CUTTING CRUSTS, NOT CORNERS: A REAL-LIFE DAVID VS. GOLIATH UNDERDOG STORY
What happens when you take two (2) digital marketing gurus and an executive at Nike and start making healthy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Well, to start with, you will realize how difficult it is to make sandwiches at scale. Don’t believe me? Go to your kitchen, and make 20 PB&Js right now that are all exactly the same. I’m waiting… The other thing that happens is that you just might threaten a sleeping ~$1B Goliath and coax them into a legal battle over the right to make sandwiches in the first place. I’m guessing that you know what an Uncrustable’s Sandwich is, or you at least know their parent company, Smuckers, but you probably didn’t realize that Smuckers has a virtual monopoly on frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they would very much like to keep it that way. Take one look at the list of ingredients in a Smucker’s Uncrustable Sandwich, and it will read like the shopping list for a Meth-Lab – It’s definitely not something you or your kids should eat very often, if ever. Couldn’t it be healthy? Sure, but big companies don’t care about that. It takes an underdog to effect change. Dillon Ceglio, Brett Perrotta, and John O’Brian believed that people wanted a healthy version of a PB&J and despite the threats from Smuckers, their biggest challenge proved to be manufacturing at scale.
MERCENARY FUNDING FORCE™ – DIRECT INVESTMENT, PITCH STRATEGY, PITCH SUPPORT AND FINANCIAL MODELING
At the very beginning of a startup endeavor, there will never be enough data or history upon which to make an investment decision – you have to trust your instincts and rely heavily on the competence of the founders. In our case, the decision to back Chubby Snacks was easy – we would bet on these founders 100 times out of 100. We also believe that the category needed disruption by a “better-for-you” option, and Chubby Snack’s products hit the mark from nearly all angles. With a little more funding, we knew that they could outsource their manufacturing to produce an infinite amount of product at scale, allowing them to spend their time focusing more on their marketing superpowers. Crafting and delivering the perfect investment pitch at this early stage is critical, and we worked together to find the right investor audience, pitch story, and materials to fund their expansion.
MERCENARY FOLLOWING FORCE™ – FOUNDER 911™ AND TEAM RETENTION & DEVELOPMENT
When we met Dillon, Brett, and John in 2021, we were immediately impressed by their hustle, resourcefulness, and capacity for learning. They were, and still are, sponges for knowledge and are constantly looking to make every aspect of their company work more efficiently. We Mercenaries recognize these traits in ourselves, and we also recognize them among the best operators in the food & beverage industry. It’s rare to see a three (3) person founding team, especially one where the founders complimented each other’s skillsets, but Chubby’s had it. Our goal was to help the team coordinate their efforts across geographies and prioritize the most critical tasks while avoiding time-wasters. There is no shortage of questions that need immediate answers during the rapid growth cycle of a startup, and as founders ourselves, we are happy to take calls 24/7 and help you through all of them.
MERCENARY FRICTION FORCE™ – STRATEGIC PRODUCT-MARKET FIT, FOOD SCIENCE+, AND MASTER FORMULATION
Good just isn’t good enough. Great isn’t great enough. Exceptional isn’t exceptional… enough. Your products need to “wow” consumers, so never stop tinkering to make them even better. In 2022, our Mercenaries were hard at work helping Chubby Snacks to raise money, outsource their manufacturing, and build their team, but one question kept coming back at us from various constituents to the company, “How can we make the jam sweeter?” It’s not as simple of a solution as it might appear on the surface, given all of the brand pillars for which Chubby Snacks stood. No added sugars, no sugar alcohols, no pectin, and no junk, just to name a few. With all of these constraints, delivering a sweeter, full-flavored jam was going to take some Master Formulation – fortunately, Mercenary was up to the task. We rethought the jam recipe from the ground up and leveraged some cutting-edge techniques and ingredients to keep the brand’s promises. The outcome? A sales velocity lift of over 300%, 500+ new door authorizations, and 2x customer retention. Even when you are already great, you can still push to be even greater by listening to your customers.
MERCENARY FULFILLMENT FORCE™ – MANUFACTURING & PROCUREMENT, QUALITY & COMPLIANCY, AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Our initial work with Chubby Snacks started in their commissary kitchen, where they were hand-making sandwiches using a process that wasn’t much different than how you would do it at home. They were concerned about how we would react to seeing this rudimentary process and they thought we were going to lecture them on six sigma or some SQF / ISO9000 nonsense. Instead, we told them the truth, “This is exactly how you should be making them right now.” Surprised? You shouldn’t be. At the earliest stages of a company, your entire focus should be on, “Get It Done.” At the beginning, your most important job is making sure that people want to buy your products. You should never over-invest in perfecting your process or trying to make everything as cheap as possible because you are going to be making so many rapid changes to the product over the next year or so that your processes would be outdated as soon as you wrote the steps down. Heed this advice: sell so much product that you feel the pain of making it will break you. That’s how you will know it’s time to call us to help you scale.
