Feel Good Foods Aims To “Unlock” Growth With Rebrand, New Products

Having spent the last decade establishing itself firmly within the gluten-free frozen food category, Feel Good Foods is now looking beyond the category for the first time with refreshed packaging and a slate of new product innovations.

Bringing a new look to the label and adding both new products and format sizes to the portfolio is part of the New York City-based company’s broader effort to “better articulate what the brand stands for” while showing how it has evolved alongside the gluten-free consumer.

“When we started the environment and category was very different,” said co-founder and CEO Vanessa Philips. “Gluten-free food at that time kind of felt like a compromise.”

In 2011, Feel Good Foods was launched out of the New York City restaurant chain Friedman’s which Philips had helped found. When she was diagnosed with celiac disease, the restaurant reworked its menu to be gluten-free, including offering a wheat-free potsticker that soon garnered attention from other local restaurants.

Along with co-founder and chef Tryg Siverson (who is still a shareholder but no longer is part of day-to-day operations), Philips began innovating the brand with the goal of bringing better tasting gluten-free snacks to the frozen category. Feel Good Foods remains one of the only gluten-free potsticker brands available in the U.S but has also expanded over the years into other categories including breakfast items, pizzas and calzones.

Armed now with its bolder branding and more colorful packaging, the company is expecting the new look to differentiate its products on-shelf and open doors to a broader swathe of retailers.

For Philips, the rebrand’s critical element was making the Feel Good Foods name pop on package, describing the prior iteration as “a bit ambiguous” and “hard for people to find,” particularly as more competition – Saffron Road, Amy’s and Caulipower, to name just a few – has come into the gluten-free category.

According to Circana data, gluten-free frozen snack rolls and appetizers have gained household penetration in the last year.

Feel Good’s revamped look maintains the yellow and purple color scheme but displays the palette more vibrantly on the package. The new labels also increased the font size of the brand name to make it easier to find in store.

Providing clear value propositions to gluten-free shoppers was important to the rebrand, but not focusing too heavily on the claims can also open up the brand to new shoppers looking for better-for-you frozen snacks. In the American Frozen Food Institute’s “Power of Frozen in Retail 2023” report, 18% of consumers are looking for special attributes like gluten-free callouts on front-of-label but “avoiding claim overload” can be “the best way to ensure effectiveness” when reaching a broader cross-section of shoppers.

“We did a lot of work on taking the packaging and putting it on the shelf to see what would really pop,” Philips said. “We really wanted to be able to stand out and not get lost in that sea of other big bold, bright colors [because] we are very unique in that we are offering products that other brands aren’t offering.”

Entering 2024, Feel Good has a number of new products to complement the new package designs.

The company is stepping into the frozen burrito category with four varieties (Chicken, Bean & Cheese; Chicken Chile Verde; Pinto Bean & Cheese; and Roasted Vegetable & Bean) launching exclusively nationwide in Sprouts January 22 (and a number of other retailers in May). The five-ounce burritos will retail between $3.99 and $4.99 each. Philips said there is a big opportunity in the frozen burrito category because gluten-free options are either vegan or vegetarian or are not suitable for those with gluten intolerance.

The frozen food maker recently moved into club stores with its Hatch Chile Mac & Cheese Bites entering select Costco locations in California last month. Finally, the brand is gearing up for an end of February release of a six-ounce package of frozen soup dumplings which will retail for about $7.99 each.

Positioned primarily in natural channel retailers, Feel Good is in over 17,000 doors. The new SKUs and the refreshed packaging are a way to “open up and unlock some channels” where the brand has struggled to gain a foothold, Philips said.

As a way to gain more distribution in both conventional channel retailers and club stores, Feel Good is launching an 18-ounce family size bag of its potstickers in nearly all Whole Foods nationwide — which carries the largest number of Feel Good Foods products — this month.

In the past, the company has focused on “traditional” and natural channel retailers, Philips said, but she has always felt the brand was a “perfect” fit for the conventional and club channel consumers where frozen snacks and apps tend to be in a larger pack size.

“It’s party food. It’s great for entertaining,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot more innovation that we’re going to be doing in the club channel and I’m really excited to see that come to fruition.”