Phyllis Rothschild - Marketing the #1 Organic and #1 Free Range Egg Brand

On this episode, we're joined by Phyllis Rothschild, CMO of Pete & Gerry's Organics - the #1 organic egg brand and #1 free range egg brand in the U.S. 

Phyllis spent nearly 30 years in consulting at firms like McKinsey and Oliver Wyman before making the jump in-house to lead marketing.

Phyllis breaks down the "word soup" problem in the egg aisle - where terms like cage free, free range, organic, and pasture raised all blur together - and the education-first strategy the team uses to cut through it, including brand-agnostic shelf signage created with retail partners.

Phyllis walks through how the team manages two distinct brands in the same category, with consumer personas like "Ellie the Egg" for Nellie's Free Range and "Heather the Hen Hugger" for Pete & Gerry's pasture raised. 

She shares how the avian flu crisis created a trial opportunity when commodity prices surged and Pete & Gerry's held prices flat, and what the team did to retain those new-to-brand buyers once the gap widened again.

We also dig into the packaging refresh across both brands, the color blocking strategy (navy for organic, bright yellow for pasture raised, sky blue for pasture raised organic), and in-store tactics in a category where 75% of purchase decisions are made at shelf.

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Episode Highlights:

🥚 Why Phyllis left McKinsey for the egg aisle
📊 Data-backed decision-making from 30 years in consulting
🛒 The "word soup" problem in the egg aisle (cage free, free range, organic, pasture raised)
📖 Education-first strategy with brand-agnostic shelf signage
👥 Consumer segmentation: Ellie, Beth, and Heather
🐔 The distributed family farm model (350+ farms) and supply chain resilience
💰 Holding prices flat during avian flu while commodity prices surged 59%
🎨 Packaging color blocking: navy, yellow, sky blue
📦 The "Sacred Ribbon" and why on-shelf side panel cues matter
🏪 75% of egg brand decisions are made at shelf
📜 Cage-free legislation and the 7x free range volume lift in legislated states

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Table of Contents:

00:00 – Intro
00:42 – Pete & Gerry's overview and brand portfolio
02:10 – Why Phyllis left consulting for Pete & Gerry's
03:56 – Transitioning from consulting to in-house
05:48 – How a consulting background shapes CPG marketing
07:45 – The "word soup" problem in the egg aisle
09:54 – Education as a growth driver
11:53 – Metrics for measuring consumer knowledge
13:24 – Managing two brands in the same category
17:28 – Consumer segmentation and price pack architecture
19:11 – Navigating the avian flu crisis
23:12 – Trial, retention, and new-to-brand metrics
25:46 – The packaging refresh and pasture raised launch
30:50 – Lessons from redesigning both brands
34:36 – In-store strategy and shelf set optimization
39:06 – Cage-free legislation and its impact on premium
42:02 – Trends: whole food sources and clean protein

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Links:

Pete & Gerry's – https://www.peteandgerrys.com/
Follow Phyllis on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/phyllisrothschild/
Follow me on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out https://www.kitprint.co/

Shout out to my friends over at Glimpse, the go-to partner for automating retail-related back-office operations and unlocking margin trapped in invalid fees and manual processes.

Transcript

0:02

today we're speaking with Phyllis Rothschild Chief Marketing Officer of Pete and Jerry's Organics the No. 1 organic egg brand and the No. 1 free range egg brand in the US before coming into coming in house Phil spent I think 30 years or so as a consultant at some of the big names like Mckinsey Oliver Wyman profit as well so a lot of really good experience and excited to get into it probably a fairly small group of listeners in the CPG world that aren't that familiar with Team Jerry's love to just kind of get quick lay of the land kind of the origin story and the why behind the brand core products in the lineup yeah thank you well thank you for having me appreciate it always love talking about our wonderful eggs so Pete and Jerry's is uh as you said the largest premium egg provider in the United States we are very much a purpose backed brand our mission is to um commit to animal welfare family farms and sustainable farming as well as to one another so very much focused on those core principles we are nationwide so distributed nationwide we do have some national distribution in places like Walmart and Whole Foods and then in all the major grocery retailers we're in BJ's as well recently into Costco on the West Coast so have great distribution um and we have two primary brands within our portfolio we have the Pete and Jerry's brand which is sort of our uh heritage brand that the company was founded on about 30 so or so years ago right when I got started in consulting Adam as you pointed out and then we also and that is our sort of premium top shelf higher end brand really focusing on the health and wellness space with organic and pasture raised and then we also have our Nelly's Free range brand which is more of our gateway to premium and both of them are really strong and and doing well that's great you know you spent a lot of years in in that role before and I think it was in 2023 you made the jump to run marketing in house at Pete and Jerry's for like what was it about Pete and Jerry's specifically that was finally that was the one that that made you take the leap inhouse that got me I would say that first and foremost I really did find a lot of passion in the notion of being purpose driven every time I for 30 years in consulting it always helped me when I would talk to my kids to say what I do and particularly I did marketing and branding strategy consulting um it always helped to connect them to the reality of what I do when I would work for purpose driven or purpose back brands it always felt very rewarding to me I also was really keen on finding brands that have room to grow I really wanted to go in and work with a team and shape the growth trajectory and the contribution to the overall business growth and Ben and Jerry's certainly has a long runway and opportunity for growth food and beverage is a passion of mine as well it's always nice to know that you're believing in something that you're putting in your body actually yeah and he doesn't love eggs I personally love eggs and we can talk all about our favorite egg dishes but that was great it's local to me I live in the Massachusetts area and Ben and Jerry's is based in New Hampshire so it's nice to interact with people on a regular basis live sometimes after many years of being remote I think all of those things were huge contributors to the decision and it's a fantastic leadership team too as well and just the growth that the team has been able to drive over the past three to five years has been phenomenal and it was nice to get on that moving train what was that transition like and I I guess really what was thinking back what was the thing that's a few things that surprised you the most it's a great question I think that um first you hear a lot of people say when they're in consulting they don't get to see the impact of the work that they do and they don't get to live or actually make those decisions that's not entirely true having spent so long in the space and I had some really long term clients that I I did get to work closely with and see the fruition of our work um but I think in more so is the day to day the scrappiness the roll up your sleeves side of it that and decisions at the minute level that you're making you know you're not sort of big picture Big Sky every day even at the CEO sweet level you're not you have to in order especially in a company that's of our size and we're somewhat lean you really do get down into the weeds sometimes and you're making decisions on how to allocate shopper marketing dollars or whether or not to make an investment in a particular campaign allocation in a particular region with a particular platform and that's the kind of stuff that just requires a a different level of focus and collaboration with the team so that took a little getting used to and and working with the team on that and then you know I think having come from some of the bigger consulting firms as you mentioned I do have a lean team and so it is really figuring out how to best allocate resources it's not not that you could snap your fingers in the Mackenzie days and get analysis but you do have to be more efficient and smart about it's not just let's boil the ocean and do all this analysis and figure out what it's telling us it's really like here are my hypotheses and the questions I have let's do some real targeted analysis and figure out what the answer is so that we're not wasting a lot of effort yeah on that kind of topic of like is kind of shaped how you approach making decisions when it comes to everything marketing everything that you own that maybe different than someone that's come up through the traditional you know CPG brand manager path through the you know the the crafts of the world or something along those lines you know I don't know whether one path is better than the other I would say that um in my case it was leaning heavily into the analysis and the data back I mean from a consulting background you always wanted to have data back uh recommendations and being able to say here's what the data says and here's what we think the impact is gonna be and so I think really emphasizing the notion of analysis and data and measurement was something that was almost you know first principle for me when I started and I think that that's not always the case in marketing traditionally going you know especially rising up through the ranks it doesn't mean I don't lean into the right brain side and I also love the creative aspect and sometimes you do have to go with your gut on some of the creative side but I think that healthy balance is what I was able to employ when I was in consulting and then it certainly applied when I got to Pete and Jerry's and I think this the pace right because we are in CPG as you know is so fast paced today there's always something changing the trends are crazy and you're always trying to keep up up with what the latest is and that is true in consulting very much so you don't have the time to sit back cause sometimes you're on a you're on the clock with the client and you have to be able to show impact and prove that you're what you're doing is worth their while so I had that mentality I think when I came in which is let's have some impact early on let's show what marketing can do for the business and for the brands and let's measure that so I think that helped yeah yeah how there's just historically been a fair amount of confusion in the egg aisle whether it's cage free range organic pasture raised it does seem really confusing at times and I think that you've said that the research that shows that the consumers that are more educated really understand the differences are more likely to buy premium how did we get to like where we are at this level of confusion was this intentional what's your take on that I laugh when I you use the word intentional because I do think some of it was intentional right particularly the large industrial egg producers didn't necessarily want consumers to know how those hens live their lives and so using a little bit of phrasing like farm fresh or natural like why would your egg not be natural which is right but that those that's the kind of language that I does I do think creates confusion even cage free creates confusion there's a lot of misconception out there that cage free means that the hens are running around in pastures and they're absolutely not they barely see the light of day so the fact that there's a lot of confusion when people are walking in the aisle and seeing all these phrases and even the phrases that do mean something like organic or free range or pasture raised kind of get lost in that word soup yeah and we have to really try hard to sort of hone in on what matters and get that consumer to know that free range hens go outside cage free hens do not like very simple distinctions pasture raised hens not only go outside but have lots more space to be on the pasture they eat bugs and worms that means they're out so just simple things that in the consumer's mind helps them know that they're actually outside enjoying sunshine fresh air fresh snacks that's the kind of thing that we really have to emphasize but it's hard as you said I mean the aisles are are crowded and they're getting more crowded by the day and some of the phrasing purposely drives that kind of head cock of like wait what does that mean right totally yeah how important do you think had this somewhat of an education driven approach has contributed to reaching that top spot we take the role very seriously as as a thought leader and authority in the egg space and P and J's was a pioneer in premium eggs was the first company to launch a branded organic item it's first company to be B Corp certified first company a company to be humane certified we take it very seriously and we really do want to take that position of the more you know the more you'll make a better decision so we do try to create very simple graphics for instance around what we call education um and so we do say here's what it means to be cage free here's what it means to be free range here's what and literally one cent like one phrase not even a sentence and then imagery that's associated with that and we actually have created signage that's a brand agnostic and worked with some of our retail partners to put those strips on shelves so that people can automatically have a Q that says oh okay now I get what this means organic means they're fed organic feed and as opposed to conventional feed and so it's just very simple and straightforward how the hen lives what the hen eats um to get people to choose the premium space because I think most consumers if they saw their hands the images of the hands either crammed into a cage or crammed into a building which is what cage and cage free is they probably a lot of them would choose to move up we do know that roughly two thirds of consumers value animal welfare and what they choose today for their food through their protein sources so if you do value that then it behooves you to do a little bit of homework to see what that true all those phrases truly mean yeah I know in terms of gauging the impact of how this education is is having on consumers well we so we both look at the macro environment and see what the shifting is from commodity when we include cage and cage free in commodity so from commodity to premium so we'll look at numerator data and Surkana data to see on a net basis are we seeing increase and growth in the volume of purchases not just dollars but volume of units being sold in the premium space then we also look at the net impact even in our own brands because it's one thing to get people to shift up it's another thing to get them to choose our brands within the premium space but we do look at those metrics and we look at conversion rates from commodity to premium and then we just and we look at um consumer knowledge of those phrases so we'll do consumer research periodically we'll literally define those different categories and then have people match the definition to the phrase and interesting measure how well people are improving in that process and then we ask them how confident are you in your answer so we're tracking that over time to see and granted you know we have a smaller megaphone than some of the big industrial players but we're just tracking over time to see how much smarter consumers are getting during that communication phase you have the P and Jerry's brand and then also you mentioned Nelly's free range sitting right next to each other on on retail shells how did you and the team think about managing like the two distinct brands in the same category same retailer so grounded in data grounded in analysis we did some segmentation and understood that the premium egg buyer does fall into a couple different segments there's clearly overlaps and things that they care about like animal welfare and quality and value but when you take it down a level you can see that there is a consumer who really does like to tick all the boxes she is she tend she intends to be a she she tends to be more family oriented price a little more price sensitive really cares about animal welfare the planet people being kind to each other companies doing what they say health for her family and so that tends to be the free range buyer someone who wants to step up a little bit and have something a little more special for her family but doesn't necessarily have the financial flexibility to go all the way into a more premium brand and so we call her Ellie the egg involved and we very much talk to her directly with the Nelly's product and the Brinley's brand it's a very kind and exclusive nurturing brand and we use that voice and imagery you have a lot of illustrations of a little cartoon Nelly chicken walking around there's a little girl on the package holding a chicken it's a it's very funny when we've done research there's so many people say the purple carton with the little girl like that is how what Nellie's is associated with and so we very much and we keep our pricing according to that particular consumer so as I said it's our gateway to premium it's the most accessible brand and the most accessible product then when you move into a little bit more of a premium higher end level of the premium egg shopper we have the organic buyer and this cuts across categories but people who tend to choose organic for them it's a shortcut to health and wellness they truly believe that there's no gunk in there and I don't want to put anything that's not organic into my body and so you have someone who really emphasizes whether it's clean protein the nutrients and vitamins that are in eggs the fact that there's GMO free and antibiotic free just those types of claims and we emphasize those on pack and as you know in our Pete and Jerry's organic package it says organic in really big letter letters because that is the Q for that shopper and we call her Beth the better for you Egger like she is very focused on that piece when you talk about the pasture raised consumer that is someone that is what we call Heather the hen hugger she really truly believes and this notion of animal welfare caring for them she wants to know that the hens are well taken care of they're well fed they get to go outside and frolic in the pastures and she knows the stat that on pasture raised farms hens get 108 square feet per hen of outdoor space she has that number memorized so we prominently display on the pasture raised carton 108 square feet per hen outdoor space and some of our pasture raised competitors do the same but we know that both Heather and men even a step up which is pasture raised organic so they both live the pasture life but also get organic feed are just very much focused on the top tier and so that's how we create the distinction and then we use price pack architecture I mean we make sure that our pricing is according to that step up so that it's clear when they're sitting on shelf next to each other not just you know hey these packages are different colors or what's going on but they're priced according to where they are in that graduation yeah traditionally is commodity so it's even harder to create some distinction between them I think first of all is from a product perspective understanding who your target is and what the claims are that matter to them and the things that the decision process that goes into purchasing that product I think is really important to emphasize you can eat see that on our cartons you see that in our communications it's very targeted to the needs and wants and priorities of those different segments and then the brand voice you wanna create some distinction between them so that there is clarity and that's important with brand guidelines and making sure our team not just in the brand management side of the thing but our social team too has to speak with two different voices when we're posting in social or sending emails or just communicating broadly with consumers so it's really important to keep that distinction from a corporate portfolio perspective you don't want to necessarily then therefore be at odds with each other either so that's a fine line to balance right is how do you particularly when it's tiered you don't want the top tier brand to in any way shape or form say things that are denigrating to the lower tier brand point out what's important for that tier without necessarily slamming what's a the lower tier and so that's an important message to have to be done as well you're not saying one's better than the other necessarily you're saying this for this consumer this is what matters to them and here's that's why I'm gonna communicate it yeah that makes total sense too and correct me if I'm wrong if my research is off here but I think prices increased you know I don't know 50 to 90% shelves are empty at some point and they've obviously come back you know at this point but I think for Pete and Jerry's the because of your distributed family farm model you were able to keep prices fairly flat for that really um volatile time while commodity prices were going all over the place and exploding um assuming I got that right and you guys were able to kind of maintain that well within that volatility how did you guys really and I leverage this opportunity from a marketing trials perspective and and anything else related to this kind of unique opportunity yeah last year was a tough one for the egg industry broadly with HPA or high path avian influenza I think that you know if you look at the statistics and the data tens of millions of hens were put down because of avian flu and they 99.9% of them were in the caged and cage free segments so I think it was fortunate for a lot of the premium producers to not have been personally affected but as you point out we were all affected because of what happened with pricing what happened with shortages on the shelf and so we made a commitment at the very beginning of last year that we were not going to raise prices in that environment which is not true of everyone even in the premium space and so we we said we're not gonna raise prices we're going to stay true to who we are and what we stand for but we are gonna do a ton of communicating we are gonna be transparent we are gonna be authentic to our voice to our brands and talk about and take the position as I talked about before of Pete and Jerry's being a leader in the space and share very openly with consumers what's happening so we literally created the where are my eggs website we created a microsite and we were very open and we did weekly tracking of where is H P a I hitting how many birds are is it affecting what's happening on the shelf and just to just give people information so that there wasn't as much confusion and people pointing fingers and saying hey it's the greedy egg producers that are making this happen um and so it was an opportunity that you could have either sort of been more secluded and say hey we've got to tighten things up we can't communicate too much there's too much volatility or you could be open and say here's exactly what's happening now granted we had an advantage to be open cause we had positive things to share about our brand our distributed farm model is a much more a resilient supply chain if you will so we have over 350 farmer um family owned farms that we partner with exclusively you know knock on wood they all experienced a a good solid year last year but it was not easy and you had to exercise you know significant biosecurity measures we didn't have anybody going on farms that didn't belong there um or didn't need to be there I should say um we kept our as much as possible from a distribution and logistics perspective kept our shelves as full as we possibly could and just made sure that we were partnering both with retailers and with consumers during what could very easily have been called a crisis in the space sure totally yeah it must have been a wild a wild time it was very much a wild time raised significantly those you know 59% you guys kept prices the same I imagine you know the prices all became a bit more uh similar across the board I have to imagine the people that had consumers that had been buying um you know the cage cage free ones where those prices increase I imagine you saw at least some of a good amount of those consumers shift over and say well these are the same price I might as well now buy Pete and Jerry's assuming I got that right after prices went down and the other that had transitioned over continue to stick around once they realized wow the quality here is different and I feel better about buying these and all those things yeah you know I mean some cases I think it's lots of brands dreams right how do I create trial right what is what's a circumstance that can create trial so it definitely created trial we had a lot of in terms of what you talked about before metrics we measured new to brand and we always do but we had some good new to brand numbers last year and because of the gap closure between commodity egg pricing and premium egg pricing and in particular our pricing people were certainly trading up from a to a premium egg even though they didn't have to trade up price wise um and so yes we we did see a lot of that and it to your point the goal is to how to make that sticky and keep them there we have found that once people do trade up they do stay because they see the higher quality the yolks are creamier and darker they the shells are harder and sturdier the white it's are more viscous and what we call proud on the plate and they just taste better so the experience the product experience delivers when people do test it I think that then the question is is to your point do they go back down when the price gap widens significantly sure some do but to your point we we measure net flow so we try to say yes there's some movement back and forth but overall if you look at the data on a net basis there is upward movement and not a lot of downward movement so yeah what we try to do is make sure that once someone is in the family we make the experience whether it is the product or the brand experience as strong and as pleasant as possible so that they're gonna stay with us it sounded like it was for all the all the volatility it sound like it was probably a good opportunity for you guys yeah it was a wild ride and now to your point we've got the this year is a little bit of the opposite because what happened last year is lots of businesses and companies in the egg space did what we call put on hand so they bought more and more chicks to replace the ones that were put down and so you're seeing more of an egg surplus in 2026 and so now it's a it's really where the competition comes out you have to say okay if people are having a lot more choices now they're not facing empty shelves anymore how do we make sure they stay stay with our brands yeah totally interesting I believe across both the organic and the new pasture raised lines was just the question of of why Pete and Jerry's pasteurized in our bright yellow box and the decision was even uh even if you take a few steps back before that launch was a little bit of who who has permission Nelly's or Pete and Jerry's to deliver against a pasture raised line because of its step up in premium and the communication around the lifestyle of the hens and we did a fair amount of consumer research search and understood that Pete and Jerry's does have that permission to move into that space and talk very credibly about the lifestyle of the hen even if it wasn't necessarily an organic product which was a big insight once that decision was made we had to obviously create a carton that tapped into the legacy and some of the assets visually and communication wise of Pete and Jerry's it was a premium brand and the things that mattered to consumers but also had a little bit of differentiation from our sort of main brand which was the Pete and Jerry's organic free range egg so the decision was understood about what again what matters to that pasture raised buyer versus that organic buyer what are the um sort of cues from a color perspective from an imagery perspective from a claims perspective so all of those things were taken into account very much so so not only did we redesign the Pete and Jerry's organic free range but we had to create a brand new package which was the pasture raised first and foremost we wanted people to know about pasture and what do you think of when you think of pasture you think of sunlight the bright yellow color um we wanted to then infuse the whole sort of level of brightness and happiness Pete and Jerry's I think prior to 23 was a little bit of a serious more clinical brand from the organic side and we wanted to give it a just a little more personality and infuse a little bit more of frivolity into it um and so that's why we ended up taking if the original package had actually a a picture of a farmer and decided we Learned through research and decided that we didn't necessarily need a farmer an actual farmer on the carton for people to believe that so we replaced it with illustration we also were uh clear about the heritage color of Pete and Jerry's Organic which was navy so we created that navy sort of more um saturated type carton for the Pete and Jerry's organic one so that you could start to do some color blocking cause we knew in the future we were gonna be launching pasture raised organic so we had to create some color association so Navy was more sort of health and wellness and organic yellow Sunshine pasture raised and then we ultimately that last year launched Pasture Raised Organic which is blue skies so it's a sky blue carton bright blue carton and then what we call the Sacred Ribbon which is the side panel that everyone sees when they're shopping that part you had to make sure that there was big writing and something that was that automatic q for the consumer so you can see on the Pete and Jerry's organic one it says in big bright white letters organic and then little small letters says free range underneath it because that consumer didn't care as much about that piece whereas the yellow carton it says in big bright blue letters pasture so that consumer could automatically reach for it and know that that's what matters to them as the pasture raised and as I mentioned before it also had the little hundred and eight square feet stamp on it so that was what went into the thinking um and the why behind it and we had to support that you can't just assume that you're going to throw those things on the shelf and replace the other ones and it's automatically going to so a lot of communications a lot of collaboration with our retail partners just to give people the heads up that this was happening and that we were growing in that space and we are now the fastest growing pasture raised brand that's awesome amazing for um let's just say I was a brand leader of another brand maybe not also introducing new lines but just going through you know a packaging refresh in general or maybe a combination of the two how do you balance how do you think about balancing the need for obviously there's you're creating a fresh look and doing a packaging refresh for for a particular reason while also keeping some of those familiar legacy brand elements for existing customers so when they're walking down the aisle they still recognize the brand right away can find it right away not and then it's not so different looking that they can't even find anymore or don't know what they're looking at anymore it's such a hot topic now especially what happened last year with some logo redesigns that we go unmentioned but I think that it is it's really important sounds so basic but know who you're talking to know who your consumer is and what matters to them and make sure you're sort of bringing along your legacy sort of die hard loyalists but also determining how you attract a new buyer so that you're growing ultimately growing the franchise at some point and so you what you can't do is 100% abandonment of what got you to where you are um and recognizing that but then also knowing if I wanna modernize if I wanna freshen if I wanna appeal to a new consumer what's gonna matter to them so striking that balance is really really important and it we definitely did that um with both Pete and Jerry's and Nelly's because we also relaunched Nelly's in 2024 with a packaging redesign and it was very funny because at the time I wanted to create more linkage between Pete and Jerry's and Nelly so that we could speak to our family and friends so there is a little egg button on the Nelly's package that says part of the Pete and Jerry's family it's honestly not that noticeable so we are working to figure out how to create that linkage even more but even the illustrations have some commonality whether it's tufts of grass or the sunlight we were gonna go completely illustration with Nelly's the same way we did with Pete and Jerry's but we found that our loyalists as I mentioned before are so attached to the little girl and when we turned her into an illustration there was such outrage from the testing there are people saying what did you do to the little girl um and so it's things like that that you sort of say okay the purples people love the purple but could we bring some color elements from Pete and Jerry's like the marigold yellow and so there are nods to creating some linkage the toughest grass as I said the blue skies but can we sharpen up the little girl a little bit clean up the background so there were things that we did to freshen it up and modernize it even the font is a little bit more fun and playful just to again honor who got us to where we are and continue to welcome them but then also to appeal to a new audience too looking back now any big learning lessons from the process that jump out that could be helpful for other CPG leaders that that are about to go through a a a similar process and anything you think you might have done done differently at all I mean I think communication is so important and making sure that you're teasing it with your audience you have your die hard loyalist fans on social and on your email list so making sure that they're brought into the loop and are waiting for it and creating some I think honestly we probably could have done that even more I think you know creating that anticipation and honoring that launch in a more sort of significant way could have been something we worked on but you can't under communicate a change like that um and I think even a lot of brands fall into the trap that they're sick of it therefore everybody else must be sick of it and that's not true you just have to keep messaging and communicating it because you know again there's so much noise out there people are hearing messaging from brands constantly and so you have to figure out how you're just continuing to camera home something and be so deliberate about making sure it gets across as small percentage of it actually probably reaches someone's inner brain in terms of like a lot of categories in CPG I think my sense in in in the egg aisles is a category where a good percentage of the purchase decisions are made at at shelf and I think especially in kind of the refrigerated frozen aisle you know kind of you know in store you know signs and shelf talkers and that kind of stuff there's it can be even a bit more challenging just cause you're sitting behind a glass door or what not and you mentioned you've worked you did some stuff for some retailers non branded like you know it's kind of strips explaining the differences between the categories or what not but yeah what does your kind of in store strategy kind of look like and what have you found actually has the biggest impact from a velocity and trial standpoint yeah that's a great question so I have to say at one of the biggest daunting statistics that I heard when I joined Pete and Jerry's was 75% of the decision from which egg brand to buy is made at at shelf and yeah that's daunting for a marketer right cause you're like hey I don't get to communicate with them along the way there's no consumer journey they're just standing there and making a decision and so you we had I had to tease that apart when I got here and said well what about a premium what about a branded chopper what about and so we've done a fair amount of research and conversations with consumers and walkalongs and shopalongs and things like that to truly tear like tease that out and yes a majority of the decision is still made at shelf there are a lot of different things that factor into that and then there is still as you know in the marketing world there is still a journey that someone goes through when you are permeating their inner soul at some point along that journey not just you know snap when they're at the shelf so the truth is is that the premium buyer it is a lower number that there is a little more intentionality when they go shopping that they know I'm gonna look at this particular category or this segment within the category and then the branded buyer is even more so so that's 1 two when we do a little bit of consumer journey mapping yes the number one bar on what made you aware of this brand or what influenced you is still I saw it on the shelf but when you add up all the other things like I saw it in an ad I read about it online I saw it on social media I follow them on social media a friend referred me all of those little bars add up to a higher bigger bar than I saw it on shelf so immediately we were like okay marketing can help um and so that's one thing that we really didn't want to just say okay only focus on in store or online then two to your point what do we do in store sure we have the strips that's helped a lot um you're only so dependent on only so good as you can get them to execute that in store and no offense to 16 year olds but often times you have a 16 year old who's sort of you know just putting the eggs wherever they go on the shelf and not necessarily keeping them where you want them to be so we do a lot of partnering with our retailers around shelf sets and what's an ideal shelf said and how consumers eyes go across or vertically and where do you wanna put the premiums and do you wanna keep all the organics together so we've done a lot of consumer analysis to look at that and then we share that information with our retail partners so we help them actually create the merchandising a set for them um and then yeah tags we do a fair amount of when we can inserts around you know whether it's dis uh disruptors things that say it whether it's new item or new price or even some education things that have images of like what's behind me of hens on grass you'd be surprised at how much people are influenced by actually seeing a hen on grass and so you'll have sort of a small disruptor with that image there and then our brands so all of the above is kind of where we go from that we explored things like digital signage and Whole Foods for instance that helps you know in those particular activations floor decals door decals for the partners who do have the eggs behind doors so all of that we've been exploring and try to measure as much as we can yeah that will make sense um I think Kate like Kate Tree legislation is rolling out across more states recently where where do you think the premium egg category kind of goes from here and yeah where where you how do you think that impacts and where do you feel like this just this general kind of trend and it is going yes we've been looking at that very closely um starting with California and Massachusetts back in 2022 were the first two states to legislate against caged hens um and now we have seven states that are what we call cage free legislated and you know it slowed down a little bit last year because of avian flu and people were just saying we just need any eggs um but I think it'll start to pick up again and so what we did is some analysis to look at what happens the year after so not surprisingly there's this massive shift from cage to cage free in those states because they can't buy cage anymore but what we also saw was that in the year after that happened there was a very significant increase to free range so because I think consumers were saying well now cage free is the bottom of the barrel this is all sitting here at the bottom so I'm in the bottom bunk we call it so now I'm gonna step up one level and go to free range and so the volume in the States that get legislated is seven times higher for free range than it is in the non um legislated states so we very much keep a close eye on what's happening and actually double down in those states when there's legislation about to come to make sure that our Nelly's brand is um out there and ready to receive all its it welcome with open arms all our new buyers and then the other thing that we look at is um you know how much education we can do in those states and partnering with the retailers to emphasize you know what this means for them and you know the thing that also is a really good piece of information for the retailers is just the basket size that they get or the dollar basket size that they get when consumers are purchasing more premium so it's in their best interest to see to continue to encourage that premium buy and so there's still lots of room to grow um annoyingly and shockingly the caged egg is still the majority of purchases across the United States but we do think that in the next five years maybe three to five years it will shift below 50% wow that'd be awesome and that would be awesome and so there's um the pie is getting bigger and so we're just gonna continue to ride that wave and then obviously encourage more and more into our brand as I talked about before so it's not just riding the wave but it's also getting people to come over to our surfboard I guess right totally and the analogy last question for you Phyllis you definitely have a a a a great pulse in the CPG space in general outside of Pete and Jerry's any particular brands or just kind of trends outside of egg space that you've gotten kind of particularly excited about or you've just been kind of keeping your eye on just cause it's big your interest I think that the trend that I love and particularly toward what helps us as a tailwind is this notion of whole food sources and that people are starting to get smarter about the ingredients in their food products and so you know you can't get something purer and cleaner as a protein than than eggs and it actually is the number one absorbable pre protein across all protein sources um we we refer to it as Nature's Perfect Protein bar and it truly is I mean it it's got not only so much protein packed in it um but it also has tons of nutrients and vitamins and things that can help promote health that is something that I I love to see and I think more and more brands and companies are talking about clean ingredients and simple ingredients and minimal ingredients and you know if you look at some of the protein bars today first of all you can't even pronounce all the ingredients that are in there but you also um you know you run out of space on the package to list them all so I think that is a trend that I love to see I try to incorporate it into my own diet it's not always easy but I think that just they they move away from processed and multi ingredient products is is something that's a great trend totally so I'm excited about that one yep I agree with that well yeah Phyllis this has been awesome um what's the what's the best place for people to follow along with you and all your expertise and then what's the best place for people to follow along with Pete and Jerry's and and Nelly's these days as well for me is on LinkedIn so please come visit Phyllis Rothschild and then Pete and Jerry's and Nelly's we have wonderful social content across the different platforms Instagram TikTok and so we'd love to to see you come visit us there um it's a lot of fun the content is both enjoyable we do a lot of recipes a lot of partnerships with some fun influencers and recipe developers but we also do educational content as well and sharing um where our food comes from where the hens live what the content is of an egg and so it's a I think it's an enjoyable worthwhile way to spend time perfect love it Awesome Phil think that's great I think that's I think that's a pot appreciate the time just in terms of your first inhouse role after so long how do you think about your consulting background that that's so extensive totally shifting gears I've heard you talk about being in the number one spot what metrics are you measuring you do have two brands in a category that hey avian flu crisis it had had a pretty big impact did you see some of those consumers you guys did a pretty significant packaging refresh I just want to start with the company was launching the pasteurized line the in store side of things