The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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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…”
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.”
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.”
Stafford: Bobo's and Justin's Nut Butter formed joint LLC to share kitchen
“And so he and I jointly took this new space, bigger, and it was just the two of us, And we formed a little LLC. It was crazy. And we shared employees, and we shared the space.”
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.”
Justin's generated $20 million in annual revenue by 2012
“You're doing twenty million a year in 2012”
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…”
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”
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 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.”
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.”
Forward Consumer Partners acquired a 51 percent controlling stake in Justin's
“They bought 51%. Controlling interest.”
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 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.”
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 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…”
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.”
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 …”
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.”
Justin's generated roughly $150,000 in sales around 2006
“Yeah, no, we were probably around 150,000 dollars in sales.”
Nut butter jars became Justin's strongest business segment during early pandemic
“And during the pandemic, the jar business has been the strongest part of our business because it is that household plant-based protein that is is a staple.”
Justin Gold worked at REI until his startup reached five employees
“So I worked second jobs. I was waiting tables up until I had two employees. I got a job at REI and I was selling backpacks and skis and sleeping bags when I had five employees.”
Justin's cut underperforming SKUs and shifted resources to handle pandemic grocery demand
“Kind of cut back on the SKUs that weren't our top sellers. And then our manufacturers went to seven days a week and it's monitoring their progress and monitoring stores and allocating this to stores based on their demand and needs and then pulling resources aw…”
Justin Gold launched organic peanut butter cups because no competitors existed
“Then we also do chocolates, and it's not because it was a really smart, deliberate Business decision is because I love peanut butter cups, and no one was making a organic one.”
Founders must hit production volumes before outsourcing manufacturing to focus on sales
“I also realized that I'm not really a skilled operator. My passion and skill is outside of the manufacturing, but I knew that I had to hit certain volumes in order to get to a manufacturing facility where then I could focus on other things, sales, marketing, a…”