And so far, it's been so good. So luckily, I haven't had to have a conversation yet regarding some big, you know, negotiation. But I'll give you a good example. Like we negotiated our biggest commodity for raw ingredients, which is called grapeseed oil, which I'm sure you've heard a lot about in The New lately. And we use it in our chili crunch, which is sort of our hero kind of skew. And the price has gone up 180% since I joined. So locking in supply for me was actually more important than locking in price, right? Talked it over with the team, called some folks I know and kind of commercialization and procurement, and they all confirmed what we had already thought internally, which was you know, make this deal now, right, sooner rather than later. That was February. So we've locked in supply for The New 12 months, which is extraordinary. And I asked Dave to write a personal email to the salesperson who was in charge, big Momofuku fan, Nate Meeks. Shout out to Nate at Food Guys. We asked him, you know, to send Nate an email, and he did. And I talked to Nate on the phone about two weeks ago, and he said, you know, I'm having a really hard day. I opened the email from Dave, and it makes me smile. That's it. And I can't say that would sort of be effective for everyone, but for negotiation right now with us, less around price because we're still very small, more around guaranteed supply or close to as guaranteed as possible. That's what's the most important thing. And people have actually gone above and beyond for us to do it.

[00:49:56] Ray Latif: A personal email from David, I assume goes a long ways. You just said it went a long way, but how about the growth that you've already seen. How about the success that you've had, you know, with the brand and with all the products, the places you're getting into? Does it help to show those numbers, that data, sell that story to your suppliers? Does that matter to them?

[00:50:16] Zoe Feldman: You know, it's interesting that you say that because very recently, because we're trying to create safety stock, sorry, we are creating safety stock now for the first time, right? We haven't been able to in the past. Now we are, which is fantastic. Creating safety stock obviously means that you have to buy ingredients, raw materials, right? You have to procure things more than you normally would. So we basically did forecast plus 30%, right? So we have 60 days of safety stock per SKU available in the warehouse. We have been able to negotiate higher credit limits with a couple of our really key suppliers because we have shared with them our financials. I've actually never seen that before, and neither has our head of finance, but showing them the trajectory, showing them that we're using capital wisely, our cashflow is strong, our kind of level of profitability and margin profile is very strong, they respect and appreciate that. It actually has allowed us to have two really important ingredients. One ingredient, one is packaging suppliers who have actually extended our line of credit. which again is not sexy, but is hugely helpful. And all it took was a 30-minute phone call at the credit department, right, to be able to negotiate slightly better terms. Maybe from net 30, we went to net 45. You know, we get a little bit of leeway, get a little bit of room to breathe. That's been huge. They have actually asked to see the financials, which I had never seen before.

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[00:52:22] Ray Latif: You're also in this weird position because you have to think short-term because you're still a relatively new company, but you talked about this. The long-term is just as important. Putting those contingencies in place is so important in an environment where supply chain and availability of ingredients and packaging materials and things like that is hanging by a thread in so many ways. How do you balance thinking about the short-term and long-term?

[00:52:52] Zoe Feldman: Dude, you should see my calendar. It's like literally, you know how people talk about code switching? Yeah. It's almost like code switching, but mental code switching, where I would say, you know, if I start work at 7.30 in the morning, you know, and I try and answer emails and I try and get things done that are the most immediate, then I'm in back-to-back meetings all day. And then by the time it's 6 or 7 p.m. and I can finally have time to work, there's always something that's urgent, always. I have not had time in the past, I would say two months, prior to that I did, to think about the long term. We built our first strat plan, thank you Chobani, after 45 days after I was there. So we're going to do our six month review and we are tracking almost to the percentage against plan, which is beyond incredible. It's just a testament to the work of everybody on this team and all of our partners, but The truth is there are meetings when I think about the future, but 90% of them are meetings where I have to think about make a decision in the here and now or help somebody make a decision in the here and now that obviously affects the future. But I have not had like, I'm going to do an org chart review next week, you know, for 2022 and 2023. Well, let me tell you what happened. The org that I thought we were going to be org charting, all the hires I thought I'd be making in Q4, I'm making now, right? So everything has just been moved up by at least a six or nine month timeline. And again, it's just me just catching my breath and getting my head wrapped around how fast this is growing. It does make it difficult, but I do have these monthly check-ins, quarterly check-ins. The head of finance at Momofuku Goods, Hua, is amazing and truly is sort of my partner in crime with respect to that, keeps me on track. and allows me to sort of have a little bit of the freedom to think about bigger picture, longer term strategic stuff. But I'm still very much in the weeds on the day to day. So I haven't done a great job of that yet. I've tried really hard, but I set an hour aside for myself and I immediately get pulled back into something like something is happening. You know, the caps didn't arrive. OK. You know what I mean? Like, it's just there's never that's why I said it was like it's never going to fucking end. When is the time when I can just go,

[00:55:02] Ray Latif: Well, whatever you want, right? I mean, don't you have the ability to press the brakes if you want? I mean, you can hit that accelerator anytime, but... Ray, we're not pressing an accelerator.

[00:55:11] Zoe Feldman: This is just like literally standard business, dude. This is with like very little marketing. You didn't even know this existed. Yeah. This is the world in which you live 24-7, 365. True. Can you imagine if we actually turned on, when we turn on marketing? Like real brand, retail, trade, that's what I feel like I'm gearing, like I'm like emotionally and psychologically preparing myself for that. We're not there yet.

[00:55:36] Ray Latif: When does that happen?

[00:55:39] Zoe Feldman: Dude, I don't know. We need to get through this year. Basically, the first six months were about shoring up the operations supply chain, getting the right people in, making sure that the business, the fundamentals of the business were in a really good place. And I kept saying to everybody, it's going to be 30 days, then 60 days, then 90 days, just based on different projects. Everything at CPG takes a long time. R&D and product development takes a year. It's not like you just turn it on and you go out The New day. We are in such a strong place operationally and we're going to be able to start thinking about long-term product development in The New month. I haven't been able to do that. It just has not been able to be a priority. There's not enough hours in the day and I don't have enough brain cells. So I think probably in the fall.

[00:56:24] Ray Latif: Let's go back to Whole Foods for a second. And this idea of brick and mortar retail and conventional mainstream grocery and the O word. The Ethnic Aisle is where Momofuku Goods are sold currently, yes?

[00:56:36] Zoe Feldman: Yes, correct.

[00:56:37] Ray Latif: The Ethnic Aisle is evolving.

[00:56:39] Zoe Feldman: Yes.

[00:56:40] Ray Latif: Obviously it's not evolving fast enough. No. But it's also one of those places that no one wanted to be in for a long time. And now I think there's, I hear from entrepreneurs talking about, yeah, that's a perfect place for us because so many more people are shopping there now. Do you want to continue to live there or do you just foresee an aisle that just doesn't exist anymore where like ethnic goods are sold next to spaghetti sauce?

[00:57:02] Zoe Feldman: You know, Dave talked about this a long time ago, and it's funny. I'm sort of, I'm not torn on it, but I think it really depends, right? Like these things take a long time. I had a call with a buyer this morning, you know, with the team who's my age. That didn't used to happen, right? So it's sort of like as we all come up together in the industry and are able to be in positions of power where we're making decisions, I do think things will start to change, but it's going to be very slow. So, you know, we're rolling out in Whole Foods Global. The reset was the month of April. We're going to be in Wegmans. We're in Central Market, all 10, which is super exciting. We are going to be on FreshDirect. I'm trying to think. We're on Fair.com, which has been a tremendous business for us, which is awesome. We launched on Amazon with our single SKUs about a month ago, and we have D2C. And then the plan, you know, for brick and mortar retail, and we're in Target.

[00:57:50] Ray Latif: You're already in Target.

[00:57:51] Zoe Feldman: Yes, we're already in Target. So the plan for, you know, brick and mortar retail, we're going to be about equal in terms of assortment split by, you know, top line for like between retail and DTC. That's pretty remarkable in year one. And I think what we're trying to figure out now is what's the staying power really, right? And I talked to Maya Kaimal about this, actually, because she did it. Hans Taparia did it and Maya did it. What Maya did was she created, it took her 10 years, but I think she's often forgot about, which I hate. She did it. She was The New who took, you know, the quote unquote sort of ethnic food, which was, you know, the food of India, right? And made it accessible, made it kind of higher end, and then has democratized it now to a price point where it's affordable, it's nutritious, the products are delicious. She's incredible. We couldn't do this without her having sort of paved the way first, right? So I think paying homage to the people that have come before us to do the thing is critical. I think with respect to thinking about how consumers are thinking about the products, D2C is not just the coast. You would be shocked. the mix is basically a third, a third, a third. There's a lot of people because of Dave's sort of superpower, right? And his star power, he's 2 million Instagram followers. He puts a reel on there that he's buying the noodles at Target, suddenly they're out of stock, right? Everybody goes and they want to buy them. So I think it's a delicate balance there. And in terms of thinking about ethnic aisle versus non-ethnic aisle, I mean, look, it's going to take a lot of education for buyers. I mean, again, Oriental on a package. What? Like, who would ever wake up and say, we think that's okay today? It's not. But that still exists. So how can we start to penetrate that? It's slow. It's a slow burn. And New York Times and Wall Street Journal, you know, think pieces. Sure, you know, they can be helpful for education, but is the grocery buyer at a regional chain going to read that and think, hey, you know, maybe I should take this to heart because maybe it is deeply offensive to some people. I would err on the side of probably not. It's just, it's not happened yet. So I think the best we can do right now is talk to buyers who are responsive and who want to work sort of within these parameters because they also have people to answer to, right? Whether it's a board, it's the market, it's their boss, it's a family. I mean, it depends, right? Everybody has somebody they have to answer to, right? So like I have a tremendous amount of empathy. Because if you're a grocery buyer, how are you going to convince upper management that you should no longer have an ethnic aisle? It's like natural and organic was 15 years ago. It was totally bifurcated. It was the weird hippie food in the corner. And now, as we know, it's everywhere, right? It's been integrated in a lot of grocery stores into the rest of the store. Do I think that will ever happen? I don't know.

[01:00:44] Ray Latif: For the ethnic aisle you're talking about?

[01:00:45] Zoe Feldman: Yeah, I don't know.

[01:00:47] Ray Latif: It's gonna take a lot more exposure, I think, and awareness. And it's funny we're talking about this now because I just recorded an episode of our Elevator Talk series where we profile early stage and disruptive brands in food and beverage. And I know you know this entrepreneur, Jake DeLeon from Philanilla. And I asked him, where do you see the biggest opportunity in D2C versus brick and mortar? And what he said was, it's funny with D2C, The people that you think would be buying my product aren't necessarily buying my product. You know, 9 out of 10 people are not Filipino, but the people who are buying the product are ones who have been exposed to Filipino cuisine. I said, Oh, I had a Filipino friend who made this food or took me to this restaurant, and I just want to make it at home. And I want to make it using one of your marinades. So I think the more people get exposed to these foods and these ethnic cuisines, the better off we're going to be. And the more people that are going to be shopping in that ethnic aisle and looking for these products, perhaps even outside of that space as well. So, you know, it's interesting. Will we see this mass of people, you know, shopping in that aisle pretty soon, sooner than later? I don't know.

[01:01:57] Zoe Feldman: I mean, it's a long game, but look, look at how it's grown. I think it has the highest year over year growth of any part of the grocery store in the last like three years. That's saying something. I do think it's generational. I'm 37. Certainly I know my friends in my life are huge consumers, not just of Momofuku, but of a multitude of other companies of a similar vein. And I do think like when Maya Kaimal started, right, like she was selling, you know, to like the hippie co-ops. Right? Like it was not, she did not have the opportunity that we all have now. And when I sort of think of those two together, right, I think about, okay, what happened to natural and organic? It took 10 to 15 years. We're just starting with sort of this quote unquote, ethnic aisle. I think it's going to be 10 years, maybe 15. Do I think it'll ever be totally non-bifurcated? Probably not. But I think the point is trying to make people understand that, quote unquote, Asian cuisine isn't just one thing. It's not just General Tso's chicken, right? To educate customers, that's where the power of Dave and his star power and his podcast and his TV shows, that's where that comes in. And we do get a lot of imbalance from people who are like, oh, I saw, you know, his episode of Ugly Delicious and I'm so excited to try the chili crunch, right? That's nice. That's a personal connection that somebody has to your point that they didn't necessarily have before. That's the cool part of this job. It is a long game, though. This is not going to change overnight. It's not like I suddenly turned my head and all the merchants and buyers were highly progressive people who said, you know, burn down the ethnic aisle. That's not the reality of grocery. It's not the reality of capitalism in 2022. So I do think there's going to be a massive shift. It's already happening. I see it. I feel it. But it's not going to be, I think, even close to being complete for another at least 10 years.

[01:03:46] Ray Latif: Do you at least see the ethnic aisle expanding? Do you see a larger one in the future? Because I think there's some irony in what's happening here. And, you know, I think you know what my question is going to be here. You're the big brand in so many ways, or at least you're The New with the most resources. And so there's a limited amount of shelf space in that ethnic aisle. And when there are The New up and coming chili crunch brands or ramen noodle brands, there may only be one room for one brand.

[01:04:13] Zoe Feldman: Listen, the rising tide lifts all boats. I've always said that, believe that. It's important that everybody who wants to create a product in this industry and has the ability to do so can do so. That was what the work I was doing it. You know, the incubator was obviously about And I do think it's important for somebody who has history to come in and start creating that paradigm. That's Momofuku. That's Dave. Dude's been doing this for a long time and I think oftentimes that's forgotten or perhaps unintentionally, you know, or intentionally kind of not spoken about. But to me, that's everything. It's the history of what he's done. That's the reason why I'm sitting here. It's the reason why a lot of brands are able to do what they do. I absolutely believe that that's true. I wouldn't have come here. I had a very nice job at Chobani. It was not stressful. I was very happy. And I got to work with really good human beings and do important in a way life-saving, very critical work that was rooted in public health. And I left. And now I'm here. So I can try and help people become a little more educated, so I can help grocery buyers in particular maybe. be a little more interested in kind of the nuances, call it, of certain types of cuisines. And so we can, you know, lead and create a paradigm that I think is actually not only really important, incredibly critical, and has been for a really long time. And I just keep going back in my head to Maya and to Hans, like, they were The New. And Annie Chun.

[01:05:50] Ray Latif: That's your vision and your belief for this company. Is it David's as well? What does he want to get out of it? Should I ask him? I should ask him, but you know, you probably have the answer, don't?

[01:06:01] Zoe Feldman: It's interesting because a lot of things that are now coming to light, and I'm not comparing myself to him, but I do think a lot of what Dave has said and done over his career is finally sort of coming to fruition in the same way that a lot of what I said and did in my career felt like it was finally coming to fruition when I was at Chobani. I think he would say it's about making sure that people have access to high quality restaurant grade products, which is true. They use them in the restaurants. Fact, right? And that his kind of culinary vision and his mind of their sort of being this future food that's umami focused and is sort of cross, you know, boundaried. that he's bringing that to people all across the country. And I know that because I sat with him three weeks ago in person and that's what he said. And I was like, yes, that resonates. I understand. But I do think you'd probably have to give him a phone call and ask.

[01:06:57] Ray Latif: Yeah, just give me his cell phone number. I'll give him a call later on.

[01:06:59] Zoe Feldman: I actually don't have it. I don't have it, true.

[01:07:01] Ray Latif: I don't have it. He doesn't give it out to many people?

[01:07:03] Zoe Feldman: I don't know. I don't know. It's probably better that way. Dude, yeah, you know, again, it's like this is this is a long game, man. You know, this is really working hard to create, to recreate, not to create. It's been created to recreate and reshape a sort of part of this industry and a subcategory. That's real work, and it takes a lot of time.

[01:07:28] Ray Latif: Well, you said it, it takes a long time and there does need to be a leader. There does need to be the person or the brand before the thing or the trend. And it's so cool to see where Momofuku Goods is now after a very short period of time after it launched. The growth that you've seen is just amazing isn't a big enough word, isn't a strong enough word. I do hope though that it's something that you love. That's something that you really appreciate. I know you appreciate it, but I hope it's something you really love and that you don't get burned out by it.

[01:08:03] Zoe Feldman: You know, it's funny, man. When I moved, after I finished grad school, I finally had a job that paid me money, which was nice. And I could move downtown, right? So I went from living up on 140th Street and Convent Avenue in way upper Manhattan and Hamilton Heights down to the East Village, which was always like the pinnacle of like cool. And I moved there when I got the job at PepsiCo because I was not making a lot of money, but I was making more money than $13,000 a year as a research assistant, right? So Momofuku opened, Momofuku Goods Bar, like the OG Noodle Bar opened like two years prior. And the woman I was dating at the time, very long, long gone ex, she took me there on a date. And I remember like thinking to myself, holy shit, like this place, the number of people I've talked to who are my age, Millennial sort of, everybody had the same experience. It was the coolest place on the planet. The New was around the block. I eventually got to know the manager and a couple of the hostesses. So sometimes I would get snuck in, which was like, I literally felt like I was the coolest person in the world. That was everything that mattered, right, was that you could walk into Momofuku Goods bar and you could just, you know, give a nod or like give the hostess a hug and you would get a seat at the bar. That was the coolest thing in the world. I probably ate there 500 times. Wow. I live three blocks away. It sounds so weird to say this because I feel like it's whatever, but like that was it. Like that was it. That was to me what it was to like live in New York, live in the East Village, be in your 20s, be cool, was like you knew the hostess at Momofuku Goods Bar. I still feel that way. And it's very weird because I've had to disconnect my fangirlism and be an operator and be a little bit of a capitalist and think about being like a leader and running a business. But at the end of the day, I'm still like a 23-year-old idiot fangirl. who's standing at the podium, like, hoping I'm going to get to have, you know, a bowl of ramen. And I have photos from when I had a Blackberry that are of this ramen, 2008, 2009. Like, this has literally, as crazy as it sounds, it's like, what's like a thing that you really love? What's a place you really love?

[01:10:21] Ray Latif: A thing I really love or a place I really love? You mean like food and beverage?

[01:10:25] Zoe Feldman: Yeah. Like, what do you really, like, what do you like, love?

[01:10:28] Ray Latif: Guinness.

[01:10:29] Zoe Feldman: OK, fuck that. OK, forget it. But what's like a place where, I don't know, like in your 20s, like when you were at BU and you were in undergrad and you were sort of like, this is the place.

[01:10:42] Ray Latif: You know, I think when I first experienced Eataly for the first time, Eataly was really remarkable to me.

[01:10:47] Zoe Feldman: Yeah.

[01:10:48] Ray Latif: Yeah.

[01:10:48] Zoe Feldman: Think about how you felt when you were in Eataly. And then think about if Joe Bastianich or whoever owns Eataly, I don't, is it him?

[01:10:55] Ray Latif: Yeah.

[01:10:55] Zoe Feldman: Bastianich family.

[01:10:56] Ray Latif: Great.

[01:10:56] Zoe Feldman: Think about if Joe and Lydia sat down with you and said, Ray, we want you to come run our family empire.

[01:11:02] Ray Latif: I'm smiling ear to ear right now. That sounds amazing.

[01:11:04] Zoe Feldman: It's amazing, right? Like it's really, cause it's a thing that you love and it connotes, it has like such a deep connection and it makes you feel such a certain way. And I have to divorce myself from that or else I would just be freaking out all the time that I was sort of given this thing that I love and have to protect and cherish because it's been such a big part of my life. It's remarkable. It's terrifying. It's very unique. And I'm worried every day that I'm going to fuck it up. And I'm going to disappoint Dave and I'm going to ruin Momofuku. And like, trust, these things are, you know, they go through my head all the time. But then I step back and I look at a team that I think is mostly pretty happy, that's doing an incredible job, and we have a huge, big, important opportunity in front of us. And I think, fuck it, let's just take it and run with it, you know, and what an extraordinary thing to be able to do. But that's, to me, it's like, when I really think about that, I want to cry.

[01:11:58] Ray Latif: Well, what I'm hearing is what it comes down to is that as much as fear motivates you, it's really about the love. It's really about the love. Love is always going to be stronger than fear.

[01:12:07] Zoe Feldman: Oh, that's so nice.

[01:12:08] Ray Latif: You like that?

[01:12:09] Zoe Feldman: I do. I wrapped it up in a bow. This should be a bumper sticker, honestly. It's the fear of not being perceived, I think, that I'm trying to lead things with love, which sounds really cheesy. And now that I want to say that, I want to jump out the window, but...

[01:12:21] Ray Latif: There's no window to jump out of in this room.

[01:12:23] Zoe Feldman: I know that's true.

[01:12:23] Ray Latif: We're locked in a psych ward in here, but I... With the door closed now, I had to close the door. We definitely need straitjackets in here.

[01:12:30] Zoe Feldman: Yeah, it's very the padded walls.

[01:12:32] Ray Latif: Come to BevNET headquarters, folks.

[01:12:34] Zoe Feldman: But dude, no, I think that's right. And that's why this is a nice conversation for me to have. Honestly, thank you. Because it reminds me, I forget I'm so in the weeds of not bullshit, but really important stuff that makes this business run. It's very hard for me to pull back in big picture and think about myself at 25 and how that was everything to me. That was it. That was the place. And now this dude is my boss. But I still think of myself as the 25-year-old who's waiting in line to go to the restaurant. I don't think of myself as the 37-year-old that's been put in charge of operating the business. Truth. There you go. I don't think about myself that way because I still think, I don't know, it's a weird, it's very weird, that's a very weird thing for me to think about. That someone sort of anointed and said, you're in charge now.

[01:13:24] Ray Latif: You know what you are now?

[01:13:25] Zoe Feldman: What?

[01:13:25] Ray Latif: A Gen Z-er.

[01:13:29] Zoe Feldman: I can't be a Gen Zer, because I'm not queer enough. I'm not queer enough. I'm just normal gay. And that's not acceptable.

[01:13:38] Ray Latif: What you are is amazing. And I can't thank you enough for sitting down with me. We talked about a lot. We covered a lot.

[01:13:45] The New: Very cathartic.

[01:13:46] Ray Latif: Well, for you to sit down with me, it's so easy to speak to you, Zoe. Thank you so much. And thanks for making this such a great conversation to share with our audience. I'm going to highly encourage, I always highly encourage people to listen to these things. But listen to it a couple times, folks, because you're going to miss something the first time. Or listen to it three times, because I know I will. So thank you so much again.

[01:14:09] Zoe Feldman: Thank you. No, this was very, very cathartic. This is the first conversation I've really been able to have like this.

[01:14:14] Ray Latif: I appreciate you sharing it with me.

[01:14:15] Zoe Feldman: It's very nice. Hopefully I won't get fired now.

[01:14:19] Ray Latif: You'd have to fire yourself, right?

[01:14:21] Zoe Feldman: No, I think I can still get fired.

[01:14:23] Ray Latif: I hope that won't happen too. But if it does, maybe we'll have a conversation about that.

[01:14:28] Zoe Feldman: Great. I can blame you fully.

[01:14:30] Ray Latif: There you go. Zoe, thank you so much again for sitting down with me. Thank you. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks to our guest, Zoe Feldman. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.