The Best Idea Yet - 🧀 Goldfish Crackers: The Most Romantic Snack | 24

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Margaret Rudkin’s family was in crisis. The Great Depression cleaned out their finances, her husband was bedridden after an accident, and her son was suffering from crippling allergies. Things were looking grim… until Margaret invented a revolutionary wheat bread, and built a baked-goods empire named for the tree in her front yard: Pepperidge Farm. A visionary businesswoman, Margaret’s talents extended way beyond the kitchen. She grew her company by haggling sweet deals for new Pepperidge Farm products—including a certain baked cracker from Switzerland shaped like a tiny fish. Learn the incredible story of how Pepperidge Farm evolved Goldfish from romantic birthday gift, to Julia Child’s favorite appetizer, to a billion-dollar brand embraced by little kids and Gen-Z alike. Here’s why Goldfish Crackers are the best idea yet. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletter Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the best idea yet early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Jack, most romantic thing you've ever done, what do you got? It's gotta be that extravagant gesture. Early in the game with Alex, who's now my wife, I made a big move to win her love. I'd met Alex just two weeks prior in Vermont, but only seen her once. And we both knew we were going to be in New York city

in two weeks. It's Saturday night. I'm hanging out with buddies. She texts me that she's at the Mets game. So I go to Grand Central, transfer to the seven train, go all the way out to Flushing Queen and you buy a ticket for the game. Not quite. So I find the ticket office. Ilushing Queen and you buy a ticket for the game. Not quite.

So I find the ticket office. I go in there and I say, Hey, is there any way I can get into the game? And they're like, dude, it's the bottom of the seventh inning. Tomorrow you can get into the next game. And I say, guys, it's about a girl. I gotta get in there. The guy looks at me and he goes, is it just you?

And I say, yes. He turns his head the other way and slides a ticket across the table. Wow. So I'm in this random box behind the third way and slides a ticket across the table. Wow. So I'm in this random box behind the third base. Guess what? I see Alex. She's in the same box as me.

So I jump over a couple of rows and I say, Hey, I'm here. He's like, how'd you even get in here? Game's almost done. I know, it was incredible. Yada, yada, yada. Four years later, Jack marries this girl and it all is because he made a plea to the ticket guy

at a Mets game in the bottom of the seventh. Well, perfect timing because today's story was made possible by just such a romantic gesture. But we're not talking about champagne or a box of chocolates or late Mets tickets to surprise some girl at a game. We are talking about Goldfish. some girl at a game, we are talking about Goldfish. I love the fishes because they're so delicious. I'm Goldfish-ing. Goldfish, fantastic fish, excellent cracker. And it is the cracker we are going to be talking about, by the way, not the contents of your neighbor's Koi pond.

Jack, Goldfish fan? Yes, no. I've bitten off a few tails of my day. I once traded five warheads for three Goldfish, so I'm pretty sure that qualifies as big on goldfish. Goldfish are having a major business moment right now. Owned by Campbell's, the $12 billion food company, Goldfish accounts for one quarter of Campbell's total snack sales. These goldfish are swimming faster than all the other snacks in the Campbell's portfolio.

And yes, that includes Snyder's pretzels, Pop Secret, and kettle chips. And this domination of the snack landscape has officially made Goldfish a $1 billion brand. And now Jack, we should point out that when you picture a Goldfish cracker, you're probably imagining a classic orange cheddar fish with a little smile on its face, pairs well with school lunches, field trips,

or the ultimate play date. But we discovered that Goldfish were not always cheese flavored. Oh, and they were not always smiling. Oh, and they were not always for kids. Goldfish actually started over in Switzerland as a romantic gesture between a baker and his wife. These crackers were dreamed up by one of the original wife guys, but they became a global phenomenon because

of Pepperidge Farm. That's right, the architects of Milano cookies and the Chesapeake's are also responsible for bringing these goldfishes across the Atlantic. For us to really tell the untold story of goldfish, we need to look at Pepperidge Farm's founder, who, fun fact, is not a folksy old guy in suspenders with a straw hat. Before we started researching this story, that's exactly who I thought was behind Pepperidge Farms. Well, it turns out Pepperidge Farms founder

was actually a business woman named Margaret Rudkin, who was way ahead of her time. She blazed trails and she took names, all while advocating for women in the workplace. Thanks to Margaret's hustle and insane ingenuity, Goldfish went from a bartender's best friend to a lunchbox fave to the official cracker of Gen Z. And yes, Hello Kitty Goldfish will be making an appearance.

I just can't wait to dive in at this point. Deep dive, baby. We're gonna need a bigger boat. Here's why Goldfish crackers is the best idea yet. From Wondery Ante Boy, I'm Nick Martel. And I'm Jack Kraviche Kramer. And this is The Best Idea Yet. The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. And the bold risk takers that brought them to life. Until April 2nd, sky-high elegance at dream prices during the Air France Rendez-vous.

It's time to book your Rendez-vous with Paris, starting at $765, or Madrid, starting at $885 return. From Toronto, tax included. You can enjoy a glass of champagne however you fly, economy included. Elegance is a journey. Air France. Travel from March 17th to June 28th and from August 24th to November 30th, 2025. See conditions at airfrance.ca. In a tiny doctor's office in Fairfield, Connecticut, a little boy is squirming around as a cold stethoscope touches his chest. It's 1937 and Margaret Rudkin is worried about her youngest son.

Mark is what people in the 1930s would call sickly, It's 1937 and Margaret Rudkin is worried about her youngest son. Mark is what people in the 1930s would call sickly with digestive problems and asthma. So Margaret has brought him to a specialist to find out what's wrong. Mark is fussing and wiggling as the doc just tries to push a tongue depressor into his mouth until Margaret leans over and in a firm, tells him to be still and Mark obeys. His mother, you see, she is not someone you want to mess with. His mother is Margaret, born Margaret Fogarty, the oldest of five in a big Irish family living in New York City.

Her granny taught her how to bake, but Margaret's ambitions would take her way beyond the kitchen. Margaret graduated valedictorian of her high school class and then got to work as a bookkeeper for a local bank. She gets promoted all the way up the chain and then gets hired away by a big time Wall Street brokerage firm. Margaret became the first female employee in this brokerage firm's history. And this is 1919, one year before women could even vote in the United States. And yet this young woman is balancing the books for the financial elite of New York

City. Now, eventually she meets a stockbroker named Henry Rudkin and they get married. And as the firm and the market do well, so do the Rudkins. So in 1926, following in the tradition of many Wall Street elite, Margaret and Henry go Connecticut casual. And they buy a farm up in Fairfield, Connecticut. Not just any farm though, Jack. This is a 125 acre plot with a pepperage tree right in the front yard.

Man, real estate was so much easier in the 1920s. But naturally with that gigantic pepperage tree in the middle of the property, they call the place Pepperidge Farm. But this newly bougie finance couple isn't quite ready to put on overalls and get dirt under their nails. Instead, the Rutkins hire full-time staff for this country home. Margaret ends up leaving her bookkeeping job, and then she and Henry, they take up some

genteel sports like polo, hunting, and if we have time, a little bit of riding. They also have three sons in five years, all while looking fabulous in some Knits and Tweed. So far, Nick, this sounds like Margaret's pulled off the Connecticut dream. Totally. I'm picturing a Hallmark video and I'm smelling freshly baked bread inside. It's the blueberry muffins, Jack. But if this is a Hallmark movie, as you describe it, then the act to twist is a doozy. Because in 1929, the booming stock market that they've depended on crashes, triggering the Great Depression. The Great Depression. It's a recurring character in this podcast series.

Few forces seem to drive entrepreneurial pivots more than a good old-fashioned financial meltdown. Jack, the Great Depression, it hits the Rudkin household hard. Because when the stock market nosedives, a brokerage firm, yeah, it isn't the best place to work. To make matters worse, Henry suffers a terrible polo accident. He's unable to work, so he actually goes six months with zero income. And so just like that, their storybook existence begins to collapse. With her husband recovering from his injuries, Margaret sells off the horses and lays off the help. Suddenly, the farm is no longer a fun lifestyle choice. The farm is the key

to the Rudkin survival. It's time to turn Pepperidge Farm into an actual working farm. She's trading those tweeds in for denim overalls and starts selling apples from the orchard and chickens from the coop. She also takes over cooking for the entire family, reviving recipes from her youth. She keeps the whole family afloat in the kitchen and out of the farmer's market. And finally, once her husband heals up and returns to work, it seems like they may just pull through. Margaret is the hero her family needed. And this brings us to the moment when their youngest child, Mark, gets sick. And we're not just talking seasonal allergies or like a gluten sensitivity.

This is severe asthma and intestinal distress. These conditions are dangerous for kids today, but back then, they could be life-threatening. So back in the stuffy doctor's office with the tongue depressors and the stethoscopes, Margaret listens carefully to the doc's advice. It turns out, Mark has food allergies. Specifically, he is allergic to the store-bought white bread. You know, like the kind that's been dominating the grocery shelves

right at that exact moment. You know, they're saying greatest thing since sliced bread? Well, not for Mark. Because the bread we're talking about is the processed bread with bleached white flour With sugar and tons of preservatives the stuff that can sit on the shelf for weeks and not go bad These shelf stable loaves like Wonder bread They've been replacing the homemade bread in American grocery stores cheap to buy and basically never goes bad That is a great deal for depression era families, even though it can be a terrible deal for your digestive system. Well now it's making Mark sick. So Margaret, she makes a decision.

If store-bought bread is the problem, then Margaret is going to bake it herself. Jack, remember how we said Margaret learned to bake from her Irish grandma? She ends up finding Granny Fogarty's recipe for whole wheat bread, buried in an old recipe box. Margaret gets her ingredients ready. This isn't going to be some run-of-the-mill loaf here. She's making bread to improve her son's health and maybe even save her son's life. So goodbye to the bleached white flour and hello to the whole grains and wheat berries,

which she hand grinds herself with a coffee grinder. And those wheat berries are the key to upping this bread's health factor. But Margaret's first attempt at baking with these wheat berries? You know what? Jack, we've got a quote directly from Margaret that explains it. That first loaf should have been sent to the Smithsonian Institution as a sample of bread from the Stone Age, for it was hard as a rock at about one inch high. So the first loaf of bread not great but Margaret keeps

practicing. In fact her husband Henry he's now fully recovered from that whole polo accident and he starts making the bread too. Basically turning it into a competitive baking challenge. This is like marital top chef and it's Bobby flavors barefoot Contessa. Eventually, Margaret locks in on a recipe with stone ground wheat flour, molasses, honey, and plenty of milk and butter. Great ingredients that sound the opposite of what goes into Wonder Bread. So she brings this new bread to her child's doctor and he is so impressed that he orders

loaves for himself and his patients. Pretty soon, Margaret is dominating the bread game in Fairfield County. So Margaret sells her health bread at the local grocery store and in a move you might recognize from our Ben and Jerry's episode, she sells her bread as a premium product. 25 cents a loaf instead of the going rate of 10 cents. She's sending a signal with that price that her bread is the Louis Vuitton of bread, because Margaret's bread uses fresh, high-quality ingredients. It costs more and it's worth more.

So she tests the market's willingness to pay double the price. And you know what? They do. Henry starts taking loaves to specialty shops near Grand Central Terminal during his commute into the city. And these loaves, they're all being hand-baked by Margaret and a single assistant. She's like one of those TikTok influencers, Jack, whipping out starter dough. Yeah, except within a year, she's selling 4,000 loaves a week. By 1940, three years into their venture, Margaret sells her millionth loaf of bread. And to meet increasing demand, Margaret decides to borrow $15,000, a huge amount in 1940, for a brand new factory in Norwalk, Connecticut. And she

hires women for her production lines, growing to 125 women during World War II. In just three years this has grown from a kitchen project to a booming commercial bakery. She hires women intentionally, not just because it's wartime. She wants people to get used to the idea of women in the workplace. And to accommodate all these female employees, she offers flexible hours, a policy that still feels modern 80 years later. The young unmarried workers that she employs take the morning shifts, while the mothers that she employs work after school hours when older kids can babysit. This bread company in the 40s, what they're doing is actually one of the most overlooked aspects of scaling any business.

Recruiting. Because offering flexible schedules, it's still a strategy Fortune 500 companies use to attract workers. I mean, Uber and Lyft, their flexible hours are literally front and center of all their recruitment campaigns to get drivers. It's just wild to think that these conversations CEOs are still having right now. Margaret Rudkin worked out back in the 1940s for her bread factory. Thanks to her premium product and her committed workforce, Pepperidge Farm is flourishing.

Ten years after she made that very first rock hard loaf, Margaret opens a second factory that can churn out up to 40,000 loaves an hour. But Margaret knows that Pepperidge Farm can't coast on one product forever. She instinctively understands what Nick and I call the ABLE principle. Always be launching everything. A-B-L-E. She needs to diversify.

Somewhere out there, the next Pepperidge Farm product is waiting. And it might just be the company's ticket to long-term survival. Margaret and Henry Rutkin, loving couple and successful bred entrepreneurs, hold hands as they stand on the deck of the historic ocean liner, the Queen Mary. It's the early 50s, and they're on their way to Europe. Sea spray on their faces, wind in their hair as their ship glides across the Atlantic. This is their Leo and Kate moment. And this isn't some random vacation or even a

second honeymoon. Margaret is on a tasting tour of Europe to find Pepperidge Farms next big thing. Does that mean the whole trip's a write-off, Jack? I think that means it's all expensive. Margaret wants to diversify her company's offerings, and she's decided that after being a pure play bread business, cookies and snacks are the complementary next step. Unfortunately, her first attempts at cookie baking go about as well as her first rock-hard loaf of bread. The cookies are edible that she bakes,

but they're also just ordinary. And ordinary is not part of Pepperidge Farms brand story. Margaret's company, remember, it was built on a premium bread product. Launching a just okay cookie, that ain't gonna cut it. So Margaret and her husband take trips to explore the great cities of Europe for inspiration. We're thinking Paris for the croissants,

to stop over in Milan for the Cornetti, maybe a little taste of West Berlin, you get one of those Berliner's Jacks, great doughnut. And finally, these travels lead the Rudkins over to Belgium, where Margaret finds the cookie bakers who serve the famous Belgian royal court. The name of these royal bakers? The Delacre Company. Or as they say on Francais, Delac. Stuck the landing on that pronunciation, Jack. Now, de laque has been dishing out authentic Belgian biscuits since 1891.

Or en français, bisquee, which means cookie over there. And de Laker's bisquees are made of layers of shortbread and dark chocolate in distinctive varieties. Now, this word distinctive is key. This ain't no Delta Airlines Biscoff we're talking about. Margaret takes one bite of these cookies and suddenly she can picture her future. Production lines turning out row after row of petite flaky cookies you can serve up with tea. America is going to flip out when they get a taste of these biscuits. Margaret has found Pepperidge Farm's next big product. She can feel it. So she has a little chat with the head of the Delaker company. And what actually gets said is a little bit of a mystery.

But when she's through with that chat, Delaker has agreed to give her their secret recipes to use at Pepperidge Farm. Margaret basically coaxes all their trade secrets out of this royal bakery. Now, you would think that in exchange for these secret recipes, the Belgian company might ask for, you know, like a profit sharing deal or maybe even a stake in Margaret's company. Cookie for equity, it sounds fair, but that's not what happens. Margaret basically sweet talks the DeLacre company into giving her all their recipes for a simple licensing fee. That's it.

She even gets them to send their best bakers to the United States to oversee production. She definitely got the better part of this deal. So in 1955, Margaret launches the first six varieties of Pepperidge Farm distinctive cookies. She gives them each European names like Biarritz, Bordeaux, and Brussels. This is something that works in America time and time again. European-ish branding tends to signal high-end sophistication. We fall for it every time. It's like Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Seems like a fancy Scandinavian ice cream. Actually, it's a totally made-up word. I mean, who wants a boring sandwich cookie when you could have a Milano? Within five years, these cookies are being sold across the United States, thanks to the

deal that Margaret cut with Delacre. Now, we know what you're thinking because we were wondering it too. What happened here? How did Delacre ever agree to this lopsided trade secret deal? It's possible they just underestimated her. Like, they didn't see her as a serious competitor. They saw her as a mom who liked to bake. So maybe they sent the intern to negotiate with her. Right. Maybe they just thought, hey, it's a sweet middle-aged lady from America.

She likes finger foods and she's just trying to upscale her home teatime. But under that sweet exterior, Margaret is a shark. And this shark is about to pick up the scent of a much smaller fish. Jack, I think I smell a goldfish. You just realized your business needed to hire someone like yesterday. With Indeed, there's no need to stress. You can find amazing candidates fast using Sponsored Jobs. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And just how fast is Indeed?

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Okay besties, to get to the goldfish, we're going to have to hop back in time and across a few borders. Follow us, if you will, over to Switzerland to the year 1906. Albert Einstein is working over in the Swiss patent office and he's dreaming up his theory of relativity. And over in a tiny farming village outside the Emmental region, a young Swiss baker named Oscar Cambly is falling in love. Emmental is famous for its skiing and its distinctive, holy cheese. But when Oscar, the baker, moves there, it's not for the apres ski scene or for the cheese makers. No, it is to be near the dark-haired young woman who he intends to make his wife. Oscar comes to work for the village's local baker. And it turns out Oscar's really good at his job.

He's so good, in fact, that by 1910, this guy is running the bakery, which he up converts into an entire biscuit factory. This factory marks the official start of the Cambly Company. The business survives two world wars and in 1953, Oscar Cambly hands the company reins over to his son, Oscar Cambly II. And Oscar too is just as much of a romantic as his dad was. He marries a woman he's head over heels for. A woman who happens to be born in March. Now when Oscar's wife's birthday rolls around in 1958, Oscar Jr. decides to get a little bit creative. A March birthday. That means she's a Pisces. Whose astrological symbol is, of course, a fish. I would know because I am one.

And after a nice birthday breakfast with the bride, Oscar sketches out a cute drawing of a small cracker, a simple Pisces fish with a tail. And then Oscar calls in a technician from his company and says, hey, I'd like you to start making a mold of what I just drew. Now by the afternoon, Oscar has that mold in his hand and he's making the first batch of crackers himself. That evening, he presents a heap of these crackers to his lady love. That's right. The first goldfish cracker was a zodiac inspired birthday gift for the baker's wife. Now we should point out that Oscar's goldfish are a little different than the

ones we know today. For one, they have these longer, skinnier tails that make you pause when you see them for the first time. Like Jack, I don't want to go full David Addenborough on this thing, but it looks less like a goldfish and more like a haddock. And there's no cheddar flavor whatsoever, so they're more like oyster crackers and drag. But still, these are highly snackable products. Their texture is ideal for nibbling like a portable little crumpet, lightly puffed and pleasantly salted. His wife, how does she react Jack? I mean, she's probably sentimental here, but she says she loves them. And soon, so does everyone else. And Oscar decides to manufacture these fish snacks for real. Within the year, these crackers that he calls gold fichily

are officially being sold in 17 countries in and around Europe. But none of these 17 countries includes the United States until one Mrs. Margaret Rudkin of Pepperidge Farm, Connecticut, United States comes calling. It's 1962, the year Stan Lee debuts Spider-Man and Bob Dillon plays Carnegie Hall. Oh and also a minor incident called the Cuban Missile Crisis. But none of that is touching Margaret Rudkin because at the moment

she's on vacation. Again! And this time in Switzerland where she's exploring the charming villages and the cute little Marches. You know what that means, Jack? Right off. The last time she took a tax deductible trip to Europe, she came home with Pepperidge Farms new business line, an ensemble of high-end distinctive European cookies. So Margaret pulled out her passport and gives Europe another go for the sake of vacation

and a little bit of R&D. And one day in just such a market between the fondue and the frankenberries, Margaret spies a bag of Cambly's Gold Fishly, the very cracker inspired by true love. And you know what? She kind of falls in love with them too, Jack. Just like Margaret's Milanos, these Goldfish are distinctive. They stand out on a grocery store shelf. To Margaret, they'd be the perfect addition to the growing Pepperidge Farm snack empire. But since we last checked in with Margaret, something pretty, pretty big has happened with her business.

You see, one year earlier, in 1961, Pepperidge Farm was acquired by the Campbell Soup Company. Campbell's acquired Pepperidge Farm from Margaret for $28 million worth of Campbell stock. Adjusted for inflation, that'd be close to a $28 million worth of Campbell stock. Adjusted for inflation, that'd be close to a $300 million acquisition today. Plus the appreciation of Campbell stock if she held on to it. Now Jack, we should say that once this acquisition happens there are a whole lot of ways that it could play out. Like

snowflakes and fingerprints, no two mergers are exactly alike. Sometimes the bigger brand absorbs the smaller brand with no trace of the old brand name or even the founding team. But in Margaret's case, she stays behind the wheel even as she sells her car. Pepperidge Farm becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Campbell's Soup, but the brand is protected.

Margaret, she's still in charge and her 1500 legendary employees, they all keep their jobs. Not only does Margaret not surrender her leadership position, she nabs a seat on Campbell's board as part of her agreement. This makes her Campbell's first female board member ever. Another trail blazed. So keep all this in mind when you picture Margaret standing in that grocery in Switzerland sizing sizing up these Goldfishly crackers.

Now, she's not just representing Pepperidge Farm, she's repping Campbell's. Just like she did with the Delaker Cookie Company over in Belgium, Margaret approaches Cambly and works out a licensing deal for Goldfish. And once again, please admire a master deal maker at work. So let's get into the agreement.

Cambly will continue manufacturing and distributing gold fishly in Switzerland. They'll also keep their existing foothold in Europe. But Pepperidge Farm, owned by Campbell's, will hold international trademark rights for the rest of the world. The original inventors of goldfish, they get Europe. Campbell's gets everywhere else. Like if they want to sell goldfish to the emperor penguins down in Antarctica, Pepperidge Farm, not Cambly, will be the seller. How does Margaret keep convincing bakers to hand her the keys to their creations? Honestly, it is a great question at this point. It could be that once again they're underestimating her.

Hey, a middle-aged woman and her little cookie company. What's the harm? Except at this point, that cookie company isn't so little. In the early 1960s, Pepperidge Farm is selling more than 40 million worth of product per year. With inflation, that number's more like 10X that, or over 400 million bucks today. And now that Pepperidge Farm has a parent company,

it has even more reach, because Campbell's has an established international presence at this point, that goes back to the turn of the century. So maybe Cambly didn't underestimate her. Maybe the Cambly company is thinking, hey, we don't have the resources to take our product global. But Campbell's does.

Maybe he's thinking, you know, any deal to get these crackers to go global is gravy for us because we could have never expanded overseas on our own. Plus Cambly probably received a handsome payment in exchange for giving away the international rights. It is a win-win, but most of that win is going to Margaret's side. Margaret Rudkin, the licensing shark of Snackville, has struck again. Now, once Margaret lands the rights to make goldfish, she wastes exactly zero time. Pepperidge Farm Goldfish hit the U.S. market in 1962, mere months after she first discovered the crackers in Switzerland while on vacay. But when they launch, they make one major change to fit American tastes.

Remember how we mentioned the Swiss version of goldfish were sort of neutrally flavored? Swiss and neutrality. They go hand in hand. Well, not Pepperidge Farm's version of Goldfish were sort of neutrally flavors with some neutrality. They go hand in hand. Well, not Pepperidge Farms version of Goldfish. Margaret launches with five different flavors right out of the gate. Cheese, barbecue, pizza, smoky, along with that lightly salted original. It's like they made these for Anthony Bourdain. I can't believe this is 1962, because those flavors sound like the kind of thing that would get launched today.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, the Cambly Company won't offer any flavor except plain until 1983. We Americans, we love our flavor dust. But another surprise is the kind of customer Margaret and Campbell's are trying to attract with Goldfish. Because, surprise, it ain't kids like you might have expected. It's actually us. You see, Pepperidge Farm, they position goldfish as a hip new party food. Bar owners are offering goldfish as snacks instead of peanuts and pretzels. Forget about

pairing these crackers with oatmeal and apple slices. They're being downed by mad men along with their bourbons and rye. The culinary legend, Julia Child, she starts serving goldfish at her dinner parties, including Thanksgiving dinner. So the lady famous for making coq au vin from scratch, she's a dish of goldfish, along with what she calls an upside down martini, five parts vermouth, one part gin, and a handful of goldfishes. Okay, not interested in that drink, but very interested in the goldfish. Well, Jack, in 1966,

four years after their American release, goldfish rolls out the iconic cheddar flavor, and it is so popular, they say, let's just make this our baseline. These little fish, they are a hit, and the cheddar flavor, it is a winner. And at long last, Margaret is forced to slow down. In 1966, the same year that cheddar goldfish come out,

Margaret hangs up her spurs. She passes away just one year later from breast cancer. End of an era. Margaret, a toast with a regular martini, not an upside down one. Well put, Jack. She obviously leaves some big shoes to fill. Sensible heels to be exact. Once Margaret is gone, her sons take over running the business.

And business goes pretty smoothly. But there is one interesting wrinkle in their marketing strategy that will alter the trajectory of this entire product and the entire company forever. Despite Goldfish being one of the company's most iconic products in just four short years, and despite the country heading into a golden age of television, Pepperidge Farm doesn't run a single Goldfish TV ad for 15 years. Pause the pod. 15 years and Goldfish don't make a single appearance on television? I swear, Jack, Goldfish, they won't do any commercials on TV. And wait until you hear why.

I'm Raaza Jafri, and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Ewan Montague and Charles Chumley, the spy who duped Hitler. 1943, Winston Churchill wants to capture Sicily, the key to breaking Hitler. Churchill's spy chiefs devise Operation Mincemeat, one of the war's most daring deceptions, that hopes to make the enemy look in the wrong direction. The success of the plan relies on the unlikeliest of heroes, a deceased homeless man named Glendor Michael. Glendor is given a new name, a cache of fake war plans and is dropped into enemy waters.

Montague and Cholmley now wait to see if German intelligence have been fooled by their ruse. If it fails, then it could spell disaster for Europe. Follow the Spy Who on the Wanderer app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of the Spy You Dubed Hitler early and ad free with Wanderer Plus. ["Wanderer Plus Theme"] When we left off, in the years since Goldfish hit the American market, there wasn't a single TV commercial made to sell the product.

Not one. It's true. Goldfish don't get their own TV ad spot until 1977, 15 years after they debuted in the US. Why did Goldfish wait so long for such an obvious medium? Well, the answer is kind of murky, but here's our theory. Goldfish were first introduced as a swinging party snack. The go-to-market strategy was to target adults in adult-only activities. So our theory is that Pepperidge Farm, they let Goldfish be a sort of outlier product.

Part of the larger Campbell's portfolio, but with some distance from the folksy whole-grain product lines in order to preserve its edgier brand. And that would have been fine. Except that by the late 1970s, Goldfish have kind of faded as a party snack. This happens with almost every food trend. Jack, we like to say the three F's are three industries most susceptible to fads, food, fashion, and fitness. If something's hot in one of those categories, in 10 years, it probably won't be. And by 1977, adults have all sorts of snack options,

like Doritos, which have dominated the snack aisle since their debut in 1966. So Jack, what do companies do when their product is flagging and they want to claw back a little bit more market share? They shoot some commercials. Literally the plot of like every Mad Men episode, seasons three through six. It's easy to see why Pepperidge Farm might want to run some Goldfish spots during Monday Night Football or before the evening news. But something interesting happens when you start running TV ads.

Kids start watching them. And suddenly Goldfish starts looking good to a whole different demographic. Even if you don't have kids, you know how this works. Once a kid sees something intriguing on a commercial, they start pointing at it in the grocery store, possibly pre-meltdown. So when the kids start clocking goldfish in the snack aisle,

it turns out to be perfect product market fit. After all, goldfish are pretty healthy when you stack them up against other snacks out there. Sorry Lunchables, it's true. Eh, point that goldfish will come to lean on heavily in their brand new advertising. I could eat them every day and my mom says that's okay That's because moms know

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers are baked, not fried like most chips. And they're cheesy, not sugary like sweet snacks. Goldfish basically saying they're health food. Plus there's no denying that Goldfish shape and size seem tailor-made for the under 10s. The fish shape looks like a bath toy and it fits perfectly in tiny little hands.

Parents, they start leaning in, and Goldfish makes a complete customer pivot from a bar snack to balanced school lunches, which honestly is right in line with Margaret Rudkin's very first principles when starting Pepperidge Farm in the first place. It goes back to the very first scene in our story, Mark the child in the doctor's office. The whole reason this company exists is because

Margaret wanted healthier food options for her sick little boy. Pepperidge Farm is so committed to this kid pivot that in 1997 they hire a Yale psychologist to get into the mindset of their elementary school target demo and her insight it is small in size but it is mighty in impact. Because she figures out that kids are more drawn to smiling faces. So she advises Pepperidge Farm to put a literal smile on the fish's faces. This is literally baking a smile onto the crackers themselves. Not every fish has a smile.

Only about four in 10 do. Either way, it kicks off one of Goldfish's more enduring slogans. The snack that smiles back Goldfish. Four out of 10 smile back. So Goldfish, they follow up this new tactic with a slew of kid-friendly flavors. They issue Goldfish counting books and Goldfish cartoons.

And of course, Goldfish tie-ins with kid-friendly IP like Hello Kitty and the whole Pixar universe. And the results? Oho, do we see it in the numbers. American consumption of Goldfish doubles from the mid-2000s to the late-2010s. And just like that, the Goldfish saga reaches the modern era. Oh Jack, funny timing. Because all that epic hockey stick growth success, it happens to be the very moment when Pepperidge Farm decides to upend everything that we just talked about.

Think back to the year 2020, year one of a pandemic. Supply chains everywhere disrupted. People celebrate birthdays on Zoom and you haven't changed out of your bathrobe in like three days. It's lockdown and you are living the athleisure juicy couture lifestyle. You're not going out for coffee with a friend or hanging in the office break room so you're snacking at home. It's not just any snack food that people are reaching for. It is legacy brand snack foods. Brands that have been around for a

long time with high levels of consumer trust. These are the brands that give people a nostalgic feeling of safety in uncertain times. Literally comfort food. Kellogg, General Mills and other processed food powerhouses, they're seeing their stocks hit all-time highs mid-pandemic. Cheetos, Doritos, Oreos, their sales growth flips up for the first time in decades. And it's within this somber environment that Goldfish in particular shines. During 2020, sales of Campbell's snack brands jumped 5%. And Goldfish are a major driver of that. And that's not just from kids.

Turns out almost half of Goldfish buyers don't have children in their household at all. Encouraged by those sales numbers, Pepperidge Farm invests 160 million bucks into upgrading one of their big production facilities over in Utah. This boosts their output by 50%. The plant can produce 5 million goldfish every single hour. That's 1,400 goldfish every second, which is insane. Now obviously, pandemic sales numbers, they just can't keep going up forever. And they don't. But Campbell's isn't about to let their rediscovered adult demographic go.

So they go hard in courting one particular subset of adult customers. Gen Z. After decades of going after the youth vote, Goldfish marketing comes full circle. Only this time, their product won't just have novelty going for it. It'll have nostalgia. Zoomers grew up on all those kid-focused Goldfish commercials that we talked about. And as we've said, nostalgia works in 20-year cycles. So Goldfish strategically uses some Gen Z-focused throwbacks as limited edition collabs. Like Hello Kitty Strawberry Shortcake flavored Goldfish to conjure up memories from the 2000s.

Or Jack, how about that 2021 collab with Jinko Jeans? Also for a limited time only. Goldfish went ham on these limited releases. But best is this marketing strategy actually serves a specific function. It doubles sales. Jack and I call it the wingman strategy and we almost couldn't believe it when we heard the executives over at Goldfish describe it on a Campbell's earnings call. Get this, Campbell's found that customers

are twice as likely to purchase regular Goldfish if you notice one of those wacky special editions on the shelf. Basically, the trendy flavor caught your eye and it reminded you, hey, I like Goldfish. I'm going to grab a trusty old box of the cheddar flavor. Toss it in. Surprisingly, sales for the dill pickle flavor or the Dunkin' Pumpkin Spice Grahams flavor, they don't cannibalize sales of the regular cheddar flavor. They actually enhance them. Just like a good wingman should.

Goldfish's Gen Z play, it totally works. A 2022 survey with Gen Z participants named Goldfish, a snack brand turning 60 years old as their favorite snack brand. Beating the likes of Lay's, Cheez-Its, Doritos, and Cheetos. It might just be a matter of time before Goldfish start marketing to kids again. But in the meantime we are rooting for the collapse to just keep getting weirder because of the wingman strategy. Goldfish and Sriracha maybe? Goldfish and Peeps before Easter Jack?

You into that? We'd love to hear your ideas in the comments. But as much as Goldfish keep growing, the more they still look the same. Because the whole business started with a mom baking bread for her son. So Jack, now that we've gone through the story of Goldfish, what's your takeaway? My takeaway is be a talent scout no matter where you are. Margaret Rudkin discovered some of her biggest products, including Goldfish, while she was away from her home and her regular routines.

It's a nice reminder to stay curious and keep looking for chances to go outside your comfort zone. When Jack and I take off for travel, we don't just relax, we're there for stimulus. See new things, get fresh perspectives, which inevitably find their way onto our show. And you can do this too. We're not saying you should be working while you're on vacation,

but be curious and be interested. And even if you don't have a European travel budget, like Margaret did, you can still make room to put yourself in new situations and find new ideas. Be a talent scout, no matter where you are. What about you Nick, what's your takeaway? When you're trying to hit your target demo, don't use an arrow, use a pendulum.

Picture your target demographic, like a bullseye. You wanna pull a Katniss Everdeen and like shoot your arrow right in the center. But the problem with that is that no product stays on top forever. Like Facebook. Once it was everything to college kids. But eventually it became your great aunt's favorite place to camp out online. The products that are able to shift their target markets are the ones that last.

So don't use an arrow. Use a pendulum. Before we go, it's time for my absolute favorite part of the show, the best facts yet. Here are the hero stats, the facts, and the surprises we discovered in our research, but we just couldn't fit into the story. Alright, Jack, what do we got? One fascinating character we learned about in our research is the guy who created the machine that makes goldfish, which he sells to Pepperidge Farm.

His name is Ralph Hauenstein, and before his stint in manufacturing, he was a spy and code breaker for the allies during World War II. Look up the story, you won't be sorry. We mentioned that big factory over in Utah, but it's the town of Willard, Ohio that Campbell's calls the Goldfish Capital of the World. With a population of just 6,200 people, the Pepperidge Farm Bakery there can produce more than 50 million goldfish every single day. And we should point out that some of those goldfish

have made it into space. Because they hitched a ride on the space shuttle Discovery in 1988. Now Jack's gonna do another big romantic gesture and like go up to space, impress his wife with some goldfish. I'm here about it, girl. Goldfish, it's a story that in every possible way comes back to love.

That, my friends, is why goldfish is the best idea yet. Coming up on the next episode of The Best Idea Yet, this one might literally be the best idea yet. It is huge. We're going to tell you the real story behind Steve Jobs and the iPhone. Follow the best idea yet on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of the best idea yet early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at

Wondery.com slash survey. The best idea yet is a production of Wondery hosted by me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Kraviche Kramer. Hey, if you have a product you're obsessed with, but you wish you knew the backstory, drop us a comment. We'll look into it for you. Oh, and don't forget to rate and review the podcast. Our senior producers are Matt Beagle and Chris Gaultier. Peter Arcuni is our additional senior producer. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan and Taylor Sniffin is our managing producer. Our associate producer and researcher is H. Conley.

This episode was written and produced by Katie Clark Gray. We use many sources in our research including The Remarkable Life of Margaret Rudkin, founder of Pepperidge Farm, by Mari Uyahara for taste. And If It Weren't for a Wife Guy, There Would Be No Goldfish Crackers by Lauren Vinnepal for Mel Magazine. Sound Design and Mixing by C.J. Drummler. Fact Checking by Brian Punyon. Music Supervision by Scott Velazquez and Jolina Garcia for Freesan Sync. Our theme song is Got That Feeling Again by Black Alack. Executive producers for Nick and Jack Studios are me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Ravici Kramer. Executive

producers for Wondery are Dave Easton, Jenny Lauer Beckman, Erin O'Flaherty, and Marshall Louis. and Marshall Lewin. Stuart to name just a few. And as always, Simon and I are trying to decide whether we think they're good, bad or just another billionaire. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Find it on bbc.com or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.