Jordan Buckner (00:00)
Today I'm joined by John McGuckin, who's the CEO of Clio Snacks and a seasoned CPG leader with over 25 years of experience including helping scale Sabra. Since taking the helm at Clio, John has led the brand's explosive growth into more than 28,000 doors nationwide including a major new expansion into over 1,200 target locations. In this episode, John shares how Clio created an entirely new category in refrigerated snacking.

built a high-performing team and scaling operations, all while staying focused on product quality, brand positioning, and sustainable growth. John, welcome to the podcast today.

John McGuckin, (00:36)
Thank you, Jordan. Pleasure to be here. Appreciate the opportunity.

Jordan Buckner (00:39)
So this is first time getting to chat, but I was really struck by just the number of companies and brands that you've worked with along your career and seeing a lot of high growth opportunities. I would love for you to share just a little bit about what led you to this opportunity at running Clio and what are some of the key lessons and key moments along your career.

John McGuckin, (01:01)
I've had the opportunity in my career, been blessed with working for big, big CPG companies like Nestle and Kraft, but also have had the opportunity to work with a number of different entrepreneurs and engage in helping them scale their company and bring their vision to life. So Bob Rich at Rich Products, Murray Lender at Lenders Bagels, Jerry Schreiber at J &J Snack Food, Yehuda Pearl at Sabra, of course, and now Sergey Konchakovsky at

What was interesting about both the Sobrad experience and the Clio experience is that each experience really mirrored what was going on with consumers at the time. So in the early 2000s, the big trend was the Mediterranean lifestyle. And Yehuda Pearl put together that hummus product with, he created a smoother texture with the big garnish on top. And he really sort of anglicized

hummus for the American people. And we were able to generate because A, the quality of the product and then later, the exciting nature of the brand and to take that through and take advantage of this Mediterranean lifestyle and just expand and grow dramatically. So we actually went from about 15 million in sales to 500 million in about seven and a half years, which was incredible, right?

You don't always find those kinds of opportunities. But when I met Sergey in Piscataway, New Jersey and looked at the Clio brand, recognized that today's consumer is very different from the consumer 20 years ago. So what are today's consumers looking for? Snacking is huge, protein forward ingredients, very, very important. And then permissible indulgence. On top of that, a grab and go sort of on the go culture.

And I saw, so I saw in Clio, what I believe was another opportunity to scale something really special that is very consumer centric based upon current trends. And boy has that happened. So we've almost quadrupled the business in four years. And, you know, the consumer is, it's resonating not only with consumers, but consumers across all demographics. And we've quickly become an omni-channel

So, you you'll find us now in colleges and universities, convenience stores, airports, retail supermarkets, mass merchandisers, and clubs. yeah, the opportunity to expand the business, we feel like we're just getting started. But yeah, it's an item, a brand, and a product that is addressing today's consumer needs in very worthwhile fashion.

Jordan Buckner (03:25)
John, I love that. I'm really curious because I think looking at consumer trends and what people are potentially buying is one thing, but when you're introducing a new product and new category into the store, there's a lot of challenges and obstacles into that success. And so when you met the team at Clio, what was it?

beyond the consumer trends that really helped you identify that they had something here. I'm just curious, was it the level of penetration? Was it repeat? Customers are coming back. Was it the velocities in the store? What are some of those early metrics when you realize how they found that product market fit?

John McGuckin, (04:00)
Yeah, so when I joined Clio, we had actually already experienced distribution at Walmart. There had been some rotations at Costco and Sam's Club, and it already enjoyed a presence at Whole Foods. So I was able through my network to get into some of that data, and I saw that it was punching well above its weight. So when I considered, and similar to Sabra, when I joined Sabra, it was only really a kosher niche product.

but I saw the velocities and recognized that once we had a rotation with the Costco, we became sort of mainstream and we were able to just explode the business from there. I saw the same opportunity with Clio and it's really sort of, know, it's better to be lucky than good, but clearly, you know, I was lucky to recognize that it was an item that was very timely. And now more recently with the Ozempic craze and the GLP-1,

you know, Greek yogurt with its probiotics. And then when you add the protein and all of the other attributes that I spoke about, you know, it's really becoming even more appealing to consumers. So we're seeing velocities grow across the omnichannel.

Jordan Buckner (05:06)
You know, one thing that's so important is taking brands from that initial startup phase into those growth periods. And it sounds like you really excelled during that time. And so what were some of the opportunities that you identified when you came on board that allowed you to help transition Clio to the growth that it's seen today?

John McGuckin, (05:28)
So I firmly believe that this is a team sport and other than the product itself, the most important thing that you need to do is bring in the right team and create the right culture that's consistent with the personalities of your team and to bring in functional experts that buy into the opportunity and just allow them to go. So we were able to identify the chief of operations and Raphael Rodas that had both experience with

big CPG companies and startups, and then John Thompson, same thing as our CFO. So in each case, well, we brought in the discipline and created the framework for growth with people who had been through it before, had that experience and whose personalities matched extremely well with the culture. So, you know, we ended up with a very strong cross-functional team, highly collaborative, a lot of mutual respect.

and it all really fits well within the mission vision values that we've brought to Clio.

Jordan Buckner (06:20)
I love that. then as you were looking in terms of growth, was that in terms of launching into new retailers? Was it kind of building out stronger distribution relationships? Were you looking at new product opportunities, new SKU launches kind of, or was it really just around like expanding into more doors with the existing product?

John McGuckin, (06:38)
Yeah, so we recognize that our vanilla and our strawberry were number one and number two in the category. And we had a line of single core bars that when I joined Clio, we were basically just in the single core bar business. We had a lot of distribution. We were selling like $1.49 bars at a time when the company was trying to scale. So cash became a major issue for us because we were growing quickly, but we were selling these $1.49 bars.

end of 2022, we decided to come with a multi-pack solution. So now we're selling 599 bars. And fortunately for us, we ended up getting almost the same unit turn off the shelf with an item that was three or four times more expensive. And because the four packs and the many eight packs are much more conducive for retail supermarkets, we were able to quickly expand our distribution and then use scan data.

you know, to copy from account A to account B to show them, hey, when you bring in Clio and you have the right number of items and it's merchandise in the right place and you have a category destination, this thing is really incremental and you can take advantage of, you know, all of this explosive growth and snacking. And then we took our singles and we brought those two away from home. So C-Store, College of Universities, as I mentioned earlier, airports, and they're exploding in those channels.

extremely well in their own right. yeah, I think it's having not just the right product, but the right packaging design, the right number of quantities of bars in a box, the right retail price, the right promotional strategy. But I'll go back to what I said earlier, it's also about having the right people. I think without the right people, you don't end up with the right strategy and you don't have as much of an opportunity for success.

Jordan Buckner (08:21)
I that's truly a challenge. I've worked with a lot of brands who are five, 10 person teams. They're starting to see growth and quite frankly, they're not really sure how to best take advantage of it because the same people that got them to $10 million of sales may or may not be the next, the people are gonna get them to $50, $100 million in sales. And so...

What is it that you're looking for in terms of that talent and able to take them there? Because I've also heard on the other side, brands who have hired talent from large CPG companies and when they get to smaller startups with lower budgets where they're the ones having to not just set the strategy, but actually execute it, there's not always an alignment or a match, right? Like the retailers might not pick up their phone call the same way they did when PepsiCo was calling. And so what are some of those skillsets that you're using to identify the right people?

John McGuckin, (09:12)
Yeah, so I think even before the skill set, you know, it starts with offering this promising environment. So when I met with Sergey, it was a big risk because it was really, even though I believed it could be successful, if you just looked at the financials, you know, it'd be nuts. Like, why would you do that? So first you have to trust that you have the wherewithal working with the founder and with the board. And we have a wonderful board that shares our vision.

that says, think this can be something special. Then you need to make sure that you have the cash on hand. So whether it's working through your bank, working through some of your investors, or whether or not it's a raise, you have to create an environment that when you go to attract the CFO, a COO, a CSO, a CMO, you can get them to understand and believe, not just your emotional approach to the business or your belief that it can work, even if you've done it before.

there's still a certain amount of incredulity around it until they see like the numbers. So as we began to turn the corner, you're absolutely right. There were people with the company that were wonderful people for the time that they were with the company, but we needed to establish a more sophisticated platform from everything from managing our warehouse and inventory to how we approach the customer.

So, you we did go through a period of time where I was able to attract people just as we were making that turn. People who believed in the brand, believed in the strategy and saw through the investment group that there were some serious people behind the business that had a strong belief that this could be successful. And if you have all of those elements, you're in a really good position to attract the kind of talent that you need to help take it to the next level.

Jordan Buckner (10:49)
Transitioning to getting the product in front of, not just into retailers, but actually into consumers' hands, one thing that I'm guessing and probably wrong, but building that awareness and household penetration is a challenge for a new product, a new category. And so I'm curious how you're approaching marketing a new type of snack and educating consumers about what Clio is directing them to the store to drive trial and repeat purchase.

John McGuckin, (11:15)
Yeah, I think our strategy has been a little bit piecemeal in the beginning because the race for us initially was to go get the distribution. And a lot of people would debate with you about that because if you think you don't have the marketing funds to support this wide distribution, you your velocities might be affected. We've been fortunate in that as we've expanded our penetration, our velocities have grown. And from a marketing standpoint, we do a lot with social media.

brand ambassadors, a lot of online stuff. We punch way above our weight on Instacart and things like walmart.com. I can't get into the percentages, but we're significantly higher than the category. I think part of that is it's probably easier to find us off and online than it is in the actual store, which will lead to a brief discussion about merchandising, which is very important. And I hope we get to that.

Yeah, so a lot of social media, a lot of different types of approaches to college and university students. And then we did a big program this year with HelloFresh. So we introduced 500,000 samples in the first quarter that HelloFresh consumers received with their order. And that was met with tremendous response in terms of the potential for those folks to come back and buy the product.

So, you know, that's one of the things like an entrepreneurial company, you can try something new. And certainly in the case of the HelloFresh execution, it worked very well.

Jordan Buckner (12:36)
You know, it's interesting and I'm always curious about launching new categories because back in 2016, the company I launched T squares was a line of energy bars and kind of bite-sized energy squares with green and black tea for natural caffeine boost. And on one hand, they were kind of a energy protein bar plus caffeine as the kind of positioning. But because the category was new, we were kind of doing a bunch of new things.

getting consumer awareness and adoption was really challenging of launching. And I think we had the problem of not really knowing where to merchandise in the store because we're in the multi-server pack. So it didn't work next to just your standard protein bars, but also wasn't quite granola, which is in the multi-server pack. And so we didn't fit cleanly anywhere. And it was challenging to drive customers there. So we were doing a lot of demo sampling to get physically kind of off the shelf.

And I'm kind of curious if Clio and maybe it was like this more in the early days needed that same type of off-shelf sampling, tasting, or if the proposition is actually easy to understand where consumers are just see it and they understand it and they're willing to try it because it's chocolate and Greek yogurt, which they kind of understand the basis of and both sound indulgent, it's kind of like a healthy indulgence and it's fairly good. So I'm kind of curious on.

on giving people to that trial and then we can jump in the merchandising from there too.

John McGuckin, (14:02)
Yeah, there's no question that when people sample Clio bars for the first time, the reaction is 90 % of the time extremely positive and 90 % of the time extremely surprised. So both in a good way. So getting people, whether it be through Costco demos, inline demos, trade shows, consumer shows, I mentioned the HelloFresh execution, getting people to actually try the product is certainly

certainly critical. Once that happens, the next important thing is to make sure that if they like it and they wanna buy it, they know how to find it. So we've spent a lot of time on the merchandising side of it, working with our retail partners on trying to help them create a snacking destination within refrigerated dairy. So historically, because Clio was a Greek yogurt, it's $11 billion category, it's great to be in it.

But oftentimes, we'd be merchandised like on the top shelf, near like Chobani. And that is really not ideal, especially as a new item that's more experiential at its essence than like a commodity Greek yogurt. So we've spent a lot of time trying to build a snacking destination sort of in between yogurt and dessert. So matching us up with like

Perfect Bar and Honey Mamas and some other refrigerated snacks because frankly the dessert category has not performed that well and people are looking again, particularly because of like Ozempic and GLP-1, know, people are looking for protein. They're looking for items that are flavorful, are better for them, but you know, they haven't lost that sweet tooth. So to have the opportunity to bite into our bar, which has like a cheesecake kind of texture with the chocolate,

and yet scores on protein, scores on better for you, and a number of other attributes, we really think that we've found a strong solution. And then what we can demonstrate to the trade is that this snacking set can be incremental and draw people from like the grocery shelf, you know, over to refrigerated where they buy other things as well. So that's really been the challenge, getting the right number of items on the shelf, creating the right

brand and category presence and using all of our category mates, all of whom appeal to consumers in different ways. So we don't look at Perfect Bar as a competitor, we look at it as a companion. And it's a different usage occasion for different purpose. So if we can create this snacking set, we think it raises all boats.

Jordan Buckner (16:21)
So I'm curious, John, the success you've had so far, what are the obstacles or the next kind of milestones you're looking at for growing Clio in terms of things that you need to work on or overcome to get the brand to the next level?

John McGuckin, (16:35)
Yeah, so believe it or not, some things are just functional in scope. with a lot of buyers, you you got a yogurt buyer and then you've got a dessert buyer. You know, there's no snack buyer. And so if you're, if you're in the pen of the yogurt buyer, you know, it's difficult to talk about a snacking set between yogurt and refridger and desserts because they're focused on yogurt.

Jordan Buckner (16:54)
Skew Category Queue.

John McGuckin, (16:56)
Giant, right? And dessert category is smaller and it's not faring so well. So typically the dessert buyer is a little bit more anxious about the category, but, typically it's a smaller category. like getting permission, getting those two on board to say, let's look at this broader category, believe it or not, that's just a functional speed bump that we have to continue to try to overcome in helping to drive value.

for the retailer. Now where you have a buyer who's responsible for both, and we do have that as well, that's certainly been easier. Also wherever Perfect Bar originally existed in dairy, it was easier to kind of suggest to the retailer that, merchandise us next to Perfect Bar because we're both appealing to these people that are on the go for different reasons. But Perfect Bar is not always in dairy, know, 25 % of the time it's in produce.

So that was also a little bit of an obstacle because we're trying to pioneer as a very small company, we're trying to pioneer this new category. And it's difficult, at least initially to get that attention until you can demonstrate that, hey, you know what? They are incremental. Hey, you know what? The velocities are up 47%. And I got to get behind this brand. So we're still in the process of building the right

category destination for the brand and for the category.

Jordan Buckner (18:13)
Yeah, I'm curious with that from your experience of working with buyers at different retailers, what are the key points that they are interested in? Is it that incrementality that they are thinking about to drive growth in the category? Is it velocity numbers? I'm sure it's a combination of all, but I'd love to know how you're thinking about pitching the Clio benefits to the buyer and to the retailer.

John McGuckin, (18:37)
Well, even more than even a big CPG brand, the trade is very cognizant of consumer trends. So a lot of this is simply conveying, when they're looking for items, because of this is a zempic situation, they're looking for items. And so a lot of times it's just a matter of timing and making sure that you're in front of the right people with the right story. We know, for example, just based on the latest data that

that's come out is that cottage cheese and Greek yogurt snacks are leading the pack. You know, in traditional candy, traditional snacking, whether it's potato chips or whatever, you know, we're seeing some significant declines in traditional desserts and, you know, traditional snacking that some people would consider, you know, it's not that healthy. And the migration is over to Greek yogurt and cottage cheese.

what better position can you be in but to have a Greek yogurt wrapped in chocolate, ready to go with significant protein attributes. So a lot of times it's just a matter of getting in front of the training, convincing them that you're the right item at the right time. Let's build this thing together.

Jordan Buckner (19:42)
And Jen, are those conversations coming up with buyers and decision makers around Ozambique GLP-1? Like, when you're talking about that with them, are they using those medications and things specifically? And say, like, OK, yes, we're looking for innovations that directly can appeal to these customers.

John McGuckin, (20:02)
Yes.

Jordan Buckner (20:03)
That's really interesting because I remember there being a big conversation around it a couple of months ago. And so that's good to hear kind of how those conversations are continue to go. John, thanks so much for being on today. I'm very excited to hear about all the growth of Clio and everything that you're doing and how you're able to lead the company, bring on great team members and help to shepherd its growth. I am a personal consumer. My family buys Clio as well.

road trip actually I think and stopped in and grabbed some a couple of months ago which was great for the kids. So definitely appreciate all that you do and we'll continue to watch the journey.

John McGuckin, (20:37)
I greatly appreciate your time today, Jordan. Thank you very much and continued success.

Jordan Buckner (20:41)
Thank you.

John McGuckin, (20:41)
Okay.