860 Charles Coristine: CEO of LesserEvil

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kira Golden Show.

0:44Kara Goldin:What would make someone leave a successful career on Wall Street, put nearly all of their savings on the line, and buy a struggling snack company they knew almost nothing about. Today's guest is Charles Corstein, CEO of Lesser Evil. And back in 2001, Charles took a leap that most people would have called irrational. With no food experience, other than the fact that he enjoyed it, he acquired a small popcorn company worth less than a million dollars and set out to build something very different. His vision wasn't just to create healthier snacks or continue making healthier snacks. It was to prove that consumers shouldn't have to choose between ingredients that they think they trust and products they actually enjoy eating.

1:36Kara Goldin:So fast forward to today, lesser evil has become one of the fastest growing brands in the snack aisle. Cult favorite organic popcorn to newer innovations like Munions and Cheezmo's. The company has transformed into a multi-category powerhouse built on great clean ingredients with lots of innovation. And in 2025, the company was acquired by Hershey. And Charles is still the CEO involved in leading lesser evil into many people's homes and mouths. So, so excited to have you here, Charles. Charles Korstein, welcome to the Kara Golden Show. Thanks, Kara. I'm excited to be here. This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business.

2:26Kara Goldin:Hey, everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have. It's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time. That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners.

3:13Kara Goldin:And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by I am eight. I've always cared about my health, but I'll be honest, supplement routines can get complicated fast. A bottle for this, a powder for that, something for energy, something for focus, something for digestion. At some point, it starts to feel like you need an entire cabinet just to feel your best. That's why IM8's Daily Ultimate Essentials really stood out to me.

3:57Kara Goldin:IM8 is the way to simplify your supplement routine once and for all. 16 supplements, 90 ingredients across 9 major organ systems, all in one drink. It was co-founded by David Beckham and built by leading doctors and researchers, and it's designed to support so many of the things we're all thinking about. Energy, focus, immunity, digestion, and long-term wellness. And the value is impressive. Instead of buying all those separate supplements, Daily Ultimate Essentials gives you 16 supplements in one drink for$2.61 a day. Plus, in a clinical trial conducted by the San Francisco Research Institute, 95 % of people who tried it for 12 weeks felt more energy.

4:48Kara Goldin:For me, it has made my mornings so much easier. I mix one drink, and I'm not wondering what I've taken or what I've missed. It tastes good, it fits into my routine, and it gives me a great boost I can feel good about. Give it a try. Go to IamHealth.com slash Cara Golden right now or click on the link in the description and use code Cara Golden for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sachets plus 10 % off your order. That's code Cara Golden at Iam8Health.com slash Cara Golden. Code Cara Golden at Iam8Health.com slash Cara Golden. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro.

5:36Kara Goldin:Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job.

6:28Kara Goldin:Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire.

7:09Kara Goldin:Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. So, Charles, for those who aren't familiar with the brand Lesser Evil, what is the brand and what made you believe it was worth betting your entire future on? Obviously, it's a food brand. It's a vertically integrated snack food brand. I like to think it's a little more than that. I like to think it's a lifestyle brand. The other question was what made me decide to do that? So that's a tough question. So I was a finance guy working in New York City. I'm originally from Toronto. I moved to the States when I was pretty young to work for an American bank.

7:55And I got transferred to New York. And I traded government bonds for close to 20 years. And I think that it's largely a young man's game trading bonds in New York City. And I was starting to fatigue. I sometimes say I felt like life was blurring a little bit around the edges. and I think I needed to find something else to do. So I'm a big believer in synchronicity. I kind of just opened myself up to trying to find something else and a friend of a friend was selling lesser evil and for some reason the name intrigued me. I was really into food at the time because I had been going through a lot of stress.

8:37I had really focused in on my diet and I was meditating. So I was looking for something a little more mindful in my life. And I was like, this could be interesting. I had no idea how hard it was going to be. But for something, for some reason, it resonated. And I took a deeper look at the food space. And I decided to jump.

8:58Kara Goldin:So it was not just about walking into the space and taking it from there. I mean, you had to build it. And really, not just the brand, but also the team. How much more difficult was that than you ever imagined? Yeah. So when you buy an emerging brand that was not vertically integrated, that was kind of, that had, you know, stagnated a little bit. They just hadn't found their hero skewed. You know, it had been, the brand had been around for, you know, six years, I think, when I first jumped in. So, you know, I got into it. I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't going to be able to make it work unless I made some drastic changes.

9:43And it was either I was going to jump all in and bet it all on it, or I should have walked away. And I tell this story that when I left Wall Street, I kind of had told people that I was, you know, I was going to become an entrepreneur and that I was making the leap. And my ego kind of got the better of me and there was no way that I was going to not go all in at that time because it was just it was a matter of personal pride at that point. So I just I decided I was going to basically invest in manufacturing because that was the only way that I could turn around the margin structure of the business and basically innovate.

10:21Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey, everyone. Kara here. let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice-to-have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

11:05Kara Goldin:That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Grooms. Summer routines live or die by how easy they are. I've learned that if something takes too much effort, when life gets busy, it's the first thing to go. And this time of year, when schedules are packed and energy matters more than ever, I want something that actually keeps up.

11:53Kara Goldin:That's why I've been loving Grooms. Grooms is a daily pack of gummy bears that covers your greens, vitamins, and prebiotics all in one. No powders, no multiple bottles, just one simple step I can actually stay consistent with. And it's incredibly comprehensive. Most multivitamins only have a handful of nutrients, but Grooms packs in over 20 vitamins and minerals, 60 ingredients, plus six grams of prebiotic fiber. That's more than two cups of broccoli. It's vegan, gluten-free, no artificial colors or flavors, and it actually tastes great, like something you want to take. What I love most is how easy it makes everything.

12:42Kara Goldin:It supports energy digestion, immunity, and it fits into real life without overcomplicating things. If you're looking to simplify your routine this summer, definitely check it out. Save up to 52 % off with code GOLDEN at grooms.co. That's code GOLDEN at G-R-U-N-S dot C-O. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro.

13:38Kara Goldin:applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings.

14:23Kara Goldin:Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. It sounds like the manufacturing part was one of the first decisions that you made, but was there a first hire that you knew you needed almost as a mentor to some extent to help you get going?

15:08No, I didn't hire a mentor. I hired a guy I went to business school with that kind of was the opposite of me. You know, I kind of fly by the seat of your pants. You know, I'm probably a little bit more into like innovation and sales and stuff like that. Whereas I found my partner, which his name is Andrew Strife. He was much more pragmatic. He used the other half of his brain. He was, you know, very good at, you know, spreadsheets and business models and all that kind of stuff. So he was a very good hire for me because we kind of we hammed and they'd get it particularly well for the first couple of years as we made a lot of mistakes.

15:48Kara Goldin:You had the finance experience. Was he what kind of experience? He was a finance guy, too. But I was kind of more of a trader, which means that I'm kind of making seat-of-the-pants decisions based on what I think the market's going to do. And he was more of kind of like a quant guy that programmed stuff. So it's funny. You can have two different guys in finance, two different skill sets. So interesting. So the brand, had they actually shut down? Or was it sort of kind of operating? by the time you ended up acquiring it? No, it was still operating. You know, it was one guy and a bookkeeper. They were kind of keeping it afloat.

16:31Yeah, but unless you know how it is, unless you're willing to invest in the business, retailers don't really take well to brands that just kind of float around, you know, because they require people to invest in brands. That's how retailers make money. So it was slowly getting discontinued when I got involved.

16:53Kara Goldin:You didn't have food experience, food industry experience. Do you think that that was a disadvantage or an advantage? I think initially probably it was a disadvantage. You know, I remember going to food shows and writing up deals with different retailers and having no idea what I was doing and getting taken advantage of in a big way. You know, I'm putting together promotional calendars that were probably ridiculous. You know, I was pretty trusting. And I think at the beginning, I probably got taken advantage of a lot. But maybe my naivete had me look at the space in a different way. I learned pretty quickly because the money drifted out of my account pretty quickly.

17:40And I also, another thing I did is like, you know, I thought that any kind of distribution was good distribution. And I put my products in places potentially where they weren't set up to thrive. And I lost a lot of slotting dollars at the beginning. I remember making a$250 ,000 investment in slotting that I lost within six months. And I was like, wow, that was fast.

18:06Kara Goldin:So when you took this brand over, how many SKUs, I guess you kind of did a relaunch. How many SKUs did you go ahead and launch with? Did you do any skew rationalization or what was kind of the thinking? Yeah, so they had a couple of popcorns. They were kettle corns and they had a line of potato sticks, like a French fried potato stick. I realized pretty quickly that as I was losing distribution and potentially losing some of my distributors like Unify and Kehi, that unless I came up with a product, a new product line really quickly, that I was going to lose potentially the biggest asset that I had.

18:45And, you know, the previous guys had done a really good job. They had gotten a lot of distribution. And unbanalized to me, because I didn't really know much about food, was the asset that they had was that they had warehouse slots in every Unify and Kehi warehouse across the United States. You know, and at that time, I'm like, at first, I'm like, well, this is probably a bad investment. But I realized pretty quickly, you know, after I went to go visit Unify in Rhode Island that if I could keep all those slots, that I had a huge leg up. So I quickly launched a line of black bean pop chips called Chia Crisps.

19:25And it wasn't a home run by any means, but it was a solid single, maybe a shallow double, meaning that I picked up some distribution and I was able to swap out some of the products that weren't doing so well with something that had a little wind at its back. I also was able to get a couple of Whole Foods regions to bite on. And I got Wegmans was an early adapter because I went to school in upstate New York. So it was the first time I saw a little success, but that was a Copac product. So the margins on it still weren't great. So we were still bleeding a lot of cash at that time.

20:09Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey, everyone. Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, not the highlight reel. the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice-to-have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

20:53Kara Goldin:That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Rhythm Health. Sometimes I ask myself, are my workouts actually paying off? Are the supplements I'm taking making a difference? Is my diet really right for me? The truth is, most of us are investing time, money, and energy into our health without a clear picture of what's actually happening inside our bodies.

21:40Kara Goldin:That's why I'm excited about Rhythm. Rhythm is the world's easiest blood test to help you understand what's going on inside your body. You can do it at home in just two minutes. No needles. It's a simple peel and stick device. You draw a small sample, send it in and get your results back in just a few days. I recently did my first rhythm test and what stood out wasn't just how easy it was. It was what I actually learned. Seeing my biomarkers laid out clearly made me look at my health differently. I wasn't guessing anymore. I could see what was happening with things like cholesterol, inflammation, hormones, and metabolic health, and where I may want to pay closer attention.

22:23Kara Goldin:That kind of information changes how you make decisions. It makes you think more intentionally about what you're eating, how you're moving, what supplements you're taking, and whether those choices are actually showing up in your results. And that's what I really appreciate about Rhythm. You're not just getting a one-time lab report that disappears into a file. You're getting data you can track over time, plus an AI health coach that helps explain what it means and what actions may make sense next. And the best part? Rhythm is only$79 per month, a fraction of traditional lab testing. It ships right to your door and you can cancel anytime.

23:01Kara Goldin:Plus, right now Rhythm is offering our listeners 15 % off your first month and free shipping at rhythm.health slash Kara Golden. That's rhythm with one h r y t h m.health slash Kara Golden for 15 % off your first month and free shipping. Stop guessing, start testing rhythm.health slash Kara Golden. This episode of the Kara Golden show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. First of all businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing.

23:57Kara Goldin:Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings.

24:43Kara Goldin:Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. So at what point did you go ahead and invest then in manufacturing? And for those who might not know what we mean by that, can you share the details? Yeah, I want to say it happened pretty quick.

25:26I bought the business in November of 2011. I want to say that I made the decision to buy some popcorn slash puff equipment, you know, probably within a year. So maybe the end of 2012. And then we had to like install it in this, you know, in our first factory was like a 5000 square foot, you know, looked like a like a welding shop that we converted into a factory. It was it was pretty unfortunate. But for me, it was pretty exciting.

25:57Kara Goldin:That's awesome. And do you still have those factories today? No, we've since moved. We've moved into, we now have two factories, soon to have three. There's still, I mean, our footprint is pretty, because popcorn and extrusion aren't like these huge lines, we can fit like eight production lines into like a 25 ,000, 30 ,000 square foot facility. So our facilities are pretty small. You know, we have two, let's say, 30 ,000 square foot facilities, and we're going to open up, you know, maybe a 60 ,000 square foot facility downstairs. So they're a pretty small footprint. When you think about the brand, Lesser Evil, what do you think the consumer thinks?

26:40Kara Goldin:What are, like, the top things about the brand? And what I mean by this, when you're launching a brand and scaling a brand, the consumer has to be able to define it or almost tell their friends, this is what this brand is. And so for Hint, the company that I launched and scaled was, it's an unsweetened flavored water. And so there was a definition behind it. And then we came out with different flavors along the way. but it was something that the consumer, they might have a favorite skew, but they'd go try another one because they trusted the brand. What would you say about Lesser Evil? Well, I think at the beginning, it was like it was the guru or the Buddha guy on the front, and it was pretty good tasting popcorn.

27:25I think we became known, you know, for organic, our commitment to organics and to non-seed oils and biodegradable packaging. I mean, I wanted the brand to be about affordable wellness that has soul. And I think that that's, I don't know whether all consumers feel that, but I think there are some consumers that believe that. That makes any sense?

27:48Kara Goldin:Yeah, I think that is very relevant. So as you've talked to consumers over the year, and I'm sure done all kinds of focus groups or surveys. Consumer behavior is sometimes surprising, right? Especially when you think like, oh, I've got to launch innovation because Whole Foods told me or Wegmans told me, like, what do you got that's new? But then you look at the consumer. What have you learned about the consumer that maybe is counter to what new founders think about? I think it's about taste and value. I mean, and I think it's about great packaging too, because I thought like if you put this amazing product together that the consumer would find it eventually.