More Than A Cookie

Catching up on all the things we've been up to: Launching at 500 new retail doors (!!!)Emma's been flying around the country for various retailer meetingsStella's pregnant (again!)Bringing back our seasonal gingerbread cookie SKUGearing up for holiday seasonAll the exciting things we have on the rise

WE'RE BACK WITH SEASON 2! Kicking it off with the incredible Monique from Ambitious Kitchen whose first cookbook comes out September 17th!Monique launched Ambitious Kitchen back in 2011 and learned how powerful food can be when we hold a positive place for it in our lives. While she was in college she developed an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise. What started as an extra workout during the week quickly turned into counting every calorie, labeling certain foods as “good” and “bad,” and eventually lead to her battle with an eating disorder.Facing and acknowledging these hardships allowed her to heal and refocus on finding a balance with both food and exerciseHer recipes are here to help you find your own version of healthy, whatever that may mean for you.

TW: In this episode, Stella and Emma dive into their eating disorder recovery and how this journey impacted the start and mission of Stellar Eats. They dive into how they healed their relationship with food, how the "instagram foodie" craze is diet culture in disguise, and why cooking and baking at home can be so healing. 

Sheena Russell, an entrepreneur driven by her passion for creating a more equitable world, is the trailblazing founder behind Made with Local, a delicious Canadian snack food brand. We chat with her about: sustainability vs "rocketship" business growth, working with her husband, Made with Local's USA expansion, exciting branding updates, and the immense effort she puts into sourcing only the best ingredients. 

Stella and Emma chat about feeling good in the business, how your attitude impacts your outlook, what helps them focus, tik tok strategy and funny product requests

In this episode, we're joined by Just Date CEO Samantha Abramson. We chat about how to cope when things go wrong, business resilience, and how dating prepares you for fundraising.  Sam has been a marketing leader for global brands and global teams for the past 12+ years. She launched over 100 products at Apple Inc. and helped form operations at the height of the brand's popularity.Sam joined Just Date to unlock growth and boost brand awareness. Sam has been an invaluable asset to the company's growth and helped with the launch of 3+ NEW products (including a delicious date sweetened chocolate chip)! 

For as long as she can remember, Sydney has always been passionate about food and cooking. In an attempt to rediscover her love for food after falling trap to the often-obsessive health food world, she began her food blog, @sydney_kw.Inspired by her late French grandmother and her time living in Bordeaux, she began sharing her meals, recipes and favorite restaurants.What started out as just a food Instagram, has now turned into a business, with @frenchsquirrel.coBerets, nutrient-dense, vegan and gluten-free refrigerated protein bitesBateaux, nut butter-stuffed organic Medjool dates, both coated in 100% pure, unsweetened chocolate.Bisous, peanut butter and chocolate-coated vegan and gluten-free cereal clusters dusted in date sugar.Sydney is a Certified Hormone Specialist, specializing in blood sugar management and female health through a nutrition perspective. After experiencing hormone imbalances, she discovered a natural and holistic approach to heal her hormones through diet, exercise, and powerful adaptogens and herbs.

In this episode, Emma and Stella arrive in New York City for an exciting work event. In classic startup fashion, the day was not without hiccups. Listen to this episode for some fun banter, travel stories, and a hilarious mishap that left them taking red eye flights for no reason. 

In this episode, Emma and Stella dive into how they manage stress as entrepreneurs. They chat about how they cope in especially tough moments, how they set boundaries, and how they attempt good time management while being pulled in many directions

In this episode, Stella and Emma chat all things motherhood, new products, delicious recipes, and pitching products to stores as they get ready for an event together!

In this JUICY episode, Emma and Stella spill some tea on all the situations that have left them feeling "wronged". They're naming names, they're not holding back. 

Stella and Emma discuss what it's like working together as friends and business partners

In this episode, Stella and Emma chat all things MARKETING! What works, what doesn't, mistakes they have made, the difference between influencer marketing vs paid ads and which they've found more success with. They also chat about the differences between Instagram and Tiktok when it comes to marketing and how one of their videos went viral for a very funny reason. 

In this episode Emma and Stella discuss some of the more taxing aspects of entrepreneurship, why a quick pivot is harder some days than others, and they spill the tea on some new product formulation!Highlights: We get vulnerable after a particularly rough day. Entrepreneurship ain't all rainbows!Help us pick our new product!! 

In this episode, Stella Vanstone and Emma Kula unpack some of the wilder things they have encountered as women in business. From body shaming, condescending emails, imposter syndrome, and fellow founders not taking them seriously, this episode is full of some hot tea that is sure to resonate with any women in the workforce. 

TW: Stella and Emma discuss their shared histories about struggling with eating disorders and how these journeys impacted the mission behind Stellar Eats.They  dive into diet culture, how the early 2000s version of “health food” was a lot of diets in disguise, and why they hate when people say foods are ‘guilt-free'KEY TAKEAWAYS: “Diet culture” wants you to believe that being skinny is the most important thing about you. When in reality, it's the most boring.Brands/media want you to believe being skinny is the #1 goal and that its the main indicator of health/wellness.Diet culture aims to reduce you down into the least interesting thing about you - how small you are.

Stella Vanstone and Emma Kula reflect on how far they've come from the early days in commercial kitchens at 2am, hand pouring product, and hand-stickering bags.Come along as we discuss the early days of Stellar Eats and some of our biggest kitchen mishaps and fails. We've come a long way. But growth in the business also means...growth in the scale of problems. To put it simply -- more products, more problems. -----  Storytime. When we started Stellar Eats, we had JUST enough money in our bank account to buy our first round of ingredients, print some stickers, and to buy some white pouches (to apply said stickers to). With just enough leftover to rent a shared commercial kitchen in “off hours” AKA 8pm - 8am. Queue the worst night of our lives….It's hot. It's dark. We're wearing hairnets and lugging 50lb bags of cocoa powder down a dark hallway.We thought the 3 of us were going to make our first 1,000 mixes.  We had brought a big metal bowl and a giant whisk.Help. lol.To say it went badly was an understatement. Tears were shed, cockroaches were trapped underneath crates, powder was spilled, and turns out trying to mix 25 lbs of baking mix by hand with 1 whisk was not the most efficient. Our 1,000 mix goal quickly became 500, then 300…100 mixes later…It's 4am when we finally leave the kitchen. Covered in powder, sweat and tears we silently walk towards our cars ready to head home. Ultimately defeated and questioning what we have done.As we're about to leave, Michelle says, “well….can't say we killed it. But we can say we did it.” and the 3 of us burst out laughing. We laughed for a solid 5 minutes straight. It was the worst and the best. We had just made our first Stellar Eats products.We got into our first 5 stores and sold out of product within 2 weeks. So, back to the kitchen we went. This time to one without cockroaches.

MORE THAN A COOKIE: A podcast by Stella Vanstone and Emma Kula, the founders of Stellar Eats-- We're here to disrupt the way brands speak to consumers so we figured, let's start the conversation via a fun podcast full of industry disrupting hot takes, business BTS, and so much more.We truly knew nothing when we started this business. We went in fully naive, but fully ready to learn. And wow…have we learned. It's been a wild ride over the last 3 years and we want to share that journey with you. For the good, the bad, the ugly. Come along with us as we problem solve on a real-time basis, talk to other founders, and attempt to laugh off the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship.More than a cookie resonates with us for more than just our mission. It's also about empowering other women in business. The reality is that it can be hard out there for women in business.  We want to shed light on female strength, resiliency, and even though we might look sweet, we're tough cookies.