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Greetings from Fat Gold!

The big headline comes first: Fat Gold is now stocked in several dozen Whole Foods stores across Northern California. If you’re a Whole Foods shopper in this region, odds are pretty good you’ll find our Standard (with the gold label) and Blue (yep, it’s blue) on the shelf at the store you frequent.

Fat Gold popping on the shelves at Whole Foods in Napa

This is great news for us, obviously—another milestone for our little company. It also provides a good occasion to explain how retail partners fit into a business like ours.

Before we get to that, here’s another headline: we’ve just re-opened annual subscriptions. You can start an ongoing subscription for yourself, or get a one-year gift subscription for someone else; either will begin with our upcoming September batch, then continue with fresh batches in December, March 2025, and June 2025.

Here’s the link to get started:

https://fat.gold/subscribe/

(If you already have an annual subscription, you don’t need to do anything—this news is only relevant to folks who have been waiting to come aboard.)


In the beginning, Fat Gold was available only via annual subscription.

This was back when we were farming a little three-acre olive grove here in the San Francisco Bay Area. That first year, we made enough olive oil for… drum roll… EIGHTY annual subscribers.

A lot has changed since then, but annual subscriptions remain the core of our business. For a small operation built around agriculture, the model is crucial: it provides a backbone of predictability, makes the world just a touch less chaotic.

We were several years into this project before we offered individual tins of olive oil for sale, outside of an annual subscription. Nowadays, we have two flagship products available in our online shop, stocked nearly year-round.

Retail partners came last, but they now constitute an important (and growing!) part of our business. There’s a trade-off here, because of course retail partners claim a share of the sale price. What they offer in return is precious: access to their customers, and their communities. Turns out, it’s an powerful thing to be stocked by people who really care about their offerings—almost like being featured in a living, breathing magazine, each and every day.

Fat Gold popping on the shelves at Market Hall in Oakland

So, retail partners provide the third leg of the Fat Gold stool. Whole Foods is the new kid on the block; we thought we’d take a moment to highlight a few longstanding partnerships.

Big Night in Brooklyn operated with a delightful concept: it’s “a shop for dinner, parties, and dinner parties.” There is always a palpable sense of fun—a sense that even a normal dinner at home can be a little celebration.

Foster Sundry, also in Brooklyn, is a dream of a local market: there’s a butcher counter, a phenomenal cheese selection, and a selection of pantry essentials, all alongside a capacious food menu.

Riverwards Produce in Philadelphia is a beautiful, conscientious grocery, sourcing produce for “creative chefs and neighbors alike” alongside various pantry staples. We love what they’re doing.

The Cheese Shop of Salem has been a great friend and supporter for years. They offer a world-class selection of not only cheese, but cured meat, tasty snacks, wine and beer—everything that goes on the perfect platter.

Golden Mean in Austin is an emporium of dreamy design, with a mix of new and vintage items, all expertly curated. It’s also an art gallery!

We seem to have great luck with cheese shops! Milkfarm is an LA favorite, with a sister store focused on culinary-inspired stationary and paper goods. Obviously, this pushes all of our buttons.

Berkeley’s Local Butcher Shop is a worker-owned, whole-animal butcher shop that sources from the best farmers in the region. It’s where we get nearly all the meat we eat, so it means a lot to have them stocking Fat Gold in their small but mighty pantry section.

Finally, there is the inimitable Market Hall, Oakland’s great emporium. Long before we started this company, or imagined we might, we shopped the aisles here, eyes popping—they still pop—at the selection. Market Hall is a beacon of craft and care, and we’re very proud to see Fat Gold on its shelves.

That’s just a sampling; we’re signing up new retail partners all the time.

If you’re a Whole Foods shopper, we hope you’ll seek out Fat Gold on those shelves… and, we’re not above a little propaganda. Feel free to mention to the staff how much you love this new olive oil they’re stocking 😉

If you’re receiving this email, it means you know Fat Gold a little bit already. Maybe you found us through a link online, or a magazine article, or a recommendation from a friend. Maybe you found us on the shelf at one of the stores above, or one just like them! That’s how it happens, more and more, and that means the system is working.

We’re proud to be part of it.

—Robin, Kathryn, and Bryan