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Developing CBD-infused products unlike any others
Learn how wellness brand Pot d’Huile launched a CBD-infused condiment line with world-renowned chefs and why they chose ShipBob to fulfil orders for them.
Customer Profile
Based in San Francisco, Pot d’Huile sells CBD-infused olive oil, hot sauce, and chili oil to chefs, bakers, and home cooks. Committed to high-quality ingredients, top-notch sourcing, and great flavour, these premium California-made products are accessible everywhere from your home to a 3 Michelin star restaurant.
Pot d’Huile (French for ‘pot of oil’), or PdH for short, is not afraid to shake things up in the wellness space.
What began as a cannabis-infused olive oil in Northern California created by Bay Area food entrepreneurs, developed into a CBD-only line of premium products made in collabouration with many of the co-founders’ chef friends, who were inspired to make their own creations with the CBD-infused olive oil.
Their website has a collection of recipes along with condiments you can purchase to bring Pot d’Huile to your pantry or refrigerator.
We sat down with Yannick Crespo, Co-Founder & President of Pot d’Huile, to learn more about how Pot d’Huile became an up-and-coming CBD brand disrupting the wellness and culinary spaces.
Developing CBD-infused products unlike any others
As told to ShipBob by Yannick Crespo, Co-Founder & President of Pot d’Huile.
Olive oil plays a big part in our daily lives, and we couldn’t think of a better vehicle for people to explore and enjoy recommended doses of CBD, which is why we set out to make the finest hemp-infused olive oil on the market.
We first explored ingestibles in the Northern California market (e.g., packaged foods like gummies, chocolates, and other edibles packed with sugar) and wanted to create something healthier with a great flavour.
I collabourated with a friend who is an olive oil producer and infused her products with CBD and other herbs. We also partnered with a chef who created a healthy ingestible CBD product. After testing the idea a couple years ago, we quickly realised it resonated with quite a large audience.
Today, our health and wellness brand sells three CBD products in the United States. Olive oil was our flagship product when we launched, but our CBD-infused hot sauce called Hot Sloth is our best seller. It’s a tangy hot pink sauce featuring habanero, lightly fermented plum, and a funky base note of umami.
Our Pot d’Huile CBD hot sauce is great on grilled cheese, quesadillas, mac and cheese, breakfast sandwiches, and more. Its popularity is due in part to the collabourators behind it including chef Mike Bagale, previous Executive Chef at 3 Michelin star restaurant Alinea (where he invented the famous edible balloon) and founder of culinary consulting firm Super Food Concepts, alongside Kat Odell, a food journalist and entrepreneur.
At the very start, we worked out of a commercial kitchen and did fulfilment and shipping ourselves, packing orders and bringing them to FedEx. As we scaled, we realised it was not sustainable.
Then we worked out of a co-packing facility, whose core competency was manufacturing — not fulfilment. They had a fulfilment option attached that we used briefly but it wasn’t viable for our business. We started looking for the best option possible. In networking with other CPG manufacturers and friends in the space, I was pointed to ShipBob several times.
Partnering with a scalable fulfilment provider
ShipBob came highly recommended. We even did our own research on other 3PLs, but ShipBob was definitely the gold standard.
We went through ShipBob’s self-onboarding Growth Plan process when we started. Once I got the hang of it and figured out the ins and outs, it was smooth sailing.
ShipBob’s platform is easy to use and navigate, the interface is intuitive, and the analytics are very clearly laid out. I give ShipBob’s technology a 9/10.
Their WRO process for sending inventory is very simple — just print a BOL, slap it on the outer box, and view the status in real time.
Getting our WooCommerce shop integrated with ShipBob was easy, and it’s been fantastic to have; we had no problem with it.
We can see our orders come in and get fulfiled in real time without any hiccups for the most part, which is great.
“Our fulfilment is on autopilot. ShipBob saves us so much effort, and the opportunity cost savings has been substantial.”
Yannick Crespo, Co-Founder & President of Pot d’Huile
I’ve been spending my time on business development and strategic partnerships, reaching out to retailers to see if they want our product on their shelves. Rather than us packing boxes and going to FedEx, or paying additional fees to another third-party, having ShipBob do it all is awesome.
What’s next for Pot d’Huile?
We’ve been in product development mode, onboarding our newer hot sauce and chili oil products and taking pre-orders for them.
We will continue to bring on new suites of products and collabourations — between launching expanded condiment lines and working with more world-renowned chefs to create recipes with our products.
In addition to Chicago-based Alinea, we’re working with other Michelin star restaurants in Chicago including Elske (you can see an ice cream recipe here by Anna Posey, one of the chef-owners of Elske using our hemp-CBD olive oil), which is across from ShipBob’s headquarters on Randolph Street in the West Loop, as well as other Michelin starred chefs that use our products. These collabourations turn into more than just recipes but actual one-of-a-kind condiments.
We’ll continue to bring health and wellness products to the market that allow for safe consumption and experimentation with food, and we are very happy to work with a partner like ShipBob.
Learn more
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