Becca Millstein Transcript
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Hi, everyone. You're listening to The Future Of Food Is You, a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Abena Anim-Somuah, and each week I talk to emerging talents in the food world and they share what they're up to as well as their dreams and predictions for what's ahead. As for me, I'm the founder of the Eden Place, a community that's all about gathering people intentionally around food. I love this new generation of chefs, bakers, and creatives making their way in the world of food, drink, media, and tech.
Today's guest is Becca Millstein, CEO and co-founder of Fishwife. Fishwife, based in Los Angeles, is a woman-founded and led food company aiming to make ethically sourced, premium and delicious tin seafood a staple in every cupboard. They source their fish from managed fisheries in aquaculture farms to bring the vibrance of conservas culture to the North American table. Becca and I chat about the hike with her co-founder that sparked the idea for Fishwife, the power of social media to make waves for your company, and how she and her team managed to get into 1200 retailers in the United States.
Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting The Future Of Food Is You. Kerrygold is the iconic Irish brand famous for its rich butter and cheese made in Ireland with milk from grass-fed cows. If you're like me, you've always got some butter in your fridge, and Kerrygold has the perfect options for all my culinary personalities. My baker side loves Kerrygold pure Irish unsalted butter that comes in sticks because it's easy to measure, has the high butter fat content you need for baked goods and it allows me to control the amount of salt in a recipe. When my snacky side comes out and I need a soft spreadable butter for making, let's say grilled cheese, I reach for Kerrygold's Irish butter with olive oil and the gourmand in me loves the new Kerrygold butter blends. Their take on compound butter, which is a chef fave. Their sun dried tomato and basil, bell pepper and garden herbs or chive and onion. Try the new Kerrygold butter blends on steamed veggies mixed in with your favorite pasta or slathered on a beautiful piece of fresh bread. And then of course, there's a whole world of Kerrygold cheese to explore, including two of my faves. Kerrygold Blarney cheese, which is a gouda style and Kerrygold Skellig, a tangy take on cheddar. If you haven't tried Kerrygold yet, don't delay, the future is now. Look for their butter and cheese at your favorite supermarket, specialty grocery store or cheese shop. Visit kerrygoldusa.com for recipes and product information.
Let's check in with today's guest. Becca, thank you so much for joining us on The Future Of Food Is You podcast?
Becca Millstein:
Oh my gosh, it's all of my dreams coming true.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Well, I always like to start off by asking, can you tell us where you grew up and how did food show up in your life?
Becca Millstein:
I grew up in Southern New Hampshire and food showed up in my life. I think my parents were both just very simple, but great cooks, always had beautiful square meals on the table. I feel like I was very lucky in that regard.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You're Jewish, right?
Becca Millstein:
I am Jewish, but I was raised really secularly. My dad was raised Catholic, my mom was raised Jewish, but yeah, it was a super secular household, so I feel like it was just good healthy meals, but not tied to any cultural tradition.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
So you went to Brown and what did you study at Brown?
Becca Millstein:
I studied European intellectual history. I spent most of my time doing theater and music. I worked my tail off in school, but I did a ton of theater and performing arts stuff, and that was very applicable to building a business. Strangely enough.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Did you feel any connection to the food scene at Brown while you were there?
Becca Millstein:
By and large, no, the alumni from Brown in the food space are, it's a really incredible lineup. I would say the closest familiarity I had to food movements and what could be startups was Ben Chesler who started Imperfect Foods later on.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Very cool. Another Brown alum.
Becca Millstein:
Another Brown alum. We were on student theater board together, so I was watching him do that. He had started to build it at Brown, but otherwise I was not. I was so performing arts, I had no time for anything else.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. Let's talk tinned fish. Tell me about the name Fishwife and what's the history and culture behind the name. Now we're going to use that history degree.
Becca Millstein:
Yes, yes. Truly the only place that comes in handy.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, the only time, yeah.
Becca Millstein:
So the name actually came from another Brown entrepreneur. Her name's Grier Stockman. She runs an amazing textile company called Block Shop, and I was calling all the entrepreneurs I knew the day after we came up with the idea for the company, and she was one of the first, and she was just googling seafood terminology as one does, and she came across the term Fishwife and basically Fishwife originally, it was just a neutral term. It was used in tracks back to 16th century Europe. Originally just a neutral term for the wives and daughters of fishermen who would sell their husband's wares at the market.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
All in the family.
Becca Millstein:
All in the fam biz, which is truly what the seafood industry is, and because fresh fish is so perishable, they gained a reputation for being really loud and bossy. Just imagine a lady trying to sell some fresh salmon just being like, eat this fish. Then over the years, over the centuries, it evolved into a gendered insult for women who were very swore a lot.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Abrasive.
Becca Millstein:
Exactly. It just is great because I can swear in a professional setting because I've given myself that right. And I love it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's amazing. Let's talk about the phone call before you chatted with Grier, you went on a hike with a friend.
Becca Millstein:
Yes, yes.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What was the conversation of that hike and how did it lead to the hottest tinned fish brand in town?
Becca Millstein:
So it was COVID and I was living with my friend Caroline and my brother John, and we lived together for four and a half months, just us. So you got a lot of time, you're talking about a lot of stuff. You're cooking a lot of meals, and basically we were just eating a bunch of tinned fish because we were busy. We were all working full-time jobs trying to get high quality protein into our diets while not having to cook three meals a day because that's exhausting.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And also cooking meat and stuff. It's like a whole-
Becca Millstein:
It's a whole operation.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Ballgame.
Becca Millstein:
So we were eating a bunch of tinned fish and I think it just was very much in the ether. I very much started to notice in my peer group and then digging deeper into culinary media that there was a rising tide of interest in tinned seafood in the US and of course all of the articles were just citing European brands, and there just was not an American brand that had collected the movement and the interest and the excitement around them and galvanized in the US. So anyway, it was the dual realization that there's this huge, nearly $6 billion category in the US that it's a household staple canned fish. Everyone grew up with at least-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Sardines.
Becca Millstein:
Yeah, sardines or tuna, sardines, even-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Tuna.
Becca Millstein:
I didn't even know a sardine until I was like 20.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And now you're slinging them.
Becca Millstein:
And now I'm just slinging them. So there was that, and we've watched every food category be premiumized over the past 10 years, and it's like, okay, that's one truth. And the other truth is that I could just tell that people wanted to see that in the US so it was like, damn, this is going to happen. At the time when we had this light bulb moment on this hike, it was like, oh my God, there must be like 40 people working on tinned fish companies. It's such a glaring gap in the market. Turns out not really the case. There was one other one.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, I think that's so fascinating. What's interesting about the whole Fishwife movement, I remember the first time I heard about Fishwife, I grew up, so my family's from Ghana. My mom would always have a lot of Ghanaian food, especially packed and tinned fish because again, it's also an accessible thing. Tinned fish is cheaper than fresh fish, especially when you're going up in a country that doesn't have the infrastructure for you to get fresh fish. So I remember being like, what is this? Why is everyone up in arms about tinned? I was like, this is the stuff that would collect dust at the back of the cupboard, and kudos to you for just, you've brought the brand to people and I think that's just super refreshing. It's really cool.
Becca Millstein:
When I started the company, it was two big groups of people that got it right away, and it was either trendy food people or it was first generation Americans, no matter where they were from.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
No, seriously.
Becca Millstein:
And yeah, I think that is just fascinating.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, I feel like for first generation Americans too, your parents are very resource forward. It's like we're just going to try and replicate. Everything is a substitution if need be. My mom's a huge tinned fish girly, and she loves tinned fish.
Becca Millstein:
Has she had Fishwife?
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. She's a hot girl who eats tinned fish.
Becca Millstein:
Of course she is.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Sorry, Mom. Amazing. Well, let's get right in. So the first product you had was the smoked albacore tuna.
Becca Millstein:
Yep. Yep.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And now you have a wide range of products from your smoked atlantic salmon, your trout jerky gems, your seasonal Cantabrian anchovies, and most recently your sardines. What I'm so fascinated about is you talked about how you were running this and you I'm sure had no knowledge of the fishing infrastructure. What was the process like in acquiring your first factory connection or building that first relationship?
Becca Millstein:
Yeah, it was so slap dash. I think a lot of entrepreneurs in the food space. It's just there's no super streamlined uber professional way to do it. You just got to pick up the phone or open up Google and just dive in. So we were googling fish canneries in Portugal and Spain. That's how we started to think about building the supply chain because that's the region that we knew to be incredible at making really high quality tinned fish. We were Googling in Spanish, which strangely enough truly does yield very different results than Google English, and we're just Googling different canneries in Portugal and Spain and emailing. You can find emails online, and that's how we started to figure out what the heck does a canned seafood supply chain look like? So started to work on the XUS supply chain, but that being said, it was the height, height of COVID. Everything was fakakta and importing anything was incredibly-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Difficult.
Becca Millstein:
Difficult, intimidating, the whole thing. I was working on that and simultaneously was trying to get in touch with any fishermen in the US that I could, which I did not grow up knowing a whole bunch of fishermen, but did eventually get in touch with one in Northern California and he connected me to a cannery in Oregon, and that was where our first to market products came from, which was the smoked albacore tuna and then the sardines. That was the first product we really started to lay the groundwork for, but it took so much longer to get to market.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And your sardines are from Spain?
Becca Millstein:
They originally were from the Spanish fishery and the Spanish cannery in Galicia. But as I just learned more about seafood sustainability, it became clear to me that fishery was not necessarily one that I could get behind. We got the first batch of products, I think it was like 10,000 cans or something, and then quickly I was just like, okay, this is not as I formed my own belief system around how I wanted to support certain fisheries and not, I was like, I just can't. This does not feel like a true alignment. So then spent the past two years trying to find a sustainable sardine fishery that was also very high quality and tasted great and looked great.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Fish is not the flashiest girl in the bunch.
Becca Millstein:
It really is not.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
It tastes good.
Becca Millstein:
It tastes amazing. Sardines are gorgeous, the ones that we sell now, but we had to go through some, we had to kiss a lot of frogs to get to these sardines, but we finally got there and that was by connecting the only MSC Marine Stewardship Council certified sustainable fishery, which is in Cornwall, England to the cannery in Galicia, Spain that has that really deep knowledge of how the artisanal hand packing process works. It was a whole thing.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
How do you think about the standards of sustainability you want while also trying to figure out ways to educate yourself on the industry and not contribute more to the giant overfishing problem that exists right now?
Becca Millstein:
There are a couple ways I think about this. First of all, we try to source not necessarily equally, but we make sure we source from both wild fisheries and really incredible aquaculture projects. So farms, more than 50% of our seafood globally comes from aquaculture, and we think it's really important to partner with the best in class farms around the world and then try to educate people about why, first of all, they're already eating probably a whole bunch of farmed seafood and why farmed seafood is an absolutely necessary part of our seafood industry. If you imagine that 50%, we're not taking that 50% from farmed seafood, where else is it coming from? But you need to work with the right partners that are practicing responsible farming practices. And then secondarily, we mostly partner with the Marine Stewardship Council on sourcing or the Aquaculture Stewardship Council on sourcing from farms.
Those are the two most globally recognized and respected sustainability certification organizations. And then when we want to work with a fishery that maybe there's no fishery that's big enough to be certified because these certification processes are very expensive, then we have our own independent sustainability consultant that looks at all of the stock reports and the stakeholders in the industry, and we analyze is this a fishery we can stand behind and feel good about partnering with and feel like maybe we can even support in the responsible management in some very small way of the fishery? So it's multifaceted, but those are the organizations we primarily partner with.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And I'm curious, when you meet with these people, what have those been relationships and what do you think you're teaching them too about the consumer insights? Because again, you're one of the first American brands that's not just educating, but also guiding the whole discourse around tinned fish, at least on American soil.
Becca Millstein:
I think the thing that the seafood industry has not been able to do well is just market itself and also just invite people in. Americans eat less seafood than any other industrialized nation. And I think, there's a bunch of reasons for that, but I think a big one is there just aren't compelling brands that educate people about A, how to prepare and consume seafood, but also how to navigate sustainability and how to navigate their purchasing decisions. So what we're trying to do is create this really friendly, inviting brand that totally breaks from the tradition of seafood marketing, what it's looked like, and in doing so, bring people in a friendly way, get them to try a whole bunch more species by creating products that are ready to eat. It's a huge component of why people eat seafood.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And that's the convenience factor. I feel like that's the appeal with tinned fish. It's just like you pop open a tin.
Becca Millstein:
Ready to go.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Bread, butter, radish, whatever, toast.
Becca Millstein:
Right now.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Toast. Tostata. Yeah. And so I think because also America, we're so convenient for when it comes to our food. Fast casual is king. You want the 20 minute dinner type situation. So yeah, I think it's an interesting gap that you've been able to also add to people's pantries with such high quality, and I think that's just so fascinating, which is the perfect segue. I want to talk to you about customer education. How did you envision the ideal customer and how were you thinking about the ways you wanted to educate people in an approachable manner?
Becca Millstein:
Yeah, so I think our incepting customer base has certainly been people that are attentive to food trends, people that are attentive to sustainability, and I think we have spent the past two and a half years really building a consumer base that loves the brand, loves the product, deeply engages with both. I think we've done some things well on the education front, but I think we have so much more to do. I would say that journey really starts now. We've been working this year on building up a ton of really strong communications about all of our fisheries and farm partners and our cannery partners that we're going to roll out in the next few months, and that is especially prevalent as we start to expand to an audience mostly through G2C, but also through retail that is maybe less familiar with the brand and needs more convincing, needs more explicitly stated value propositions. I just feel like we were so lucky in the first two years with organic growth. People just loved the brand, they loved the product, and so it was just like we're in no matter what.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
It's like signaling that you're in the food world, you're trend aware 1000%.
Becca Millstein:
And now it's like we're expanding audiences and now it's like, okay, we really need to break down explicitly why our products are different, what the sourcing looks like, what the manufacturing process looks like. So I'm really excited for that.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everybody, I'm Kerry Diamond, the founder of Cherry Bombe and the editor in chief of Cherry Bombe Magazine. If you are looking for the newest issue of Cherry Bombe, be sure to visit one of our amazing stockists. Cherry Bombe is carried by great bookstores, cafes, magazine shops and culinary boutiques across the country and abroad. Places like Stella's Fine Market in Beacon, New York, Matriarch in Newport, Rhode Island, and Good Egg in Toronto. Visit cherrybombe.com for a stockist near you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
When you think about the tins also being the first entry point for customers, you walk into your Whole Foods or whatever specialty grocery store you're going to and you see that Fishwife can, what elements are you thinking about as just incredible points for customers? Like, okay, this makes sense, it's a fish, it's good, it seems trendy. Add to cart.
Becca Millstein:
That's a great question because the thing about Fishwife's design and aesthetic is it is very maximalist and we are packing literally every detail we can onto a product. People have no idea, but every box, every single thing that's on there is a symbol of something about the sourcing or the processing or the recipe of the fish. Everything means something. When you're going into retail, which right now our business is basically split 50 50 retail D2C.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's really impressive.
Becca Millstein:
Which is sick.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Like three years in?
Becca Millstein:
Two and a half years. Yeah, almost three. It's very important for your product at a grocery store to A, stand out, but B, also very clearly communicate what it is and its value propositions. So this year we've been going through the exercise of how do we keep what people love Fishwife for, which is maximalism, while also making sure that some person who has never heard of Fishwife, when they go to the canned seafood aisle, they see our product and they're like, okay, know what that is? Know why I should buy it. Our most recent products that we've been rolling out are very emblematic of that, like the sardines, you probably saw those designs. So that's the future is we have this big clear banner where it says the product name and then you'll see whether it's a lemon or a pepper or extra virgin olive oil. You'll see those little emblems of what's inside, and then usually there's some sort of certification on it, whether it's Fair Trade or MSC or ISE.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's cool. I want to talk to you about collaborations. You've partnered with Fly by Jing, you've done giveaways with a lot of the top brands. Graza. What is your thought process on partnerships and collaborations and how do you take something from idea to concept?
Becca Millstein:
Yeah, collaborations are the lifeblood of this company. So that was what I did also in my career and what I've always just been so deeply attracted to are brand partnerships. I just think it's the most fun you can have. Ah, we've done so many collaborations. Basically you need to make sure you're on the same page as the brand. There will always be times where one brand is doing more work than the other.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Of course.
Becca Millstein:
So it's just making sure everyone is on the same page about what they want to get out of it and that everyone is delivering on their promise. And we've had a great past year of just amazing partnerships like the Fly by Jing partnership. Obviously we had no idea. Jing and I were like, let's do this. That was just so easy and didn't even think about at the time I was still overseeing all of our marketing. Was not very KPI driven. Was just like, yes, this makes sense.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Vibes.
Becca Millstein:
Vibes. And I think that's fine. I think it's fine. When I think about brand partnerships, the most important thing is the brands have to be aligned. And then the second thing is like, okay, do they have an audience that is one that we're not necessarily accessing yet? It's going to take a lot of resource to bring these collaborations to life. You fully do have to validate that you are going to have an ROI on that. So I think about that a lot more these days, but I would say it's still overall so vibe driven and what's going to be cool and what's going to hit with the customers. That's the organic marketing piece. We've got a growth marketing side of the business and that obviously they work together, but this is the place where we can really just think about how do we build brand equity, how do we continue to build out our brand story and identity through the concentric circles of these other partnerships? So this beer is my absolute dream come true.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Well, tell us about this beer. So you launched a new beer today, well at the time of this recording, so congratulations.
Becca Millstein:
Thank you so much.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
With another Cherry Bombe fave Talea Beer.
Becca Millstein:
So cool.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What was that conversation like?
Becca Millstein:
I think they reached out to us. Me and Danny were both super inspired by Mikkeller and we were always like, man, it would be so awesome to put Fishwife's branding on a beer. So that was always there. I think I maybe connected with Talea, I don't know last year in some form or fashion. But then they reached out to us this year and they're like, want to do this? And it's a great gift when a brand reaches out to you, they're going to have to do the product development, they're going to have to do the operations. It is something that I will never take for granted because that is, it's extremely hard and time consuming to develop a great product. Talea seems to have a very, very good handle on it and are able to iterate extremely quickly. They are vertically integrated. They own their own brewery. For us, it's a full on eight month to 12 month investment in product development. So they reached out and they were like, we want to create this beer together. And truly, when you have an opportunity where they're going to do the R&D work, you-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And I'm sure there's been instances where you've reached out to a brand and taken up most of that space.
Becca Millstein:
It's a lot of work. But this one is really fun because they created the beer and we created the label. So it feels very much like we brought our strengths to the collaboration. That's the dream because you're able to have this very holistic, impactful collaboration that actually is showing up in a lot of places. So that time investment is really worth it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Do you think the future of consumer packaged goods or CPG products is in collaborations?
Becca Millstein:
I do. In so many ways. I think that we see it, there are brand collaborations that very much feel like limited edition, and obviously consumers just go crazy for that. And that's why obviously so many brands really invest in it. But also there are so many products that just permanently will have a brand partner and it just adds the validation of the product. Like I was drinking Stumptown's RTD cold brew and it's an Oatley product. That name will forever be there. And it's just like, yeah, they're going to have to source their oat milk from someone. It might as well be from-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Another brand.
Becca Millstein:
A reputable brand.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That people have as a pantry essential.
Becca Millstein:
Yeah, exactly. So I'm really excited to see how the Fly by Jing product evolves over the years and we'll be doing more and more of those.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh, that is my favorite. I just love making a little rice bowl situation.
Becca Millstein:
Oh, that's so good.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You are in over 1200 retailers across the United States. How do you convince brands to put you on their shelves?
Becca Millstein:
Oh, well, I have to really give the credit to these incredible independent specialty stores around the country that have just embraced us with the most open arms. I could never have imagined. We did a bunch of external pitching to those smaller specialty shops when we started, but then at some point it truly was just a flywheel and they just have come on and then got to give it to Fair. Fair is this amazing platform that connects brands with small and non-traditional retailers around the country. And we bring on, I don't know, almost 100 accounts a month. It's more like 70 probably, but a lot-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's still a lot.
Becca Millstein:
That's all organic, inbound. It's crazy. So our wholesale growth has been really insane, especially this year. So there's that channel, the specialty channel, which again, God bless those people. They got our brand out to so many customers that ended up staying on ordering D2C, continuing to buy it specialty shops, et cetera. And then our actual grocery partners like Whole Foods and all around the country, Bristol Farms, Lassens, MOM's, Central Market, New Seasons, all these lovely places. I think again, we were lucky in the same way we were lucky with press. It's like the category has not been truly innovated in ever in a really deep and also broad way, which is what we're trying to do.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You've brought new life to the category, which any grocery store will be excited about for sure.
Becca Millstein:
So they want that. But I'm doing the same thing right now with grocery stores that I did with social media, with press. I am leading actually now my team, we're starting to disperse it amongst the team, which is very sick.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Share the work.
Becca Millstein:
Because I was not able to.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
It's a group project.
Becca Millstein:
It's a group project, but pitching those buyers directly again builds this is obviously a philosophy that I have, but it builds that relationship from the ground up and I think it's just really important. So I will pass that baton off sometime soon. But right now, doing all of the direct grocery outreach.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You have how many full-time staff now at-
Becca Millstein:
Three full-time, including myself. And then nine-ish when you take contractors into account, which the contractors are a full part of our team. It's just like right now we are super lean.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
How do you think about building a lean team and then how do you think about fundraising and just that whole environment, especially when you're coming out with a nascent product, which can often be terrifying for investors to hear?
Becca Millstein:
Yes, yes. So on the team front, I definitely, I think my own personal view of what work should be in one's life definitely informs the way that I think about it for my team, I was always a person that I had jobs in my life that I was bored at and didn't have enough work to do, and that was my nightmare. So my dream always was to have a job that was so interesting and so stimulating and that I always had too much to do, and those are the people that I'm looking for, and I have to be very upfront about that in the interview process. And I think most, if you're trying to work at an early stage startup, you're going to be absolutely ripping and learning so much and basically building your own business within a business. My team works so hard and I'm just amazed by how much they can do. I think I learned in the first year of business how much one person can do, which is a lot.
And I know I have so many other founder friends that have been on that journey as well, where it's like damn, one person can get a lot done. I think the thing is I bring on people that want to work really hard, really want to build their skillset and want to be leaders at the company and then leaders wherever they go after Fishwife and have the skillset to bring to those places. But you do have to be very careful making sure people are not burning out because they're working hard and they have so much responsibility. We've raised some outside capital, relatively very little, I would say, enough to grow.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Is that a combination of venture, angel investors?
Becca Millstein:
It's not.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Friends and family?
Becca Millstein:
It's mostly family offices and angels. We have a couple very early stage funds, but we're not, I would certainly not call Fishwife a venture backed startup.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Good to know.
Becca Millstein:
But right now I'm finishing raising a round of capital and it's a huge part of it. The big part of it is retail and the cost that's going to come with expanding nationally into retail, but it's also making sure that I have the resource to hire other people to make sure that my team members do not absolutely just burn out the candle. I feel like that's a bit of my obligation to them is to make sure that they have resources to protect their wellbeing and mental health and all of that.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Good boss alert. We have a lot of aspiring founders who listen to the podcast, people who have ideas, but sometimes the capital is often the roadblock that stops them from fulfilling that dream. What do you think the future of fundraising, especially for food businesses looks like?
Becca Millstein:
I do think it's a really hard time. In the fundraising space I feel like truly across industry, but definitely consumer and definitely food and beverage, CPG. So I do think there's a right sizing right now of how much capital should go into these companies, at what valuations, from what sources. At the end of the day, we should be building businesses to be profitable and to be self-sustaining. And obviously there was a period over the past five years or 10 years where food companies were being invested in by tech investors that had tech growth expectations and it's just not possible. It happens, but I do not believe, and many of my fellow founders do not believe that it is the right way to build a consumer business and especially a food business because you need to build true brand equity. You need to take the time to build great products, evolve them, iterate them based off your customer feedback.
True exponential growth in this industry. I just don't think it works for so many reasons. Yeah, I think a lot of venture capitalists are not investing in this space anymore. I think that's probably for the better, although those of us that have become reliant on that, it's going to be really challenging. It's challenging, but I think we're moving in the right direction because we should be building businesses with great fundamentals. Do our businesses often still need outside capital to grow? Yes.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Of course.
Becca Millstein:
I could not have done this without outside capital.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You need to buy the tins to sell the tins.
Becca Millstein:
You got to buy the tins. You got to try to buy as many as you can at once because you get cost breaks. And I have friends that have bootstrapped all the way through. Shout out to Kaitlin Mogentale from Pulp Pantry. She's just amazing. But it's really, really hard. You go out of stock and going out, it's very hard to not go out of stock. And once you go into retail, going out of stock is a real threat to your business because when you're building relationships with retailers, that's just not the vibe.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
How do you think about Fishwife making change, not just in the food industry, but also for first time female founders? Again, we've talked about the whole tech dynamic. It's not easy. It's not easy being entrepreneur period, but I think it's especially not easy being a female entrepreneur. I'm curious to hear how you've built your network or your network of founders and how that's been supporting you.
Becca Millstein:
Yeah, without my network of founders, I'd be totally kaput. I talk to at least five founders on a daily basis, whether it's just over text or it's usually just over text or a quick call or something. We fully rely on each other to learn and to grow because you just can't learn this stuff in school. Podcasts is the next best thing, but to really get into the nitty gritty, this is not stuff that you can Google. I try to have as many conversations with young founders as possible, but it definitely is a thing that I think every founder gets to. You just can't do it. You can't talk to as many people as you want to. And I'm definitely at the point where I used to take every call that came in and I can't do that anymore. And it's totally a self-preservation thing. Every founder gets there. I think that's why doing podcasts like these are important because it's a scalable way to-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
We love a good scale.
Becca Millstein:
Exactly. I went to Brown. I had that network of incredible entrepreneurs. When you talk about fundraising, how did I raise my first round? I did a lot of cold pitching, but also got some great people from the Brown network. So I did feel like I had a huge leg up there. I think it's very important for all founders to recognize their privilege.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Privilege. How do you take time off? What are you doing when you're not slinging fish?
Becca Millstein:
Oh man, not much.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I'm a potato.
Becca Millstein:
No. I take, every Saturday I go on a big outdoor, I live in California, so I go on a huge hike or go to the ocean and swim. I totally unplug every Saturday.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Love that.
Becca Millstein:
And you just have to do that. And then I run for exercise, and that's where I process information. It's where I come up with ideas. It's where I get out my rage occasionally because that is another thing people don't tell you about being a founder.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You will be angry.
Becca Millstein:
You deal with some BS sometimes, and you will need to find a way to release that energy.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I love it. Becca, we are huge manifesters on the podcast.
Becca Millstein:
Love it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Where do you hope Fishwife goes in the next five to 10 years?
Becca Millstein:
Yeah, we definitely have a big, big vision. We just want to, I've watched this tinned fish movement exponentially grow over the past three years and just expand outwards and outwards, the people that are exposed to it and engaging in it. So that's really what we hope to continue is continue expanding that out, continue educating people on why they should be eating tinned fish and why it's maybe easier and maybe more sustainable and maybe more cost effective than buying fresh or frozen fish and why it can replace, maybe you're someone that doesn't want to eat chicken or red meat, but disillusioned with the plant-based meat. So maybe tinned fish is great. Anyway, the vision is to really spread this message nationally to expand the brand in different channels, and we've developed some amazing food service formats. So to continue in that direction, I just see a future that's like America is plastered in Fishwife branding, which obviously it's crazy narcissistic.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
There's a Fishwife sticker on the White House.
Becca Millstein:
It's just such a fun brand and I just-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
No, I love it.
Becca Millstein:
Want to keep growing it. I want to keep growing in the seafood space, in the sea vegetable space. I think there's just so much interesting innovation happening in the operations and the supply chain of our industry, and I want Fishwife to be one of the faces for that, for a totally new seafood industry. So that's where I see it going. I also really want to open a sandwich shop one day.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh my gosh, I love that. Is there a fish you want in a tin soon?
Becca Millstein:
We're releasing slow smoked mackerel with chili flakes. I'm really excited about that one. It is a gorgeous product, so unique. I'm so proud of it. I think it's going to be a hero product of ours, and I just can't wait for that to come out and I just can't. The anchovies have been so much fun and just like the fun will not stop. I'm like, people, the way that people engage with anchovies is truly another level.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Anchovies are that girl.
Becca Millstein:
They are.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Fishwife is very loved. Is there a celebrity icon artist of yours that you love that you want to try Fishwife?
Becca Millstein:
Oh my gosh. Honestly, a lot of them have. I will say-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
No big deal.
Becca Millstein:
Not to brag. I love Phoebe Bridgers. I can't help myself. I'm an East Side LA girl. She tried it like a year ago, and that was really, I can't lie. That was pretty huge for me. Maya Rudolph recently tried it. That was really huge for me.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Becca, we're going to play our fun Future of Food Is You game. Our future flash five.
Becca Millstein:
Oh my God.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of package design.
Becca Millstein:
Colorful.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of CPG products.
Becca Millstein:
Tasty.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of tinned fish.
Becca Millstein:
Expansive.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future for female founders.
Becca Millstein:
Also expansive.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And the future of girl dinner.
Becca Millstein:
Girl dinner. Wow. Bread and butter, baby. And anchovies.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Becca, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. I can't wait to see Fishwife continue to blossom and be a forever pantry staple. If we want to continue to support you, where are the best places to find you?
Becca Millstein:
If you live in California, the Northeast or Southwest, so like Texas or New York, New Jersey, go to Whole Foods. We launched there. We really expanded a lot this month. So velocity in our products moving off shelf is really, really important. So please buy. Stock up on anchovies, sardines and Fly by Jing smoked salmon, which is there, or go to our website, which is eatfishwife.com and buy products there. It's the best margins we get, so love it. And then all of our handles are just Fishwife, so check us out on Instagram. TikTok, we got a popping TikTok now.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
They're popping tins on TikTok.
Becca Millstein:
Yes we are.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
How fun. Amazing. Thanks so much.
Becca Millstein:
Thank you so much, Abena.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Before we go, our guest is going to leave a voicemail at The Future of Food mailbox just talking to themselves 10 years from now. You have reached The Future Of Food Is You mailbox. Please leave your message after the beep.
Becca Millstein:
Hi, Becca. I hope you are so great and feeling wonderful. If things have gone the way that I hope they do, you'll still be running Fishwife and will have successfully spread the gospel of great tinned fish from sea to shining sea. And more people will be eating more, better, and more responsibly sourced seafood. And you have helped grow a loving, hardworking, ambitious, and engaged team that basically get to see all their dreams come to life all the time and your company will still be supporting hardworking fisher folks, farmers, and canneries all over the world. And you'll have built deep and longstanding relationships with these partners. You also have learned to create a little bit more space for calm and quiet in your life and have stopped living in such a constant state of organized chaos. Or maybe you've just organized it a bit better. You'll still ask people for advice, but you'll have a little bit more confidence in your intuition, and you'll really have seen the Fishwife vision play out into the universe. Sending love from the past, Becca.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's it for today's show. Do you know someone who you think is the future of food? Tell us about them. Nominate them at the link in our show notes, or leave us a rating and a review and tell me about them in the review. I can't wait to read more about them. Thanks to Kerrygold for sponsoring our show. The Future Of Food Is You is a production of the Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Thanks to the team at CityVox Studios, executive producers Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker and associate producer Jenna Sadhu. Catch you on the future flip.