In this Insurgent Q&A, Bain’s EVP of Consumer Products Charlotte Apps speaks with Rashid Ali, cofounder of Chomps, about scaling from a D2C side hustle into a national retail winner, being at the forefront of the protein revolution, and how pivoting to pantry packs became a critical unlock.

Q: Chomps has experienced phenomenal growth over the last 10 years. What headline best describes Chomps’ journey to date? 

Ali: Internally, what we talk a lot about is “owning the noun.”  When we first started, we described Chomps as being a healthier option of existing legacy brands. But even though our core product happens to be a meat stick, it’s being consumed very differently than traditional meat sticks. What started out with a primarily female consumer has expanded into a broader snack occasion—kids are eating it, dads are eating it. Chomps is setting the standard for protein snacking for the family, and that's really that headline I'd like to see get carried into next year.

Q: Chomps began online as a direct-to-consumer brand. What unlocked your move into retail?

Ali: We launched solely D2C while my partner, Pete Maldonado, and I still had full-time jobs, so this was more a side hustle. It allowed us to bootstrap the business and grow brick by brick without outside capital. We started with Chomps.com, then Amazon, then partnered with online retailers like Thrive Market. That early model helped us understand our consumer deeply—and it shaped how we thought about retail from the beginning.

Eventually, we got the attention of someone at Trader Joe’s, and that was our first physical retailer. In 2016, we went into Trader Joe’s branded, which is quite unique given their model. In one year, we grew the business tenfold. It put pressure on infrastructure, supply chain, and working capital. So we made a strategic decision to only focus on Trader Joe’s for the next two years in order to be the best partner possible to them. And that paid off, as we doubled our sales the following year.

Q: How did you balance brand-building and distribution expansion as you expanded into retail? What principles guided you as you made decisions on where and how quickly to scale?

Ali: Not all shelves are created equal, and you want to make sure you’re where your consumer is. Pete and I always say brand awareness has to come ahead of distribution—we don’t want to have to over-invest in trade to convince the consumer why they should grab Chomps. As we scaled, we tried to be patient, building profitably and scaling the right way, understanding the complexity of layering distribution, all while staying true to the category strategy.

Our retail expansion story isn’t about taking share—it’s about growing the category. Every buyer wants a product that’ll bring volume to the set. You’re going to win if you can demonstrate that you grow the category. Chomps is now in a situation where if a retailer doesn’t lean in heavily enough—and a competing retailer does—they’ll lose overall category share, because we’re driving incrementality. That’s a powerful story for retailers.

Being incremental to a category also comes with challenges. Because our shopper traditionally doesn’t shop that category, we have to get their attention. We invest in off-shelf and other points of distribution throughout the store to drive awareness. Especially in the last three years, when we’ve doubled down on retail and expanded the number of facings and secondary placements, we’ve been able to tell a very strong story of incrementality and growth. So we're not necessarily rushing to the next retailer, we're really trying to understand the category strategy to make sure that we can have Chomps show up the right way, where our consumers are.

Q. How has the Chomps product offering evolved as you’ve scaled?

Ali: We’ve been very disciplined about the product itself. We are very focused on driving very consistent, high-quality product across our network every single time. That's what allows our consumer to come back. And as we scale, we're not taking shortcuts. We’re continuing to figure out how to make the product better.

There’s significant value in what Chomps provides: a beef product that’s grass-fed, grass-finished, Non-GMO Project verified, no antibiotics ever, pasture-raised, and on top of that, is tasty, convenient, and gives the consumer exactly what they want.

Because of that, we’re considered a premium product, but the premium has to feel acceptable and valuable to the consumer. Our price point has been able to grow because people continue to find value in grabbing a Chomps stick vs. what they were choosing before.

When we introduced pantry packs during Covid, adding eight sticks in a bag let us move from a single-stick purchase to a higher price point without cannibalization. This transformed our business. The occasions were different, where single sticks remained impulse buys while pantry packs became a pantry load, and it also increased shelf presence and revenue per door.

Q: What metrics are most critical for you as you manage the business day-to-day?

Ali: Velocity is table stakes. But the most important metric for us is repeat rate. Chomps’ repeat rate is over 40%. Repeat is what drives value. Getting on the shelf is the easiest part—buyers want new and exciting. What matters is having customers come back, and come back, and come back. That’s when you have something special.

We also track household penetration. Typically, as households grow, repeats soften—but Chomps continues to grow both at the same time. That reinforces the incrementality story and points to how Chomps is resonating with a broader consumer base.

Q: Protein is having a moment—from GLP-1s to more educated label readers. How is that impacting your topline and playing out in the future?

Ali: The Chomps consumer was originally rooted in trending “diet tribes”—CrossFit, keto, paleo, Whole30. Today, the consumer is much more informed about reading labels and thinking about the caliber of protein.

GLP-1s are reinforcing awareness and the need for education. People can only eat so much, and each calorie matters. If they eat the wrong calories, there are negative impacts. So we’re benefiting from positive momentum—but Chomps isn’t engineered for GLP-1 users. It just happens to be a benefit. Categories like salty snacks are struggling, while meat snacks and cottage cheese are seeing growth.

Looking forward, we will reach a degree of saturation in how much protein consumers can consume. As that sets in, consumers will return to natural sources such as meat sticks, and that is Chomps’ greatest strength.

Q: Looking back, what have been the most important lessons you’ve learned along the way?

Ali: Staying grounded in what we stand for as we’ve expanded has been our guiding principle. Pete and I approach the world very differently, but we share core values. We defined those values in 2018 and hire for them—we call them “traits of a Chompian.” That’s allowed us to ensure we build a team that can sustain the values that we stand for.

We’ve also learned how to be agile and quickly learn from mistakes. Covid was a gut punch, but the quick decision to move into pantry packs became a blessing. We’ve also entered channels too early and had to walk away. It’s made us very disciplined about protecting our bandwidth and pivoting quickly—we are the gatekeepers of our own bandwidth.

The biggest lesson was that while it’s important to study others, you can’t copy them. Any time we tried to copy what another brand did, it didn’t work. You have to make decisions through your own brand’s lens, stay true to the mission you’ve set out for yourself, and not get distracted by the decisions others might have made.

Q: Looking forward, what’s next for Chomps?

The legacy of Chomps is one that Pete, our amazing team, and I all share. We’re continuing to figure out how to make the product better, and how to elevate it. Over the next three to five years, our growth is going to be about figuring out where we have permission to play—and continuing to win at the same pace we are today. We want to be a company that our consumers are excited to partner with, by continuing to deliver an amazing product consistently every time.