Welcome to Season 11, Episode 4, of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking, is spending this season with Jennifer Steiner Pool, president and creator-in-chief of Steiner’s Baking Co., about how to turn a special family recipe into a commercially viable brand. Sponsored by Puratos.

In this episode, we have an interesting discussion around the evolution of marketing for a gluten-free product.

Learn more about this season here, and tune into Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple or Spotify.

Joanie Spencer: Welcome back this week, Jennifer!

Jennifer Steiner Pool: Hey! How are you? I’m so glad to be here.

Spencer: I am really looking forward to this one because we have a lot to unpack because making a gluten-free product is really complicated. Marketing a gluten-free product, I assume, is just as complicated. So that’s what I want to dive into this week, is the marketing side of gluten-free.

You’ve got a lot of marketing experience; we talked about it last week. You’re in a very interesting position because you have a marketing background, but you are also the daughter of someone with celiac. So, what do you rely on most: your marketing experience or your firsthand consumer experience as a celiac family?

Steiner Pool: That’s an interesting question. So, my training as a marketing professional influences how I absorb what my mom goes through — and has been going through — all of these years, right? It’s a different lens for me because I look at her as a consumer, and I’m so obsessed — as we’ve talked about before — with consumer behavior. I am constantly in my head picking apart how she makes decisions and her comments, and I’m sure she finds it very annoying.

So, I think probably the two actually intersect. I had a boss once. He probably thought I was never listening to him, but I always was, and he had this premise — which I still employ to this day — which is you’re either comforting the afflicted or afflicting the comfortable when you are looking at a marketing paradigm.

So, for folks living with celiac, or folks who are gluten sensitive, we are comforting the afflicted, right? They’re out there scouring the aisles for things that actually taste good and that they can trust. An interesting attribute for a gluten-free consumer is this fear they have of being ‘glutened,’ which is fast becoming an actual verb. And they really lack trust in brands.

In fairness to the consumers, there’s been a lot of abuse of badges, a lot of statements like ‘naturally gluten-free,’ but as we discussed last week, your product may be naturally gluten-free, but based on the supply chain process and food safety implementation, you may actually have cross contamination you don’t realize. So, they get really, really nervous, the consumer that is. I really look at those two things.

And, as I think we discussed a couple of weeks ago, as we’ve evolved our marketing message to lean into the gluten-free solution more and leveraging the idea that we are a premium gluten-free baked good brand that is committed to delivering the very best ingredients in every product — that also happened to be gluten-free — we’re trying to leverage that comfort the afflicted in a very subtle but consistent, authentic and transparent way. That’s also why my feelings about ‘natural flavors’: If it’s in it, I’m going to say it’s in it. And a natural flavor is not a thing.

It’s building that trust and having an authentic brand. That really is born of necessity. My mom spent decades, before anybody knew what celiac was, trying to eat something that was somewhat edible. It was really difficult. And still today, it’s pretty difficult. I mean, there are some cookies, you could go buy today. And if you’re not desperate for a cookie because you’re celiac, you would never eat it. Our brand stands for something much better than that.

The other thing I think we are keenly aware of and helps us in our authentic messaging is our understanding of what celiac disease is and what gluten sensitivity is. And many consumers — there’s actually a comedian who does a whole bit on this — it’s not an allergy, which is a very common misconception. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease, and it fires off your system in such a way that it has these symptoms that are debilitating.

I myself, although I’ve never been tested, in 1997 ended up in the emergency room with acute symptoms from either gluten intolerance or celiac. Again, I haven’t been tested. And it was one of those days of work, you know, you’ll have those days at work where it’s a bagel breakfast, and then it’s a pizza party, and it’s like a carbohydrate extravaganza. And my weakness is bagels.

I have no idea if I had any issue whatsoever. All of a sudden, I was in tears, hysterical crying, severe pain. I had to go to the ER. They asked me my family history. Of course, I shared my mother’s issues, and they said, ‘Well, we can test you,’ and I said, ‘You know what, I’m just going to go cold turkey gluten-free for three weeks.’ Now, this is ’97, so still, really not a lot of options and a lot of misinformation.

Spencer: Right. Nobody really even knew what gluten was in ’97. From a consumer perspective.

Steiner Pool: Yeah, exactly. So, things like soy sauce, and you don’t even realize all the things that contain gluten. And remember, the other conflict that consumers have — or confusion, I should say, I’m sorry — is wheat allergy, which is totally different from anything having to do with gluten, which often throws off consumers who are trying to avoid gluten and because their perception is if it’s gluten-free, then it’s wheat free.

Those things are very different. Anyway, so I ended up in the ER, I went cold turkey. And I felt fabulous. All these symptoms, like I was a Pepto Bismol junkie in high school and college. I ate it like candy, and everybody was like, ‘Why are you eating this?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I have a stomachache like all the time.’

Lo and behold, I went cold turkey, I feel great. And if I cheat, which I always cheat, no one should ever feel bad about cheating, it’s virtually impossible not to. So, it’s really hard for consumers. They get such bad information. And then another interesting thing for consumers — which is why having a great sweet baked good solution helps them feel good about themselves and just life — you go to dinner with a bunch of people and you’re sitting around and everyone’s ordering, right. And then you get to the person who can’t have gluten.

Well, it’s 20 minutes later before they put their order in. And they are basically doing an FBI investigation with the chef as to what is in the kitchen and what is going to end up on their plate. And people are so annoyed by it. But they’re afraid. It’s not because they’re trying to be high maintenance. It’s because they just don’t know how to navigate the situation. And what I love is our products — one of our channels is food service, which is a great channel for us — because we solve this problem for restaurants and coffee shops. All of our products are individually wrapped to ensure a lack of cross-contamination. So, until you’re ordering and eating that product, it is wrapped and sealed, which is a really important part of the food safety process and ensuring something remains gluten-free.

We love that we can be a part of a menu and be a premium solution. And then everyone at the table is like, ‘Wait, what is that? I want those brownies.’ Okay, you can have them! They’re for everybody.

Spencer: So, I have to say when you talk about restaurants, because I have thought about this several times over the course of our conversations. I don’t get annoyed at the people if I’m at dinner and they’re asking those questions and doing a full investigation. That is legitimate.

The people who annoy me are the ones — like always when I see, ‘Oh, here’s the gluten-free menu,’ or ‘Here’s the gluten-free option’ — knowing what I know from reporting on the industry for 16 years, I just scratch my head and I’m like, ‘Is it really?’ It can’t just come out of the same kitchen and be gluten-free.

And so, the people who very flippantly say, ‘Oh, well, I don’t like gluten. I’m going to order the gluten-free option’ — those are the ones who annoy me because I feel like those are the uneducated consumers who don’t even understand why they don’t want to have gluten, and they’re taking the easy way that’s probably not gluten-free.

Steiner Pool: I also think some of the responsibility for better managing the fear factor, so one of the things I’m really eager to do, and I hope I have a chance to do it in 2024, is when someone is newly diagnosed with celiac, the very first thing is, ‘Now I can’t eat anything.’ Like, ‘I can’t go out.’

I mean, they really are afraid. Like, sometimes I read the social media threads, and they want to throw out their toaster ovens. They want their whole family to eat gluten-free, like they really are afraid. And I think if doctors had a way to deliver the diagnosis with a delicious food kit, if you will, with directions and understanding of how to manage your home and your choices that you make for yourself and your family, a lot of that fear would dissipate because you would enable and empower the person who has been diagnosed.

And you know, a dream of mine. And I often jump into social media threads and start to go down that path. And then I’m like, ‘Wait, no one wants to hear from me.’ Like, I can’t, you know, because some people want permission to be afraid. My thought is, ‘Well yes, you should have permission to onboard whatever you’ve been told and all the emotions that come with that. I also want you to know, now you’re free.’

You’re empowered to feel really good once you get your diagnosis because now you know what not to eat. When you feel bad every day, all the time, and suddenly someone tells you, ‘Don’t eat this, and your symptoms are going to go away, that’s freedom. You have to figure out how to do it, which is difficult, but it’s a huge win for someone. And I think if they can see that and feel that more quickly and have products that are delicious to take them on their journey, it’s life changing. I get very passionate about it. I don’t think it has to be all fear.

Spencer: If you’re not passionate about it, you’re in the wrong business. Your company is not going to do very well, so I appreciate the passion. And it would be a boring podcast!

Steiner Pool: Anyway, so that’s my two cents on, you know, the gluten-free world and consumers. And my mom is right there with all those people. She lost 40 pounds in a three-month period once because something she was eating had gluten, and she didn’t know, and it was making her incredibly sick. So, it’s a real thing. I mean, it’s very scary.

Spencer: It is. And that’s why it does grind on me when people — I think we’re going to touch on it throughout this conversation — but just those misconceptions where people are saying, ‘Oh, well, I’m trying to be healthier, so I’m going to cut out gluten,’ and no, that’s not what it is.

But here’s what I want to ask you. There are so many emerging brands that have this origin story of, ‘My daughter had an autoimmune disease,’ or ‘I had an autoimmune disease,’ or ‘My child had a severe allergy, and I couldn’t find anything delicious, so I started to make it myself.’ From a marketing perspective, this is a pure intention. You are a celiac family, and you created this so your mom could enjoy these baked goods that her dad made.

From a marketing perspective, how do consumers identify with that, especially consumers, like the parents of kids who have to bring their own treats to a birthday party, or sit at a different lunch table? Because I got to tell you that first time I went and had lunch — my son’s 14 now, so he wants nothing to do with me — but he used to like me to come have lunch with him in elementary school. And I was like, ‘Who’s that at that table?’ And he said, ‘Those are the allergy kids.’ And that just broke my heart. Like when there are children who can’t eat what everybody else does, and they have to be relegated to a different table, or they can’t share in the birthday treats and have to bring something of their own. Like, how are your customers and consumers identifying with your origin story?

Steiner Pool: It’s the authenticity of it. Going back to something we just discussed, it’s easier for them to take the belief and to trust us. When you have, especially if you have a child, if you have a child who is living with something like celiac or severe gluten sensitivity, all you want is for them to be happy. You want them to feel good, and you don’t want to fail at that, right?

I’m a mom, I have a 15-year-old son. He doesn’t like me either. I’ve told him it’s mandatory that I’m in his life, but he’s not really buying into that. But I only have one, so it’s not like I can, you know, do over or something. Just one and done.

You never want your child to leave the house and think they’re going to have a tough day because their lunchbox doesn’t meet the standards of everybody else’s lunchbox, right? Or anything like that — it’s awful. So that’s another reason that motivates me to talk to moms and share with moms the success we’ve had. And in this year, you’ll start to see us publish more recipes to use with the flour. Because people love to bake at home, you want your home to be filled with the smells of memories and cinnamon and nutmeg and all those things, so we know that consumers are going to want to do that themselves, and we want to empower them to do so with our flour.

But back to your question, it just breaks down this wall immediately. Immediately, moms will say to me, ‘Wait, everything you make is gluten-free?’ Yeah. And actually, it’s also all nut free. We don’t use any nuts on our equipment or in our recipes. So that’s mind blowing for a lot of parents.

There’s this interesting app, if you don’t know about it, called Spoken, and it’s for allergy moms. Now, this is where we get into this weird intersection. So, gluten intolerance and celiac are not an allergy. However, there is so much misinformation about it, it gets lumped in with allergies. And this misunderstanding, for instance, a child — and this goes back to my education thing with doctors — a child who’s diagnosed with celiac disease or severe gluten sensitivity should not have to sit at a different table. The gluten is not going to jump out of the pancakes my friend is eating and come into my pancakes, okay? The gluten is going to stay where it is; it’s not airborne. Once it’s been used, processed into whatever it is you’re eating, it’s not coming out of that.

Now you have to teach your child perhaps not to share, and sharing is caring, so that’s a little bit confusing for a young kid. However, if you are educated so that you can then share that information with your school, with your child — these are the things I talk about with parents. These are the things we talk about on social media. Fill your kid’s lunchbox. Let them give the brownies to everyone. Let them be the lunch table hero.

I was actually just talking about this last night with someone that you can make custom enamel, old school lunch boxes, which is something we’re going do as we pivot to more of a gift-oriented, direct-to-consumer offering. And I can’t wait to do that because I can’t wait for kids to be able to have these lunch boxes, and they can fill them with all these treats. And imagine the joy: a kid who’s just told, ‘You can’t eat any of these things. Everything your friends are eating, you cannot eat.’ But then, you send your kid to school with the best brownies — and I will challenge anyone — the best brownies that anyone is ever going to eat, and they can eat them and the nut free kid can eat them, and everyone else is trying to steal the brownies from them. I win. Like that’s it!

Spencer: I mean, and I was, I was imagining when you said it’s nut-free. I was like, Oh, so then the celiac kid can bring these treats on their birthday because they’re individually wrapped. And they’re nut-free. And at least at my school district, I mean, those are the hard lines. They have to be nut-free. It has to say on the label, ‘This was made in a nut-free facility.’

Steiner Pool: That’s really strict. Listen, it’s just scary for moms. And so, they just want people to be empathetic. They want to be heard, and they don’t want to be blown off. Now it’s changed a lot in the past five years, I would say.

But 10 years ago, if a mom went to a school and said, ‘My child has a severe nut allergy. They have to have an epi pen,’ or ‘We can’t have kids eating nuts in the classroom,’  the school didn’t care and didn’t take it seriously. Now, it’s changed a lot. It’s changed a lot.

Spencer: Yeah. And parents want their kids to fit in, and they want them to be safe. That’s a hard balance to strike for a kid who has celiac or a severe gluten sensitivity.

Steiner Pool: And you also want them to be confident. You want them to live with whatever their diagnosis is with confidence. It’s just a part of who they are. Right? It’s like one of their attributes. It’s a very delicate balance to teach a young person how to be aware of whatever their diagnosis may be and live within the constraints that it imposes upon them. And just to be. That’s a hard thing for a young person to start to learn. It takes a lot of maturity to embrace who you are, and whatever those attributes are, and engage with the world.

Spencer: Like this is my height. This is my hair color. This is my reaction to certain types of foods.

Steiner Pool: Exactly.

Spencer: The next thing that I wanted to ask is about science, and Nancy was a science teacher. When gluten became part of the American lexicon, when celiac and gluten-intolerance got that visibility, what happened in our industry was baked goods were more or less vilified.

So, how do you think the science behind baking has enabled products, like Steiner’s to be seen as mainstream in the eyes of all consumers? And it goes kind of with what we’re talking about, when people and kids especially can be confident in who they are and what they eat?

Steiner Pool: That’s an interesting question. I think as this issue with gluten entered the lexicon and became a part of our thought process, it actually unleashed a lot of innovation and creativity, which was latent. And people focused on a lot of other food science issues that they were tackling — and needed to be tackled, of course —food supply things, and  listen, that’s a whole other podcast. But I think it unleashed a lot of creativity.

A lot of people rolled up their sleeves, not just my mom, and went into kitchens and said, ‘Okay, I want a Bavarian pretzel, but it has to be gluten-free. How am I going to make that happen?’ That’s no small task. ‘I want a bagel that’s gluten-free.’ Now, the bagels that were on the market for the first, I don’t know, until maybe, like 10 years ago, were literally cement, rocks, inedible. I can’t even believe they got on grocery store shelves. I mean, disgusting.

But again, there was nothing else. So, what are you going to do? You just have to eat it. But those people, you got to love them, because they tried to solve a problem. They’re trying to comfort the afflicted. ‘These people want bagels; there are no bagels. How am I going to make them?’ So, I think what happened was, it unleashed an enormous amount of innovation and creativity that otherwise never would have happened.

From that, we’ve learned a lot about starches and fat absorption. All of these solutions in what I’ll call the flour sector, they really burst out when the gluten issue really surfaced. There are some great products on the market, and there’s a much better understanding of how to use them together to make something that is actually edible.

I just think it was a huge motivation. And again, as I said, necessity is the mother of invention. And if you don’t have a problem to solve, it’s very hard to just innovate out of nowhere, right? I mean everything, from the iPod to you know, ‘What do I do with all this music?’ and now we have this amazing solution. So, that’s what I chalk it up to.

Spencer: I’m sure you know, the brand Canyon Bakehouse, the guy who started Canyon — Josh Skow — he started that bakery because his wife was celiac diagnosed. Very similar story. They were tired of having to go to the freezer section and have these horrid products.

Steiner Pool: For those guys, it was all rice-based and the breads were so dense.

Spencer: Yes. I know Josh really well, and I did a story on Canyon before they had become part of Flowers Foods, and he was like, ‘I only know how to make gluten-free bread. I don’t know what the regular bread process is. I only know this way.’ So, I thought that was really interesting. Like he really dialed it in, more than it’s not a gluten-free version of another product.

Steiner Pool: Correct. I mean, bread is really hard. It’s interesting that he went down that road and I obviously admire his brand and have tremendous respect for him, and maybe someday I’ll meet him. So, he had to come up with something that didn’t exist, right?

To your point, he’s trying to figure out how to make bread that doesn’t have gluten in it, not how to take you know, so-and-so’s bread and make it gluten-free. He wanted to basically invent a new product. Which is I mean, listen, he shattered the market, right? It’s a total disruptor; people love his product. I only wish to be as successful as he is.

At Steiner’s, what we’ve said, because this is different than bread, is we don’t want people to have to sacrifice or search out or try to figure out a recipe. I want people to take a recipe that their grandfather used — which, nobody ever heard of celiac when their grandfather was alive — and just put our flour in it. It’s just a different premise. Right? It’s not right or wrong.

We just set out to say, and my mom was really focused on, ‘This is how Grandpa Malcolm makes this. I want to make it this way without gluten.’ And that was her motivation for her innovation. She didn’t have to reinvent the product. She had to figure out how can we make all these things: pancakes waffles, apple pie. You know, we’ve had people make sourdough bread with our flour. Scones. Who doesn’t love a scone? A gluten-free scone, you can’t find them.

She wanted to take recipes that people love and just give them a flour that would work. That’s what she’s done. And it’s pretty cool. So that was her motivation. And again, not right or wrong. She was just setting out to solve a different problem.

Spencer: Right. Okay, I want to go back to sort of consumer misconceptions, just talking about the flour, and what Nancy did to be able to enable people to make these things in their homes as well.

The term ‘gluten free.’ One of the easiest things for consumers to get confused about is they equate it automatically with ‘healthy.’ That it’s a better-for-you option or it’s a healthier option if it’s gluten-free, and that’s not always the case. I mean, you even mentioned it a couple of episodes ago, when some gluten-free brands, what they put in — they put so much other stuff in to mask the off flavor or the aftertaste or to fix the texture — it’s actually unhealthy.

This is another thing that I try to educate my friends without being a jerk, you know, like having bad form. But I’m like, just eliminating something that your body actually needs, like if you’re not intolerant to it, if you don’t have an autoimmune disease that has all of these ramifications if you ingest it, it’s not bad for you, and your body on certain levels needs it. And so, when you take it out, and you replace it with all this other crap that you don’t need, it’s counterproductive.

We’ve talked about a little bit and how you deal with that in terms of marketing, because you have an indulgent, delicious product, and it’s not about, ‘I can eat whatever coffee cake I want. And if I eat a Steiner’s coffee cake, then I’ll lose weight because it doesn’t have gluten.’ Do you get caught in that consumer misconception? And how do you navigate it?

Steiner Pool: This goes back to what we were talking about regarding authenticity. First of all, in food in general, the word ‘healthy’ is a dangerous, slippery word. It’s often misused, often misunderstood, and everyone has their own definition of healthy. And, quite frankly, probably they should because everybody’s body is different.

So what is going to be healthy, meaning what is going to keep you safe and keep all your parts working correctly, et cetera, is going to be different just between you and I. We all have a different definition of healthy.

For me, I try to stay away from the word ‘healthy.’ And I try to stay away from the word ‘natural.’ Not because we aren’t using real ingredients — and that’s the word I like to use — it’s because A: People have their own definition of these things. And B: For us, I mean, we make cake and brownies and cookies.

You know, I often meet folks who are diabetic, who say, you know, ‘I can’t eat this, and you should make it with less sugar.’ And they are frustrated, they themselves are frustrated. And my response is always, ‘I appreciate what you need. And I understand that our products aren’t for you.’ What we are committed to is responsible indulgence. And that’s why our portion sizes are small.

Our little brownie bites, I think each brownie bite is 26 grams. They’re small. Our gingersnaps — 12 gingersnaps — is 38 grams. They’re tiny, but they’re satisfying. And they’re chock-full of real ingredients. So that’s how I reconcile this concept of ‘healthy.’

Now back to the other part of your question, which gluten-free in and of itself is not healthy or unhealthy. It just is, in fact, gluten-free. So, you know, the big guys have taken advantage of that. And they look for the halo effect. That’s something that is free of, which is only getting hotter in the marketplace. It’s not just gluten, right? You and I could go through a list of probably 50 things free of: free of soy, I mean, the list goes on and on — which we are soy-free as well. People are always amazed that our brownies are soy-free, actually. And they are.

But that is a construct that consumers are now clamoring after. That is in some cases very, very important — nut-free, gluten-free, soy-free. These are real allergies that people have and/or diagnoses that they’re living with. But the entire explosion of that concept and the halo effect is 100% Marketing 101. It’s like consumer psyche, right?

This goes back to my passion about consumer behavior. And you know, I use my mom as my test subject all the time, but anytime something says ‘free of,’ she’s like, ‘Oh, I bought that. These are better for you, Jen, because blah, blah, blah.’ And I’ll say, ‘But did you read the ingredients? I can’t pronounce anything that’s in it.’ You know, and she’s just like, ‘Oh.’

Free-of does not necessarily mean — again, unless you have a diagnosis that you’re dealing with — that it’s the better choice. You really have to look at what the ingredient list is. First of all, people are in a rush. I mean, it’s hard. It’s really hard to do. If you’ve got family, if you’re a parent, the last thing you want to do is sit with your phone in the grocery store and try to figure out what the stuff is that you’re buying.

Spencer: Right. And in consumers’ defense, decision fatigue is real. And we do want people to make our decisions for us, or at least make them easier.

Steiner Pool: Yeah. And as a manufacturer, I lean into the badges that we carry. OU-D kosher, Gluten Intolerance Group, I depend on them to keep us — I don’t want to use the word ‘honest’ — I guess to keep us best in class. I depend on them to push us to do better to meet the requirements of their certifications.

Spencer: I like that.

Steiner Pool: And a lot of people look at — we’re not going to get political — but a lot of people look at regulation as the bane of their existence if they are a manufacturer. Now you’re talking about a company that’s based on a zero waste, sustainable policy, and gluten-free, so you know, I live in a world of regulation.

But I actually look at it as a way to empower us to make those decisions that are strategic initiatives for our company, grounded and correctly. I mean, what do I know about home compost right? I’m not a scientist. I have no idea about how you make corn into a clear film. I don’t have the slightest clue! But the guys that I work with at NatureFlex, who are fabulous, they’re subject matter experts. They went out, and again, innovation, necessity, right, we need to get plastic out of our food system.

They figured this out, and they have the certifications, and I depend on them for those certifications, and we collaborate on what makes that great. We have these interesting conversations about consumers’ understanding between home-compost rated and recyclable.

That’s very confusing to consumers. So, do I want to buy something that’s recyclable? Or do I want to buy something that’s home-compost rated? And I had some strategic conversations with the folks at NatureFlex about this. And I said, ‘Listen, at the end of the day, you want home-compost-rated to win.’

Why? Because, certainly in the United States, we haven’t figured out our recycling stream. It’s very, very broken. If everybody is using non-toxic, home-compost rated, clear packaging, then when it falls out of the back of the truck, which it inevitably does, or doesn’t make it to the recycling facility, it’s going to break down.

So, I struggled with this. I really had to get my head around it. And after doing the research, I said, ‘You know what, the home compost is a win.’ It doesn’t matter if they ever put it in their garden; it’s not going to make it to the landfill. It’ll be disintegrated.

Those kinds of things, consumers, you know — back to your question about healthy — like, it’s the same thing. It’s the same misunderstanding, misconception. How do you lean into this, but do it transparently and authentically?

Spencer: Right. So, you have this balance — being a baker, a marketer and a celiac family member, and perhaps celiac yourself. However, I have learned from my conversations with you that you’re not a baker. I am going to say ‘baker, creator in chief.’

So, what are the priorities for branding and marketing? We talked about this with your education with Mondelez SnackFutures. How can a brand ensure celiac or gluten-sensitive consumers that a product is safe for them, while also communicating that everyone can enjoy it? There is a fine line there. You actually have walked both sides of that line. So, how do you balance and stay on the line?

Steiner Pool: It’s very difficult, first of all. It has been a strategic conundrum for me since I launched the company. Any good marketer will tell you that you cannot be all things to all people. It’s not possible. You have to focus and be the best in the world at what you do. That’s how you win as a brand.

So, once the team at Mondelez hit me over the head with that again and again, which was a lesson I’ve learned a long time ago, but I clearly was having trouble applying it to my own company, which is called founder-itis, I realized we are the best in the world at premium, sweet baked goods that happen to be gluten-free. We are the best in the world at that. I have to lean into it, and I have to live it and love it.

And what will happen is, because it’s I mean, I can’t say none but tiny, tiny, tiny percent of the population that’s gluten-free, lives on their own in an isolated state, right? Most people who are living with celiac or are gluten-sensitive have a whole family or people they love or have friends or what have you, or professional colleagues, etc. They’re going to eat their brownie, and they’re going to make noises when they eat it. ‘Oh my god, this is so good!’ That word of mouth, the power of recommendation — listen, that’s what makes likes and hearts and all that stuff work on social media — the power of the gluten-free person loving what they’re eating, not tolerating what they’re eating, that is where we will win and leap into a mass market consumption pattern.

Spencer: Light bulbs are going off over my head right now.

Steiner Pool: It will happen, and I have to be willing to let it happen that way. It was very hard for me to get there. So, when we produce our next line of packaging, ‘gluten-free’ will be loud and proud. You won’t miss it. Right now, you definitely won’t miss it.

So, we’re going to change that, and we’re evolving. And any good entrepreneur knows that sometimes they have to listen and collaborate and evolve, as difficult as it is.

So, we will, we will lean into it. Now, I would also say that that concept of is your product really only tolerated versus loved, that’s our litmus test for, ‘How good is it?’ Is it so good that my coffee shop clients are willing to list the coffee cake on their conventional menu and their gluten-free menu? Is it that good that the restaurant is going to put the brownies on the conventional dessert menu and the gluten-free dessert menu? That’s how we know that we’re doing our job and that I can feel confident leaning into gluten-free.

Another trick of the trade that I learned along the way is it’s not enough to be known; you have to be wanted. I have to have faith that strategic principles of marketing and being authentic and living what you are and being the best in the world at it will get us where we want to go.

Spencer: Nice. I love it. I love it. And I think that it can be a beacon for other brands as well. And I do feel like you’re sort of following in the footsteps of Josh Skow and what he did for gluten-free bread. Truly.

Steiner Pool: He did. He focused, went deep. He was proud of it. There were no apologies. It was ‘We make this product. It serves this market. It’s delicious. It’s better than everything else out there.’

I was afraid of that. And now I’m not.

Spencer: I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything Jennifer.

Steiner Pool: I was. I was. It definitely weighed on my mind. I thought, I’m like, ‘God, the market’s too small. There’s not enough people. We can’t grow the brand on this.’ You know, it just was I like had my whole psyche revved up against it.

And listen, that’s the value of these incubator programs. You’re surrounded by subject matter experts who are there to help you be strategically on point.

Spencer: For sure. Okay, this wraps up this episode. What a great conversation. I learned a lot and was also entertained. And I hope everyone else was too.

Next week, we’re going to look at the future, and I’m going to start next week talking about where you and where Steiner’s live in this changing idea of where indulgence plays into the idea of wellness and health because it’s changing, just like everything else. And then I want to talk about line extensions and where you’re going and breaking out into other gluten-free products. So, that’s for next week, which will be our last episode.

Thank you again so much for another great conversation!

Steiner Pool: Thank you, this is fantastic. Have a good one!

Spencer: You too!