After a devastating diagnosis of celiac disease at age 20, Vanessa Phillips had to rewrite the menu in a city that runs on bagels and carbs.<\/p>\n
Phillips, now 42, wanted nothing more than to be able to eat her go-to comfort foods without spending her days in pain. After the success of her first venture into the gluten-free market, opening the beloved restaurant Friedman\u2019s in Chelsea Market<\/a>, she set out to recreate her favorite nostalgic dishes in a way that felt good for everyone \u2014 hence the name of her company, Feel Good Foods<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, nearly 15 years after sending a blind sample to someone at Whole Foods, Phillips has made her mark as the queen of gluten-free in nearly 25,000 grocery stores.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it all began with an idea off of our restaurant menu that we put in a Ziploc bag and sent off to one buyer,\u201d Phillips told The Post.<\/p>\n Vanessa Phillips has made her mark as the queen of gluten-free in nearly 25,000 grocery stores. Feel Good Foods<\/p>\n Born and raised in New York City to a family of restaurateurs, Phillips spent her early years immersed in what she dubbed the \u201crestaurant mecca of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Her dad owned Chinese restaurants and bagel stores across the city \u2014 people used to affectionately call him the \u201cBagel King,\u201d she said \u2014 so she pretty much only ate bagels, dumplings, and egg rolls growing up.<\/p>\n \u201cLike a true New Yorker in the \u201990s,\u201d she quipped.<\/p>\n Phillips started to experience different symptoms when she was in her teens, and she couldn\u2019t pinpoint what the culprit was \u2014 though she knew it was something that she was eating on a daily basis.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to joke with my mom and say, \u2018As long as I can keep eating dumplings and egg rolls for the rest of my life, I\u2019m good, I don\u2019t even care,\u2019 \u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n Vanessa Phillips made her way into the gluten-free food market after a devastating diagnosis of celiac disease at 20. Feel Good Foods<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until she was in college that she was officially diagnosed with celiac disease, which afflicts about 1%<\/a> of the US population, and learned that she needed to go on a strict gluten-free diet. When she moved back to NYC after graduating, it became increasingly obvious that she had to change the way she interacted with food, particularly at restaurants.<\/p>\n \u201cI figured from an early age I was probably going to go into the restaurant industry just because that is what was so familiar to me, and I loved food so much,\u201d Phillips shared with The Post. \u201cBut after going gluten-free, I needed to figure out how to continue my passion of eating and cooking and being this epicurean, but in a way where my body doesn\u2019t hate me the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n When Friedman\u2019s first opened in 2009, it was still a time when the concept of gluten-free food was fringe \u2014 today, around\u00a025% of Americans<\/a>\u00a0eat gluten-free products \u2014 but Phillips was adamant on making sure the spot was a \u201cgluten-free safe haven<\/a>\u201d for those with celiac. <\/p>\n Feel Good Foods tests all of its gluten-free products against products with gluten for taste. Feel Good Foods<\/p>\n To this day, Phillips herself doesn\u2019t typically go to exclusively gluten-free restaurants, but rather she has her favorite restaurants where she can find something gluten-free, such as a bagel at Sadelle\u2019s<\/a>, fried chicken at COQODAQ<\/a>, the highly-acclaimed chicken parm at Rubirosa<\/a>, doughnuts at Doughnut Plant<\/a>, or a slice of pizza at Sag Pizza<\/a> in Sag Harbor.<\/p>\n Phillips recalled that when she was first diagnosed, one thing that really bothered her was going to a restaurant and getting a special menu for gluten-free items. <\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I was a kid getting a kid\u2019s menu,\u201d she lamented.<\/p>\n She wanted Friedman\u2019s to be inclusive without a separate menu for those with the dietary restriction; there would be only one menu for everyone, and it would be entirely gluten-free. Shockingly, the restaurant developed a cult following.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got people from all over the world that were, like, \u2018Wow, this is exactly what I\u2019m looking for in the city I live in,\u2019 \u201d Phillips shared. <\/p>\n Phillips also saw a huge gap in the market. After going gluten-free, every time she grocery-shopped, she found that the frozen food section was \u201cuninspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy is it that if I buy something in the frozen section, it\u2019s not real food? Why is the quality not there?\u201d she wondered, adding that it sparked her idea to bring restaurant-quality food to the frozen aisle. \u201cI wanted people to feel like they were getting takeout at home.\u201d<\/p>\n With no background in CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods), Phillips tested gluten-free dumplings as Feel Good Food\u2019s flagship product, selling them in Ziploc bags at the restaurant and sending blind samples to a contact at Whole Foods \u2014 with no connection and no meeting.<\/p>\n Everything Feel Good Foods launches start in Phillips\u2019 own kitchen. Feel Good Foods<\/p>\n Two weeks after sending those samples, she received a positive email telling her that the idea of gluten-free dumplings was innovative since it didn\u2019t exist at the time \u2014 but most importantly, it didn\u2019t taste gluten-free. <\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t think it\u2019s enough to just be gluten-free. We test everything against products with gluten in them,\u201d she added. \u201cWe want the texture and the crunch and the crisp to all be so that you don\u2019t even notice the difference. And if we feel it misses the mark on taste, we don\u2019t launch it.\u201d<\/p>\n And Phillips loves watching people eat her food for the time time \u2014 because people are either expecting it to be good or they\u2019re pleasantly surprised.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, if you\u2019re living from that place of deprivation where you\u2019re gluten-free and you\u2019ve been gluten-free for many years, and you have these food memories of missing it and you eat it today and it\u2019s so nostalgic for you, that\u2019s the best,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Phillips shared that when she was younger, before she was gluten-free, she\u2019d go to a restaurant called Jackson Hole on the Upper West Side every day after school with her friends, and they would sit around a table eating mozzarella sticks \u2014 and that memory of the cheesy treats is what has stuck with her all these years later.<\/p>\n Today, mozzarella sticks are Feel Good Foods\u2019 No. 1 snack product, and Phillips says it\u2019s because it brings back happy memories.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of my best food memories are less about the actual food that I was eating and more about where I was and who I was with,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cWhether it was a holiday or I was having a party, we were all together, snacking and sharing.\u201d<\/p>\n To that end, Phillips made communal experience a big brand pillar, targeting snacks and appetizers.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, its focus is about the food, but it\u2019s also the eating occasion. You\u2019re not alone, you\u2019re together, you\u2019re laughing, and you\u2019re sharing, and it\u2019s incredibly fun,\u201d she explained. \u201cObviously, the food is a really big part of that, but it\u2019s so much more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n Nostalgic mozzarella sticks are the brand\u2019s top snack product, Phillips said. Feel Good Foods<\/p>\n Even though Feel Good Foods is a gluten-free brand, Phillips noted that over 85% of their current consumers actually have no issues with gluten. Similar to her vision with Friedman\u2019s, she\u2019s found that maybe one person in a household is gluten-free, but the whole house is buying the brand so everyone can enjoy together.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all about creating food that if it\u2019s good enough and it tastes good enough, it\u2019s going to be inclusive for everyone to enjoy,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really speaking to a much broader consumer base that\u2019s not just living gluten-free, but rather looking for convenient foods, great for kids, great for snacking \u2014 the ultimate mom hack,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cIt\u2019s really this brand that\u2019s very fun because it kind of gives you permission to indulge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a devastating diagnosis of celiac disease at age 20, Vanessa Phillips had to rewrite the menu in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[4701,1017,144,60726,26595,134,1260,263,54181,111,139,556,69,5510],"class_list":{"0":"post-401785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-diseases","9":"tag-exclusive","10":"tag-food-drink","11":"tag-gluten","12":"tag-gluten-free","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-human-interest","15":"tag-lifestyle","16":"tag-metro","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nutrition","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-wellness"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}