EP.173/ ROTTEN CANDY
Flavor First, Rules Second: Rotten's Strategy Playbook
In this episode, we sit down with Michael Fisher, Founder & CEO of Rotten, the better-for-you candy brand that’s rewriting the rules of CPG with bold flavor, unapologetic branding, and an omnichannel strategy built for today’s consumer.
Michael shares the unexpected origin story behind Rotten—from his childhood obsession with sour gummies to realizing the “healthy” candy world felt too clinical and joyless. Instead of leaning into the typical wellness aesthetic, he embraced rebellion, nostalgia, and fun, creating a brand that looks indulgent but performs better.
We cover everything from branding that disrupts the aisle, to acquisition tactics in an impulse-driven category, to how Rotten approaches retention when customers bounce between Sprouts, Amazon, TikTok Shop, airports, and DTC. Michael also breaks down the surprising not-so-seasonal nature of candy, the power of founder-led content, and why an omnichannel retention strategy is the only realistic approach for modern CPG brands.
If you’re interested in brand building, retail expansion, customer behavior, or breaking conventions in a crowded market, this episode delivers a masterclass in standing out—by being unapologetically different.
EP. 173
MICHAEL FISHER
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Retention Chronicles. Michael, thank you so much for
being with me today. I'm so excited.
We are going to be talking all about rotten candy. I think it's really going to make people crave
candy, so I think it'll be fun. And there's so much to talk about.
You just launched Nationwide and Sprouts, which we're obviously going to celebrate because
that's a huge announcement. And if people have, you know, if they're really craving candy right
now, I really think you should go check out Rotten's website, their branding. We're going to be
talking a lot about that today because I am obsessed with it and obviously a marketer by heart.
So go check out eatrotten.com, do all the things and then come back to this podcast to learn
about the technical side. But as our listeners know, I always pass off the microphone to our
guests to give our background, give context for everyone. So Michael, say hi to our audience
and tell us about yourself.
Hello. Yeah. Thank you for having me on.
Super excited to chat as well. And thank you for sharing that Sprouts news. If anyone lives by a
Sprouts, you can go, go find two of our products there right now with some more exciting
announcements there soon.
But right now you can find our original crunchies and our sour crunchies. So quick background
on myself. My name is Michael.
I live in Santa Monica and I'm the founder and CEO of Rotten. Rotten is a better for you candy
company. So we make candy with way less sugar, gut friendly prebiotic fiber, and then none of
the artificial dyes.
And I sort of fell into the world of CPG. Like, you know, I worked in e-commerce and startups
before, but the candy industry was truly just like something I loved as a consumer. And so really
kind of was, was brand new to the industry there.
And yeah, I think just being a huge sour gummy candy freak and you know, wanting healthier
options, that was really kind of driving force for me. Yeah. I love it.
I have to ask before we get into like more serious professional side of things. How many like
bags are you eating? Like I want to ask a day, but we'll give you some cushion and ask like a
month. Like if you had to guess.
I love this question. And I'm so curious, like if you ask it to a bunch of other founders that youtalk to, I would love to see someone's survey results for this because I now am like, like candy is
it's always around me and I'm always talking about it. It's work for me.
And so I actually find that I don't eat as much now as I did before, or when I was first starting
rotten, which is sad, I guess. But, but it's just the honest truth. I think it's funny at trade shows,
you know, we'll be sampling the product.
And so I'm standing at the booth and, you know, get hungry and our candy is there. And so I
end up snacking on it a lot at trade shows. And I'm always like, oh, wow, I haven't had that in a
while.
It's still delicious. Good job. That's good.
That's good. You have that where maybe, yeah, the, the habit of eating isn't as prevalent, but
when you have it, you're like, oh, that's good. Yeah.
I feel like I, I am going to actually start asking this more and more to my guests because I, from
the few that I've asked, it has been this same trend of like, now that it's surrounding me, I'm
like, I actually don't eat it as much, which is so funny. Cause obviously you think that it would be
the exact opposite. Um, yeah, yeah.
And I know like a founder who has a chocolate brand and I am like, I'm so I have such a sweet
tooth, but like chocolate is, I mean, I can't understand. She was like, I, yeah, I just don't have the
craving for it anymore. And I was like, wow, you have some of the best chocolates in the world.
Like, how are you not just like eating all the products as it's coming up, like literally off the line.
So that that's always a fun one. Yes.
Um, okay. Oh my gosh. I feel like I'm going to say sweet so many times during this podcast
episode, non-ironically.
Yeah. I'll just cut. That'll be like the promo for the episode.
It's just me saying sweet, sweet, sweet. And then just eat rotten. So, okay.
Now we have kind of like fun stuff out of the way. Like I mentioned, we're going to get, it's
going to continue to be fun. Your branding is awesome.
I love it. Um, so, but obviously want to go into founder story a little bit. I think it is always so fun
to hear just different elements that our audience connects with of, you know, moments from
your story and your brand.
So you, you said, you know, you alluded, you kind of fell into the space had always been around
e-commerce. So give us a little bit more of the background of like, you know, having a sweet
tooth, how did you start to parlay that into like, okay, I want a better for you, you know, candy.
How did you like start to decide, okay, I'm going to be the one to do it? Yeah.So I guess, you know, backing up a little bit, I grew up in San Francisco, youngest of four, and it
was my older brother who, you know, introduced me to sour gummy candy. He is the real one
who's obsessed in that, you know, trickled down to me. But so, you know, like always had it
around was always eating it like huge, huge thing for us to, you know, be on road trips, buy it in
gas stations, convenience stores.
Once we were able to like started ordering it in Amazon on bulk. And, you know, I think also
loved like trying some of the new like texture innovation that was coming out in the like gummy
space and, you know, multiple textures and all that ended up going to Stanford studied
engineering, thought I was going to go, you know, work in tech, like in the startup space and
ended up going to work for an e-commerce startup there as you know, one of the first two
employees and absolutely loved it. Like I think, you know, one of the most fun years of my life
and knew I wanted to start my own company.
What that was going to be was kind of unclear at the time. And there were, you know, a couple
of different things that were happening that ultimately really pushed me into making a better
for you candy. One was I was starting to try to eat way healthier.
And the main way I was doing that was really trying to cut back on my sugar intake. So like I
had stopped drinking soda and was really cutting back on candy, too, but missed it. And so
went out and tried, you know, both zero sugar gummy candy options and then some of the low
sugar options out there.
And I wasn't super happy with what I found. I think the products didn't totally meet like what I
was expecting them to taste like or the texture. And then the other piece was like they were all
very branded as like diet or healthy candies.
And even though that's the product I wanted, it felt lame. Like I didn't want to be I didn't want
to be eating it. It wasn't fun anymore.
And so around that same time, I just moved to L.A. and Liquid Death had just launched here.
And I was such a fan of, you know, the way that way of thinking around like what would happen
if you branded a healthy product with in a lot of ways, unhealthy looking brand. And that
combined with the fact that that was what I was looking for in a product from the candy space
was really inspirational.
And so, you know, started Rotten from there and ended up talking to a bunch of other people,
like reached out to different groups from college, high school. I did this program called Venture
for America. And so, you know, had focus groups with people from Venture for America.
And like what I kept hearing over and over from people was, yes, we want to eat healthier. Like
that is a goal of ours. But this idea of healthy candy is really off-putting because it sounds like
it's not going to taste good.
So in my head, I'm like, OK, well, awesome. Like that's kind of how I was feeling turned off bywhat looked like healthy candy when that was the product I wanted. And so with Rotten, it
became kind of all about like how can we build the brand and the experience to feel candy first
and then on the but kind of inside deliver you the healthier product that you are looking for.
Yeah. No, it makes a ton of sense. I feel like this is the age old discussion of where branding
comes into play.
Right. Or where branding comes into play of what is the messaging like a way, obviously, from
the product, because obviously, like you said, the product on the inside is going to stay the
same no matter what the branding is. You're looking as a consumer, you're looking at brands,
you're like, I'm used to seeing bright and colorful, you know, messaging around it being fun
and nostalgic and all these other feelings that the packaging emotes versus traditionally more.
I don't want to say like of a clinical look, but kind of clinical of like all white packaging or very
clean and healthy, like simple products. It's traditional for them to have like all white packaging
and like one color maybe. And so to kind of like flip it up, flip it on its head, like Liquid Death
was doing with canned water, like what you're doing with rotten.
It's like this very like it catches your attention, right? Like the marketing case study is there of
like, it grabs your attention, but it also plays on that nostalgic factor of, okay, I don't want
something that feels like it's robbing me of the experience, not just like the flavors or the profile
of the like our traditional candies on the market right now. So I see that I see that in your
branding where it's like, okay, how can we kind of have this play on the experience of it's a
better for you candy, but like even the name like being called rotten, it's like, oh, that entices
you of, it's kind of what's the word starts with an O. Oxymoron. Thank you.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, completely. I think, I think it's also important, like as, as a, an early stage brand
to think through, like how you break through the noise, people develop like pattern
recognition, like you think about someone scrolling a social feed, and you think, okay, what's
gonna you think about like thumb stop for digital content? And you're like, what's gonna make
them stop because it looks different.
It's not like what they're expecting to see come next. And like, we thought about and we think
about our branding and the way it exists in the physical world in the aisle, etc. Like in that same
way, like, how do we break? How do we bring the unexpected? Because if it's expected, people
won't, people are less likely to really spend time and engage with it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think this part lays nicely into, as we're talking about capturing
attention and branding into like a conversation about acquisition, because obviously, this
podcast is called retention chronicles, I focus mostly on retention, but you have to use, you
have to have acquisition to have retention, right? So walk me through, I think, like, touching on
branding as we have, but like, how do you draw the consumer in to be like, okay, this is
obviously a product that it's within the bag, it's taste, right? Like that's, CPG is great, because
you can convince a lot of people at the taste when they're sampling, or it's a, you know, youhave like single serve packets, and you guys also have value packs. So you can convince a lot of
people when they're trying it, but if they're just buying it, and you're not there to give samples,
or there's, you know, no experience there previously, it also can be a trickier thing, because
they can't feel it, they can't taste it yet, they don't have the sensory experience.
So walk me through like, with a product like yours, how you approach acquiring new
customers? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think it's so different for every category. You know,
when you look at candy, candies primarily shopped in retail environments, online e commerce
is growing very, very quickly, but it's still a small portion of sales.
And that makes sense. Because I cannot remember the stat off the top my head right now. But
some very high percentage of sales in our category are impulsive sales.
So even when you go, you know, when you think about your shopper in a grocery store,
oftentimes candy will not be on the grocery list, it will be purchased more impulsively in the
store. And so having online work with that can be challenging, because there's just more
friction with online shopping. That makes impulsive purchases sometimes more challenging.
You also think about the bundle sizes you sell online to make the economics work. And that also
is, you know, has friction with an impulsive buy because it's more than a few dollars. So all of
that I think makes are some headwinds for online acquisition with candy.
I think the way we confront that is we really do try and lean in with the product and
deliciousness because ultimately, you know, the online purchases, they are still going to be
driven by impulse. And, you know, when someone's buying a bunch of sour gummy candy
online, it's probably because they're hungry. And it looked and you know, the visuals looked
good.
It looked like it tasted good. I think we we lead with that because we're aware of that's what's
going on with the shopper when they're, you know, in purchase mode. I think we bring in more
of the like health benefits and, you know, reasons to buy on the back end because we are a
better for you premium product.
And so it's important for us to communicate that to the customer. But definitely we lead with
showing visuals of the candy, people talking about the taste, you know, if we're going with sour
candy, like showing a visual sour reaction. So those are definitely kind of some of the key tactics
that we use for acquisition.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense that obviously, I know. Oh, gosh, I'm blanking on who it was.
But it's like, if you can lead with a product demo, right? Like, it'll sell itself of like, okay, seeing
people's reactions, or, you know, the visual of the candy itself or the product itself.
And I feel like the point of impulse buying is really, really interesting. Because typically, if
someone is shopping online, they're going to do more research on it than maybe in retail,
because they have their computer right there. They're not like rushing out of a grocery storetrying to just like throw things in the basket.
At least that's how I grocery shop. It's just chaos. So maybe people do more research before
they go into stores.
But I know I do more research when I'm shopping online. Typically, you're right, like you're not
going to have as many impulse buys versus in store. And I feel like you can even segment that
out a little bit further of first time buyers versus repeat buyers, where first time buyers, maybe
they will be it'll be more of a impulse buy online.
But then assuming right, like customers have a great experience with your brand, they like the
product, then they come back. And then it's an intentional like, okay, I know I like this product, I
want to bulk up and buy whatever so that I have it in stock, because I know I will reach for a
candy. And I want it to be I want rotten to be there when I do.
So I think that's also like an even deeper layer of that like impulse buy and acquisition. Yeah,
completely. And I feel like one of the things that I also just obviously candy is, and especially in
the US is Halloween.
And I feel like, you know, obviously, like October, November, December, we have a lot of
holidays that hit and a lot of those holidays are centered around food. It's just a big part of our
socialization. And so I want to know, like, are there is that kind of like your Super Bowl? Or like,
how do you think about specifically the seasonality of candy or even like Valentine's Day, right?
Like things like that, because we are we are coming up on Halloween, which is great to say, but
I think it would be a fun and very like poignant conversation to be had by having here.
Yeah, it's a it's a great question. I mean, candy as a whole is seasonal, but then you know, you
look at our branding, and then you're like, wow, that is a dead ringer for Halloween. So I think
we've seen some seasonality, but probably not as much as you would expect.
I think because we are making everyday candy products, like we're making the types of
products that people snack on daily, and we are a better for you brand that it does, like even
out our sales a little bit. But I will say one thing we do really lean into with Halloween is it's a
great time for us with our retail partners to get secondary off shelf placements. So we have
these awesome shippers, like that's actually an old version of one right behind me.
And Halloween becomes a great moment for us as a brand in these stores to like get the
product on those shippers like out in the aisle and away from the candy aisle. So if you're not,
you know, specifically looking for candy, you might still see our brand. So it's a great kind of
seasonal moment for that.
I think, you know, you'll also see us more from like a brand marketing perspective lean into
Halloween. And we're definitely seeing people who love Halloween, like start to celebrate it
earlier and earlier every year. Forget who did this, but someone had a LinkedIn post like back in
June of a palette of like Halloween themed snacks or candy at Costco.And you know, it was like, wow, even in early summer, we've already started celebrating
Halloween because like people just love Halloween. So I think for us as a brand, you know, we'll
see a big benefit from that as we you know, lean into using rotten and the rotten style branding
to you know, celebrate Halloween with your friends or family or whoever it is. Yeah, yeah, for
sure.
No, that totally makes sense. Yeah, I feel like every holiday is just it keeps moving up and up
and up. So it's like at some point, they're gonna overlap, they keep going.
And then it's just reset the whole calendar. And we'll still be trying to catch up to the calendar
endlessly. Okay, that that makes a lot of sense.
And yeah, I feel like it's interesting to think about, you know, like maybe not trick or treat
Halloween or like, you know, like the actual holiday, the actual day itself, but just like the
seasonality of people being in the mindset. And like you said, with branding, like people are
like, Oh, that's so interesting. Like you have is it a is it a monster? Do you have a name for Yeah,
it's a it's a freak.
Okay. That's what I thought. I was like, I remember.
Yeah. Yes. What is it? Frankie freak.
Frankie Frankie. Yes. Yes.
Oh, how could you? Yeah, exactly. So sorry, Michael. How could I? That's on me.
So yeah, just like very fun branding. Very fun playing on. Obviously.
Yeah, just like the Ryan and going crazy with the candy. So we've covered acquisition. Are there
any other things that you know, have you've learned along the way in terms of acquisition,
where it's like helpful, where, you know, maybe you thought about it one way, but you pivoted
anything else that in the realm of acquisition would be great for our audience to hear from you?
Yeah, I think, you know, and lots of people are already aware of this, but I think it was, you
know, new to me, just how helpful it is, is like leverage the founder for content, like the founder
story, and it just resonates a lot with people.
And so as you're looking to acquire customers, like, oftentimes, you know, founders in
industries like this, like we're solving our own problems. And if you're having that problem,
there's a lot of other people out there having that same problem. So I think just talking about it
is super effective and something that I wasn't fully aware of, you know, I am not someone who
loves recording, you know, content with myself.
So it wasn't something I wanted to do when I initially set out and started rotten, but it's
required of me for the job. So I do it now. Yeah, maybe you could, you know, reframe it that
way, where it's like, it's work.It's not, you know, it's not me just doing it. Yeah, that's, that's great. I feel like a lot of people
relate to that.
And both on the consumer and operations side, right, where you work in this industry, you
obviously interface with a lot more operators and founders. But even as a consumer, it's like I
see a brand and their founder is speaking to it or whatever. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, I'm here for
it.
I'm here. So I love that. Okay, now let's jump into retention.
Tell me about how you think about retention, obviously, very hand in hand with acquisition. But
I'll pass you the mic. Just kind of give us the lay of the land at rotten.
Yeah, I think retention is interesting as a very omni channel brand. So our goal is to be available
wherever you are when you're in the mood to buy candy. And so that means retail, like grocery
convenience, airports, it means you know, online and Amazon and tick tock shop.
And so I think retention plays an interesting role, because we're not necessarily so laser
focused on retaining people in one channel, like we have to have the mindset that providing
someone an amazing experience on our website, like they might go repurchase four months,
six months later in a store, or vice versa, someone tries us in a store, because they can buy it for
$3. And then they come to our site, and they buy a big bundle and subscribe. So I think, you
know, without going into like super specifics of like tactics or anything like that, like, I think
that's just an important mindset to have when approaching retention, because it's just
acknowledging the reality of like how people are buying from us, and how they're going to
want to buy from us.
It also means that like, things aren't necessarily as trackable. Like we can't just look at like our,
you know, email SMS tool and be like, that's those are the only customers we're retaining, or
that's what retention looks like it, it does have to be a broader kind of full, full channel full
funnel focus. Yeah, that's and that's the also like tail as old as time of omni channel, like if
you're not fully DTC.
And even like it happens with if you're e commerce, but you're on a third party platform, like
Amazon, you still don't get that customer data, like it really is only DTC where you get, you
know, those retention rates of seeing like, okay, this person has shopped with us multiple
times. And so I feel like that's, that is the difficulty, but also the blessing of having different
channels. Because if someone wants to buy with you, you have to meet them where they are,
you're not going to, you know, you're it's, it's a harder battle to win, to try and fight for them to
shop in the way that's best for your brand, you want to meet them with the way that's
preferable to shop for them, which it like you said, it adds in terms of attribution and tracking
where orders are coming from wherever, wherever the retention lies, it's tougher.
But I know a lot of brands will use the learnings from e commerce to then try and translate asbest as they can to retail or third party sites. Do you feel like that's applicable where it's like,
okay, we're seeing, you know, customers online will try us with the single serves, but then
they'll jump to value if they, you know, like the taste, have a good experience? Yeah, definitely.
And I think I think we encourage cross channel sales, like you'll see us whether it's in email or
in, you know, inserts in your order from our DTC site, you'll see us actually like push people to
shop in store if there's a store that's we're showing is like super convenient to them.
So I think, you know, we want to encourage that. And we want to help people see all of the
different places that they can continue shopping rotten. Yeah.
And like, like we started this episode out with, with launching nationwide at sprouts, it's like,
also the retail game, how that works is like, obviously, you want to generate foot traffic there to
show, you know, this is a great product, people will shop and play that game too. So it's like,
even if DTC, you're encouraging people through email or through SMS, like, hey, go shop at
spouts, we just launched, you're still using those channels to then feedback, or if someone buys
us routes, and then they see on the package, like, oh, whatever. I don't know if you have like
any, you know, callbacks to shop DTC, or like website, right? Like some, some little learn more
something that but you can then feedback into DTC.
So they can, you know, it's, what's the it's like rising tides, rising tides, raise all ships or
something like that. Right? Yeah, lift all boats. Yeah, cool.
I'm helping you. Yeah, exactly. They know, they know, they got it.
So yeah, I feel like that's where you can feed in with each other. Yeah, it's a it's a great point.
And I think you have to look at business health overall, like in some ways, once you when you
go very omni channel, there's, it can be helpful in certain instances to look at a specific channel.
But otherwise, it's it is less helpful because you know, you do want to be encouraging people to
buy whichever way is most convenient for them in that moment. Yeah. And would you say that
like to know off the top of your head? Okay, if you don't, because I'm asking you for a stat off
the top of your head, but like the split in terms of channels versus like DTC third party retail, like
a rough idea? Yeah, we so we launched at the end of 2023.
So like a little over a year and a half ago, and we launched as a direct consumer brand. We
added Amazon after that. And then we did like a couple small retail tests in 2024.
This year 2025 has been like our huge kind of retail breakout year. So right now we're still
majority e commerce. So DTC and Amazon, but we are very quickly seeing that shift as we go
into, you know, partners like sprouts.
Yep. Makes sense. Okay, cool.
So okay, retention for let's focus specifically in DTC realm, you mentioned like email, SMS, I
think a lot of brands feel that like that is one of the best levers to pull of, you know, we'repromoting this new product, this new flavor, this new offering, email the customer base, send
out SMS have that channel, and I think most are familiar with it. What other channels, if any, are
you leveraging for specifically online like social media, or any other like platforms that you'd call
out? Yeah, definitely with social media. And you know, one thing we've tested is specifically, I
think it's called broadcast channels on Instagram.
And so thinking through, and there are other tools, you know, that do this as well. But just
thinking through, like, how can we create small communities for like our biggest brand fans
and give them exclusive access to things or deeper discounts, or you know, whatever that looks
like. One other piece we are hoping to, we've tested a little and hoping to test more is like
custom marketing inserts in our direct to consumer orders.
So looking at being able to, you know, not just include like the same static insert in every order,
but really create flows that print on demand the insert for each order. So going back to like
driving someone in store, for example, like if their delivery address is within a mile of one of our
stores on our store locator, we could call that out to that customer and even include like a
coupon that they can go use to buy that product in the store. So definitely trying to be kind of
creative in the ways that we communicate with with the customer.
And again, encourage like that cross channel. Yeah, no, I love like custom inserts. I feel like
people are it's always, it's always a swing where it's like fully digital marketing.
And then sometimes like going back into more like print and display like with, you know, more
like traditional quote unquote, with billboards and stuff like that. So I love that call out of trying
to just be personalized and saying, Hey, we, you know, we know you live within this radius or
whatever, like go shop and here's a perk to do so. Or like if you have a late night craving, you
know, like just so you know, we're closer than maybe you would think.
And I feel like I want to check the name for it, but I just saw TikTok launched like these, I think
they're called boards, which I very briefly saw it, but a couple of brands that I follow, I think like
sent out invites to all their followers and they, I think it's like a messaging board within TikTok.
And I was like, that's like a community within TikTok. Have you heard about this at all? Or it was
like, it might've been yesterday, like very, very new.
And so I'm like, I have it on my to do list to look into. And I don't know what it actually entails,
but it like, it was basically like a group chat with like, they sent a message and then a bunch of
people were just responding with emojis. So like, I don't know if it's like interactive in terms of,
you know, followers can engage back, but it might be like a new development from TikTok.
So if you're looking into like social media. Yeah. Yeah.
I'll check that out. Communities. Yeah.
So hopefully I'm advertising that correctly, but I need to look into it myself. So as everything is
right, it just gets added onto the to do list, but okay. It makes a lot of sense around social mediaand whatnot.
Are there any other channels you're leveraging for retention or mostly like social and email
inserts? Yeah. Right now, mostly those. Yeah.
Makes a lot of sense. I feel like, have you seen like being able to roll out other like non-digital
like in retail? Like I know there can be, it's like little tags where it's like, you know, like any
discounts in retail to get people to shop again. Have you like experimented with any of that or
no? Cause you're kind of like just really getting into retail.
Yeah. We, so I think you're talking about shelf talkers. Yes.
That's what, yeah. Yeah. We, I think if we've done a shelf talker program, I don't think we've
done one yet.
Biggest thing we've really done is kind of more so around these shippers and bringing those in
store. Yeah. Oh yeah.
That's also retention play, like getting people to shop if they've already shopped with you again
and acquisition. Okay. And then last question, cause I'm going to wrap us up here in a few.
I always like to ask, are there examples of like fun campaigns that you guys have run where it's
like, damn, really loved running that campaign or like one that were, you know, you guys are
about to run. It could be from your brand or another brand. Like I know we mentioned liquid
death where it's like, I feel like in this area, I have a lot of reverence for seeing what people are
doing.
And I'm like, that is so creative. I love that for you. So I like to ask other founders, you know,
what comes to mind when I ask that? Yeah, I guess specifically on the, I'll give like a retention
campaign.
