Fitness coach sells jerky, wealth skyrockets to $350 million

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Chomps opened the market by catering to the needs of female consumers, and now it can sell about two million meat sticks per day. For now, the company’s two founders may be preparing an exit-and-cashout path.

Chomps chairman Pete Maldonado and co-founder and CEO Rashid Ali. Maldonado said, “We’re not satisfied with creating yet another healthier product—we want to create an ultra-healthy snack product.” Image source: CHOMPS

Original title: 《How This Meat Snack Company Crushes Competitors and Grows Into a Billion-Dollar Business Giant》

Over the past few years, Chicago snack brand Chomps has rapidly become the fastest-growing meat snack brand in the United States, but that has also brought a side effect—strong market demand at one point made it difficult for the company to keep up with production capacity. Co-founder and CEO Rashid Ali admitted, “For a long time, we’ve been stuck in the quota-supply trap, only able to meet part of the market demand.”

Now, this situation has finally been broken. Ali said that this year, the company’s infrastructure was fully in place for the first time, enough to meet demand of roughly two million meat sticks per day—so Chomps is finally no longer constrained by capacity.

Chomps was founded in 2012 in Naples, Florida.

According to estimates by Forbes, the company now holds a 10% share of the meat snack market. This year, revenue is expected to surpass $900 million, up sharply from $660 million last year.

Chomps meat sticks use grass-fed beef, venison, and antibiotic-free turkey, precisely matching consumers’ demand for portable protein snacks. Women are its core customer base, accounting for about 70% of total purchasers. Chomps products are currently available in more than 50,000 retail stores, including Walmart, Target, Costco, Kroger, Publix, and H-E-B.

Forbes estimates that Chomps’ valuation has exceeded $8B. If annual revenue breaks through the $9B mark, its valuation could rise further. The 45-year-old Ali and 44-year-old co-founder Pete Maldonado hold controlling stakes. Maldonado owns about 35%, worth at least $350 million; Ali owns about 20%, worth $200 million.

The two founders revealed that the company became profitable within just 30 days of its founding, but profit margins were squeezed by manufacturer splits and rising beef and key ingredient prices. Forbes estimates that Chomps’ earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) in 2025 will be about $50 million, with a profit margin of about 7%. The company did not respond regarding its financial performance.

Maldonado, who stepped down last year as co-CEO and moved to chairman, reflected, “It’s hard to believe to see the company reach a scale like this—and then think about how much development potential we still haven’t unlocked. Now that our production capacity is finally fully in place, we can start to see where our ceiling really is.”

Years ago, a shared college friend introduced Maldonado and Ali to each other at a poker-themed birthday party in Chicago.

Maldonado had been a personal fitness trainer and had an idea to build a grass-fed meat startup. The two then decided to co-found a business, each putting in $3,250 in seed capital. The company’s first-generation product was not meat sticks; instead, imitating Omaha Steaks, it sold grass-fed meat gift boxes online under the brand name Logic Meatlocker. At the time, the mixed fitness (CrossFit) trend was in full swing, and many hardcore fitness enthusiasts were turning to high-protein diets—this was the motivation behind the two founders’ venture.

Ali recalled, “At that time, almost everyone had a friend who was into CrossFit, and everyone would ask those people for dietary advice. Those people were basically like today’s influencer bloggers.”

After six months of starting the business, sales for the gift box line were dismal.

Maldonado came up with a new idea: shift to the meat stick category. Dried meat sticks don’t require a cold chain for shipping, which lowers costs and also eases funding pressure. That way, the company could maintain a self-sufficient operating model and turn profitable quickly. Ali said, “We learned to manage cash flow, standardize our operating model, and at the same time develop a reasonable pricing strategy.”

Chomps recently launched a new flavor for breakfast meat sticks. Ali explained, “The texture is really refreshing—it makes you want another bite after you finish. We successfully opened up a breakfast consumption scenario.” Image source: CHOMPS

After that, the meat snack industry entered a key development stage, with investors brothers Carter Reum and Courtney Reum stepping in. The two later co-founded the Santa Monica venture capital firm M13. Before that, they had invested in the grass-fed meat jerky brand Krave. In 2015, Hershey acquired the brand for $240 million, which proved highly beneficial for the brothers.

Maldonado reached out to the Reum brothers proactively, inviting them to sample the product and learn about the company. The following year, the two brothers invested more than $8B into Chomps. Courtney Reum said, “We believe we can help the brand significantly increase revenue and strengthen its marketing. We’re willing to be deeply involved because we recognize the company’s products, the team, and the development outlook for the entire category.”

In its first four years, Chomps sold only online, and the two founders continued to keep their own full-time primary jobs: Maldonado worked in Naples selling commercial real estate, while Ali worked in Chicago doing consulting and private equity. However, when the Reum brothers invested, Chomps successfully moved into its first offline grocery retailer, Trader Joe’s, becoming one of the few external brands in its stores. The side project then turned into the brothers’ full-time business. By the end of 2016, the company’s annual revenue surpassed $4 million. Ali said, “We’ve always aimed for digging deep, not spreading wide.”

Over the next two years, Chomps focused on deepening its Trader Joe’s channel. In 2018, it added partners such as Albertsons, and that year revenue rose to $20 million. After that, Walmart, Meijer, Wegmans, and Whole Foods also gradually brought its products in.

Ali said, “After getting into large grocery chains, more families started buying our products. Consumers were no longer limited to the mom group—people of all ages in the household started eating our products. At the same time, our single-product price wasn’t hit. We’ve always stuck to a healthy unit-economics profitability model.”

During the pandemic, Chomps saw explosive growth, reaching the milestone of $8B in annual revenue.

Meanwhile, many competing brands fell into trouble at the same time: after Krave was acquired by Hershey, it deteriorated; founder Jon Sebastiani repurchased the brand in 2020 through his private company, Sonoma Brands, and later also acquired another meat jerky brand, Chef’s Cut. Another meat jerky company, Stryve, went public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), but it has been losing money for years, and its stock has become a “penny stock.” Yet Chomps kept steady growth. Ali said, “We know that having too much cash on the books can actually change the company’s operating mindset.”

At the time, Maldonado and Ali’s roles were CEO and COO, respectively. They decided to sell a minority stake to Boston-based Stride Consumer Partners in a deal valued at $80 million, giving the company a valuation of $300 million.

Stride partner Juan Marcos Hill commented, “Many brands in the market can’t be as well-executed as Chomps across many aspects. This company’s growth potential is close to having no ceiling.”

Still, Chomps faces many challenges ahead. PitchBook data shows that after the two became co-CEOs together in 2023, the company arranged debt financing for two consecutive years from SG Stonegate Capital in Newport Beach, California. In 2025, the company also received a $100 million credit facility from Bank of America.

Meat snacks are often considered one of the most fiercely competitive food tracks, and Chomps has put most of its raised funds into establishing a strong foothold in the category. Today, Chomps revenue is far ahead of second-place California brand Archer (estimated 2025 revenue of $300 million) and other newer peers. Still, it needs to deal with dozens of emerging brands that are competing for shelf space.

Ali said bluntly, “Many brands are here for a flash—short-term they’re really hot, and then they quickly fade. That’s absolutely not the outcome we want.”

Among Chomps’ incremental sales last year, 81% came from consumers buying meat snacks for the first time. Ali analyzed, “That’s rare across the whole category. Traditional established meat snack brands mainly target male consumers, and the audience is relatively narrow. Chomps, through the format of meat sticks, attracts a large wave of new consumers. We’re not winning by taking market share from competitors—we’re creating incremental demand for the whole category.”

“The retail buyers value partnerships like this the most,” he added. “They don’t need players who just split up the existing market pie—they need partners who can bring in entirely new consumer groups.”

However, store-brand products also put competitive pressure on Chomps. Recently, Costco and Target have rolled out their own in-house meat stick products one after another, pressuring Chomps’ offline market. Jack Link’s (with $2 billion in annual revenue) and Archer also produce meat jerky products besides meat sticks, and in that category the craft barrier is higher, making it difficult to quickly replicate.

Industry insiders say Chomps has hired an investment bank to assess an exit route, but both Hill and Ali say they won’t rush a sale for short-term gains. In the future, the company may not rule out either going public or being acquired, but most publicly listed food groups are under operational pressure, making it hard to come up with large acquisition funds. For example, Conagra, which owns the legacy snack Slim Jim and the newer brand Fatty’s (acquired in 2024), saw its stock price fall by more than 10% over the past year.

Potential acquirers also need to develop robust production strategies. In addition, Chomps’ collaboration with Missouri’s Western Smokehouse Partners has also affected its profitability. In July 2025, Western set up a dedicated production facility for Chomps, and in 2027 it will build a dedicated factory for Chomps in Nebraska. In the long run, whether Chomps develops independently or is acquired, it will need to acquire Western or build its own factory. The company declined to respond to rumors of such collaboration.

Besides meeting the needs of its core customer base, Chomps is also moving into the breakfast snack space. The company found that many loyal consumers eat meat sticks in the morning, but they feel a sense of guilt. To address this, Chomps launched savory-flavored breakfast meat sticks to relieve consumers’ psychological burden. The new product will launch at Target in April, while also going live through online channels.

Ali explained, “People have actually been treating our products as breakfast already—they just feel awkward and a bit embarrassed. Our new products have a fresh, light taste and make people love them the more they eat. We successfully opened up a breakfast consumption scenario.”

Deepening the convenience store channel is also the brand’s next focus. Chomps is already present in 125k gas stations and small convenience stores, including Wawa and Love’s. In February this year, it also moved into about 3,000 711 stores. Ali said, “We’re still slowly exploring and steadily推进 step by step—making sure we first understand how this channel operates.”

Maldonado added, “Ten years from now, when consumers see the Chomps logo, they’ll immediately recognize the brand and trust it deeply. We’re not satisfied with creating yet another healthier product—we want to create an ultra-healthy snack product.”

This article is translated from:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2026/03/27/how-chomps-devoured-the-competition-and-became-a-15-billion-meat-snack/

By Chloe Sorvino

Translation: Lemin

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