“I’ve been a customer for over a year now, and was introduced to the team by a mutual friend,” said Smith. “What excites me is the uniqueness of the product and their distribution strategy. They are creating their own path, not following the traditional CPG playbook - it's a very novel approach.”
PAW PAW, Mich. (PRWEB) February 16, 2023
Jared Smith, co-founder of RXBAR, one of the most successful independent snack start-ups, has invested in Wine Chips and joined the innovative gourmet snack company’s advisory board. Smith joins Wine Chips at a watershed moment for the company.
“I’ve been a Wine Chips consumer for over a year now, and by pure chance was introduced to the team by a mutual friend over the holidays,” said Smith. “What excites me most is the uniqueness of the product, the problem they are solving, and their distribution strategy. They are creating their own path, not following the traditional CPG playbook - it's a very novel approach.”
“When I met Jared, it was incredible to discover the parallels in our stories and our CPG startup philosophies,” said Jonathan Strietzel, Founder & CEO of Wine Chips. “Whether it’s focusing on self-distribution or keeping all manufacturing and fulfillment in-house, we’ve taken very similar paths on our journey. Jared is going to add so much value to our company as we enter this new period of rapid growth.”
Wine Chips hand-makes thick, crunchy, lattice-cut chips, seasoned with real cheese and all natural ingredients. Their line of wine snacks explores flavors from gourmet cheeses to charcuterie Wine Chips, all meant to provide extraordinary snackable pairings with wine. The product has been embraced by everyone from leading master sommeliers across the country to Ray Isle, Executive Wine Editor for Food & Wine Magazine.
Strietzel continued, “We have an advisory board that reads as a Who’s Who in the wine industry, from Food & Wine’s Ray Isle to Chair of the Court of Master Sommeliers, Emily Wines, to Vincent Morrow, who just last month was named Michelin’s California Sommelier of the Year. Add to that our Founding Master Sommelier Jonathan Pullis and Jill Zimorski our resident champagne and bubbly expert, and now we’re adding a true CPG entrepreneur with deep operational experience in Jared Smith. We’ve been learning and growing steadily for the past three years, and we now believe we’re ready to completely transform the wine snacking industry.”
Wine Chips started out as a simple ecommerce brand, finding passionate customers in every corner of the country through focused marketing efforts. Before the company knew what was happening, they were getting orders from gourmet food shops and wineries through their website, and so they started creating offerings more suited to that market. Fast forward to today, and Wine Chips is available in more than 3,000 shops and dozens of major hotels, and is having to resist the near-term temptation of accepting orders from some of the largest big box and grocery chains in the country, and from major distributors across Europe and Asia.
“At RXBAR we knew exactly who our customer was and where they were, that being CrossFit. Which led initially to a very concentrated distribution strategy. Wine Chips is in a very similar position, we know exactly where our customers are. Now we have to get creative on how to reach them,” Smith said.
Strietzel saw the same parallel. “Eventually, we want to be everywhere, and that includes the world’s largest retailers. But we have had to be cautious. The last thing we wanted to do was to turn over our young and unknown brand to mass-production co-packers. As we’ve grown, we’ve learned so much about the end-to-end process and discovered seemingly infinite demand for this unique concept we’d created. The trick was figuring out how to develop it at a scale where we could meet that demand while maintaining the exceptional quality and the hand-made artisan character that has made us special. Jared brings so much experience in that regard – he’s made some spectacularly good moves, but he’d be the first to tell you that he’s also made some mistakes in building RXBar. We plan to squeeze every ounce of knowledge that we can from him as we enter this new phase of the company.”
ABOUT WINE CHIPS:
Wine Chips was founded in 2017, perfected in 2019, and launched to the world in 2020 by entrepreneurs, family and friends. Wine Chips was born out of the desire to have a delicious, easy, and portable snack that paired and enhanced their wine enjoyment. The self-distributed, e-commerce brand was released quietly on social media, developing an immediately loyal following among its specifically targeted wine lovers. Located in Paw Paw, Michigan, Wine Chips is also available at select upscale wine and gourmet food retailers nationwide.
Media Inquiries: For additional information about Wine Chips, to request samples, or to interview the company principals, please contact Jon Kraft at jon@winechips.com.