Plant-based Meat Brand Banks On A Skinny Butcher To Mainstream The Category

A new plant-based meat brand is trying to disprove the old adage: never trust a skinny butcher.

Launched in March, new brand Skinny Butcher’s line of breaded, Crazy Crispy Chick’n tenders, breasts, nuggets and patties are designed to not only catch the eye of mainstream consumers with its “futuristic yet retro” packaging design and mascot, but also drive conventional shoppers to the crowded category as flexitarianism continue to rise.

“To me, the brilliance of what Impossible and Beyond did was they really hit people over the head with a two-by-four,” joked Dave Zilko, CEO of Skinny Butcher. “What they established is that society has to do this. If we’re really going to address climate change, [plant-based meat] has to happen.”

Inspired by Beyond Meat’s early work in the space, Dave Zilko began working on his idea over two years ago alongside Jack Aronson, his late co-founder in dip brand Garden Fresh Gourmet. The pair sold their dip and salsa brand to Campbell’s in 2015 and went on to repurchase its original distribution center in 2019, marking the beginning of this new venture.

According to Zilko, the duo had begun working on their plant-based chicken concept but, with Aronson fighting a battle with cancer that eventually took his life, Zilko turned to Golden West Food Group for operational support, which had been Aronson’s area of expertise. Golden West is now an equity partner and the exclusive manufacturer of Skinny Butcher, and is the vendor on record, which Zilko said will expedite the retailer onboarding process as the brand looks to a rapid national roll out.

“I didn’t want to just license a deal with them,” said Zilko. “I wanted them to be true equity partners. That’s how we roll and I think it’s important. It was important to us at Garden Fresh that we be the best product on the market. So we took that same approach to Skinny Butcher. I define being the best product in the market by winning on branding and winning on flavor profile. We really put a lot of thought into the architecture of this brand.”

Skinny Butcher is “in full launch mode” right now, said Zilko, who pulled together a strong support system to execute its goal of national rollout within its first year. In addition to capitalizing on Golden West’s expansive retail distribution network, Skinny Butcher has also secured placement on shelf at Walmart and Sam’s Club.

However, retail isn’t the company’s only focus. To give consumers a taste off-shelf, the brand has teamed up with Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, a ghost kitchen concept and operator of virtual restaurant Wao Bao, to create a Skinny Butcher menu available through third-party delivery platforms. It allows the brand to get in front of a wide audience with low operating cost, Zilko said, but he also provides a powerful point of entry into the foodservice channel that was simply unattainable for a brand “no one knows yet.” According to Zilko, Lettuce Entertain You has already seen success with the initial rollout and expects to add Skinny Butcher to virtual restaurant menus in over 500 markets across the country by the end of the year.

“It is designed to be a simple mainstream menu,” explained Zilko. “As long as you have a deep fryer, which like 80% of the restaurants in this country do, you just bring in the product… monitor your UberEATS and DoorDash portals, and we do the marketing for [the ghost kitchen]. There’s no upfront fees. There’s no franchising fees. You just use your existing equipment and the product comes frozen so it has a one year shelf-life.”

With the operational and financial support in place, Zilko believes all that is next it to drive consumer education and adoption. In foodservice, Skinny Butcher is positioned to offer a plant-based alternative within the “white-hot fried chicken sandwich war” going on in the quick-service restaurant space. The soy-free line, made with pea protein, chicken spice blend and a proprietary bamboo fiber to replicate animal muscle tissue, contains between 8 to 15 grams of protein, depending on the format.

At retail, the front-of-pack nutritional callouts and food photography showing off use occasions were of primary importance, said Zilko. In addition to the informational components, he said the packaging is meant to show that the brand doesn’t take itself too seriously.

“I think we work harder on shelf [than other brands] with that winking butcher,” said Zilko “There’s old saying you never trust a skinny butcher, but he’s winking at you in the frozen grocery aisles, saying ‘this is so good you, you can trust me, even I’m eating this.’ The butcher is the second most trusted individual in the supermarket behind the pharmacist.”

Both at Garden Fresh Gourmet and now again with Skinny Butcher, Zilko has favored the creative side of the business. However, he said he aims to maintain the same entrepreneurial, “anything is possible” spirit that his late co-founder brought to the table, embodied by the goal for an aggressive national launch and the brand’s differentiated, “Crazy Crispy” position.

“We think the wind is at the back of this category and the time is right to have a little bit of fun with it, to put a smile on people’s face, which is what we did at Garden Fresh,” said Zilko. “We don’t think anybody else is doing that right now, so looking at the short term and long term – we put a lot of thought into this and we like where we are.”