Good Crisp Closes Funding To Push Into Conventional Retail

Salty snack brand The Good Crisp Company announced last week that it has closed what it described as its largest funding round to-date as it seeks to make the jump from natural retailers into conventional grocery.

Good Crip CEO Matthew Parry declined to share the amount of capital raised, but said it was the company’s largest ever, coming roughly 18 months since it raised roughly $5 million in May 2020. Returning investors included CircleUp, Stonyfield founder Gary Hirshberg and Orgain founder Andrew Abraham, along with new participants including FF2032 (the venture arm of Lotus Bakeries), Vitality Capital, Goat Rodeo, RCV Frontline, Native founder Moiz Ali and Thrive Market founder Nick Green.

“Most of our [previous] investors have been angels or founders and really bring some expertise — I was really keen to continue along that model,” Parry said of the investor group. “For me, some real world experience is valuable.”

Parry said the capital is largely needed to help support the brand’s push into conventional grocery. The brand’s chips will launch into 1,500 Kroger stores in January as well as H-E-B, and its cheese balls, which were introduced this year online and in smaller independent stores, will enter 2,700 Walmart locations in March. To support these efforts, the company, which currently has six full-time employees, plans to also invest in its field marketing, finance and sales teams.

“[It’s a] big leap from natural into conventional,” Parry said. “This is our first key [jump] into that so we want to make sure we are capitalized to be able to do that and really win in conventional like we have in natural.”

The funding will also help the brand further build its e-commerce business, he added, which currently accounts for 10% to 15% of sales.

Good Crisp was founded as a subsidiary of South Australia-based ABC Sales & Marketing, which bought the Australian rights to Mamee Snacks, Malaysia’s largest snack brand, over 30 years ago. In 2015 ABC Sales and Marketing brought the Mamee brand chips to the U.S. However, after failing to gain traction, the company rebranded to The Good Crisp in 2016 and then executed a packaging refresh in 2019.

The brand is in roughly 13,000 retailers across the U.S., Canada and Australia including Walmart, Wegmans and Whole Foods. Parry told NOSH the company roughly doubled its sales in 2020, reaching $14 million despite facing increased shipping costs. In 2022, he expects the brand to hit close to $30 million in sales.

Though there are plenty of traditional potato chip manufacturers, Parry said there are very few manufacturers who can produce canister chips, which have a different texture. Furthermore, Good Crisps exclusivity with Mamee for the North American market takes the number of co-packers even lower, he said.

In part because of this lack of competition, Good Crisp is able to command a price point of $3.36 to $2.99, roughly a dollar more than Pringles. The other part of the brand’s success, Parry said, has been the simplicity of its value proposition — especially amidst the sea of health claims and functional foods found on other grocery products.

“Part of it is the product itself. We don’t have to spend a fortune on demos… and in drawing really high trade and promo percentages and things like that to educate people about our product or to pick it up and try it,” Parry said. “Our philosophy has always been about [going for] broad market appeal…We just help everyday Americans feel better about the snacks that they eat.”