Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing · Mike Gelb

How She's Bringing The Belgian Waffle To The American Diet...and 8,400+ stores with Anouck Gotlib, CEO of Belgian Boys

·48 min·3 clips

Anouck got a rejection email from Daniel Lubetzky’s team, then later closed with Camino Partners.

1. Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing covers Belgian Boys and the move from Belgian treats to U.S. retail. 2. Mike Gelb hosts Anouck Gottlieb, CEO of Belgian Boys, and her husband Greg’s idea matters because he started the company from Belgian waffles in college. 3. The episode asks how a Belgian food brand reached 8,400+ stores and why refrigerated breakfast became the company’s better fit. 4. Greg brought Belgian waffles and treats from Belgium to his dorm, noticed friends loved them, and saw that the product was hard to find in America. 5. Anouck met Greg on a flight from Belgium to New York while she was heading to a fashion internship in New York City. 6. Anouck says she used fashion skills like Photoshop, Illustrator, sketching, and conceptualizing to help with branding and design at night. 7. She describes fashion as a “very, very toxic industry” and says she resigned after returning from an engagement and feeling drained at work. 8. Belgian Boys started with car-based selling in Manhattan, then moved into specialty stores with Robin’s help. 9. She names The Fresh Market, Central Market, Harmons, Whole Foods, Target, Meijer, Publix, Kroger, and Walmart as part of the retail path. 10. The company initially struggled with a better-for-you retail trend because Belgian Boys was more indulgent than natural-channel buyers expected. 11. Anouck says buyers first called the line “frozen breakfast,” but she and Greg believed the product belonged in refrigerated breakfast. 12. She explains that most Americans open the fridge in the morning, while frozen breakfast required shoppers to cross the store for an everyday item. 13. Belgian Boys stayed in frozen breakfast for years, then got a refrigerated shot in 2019 and later showed strong performance at Walmart. 14. She says the company launched in Walmart with 65 stores and had a logistical nightmare across four DCs. 15. She says the refrigerated format later outperformed frozen at Walmart and then expanded from 65 to 900 Walmart stores in four years. 16. The CMA published a case study of refrigerated breakfast with Belgian Boys as one of the highlighted brands. 17. Anouck says refrigerated breakfast is operationally harder because the products have to be dated and managed on weekly ordering cadences. 18. She says the 2021 raise followed years of bootstrapping and a decision to go out after Walmart and Target data showed product-market fit. 19. She says people should listen if they care about CPG, retail distribution, or building a brand from scratch. 20. It is less useful for listeners who want a fast-moving startup story without retail logistics detail.

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