Inside the product that makes cottage cheese cool again
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Cottage cheese was classic.
And ten years ago, Jesse Merrill went to the store and noticed.
“It was like a cobweb on a shelf,” he says. “It looked like products that hadn’t been invented since the 1970s. Cottage cheese was there [once] it’s actually bigger than yogurt, and it collapsed because of a complete lack of innovation.”
Merrill had gone to the store on purpose. He says he joined Honest Tea as VP of marketing when the company was doing less than $10 million a year, and in five years helped turn it around to $80 million a year and, eventually, was acquired by Coca-Cola. He wanted to launch his machine-led brand, so he went hunting for inspiration. And as he scanned that shelf for a product that was high in protein and high in sugar—but woefully outdated in its design and other ingredients—he found it.
Soon, he and co-founder Anders Eisner founded Good Culture, a brand they wanted to represent everything in the cottage cheese realm at the time.
“It was about a $1.1 billion phase when I came into the space, so a big phase, [but] category growth has been flat or declining for decades,” Merrill said. “So for me, being a marketer, being a brand builder, I just saw that as a huge opportunity.”
And it paid off: What was once a sleepy remnant of food culture left over from the ’70s is now a thriving $1.52 billion business. Good Culture is available in more than 16,000 stores, is the second best-selling cottage cheese brand behind dairy stalwart Daisy, and reached $100 million in revenue this year. Company representatives say that it is currently in a position to double that.
Here is the way.
COMTAGE INDUSTRY
As Merrill worked to build Good Culture, something else happened that would prove critical to the brand: He got sick. Specifically, he was diagnosed with autoimmune ulcerative colitis. Faced with an incurable disease, he consulted an integrative specialist and completely changed his diet. She says that by eating a strict diet of cultured foods like kimchi and sauerkraut, as well as grass-fed dairy, grass-fed meats, cooked vegetables and fruits, her symptoms significantly decreased and eventually disappeared.
He praises the experience of shaping the way of Good Culture in its ingredients.
“I have clear guidelines on what ingredients to use and what ingredients not to use based on what you are treating,” he said. “And it really strengthened and reinforced my belief that you can heal your body with food.”
Merrill wanted to make a product without preservatives, gums, or any artificial ingredients (and wanted to do so in a way that would put the “good” in “Good Culture” by creating better conditions for the animals).
All praiseworthy—but often a glimpse of flash-in-the-pan products that never spread beyond health food stores. So how did he pull it off?
Merrill knew from the start that he was working on a product that was different, especially when it came to the texture of cottage cheese, which can turn people off if it’s too watery or thick. So he started in his own kitchen. He tested everything he could find on the market, analyzing factors such as the amount of cream and curd, then began to develop a sensory profile and experimented with flavor combinations, from sweet ingredients to fruit. With his ideal combination in hand, he went to the packers (companies that pack goods on contract, deliver them safely and market them). And he hit wall after wall.
“If you are a person with no history in dairy – you don’t have volumes, you haven’t distributed them, you are just a person who has a dream and a plan for a small business that he did in his home. -It’s very difficult to get these packers to want to work with you.”
After four months of phone calls and door-knocking, he found a small farmer-owned cooperative in Wisconsin that was willing to work with a small group and agreed with his idea that the space was ripe for disruption. They went back and forth for months of R&D, and produced the first edition of Good Culture just before Natural Products Expo West (the industry’s annual trade show) in March 2015.
From a design perspective, Merrill says the brand strives for a “modern vintage” aesthetic—contemporary vibes that can contrast the vintage-looking offerings on the shelves while nodding to the brand’s artistic elements. He wanted it to feel sophisticated and clean to speak to the younger consumer demo (more on that soon)—and the design does just that, especially with a modern, quirky logo that’s different from its legacy, more sophisticated rival. artisan yogurt rather than classic curd. Ideally, since most cottage cheese comes in tubs, he also wanted to offer single-use cups.
He didn’t know what to expect before Expo West. So it may have been a bit of a surprise when someone from the big vendor arrived with their booth number stamped on the back of their hand.
“I was in a very small, very small area of the convention center because that was all we could afford,” Merrill said. “He was like, ‘Everybody’s talking about you on the main floor.’
Many others followed.
CULTURE OF GOOD CULTURE
In the end, Good Culture became popular, and Merrill says he left the event with distribution at Whole Foods and Sprouts. In 2016, General Mills and others participated in a 2.1 million seed round. In 2022, Good Culture raised a Series C of $64 million.
Then TikTok happened.
It is easy to say that Good Culture was in the right place at the right time. It was. But the company has been crafting its product to appeal to new audiences since its inception, from its branding and ingredients to its focus on animal welfare and sustainability. As a result, Merrill says it has already found a new segment of the audience while traditional cheese companies are fighting for the same consumers.
In 2023, TikTokers started showing their love for cottage cheese in a big way—and sharing off-the-wall recipes for everything from cottage cheese ice cream to pancakes to mustard combos to flatbreads—and the old food staple suddenly went viral. .
“We were a brand that was at the core of what content was being put out there, which was amazing for us,” Merrill said of the move, which continues today. “It builds a foundation.”
As it did before with romance novels, TikTok made cottage cheese cool and popular again—and Good Culture got a lot of exposure. (Not long ago, the brand even called on creative agency &Walsh to help capture the zeitgeist.)
What does that boom look like in numbers?
According to John Crawford, SVP of customer insights for the milk division at Circana, TikTok posted volume growth in the second quarter of 2023, growing 7.7%—and it’s back. there are nine vertical components of descending volume. It jumped again in the third quarter of 2023 to 13.7%, and has remained at around 13% until today. Reps for Good Culture say that last year the company showed a growth of 35% to 80%. Currently, it is growing at a rate of 90%.
“The growth of cottage cheese has been phenomenal,” Crawford said in an email exchange. “It was really surprising when it started.”
The media called cottage cheese “temporary.” Would he agree?
“Maybe even more than a second,” he writes. “Six straight quarters of volume gains, growth expected to continue.”
Given the dynamic nature of the internet and food trends in general, I ask Crawford and Merrill if they see this all as a bubble.
“Initially when the trends started, I expected them to be short-lived and fashionable, but more ideas about the use of cottage cheese increased its long-term use and turned the fad into a lasting trend,” said Crawford. “I expect growth to continue, but at a moderate pace, as the category closes in on two years of double-digit growth. I believe that the basic nature of cottage cheese that appeals to young consumers and offers new consumption opportunities sets the stage for long-term potential. “
On the other hand, Merrill says Good Culture is the nexus of a series of evolving mega trends, from sustainability to clean labels—and, well, cottage cheese is an old product. Perhaps ironically, given all the distractions, he sees that as a good thing.
“This is not like a new gimmicky ingredient or a food we introduced that no one knew about,” he said. “Cottage cheese has been around for a long time. It’s just been relaunched in a really impactful way, and people are finally recognizing the delicious food that’s been overlooked for what it is.”
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