Kyle Peters - From Entrepreneur to Intrapreneur at Jack Link's

On this episode, we’re joined by Kyle Peters, the Senior Director of Emerging Brands at Jack Link’s, where he leads brand strategy, P&L, and innovation across a portfolio of growth-stage and incubation brands - including Golden Island, Jack Link’s Chili, and more.

Kyle brings a unique lens to scaling emerging brands within a legacy organization, drawing on his experience as a founder of a high-protein ice cream startup and as a former growth leader at Nestlé’s R&D Accelerator.

We dive into navigating the post-founder journey, how to be a good partner to a distributor, and what makes for a truly scalable product strategy. We dive deep into COGS, margin planning, and when (if ever) it makes sense to vertically integrate. Plus: emerging CPG trends from the guy leading the emerging trends at Jack Link’s.

Episode Highlights:

🥩 Inside Jack Link’s emerging brand strategy
🧊 The post-founder handoff playbook
🏭 Copacker sourcing tips + trusted directories
📉 Tradeoffs when moving from self-manufacturing
📦 Packaging design lessons + rebrand advice
🚚 How to work with your distributor, not against them
💸 What C-store buyers expect, and how to deliver
📊 Forecasting margin erosion the right way
🔥 Trends Kyle is watching in protein and beyond

Table of Contents:

01:00 – Jack Links’ emerging brands portfolio
08:54 – The post-founder journey
21:29 – Copackers
24:18 – Where to find copackers
27:23 – Moving from self-manufacturing, tradeoffs in scaling
31:37 – If/when to vertically integrate
33:36 – Product mix strategy
39:23 – Being a good partner to distributors
43:18 – A distributor’s expected hit to your margin
44:43 – Projecting COGS and margins
46:51 – The C-store channel
50:47 – Packaging design: what matters
53:48 – When to rebrand
56:40 – Emerging trends from the emerging trends guy
57:46 – Why protein is exploding right now

Links:

Jack Link’s – https://www.jacklinks.com
Follow Kyle on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylempeters/
Follow me on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/
Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support.

Transcript

0:02

today we're speaking with Kyle Peters the Senior Director of Emerging Brands at Jack Links where he leads strategy brand and overseas the PNL for the company's growth stage and incubation brands like Golden Island Jack Links Chili and and more and prior to jumping on board with Jack Links Kyle was the founder of a high protein ice cream brand called Carter and Oak and ran growth marketing for Nestle's US R&D accelerator as well so super excited to get into it just first off for the listeners that aren't that familiar with with Jack Links emerging brand portfolio I think most people are definitely familiar with the main parent brand but just maybe just give us quick lay of the land in terms of those other brands that are in the portfolio quick overview of Jack Links is overall kind of your role leading these brands and what this looks like and kind of a day to day basis and then we'll go from there yeah absolutely uh so thanks for having me pumped love talking about this stuff as much as possible I mean at Jack Links we our emerging Brands portfolio is made up of like you said uh Golden Island we also have Wild River so gold well actually I'll start with Golden Island Golden Island is a Asian style jerky brand primarily sold in Costco it was originally founded by a first generation Taiwanese family in the like the mid 90s they were acquired by a company called Hillshire in like 2,013 I think and then Hillshire was acquired by Tyson we acquired the business um a handful of years ago from now and been building the business you know since then and so again primarily in club but is sold in in a bunch of other places too I can talk about the strategy what we're looking to do there um you know for hours but super fun really working to get it back to like what the founders were doing originally and back to its like authentic roots cause it has such an incredible like rich story with a ton of history really genuinely like across generations that's really every brand has its own strategy so we're kind of like doing some stuff like that with with Golden Island right now and Wild River is more of like what's called like an old fashioned jerky so much smaller segment within the broader jerky category and so Wild River was developed internally for you know it's kind of satisfying those needs of that segment it's specifically like a lot drier tougher chew style jerky that one's a lot of fun primarily like C Store and then we also have as you mentioned in the beginning Jack Links Chili which is a newer venture for us in the last I wanna say like year or so that's something that we're just starting to grow a little bit more but again taking a different approach to that than we are all the other ones and so each of these emerging brands kind of have their own strategies and we have Larissa's Kitchen which was part of our like incubation team and everything before we've now kind of started to develop its own team around that to kind of start to really you know put more focus and energy and resources behind that to really grow something that we feel is really exciting in like that allergen free and certified allergen free space uh within meat snacks and in the future maybe even beyond so there's really exciting stuff happening there and I was on that for the first year and a half of being at Jack Links and we have like kind of like new business ventures we have a new business that we spun up over the last 9 months and just launched that and um not talking too much about like specifics there but it's really exciting and kind of a further departure for the for the company overall which is just fun and new and a lot of energy behind it so that's awesome do you you mention Larissa's where it's gotten to a certain point where you're starting to build a whole team around it before they get to that stage are you essentially managing running these brands and pulling in resources from the exit the general Jack Links team resources and but hey can you help me out with this campaign or this launch strategy or this initiative and you gotta be able to get them to get allocate some of those resources to these smaller brands essentially yeah for sure and I mean honestly we're very fortunate because this company I mean Jack Links is owned by the link family right so we're still wildly entrepreneurial even for the size of business that we are for being a category leader as somebody who was a founder before it's really fun and it's super energizing that like you know the guy at the top is leading with that energy that enthusiasm you know built it with his dad and it's just it's super fun to be around a family that's like that committed and built something so special so we have buy in and support from the cross functional teams all over right now we gotta kind of like pick and choose our spots cause at the end of the day like Jack Links is is the biggest brand by far and you know we we need to fit like within everything else but the team cross functionally from operations and finance and creative services and social and everybody else has been awesome and then also the company's investing and allocating specific headcount that is dedicated to our emerging brands portfolio right so um we do have some resources that are specific to the the my team and then we have other resources that are shared you know part of what I've done in building and constructing the emerging brands team is uh the entire team is former founders so they're former CPG founders so we have a lot of years of experience with people that have had to have their hand in every part of the business before right so we have brand managers senior brand managers that have you know pushed people on in the operational side and they've built PNLs and they've you know found opportunities in supply chain and all types of things right now we're fortunate that we get to always lean on the experts that are part of the broader organization but having an internal team so close that understands and can kind of take things maybe 50% of the way then hand it off to the internal Jack links team for them to like make sure it's you know right and then also finish it we're able to maybe sometimes like not put so much on the cross functional team's plate so that can be helpful too right really kind of like approaching with like a true like general management like mindset and so having that skill set to like run you know run the gambit is really helpful whatever makes more sense to describe what does that look like in in this role leading this part of the company yeah I would say for me and and for a lot of my team too like for me the day changes like one day might be really heavy on Golden Island and I just happen to be spending 80% of my time working on Golden Island with Drake our brand manager there right another day could be really heavy on chili and you know that we're actually going through a transition our team is just taking on the chili business so I'm learning more about what are what's the historical nature of all the relationships within the business and what does the PNL look like and why and where are the opportunities for improving the PNL and and all of those types of things right and so my day will generally be wildly different on what brand am I gonna be focused on but a lot of what we're doing is you know our our executive leadership our president and CEO and and everybody else are pretty big around just like freedom within a framework so this idea of like building a strategy getting the alignment from the executive team on what that strategy is and then us being able to go and and hand over to my team like hey here's the framework now go and whatever you have to do in between you know those edges to get the things done go and get that done right so you know like Drake today or yesterday he was building a creative brief for some packaging things right and then you know today he's building decks for you know some of the new strategic initiatives that we're working on which is a departure from where the brand was before right so it's looking at insights and connecting the dots to you know take the insights into strategic decisions and then taking the strategic decisions into the level below of what are the levers to actually activate against them right so it's a lot of connecting of those dots and then for me it's getting the team to a place to where they can worry about the next you know 90 days or you know 120 days and then for me looking a year and two years out right sometimes I have to look at the next week right but like when we're really operating at a high level it's the team being able to worry about the next three four months and then me worrying about the next eight 12 24 months yeah man sounds like a cool exciting role definitely never gets bored every day is different which sounds really fun yeah definitely it is fun it's crazy right but I think like similar to being a founder I'll never say that a job inside of a company is the same as being a founder right but I would say that this role is as close as it can be cause having been in the accelerator at Nestle which was very like come and be a founder and everything else right and learning like what that was it wasn't exactly that but being here and I believe this is probably as close to being a founder as you can be which is a credit to our leadership here and it's really fun it is that's really cool it's better than others right similar to being a founder for sure of course yeah before you Jack Links you founded and built Carter and Oak for ultimately decided to shut it down to the before deciding to shut down the business for what I believe was just margin challenges which is certainly understandable similar front I co founded a business in the regulated cannabis space in the California market that similarly had a lot of success with the No. 1 brand in our category for a few years in a row raised a bunch of money before ultimately winding down the business kind of had a slow deterioration to a certain extent and you know we could both spend the entire time chatting about those journeys and I know you've talked about yours on another podcast interview too but just want to spend a few minutes just touching on that the post founder career journey for just others that are in a the middle of a similar transition as I remember that period of my life was wasn't exciting but definitely also a pretty challenging time so I'm curious just from your perspective you know founders are pretty atypical hires how did you go about positioning yourself to show off all your experience while maybe minimizing the concerns that some businesses might have about a founder coming to a reporting structure where he or she has a boss etcetera yeah it's nuts as you know right I mean so there's like there's like fate I like there's phases of grief in shutting down your company right and some people's timeline is longer than others some people are shorter right the thing for me the first thing for me that I found to be really helpful which was like lucky I did it actually out of like an insecurity was like shutting down I was like I need to post on LinkedIn that like I'm moving on and I'm shutting down the company and doing my next thing because I was worried that like I'm gonna go and get a job and then people are gonna see and then I'm like I I'm somebody that's like proud of the stuff that I do so it's like I wanna share that and if I go and I share this new thing that I'm doing and it's not Carter and Oak people are gonna be like oh guess that didn't go very well guess like Kyle shut down and he's not capable and not smart and X y and Z right so it's like super self conscious about the appearance of all of a sudden me doing something else that isn't Carter and Oak so I wrote a post to say basically hey I'm shutting down and this is the story and this is what I'm looking to do next right the response that I got from that was wildly different than what I had expected I had people supporting me and also like asking for me to consult for them like other startups and everything which to me I was like I'm telling you guys how I just failed and now you you're valuing my experience like I always valued the experience and the things that I Learned over those five years but like I just didn't expect anybody else to and so it was really cool to get that response in the comments of my post of like hey do you have time I wanna talk I wanna connect I wanna learn from you like let me pay you to do X y and Z for us and then similarly like Nestle it's a Nestle like two people from their company recruited me for two different roles in my comments of that post as well and it's like just sharing that I was moving on doing something new and like gave a few highlights of what I Learned provided me a ton of opportunity for what I was gonna do next right so the first thing I would say is like just like not being afraid to like talk about what's happening um and just have confidence in like hey you did great things over the time of you being a founder and there's value for you somewhere right so like that was the first step for me the tough part is that like you just feel like you're losing your identity like my big thing was like I don't wanna go work at a company and do something that just any other person could go and do and just live like a normal typical life of go and work a job and whatever and then like if I die I'm gonna be replaced in a few weeks anyway by the company and then it's business as usual right like there was a level of significance that you have as a founder and I feared losing that and yeah so I don't know I mean what I ultimately ended up doing there was like I got lucky that people you know you create your own luck I do believe and so like from me making that post Nesley had reached out and I got to go through the process there I mean like again credit to them my resume didn't look very good cause I didn't really ever have I never really like made like a strong resume I worked in restaurants and then I started my business right so like you don't really have great resumes if that's your your track record and like I've never had to really interview for those types of things so much and so fortunately I can talk a lot as you see and feel like I can communicate the value and the experience that I have so them seeing that LinkedIn post at least got me the opportunity to talk to somebody like you know virtually at least and so doing that I was able to sell myself on why I would be a good fit for the roles that they were recruiting me for right now the challenges as a founder you think you can do everything and you've always done everything and in doing in moving on to your next role depending on your experience as a founder and what you accomplished and everything else is gonna kind of slot you into like the level of seniority at a certain size company so there's like one you should push to always get the most for yourself but at a certain point you may just have to throw in a level of like being realistic on what makes the most sense for you and yeah for me the opportunity at Nestle like I had to concede on operations and on like PNL at the time and certain financial things and like I just had to give up some of that stuff to focus on like more specific branding and insights and consumer LED things and part of it was me like hey one I don't even know what some of these titles mean or what these roles are actually doing at companies like you can ask somebody like what's a typical day until you're in the role and you have more experience in a larger company and everything else and um so I think that's really important but you know for me it was just getting in those moments and then conceding that I'm just not gonna have everything that I want and I just I you know I had to go and start making money and like kind of like rebuild a little bit you know Carter and Oak um and so that was phase 1 and then I Learned a ton for me it was the logo as well right I worked the largest CPG company in the world so I was a founder in ice cream that did something for five years and it was pretty cool and you know I can I'm experienced in a lot of different ways but coupling that I felt was really valuable with being at Nestle and seeing how the largest company in the world does it and you know working on things like the Nestle foaming creamer that just came out that was a project that I was part of when I was at Nestle and coffee concentrate on Nescafe was part of that too right like really big brands that then give me a little bit more credibility for the next thing so then I was there for a year and a half after that I was like when I wanted to start looking at my new opportunity I interviewed with a ton of companies for a ton of roles some that I didn't think I ever wanted just so I could learn right like I needed to hear what does it means for this role what does it mean for this role every company brand managers are doing different things directors of brands are doing different things there's general manager roles that are titled just general manager that mean different things right so I used interview processes as like learning and like classroom experiences for myself to be like okay what do I actually wanna do and you know the thing like don't put a governor on yourself right away like go and try and get a VP role go and get a senior director role try and get a an executive level role whatever see what you can do right so yeah um I don't know that that I that was a lot but I I think no but it yeah sounds like you didn't have you just took a bunch of interviews you didn't really have any in mind you just took a bunch of interviews and help kind of hone in from there yeah exactly and the thing is like this when I heard when I found this job and interviewed for it and everything I was like okay this gives me the opportunity to be on more than one brand I wanted to be on more than one brand and kind of like help lead a portfolio it was at a level that I was looking to step into um it was at a company that seems to be really exciting that I aligned with right so like all those things like I'm getting up every day and getting excited versus like oh I'm gonna go and I'm gonna sell like toothpicks like not gonna be excited about selling toothpicks or like improving on the a toothpick brand but I'm gonna be excited about these things that we have going on here at Jack Links it's like you're nobody's more passionate about what they're doing than a founder so like if you can find a company a brand whatever role that allows you to have something close to that then like that's also very meaningful too right so totally agree three tips for someone going through similar transition that we did what would they be the one would be like and their goal is to go and work at a company or the first thing would be figure out their next step and yeah they're gonna they're gonna work again let's put it that way yeah absolutely it apply to as many jobs as possible I I applied for a disgusting amount of jobs in the 3 months four months that I was applying and if you take the tenacity that you have as a founder and apply that to the way you're thinking of like I'm not satisfied until I have five interviews with companies I actually like you'll be surprised at how many resumes you'll put out there right and I was making like custom resumes for every role it's like don't just copy and paste you have to work just as hard at trying to find your next role as you did on trying to build your business so like the resume I sent for this role here at Jack Links didn't look the same as the resume I sent to Pete's Coffee to run their CPG right like those looked a bit different because I wanted it to give me the best opportunity of getting in front of those people to sell myself to be placed into that role right so it's a numbers game interviews and resumes and everything else if you don't have a fancy degree and like you if you don't have some of the more conventional credentials and you are a founder like then you're gonna have to work harder than other people like the the difference that allows somebody like me that has a degree from a school nobody's ever heard of no MBA no you know private equity background or anything like that not that those are easy like shortcuts or anything but like if you have a private equity background start a business close the business and move on like you're a higher value higher right so you would just have to work harder as somebody with a non fancy or distinguished degree and that was a founder that shut down right yeah so numbers game apply to a lot don't be shy don't think an interview is you accepting a job interview for roles that you don't even think you're gonna take but use them as lessons to learn right okay that's one um the other I would say is allow yourself to really push for a value you feel you deserve but I'm not saying that as like a know your worth and like everybody deserves you know $300,000 a year and X y and like that's not what I'm saying cause there has to be a level of being realistic as well I've talked to people on both ends of the spectrum I've talked to founders that have shut down their companies that really severely undervalue themselves and don't even like think like that they can go and get a director level role and then I've talked to other founders that have done you know their founding experience it was cool they did some great stuff but they didn't raise as much money as you did and weren't a category leader like you were and they made me think that they should be like the CEO of a company right like there you have to be somewhat realistic so there's no advice around that but like try and gauge yourself to where you're not undervaluing yourself but don't be so pompous that you think you should be running the company just because you ran your company um so whatever somebody can take from that I think that's really important too and then the third one don't be afraid to take a job and then have to leave like if you're in take a job and you have and you wanna quit after six months do that now don't make a habit of it right but like I did I won't say the company but like I had a stint in between Carter and Oak and Nestle that I don't I often talk about and I don't put on my resume it's not on my LinkedIn because it was short and it was at a startup and it was for a VP title that like the company wasn't ready to hire a VP for the role the founder said that they wanted another founder with experience to help bounce things off of but in practice they actually didn't want that and so like all those right so I Learned like ooh maybe I do just need a later stage company a larger company so that like I can kind of learn what is it like to work in the real world right or like the non startup non founder world and kind of like learn those skill sets and how do I need to play the game within the role right cause there's a political game that every company has and then how do I also just become a good like leader within an organization that's not where I'm not the founder so I was like I Learned that so then I just jumped right I talked to somebody last week of like they're worried about taking their next thing cause they don't want to just jump and I'm like jump if you gotta jump jump it's just you just don't put on your resume you just don't make a part of like your process anymore right but it can still be part of your journey that would be my thing is like don't be afraid to like take a role learn and then have the next thing be the real thing I think this would be super valuable to people shifting gears a lot here much more tactical operational stuff I've heard you definitely talk about the importance of engaging co packers early just to really validate unit economics pricing at different volumes which I'm sure part of that came from the Carter Oak experience just in the beginning of that process what have you found what's the best way to go about actually sourcing co packer options in terms of what's the best way how how can these upstart brands get their attention get them to commit to working with them on smaller initial runs taking the time with them cause these co packers most of them are pretty busy there a lot of their capacity is filled so yeah how do you go about that and how do you get them convince them to give you the time yeah super tough the reason I say go after it early is like you should have you should be able to connect the dots somewhat to what your reality may look like in five years right like I think if you can try to predict a PNL three years from now that's gonna help you as you start to go and move on now that number's probably gonna change and inflation and different you know the price of cocoa right if you're a brand that's sourcing cocoa like you can't necessarily you don't know that oh my God you know there's gonna be this huge scarcity around the world and we're gonna struggle and the price of cocoa is gonna increase whatever it ended up doing right that can be really challenging but I think that if you're somebody who's like making your product in a commercial kitchen very small scale don't wait until you need to go to a copacker copacker to start looking for a copacker like have an understanding of who the options are bang on those doors understand tolling costs and what are the variables that they wanna know from you and know what are the pricing variables that they're looking for and they're gonna charge you for that might change co packer to co packer and it's gonna change based off category and product as well right so it helps you educate yourself on what is a reasonable tolling fee you know what come what co packers are going to source packaging or not want to source packaging for you and what co packers have these standard ingredients and what co packers have a different set of standard ingredients that way when you're like holy crap I just got this Po from target that I've been working on for two years and the company's about to 5 x or whatever I can't do this in house anymore I have to go to a co packer you can say okay great I'm gonna call these people back I know how to sound confident and knowledgeable to the co packer cause that is one of the most important things they need to in the first conversation be like this person knows what they're talking about otherwise they're not gonna take you seriously they're gonna throw you away and they'll probably not answer your call again right for me an ice cream I called I ended up on page like 16 of Google so like I used Google a lot of the time and there's like a really gross like there's a bunch of really gross outdated co packer lists that like I think everybody has used I think one's like called like specialty co pack pages and it's like a gross database looking thing it's like red and white and just you know a list of different uh manufacturers for different categories Cornell has a database Penn State has a database and then my buddy Josh he has a platform called Co manufactured I think it's co manufacturer dot co is the website but that's kind of like a co packing database that has better UX UI than some of these other ones and like I even use that today to find different things for people or send that resource to people so that they can find stuff for themselves similar to what I was saying before is like you just need to pick up the phone and call and ask the questions and you're gonna learn on the fly like for me an ice cream I was calling and saying like hey I wanna make ice cream and it looks like you can make ice cream like what are your minimums and blah blah and they're like oh well like what's your overrun and I'm like what the fuck's overrun like I don't know I don't know what that means then I like hang up the phone cause they don't care about me anymore and I'm like googling what's overrun for ice cream and then I Learned oh it's the percentage of air that's that's whipped into the ice cream mix so like oh okay great now I'm calculating the overrun of my product so now the next time I have a conversation I have an answer to that question and sound more confident more buttoned up and more experienced to the co packer that I'm talking to right so that for me that was like I Learned over the first like 50 calls probably and uh some co packers are gonna offer R&D services some aren't you know it's to me it's great like open with an email if you can I had 100 and somewhere between like 100 and 15 hundred and 30 emails and phone calls to try and find co packers for ice cream it's really tough cause a lot of the co packing game too is like word of mouth and they don't have websites some of them it's nuts like especially in ice cream like there I can probably name like 5 that just don't have websites and so it becomes super challenging so what I would say is like reach out to people in like adjacent categories that can be really helpful they might know of co packers that they can like lead you over to talk to people in your category as well if you can and it's not like weird or competitive but understand what are the what are the answers what are the questions you have to have answers to so you can understand those variables about your business and if you can answer those when you talk to a co packer it's gonna give you a better shot because they're gonna have confidence in you as an operator um I think you're always gonna have to fake it until you make it a little bit with co packers right like you have to puff your chest a little bit more until it's real but I think those are like some of the biggest things now I've told co packers too hey I'm just looking to price things out we're growing rapidly but we know like it's not the right timing so sometimes I found that co packers are actually really willing to kind of share a few things if that's the case cause you're not really asking for their time now you could go back in two weeks and be like hey things just really started booming and now we're ready and we want to get going and and you know let's start the process and whatever else but like ask for their typical co packing agreement you know all those things that they would typically have and somebody should review and that's gonna make you sound more legit and put you in a good position but I think not enough people reach out for help to just talk to others who have done it before so like don't be afraid to reach out to people on LinkedIn and ask very pointed questions because it's gonna vary on category so I can speak a ton about meat snacks and ice cream and a few others but it's not gonna always be copy paste for sure that start out self manufacturing I think a lot of do whether they actually start in their kitchen or maybe they start using a shared kitchen and renting out space and then they eventually are gonna shift to an actual co packer when they get to a certain scale what's what would you say is the most challenging part of that part of transitioning to a co packer whether it's formulation changes to optimize for scale higher MLQs you gotta change your packaging what if you feel like yeah what's the most challenging part that of that process and what should up and coming founders keep top of mind yeah it's all honestly everything you just said those are like those are dead on right like and those are some of the biggest ones you might need to go to a new packaging manufacturer or packaging style because that's what the manufacturer uses and that's stock like in ice cream there's you know companies like dairy fill and stand pack and they typically have deals with co packers where like we're gonna give you this equipment but you have to buy all of your packaging from us and so those lines are fit specifically to use and run like a dairy fill cup or a stand pack cup so you might be like in this category like this is the manufacturer that will work with me because of Moqs and all these other variables but their packaging might be different right so now you have to account for that and the MOQ of packaging might be higher than what the MOQ is for the run so that's not gonna be a perfect that's not gonna perfectly align the formula often times changes and your product just might or the formula stays the same but it's not gonna produce the same output taste texture appearance of the product that you were making previously right so like that's not that's not expected from a lot of founders and then it it's like super frustrating cause you're like this isn't the product that I want but the formula is the same but the process is different and so it's like you have to really work with the co packer to be like I'm looking for this result is there maybe a new ingredient that I need to introduce because the texture and appearance is more important than the extra ingredient right so it's like what are you what are your must haves and you're like I'm not gonna budge like the having those things defined are really important but I do think that sometimes people will like not budge on certain things and that ends up hindering the business big time because and I find sometimes those founders are they prioritize the art versus prioritizing the business and growing the business and you're not gonna sometimes you have to sacrifice on the art for the sake of scaling a business right I think you see that a lot with brands that have really cool packaging when they launch but it's not effective packaging and then over time you start to see four of the seven claims that this brand had before they fell off between here and here and that's actually what started to increase their velocity 50% once they kind of did that pack change and it's because clear concise communication is really valuable founders want to scream about all the amazing things that they're that's so great about the product you have to make decisions like that so I think that the expectation on the output is really challenging MQ can always change that's something co packers are probably gonna screw up at some point they're gonna move your production date and it's not gonna be when you think it's gonna be so you might want to still like retain your capabilities to produce in house before like betting the farm on moving to the co packer and like this Po that I'm gonna deliver I'm gonna pull myself out of where I'm manufacturing today for the sake of the co packer but they might punt your production down cause you're the smallest person at the facility they're gonna punt your production a month and now you can't deliver on that Po right like that could crumble your business that you know be different for everybody so I think all of those are are wildly important to understand and it doesn't hurt to have backup suppliers even if the co packer says hey we have supply of X y and Z I like to have three suppliers for every ingredient at every single time and I like to stay up to date like quarterly on what those on what the pricing structure is for each of those ingredients and for each of those suppliers as well like you have to be prepared for anything for me I'm huge on contingency planning I would much rather do the extra work to know what I would do if something if this thing or that thing happens versus rush prioritize speed and get to a situation to where I'm like shit now I need to problem solve on the fly and you know you sometimes you can only do so much lead times are lead times right totally on the flip side thinking about a business that they have gotten they've been working with a co packer for a while they've gotten to a certain scale where maybe they're thinking about going the other way and vertically integrating obviously that's gonna take they've had to gotten to a certain scale where that takes a fair amount of cap ex and whatnot but seems like a vertical integration has a lot of benefits but it doesn't always make sense no matter the stage of the business I'm curious not sure if Jack Links that has gotten that point where it's all vertical but when if ever does it make sense for brands to go back that way and actually vertically integrate again yeah yeah I so I think so Jack Links has we do both but we're primarily vertically integrated we own a lot of our own manufacturing that's where most of our products is made I'm also not the expert of the company to speak on that either but like we do we own quite a few facilities and what I would say for somebody you know I think if you get to a point as a founder and as a business to where the only opportunity for you to improve like if you've raised I think this is I think it depends on your situation right and like have you raised how much what's the timeline what's your run rate like how much runway do you have as an organization like all of these things are factors so I'm speaking very high level and like generally but but if you're an organization that like manufactured small graduated to a copacker and you need to go and vertically integrate for the sake of margin like I think that's when you kind of look at okay maybe we do go and we build out a facility because the way for your investors to get their money back and for you to get to a place to where you have healthy margins to where you can be on the offensive in your category because you're able to you know promote differently and spend differently and everything else I think like that's a reason to go into into being vertically integrated because you have to unlock additional margins right and so if you can if you can build a sound business case for why the cap ex is gonna pay off in you know X amount of time and everything else I think that's probably like a good reason for going from copacker back to vertically integrated I think as a founder if you're just like you know self manufacturing really small scale and you're like oh I'm gonna go to a copacker but you're considering self manufacturing like you either need to be super passionate about the product the problem that you're solving and everything else if you hate like running operations but you you love the other part in the opportunity and the prospect of solving the problem that you're trying to solve so much that you're willing to take on the burden of running the operations raising the capital paying down the debt like being super tight on finances if you're able to do those things in spite of you not wanting to like really run a facility then it could be a good decision but I've talked to plenty of founders that are just like I don't want to run a facility and I'm running a facility and this sucks and I have not often seen those founders find success after the fact right I've also talked to other founders that are like I just love operations I love running a facility I love the margins it brings me I'm really fortunate that we're able to be in a position to where we're building this facility it's really tough it's really hard sometimes I do hate my days but ultimately they're like this is the right decision for the business and like that's why I love it those founders I've seen have a ton of success right like those are like I think we're seeing more and more founders that are succeeding are vertically integrated and they're able to insulate themselves in ways that just compact brands can't it's really interesting you know it's a huge bird it's it's a big challenge to take on it requires a lot of capital but like for the founders that are really in it for the long game it seems like that that ends up being a big unlock for a lot of brands you may not get the exit in five years right like that's the other thing like brands that exit in five years aren't always typically building their own manufacturing because it takes so much time like it could take you a year and a half to even just get delivery of a piece of equipment right so it's not necessarily gonna be the path for the quick exit but it could be the path for the billion dollar exit that's a great way to put it continuing on that same track of the manufacturing set of things but talking about product development a bit more just in terms of product mix what's your general thought process or approach in terms of product road map strategy yeah so again I think like that's it's super category specific super what are your internal core competencies um you know like if I'm trying to think of a category that's like not too close to home it like I think product roadmap like first I'd build like a matrix of like we're in this category and we have you know all of these segments we can go into right so if you're in like salty snacks and you're making chips like you can do protein chips and then there's like seven different ways you can deliver a protein chip and then there are like salty snacks and puffs and there's a million different ways you could execute against puffs and salty snacks and then there's pretzels and then there's all those different things like to me like what I've been doing on on our brands is like mapping out all of the options on the segments and then building like a matrix of like what's the what's the today if we want to go and execute on this product how easy would it be today do we have internal capabilities to get that done or would we have to go and you know get capital to build the capability or are we comfortable co packing the capability and then what is the you know what's the total total addressable market for that segment and that product and then what's the growth rate of it is it higher or lower than other segments that I'm looking at I think sometimes a lot of founders are just like oh this is the next right thing obviously I'm gonna do that and sometimes that gut and being a little bit naive is an absolute blessing and it's like you don't want to overthink about it have all these numbers reviewed data hundred page decks of you know uh like numerator data or like a spins report and whatever else like sometimes that can be the the the enemy of success and growth but I do think if you have access to it it's good to consider all those things and you're kind of able to say like okay this is what makes sense for my business and I think for early founders part of it though is like what's gonna be the thing that gets you excited and makes you work exponentially harder longer harder than anybody else because the one thing that you can control for the most part as a founder is the time spent working on the business and so like if you can outwork other people doing it great cause you probably don't have the most money right so it's like what's in your control and again like if you're just not excited about it as an early founder you're just probably not gonna be any better than somebody else that you're competing against in the category um so I don't know that's kind of how I approach it but it's so case by case sometimes there's just declining segments and it's like don't launch a product there unless you have think that you have something so novel that you are going to be responsible for turning around the segment but in everything I've seen like that's few and far between you have to have be super super confident and part partly cocky to like believe that you're gonna be the one that changes the entire trajectory of a segment or category so I think it's just really important to understand what's the total size where those consumers coming from what's the growth rate over the past three years what's the projected growth rate and then where do you have competency in channels right like that's the other thing if you are currently selling at like Whole Foods and sprouts and the road map the road map you're building may it may not make sense for that next innovation to have the most opportunity at Kroger right you might want to just go and continue building a brand block in the retailers that you have today now you need to expand at some point into other retailers and channels but like should your new innovation be the one that breaks you into that maybe like that might be that's probably the right thing to do for some brands but I think that's something you have to consider because some items products and innovations are gonna make more sense in this channel than this channel and yeah some attributes are more valuable to this group of consumers shopping in this store versus this store which are obviously a core part of building a business in the CPG space how can a brand truly really partner with that distributor to to really focus on maximizing success with them I think the biggest thing is just be on time and try and get things to them before they even ask for it like you have to make their life easy cause they're all overworked right now we can all sit here and be like yeah I'm overworked too but at the end of the day they're the gatekeeper to getting your product on shelf so you can make money so if that's what you want to happen you need to be the brand in their portfolio that is not causing headaches and when you have the opportunity to do something cool or plus up do that but don't be don't drown them because the I think the worst thing brands do is they treat the distributor and they treat that relationship with the distributor as if they are the only brand that that you know account manager is managing and you're not you're one of 100 200 especially distributors like and then if you think about buyers it's like yes a lot of buyers are managing multiple categories right and like for us we a lot of times will get lumped into like the salty snack buyer and jerky is not the largest set for salty snacks all the time so like we're not the No. 1 priority all the time you have to recognize that it's the same thing with distributors like again it's like know your role don't don't take more than you give always give more than you take and ask for I would say don't ask for anything for quite a while until your numbers are delivering right and always look for their input they wanna give you input and sometimes they will unsolicited but if you give them the space really listen and find opportunities to do exactly what they want sometimes that don't hurt you or totally contradict what you're trying to build I think that's really valuable too it builds you rapport shows that you're listening it shows the trust and then when you do need to cash in a favor you know Cindy who's your rapid UNFI is gonna go you know what Kyle Kyle was listening to me those you know over these three times and I appreciate his investment into me and my career and doing what maybe helps me look good to my boss so if he needs another week to get this paperwork to me I'm gonna let that slide right like you'll fall into moments like that but you have to over invest your time energy and effort and results before you're gonna get anything from them and I think if you recognize that and you really work towards that that's gonna help build a good relationship with your distributor yeah that's a really the end of the day it's numbers you have to sell yeah it's just a really refreshing way to think about distributors cause I feel like a lot of founders you talk to and in brands it's just a lot of frustration around working with that distributor and if you really go approach it from a a positive mindset I feel like that actually makes a lot of sense it's refreshing here it's super tough though like distributors are not easy right like it's a ton of charges and chargebacks and they're not always accurate and it's like you know a lot of people say that it's the necessary evil and there's a few that are the most necessary evils and the most evil right like that people want to claim it's just challenging right you know I credit Mark you know who just who's launching Mark's Snacks Mark Samuels who's like he put a he drew a line in the sand to be like hey I'm not gonna distribute with U N F I and K cool I know I know a very successful brand family owned business they are very successful that a lot of people would recognize if I brought it up but I just don't want to put them on the spot because you know that I don't that don't feel like that would be right but they also don't work with UEFA and FIFA they're like I prefer working with regional specialized distributors and that's what's right for our business right I mean we work with Kaye for our Louis's Kitchen business and we're working with UEFA and everything else and you know they are they are the great partners for the things that we're looking to do it's tough it's never easy right but that's that's what you take on as a founder you know if you want to be in Whole Foods you're gonna have to work with UNFI you can also work with regionals like rainforest and everything else but some regions prefer to work with UNFI versus the regionals and so you know what choice do you wanna make totally in just in terms of margin reduction when when partnering with the average distributor just so they're going in with eyes wide open yeah I so it's again it's varies a bit like category to category I just blanket like 25% typically it's you know some a lot of scenarios it ends up being too much that you're accounting for but I've also been in other scenarios to where like I'm hitting it like 24 and that's for so many reasons and variables that you could be charged by a distributor and I think it's really challenging for brands that are starting and like they don't have the benefit of buying large quantities of ingredients that are going to reduce their cost of goods but again like you have to that's what you look at brands like Coconut Cow and um Lexington bakes that just they appropriately price their products they're premiumly priced but I'll tell you what if you can sell your products at a 40% premium to the rest of the category you're damn good you're gonna be damn confident that like you got something so I think you have to take that approach and you just so many brands kill themselves cause they just don't give themselves enough margin yeah so um I 5 and sometimes it's even 30 if you're working with like a small DSD regional player like I worked with a local ice cream distributor and they wanted 35% and I got them to 25 ultimately but we at first we settled on 30 and then after six months got them to 25 and it's like it's a dance but yeah 25 sorry yeah cool just in general not specific to distributors just up and down the supply chain yeah as a whole especially I know this is what you talked about with some of the challenges you came across with the ice cream brand like what are the most common ways that operators get this process wrong in terms of projecting cogs and margins yeah I think sometimes you just write off different line items like not like not in the right spot they're like ah this doesn't need to be in the PNL or this doesn't have to be part of gross margin and like I've reviewed like I've reviewed different like financials of of businesses and stuff like wait why like you're allocating this part of the of like your logistics process all the way over here like that should be hitting your gross margin like that shouldn't be over here on an island and I think it's just they don't they build the PNL to look more favorable and say oh yeah I have 40% margins but it's like well not really you're just not accounting for a few of these line items that are actually really killing your your profitability and like that has to be accounted for so I think it's just like talk to other people that have done it in your category or similar categories and make sure that you're accounting for the right things in your margin because you also don't want like an investor to come to you and be like you don't even know what should be listed and where it should be listed on your PNL like you're not off on the right foot if that's gonna be the case yeah what would you say if you had to recommend and just say one number what gross margin should your really early stage upstart founders and brands be shooting for in those early days 40 to fifty which is like feels crazy but like yeah 40 to 50 because you're probably missing something like just from oversight and not knowing enough there's probably 10 points that are just gonna be obliterated right and then there's gonna be other headwinds that come and probably obliterate another 10 and you can talk to 100 founders early stage first time and they might not even be thinking about like trade rate like you have to factor in trade rate into what you do and a lot of founders just don't right so like there's just gonna be things that pop up that you know you're not accounting for talking about channel retail channels for a bit Store channel is a big opportunity that doesn't always seem to get talked about quite as much and I think I've heard you and Andrew read about you talk about this channel a little bit from from your perspective what's let's just say unique about this channel and and what are the keys to winning in this channel specifically yeah I think C stores cool I don't think it's right for everybody brand stage and category again are all super important for if it's right for you or not I think I'm listen I'm far from a C store expert I mean we have some brilliant people at Jack Links that are like true C store experts and like I still like I'll I love it like the opportunity of going and like walking like C stores with them and hearing them just talk and point at this or that and you know it's super enlightening um yo and what's interesting that I've Learned is like a lot of their reviews happen like at the same time like the phasing for C store as a as a channel is like fairly in sync like they like to get things done by I forget exactly like what the timing is but like it's all kind of done by like the same time at least for jerky and like and then that's it if you miss that it's really tough to just get caught in later so it's like genuine like one year cycles but not just for like one customer it's it's like all of them basically right like it's of course like Whole Foods has their review cycle but Whole Foods cycle isn't synced up with like Fresh Time and sprouts and and everybody else but like for C store a lot of them are synced up on categories which is very interesting yeah I mean it's it's really cool I think like the podcast or the article whatever that you're probably referencing is like the idea of just like some more like unconventional channels like yeah when I joined Jack Links I was very surprised at the business that we had in like the hardware channel right and I think it's cool like if you look at like smack and Sunflower seeds like they are taking an approach where they're trying to kind of go like to more of these complimentary more like afterthought channels to build up first and then that give you know it just allows you to get maybe an easier foot in the door build up you know revenue and maybe not even have to spend as much against it right like if you're right product at the right place at the right price like sometimes that is all you need to move really well and if you're the only sunflower seed or the only jerky option at a place where people where the consumers and the people there like are looking for that kind of product then you can kind of own an area without having to run promos all the time like you don't have to do 16 weeks of promotional time in the channel right or maybe you don't have to you know account for all these other variables or spend as much in marketing right like you don't need a national campaign to support the sales of this channel or that channel right like so I don't know it's it's it's interesting C Store is really cool it's not right for every brand it's not often like a discovery place but again if you are truly solving a need for somebody that's like travelling in and out it's an impulse purchase if you know your category is highly impulsive like jerky as a whole is highly impulsive if somebody's gonna start a jerky brand you you know maybe it makes sense to say hey I'm gonna just focus on C store right like jerky is an impulsive product and C store is an impulsive channel so like if you can align those things and like maybe it makes sense for you but they're typically looking for like different pack size like pack sizes aren't always the same from C store to the natural channel so it's like also if you're thinking about going into C Store you have to have your configurations right and so you might not be in a position to invest in new configurations so is it worth overextending yourself and spending more to make a configuration that makes sense or is it worth taking a configuration that isn't optimized for the channel and trying to make it work for the channel cause probably won't cause it's gonna mess up your price pack architecture and and everything else and now you're just right product wrong price wrong size no who cares yeah nobody wants a Costco sized item at any season not now anyway I don't know maybe I'll eat my words in a few years but I don't think that's the case for right now yeah you've just been in the space for for a while working with all these different brands if I came to you and told you I was launching a new brand in the snack space I'm about to kick off packaging design what are let's just say two or three things you tell me to keep top of mind or things I should watch out for that could potentially trip me up as I'm going through this process yeah most of the time less is more like know know exactly what your communications hierarchy is like do you wanna scream protein No. 1 you wanna be known for protein again like the overused like Halo top example of like Halo Top before was talking about like sugar protein calories in like absolute numbers on front of pack all weighted equally and they redesigned and they celebrated calories first and they actually took off like the grams of protein and just put good source of protein on the bottom right so in their product in their communications hierarchy calories became No. 1 in the hero and then they communicated like you know then it's like brand is No. 2 and then so and so because you gotta think like it's not just your claim and value propositions that are in the hierarchy it's also where does your brand fall is your brand No. 1 the brand is number like the largest and gets the attention first or is it your flavor is it your first value proposition like you have to really be clear on what those are because your one and two uh like your number one and number two communication like variables or factor whatever pieces shouldn't be competing right there's a certain point in the hierarchy where you could have equal weight but that is like the tertiary quality of your product and like again for Halo Top it was just oh we're gonna say good source of protein down here and like we're okay if people don't necessarily recognize that we care about communicating calories and the brand that's all that they cared about right so be super clear and confident in what you're trying to communicate you have to be able to say no and like clear hierarchy it's like one of the most important things I think people trying to be more of an artist versus selling a product like it's not how cool can I make the pack look it's how can I best communicate what is inside of this packaging for the consumer yeah that's your only goal yeah you've got three people like 3 5 seconds to capture their attention as they're walking down the aisle right yeah yeah there's I think I saw something it's like there's like 10,000 subconscious decisions being made in a grocery store in a single shopping trip or something and it's like if you're in the frozen section good luck because you're at the end of the shopping trip it's the last thing being purchased there's there's like subconscious decision fatigue that's setting in so like you better nail those one or two things that people are that you're trying to communicate and if you have five elements competing for attention they're not gonna understand anything yeah they're gonna move on it's a great point especially about the frozen category that it's usually the last cause they want it to melt in their cart and they're sick of shopping that's a great thing to consider I never thought about that similar scenario let's just say I was a brand leader at an established brand like maybe it's you and some of these emerging brands that that you've been running they've been going well for a while but you're considering a packaging a refresh what questions would you ask me that would help me confirm just even if this is a right strategy to do in the first place yeah I would first ask why do you wanna rebrand why do you wanna design new packaging cause I would wanna understand your thought process and see is it linked to insights or is it linked to vibes right if you're like oh the vibes are off like I don't know if that's the best decision right like maybe sometimes it is but like vibes is not always the best you know initiator for something big like that yeah um I would yeah so I think the why is super important I would also want to understand within that like yeah are you trying to communicate something differently are you changing formula is that what's prompting it like what is really just like what's the catalyst for prompting this this decision I would press on the channels that you're going to be selling in I would press on who the consumer is and understand what they want what they value why do you think that you know in your brief when you list this hierarchy why do you believe this to be the most important I would also wanna understand your like cash position like as a founder like hey if you have you know if you have $500,000 in the bank which a lot of founders don't you know and you're gonna go and work with an agency that's gonna charge you $100,000 is it the most valuable use of $100,000 today to go and rebrand or should you be putting that into things that are in drive revenue now if you truly believe this is how this is how I always think with my team and with our brands it's like is the packaging today success prohibitive is the way we look today preventing us from being successful if the answer is yes then we need to find the budget and we need to figure out a way to improve the packaging so we can we can have a pathway to success if your packaging is not necessarily prohibiting success and it's more of like a vibe you're like we just need to refresh cause it's a new stage and like it's gonna be sexier and look better and yada yada yada like I think you should maybe reconsider like is there a better use of funds like can you use that money on this marketing activation or is actually going in OK there's tariffs right if you spent a portion of funds to ship your product to Canada because you just launched in Canada can you ship some of your product to Canada and hold it in a warehouse there for a little bit because you're able to then like get ahead of tariffs and like not have to you know like there's just different games you can play so it's like a dollar spent on packaging is a dollar not being spent over here and so is that the most valuable use of the dollar at the time like that's what I would probably press on press as well also really helpful yeah it's really good way to look at it from just a logical practical standpoint last question for you you're in this emerging brands space always looking at new stuff any brands or just general trends in the CPG space overall that you're particularly excited about yeah I love I love a lot I think that it's very funny because like protein ice cream is like sexy right now again I can name five brands that are like working on it right now it's nuts but I would say one brand that I do really love it's a category that's been done a ton of times and not overly successfully it's really tough but I think she is crushing it is doey I'm not sure if you're familiar with them heard of it yeah Kelly is the founder she's brilliant really smart I think the way she's like operating the background seems to be like it just really sharp and it's edible cookie dough it's been done a million times but there hasn't been somebody that's really broken through I think that Kelly and Doey have a real opportunity to build something special and and cool that has like staying power and extendability into things that aren't just like edible cookie dough right I think that where we're kind of getting to in multiple categories like obviously the trend is protein right now you know proteins being slapped on anywhere I think we're seeing an influx of brands celebrating protein but the desire for protein it has been this like consumers have wanted this for years and it's it's been consistent year over year over year like consumers want protein I do think that like production capabilities are at a place now that they haven't been previously to produce higher quality better tasting items that are packed with protein than we previously have been able to do right so I think the proliferation of that has been something that's supported that trend but Kelly and doey I think I'm super excited about that brand I think that's really fun and they're doing great I think brands that are just getting back to like simple right like I think protein is big but I do think that there's gonna be an influx of brands that are able to execute on something that's really good but like simple um and not necessarily fortified with XYZ and have these mushrooms and those mushrooms and yada yada yada I just think a simple version of different products is gonna start to like really kind of like pave the way in things I don't necessarily think more is more and adding more functional ingredients is gonna be more I just think simple good and better for you is gonna be a valuable thing um I think it's valuable now but I think it's gonna continue to grow and we're gonna see brands start to succeed more and more that are like you know addition by subtraction yeah I don't know I think there's trying to think of other brands that are really exciting I just joined First Look VC that's cool like I'm getting packages now of like all these different brands which is really exciting some in categories like I've never even thought about like feminine care like seeing some really brands that are doing like very meaningful things over there that I'm learning about that's just seems to be really exciting but again like I'm not a consumer of that category so like I don't use it every day but I'm learning there and I I think that that's something that I'm paying more attention to now because it looks like there's a lot of a lot of advancement happening in like personal care specifically for women as well that I'm starting to look at more and more I think I don't know I I think that's kind of what I'm excited about now I'm finding my excitement more in like specific founders and like new styles of packaging and things like that um I think more of the boring stuff is exciting IQ Bar will huge fan of will and IQ Bar he's the man absolutely you know he's incredible the product's incredible love the work that they're doing love the conviction that Mark has in what he's building with Mark Snacks I think that's really cool was a big fan of I one before I think what else all these are great yeah these are great that's where I'm at right now I guess yeah these are great these are awesome yeah yeah Kyle's been awesome really appreciate the time I think you've shared a lot of really valuable insights I'm sure you'll continue to what's the best place for kind of people to follow along with you yeah LinkedIn LinkedIn's the best I'm on it all the time posted every day except for two days in 2023 it was super valuable for me but I try and get back to people as much as possible if you're a founder that's about to shut down don't hesitate to reach out I try and you know prioritize those people over anybody else and get to them as quick as possible cause I know that that's a crazy time and any founder's life and if you're a founder that's like looking if you're looking to raise a seed round or anything else reach out to me as well I might be able to help you out but I can also maybe point you in the direction of somebody else who could help you out and I just love to meet people in the industry I love this I can talk this stuff all day so LinkedIn best place to find me Kyle Peters um and currently at Jack Links so you can find the right one perfect awesome appreciate it that's the pod thank you guys emerging brands strategy and then yes what is your average day or week did you have some specific types of roles in mind if you had let's just say for brands that have been what should brands and founders expect when it comes to actually projecting cogs and margins