Gut Check #13: Zero to Launch in Six months

Welcome to Gut Check by Sourmilk 👋 We’re on a mission to heal America’s gut, starting with a probiotic organic greek yogurt. Gut Check is our way of keeping family and friends in the loop – if you’re new here, you can check out previous editions on our site anytime :)

Our First Major Milestone

It’s hard to believe it’s been six months since Kiki and I quit our jobs to work on Sourmilk full-time. And now, we’ve hit our first massive milestone: you can actually order yogurt!

To some, this might feel incredibly fast. To others—especially those who’ve been waiting eagerly for the moment they could finally try our yogurt—it’s probably felt like ages.

When we started, we had no idea how we’d end up delivering thousands of containers of yogurt to people across NYC. But we were ready to roll up our sleeves and figure it out.

How We Got Here

From day one, we knew that to build a successful CPG brand, we needed to excel at two things:

1. Marketing

2. Logistics

While most CPG companies start with #2 (production, logistics, etc.) then move onto #1 (brand awareness and distribution), we took the opposite approach. We spent the past six months building a strong community in NYC, deeply understanding our customers, and generating early excitement and brand awareness.

Because yogurt is perishable, timing is everything. We can’t just make thousands of containers and store them for years. Once we went into large-scale production, we needed to be confident that people were ready and excited to try it.

Over the past few months, we’ve grown our Starter Crew to over 1,000 people in NYC, which gave us the conviction to kick off our first major production run (shout out to everyone in the crew who has already ordered Sourmilk!).

Factory Mode

Last week, Kiki and I drove upstate, ran shifts from 6AM to 1AM, and produced our first-ever large-scale batch of Sourmilk yogurt—and we’re so proud of how it turned out.

We’ve gone through more than 200 recipe iterations to create a product that’s not only incredibly good for your gut, but also tastes amazing. Recipe development is one thing; getting that yogurt into your hands is a whole different beast.

Here’s what it actually takes for you to enjoy Sourmilk:

1. 🐄 Cows are milked at local dairy farms in upstate NY

2. 🚛 The raw milk is delivered to our factory in tankers or totes

3. 🔬 The milk is pasteurized to remove any harmful bacteria

4. 🧫 We inoculate it with our probiotic cultures to start the yogurt fermentation

5. 🏷️ While it ferments, we manually sticker thousands of single-serve containers by hand

6. 🧃 The yogurt is strained (Greek style), filled, and cooled

7. 📦 We hand-pack containers into cases and stack them onto pallets

8. ❄️ A refrigerated truck picks them up and delivers them to our warehouse

9. 🚲 When you place an order on sourmilk.com, we manually update inventory, hop on CitiBikes, and head to the warehouse to fulfill your order

It’s truly a labor of love 💙

What the People are Saying

Exactly week ago, we launched our very first Sourmilk drop—and already, nearly 200 of you have purchased more than 800 containers of yogurt! Some of you even came back for seconds after tasting it (which absolutely made our day 🥹).

The feedback has been incredible. Here are a few highlights:

Top of Mind 

💙 More pickup locations added: We’ve gotten a ton of requests to open up more pickup slots in more locations so we’ve updated the site (including Fort Greene and the Upper West Side). And yes—you can order more than once (as long as we have supply, go for it!).

👜 Shopify x Bubble Goods Farmers Market: Last weekend, we teamed up with Locanut to serve yogurt parfaits at the Shopify x Bubble Goods pop-up. It was a huge hit—thank you to everyone who came by!

🥛Whole Milk is IN: We were featured on The Consumer Packaged Goods Directory (CPGD) newsletter this week. You can read the full article, but here’s  a short snippet:

See you at the next yogurt pickup ;)

Elan and Kiki (The Yogurt Girls)