Chunk

0:00Amos Golan:Welcome to the Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. This is the podcast to discover stories behind your new favorite CPG brands. Each episode brings you behind the scenes of the brand and founder story, learn what sets them apart in the marketplace, and their strategy going to market. We talk about plans for growth, practical advice for an emerging brand founder, and where to shop products that are making waves in food, beverage, wellness, beauty, and beyond. You'll also hear from industry experts, brand builders, investors, and operators you should absolutely have on your radar if you're building a CPG brand today.

0:44Amos Golan:I'm your host, Kelly Bennett, a Brooklyn-based brand strategist with a front row seat of what makes an emerging CPG brand stand out. Whether you're building a brand of your own or love supporting what's next, you're in the right place. This episode was made possible by our sponsor, Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is a platform that connects everyday small creators with brands that drive user-generated content, build buzz at specific retailers, and captures competitive market share. It's a tool that I recommend to all of my clients that you should absolutely check out. Head to hummingbirds.com for all the details.

1:27Amos Golan:Now, let's dive into the new episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. Today, I have a founder who is in a really interesting industry, a segment of CPG, food and beverage, that has seen a lot of highs and a lot of lows, and I'm really curious to hear his story. Amos Golan is a founder and CEO of Chunk. And Amos, I'm so glad to have you on the show today. Thank you very much for having me, Kelly. You're so welcome. So first off, can you explain what is Chunk? First, I do love the name. It's really fun to say and already gets you in a state of mind of like, what is this exactly?

2:16Amos Golan:So could you walk us through what is Chunk? Absolutely. yeah and I think the name says it all right so we make a center of plate whole cut product that is so basically a chunk of meat it just happens to be made of plants it's super high in protein low in calories and very clean has a super clean label with eight ingredients and it's also just ridiculously delicious so it really can replace beef or even can be sometimes better than beef in almost any application. You can cook it, you can smoke it, you can barbecue it. And that's the reason why we've been widely accepted by thousands of chefs in the US.

2:58And now we're getting into retail. So interesting.

3:01Amos Golan:Again, I used to work in the plant-based food space for many years. So I'm just personally intrigued by this one. When it came across my desk, I'm like, yes, I would love to talk about this. as far as your career background and how you became a cpg founder i would love to hear what were you doing prior to chunk absolutely thanks for asking yeah i have i think i have a somewhat unusual background in in our space i actually started my career um in cooking so i studied traditional French cooking at the Cordon Bleu. And, you know, for a short period of time, I thought I want to be a chef. After working in a couple of restaurants, I realized that's not really what I want to do, but really loved food, loved cooking, but also loved a few other things.

3:53Actually, decided to study sciences. I have a master's in chemistry, worked in a couple of startups in adjacent fields to chemistry. So ag tech and biotech and, you know, managed to move to the US to do a master's at the Media Lab at MIT. And there I met with a team from Ferrero, the very well-known chocolate company. And this was my first, they made me an offer to join their strategic open innovation team. And this was my first interaction with a real CPG company. And it combined a very kind of an age-old passion for manufacturing. So, you know, I loved what I did there. We worked on some really cool strategic projects related to raw materials and agriculture and so on.

4:43And one of those projects we worked on for sugar reduction really sparked my interest in what is at the heart of our technology, which is fermentation. So I learned a lot about fermentation while working at Ferro, specifically fermentation of commodities like grains and legumes and so on. And I was also very fortunate that this happened exactly when plant-based was booming in the US. So I was like, okay I have a really interesting technology there's a really interesting space that's growing here with a lot of great things about it but a lot of challenges and I think I have an idea how to

5:16Amos Golan:solve them and what time period was that roughly so I moved to the U.S. in the summer of 2016 which was really pivotal because it was when Beyond launched Whole Foods and Impossible did like the Momofuku collaboration and so on and then I started working in at Ferro in 2018 worked there for a couple years but then I you know the Beyond IPO happened during that time a lot of reasons why plant-based is really interesting like I've seen some of the cycle of like the hype cycle and like the growth and then some of the downfall and COVID the explosion during COVID and yeah so I got really excited about it and and the fermentation technologies that we were looking at for other spaces never really worked well for confectionery but because of the umami flavors that fermentation gives to the whatever you ferment right well almost any organism really sparked my interest and said you know i thought well this could really be useful in something like plant-based where we have all these problems of the you know the soy flavors that sometimes you have with these products and so on fermentation can really remove a lot of the negative flavors and empower a really nice umami based flavor that helps people enjoy the product more so this was it that i started the company just based on this hypothesis that i can make something better with fermentation i like the fermentation yeah i like the fermentation angle again i was pitched every sort of plant-based whatever you know meats made out of things that i would never imagine in a million years and so i i didn't i haven't heard uh that much about the fermentation and linking that to a plant-based meat.

7:01Amos Golan:So you touched upon a few things and I think these are the next wave of alt meats and just plant-based foods in general of not focusing on that hyper process, but something that feels more aligned with like more artisanal or more natural, like a fermentation process. And also what you touched upon as far as taste and texture and multiple uses. I think that has been one of the biggest blocks of more people trying it or at least adding it into their rotation, right? That's a big pushback for people. So I would love to hear how you found your differentiation points with the product itself and also educating people who may have tried it in all meat or they had a perception of what it would taste like or what it would be made out of I would love to hear your point of view absolutely and kind of I'm curious so when you think the first things that come to mind when you think about plant-based what would come to mind so experiences from my experience I built a plant-based restaurant and I worked on it for 10 years and we had two locations and it was awesome and I was like diehard vegan at the time too.

8:25Amos Golan:So I was living, breathing and sleeping. I personally really loved plant-based meats when I was craving some nostalgic taste and texture and something that felt familiar. However, I think so many people thought it was going to be this silver bullet in that everyone was going to change over and then so many products came to market. And I think there was some weird, there was just some weird products also on the market that the average consumer outside of like diehard vegans kind of had a hard time wrapping their head around it. And it was like hype. And then I did see that, you know, decline. And hopefully there's, you know, it happens in any new industry, right?

9:11Amos Golan:But it was something that I was like, ooh, I wish there was better tasting products coming to market. I mean, the restaurant did a good job at it, but not everyone could go to a restaurant to eat it, right? Like something that feels convenient also in your home that doesn't just rely on the fact that it is vegan, but it actually tastes really good. And I'm really bullish on that point of like, you could be gluten-free, you could be vegan, you could be whatever, but you also have to taste good and be something that people would want to gravitate towards consistently. I'm really passionate about that point.

9:48Totally, totally. I couldn't agree more. And this is really the reason why we started selling our products at restaurants. Really not just to learn the... Which is smart. Thank you. Yeah, I like that. But yeah, we started working in restaurants about a year and a half before we started selling in retail. So we really wanted to make sure the product can be used in different cuisines by different people with different capabilities that people are willing to show that people when it's prepared properly, people are willing to pay for it. And we've done a lot of things that were not done before in our space.

10:22So we're the only first and only plant-based product that's being regularly sold in steakhouses, for example. There's 35 steakhouses that sell our products.

10:30Amos Golan:That's interesting. we're the only plant-based product that's currently sold in a in a kind of a jewish deli style location you know they make the pastrami sandwich with our product just next to the regular pastrami sandwich so i think we've done a lot of these things to see how people react to the product we've seen what we saw is that a lot of people have different reasons to consume the product and then when we started planning the um the retail launch we said okay we want to make take these things that people love about chunk and bring them to the consumer in a way that's easy to understand.

11:02We're still working on that. I don't think we're doing a perfect job. We're improving. It's hard. We're iterating. It's very hard.

11:08Amos Golan:It's really hard. But I really do think that ease of use, for example, so a lot of plant-based products were just too challenging to make well, like to get a good result. So we're focusing on cook from frozen now and we're focusing on just making this foolproof to get a good result. And we're focusing on great flavors And if it's not the flavor of the meat as the ingredient, it's what comes with it, right? So we have some new products coming up that I think are going to be really exciting. I'm going to make plant-based eating a lot more accessible. Just as you said, so that people can add this to their rotation.

11:48You don't have to be vegan to consume this. If it solves a real problem for you as a consumer, you'll have a reason to buy it. Whether it's the chunk is 62 % calories from protein. The only thing that has this ratio is like David's bar and like boiled cod. There's really nothing else out there that has so few calories that has so much protein and also tastes delicious, for example.

12:12Amos Golan:That's an interesting point, too, because I think that just the we see, right, the trend of protein and the conversations around protein. I think it almost plant-based foods in general have had a bit of a hard time of still saying, no, this is a good protein source. And this actually still is high in protein without so much calories. Has that been something that you're pushing up to the forefront of your messaging and like really helping people connect those dots better? We're going to do more of that. We haven't done we've done some of it. We haven't done enough, in my opinion. when we shifted from focusing solely on restaurants to consumers, we're going to do more of that.

12:57We're going to do more of the convenience. So convenience was super critical for operators, but it's also maybe even more important for home users, right? So we're going to focus on that. I think a lot of the plant-based products were just very challenging to deal with. You know, you have this like block of ground meat. It smells terrible. And also meat also is challenging to deal with, but we've grown to know what to do with it. and with plant-based it's different right so it's slimy and you have to open the bag and it's like you know it's like blood spots on your earth on the counter and then it's the whole room smells of frying right so like but we somehow grew to understand that when it comes to meat and we don't we we expect something else from a product plant-based is interesting in the sense it's replacing a commodity or an ingredient with a branded product for the first time like you take meets which is unbranded most of the time and you're replacing something branded which is really cool i think it's an enormous opportunity um and that's you know that's what makes me excited about the space is that we you know we have an ability to start pushing a category that's been mostly an ingredient it's like a cucumber no one knows exactly what that brand of cucumber is right but if you can now create a branded cucumber it's amazing right you have so many opportunities A thousand percent.

14:13Amos Golan:I had the VP of marketing from Yes Apples and they are a collection of apple orchards in upstate New York. And they are essentially creating a brand and a lifestyle experience around apples. And I was like, that is interesting. I've never thought so much about like where I got my apples from or the brand behind it. So I think you touched upon a few really interesting points and also your personal perspective coming from culinary to then your science background, working with one of the biggest CPG brands there is, right? And then coming from that perspective of creating a new product and innovating and kind of seeing, especially the time where you entered, you got to see what hit, what didn't hit, and what were still like white spaces and gaps within this subset of alternative meets.

15:15absolutely yeah and i think so i mean our our trajectory is a little different than many brands because we chose to be our own manufacturers which has a lot of benefits but also huge challenges both in terms of capital and in terms did you do that from the beginning from the beginning we so my vision was we're going to be the manufacturer it wasn't it you know it was easy because no coal packer was able to make our product which is a fair point yeah but like so we we built we've built our own factory so we had to develop the the base technology we then had to build our own facility which would keep on expanding to get kind of uh hit the uh the you know the the need because because we're running out of capacity uh because of demand and um yeah so that was like the first three years we didn't even really hit the market we had to develop we had to then build capacity like the ability to manufacture capacity to build the technology and only then we started selling and then we were only able to sell into restaurants initially and now we're finally meeting the consumer where they are in retail so only six months it's been six months since we launched in retail uh and what was your strategy around launching in retail so there's a strategy i know that's a big question no it's a there's I think a lot of brands in kind of the natural organic space naturally gravitate towards starting with these types of customers, right?

16:47Because this is in supermarkets or chains, so natural and organic. We are also doing that. It was very important for us to collect feedback quickly, to be able to get on the shelf quickly. And it took us so long to get on the shelf. So when we finally were able to do it, we, you know, we wanted to do it really quickly. So we actually started with indies. We started with a lot of indie stores in New York and LA. It's a lot faster to get on shelf. It's a lot faster to get feedback directly from both the retailer and consumers there. And simultaneously, we started applying to chains. So there's, for example, you know, the biggest announcements I have now, basically, is that in 18 days, we're going live with the giant company.

17:30so that's going to be our first uh kind of national in the u.s at least the first congratulations thank you yeah so we're going to get on shelf with three of our skus uh steak the pool and the slab which is kind of a brisket type product and um yeah so we you know some opportunities presented themselves uh and you know and some opportunities were part of the strategy and just went for them and you know some of them are going to take a little more time because of reset dates and so on.

18:00Amos Golan:Right. But, you know, it is what it is. You know, strategy, most of it is strategy and some of it is just, you know, you just take the opportunities when they come and try and make them work. That's a fair point. And I like how you touched upon the impact of going to specialty first for getting that really more hands-on, ear-to-the-ground type of response from customers of what's working, what's not working, what are they loving, why are they rebuying. When you go that specialty route, especially in the beginning, and this is what I by and large advise my clients to do as well, you're getting that relationship building.

18:42Amos Golan:You're getting that really localized engagement, community building, and also the tastemakers say New York City, LA. Like it's a good temperature check of how your product's landing to then see, okay, this is where we want to then go next. Yeah. And really all it takes to get on the shelf, I mean, there's more to it, right? But like in general, in broad strokes, what it takes is for you to go and knock on the door and ask, hey, would you mind putting, you know, a few of these cases on the shelf? and if they you know if you help them figure out where they have really shelves like rows and shelf space they'll put it there um so so that's what we did and um it's working well and we had some opportunities in puerto rico you know oh cool distributor that we met and we're now in 50 supermarkets in puerto rico and it's doing growing really well and we're seeing really good so like some opportunities present themselves present themselves and some opportunities are just like down the strategic path.

19:46And I think you should not ignore any of them because you get a lot of, a lot of advisors would say, don't go with a product like ours, don't go national or don't go like to conventional supermarkets before you've accumulated like the right velocities in the best channels for you. And I think they're right, but I think if the brand can afford it, I think you will learn a lot from meeting the consumers who are also outside of your first early adopter layer because then you know whether you can really scale your brand to be big or not.

20:18Amos Golan:That's a great point too. I think what you touched upon of like those specialty groceries, New York, LA, that's where you're going to get your early adapters, the tastemakers, people who are by and large more open to trying new emerging products. But what you just said of like that next layer out of people who may not be following what's the hottest and coolest emerging brand on the scene or someone who isn't really into what type of product you're creating, but that those people are really important too because you need to get that buy-in. And so I like that you touched upon that. Is there any other piece of advice you would share with an emerging brand founder or soon-to-be founder who's on that cusp of saying, okay, I'm going to go all in.

21:14Amos Golan:I'm going to do this thing and it might take me three years to build a manufacturing and it may not be the easiest path, but I'm really passionate about it. I believe that there's a purpose behind it. What would you share with that founder? I think first piece of advice is just technical piece of advice. I'd say if you don't have to start with your own manufacturing and take three years until you get to market, don't do it. Because that was a very long, like, I feel like we have this hump now that we, you know, three years and quite a lot of money that we had to raise that makes our life a lot harder now.

21:54I do think that, you know, one piece of advice would be if you're really passionate about it and that has been a dream of yours, then go for it. But just know that it comes with a price. So like, it's not for everybody. It's just a lot of really, really hard work. And most of us fail, right? I mean, so that's kind of like, just be prepared for that. Make sure that you have enough money. It's really very, very, very expensive to launch a CPG brand in the US. even if you have all the basics right like if the product is great and there's market for it and you know everything is fine it's just really really expensive and cash flow becomes an issue very quickly as you want to grow so take your time to grow if you don't have the funds grow responsibly and i mean you should grow responsibly regardless but like grow slowly to really make sure that there's the right velocities there and product market fit before you try to explode and And you need a lot of money to explode exponentially.

22:55So that would be my advice. And talk to a lot of other founders. Hear the horror stories. Hear the good things. Don't be blinded by the huge successes that we see around us. Because for everyone's success, there's like 99 people who put their lives and their guts in and failed, which is totally fine. Which is part of business, right? It's part of business. But you need to be prepared to be one of the 99 who don't succeed and still be happy with the results. So that would be my advice. And I'm always happy to chat with founders who are interested in the limited advice that I can give. I'm always happy to try and give.

23:30Amos Golan:Well, I really appreciate you sharing that because it's more of the practical advice that we need to keep in our periphery when we're following our dreams and taking leaps and, you know, doing the crazy thing of starting a brand and creating a product. those are really tangible and impactful things to keep in mind. And I really appreciate you sharing that because I want this podcast to be a resource for someone who's just starting out, that they could hear all these different stories and be aware of the next steps ahead, shared by founders who are, you know, years ahead of them but still have this insight fresh in their mind because they're like, oh, yep, I just learned that.

24:21Amos Golan:So keep this in mind. And so I appreciate that type of insight. Yeah. And I mean, founders, I mean, people, entrepreneurs, they can't help it, right? I mean, I quit my job after getting a$50 ,000 check to start my business. I was like, yeah, I'm quitting my very well-paying job at Ferrer. I'll just, you know, I'll do this myself. You know, I had a slide deck with five slides and basically nothing else. I had like a prototype that I made in my kitchen. I had no team, no money, no nothing. So like, I think a lot of folks can't help it. It's just like who we are. I just want to make sure people know that this is, if it's not for you, then it's not for you.

25:03Like don't force this kind of life because it can be very miserable, you know. 12 hour days, six days a week, you know, all the pressure and needing all that money just really need to want this, this kind of lifestyle.

25:18Amos Golan:I second that. I was in the, like I said, the restaurant industry and just learning how grueling that aspect was and just knowing like you have to find what works for you personally. And I think in CPG, there is this opportunity also, like you said, of building responsibly. And if you want to go a little bit slower and finding your lane and not forcing yourself to scale really quickly. I think those are the types of conversations I love having here too, because we see all the top headlines of these huge acquisitions, but that's not for everyone either, or they're not trying to do that in a day.

26:02Amos Golan:Right. And so I appreciate your honesty and transparency of just sharing of, you could find your own path. You could take it one step at a time and you could also try new things, but getting clear on what lane works best for you and your brand. Absolutely. So last question before I let you go and get back to all things chunk, where can people shop the products? So there's about over a thousand restaurants in the U.S. that serve chunk. So the best place to learn about them would be the Find Us map on our website. There's quite a few clusters in New York, in Florida, in California, in the Pacific Northwest.

26:46So it's very likely there's a restaurant near you, whoever you are, our listener. There's quite a lot of, not a lot, but a couple hundred retailers. Again, there are clusters. Well, that's a fair amount. Yeah. So there's some giant is coming up now. We would love for you to help us with Velocity is a giant, so please shop there. We're doing the end of July reset, and as I said, we're going to have three products there. Market 32 just launched our product, Price Chopper, so that would be a great place to shop. There's a few others coming up in California, but they still don't have the product. And you can also buy us online.

27:30So again, there's a link on our social or on our website, and that would take you to a, we have a third party that does the delivery to 48 states. So basically wherever you are, you can try Chunk. It may be a little more expensive, but if you're willing to spend that to try, then we would be very honored to hear what people think and to hopefully people would love the product if they try.

27:55Amos Golan:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for also nerding out with me around plant-based foods and the industry. and just, again, sharing your perspective and your insights. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me, Kelly. I really had a good time. Good, good, good. Thank you, everyone, for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode. This episode of the Emerging Brands podcast was made possible by our sponsor, Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is a platform that connects everyday small creators with brands to drive user-generated content, build buzz at specific retailers, and capture competitive market share.

28:37Amos Golan:It's a tool that I recommend to all of my clients and one you should absolutely check out. Head to hummingbirds.com for all the details. If you're new here, hi, I'm Kelly Bennett, a Brooklyn-based brand strategist working with first-time CPG food and beverage founders. I have a front row seat of what makes and emerging CPG brands stand out because you're not just building a product, you are building a brand. And you want to make sure that is one that consumers love and retailers remember. That's where I come in. I've recently advised brands like Frankly Good Coffee, She's the Sauce, a new non-alcoholic cocktail line that's coming to market soon, and a hormone-conscious deodorant because food-adjacent brands count too.