The Ledger
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Thomae: ShopRite is one of the hardest retailers to work with
“Come to learn that ShopRite is probably one of the hardest operationally retailers to work with. Like, if you miss their delivery window by, like, five minutes, they'll refuse you, and then you have to reschedule.”
Dannon, Hain Celestial, and Kroger launched six Noosa copycats between 2012–2014
“So within, I would say, sort of that, 20 12 to 20 14 time frame, there was probably six knockoffs that came into the market from Dannon, from Hain Celestial to even Kroger doing a private label version of Noosa.”
Thomae preferred Advent-backed professional era over founding era due to culture
“So I sort of see these two very distinct chapters that I was involved with at Noosa was sort of like the Wild West chapter, and then our professional chapter, which we, I think we created an amazing internal culture, and I had an absolute blast in sort of that…”
Thomae: Emerging Greek Yogurts Did Not Taste as Good as Queensland Yogurt
“Yeah, they were just coming onto the market, so I could see that there was a trend happening with Greek, but it, to me, it didn't taste as good as Queensland yogurt.”
Thomae: Queensland Yogurt agreed to licensing and investment on a handshake
“They essentially said, look, yeah, we think there is an opportunity in the U.S., so We'd happily license to you. We'd want to invest in the business, and we'd be happy to bring, like, a yogurt maker over and just help with the initial startup of the business. …”
Mathewson family licensed their yogurt recipe to Noosa for one dollar
“The Australian family was willing to do a pretty, pretty minor lease on the product. Basically it was a dollar license agreement. Because they wanted to be investors.”
Noosa equity was split 50% Mathewson, 25% Graves, and 25% Thomae
“It was a half, a quarter. It's because the Mathewson family put in a larger share of money.”
Thomae: Noosa manufactured yogurt in 10-gallon buckets for over a year
“I mean, we were making it in 10 gallon buckets for over a year, which Gave the state health inspector a lot of heartache.”
Thomae: No yogurt brands used transparent packaging when Noosa launched
“And nobody on the shelf at that point in time was doing transparent packaging.”
ShopRite deferred Noosa's $100k slotting fees into quarterly billing
“So ShopRite says we're going to, instead of charging you A 100,000 dollars out of the gates. We'll bill it quarterly.”
Koel Thomae vows never to start another perishable food company
“I will never start a perishable food company again.”
Target expanded Noosa into 1,000 additional stores after four-month test
“Well, I mean, so we launched, there was probably like mid-year that we launched in Supertarget. They came back four months later and expanded us into a thousand stores, a thousand more stores.”
Noosa Yoghurt reached profitability and nearly $20M in revenue by end of 2012
“I mean, we were profitable at end of 20 12. We were close to a twenty million dollar business.”
Thomae: Noosa Founders Rolled Over Significant Minority Stakes in Advent Deal
“We rolled over a pretty significant minority ownership in the business that, you know, that was sort of how the deal was structured.”
Thomae: Initial vision for Noosa was a local Colorado brand, not national
“And again, my vision wasn't to create this national brand. I just thought I could have this really cool Colorado-based company, and then I selfishly get to eat it more than once a year.”
Thomae: Stock clear containers were unavailable in standard yogurt sizes
“So, you know, at that point, most yogurt was sort of between 5.3 to six ounces. And there was nothing. There was nothing available in stock packaging. In those sizes.”
Noosa produced yogurt with only 28 days of shelf life in 2010
“At that point, we were producing the product with about 28 days of shelf life which is short.”
Thomae: Greek yogurt's 2008 surge reinvigorated the market, enabling Noosa's timing
“2008 and sort of seeing this emerging trend of Greek yogurt. And in, in some ways I actually think we thought we had missed the boat. Ultimately we timed it just perfectly because it just reinvigorated the category Greek yogurt. And we got to ride that wave wi…”