Jordan Buckner (00:00)
Today I'm talking to the founders of Joon , Cody Allen and Alexandre Bennet which is one of my favorite snacks of 2025. If you've never tried Joon you'd be really excited. They are a line of pistachios, but with very simple, delicious flavors and ingredients you can feel good about. My whole family loves them and they've become a staple in our house. We've gone through about 18 bags at this point and we are obsessed. You know, I want to feature Joon.

in all the work that we're doing because it's such a great brand. I love the story behind it. We actually featured them in our fall Foodbevy insider box and became one of the top rate favorites among hundreds of CPG insiders, founders, and buyers. Cody and Alex, welcome to the show today.

Cody Allen (00:40)
Thanks for having us. And we also just want to thank you for including us in the Foodbevy box. We've gotten so much. So many folks have reached out to us and that they caught us in the box and tried the product. And it's just been awesome exposure. And we just appreciate all the love and support you've provided to the brand as well, whether it be on LinkedIn or email or Instagram

been super exciting to be included.

Jordan Buckner (01:03)
I love that. Now I'll give a little shout out to our winter Foodbevy insider box is now live on sale at insider.foodbevy.com. So you want to listen who wants to check that out. But want to start in telling and highlight your story. So I would love to start at the beginning and maybe Alex pass it over to you about like how you two decided to start Joon and why.

Alexandre Bennet (01:23)
Yeah, absolutely. And echoing all that, it's been incredible to connect with so many people. LinkedIn has been fantastic. We had so many people posting like reviews that I'm still learning how to use LinkedIn at times, right? So I still see these reviews like two weeks later, three, three weeks later. So super stoked about it. A little disappointed that you're only through 18 bags. I think that we would want you to be through 24, 25 bags, but that's all right. We'll bump that up at another time. So yeah, dude, just a little background on us, how we got here.

You know, we were actually just talking about this the other day. So six months in business was on Saturday this past weekend. prior to that, what we wanted to do or this week, we wanted to kind of like figure out like, how did we fully get to this point? How did we get to six months in business? So the first real ideation of Joon came in 2023. was February, 2023. I've been working in the CPG space for about 10 years now. I started in beverage. I went into

consulting for some other brands and helping launch new and emerging products. And Cody, while being in tech at the time, and he was working, you know, implementing these massive software systems for huge Fortune 500 companies, and then went into ad tech consulting and whatnot. Cody and I knew each other from college, and Cody's family had been in food distribution for, you know, it's part of our story. They'd been in food distribution for over 100 years.

out of Philadelphia and Cody had hooked me up with his father who's still in the food distribution space for some of the brands that I was consulting with back in 2023. So nothing came from that meeting, but what did come from that meeting and I mean that between me and Cody's father, but what did happen was Cody and I ended up getting on a phone call. Cody, as always just kind of.

catching up, seeing what's up. He had moved to Denver at that point. We had been friends from school and we'd lived in New York together for a little bit. So we're catching up and he asked like, are you working on anything else? And I told him, I had this idea. I have this incredibly rich family history of pistachios. My family are pistachio farmers overseas for three centuries now. We've had incredible farms for over three centuries. And I said, I have an incredible recipe. So I sent him some samples of something that I ended up cooking at home.

And that was the start of the ideation of Joon, right? So from February, 2023, we decided to go into a partnership. Cody did a bunch of research, found that there was a huge opportunity for pistachios and disruption in the nut category in general. I, on the other hand, was just obsessed with this family recipe and was like, people don't know what a good pistachio tastes like, having that arrogance, you know, that.

you know, comes with not ever launching your own product and learning so much and being humbled along the way. But we ended up partnering with a fantastic R &D company out of California, came up with three amazing flavors. We wanted to pay, you know, a huge kind of ode to the family recipe while kind of modernizing it here in the United States. So we sourced in California, we cook in California.

We came up with a process that has no seed oils, no natural flavors, kind of again, accustomed to what new consumers are looking for and came up with an original salted, which is like the family recipe, the dill pickle, which has been a huge driver for us, Jordan. I'm sure every other thing you get in your box, you're seeing a new dill pickle product come in, right? Like it's definitely something that we're riding the high of. And then a salt and pepper, which is...

A flavor that people in the United States are very familiar with. So launch with three flavors. And it's been incredible so far seeing the initial reaction as we put this product into market over the last six months.

Jordan Buckner (04:55)
that, you know, I have all the flavors here, I have an original salt and pepper and the dill. And I was actually most surprised about the dill, right? You like, I've never had a dill flavor pistachio, but it blends in really well with I think just like the natural nutty fattiness of the pistachio in with the dill seasonings. So, a few those to you guys for creating that. Cody, when you kind of come along for...

the journey, what did you kind of expect not kind of being in the food space and what's that transition like from your world into this space?

Alexandre Bennet (05:28)
Yeah.

Cody Allen (05:29)
It was quite a big transition. mean, as Alex had mentioned, my great grandfather started a convenience store distribution company back in 1910. And so I grew up working in my dad's warehouse. He was third generation, you know, in the summer months from when I was 13 until I was 20. And then I got my first internship and went into the tech world. But I always, you know, grew up in the warehouse loading trucks, kind of doing everything that comes with that. And always wanted to start my own food company. So it was always kind of in the back of my head. But I'd only really seen the

the food industry from the distribution side, right? I hadn't really seen it from the retail side. And so, kind of shifting into running a brand

learning experience and it still is every single day. And I think what was really helpful for me along the way was Alex has been in the space, as he mentioned for about 10 years. So there was a lot that I learned from Alex in terms of like,

how retail works and pricing and all that comes with that. we were, I think we were able to create a nice, very nice yin-yang relationship where I kind of understood some more of the backend distribution. He had a really nice understanding of the retail side of the house. And it's just been a lot of fun. think we're both first time founders and it's been every day is something new where we're kind of learning and

It's been very rewarding and it's been a lot of fun kind of meeting people, meeting people like yourself and just poking around and going to trade shows and networking. And yeah, I think, you know, it continues to be really exciting and we're fortunate that we've just had a lot of momentum with the business as well and just trying to keep it going.

Jordan Buckner (07:01)
That's awesome. You know, it's interesting because, you know, Alex, I'm sure you being closer in the space and then, or Cody, you like just seeing all these products, right? There are tens of that, hundreds of thousands of products and like food products on the market. Food is tended in the last 10 years, I think, to go very like, I'll call it like air quote innovative with like adaptogens and products and all these different additives almost taking supplements into food and being around functionality.

What kind of belief that you have around the core product of Pistachio is the thing like, this is an, you know, it's more than a commodity, it's an elevated product, now's the right time for a modern Pistachio brand or, you know, nut brand. And kind of what led you to saying like,

like the product we feel confident in in this moment.

Cody Allen (07:46)
Yeah, when, as Alex mentioned before, you know, he sent me the family recipe back in 2023 and I tried it and I went out and grabbed some pistachios, you know, off the shelf of some grocery stores and did a taste test. And I was like, wow, the flavor is incredible. But, you know,

us, we really wanted to kind of be a little bit more data driven and like why pistachios too, right? I we're fortunate that

what we found through our research is pistachio consumption over the last decade in the US is up around 4X. And so we saw that mirror like, wow, that is growing a tremendous amount. And we feel like there's an opportunity to introduce a product with all of the super clean label ingredients for flavored pistachios. We buy bigger pistachios. And we also felt that there was an opportunity

to come out with branding that kind of spoke and was a little bit more refreshed. I think for us in looking at the data, the industry was growing really quickly. Supply is accessible right in our backyard here in California. California grows a majority of the pistachios globally every year. And it just so happened that Alex's family, with the farms overseas that...

that was the crop that they grew. And that's what Alex always kind of grew up wanting to create was pistachio brand. And so it was kind of just a little bit of the perfect storm. And that kind of gave us enough conviction, that among with some other data to kind of go for it. And I think for us, the other thing I would mention is we said, how can we really differentiate? Like, of course, flavor is critical. Bigger pistachios, super clean label.

But from a branding perspective, we wanted to create something that also appealed to not, you know, to all

consumers. A large majority of pistachio consumers today are over the age of 45. And we wanted to get a little bit extra hyper-focused on that younger generation as well. So Gen A or Gen Alpha, you know, Gen Z millennials. And so we tried to create a brand identity that would kind of speak to existing consumer base, but also be able to grow the cart size of those younger consumers as well.

Jordan Buckner (09:44)
Yeah, I think that's really exciting. know, I was thinking about just trends and this growth in the pistachio industry. And I know like Dubai chocolate has been a big driver of the pistachio commodity base over the last couple of years. Alex, kind of curious, like your perspective in terms of like, does that kind of play the role in awareness and like bringing pistachios back into

of modern conversation or like, how is that kind of showing up?

Alexandre Bennet (10:08)
I mean, short answer, yes. There's no way around it. think there was a SFA, the Specialty Food Association, that puts on the Winter Fancy Food Fair and a fancy food show in New York. I read a report from them yesterday that had showed that amongst the new generation of buyers, Gen Z and whatnot, that pistachios were one of the hottest products.

out there, like at an interview, they did this in New York, fancy food this year. The number one product is like, what's the hottest product right now? Everyone had mentioned pistachios. So pistachio milk like Tosh and then Dubai chocolate and then pistachio that's doing amazing pistachio spread. So I think it fueled some of the awareness around pistachios. But if you had looked at the data that Cody and I were looking at prior to launching the business, it was already kind of like a hockey stick curve of

of consumption in the United States. So it's been growing. I think there's use cases for it now that people are being like, you can use it in different ways. I think that's driving the general like commodity awareness. know, listen, Dubai chocolates this year was crazy. It was crazy. And I know

Right now we are an in-shell pistachios. So just for context for anyone that might be listening and for you as well, Jordan, it's very confusing. Took us two years. I still get it messed up sometimes. Where shelled pistachio is actually an out of shell pistachio and then in-shell pistachio is an in-shell pistachio. So we are still in-shell pistachios and we're gonna do that for foreseeable futures. That's where we really like to, that's the game that we're playing right now. And obviously I think down the line we will evolve into working with shelled pistachios.

But there was a point, Cody, was it this year, where you were getting calls at Sweets and Snacks, where people were coming up to us that were confectionary guys or Dubai chocolate guys being like, I need shelled pistachios. Like, do you have any? I'll buy it for premium. So, you know, these things have moments. It obviously was really big with social media, but for us, I think what we're more excited about is the constant consumption of pistachios over the last 10 years growing.

rather than this ginormous spike. But you know, anything pistachio for us at this point, it's good. All ships rise with the tide, right?

Jordan Buckner (12:22)
I was gonna say like maybe it's always interesting the first couple of months, but you know, it's like, would you guys jump on like a chocolate covered pistachio essentially is like a near end thing to the trend. But I think it's really important to stay to your core and what's working as well. So definitely respect that. Give us a sense of like where the business is now six months in and what are the opportunities that you're really looking forward to next.

Alexandre Bennet (12:47)
Yeah, so stay to play right now. We have launched with three distributors across the United States. We have two distributors in the Northeast that have, that's the bulk of accounts that you're probably seeing. We're likely in about a thousand accounts in the Northeast with an additional 400 spread throughout the United States. So we say that we're floating between 1,400 to 1,500 doors nationwide right now in those first six months of business, which has been fantastic. We have a distributor in Northern California, Northern Pacific Northwest.

that is really, really growing the business in San Francisco, which we're super excited about. With that, I always give my shout out to fair.com. They've been an incredible partner. Kyle Hughes over there has been an incredible partner. We have 300 plus accounts on fair that are really, really impressive. Mom and Pop shops, Independence, they're actually starting to do a lot of enterprise business. So we have GoPuff through them and we work with some incredible companies.

that allow us to fulfill directly to some of these larger partners rather than going through the distribution partner, giving us more flexibility on how we're gonna merchandise and do TPRs and whatever discounts we can work with these guys. But so you have these three avenues for us that are more traditional distribution. We have our direct business and then what's been obviously, I think eyeopening for us on scale. Cody.

prior to starting with Joon had no gray hairs. You'll see that I'm already full gray on my beard here. Cody is starting to get them. He has an incredible head of hair. He'll be fine, but he's going to be silver Fox soon because I would say a lot of that stresses, not even stress. It's more so just like, again, we're all adults here. It's just a holy shit type volume from we launched with thrive, misfits, purple carrot. And then we have hunger root coming on board,

we will be live with Hungry Root, the way that we've spread this business now across all of these independents and then through a national e-commerce platform is above everything else, one, we're finding like, hey, the product is resonating with people. We're super excited about that.

We have these incredible brands that we're starting to work with. But two is like incredible data feedback, right? I am not a data nerd like

came from tech. He loves that stuff. He wants to eat it up, but he has evolved me into it. Cause I've seen now how relevant it is. I understand now, and I always tell people too, like 10 years in the industry and every year that I'm in the industry, I know less. Like that's just how it goes.

The longer you and it, more you realize, you know nothing. Cause this industry is so large, so vast. There's so many ways that you can build business. There's distributors I've never heard of categories. I've never heard of all these crazy things, right? But what I have come to notice is that if you're a buyer, if you're a merchandiser and you're at a company like thrive, or let's say misfits, Jessie is our point of contact there. She's a legend, like one of my favorite people in the industry, maybe just out of the industry too. She sees a million brands a day.

A million people are pitching her and you know, I understand that you can have an incredible brand, incredible tasting product. and in my core, I wish it was the case that that could be enough to just go in there and, and be like, Hey, give us a shot. and in theory it should be, but when there's such competition in the space, being able to go in there and have some data about who's buying your product.

where the industry is going, where the category is going, how are you differentiating yourself, what are consumers buying? Having a data story has been incredibly helpful for us. to summarize where we are, it's like we're six months into the business, we have 1500 doors, we're on all major e-commerce platforms and then have a growing direct to retailer business, which we're really proud of. But ultimately all of that is really to continue to learn about who we are before we press.

the foot on the pedal to go into a more regional launch and or a more scaled out national launch.

Jordan Buckner (16:30)
I love this Alex and Cody. think this is real testament to both of you and taking, you know, this family recipe and making it your own and building this business and a huge testament to saying like, sometimes it just takes a really great tasting product and in the category that's right for growth to find a success. So I all the confidence that you are going to keep growing and build an amazing business, which is great. Cause then I'll get to keep eating in mind Joon. So thanks for being on the show today. If you haven't tried Joon yet,

yourself a favor and grab a bag. As I mentioned they were one of my top favorites in the Fall Foodbevy Insider Box but you know learn more at eatjoonfoods.com or find them on Instagram but definitely appreciate both of you being on the day.

Alexandre Bennet (17:10)
Thanks so much, the way. you.