Goodles Appoints Former Sovos Brands Exec Chris Hall as CFO

Months after leading Sovos Brands through its $2.7 billion acquisition by the Campbell Soup Company, Chris Hall has joined better-for-you mac and cheese brand Goodles as CFO.

Hall’s appointment comes as Goodles enters a new phase of growth focused on creating incremental sales in the category through product innovation. In August, the Santa Cruz, Calif.-based company entered a new subcategory with the launch of its deluxe Squeezy Cheese format, which is expected to double Goodles’ consumer base.

“As we race to keep up with all this momentum, our focus remains on expanding our rockstar team, which is committed to creating a legendary product and brand to generate legendary business results. Chris’ extensive and spot-on experience makes him a powerhouse partner to help drive our continued success,” said Jen Zeszut, co-founder and CEO of Goodles, in a press release.

While the national mac and cheese category was down 1.7% in the 24-week period ended July 14, Goodles’ dollar sales were up 134%, according to SPINS MULO data cited in the release. Additionally, Goodles claims its sales are, on average, 67% incremental to the category.

In an email interview with Nosh earlier this week, Hall said that while Goodles’ rapid growth is “exhilarating,” it’s crucial the company build the operating system and back office to support the growth while delivering expected shareholder value. This cuts across functional areas like procurement, manufacturing and logistics, as well as administrative areas such as HR, finance and accounting.

“Similar to many insurgent brands with dynamic topline growth, we have opportunities to enhance profit margins as we continue to scale and drive leverage and productivity across the enterprise. Building the operating system to support high levels of growth and additional complexity will be a major focus as we progress through 2024 and 2025,” said Hall.

Hall comes to Goodles after spending nearly five years at Sovos Brands, whose portfolio consists of pasta sauces, dry pasta, soups, frozen entrées, frozen pizza and yogurt under brand names Rao’s, Michael Angelo’s and Noosa. During his time at the company, Hall grew Sovos Brands into a $1 billion business, largely behind the strength of Rao’s, and guided the company through its IPO in 2021 and its aforementioned acquisition in 2024.

Prior to joining Sovos Brands, Hall held financial leadership positions at Nutrabolt, Sabra Dipping Company and PepsiCo.

Though Goodles is notably one of the smallest companies he has worked at, Hall says the brand has solid business fundamentals reminiscent of a large company.

“The sales numbers are not “startup-y” anymore – the scale is big and quite real now. Also, the leadership team is very senior – everyone has deep CPG and also bigger company experience. It feels very comfortable to me,” said Hall.

As for whether Goodles will eventually seek out an acquisition, never say never. But for now, the better-for-you mac and cheese maker is focused on churning out new products and expanding its consumer base.

“While the team has had its IPO banner all mocked up since even before its launch [and], of course, it’s also a possibility this company becomes an acquisition target, our focus is on making the best possible product and building our fan base, which helps us generate legendary business results. That’s the part we can control,” said Hall.