New Primal Launches Noble Made, Expands Distribution
Meet the New New Primal. The erstwhile jerky and condiment brand announced today a new brand identity on the condiment side, which will also include five newly launched BBQ and buffalo sauces.
The new identity — under the Noble Made name — comes during a busy spring: the company recently completed a 60-day rollout into 2000 new stores as well as the close of a capital round in March.
In June 2017 the marinades originally launched under the New Primal in Whole Foods. At the time, Whole Foods grocery category manager David Woods agreed to pick up the line nationwide — if the team could get it produced in under two months.
“We didn’t feel like we had the amount of time to really put the thought behind this new line of business beyond meat snacks. We just knew it was a really great, versatile product that didn’t exist,” Burke told NOSH. “It felt a bit rushed to market.”
Once the product started selling — Burke says the classic flavor is the company’s top selling item — the team took time to step back and reevaluate. Along with the help of design firm Interact, Burke realized that the term “primal” was limiting. Although it fit with a meat-based brand, condiments can be used for more than just meat.
“As the jerky category has become extremely diluted and extremely competitive, we’ve responded to market feedback in ways that we feel are appropriate.” Burke said. “We went back and forth on leveraging the existing brand equity with The New Primal and meat snacks, versus creating a secondary brand.”
One key point: Burke and team had already seen success with this naming strategy, having launched a children’s line of smaller meat sticks called “Snack Mates.”
The end goal, Burke told NOSH, is to create a platform for a variety of products that follow the wildly popular Whole30 diet across a variety of categories. All of the products, regardless of brand, will be united under the idea of offering ‘clean convenience’ — whether that’s a snack or a sauce that makes cooking dinner easier. In the future, Burke said, the New Primal name may even disappear to the back of pack entirely.
Could aligning yourself with a new diet trend such as Whole30 be risky? Burke says no, believing that because it’s a “movement that goes beyond diet” the phenomenon has shaped how consumers eat permanently.
Retailers seem to agree. New Primal’s marinades are sold in roughly 3,000 stores, including a launch in 1,000 Kroger locations in April and 1,180 Publix stores in May. The meat snacks are sold in 8,000 stores. Whole Foods will take on eight meat snack SKUs nationwide in June.
To fund this growth — both in new products and retail distribution — New Primal closed a round of capital in March. Burke told NOSH the round was under $10 million and led by their previous investor, Third Prime Capital. Other investors were primarily individuals, such as Halo Top co-founder and COO Douglas Bouton. Third Prime has led the company’s three previous rounds of funding.
Burke noted that he values Third Prime’s support as many private equity groups chose to pass on investing in a company that produced meat snacks — even though sauces are expected to account for roughly 35 to 40 percent of the company’s total annual sales in 2018.
“There’s a lot of money in meat snacks and there’s a race to the bottom on price point and every one is competing on promotion,” Burke said. “People are afraid of that.”
The rest of 2018 will be focused on growing distribution and sales. While the company plans to continue to innovate in other condiment categories, launch new Beef Thins flavors and more kids’ snack options, Burke says that will likely be in 2019.
“I’m a first time entrepreneur,” Burke told NOSH, “so my philosophy is bite off more than you can chew and then chew like hell.”
