Ferment to Be: Cleveland Kitchen Ramps Up Growth as Gut Health Goes Mainstream

Cleveland Kitchen is preparing for a period of high growth following a few years focused on consolidating manufacturing and expanding operations at its Ohio production facility.

The sauerkraut slinger recently raised $2.9 million that will support brand-building initiatives as its founders aim to capitalize on heightened interest in digestive wellness and fermented flavors.

The company manufactures and markets a range of krauts, kimchi, pickled vegetables, dressings and marinades that are sold in 14,000 grocery stores and foodservice accounts across the country.

We sat down with co-founders and brothers Drew Anderson and Mac Anderson to discuss what this latest funding means for the fermented foods company. Answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Tell me about your recent capital raise.

Drew Anderson: While we were in a pretty good financial position, we decided to do a quick round to really focus on the marketing side – as well as some hires on the commercial team – and getting back to telling the story of fresh, delicious, crunchy, fermented vegetables that have a gut health benefit.

Mac Anderson: More and more consumers are looking for whole food nutrition, and gut health is ever important. For Gen Z and younger millennials, gut health is top of mind. More and more, they’re understanding the gut-brain connection, how important it is for skin health and absorption of key nutrients… It’s really cool for us because for the first time we’ve got an entire generation of young people that are looking at fermented foods as very cool and something that they actually know about and should be eating.

You can’t go on social media, you can’t talk to a doctor, you can’t look at your favorite periodical without seeing something around fermented foods. So, we’re so excited to be at this critical point here, and we think we’re just starting to really scratch the surface.

What marketing moves are you making to help tell your story?

Mac Anderson: Of course, nothing moves the needle in retail quite like a yellow tag. Promotions are a big part of our strategy. We’re leveraging Ibotta, Instacart, Walmart Connect, Target.com… as you think about fresh vegetables and the categories we play in, we tend to be on the higher end of ecommerce penetration, so between 30% and 40% for many of our items are getting picked up through dot-com.

We’ve been able to do a lot more research and consumer studies these past couple of years to isolate who our core consumer is and how we reach them. They’re listening to podcasts. They trend healthy, female, premium shopper. So how do we connect with those lifestyle podcasts that they’re listening to, as well as dive deeper into that health conversation?

We are starting to collaborate with Michelin-starred Chef Lee Wolin. He’s got a great chicken restaurant that he owns in Chicago, so we’re doing a pop-up later this summer that will be focused on all of our items tying in with that. Foodservice is a huge growth area.

And we’re just starting to look into that out-of-home media space and billboards, and we’ve got some fun campaigns coming up that our marketing team is very excited to get out there.

Drew Anderson: We’re also doing a refresh of our packaging. It’s not a revolution; it’s an evolution. Current customers will understand it looks better and really shows the fresh vegetables on the pack. We should be launching those in September or October. A lot of great work is going into this, and it should really help the consumer understand what they’re buying and will really pop on-shelf.

How in the past decade has your messaging or objectives changed?

Drew Anderson: We already always knew that gut health was a big piece, but when you get into food products, making claims is always tricky.

We’ve seen competitors come and go where they’re all health-focused, but the product was mushy or didn’t crunch or didn’t have good flavors or wasn’t developed by a chef, and they don’t last because consumers want gut health, but they also want to enjoy what they’re eating.

And so now we’re bringing gut health back into the light because we’ve mastered the quality – I don’t want to say “mastered’ because we can always get better – but we are putting out delicious, crunchy, vibrant fermented veggies, and now we can start speaking around some of the gut health stuff. We’re working with various labs and universities to solidify some of the things that we’re talking about that’ll be the next wave.

Mac Anderson: Mainstream America is ready to be more conscious about what they’re eating and are looking for these functional benefits.

We started with, “Hey, this is the very best sauerkraut you’ve had, and it’s just going to be delicious and crunchy.” And as we’ve continued to scale and mature as a brand, we also understand there’s a whole bunch of consumers out there consuming fresh crunchy vegetables that would love that gut health benefit. And if we can speak to that, we can bring them in.

For years and years, dietitians have been recommending us, but now we see an opportunity to be where consumers are discovering items, whether that’s social media or out at events, and tell that story really quickly: If you could do something that literally takes you opening a package and grabbing a fork for your gut health, would you do it? The answer for a lot of consumers is “yes.”