246. 1500+ Doors on 6 Months, Joon Pistachio’s Tremendous Growth

0:01Alexandre Bennet:Welcome to Startup to Scale, a podcast by FoodBevy. I'm your host Jordan Buckner. Join me as I talk to aspiring entrepreneurs, seasoned industry experts, and everyone in between as we unlock the keys to growing from startup to scale.

0:18Alexandre Bennet:Today I'm talking to the founders of Joon, Cody Allen, and Alex Bennett, which is one of my favorite snacks of 2025. If you've never tried June, you'll be really excited. They are a line of pistachios, but with very simple, delicious flavors and ingredients you can feel good about. My whole family loves them, and they've become a staple in our house. We've gone through about 18 bags at this point, and we are obsessed. You know, I want to feature June and all the work that we're doing because it's such a great brand. I love the story behind it. We actually featured them in our Fall Food Bevy Insider Box.

0:51Alexandre Bennet:and became one of the top-rate favorites among hundreds of CPG insiders, founders, and buyers. Cody and Alex, welcome to the show today.

0:59Cody Allen:Thanks for having us. And, you know, we also just want to thank you for including us in the Food Bevy box. We've gotten so much, you know, so many folks have reached out to us and, you know, that they caught, you know, caught us in the box and tried the product. And it's just been awesome exposure. And we just appreciate all the love and support you've provided to the brand as well, whether it be on LinkedIn or email or Instagram too. and it's been super exciting to be included.

1:22Alexandre Bennet:I love that. Now I'll give a little shout out to our winter FoodBevy Insider box is now live on sale at insider.foodbevy.com to anyone listening who wants to check that out. But I wanted to start in telling and highlight your story. So I would love to start at the beginning and maybe Alex pass it over to you about like how you two decided to start June and why.

1:42Joon Pistachio:Yeah, absolutely. And echoing all that, it's been incredible to connect with so many people. LinkedIn has been fantastic. We had so many people posting like reviews that I'm still learning how to use LinkedIn at times, right? So I still see these reviews like two weeks later, three weeks later. So super stoked about it. A little disappointed that you're only through 18 bags. I think that we would want you to be through 24, 25 bags, but that's all right. We'll bump that up at another time. So yeah, dude, just a little background on us, how we got here. You know, we were actually just talking about this the other day.

2:13Joon Pistachio:Six months in business was on Saturday this past weekend. Prior to that, what we wanted to do are this week, We wanted to kind of like figure out like, how did we fully get to this point? How did we get to six months in business? So the first real ideation of June came in 2023. It was February 2023. I've been working in the CPG space for about 10 years now. I started in beverage. I went into consulting for some other brands and helping launch new and emerging products. Cody, while being in tech at the time, and he was working, you know, implementing these massive software systems for huge Fortune 500 companies and then went into ad tech consulting and whatnot.

2:53Joon Pistachio:Cody and I knew each other from college and Cody's family had been in food distribution for, you know, it's part of our story. They'd been in food distribution for over 100 years out of Philadelphia. And Cody had hooked me up with his father, who's still in the food distribution space for some of the brands that I was consulting with back in 2023. Nothing came from that meeting, but what did come from that meeting, and I mean that between me and Cody's father, but what did happen was Cody and I ended up getting on a phone call. Cody, as always, just kind of catching up, seeing what's up. He had moved to Denver at that point.

3:26Joon Pistachio:We had been friends from school and we'd lived in New York together for a little bit. So we're catching up and he asked like, are you working on anything else? And I told him I had this idea. I have this incredibly rich family history of pistachios. My family are pistachio farmers overseas for three centuries now. We've had incredible farms for over three centuries. And I said, I have an incredible recipe. So I sent him some samples of something that I ended up cooking at home. And that was the start of the ideation of June, right? So from February, 2023, we decided to go into a partnership. Cody did a bunch of research, found that there was a huge opportunity for pistachios and disruption in the nut category in general.

4:06Joon Pistachio:I, on the other hand, was just obsessed with this family recipe and was like, people don't know what a good pistachio tastes like. Having that arrogance, you know, that, you know, comes with not ever launching your own product and learning so much and being humbled along the way. But we ended up partnering with a fantastic R &D company out of California, came up with three amazing flavors that we wanted to pay, you know, a huge kind of ode to the family recipe while kind of modernizing it here in the United States. So we source in California, we cook in California. We came up with a process that has no seed oils, no natural flavors, kind of, again, accustomed to what new consumers are looking for, and came up with an original salted, which is like the family recipe, the dill pickle, which has been a huge driver for us.

4:52Joon Pistachio:Jordan, I'm sure every other thing you get in your box, you're seeing a new dill pickle product come in, right? It's definitely something that we're riding the high of. And then a salt and pepper, which is a flavor that people in the United States are very familiar with. So launch with three flavors. And it's been incredible so far seeing the initial reaction as we put this product into market over the last six months.

5:14Alexandre Bennet:I love that. You know, I have all the flavors here. The original salt and pepper and the dill. And I was actually most surprised about the dill, right? You like, I've never had a dill flavor pistachio, but it blends in really well with, I think, just like the natural nutty fattiness of the pistachio in with the dill seasoning. So kudos to you guys for creating that. When you kind of come along for the journey, what did you kind of expect not kind of being in the food space? And what's that transition like from your role into this space?

5:47Cody Allen:Yeah, it was quite a big transition. I mean, as Alex had mentioned, my great grandfather started a convenience store distribution company back in 1910. And so I grew up working in my dad's warehouse. He was third generation, you know, in the summer months from when I was 13 until I was 20. And then I got my first internship and went into the tech world. But I always, you know, grew up in the warehouse loading trucks, kind of doing everything that comes with that and always wanted to start my own food company. So it was always kind of in the back of my head. But I'd only really seen the food industry from the distribution side.

6:19Cody Allen:Right. I hadn't really seen it from the retail side. And so kind of shifting into running a brand was a big learning experience. And it still is every single day. And, you know, I think what was really helpful for me along the way was Alex has been in the space, as he mentioned, for about 10 years. So there was a lot that I learned from Alex in terms of like how retail works and, you know, pricing and all that comes with that. And, you know, we were, you know, I think we were able to create a nice, very nice yin yang relationship where I kind of understood some more of the back end distribution.

6:51Cody Allen:He had a really nice understanding of the retail side of the house. And, you know, it's just been a lot of fun. And I think, you know, we're both first time founders and it's been every day is something new or kind of learning. And it's been very rewarding and it's been a lot of fun kind of meeting people, meeting people like yourself and just poking around and going to trade shows and networking. And, yeah, I think, you know, it continues to be really exciting. And we're fortunate that we've just had a lot of momentum with the business as well and just trying to keep it going. That's awesome.

7:20Alexandre Bennet:You know, it's interesting because, you know, Alex, I'm sure you've been closer in the space. and then out or code to use like just seeing all these products right there are tens of hundreds of thousands of products like food products on the market food is tended in the last 10 years i think to go very like i'll call it like air quote innovative with like adaptogens and products and all these different additives almost taking you know supplements into food and being around functionality kind of belief that you have around the core product of pistachios to think like hey This is, you know, it's more than a commodity.

7:55Alexandre Bennet:It's an elevated product. Now's the right time for a modern pistachio brand or, you know, nut brand. And kind of what led you to saying like, okay, this is like the product we feel confident in in this moment.

8:05Cody Allen:Yeah. When, as Alex mentioned before, you know, he sent me the family recipe back in 2023 and I tried it and I went out and grabbed some pistachios, you know, off the shelf of some grocery stores and did a taste test. And I was like, wow, the flavor is incredible. But, you know, for us, we really wanted to kind of be a little bit more data driven and like why pistachios too, right? I mean, we're fortunate that what we found through our research is pistachio consumption over the last decade in the U.S. is up around 4X. And so we saw that and we were like, wow, that is growing a tremendous amount.

8:37Cody Allen:And, you know, we feel like there's an opportunity to introduce a product, you know, with all of the super clean label ingredients for flavored pistachios. pistachios. We buy bigger pistachios. And we also felt that there was an opportunity to come out with branding that kind of spoke and was a little bit more refreshed. And I think for us in looking at the data, it was the industry was growing really quickly. Supply is accessible right in our backyard here in California. California grows a majority of the pistachios globally every year. And it just so happened that Alex's family, you know, with the farms overseas, that that was the crop that they grew.

9:13Cody Allen:And that's what Alex always kind of grew up wanting to create was pistachio brand. And so it was kind of just a little bit of the perfect storm. And, you know, that kind of gave us enough conviction that among with some other data to kind of go for it. And I think for us, the other thing I would mention is we said, how can we really differentiate? Like, of course, flavor is critical, bigger pistachios, super clean label. But from a branding perspective, We wanted to create something that also appealed to not, you know, to all pistachio consumers. A large majority of pistachio consumers today are over the age of 45.

9:47Cody Allen:And we wanted to get a little bit extra hyper focused on that younger generation as well. So Gen A or Gen Alpha, you know, Gen Z, millennials. And so we tried to create a brand identity that would kind of speak to existing consumer base, but also be able to grow the cart size of those younger consumers as well.

10:03Alexandre Bennet:Yeah, I think that's really exciting. You know, I was thinking about just trends and there's growth in the pistachio industry. And I know like Dubai chocolate has been a big driver of the pistachio commodity base over the last couple of years. Alex, I'm kind of curious, like your perspective in terms of like, has that kind of played a role in awareness and like bringing pistachios back into the kind of modern conversation? Or like, how is that kind of showing up?

10:27Joon Pistachio:I mean, short answer, yes. There's no way around it. I think, you know, there was a SFA, the Specialty Food Association, that puts on like the Winter Fancy Food Fair and a fancy food show in New York. I read a report from them yesterday that had showed that amongst the new generation of buyers, so Gen Z and whatnot, that pistachios were one of the hottest products out there. Like at an interview, they did this at New York Fancy Food this year. The number one product is like, what's the hottest product right now? Everyone had mentioned pistachios. So pistachio milk like Tosh and then Dubai chocolate and then pistachio that's doing amazing pistachio spread.

11:06Joon Pistachio:So I think it fueled some of the awareness around pistachios. But if you had looked at the data that Cody and I were looking at prior to launching the business, it was already kind of like a hockey stick curve of of consumption in the United States. So it's been growing. I think there's use cases for it now that people are being like, oh, you can use it in different ways. I think that's driving the general commodity awareness. But listen, Dubai chocolates this year was crazy. It was crazy. And I know right now we are an in-shell pistachio. So just for context for anyone that might be listening and for you as well, Jordan, it's very confusing.

11:45Joon Pistachio:Took us two years. I still get it messed up sometimes. Where a shelled pistachio is actually an out-of-shell pistachio and then in-shell pistachio is an in-shell pistachio. So we are still in-shell pistachios. And we're going to do that for foreseeable futures. Whereas that's where we really like to, that's the game that we're playing right now. And obviously I think down the line, we will evolve into working with shelled pistachios. But there was a point, Cody, was it this year where you were getting calls at sweets and snacks where people were coming up to us that were confectionery guys or Dubai chocolate guys being like, I need shelled pistachios.

12:19Joon Pistachio:Like, do you have any? I'll buy it for premium. So, you know, these things have moments. It obviously was really big with social media. but for us I think what we're more excited about is the constant consumption of pistachios over the last 10 years growing rather than this ginormous spike but you know anything pistachio for us at this point it's good all all tide or all ships rise with the tide right I was gonna say

12:41Alexandre Bennet:like maybe uh it's it's always interesting the first couple of months but you know it's like oh would you guys jump on like a chocolate covered pistachio essentially it's like a near anything to the trend but I think it's really important to stay to your core and what's working as well. So definitely respect that. Give us a sense of like where the business is now six months in and what are the opportunities that you're really looking forward to next?

13:06Joon Pistachio:Yeah. So State of Play right now have launched with three distributors across the United States. We have two distributors in the Northeast that have, that's the bulk of accounts that you're probably seeing. We're likely in about a thousand accounts in the Northeast with an additional 400 spread throughout the United States. So we say that we're floating between 1 ,400 to 1 ,500 doors nationwide right now in those first six months of business, which has been fantastic. We have a distributor in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest that is really, really growing the business in San Francisco, which we're super excited about.

13:37Joon Pistachio:With that, you know, I always give my shout out to fair.com. They've been an incredible partner. Kyle Hughes over there has been an incredible partner. We have 300 plus accounts on Fair that are really, really impressive. mom and pop shops, independents. They're actually starting to do a lot of enterprise business. So we have GoPuff through them and we work with some incredible companies that allow us to fulfill directly to some of these larger partners rather than going through the distribution partner, giving us more flexibility on how we're going to merchandise and do TPRs and whatever discounts we can work with these guys.

14:09Joon Pistachio:But so you have these three avenues for us that are more traditional distribution. We have our direct business. And then what's been obviously, I think eye-opening for us on scale. Cody, prior to starting with June, had no gray hairs. You'll see that I'm already full gray on my beard here. Cody is starting to get them. He has an incredible head of hair. He'll be fine. But he's going to be Silver Fox soon because I would say a lot of that stresses, not even stress, it's more so just like, again, we're all adults. It's just a holy shit type volume from we launched with Thrive, Misfits, Purple Carrot, and then we have Hunger Root coming on board, we will be live with Hungry Root.

14:49Joon Pistachio:The way that we've spread this business now across all of these independents and then through a national e-commerce platform is above everything else. One, we're finding like, hey, the product is resonating with people. We're super excited about that. We have these incredible brands that we're starting to work with. But two is like incredible data feedback, right? I am not a data nerd like Cody. Cody came from tech. He loves that stuff. He wants to eat it up. But he has evolved me into it because I've seen now how relevant it is. And I understand now. And I always tell people too, like 10 years in the industry and every year that I'm in the industry, I know less.

15:26Joon Pistachio:That's just how it goes. The longer you in it, the more you realize you know nothing because this industry is so large, so vast. There's so many ways that you can build business. There's distributors I've never heard of, categories I've never heard of, all these crazy things. But what I have come to notice is that if you're a buyer, if you're a merchandiser and you're at a company like Thrive or let's say Misfits, I see is our point of contact there. She's a legend, like one of my favorite people in the industry, maybe just out of the industry too. She sees a million brands a day. A million people are pitching her.

15:57Joon Pistachio:And I understand that you can have an incredible brand, incredible tasting product. And in my core, I wish it was the case that that could be enough to just go in there and be like, hey, give us a shot. And in theory, it should be. But when there's such competition in the space, being able to go in there and have some data about who's buying your product, where the industry is going, where the category is going, how are you differentiating yourself? What are consumers buying? Having a data story has been incredibly helpful for us. To summarize where we are, it's like we're six months into the business.

16:30Joon Pistachio:We have 1 ,500 doors. We're on all major e-commerce platforms and then have a growing direct-to-retailer business, which we're really proud of. But ultimately, all of that is really to continue to learn about who we are before we press the foot on the pedal to go into a more regional launch and or a more scaled out national launch.

16:49Alexandre Bennet:I love this. Alex and Cody, I think this is a real testament to both of you and taking, you know, this family recipe and making it your own and building this business. And a huge testament is saying like sometimes it just takes a really great tasting product and in the category that's right for growth to find a success. So I have all the confidence that you are going to keep growing and build an amazing business, which is great, because then I'll get to keep eating and buying June. So thanks for being on the show today. If you haven't tried June yet, do yourself a favor and grab a bag. As I mentioned, they're one of my top favorites in the Fall Food Web Insider box, but learn more at eatjunefoos.com or find them on Instagram.

17:27Alexandre Bennet:But definitely appreciate both of you being on today. Thanks so much, by the way.