• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer @mahoney_sarah, 9 hours ago

Since launching in 2014 with classic kraut and later authentic kimchi, Cleveland Kitchen has tapped into America’s growing fascination with fermented foods. Its newest offering—dill pickles, lightly fermented and refrigerated—is carving out new territory in a booming category.

With a bold campaign developed with the help of ChatGPT and a modest media budget of $100,000, the Cleveland-based brand hopes to turn heads and win hearts (and guts). Now sold in 15,000 stores across the U.S., including Walmart and Target, Cleveland Kitchen is thinking big. Amanda Shoemaker, director of marketing, tells CPG Insider what the company has learned along the way.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CPG Insider: Let’s start with the founders’ story. How did Cleveland Kitchen get its start?

Amanda Shoemaker: It was started by two brothers and a brother-in-law. Their hobby was making homemade sauerkraut. Friends and family would come in and say, 'What’s that smell?’ And the more people tasted it, the more convinced they were that they were on to something, and they started selling at local farmers’ markets. People loved it. Next, they got a commercial kitchen – they worked day jobs, and cooked at night, and eventually got into a local Cleveland market.

Then they expanded into kimchi, traveling to Korea to train with chefs there, and working with a local Korean chef. There’s no fish sauce, so it is vegan.

CPG Insider: Pickles are everywhere. How did the “limp pickle” campaign come to be?

Shoemaker: I know. There are so many collabs, I think you could probably find some pickle-scented body lotion if you looked hard enough.

We very much wanted to build on what makes our pickles better—they’re fresh and crunchy. But they also have these gut-friendly, live cultures in them, which we call lightly fermented. And we wanted to stop people in their tracks. So, I put a prompt into ChatGPT, giving it enough information to come up with ideas for breaking through the clutter of pickle mania, and asked for campaign and slogan ideas around this idea of building a better pickle, and “Don’t Settle for a Limp Pickle” was one of the ideas that came back. I was like, “That’s it! That’s the one!” The more the team talked about it, the more we loved it. It’s a little polarizing, but funny.

We tested a few executions with consumers and realized it was going to be polarizing no matter how far we leaned into it. So, let's make this as funny and memorable as possible, and ended up with this billboard campaign. We want people to think of us as a firm pickle.

CPG Insider: Some people still think using ChatGPT this way is cheating.

Shoemaker: I don’t. I think all marketers are probably experimenting at this point. We’re small, and when your resources are limited, you've got to use the tools that you have. ChatGPT really came through for us on this one.

CPG Insider: “Lightly fermented” is a distinctive trait. Why not highlight that more directly?

Shoemaker: People know what fermented means, but the term lightly fermented is a bit harder to explain, especially in a billboard. Our pickles are crunchy, delicious and gut-happy, and it’s hard to communicate all three. As we continue down this path, we will be able to get to a point where we can start talking about lightly fermented as a bigger piece of our campaign.

CPG Insider: How will you know if this campaign is a winner?

Shoemaker: We want a much bigger piece of the pie. We're tracking awareness with social listening. Because the campaign is a little cheeky, we’re hoping to see conversations, even on Reddit. We’re sending out influencer kits that are fun, and our previous influencer efforts have worked well, with 60% of them posting about our products, sometimes multiple posts, especially for our pickle lemonade promotion.

CPG Insider: What do you think has driven the brand’s growth, beyond the fermentation craze?

Shoemaker: The product itself. Many people who grew up eating shelf-stable sauerkraut, including me. It’s mushy. This is fresh and crunchy. Beyond that, these guys have a great brand story. They are brothers, and a family that hangs out together. They all live down the street from each other. I think being from the Midwest helps, too. And they’ve got a lot of pride and passion. They put a lot of hustle and grit into this brand, and it shows.