How Wilde Built A Brand No One Can Copy

0:10Hello, friends. I'm Ray Latif, and you're tuned into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. For 12 years, Jason Wright has been obsessed with one question. Can a protein snack compete with the biggest brands in the chip aisle? on taste alone. In this episode, Jason, who is the founder and CEO of Wild Snacks, explains how a failed meat bar business led to a breakthrough innovation, why he spent years building proprietary manufacturing technology, and how Wild's new protein crackers fit into a broader vision for a protein-powered snack platform. Jason also discusses the value of patient investors, the strategic role of Costco and product sampling in driving trial, and why he believes the future of Better For You Snacks depends on eliminating the compromise between nutrition and indulgence.

1:10Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am honored to be sitting down with Jason Wright, the founder and CEO of Wild Snacks. Jason, great to see you. Great.

1:22Jason Wright:Thank you for having me, man. It's good to be back. I think it's been a couple years since we last spoke, and I'm excited about the opportunity to sit down with you here today. It was almost exactly five years ago that we published our last interview with you, the title of which was Why Whole Foods Bit On and Built Around This Wild Concept. And Wild has done some amazing things in CPG since it launched in 2014. 12 years? You're 12 years in the business now, which says you must be doing something right, but I don't know how many times you've tried to rip your own hair out over those 12 years. Ray, when I started, I had black hair.

2:07Jason Wright:Now I have gray hair. If it was falling out, I think I'd have lost it all by now. But the first probably four years of Wild was a lot of idea, thinking through, concept, how to do it. So we really didn't get going, you know, officially until 2018. But truthfully, 2021 is when I like to say that we became a real brand. And that was because we opened our facility. And up until that point, Wild was a huge R &D project, start, stop. But 21, we opened our first facility and we doubled sales every year since. And so that's when we really started to be a real brand. Well, 2021 is also when you first appeared on Taste Radio.

2:52So maybe that's part of your success story as well.

2:56Jason Wright:I think so, Ray. That's when you recognize me as a, he may be around for a while, you know? I think so. And I was thrilled to receive your latest product in the mail a few weeks ago. And that is the Wild Protein Crackers line. There are two SKUs that I received, a classic cheddar and a hot honey. And for our listeners, you might look at this product and say, this looks familiar. This looks like a product that I may have seen in my childhood that comes in a red cardboard box. But this product looks significantly healthier and better for me. It is made with real chicken breast, chicken bone broth, and cheddar cheese, and contains 12 grams of protein per serving.

3:44There are four servings per container or pouch. In this case, it's a 4.2 ounce pouch. As I mentioned before we hopped in the mics, I have not tried these yet and I'm looking forward to doing so. Wilds, just to give some context, did not start out in snacks. It started out in bars. Just share with our audience just to give them a quick history on Wilds, how you got started in this business and why you thought chicken could be the primary ingredient in a snack brand.

4:14Jason Wright:Yeah, for sure, Ray. So we started out as a meat-based protein bar. The idea there was make jerky into a bar, kind of like, I would say, like a kind of bar. And sometimes what you have visually in your head and reality doesn't connect. You know, a lot of people in 2000, call it 16, was jumping into the meat-based protein bar category. You had Epic, you had Tonka, and we were there. But reality was the category was not big and Epic owned it. So we had to pivot. And I love potato chips and I always have loved potato chips, but they didn't love me back. And having worked with meat in the bar, I automatically had an idea.

5:00Jason Wright:Could I replace the chicken or could I replace the potato with chicken breast? And so that was kind of how the springboard from really a failing product. The meat bar was not a success. And I had to pivot. And I really wanted to have something I could snack on. My love for potato chips. I just wanted to see if I could replace the potato with chicken. And I don't think there was another protein I really could pick. Looking at the meat-based protein bars, we were using beef and we had turkey. And I think we had one with bison. But when I thought about the chip, I needed something that was kind of a blank canvas, something that we could flavor in seasoning.

5:41Jason Wright:I had learned enough in the bars that certain people don't eat certain meats, religious reasons, belief, whichever you want to chalk it up to, different parts of the world. And so I automatically thought about chicken when I thought about our chip. And, you know, we pivoted in 2018 and the chip was not an easy road. And I'm sure we'll get deep into that. But we tried it at a park rind facility. That was not the way to do it. Eventually, after having a short stop at a co-man with our own equipment, we eventually had to, you know, build our own facility and go do this ourselves. The last time you and I spoke, we were opening that new facility in 21.

6:23Well, congratulations on opening that facility. you're also on the cusp of opening another facility down the street. This one is significantly bigger.

6:31Jason Wright:Yeah, so the first building was 55 ,000 square foot. We are opening right now 130 ,000 square foot facility. Our current facility, we maxed capacity out. It was just slightly north of 100 million in capacity. We maxed that out. The new building, just in the chip alone, is about three times that in capacity. and we installed a cracker line, which we'll get into, but, you know, our first shot at innovation in the last five years, something we've been working on for a while. But, you know, unlike a lot of other brands that go to Coman, I just don't crank it out that fast because a lot of our, if not all of our products require special equipment.

7:14Jason Wright:And this one required a lot of special equipment. And then we have other things at the facility, you know, other concepts, other vehicles that we will be bringing to market later this year. So the new building gives us a lot of flexibility on innovation. We completely have built out our innovation pipeline. You said something interesting to me earlier, which is that you see yourself as a co-man with a brand, which I think is really interesting. A lot of entrepreneurs that I've spoken with that have their own manufacturing or that operate their own manufacturing talk about two distinct businesses.

7:48One side is production. One side is sales and marketing. Which is more important? Which is more critical to the business's development and growth?

7:57Jason Wright:For me, it's been the manufacturing piece. I definitely have a flag in the sand. I have a market cornered. You know, when I said co-man, whether that was the right word or not, what I meant by that is because we don't co-man for anyone. I've had plenty of opportunities from big retail chains to brands coming to me, and I just won't do it. My secret sauce is what I've developed in that building, and that's what is my IP, and I'm holding on to that. There's multiple ways to skin the cat, but for me, controlling my own destiny, having something that's totally unique, not a me too, and that goes back to my first adventure in the entrepreneurship back in my 20s.

8:38Jason Wright:you know, I'd launched a Me Too product and it didn't go so well. And so for me, I'd always thought about after that adventure, doing something that was completely new to world, you know, and I could control my own destiny. So for me, listen, marketing and sales is super important. That's something that Wild has not done a great job of in marketing and we will get better, but it's because that we put all of our time, money into creating something unique with special equipment cornering the market. And then eventually we invested in the sales. And our last kind of area that we're really investing in right now is marketing and telling the story.

9:19When did you realize that you were going from a concept to a challenger brand to a scaled player in this business. Once you come to market with an innovative idea, you have to make sure that that innovative idea fits into consumers' lives. It seems like that happened relatively quickly. But then as you're starting to scale, you start to think about what the potential is for the brand and who your competitors could be. As it stands now, Wild, I see as a real player in the snack space, protein notwithstanding, I think you can just call yourself a player in the snack space. So when you're thinking about those steps from concepts to challenger brand to scaled brand, what were the biggest inflection points for each?

10:13Jason Wright:Well, first of all, I got to say the facility. If I don't open that facility in 21, I doubt we're talking today, right? I really do. you know, wild before the facility was middle of the road product. It wasn't, in my opinion, I was not proud of it. And in order to make the product better, we had to go control our own destiny. So if we don't open the facility in 21, then, you know, we probably are not here. So that's probably number one. If we don't continue to massage how we talk about wild, talking about chicken breast, egg white, bone broth, and developing the flavors, then we probably don't start to catch on in 22 and 23 as well as we did.

10:59Jason Wright:I would say one, two is Costco. Wild is a product that you have to try. And so Costco shoppers are conditioned. They're walking into the store looking to try samples. I know that Costco does a ton of sampling and it's known for introducing new products to its customers via demos. But I wouldn't necessarily think of it as a place of discovery. It sounds like from what you're saying, that's exactly what Costco is. I think it is. I think Whole Foods and Costco are your discovery points. And I think you have to go back to what retailer has done the best at demoing product. If you go back to Whole Foods or Costco, you can't really find, and I'd sprinkle in sprouts, but you can't find another retailer, in my opinion, where you walk in and people are lined up to try samples.

11:58Jason Wright:So those were very important to Wild in the early days, and they still are, especially with the new product coming out. Because for the longest time, and still today, although we're much closer today, we have struggled with ways to describe what we are. And I always tell our partners, marketing partners and marketing team, wild really is the classic, I can't believe it's not butter. If you take up can't believe it's not butter and you look at the back of the pack and say, well, I'm just going to go to the front and say, let's say, butter alternative spread crafted from and list the ingredients.

12:37Jason Wright:I don't know how many people try that. But when you tell them that I can't believe it's not butter and you convince them that they got to try it to see if they can believe it's not butter. I mean, that's magic, right? And I think that's where you're going to see Wild go to. But in the early days, Demos was the best mousetrap we had, the best way of discovering the product. There's a third piece. And the third piece is just the innovation pipeline. mind, I think Wild becomes really a household brand when it can go into other categories and it can go into other forms, factors, usage, occasion. And that's kind of where we're at today.

13:13Jason Wright:We're launching Cracker, there's tortilla in the lineup coming, and there could be one or two other items. That's kind of the three big points of what I believe is going to be the, you know, when it's all said and done, the success roadmap for Wild. I like to talk about innovation a lot, but one of the things that isn't necessarily and commonly talked about with innovation is timing and making sure that the market opportunity for a new product line is the right time. How do you incorporate and evaluate timing when considering new product development? It's a great question, Ray. If I was working at a co-man, I probably would do it faster.

13:58Jason Wright:But at Wild, even at Concept, you work on a product for, in our case, because of the ingredients we use, we are not calling anyone that has the knowledge. We are going to do it ourselves. And then after that, let's just say that's a year. Now you're going to go through probably two years of equipment, finding lead times, building to your spec, testing. So for Wild, it's just that longer journey. I don't necessarily think it's the right journey, although I will say the one big proof point here is I do like the fact that we got the core product north of 100 million before you'll see innovation. There's probably only a few brands that have launched vehicles.

14:44Jason Wright:So new product extension that has hit over 100 million. I think Quest is one and I think Conbar is one and I think there's one other. And so that always stuck with me. I was surrounded on the board with some smart people that had some insights. So that stuck with me. But really, it's just the fact that it takes us a little bit longer. I will tell you what you will start to see from a while, though, and I'll talk about the Cracker Line. Because I knew how long it takes to do an innovative product like ours, we built the Cracker Line with multiple vehicles in mind. And so think about pretzel. Think about pita chip.

15:24Jason Wright:Think about shapes. So you can imagine that small yellow-orange product. It's a cracker, but a shape. That all could be done in our current line. So when we installed that, we had all those ideas in mind. And so that equipment now sits in our building that we can, on the same production line, run those products. And then the last, you know, we did fast-pace the tortilla line. We had been working on the tortilla line for a while. And so that'll be in the building, call it September, August, September this year. I'd like to think that now we're just going to really focus on sales and marketing. From what I'm hearing, Wild is preparing itself to become a platform brand for protein snacks, which is very exciting.

16:14And I think the protein crackers are a great next step for the brand. And when you're considering the pace of innovation and the rollout for the innovation, how much does retailer buy-in impact that strategy?

16:30Jason Wright:I'll tell you that today, right now in Vegas, we are showing the tortilla to multiple retailers. We're actually lining up commitments. I'm not afraid of showing because we are made of chicken breast, bone broth, the secret sauce of wild. you can't duplicate it. And so for the buyer to leave and say, hey, do you know why I was going to launch a tortilla? And I'm telling you, in six months, made a chicken breast. Well, that's not capable of being manufactured anywhere else that I'm aware of. So if I was working with Coatman and I was going to launch, I'm just going to make it up. I was going to launch chickpea, right?

17:11Jason Wright:Maybe I keep that to myself because that's easily duplicated if the secret gets out. But for me, The secret's out, but the know-how is still at Wild and with me. We are very aggressive right now about what's coming with retailers, and they are aggressive in moving around things to accommodate what we're bringing. And there's some big commitments for the products. And to answer your question, we did survey a couple items and tortilla and cracker was top of the list by a long shot. I mean, it would make sense because I'm seeing a lot of protein tortilla chips come to market. A few protein crackers come to market, not necessarily like the ones that you've created, which are delicious, by the way.

17:58I've been snacking on the classic cheddar variety and it lives up to the billing. It is an excellent product and it very much resembles what I grew up on and still continue to see on the market. I'm still kind of amazed that we haven't mentioned that brand name and we won't, but we'll keep going here. The idea of creating a product or a line of products that aren't easily replicatable, aren't able to be created by other brands, seems to be a superpower for Wild. I'm not saying that you won't have any competitors in the future, but you've created a moat around your brand via production and manufacturing.

18:38Do you have any patents, however? Do you have any patents on anything related to your production facility or the way you make your snacks?

18:46Jason Wright:Yeah, we do. We do. So there's patents on both the tortilla and the current chip. There's patents there on the cracker. There's no patent really on the cracker with the equipment, at least not as of right now. We are using stuff on that line that has never been done, but I don't think it's necessarily patentable. There's just a ton of secret sauce. And I always tell people, you know, even when they visit the facility and they always want to ask about, you know, the patents. And I'm like, you know, I literally could give people the patent. I probably could publish it. And it is right. You can research it, but you could give people that piece of equipment.

19:29Jason Wright:You still can't make wild unless you know the secret sauce. And you can make a product that eats like cardboard with the patent, but you really need to understand how we are formulating and what our recipe is to make it eat well. And I would say the only way we got here is because of trial and error. I just didn't want to settle. I just kept going after this and I had a vision and I wouldn't give up and just kept trying some stuff. And that's really how we got here. It helps if you have patient investors who are willing to allow you to try and fail or at least try and get better. And people who are investing in CPG are looking at the big, broad opportunity for a particular brand.

20:22And oftentimes, especially at the early stage, folks want to find the next great brand, whether it's a Lester Evil, a Poppy, a Simple Mills. And I think when you look at a brand like Wild, I see that opportunity and I would see that opportunity as an investor. But how do you find investors that are willing to be patient and that are willing to take the time for a brand to develop, especially one as unique as Wild? And I ask this because clearly it took capital and significant capital to build and invest in the manufacturing facilities that you have built.

21:05Jason Wright:Yeah, Ray, listen, if I didn't have one guy, Alan Carb, that believed in the concept, believed in me, and was very patient, we would not be here. I don't know if there's any other investor out there that would have been as patient with me, supported me. I just don't know of any because you nailed it. People want to invest in a ramp. So, you know, even when you're playing the stock market, I'm playing the stock market. I'm guilty of it. We all want to invest in the ramp. And unfortunately for Wild, there was a lot of secret sauce building, IP building that came with no ramp. Right now we're ramping, but a lot of hard work went in to get to this point.

21:54Jason Wright:And, you know, there's probably two people and it's me and Alan. And if we were not together, I think Wild wouldn't exist because it was a lot of hard work on my end and a lot of hard work on my team. But he was a very patient investor and he's my lead investor and he continues to be my lead investor. That was right place, right time and meeting him through Bill Moses. But to be honest, I've talked to a lot of other funds and I understand they want to invest in the ramp and there's a timetable. But, you know, Allen didn't have a timetable, which was a huge luxury to Wild because we just had so much to figure out.

22:32Jason Wright:So if I had signed a deal and did something with a five-year, three-year PE there out, we would have been in trouble. What was your initial pitch to Allen such that he saw the future of the brand versus its current or when it was at its current state? It wasn't really a crazy pitch. He's a visionary, and I think he saw the protein category developing before anybody saw it. He liked the fact that it was out of real food. He thought the world needed an option to not have to settle for, you know, empty snacking with legacy products and not have to settle for powder products with powder protein snacks.

23:15Jason Wright:He just really felt that the need for a real food snack existed. I think he enjoys the nuance about it, figuring out the machinery, doing something that's never been done before. I think that gets him out of bed in the morning. And I think that's really what he took a liking to. And I'm sure he took a liking to the fact that I was willing to, I mean, you could tell that I was dedicated, but it was just my life. I can remember when we were at the Co-Man. I mean, I spent 200 nights in Martinsville, Virginia. If you've ever been to Martinsville, there's one Hampton Inn, and then it really falls off a cliff.

23:50Jason Wright:on any other accommodation options. There's maybe one restaurant there and then the same thing, it falls off a big cliff. But that's where we put our first equipment. And my wife and fur babies were in Boulder that year. Why 200 nights I was in Martinsville. But that was just a dedication. I had a vision and I was running through brick walls to get to where I wanted to go. I think he saw that and he respected it. Yeah, investors invest in entrepreneurs as much as they do in brands and businesses. I hear that a lot. They also want to invest in sound businesses and making sure that if you're not currently profitable, you have a path to profitability.

24:30And that gross margin is in line with expectations for CPG brands. How much does that matter? How much does that impact your business strategy at this point? It seems like your vision and your ambition is driving this company right now, but how do you make sure that costs and efficiency are in line with expectations for a business in CPG?

24:56Jason Wright:Yeah, listen, you definitely need to have a path to profitability or positive EBITDA, and you definitely need to have a path to better margin. Our early margins were peanuts. We were doing something that's never been done before. We had two manufacturing facilities. We were shipping product, not owning it, but commands that we were going back and forth from. and we were just not doing well on the margin front. When we opened our facility, we went from like teams all the way to like triple that. You can launch a product like the cracker might not come out of the gate because you're scaling something for the first time.