The co-founder of the popular meat stick brand sold at Trader Joe’s says growing up in an immigrant family on Long Island taught him resilience. This is one of the many factors that made Chomps such a huge success.
Chomps co-founder Pete Maldonado used to eat greasy gas station jerky sticks as a kid. The Manorville native knew he wanted to be a personal trainer one day, but it wasn’t until he started working with clients in the Hamptons that he realized his love for snacking and fitness were in conflict. I realized that.
“I’ve been eating more gas station snack sticks and meat sticks than I’d like to admit,” Maldonado, 42, told the Post, adding: Don’t eat that. ”
At a time when Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig were dominating the market for accessible healthy options, Maldonado wondered why no one had invented a “better-for-you” version of his favorite gas station snack. I couldn’t help but wonder. Shortly thereafter, Chomps was born.
Rashid Ali was impressed by Maldonado’s pitch for a “healthier” beef jerky after the two met during a poker night at a mutual friend’s house in Chicago in 2011. He soon became a business partner of Chomps.
“We were talking about business and realized that we need people like him to be successful. He’s great at finance and operations. I like big ideas, sales and marketing. ,” Maldonado told The Post by phone from his home in Naples, Florida. “Our skills really complemented each other.”
After raising just $6,500 in startup capital, the two began working on a product they could bring to market.
Their first job is to make something healthy that people actually want to eat.
“No matter what nutritional properties you check, if it doesn’t taste good, you’ll never sell it again,” he said. “We had that intuition very early on, but many brands don’t. I think you forget, so we spent a lot of time on flavor.”
Once Chomps launched, they began selling door-to-door to various CrossFit gyms and began working with nutrition and fitness bloggers to build their brand and credibility within the multi-billion dollar meat snack industry.
“About four years later, in 2016, we got a call from Trader Joe’s and they wanted to launch this product with us,” Maldonado said.
“It was a game changer for us. Overnight, millions of people tried this product for the first time, loved it, and bought it again,” he said.
Maldonado said Chomps has been doubling its revenue every year, but the year its products hit Trader Joe’s shelves, sales increased 10 times.
After selling more than 350 million jerky sticks between 2012 and 2023, Chomps estimates it could bring in nearly $500 million in profits in 2024. Chomps did not say how much Maldonado and Ali will earn.
Despite the company’s projected earnings, Maldonado emphasized that things weren’t as glamorous as he and his partners relentlessly chased their dreams.
“I didn’t have a special upbringing or come from a wealthy family, nor was I the smartest kid in school. All of this was the result of hard work and resilience,” he said.
He says he learned that resilience from his family. His grandmother, who immigrated to the United States from Colombia when his father was five years old, raised six children on her own after her husband died of a brain tumor, always finding a way to “make it work.” was.
“That’s the kind of mentality she raised all of her children in, which was that it doesn’t matter what happens in life, you just have to make it work and make it happen. “That’s resilience,” he said.
“Growing up in an immigrant family, I think it was just a real transformation in my mindset, my work ethic, and my mindset of providing for my family.”
Maldonado said her family-first mentality inspired her to work hard from an early age.
“The results of all the work will take a long time to show,” he said. “But just having that motivation was really impactful for me.”
