Why Target Bet Its Biggest Food Launch On Little Spoon | Built Different

Little Spoon was built to launch in Whole Foods. The deal was frozen at the eleventh hour over a quality audit nobody had run, with the first production already made and in transit.

So Ben Lewis and his co-founder Angela Vranich sold perishable baby food online instead, in 2017, when a hundred percent of baby food in America was bought in stores. More than 80 million meals later, Little Spoon ran the largest food and beverage launch in Target’s history.

He tells Ian Schwartzman why direct-to-consumer is the reason they won retail, and why their launch tagline was “your baby’s food shouldn’t be older than your baby.”

Timestamps
0:00 80 million meals, and a retail plan that collapsed
0:57 Starting a baby food company before having babies
1:57 Trust, regulation, and why nobody would manufacture it
3:20 Angela’s first recipes, and what parents said about the jars
5:34 “Your baby’s food shouldn’t be older than your baby”
6:30 Why 100% of baby food was bought in stores
7:30 The Whole Foods deal and the 11th-hour phone call
10:24 So they stood up an e-commerce store instead
11:45 The first million, raised from individuals not institutions
13:37 The pressure of building it with your partner
16:21 1,800 Target doors, and the puff that outsells the aisle
18:17 Why infant formula is regulated like a drug
21:01 Would he ever give up direct to consumer?
23:37 The collectible card

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