May 25, 2026 · 1h 27m · how-i-built-this
Justin’s Nut Butter: Justin Gold. He Was Waiting Tables, Then...He Reinvented Peanut Butter.
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In this episode of How I Built This, founder Justin Gold details how he transformed home-blended nut butters into a $286 million natural food empire through grassroots bootstrapping, innovative squeeze packs, and an eventual return to revitalize the brand.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 27.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.6 Guest teaching 1.5 Guest disagreement 0.0 Guy pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:22:51 Justin corrects ownership stake numbers
Justin directly interjects to correct Guy Raz's statement that the investment group bought 49%, stating clearly they acquired a 51% controlling interest.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 45:30 Guy challenges retail expansion logicGuy pushes back against expanding into 30 regional stores before proving strong sales velocity in the original pilot location.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 58:00 Consumer behavior insights on product placementJustin explains retail shopper psychology, demonstrating how repositioning squeeze packs beside jars turned them into high-converting trial-size funnels.
Guy holds their own ▶ 9:16 Guy Raz explains sugar and moisture chemistry in food processingGuy demonstrates food science expertise by connecting Justin's water-activity problems directly to ice cream crystallization and syrup stabilization.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Journey: Heading West to Boulder | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz establishes Justin's background and diet as a young vegetarian arriving in Boulder. The dialogue is collaborative and expository. | |
| Kitchen Chemistry: The Quest for Flavored Nut Butters | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Justin describes his early food processing experiments and water activity challenges. Guy draws a parallel to the chemistry of ice cream crystallization. | |
| Perfecting Formulations and Planning a Business | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Justin details how peanut varietals and powders altered recipes, while Guy prompts him on his mindset transitioning from hobbyist to entrepreneur. | |
| Drafting the Plan and the Boulder Community | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy lists established Boulder food brands like Celestial Seasonings and Silk to contextualize the local entrepreneurial ecosystem Justin tapped into. | |
| Seeking Advice and Structuring for Investors | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Guy gently pushes Justin on how someone without business experience knew to draft an investor-ready exit strategy in his initial business plan. | |
| Sourcing the 40-Year-Old Urschel Industrial Grinder | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy asks why Justin couldn't simply purchase an in-store commercial grinder, leading Justin to explain minimum order quantities and industrial grinder specs. | |
| Mid-Show Break and Sponsor Tease | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | A brief mid-show break and recap transitions into the mechanics of using the newly acquired Urschel grinder. | |
| Securing Late-Night Commercial Kitchen Access | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Justin explains the regulatory need for FDA-certified facilities and how he negotiated late-night graveyard shift access to a Denver salsa kitchen. | |
| First Retailers and Using Palm Oil for Stability | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy raises the environmental controversies around palm oil sourcing, while Justin explains its essential technical role in preventing oil separation. | |
| Retail Pitch Strategies and Thin Margins | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Justin details how he pitched local retail owners with tailored value propositions despite razor-thin margins that initially failed to cover his own wages. | |
| Farmers Market Lessons and Creating 'Classic' | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Justin educates Guy on a key early consumer insight: customers loved his brand but demanded plain peanut butter, prompting him to launch 'Classic'. | |
| Pitching Whole Foods: Overcoming Distributor Hurdles | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Justin describes pitching the local Whole Foods buyer and navigating the prerequisite distributor hurdles with UNFI. | |
| Direct Store Delivery and Expanding Across the Region | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Guy pushes back on Justin's rapid expansion logic, pointing out that expanding store count without proven velocity in initial stores is risky. | |
| Sales Plateau and the Squeeze Pack Epiphany | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Justin explains the low velocity problem of jarred peanut butter and the mountain bike ride epiphany of packaging nut butter into portable squeeze packs. | |
| Mid-Show Break: The Squeeze Pack Challenge | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy and Justin discuss the widespread allergen liabilities that caused major co-packers to reject packaging peanut butter in squeeze pouches. | |
| Proto-Pak Machine and Sharing a Kitchen with Bobo's | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Justin recounts securing a family loan to purchase a refurbished Proto-Pak machine and sharing facility space and staff with Bobo's Oat Bars. | |
| Merchandising Discovery: Aisle Placement Matters | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Justin explains why placing squeeze packs in the energy bar aisle failed, and how moving them beside jars made them high-converting trial units. | |
| Bringing in Lance Gentry and Raising $1 Million | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Justin explains partnering with experienced operator Lance Gentry and using detailed retail relationship tracking to raise $1 million. | |
| Scaling Operations and Securing Starbucks Bistro Boxes | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Justin shares the massive breakthrough of securing Starbucks bistro boxes, followed by the tragic, sudden passing of Lance Gentry from brain cancer. | |
| Expanding into Organic Peanut Butter Cups | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Justin explains the cross-merchandising logic and high purchase velocity behind launching organic peanut butter cups to complement jars. | |
| Partnering with VMG Partners and CEO Transition | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Justin describes partnering with VMG Partners and voluntarily handing the CEO reins to Peter Burns to manage rapid institutional growth. | |
| The Complexity of Selling and Staying to Learn | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Justin articulates the internal tension between staying true to local Boulder ideals and selling to Hormel, choosing to stay on for five years to learn large-scale corporate operations. | |
| Processing Departure and Finding Freedom | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Justin recounts being laid off by Hormel during COVID, and politely corrects Guy Raz on the exact percentage stake acquired by Forward Consumer Partners. | |
| Strategic Roadmap for Justin's Renewal | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks Justin to reflect on luck versus skill, and Justin balances relentless grit with the fortunate tailwinds that made the brand a success. |
Statements from this episode (25)
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 …”
Peanut butter co-packers required minimum runs in the hundreds of thousands
“And it would be in the hundreds of thousands, you know, of units just to turn the equipment on.”
Wild Oats initially rejected Justin's for lacking national distribution capabilities
“Wild Oats said no, because they only wanted to carry, you know, a national, they only wanted to work with brands that could work nationally.”
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…”
Early Justin's production costs were $4 per jar, leaving no operating profit
“You know, probably four dollars. And so I was making virtually no money on any of these things.”
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.”
Justin's generated roughly $150,000 in sales around 2006
“Yeah, no, we were probably around 150,000 dollars in sales.”
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.”
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 …”
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's generated $20 million in annual revenue by 2012
“You're doing twenty million a year in 2012”
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”
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.”
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…”
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.”