Justin Gold
Founder & Board Member, Justin's. On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveoperator
Justin Gold founded the natural foods brand Justin's in 2004, pioneering flavored nut butters and squeeze packs before selling it to Hormel Foods in 2016. He returned to the brand as a board member and strategic advisor after Forward Consumer Partners acquired a majority stake in 2025.
1shows
2appearances
32statements
7resolved
4supported
3contradicted
57%fully supported
11said about them ↓ Everything Justin Gold said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Peanut butter brands face unfair palm oil scrutiny over short ingredient lists
“We don't use a ton of palm on our products, but when you have a food product that has two or three ingredients, you notice it. And so peanut butter, people associate palm oil with a lot of peanut butter brands because there's only a few ingredients. And in a l…”
Justin's stagnated because acquirer Hormel prioritized legacy brands like Skippy and Spam
“And then when they integrated it into all the functions of the Hormel portfolio, the people there didn't have the focus on the Justin's brand because that wasn't paying their bills. You know, Skippy and Dinty more stew and spam was paying the bills, and so Jus…”
Retail founders should memorize detailed personal notes on individual store staff
“The biggest advice I can give to an entrepreneur who's doing this, I kept a notebook, and in my notebook, Was the names of all the stores and the people who worked in those stores. So when I would walk back into a Houston, Texas, Whole Foods, I hadn't been in …”
Founders should stay post-acquisition to learn corporate scaling for future ventures
“If someone's going to acquire your company and they want to scale it and grow it and turn it into a larger company, I would like to learn and figure out how they, what the unlocks are so I can maybe either do it again or help other companies achieve that.”
Hormel fired Justin Gold from his company as an unneeded line item
“Yes, I was a line item that wasn't adding value, and so I was crossed off, and I was like, oh my gosh, like, what do you mean you're firing me? Like, I didn't do anything to get fired, and I'm like, it was just bizarre.”
Scaling a brand pre-acquisition forces corporate parents to give it post-acquisition attention
“And then being acquired by, you know, a larger group will give it a healthier opportunity to be integrated because it's because now the size demands that it gets attention.”
Justin Gold targeted the nut butter category because massive incumbents remained stagnant
“A lot of people also had a lot of skepticism because it's a huge category. With huge companies, and it had been the same for a long time, and that's where I got lucky.”
Early-stage CPG brands must completely saturate their home markets before expanding regionally
“The first thing you have to do is start locally, right? You have to own your home. And that gives you some success there. Then once you own your home, you have permission to move out to the next layer. And the next layer can be specialty gourmet stores. It can…”
Food distributor UNFI required brands to service 30 to 40 regional stores
“In order for us to get enough economies of scale to deliver to enough stores, you need to be in at least 30 or 40 stores, which is usually the whole region.”
Peanut butter faces lower retail velocity than daily consumer energy snacks
“And for a consumer, you might buy peanut butter once a month. If you're a heavy consumer, once a week or once every two weeks. And so It just wasn't flying off the shelves like a bar or an energy drink would because you'd have one every day.”
The top three squeeze pack co-packers refused Justin's over peanut allergies
“All three of them just said no, flat out, outright said no.”
Justin Gold's roommate's parents loaned him $75,000 to buy his packaging machine
“And his parents loaned me 75,000 dollars. That then allowed me to go out and buy this machine.”
Low-risk trial size was the primary driver of Justin's squeeze pack sales
“The number three reason why people were buying the squeeze packs was for, you know, portable protein, right? And I was like, oh, well, that's why I created it. I'm glad. Put it on fruit, put it on, you know, on a piece of toast. That's great. The number two re…”
Justin Gold could not patent protect his nut butter squeeze packs
“I couldn't patent protect it. I didn't invent peanut butter. I didn't invent the squeeze pack. I couldn't protect it.”
Justin's secured squeeze pack placement inside Starbucks grab-and-go boxes
“The first thing that happened was we got into Starbucks. With a squeeze pack. And they put us into a bistro box, which is, we're still there. It's like their protein plate, little grab and go.”
Justin's peanut butter cups achieved significantly higher sales velocities than jars
“The velocities on peanut butter cups are much higher than jars and even squeeze packs.”
Justin Gold chose VMG Partners over higher offers for their scaling expertise
“And so I didn't take the best deal that was offered. I took the best partner that was there that knew how to help me scale.”
VMG Partners targeted a standard five-year timeline for liquidity and capital returns
“We were only three years in with VMG and they generally five years is when they say, okay, let's start to think about what's next guys. We need our money back.”
Every Justin's employee held an equity stake when the company was acquired
“Everyone in the business was an owner. Every single person had an equity stake, so we changed everyone's life in a meaningful way”
Forward Consumer Partners acquired a 51 percent controlling stake in Justin's
“They bought 51%. Controlling interest.”
Justin Gold used squeeze packs to drive trials for expensive almond butter
“Launched at the farmer's market, and when I launched, it was just with the jars, and I got them into a few local stores, and I was really struggling, and what got us kind of noticed, I guess you could say, was getting outside the jar and getting into a squeeze…”
In 2001, grocery jam sections were triple the size of nut butters
“You'd walk the aisle, and there was a small little peanut butter and nut butter section, and there was a preserves, jams, and jellies section that was three times the size of the nut butter section.”
Justin Gold raised his initial $35,000 seed capital from his family
“My first investors were my uncle, my mom and dad, and my sister. And then I was able to kind of, you know, get some inheritance that, you know, was Being saved for me by, you know, my grandma. So I was able to get 35,000 dollars together, and That's how I got …”
The other half of the tape: Justin Gold's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 11 times in 2 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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How I Built This 11
2026 11 mentions in 2 episodes 6 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Justin's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder & Board Member, Justin's | 2 | 32 | 57% 4/7 | full record on How I Built This → |