Teton Waters Gets Cash, New CEO, Plans Growth

Executing a series of strategic moves, grass-fed beef brand Teton Waters Ranch this month signalled it is ready to expand.

The sausage brand announced yesterday that it had brought on CPG veteran Mike Murray as its new CEO and, earlier this month, rolled out a new rebrand and package “reconfiguration.”

Most recently the CEO at confectionary platform Free2b, Murray told NOSH that he was “compelled to act” on the opportunity at Teton Waters after learning more about the team and investors that were behind the brand. Murray is the second CEO to join the company in roughly a year — in April 2017, then-Sterling Rice Group CEO and president Walt Freese assumed the CEO role from Teton Waters’ founder, Jeff Russell.

Murray, who has also worked at dairy-free ice cream brand So Delicious, said that he sees similarities between his previous, allergen-centric employers and Teton Waters.

“Grass-fed beef is driven by free-from benefits as well,” Murray said. “A lot of the demand that’s there — and it’s around $4 billion in total including all the forms and formats –much of it is about the absence of hormones and antibiotics and a leaner, fat profile.”

Murray joins the company, which reported an 83 percent year-over-year increase in sales and is in over 2,000 retail stores, just as it has refreshed its packaging and messaging. Murray said the new look better conveys ““who we are, what we do, and why” through a large text callout for the brand’s key differentiator: that its beef is grass-fed.

Also predominantly added was a “certified humane?” callout, which Murray believes will separate Teton Waters from other products that may be grass-fed, but care less about animal welfare or environmental impact.

The pack sizes have been slightly reduced — for example, the dinner sausages went from a 12 oz. package to a 10 oz. package — in order to drop prices to a premium of about $1 over the competition’s. Murray believes this incremental cost will prove to be less of a barrier for the consumer and encourage more trial.Teton Waters also added five new flavors — Italian-style oregano and mozzarella, Italian-style crushed red pepper and basil, hardwood smoked, bratwurst, and cheddar bratwurst — and adjusted the naming of other SKUs to be more consistent with the established flavor profiles in the category. In total, Teton Waters will now have 11 SKUs, including mini and standard size hot dogs. While it’s a significant increase, Murray said it’s needed in order to stay competitive. “Dinner sausage specifically is variety-driven,” he noted.

Supporting all of these initiatives is an influx of capital. A company spokesperson told NOSH that it is in the middle of raising a round of funding, however an SEC filing from January shows the brand had closed a $3.5 million dollar convertible note, with roughly $4.5 remaining to be sold. The brand had previously closed a minority investment from Sunrise Strategic Partners and Armonia Capital.

After he shepherds the rebrand into retail and increases the brand’s presence on store shelves, Murray’s hope is to eventually build out Teton Waters as a platform brand. Initially that will be in adjacent categories, but there is the potential to expand into other parts of the store, depending on where grass-fed can be an advantage.

“We will be taking a hard look at the innovation agenda where we can broaden the [grass-fed] solution even further across other categories,” Murray said. “It’s going to come down to a simple but well thought out strategy of where does the consumer want Teton to play and where [is] the grass fed benefit a true benefit that is not being met right now?”