I Pitched Target for Ten Years. Here's What Happened When They Said Yes

What does it actually look like to grind for a decade in CPG before the category finally catches up to you?Jason Burke, Founder and CEO of New Primal, joins In The Money to tell one of the most honest origin stories in better-for-you snacking; twelve years of building, a lot of expensive mistakes, and a front-row seat to one of the biggest category inflections in modern grocery.New Primal commercialized the first grass-fed beef jerky for retail. Jason bet on the family lunchbox a decade before mom entered the meat snack category. He's now approaching $100 million in revenue, heading into 1,900 Target stores with six products, and running one of the leanest operations relative to revenue in the space.He pitched Target for ten years before they said yes.We cover:Why the four-to-five year CPG startup-to-exit myth is just that, a mythWhat the decade of grinding actually looked like: too many SKUs, too many retail markets, too many rabbits chasedWhy Jason has never had self-doubt, and how that same quality hurt him in the early yearsThe crawl-walk-run retail playbook: why you should own your backyard before you go nationalWhy he'd start DTC-first if he were launching today, and spend two to three years there before calling a single retailerThe real cost of doing business with large retail partners and why going too wide too fast destroys cashHow long the retail J-curve actually is, and why you can't measure it the same way as DTCThe Whole Foods relationship that started with a workout and turned into 40 products on shelf nationallyWhy every person at New Primal is an equity owner, and what that does to the cultureThe lunchbox bet: how New Primal carved out a category position no other brand can authentically claimThe pantry stocking shift: how consumer behavior changed and why the timing was perfect for New PrimalWhy $20 bags of meat sticks are selling at Kroger, and what that says about the premium snack marketThe rotisserie chicken stick: from ideation to fastest-growing product in company history by 10xSix products going into 1,900 Target stores: what that milestone actually means after a decade of pitchingWhat Jason would do completely differently in the first 24 monthsWhy survival is a skill, and why staying lean is a requirement, not a choice, in CPGIf you're a founder in the grind wondering whether it's still worth it, or an investor trying to understand what category timing actually looks like from the inside, this episode is the most honest answer to both questions I've heard.