Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm supremely honored to be sitting down with Jeff Rubenstein, who's the co-founder and CEO of Khloud. Jeff. Great to see you. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. You're looking very laid back and chill, and that's kind of rare for Expo West when everything is chaotic and crazy.
Well, we've had a phenomenal morning, a lot to celebrate. We've had some very interesting retailer meetings. We've had some great editorial conversations. Okay, this is the best one of the day. Of course it is. You've been doing this a long time, 26 years since the Vita Coco days before Vita Coco, what was before Vita Coco Coca-Cola.
They do pretty well for themselves. Yeah. I spent five and a half years working at Coca-Cola as Rohan's intern. Okay. And up to brand director. It was a tremendous learning experience, but I had this crave to do something more entrepreneurial, and Vita Coca was my first, and we've done now five since then.
So over the course of 2009 to 2026, we've done five pretty interesting businesses, some of which became household names. The most recent of which is of course, Poppi. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You had a pretty big hand in that company and its evolution at least. I mean, that was a really quick evolution for that brand.
I mean, going from essentially zero to five years and exiting to PepsiCo for almost $2 billion. Good job, Jeff. Thank you. I, I was the very first employee I joined Pre-Revenue. It was Allison, Steven, and me, and we were working out of a Dallas garage and we figured it out. That was just the right product at the right time.
With the right personalities involved. Allison became a very big personality actually, and the business did exceptionally well, and I think this Khloud brand has the same exact opportunity. Yeah, right place, right time. I was just gonna say, it's a great segue to what you're doing now with Khloud. Khloud with A-K-K-H-L-O-U-D.
And of course there's the KH because k Khloé, Khloé Kardashian exactly. Is your co-founder. How'd you meet K Khloé? So one of the investors in Poppi was an investor in a concept that she was pioneering and called me and said, would you be open to being the operating partner on this business? And I looked at her and said, she is.
Absolute gem and a wonderful potential partner. And so I took it on and I joined first as a consultant, and then eventually came on into the operating seat in uh, September. And a lot's happened since September. I mean, the brand has really blown up. I think if folks listening have seen it, you've probably seen it at Starbucks where you're national.
And just for context, where else are you sold right now? Walmart, target, Kroger, Albertsons. We have, uh, 29,000 retail doors active by April 1st. So nothing really going on with the brand? Not much. Yeah. Just, uh, trying to figure it out. Okay, good. One step at a time, you know, not too fast. The thing that's interesting about a major personality attached to a brand like this is you get a lot of phone calls back.
And so when Chris Jenner, who's the momager, uh, calls and, you know, speaks to somebody very senior at Starbucks, they tend to return that call. And so the timeline from outreach to confirmation was 90 days. Yeah, and that is extremely unusual. I've been working my entire professional career to land an item in Starbucks.
I've never had anybody say yes, never once in all the businesses, some of which have been very successful, as you know. And this is the first one. And uh, I'm super proud of how we scaled that opportunity. When we first launched a Starbucks, they gave us a certain revenue and volume threshold, and we've exceeded that by almost two and a half X, and they're now adding a second sku, which is going live May 15th, which we're excited about and we're expanding internationally.
We're gonna be adding the rest of North America for now, and then hopefully in 2027 going to Europe and Asia. So a very big platform that came off of a very simple conversation between Chris and a senior executive. I wanna talk about the origins of the brand for a sec, but clearly you're thinking big.
You're thinking really big. Mm-hmm. Has your ambition been influenced by your experience with other brands? I mean, obviously coming off of Poppi where you're seeing the remarkable opportunity for a billion, multi-billion dollar exit. Is that your, is that your vision for this brand as well? Well, functional snacking as a category has as much potential as functional soda.
So yes, I think functional snacking generally is, uh, the next breakout category. And if I look at what's happening at the moment with Frito-Lay introductions of Doritos with protein and other concepts. They're already thinking the same way too, but they're lacking what we have in spades, which is authenticity.
And my fear is for them that they're gonna put a small amount of emphasis on a pretty big launch for a very short period of time. It's gonna be a, a, you know, a blip. And they may not see the performance and very quickly abandoned that opportunity. And I think for us, we're gonna capitalize on, you know, on that momentum.
And my feeling is that. There really isn't another brand doing functional snacking in this way. We're doing it with a feminine touch. We're doing it with a female founder. We're doing it with a certain fashion sense. We're doing it with a lot more fun. So all those F's, right? Female fun, functionality and flavor, and I think we've sort of nailed that in a way that nobody else has most.
Functional snacks are dude food, very masculine belonging in the gym, and we belong on the runway, and it's just a very different positioning and that. Should lead to some interesting opportunity for us, and I think it's as much a global brand as any. I think this plays as well in Tokyo as it does in Times Square, and I think that the Kardashian brand name resonates all over the world.
And if you look at their Q score, which is a measure of their sort of popularity, Australia and London and Tokyo pop up. As high as the United States. So I think we will probably be a big global functional brand within a couple of years. But for now, the focus is on winning the United States. And it's one retailer, one door at a time, but you're doing it so quickly and you know, growth strategy, especially for early stage brands, you're typically.
Told or encouraged to build one step at a time. You know, how many times have we heard inch wide, mile deep, Jeff, you know, in this business. But when you have a, a hot product like Khloud and you have a hot functional ingredient like protein, it seems like the momentum. Is one that you can't ignore, you've gotta run fast.
But let's back up again a sec for, you know, folks in the audience who are not familiar, Khloud is a protein popcorn brand, and in a lot of ways it feels like you are slightly ahead of the game, right? Because now you're at Expo West and nearly every product, the chairs that we're sitting in, have protein in them now.
So it's just like it's gotten outta control. But when did you realize that there was an opportunity for protein, particularly in a snack food like popcorn? So GLP ones are becoming a very big part of American culture. There was a Costco buyer that said to me recently, they think 25% of the US population will be on a GLP one within a year.
The two things that GLP one users need are fiber and protein. So we're capitalizing on a macro and a macro trend. Mm-hmm. And I'm convinced that there is probably no ingredient that has more sustainability than this. I was involved with Fiber for the last five years with prebiotics, as you know, and that had its moment, but I think protein is having its moment right now.
And so to your point, we are absolutely capitalizing on that wave. However, we would not be going this fast if we also didn't have the velocity story. And I'll look at Target as an example. We launched with them in April. They gave us a, an end cap display in all 1900 stores. And Steven, who's our buyer there, has been a wonderful partner.
And he said, if you guys can get to X, we'd be very happy. And we came in at three and a half X and he quickly started to expand the portfolio. We added two new SKUs in December, and we're adding an additional 13 new skews in the April reset. A few of those skews are actually here today for you to taste, and we're very pumped about the possibilities of this particular skew.
You know, it feels like you could go in a lot of different directions with Khloud Popcorn is your first snack product. It seems like the sky's the limit in terms of what you could do, infusing protein into products. But why popcorn at the outset? Why did you feel like popcorn was the right snack to begin with?
White space. So there really isn't anybody else doing a protein popcorn. And there's been a lot of folks who've introduced better for you, healthy popcorns and I can give you a laundry list. Less re will be in the most recent Sure. But nobody has figured out how to apply protein onto a popcorn kernel and make it taste good.
The challenge is that you topically have to make the application in a protein chip in a protein bar. You're adding in the protein to the formula so it's baked in so you don't have that sort of chalkiness. We spent a lot of time and honestly a lot of money on r and d to perfect the ker. To make sure that we weren't losing the flavor while we were adding the functionality.
So we think we've nailed it. We have lots of great flavors that are now in the market from dill pickle to cinnamon that deliver a tremendous taste, but also have those macros. And so in popcorn there's really nobody else. So as a a white space territory that we wanted to explore, what we're here to talk about today is the introduction of.
Khlouds protein chip, which is a tortilla chip, seven grams of protein made using a pea based protein format and avocado oil. There is no seed oils. There's no chemicals, there's no MSG, none of that sort of stuff, and it delivers full flavor of a Dorito. In a nacho or ranch flavor with none of the additives or chemicals that you'd expect from the category.
And so we're proud of the clean label. We're excited about the fact that this is delivering on the macros and the taste is lights out. I mean, I think it's a natural evolution to go into a salty snack like tortilla chips. I mean, chips in general, like protein chips that I've had in the past. They don't really taste that great.
I don't expect them to taste that great anytime soon. But because of the texture of tortilla chips, it feels like it's a natural fit for your brand. Again, you know, Khloé Kardashian, a very, very well known personality, someone who everyone seems to know at least the Kardashian name is, is very, very well known.
How does she fit into the brand as the ambassador without being the brand? Very good point. So we say we're not a celebrity brand. We're a brand to be celebrated. Celebrated for the functionality, celebrated for the fun, celebrated for the flavor, celebrated for the feminine. Sort of angle, and I think that we utilize Khloé as a creative force.
There is no contract with her, there's no deliverables. We don't go through a checklist of activities that she needs to go satisfy. We don't talk to her agent. She is directly involved. She makes the decisions on the packaging, she makes the decisions on the way we go to market, and I think she's been as good of a partner as anybody I've worked with in 26 years in this business.
We are so privileged because she happens to have 305 million followers on her Instagram and her sisters and mom went, and you sort of aggregate them right over 2 billion total followers. So the visibility that she can create and the credibility that she's able to generate are pretty powerful, and that is not replicatable by the competition.
But we've seen celebrities create brands in the past. Even ones with huge social followings, even ones with great Q scores, you know, really well known in film, movies, music, and their brands have kind of just flopped. Yep. How do you avoid the pitfalls of what's happened in the past in the context of those brands?
Duality. So you need to have both celebrity and community. So the celebrity brings you visibility, the community brings you some additional credibility. We are very active in building an email and an SMS community. We focus a lot on colleges. Tate is in the audience today and she's amazing at helping us to generate a very significant following among sorority and fraternity folks we invest in, in programs at retail.
We are building a very localized, very strategic strategy, which. Has been utilized by others in the past, particularly in the beauty space, particularly in the fashion space to create brands that are beloved. And so when you're disrupting, you can build a big celebrity brand that lasts for a moment, or you can build a sustaining brand that lasts forever.
And we'd prefer to do the latter. And it's really that duality. Celebrity plus community equals success. And separate from that, I think the operating team are a bunch of very experienced people that have been doing this for a hundred years, right? So we have a really sophisticated ground game. That gets amplified and turbocharged by the celebrity affiliation and that is the one two punch that works.
How much of what you do on the promotion and marketing side of things is in-house? How much do you outsource your on the ground marketing teams? Almost none. So we have a really terrific woman named Kathleen and Tate, who's here with us, who do almost everything internally. So we don't have a big creative agency.
There's no creative director. Externally, we don't have a director of photography. We're not working with external parties. We do all of that ourselves. I think that's part of the secret sauce. Khloé has a particular vision. It's high fashion, it's high design as all the Kardashians are, and that is manifesting into packaging.
That's manifesting into the trade show booth downstairs. We take a very different eye, and I think that is a separator for us. Think about fashion functionality, fun in snacking. Nobody else is doing this. Nobody. And I can even think in beverages if anybody's doing that. Really in the category of CPG, there's very few fashion driven.
Lifestyle oriented businesses that have that female touch. Alani knew maybe is the closest Mm, but I don't think their packaging has that same high design. This could be in the Smithsonian. Well, that is something that I hope all founders feel about their brands, especially because if you're putting something out there that doesn't look great, that doesn't taste great, then what are you doing?
It's something where taste has to be first and foremost, but your billboard is that package. I actually wonder, you know, when I think about demoing and, and getting into those retail isles and talking to people about the brand, if they get it. Do consumers get this as intuitively as I might think they do.
Yeah. This is popcorn. And it has protein. I mean, pretty simple, right? Pretty simple. Yeah. Now, the key that you have to articulate is that it's seven grams of protein, which is 10% of your daily value. It's lower in calories than sugar, than the standard. It has a cleaner label. We aren't using seed oils, which is a trendy topic at the moment.
We have invested significantly into the quality to ensure that every kernel delivers a big, full bite. And our flavor, I think, is meeting expectations. This is not a complicated story. It's actually even less complicated as we start to get into the tortilla chip, protein chip concept because people have some experience with that.
This other players mm-hmm. Quest Wild that are doing it just not in a feminine way. Yeah. Well, I, I think that's the thing about simplicity is, you know, we, we are here at Expo West and sometimes you ask someone about. A product or a brand, and it takes them 60 seconds to talk about, you know, what it is and why it's beneficial for you.
And. The consumer's not gonna listen to you for 60 seconds. They've gotta get it pretty quickly with a tortilla chip. I think, again, it's pretty intuitive. Everybody knows what a tortilla chip is as well, but the functional benefit itself. I'm glad you touched on seven grams and talking to people exactly about how much that fits into their recommended daily value of protein.
I think that's the thing that sometimes doesn't always get understood, but is protein the reason people are buying your product? You know, I would think, honestly, for me it's. Almost the third part of why I would buy your brand. The first part is 'cause it tastes great. The second part is because. The association with Khloé, but where does protein fit into that hierarchy?
I think in the first two years of a brand's lifecycle, you're spending a lot of time talking about product. When should I consume it? Why should I consume it? What should I consume it? Instead of all those basic fundamentals, as you start to evolve into a bigger business, north of 50 million, north of a hundred million, tracking for a billion dollars of revenue, your talk track really moves from product.
Which is very primitive and basic to brand. You start to ladder up to a more emotional place. You start to create stories. You have a narrative that's visceral, that's emotional, that connects with people at the heart level. And if you can transfer the consideration process from the rational brain where you process price and commodities and you know, product ingredients and get into that heart space, you can charge any amount of money, right?
Steve Jobs would tell you that. Elon Musk with the Tesla would tell you that we crave building a world-class brand that has badge value, that has craveability, that has personality. And the product is a sort of entree, right? It's a, it's an entry point. And for now we're very focused on it. Protein and popcorn.
Protein and chips. But we, uh, eventually we'll be talking less about the product and a lot more about the brand. Yeah, I imagine how it makes you feel. I imagine there might be a day and probably no time soon where Khloud could say, well, we're just gonna come out with a popcorn. Without any protein. Without anything.
And I feel like if you have that, then you really have something. If you don't have to sell the additional functionality, then you know you have a brand to your point. Yeah. Yeah. Let's taste some of the, uh, tortilla chips here. Now we have, I would start with the nacho. The nacho. Okay, good. I have some, I have some black coffee next to me too, which is, as everyone knows, a great pairing with tortilla chips.
Uh, specifically nacho tortilla chips. Let's try this first one. A SMR.
You know what's great about this? There's no compromise. It's no protein notes. You don't taste the protein at all. It just tastes like what you said it was gonna taste like. That's also how you know you have a winner. I mean, if you're tasting something and you're like, oh, it's gonna taste like this and it tastes nothing like that, you know, who's gonna buy your products?
I mean, maybe your mom, I, but you know, other, other than that, nobody else. This next one is, uh, sweet heat. Sweet heat. Alright, so big trend at the moment. Sweet heat has become a, or spicy is another way of saying it. Mm-hmm. It's become a very popular subcategory, particularly in chips. We have tried to err on the side of slightly more heat, so you're gonna feel it in the back of the throat.
It does build, and I think what you're delivering here is a beautiful packaging graphic for your audience. It's a purple pack. That is a gradient. You see the image of the product in the front. It's a gorgeous looking package. There's nothing else in snack that looks anything even close to this. We're really pleased with the design, but then you get the sensory, the flavor, and it hits you on the back of the throat without compromising on that sweet undertone at the beginning.
Why is it called protein chips as opposed to protein tortilla chips? Fit on the on the line. Okay. That's simple as that. We also have the picture, so it's illustrative. Okay. We let consumers close that loop. Good stuff. Zero fluff. That's the tagline. You got Khloé's note on the back. She's definitely not on the front, which I think also speaks to the power of the brand and mm-hmm.
And where it's going from here. All right. The last one is, I believe the cool, is this the cool ranch one? That's, uh, Buffalo. Oh, buffalo. Okay.
That's the winner right there. Yeah. You feel it. It got me. It's really good. It's got a little bit of spice. I love it. But a ton of flavor. Yeah, lots of flavor. That one's coated with the most flavor. I think that's, that's a really good one. So the seasoning application is different because we had these shipped in, so forgive us, but once you get them at retail, it'll be a different consult.
Don't change a thing about the uh, buffalo one. That's really good. Phenomenal, right? Yeah. And if you do, Jeff, I'm going to email you directly and be like. You really screw this one up. You know, I don't know if you're gonna have a job tomorrow, so, well, these are production samples that came right off of the line, so this is the finished product.
What I can tell you is that we've been tasting them over the course of the last two days here at Expo West, and we found that consumers are falling in love immediately with this product line. Two reasons why. Number one, it delivers on what it says. It's going to, you feel the flavor, the heat, and the intensity in the back are working.
And number two is that they're especially surprised that we're able to take such a highly designed package and deliver on a really tremendous sensory on the back end. It's unique that you have. Both the look and the taste, either one or the other. For most brands, in our case, we're delivering it in in both ways.
Really proud of this. It's launching officially on four four at Target stores nationwide, exclusively. Amazing. Are we gonna see these in Starbucks at some point too? I think you will. Yeah. Not confirmed, haven't even started the conversation yet, but Starbucks has been very bullish on the brand and is interested in expanding the portfolio.
You might see these chips, you might see something different from us. I almost feel like, and I, I mentioned this before you hopped in the mic, said Starbucks is benefiting from this deal almost more than you guys are, right? I mean, Starbucks let's, you know, call it what it is, has been having a hard time.
Do you see it that way? I mean, do you see Starbucks as, and I know you don't wanna be like, yeah, we're bigger than Starbucks. But again, I mean, do you agree with me on, on that point. Yeah, so Starbucks is brilliant. They brought in a woman named Re Lieberman to be their chief marketing officer. She came from Chipotle with Brian and who's their new CEO or was their new CEO from like a year ago.
Correct? Yeah. And Chipotle did a phenomenal job, I think, of democratizing their digital influencer community and building out a very progressive sort of brand, especially in the. In the restaurant space and they're applying that same pressure and that same strategy to what they're doing at Starbucks.
And so for us, while the distribution was lovely, 13,600 doors just in the us, 1500 in Canada, lots more in Latin America and the Caribbean that we're now in, it was less about the distribution. It was more about the power of that relat. Yeah, they have, in my opinion, one of the strongest, most connected brands culturally and digitally, and that is the exact point that we wanna be playing in, where popcorn can meet pop culture.
I like that you would think you're in marketing or have been in marketing for a few years. I mean that's, well, I'm a retired marketer. You're a retired marketer now. First half of my career was in marketing, second half was in selling. I don't know if you can do that. It's like an entrepreneur once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.
Once a marketer, always a marketer. Maybe. Yeah, maybe, maybe. You know, you've worked with so many amazing brands and ones that are now iconic and we've mentioned a couple Fi, Coco Poppi, Coca-Cola, relatively iconic, but every one of those brands, when they started out. Made some mistakes and in some cases made really big mistakes.
It seems like everything's been going along swimmingly with Khloud, but I gotta think there've been some hiccups here and there. Have there been? And how have you addressed them? Many hiccups. More than your audience probably wants to hear. No, we want to hear about all the hiccups. You know, everyone talks about the great stories and, and people learn and get the great lessons from taste radio, but every single time I talk to a very loyal listener, they're like, you need to get some folks on there who will tell us the horror stories as well.
'cause the solidarity is part of it, right? Everyone's gone through these problems. Totally. Yeah. So the most important position at the company, in my opinion, is not the head of marketing or the head of sales. Especially not for a brand that has this kinda momentum and and mojo, it's actually the head of operations because if the front of the house is moving at an aggressive pace and the back of the house is not able to keep up, then you have a recipe for challenges.
And I'm not gonna lie, 29,000 doors within six months requires a very sophisticated operations team and we were slow to bring on more talent. Quickly, we did not find the right commercial partners on co-manufacturer and production. And we had our handful of challenges, big challenges. And we had, uh, at the beginning about two to three months of outta stocks, or we'll call lower stock, where we couldn't fulfill all the demand.
In the month of January, as an example, we were only able to get 64% of our total pos out the door. That's not gonna make Target happy. Left a lot on the table, right? And so. We've now evolved. We've identified a new partner. We've signed a long-term supply agreement. It's with a world-class production partner who has a plus quality and has the ability to scale with us to their 17 plants across North America.
We were with two independent folks that couldn't scale at all, so that's one very important lesson. Make sure you hire the right head of operations on day one. Make sure you have the right production partners to scale with you, especially if you're going at this pace. The second thing I think we've learned, and this is probably the most important lesson for me, is that you don't need to be discounted.
We made the mistake, I think, of listening to certain retailers that were pushing us to a bargain basement low price. 'cause they thought the only way we would get to the velocities that they expected is if we were a discounted price. And so we took that advice and we went with it. We did not need to do it.
As an example, at Target we've pulled back on a hundred percent of our promotions. There are no promotions. We run everything every day at full price, and the velocities are still well exceeding expectations. And so we over promoted and we under-delivered. And so we had some pretty real challenges, right?
That created big time outta stock issues that we are now just finally recovering from, and I can probably give you a hundred more, but over the course of. The last seven, eight months, we have scaled very, very quickly and we've now commercialized, I think a, a, a plus partner for manufacturing. And we brought on an A plus team to support our operations.
Every single time I talk to an entrepreneur who's scaling their brand very quickly, they talk about operations as being critical. And I was just talking to the founders of a brand called Protein Pines, which is. A really great company led by these two young guys, and I asked them yesterday, I mean, how are you managing the scale at which you're growing?
Because they went from 14 stores to over 10,000 stores in 14 months, or even less than that. Hmm. They talks about operations, operations, operations. 'cause clearly. You know, you don't want those out of stocks clearly. You want to be able to forecast demand and, and have that kind of lead time to fulfill all the orders that are coming in.
Demand planning and generation, et cetera. They go hand in hand. But I'm glad you talked about that because even for an early stage brand that's maybe isn't 29 stores as opposed to 29,000 stores, you've gotta keep an eye on operations. Yeah. And hire the right people. That's right. Yeah. So you speak about demand planning.
In the month of December, we had a plan forecast demand. We exceeded by almost three x in the month of January. We exceeded by 2.4 x the month of February, we exceeded it by 2.7 x. That's exciting for an investor. It's horrible for an operator because we are under prepared for the volume that the consumer is demanding.
And so there are a lot of things we have to go fix to make sure that we are not in a position where we're playing from a defensive standpoint, wouldn't be playing from an offensive standpoint, uh, skate's where the puck is going to be right. And we have not yet achieved that. So we have two months, uh, this calendar year, one last calendar year.
So three months in a row where we have failed to deliver a hundred percent of the purchase orders that have come through. That is a real problem. We, you start to think about our growth and to go from. Launch to 29,000 doors is gonna require quite a bit. And that level of operational sophistication is being built as we speak, and we're really, really proud of the team we've established.
For a simpleton like me, there's a simple answer to say problems say no. Why don't you just say no to these retailers? Good question. So you could say no, but then you run the risk that there's a two year delay before you get back in. So what we're trying to do now is very quickly build our supply capabilities, increase our points of distribution responsibly and smartly, and take on channels one at a time.
So the typical strategy is you start in natural, then you evolve to grocery. Mm-hmm. And then you go to mass, then you go to club, and then your last stop on the train would be the C-store channel. For us, we launched with Target, so we went mass on day one, and now we're working to get grocery up and running.
We're working to get natural up and running. We're just launching it. Fresh market, for example, and we haven't been even launched Whole Foods yet, so we have a lot of work to still do to retroactively get the train moving in the right direction. Yeah. With all the celebrity endorsement, with all the. The Instagram mentions all the, you know, the social media content out there.
There are going to be people in stores who are not part of the demographic that are paying attention to the Kardashians. There are gonna be people that are a great fit in terms of customers for Khloud, and you gotta have people in those stores. And your ground game seems like it's, it's going well right now, but how do you prepare a ground game for, you know, a year from now?
Is that something you even think about? Yeah, so the question we're debating at the moment is, should we continue with a direct distribution model where we go in through warehouses, retailer warehouses, or should we identify a DSD partner? My training in beverages was always DSD, right? Right. So you have a KDP, Coke, Pepsi, Frito-Lay, OTs, whoever it is, big national partner, and you scale through them.
They have account people they can help you with. In-store merchandising. They can serve as you know, real partners. Other option is you build it yourself. And you go warehouse direct and you have merchandisers that are either third party, uh, relentless advantage to any steppers organization or others like that.
And you build out an army of people internally who go store to store. We have not yet made that decision. We've been approached even at this show, expo West by all kinds of big national partners who have seen the value of what we're creating and want to participate in The upside. We just don't know yet which direction we're gonna go.
We're still evaluating, but I think back to your earlier question, the answer to me comes down to a single word and it's discipline, so it's easy to say yes. It's much harder to say no. And we have been very hesitant to launch in certain places. You know, as an example, Costco, the Club channel about nine months ago came to us with multiple regions and an authorization ready to go asking for buy docs.
I have lots of examples of regional buyers from from Costco that have said, we're ready to go right now. And we waited a long time to reengage in those conversations. I don't know yet where we're gonna be launching the club channel for now. Our focus is on winning in the current. 29,000 doors. We have plenty to chew on.
Good news is that our current velocities are well outpacing expectations. I look at the target example. Our dollars per TDP in the most recent 24 week period are outperforming every other salty snack at Target. A hundred percent of them, including Doritos and Fritos and Pringles and Lays and all the big players.
And what's more interesting is that 80% of the consumption is coming from folks that are new to the category of popcorn, meaning that we are bringing in a new generation of snackers. People are new to the category of popcorn, correct? This is a numerator file. Happy to share it with you guys as a follow up.
It's a pretty impressive fun fact. Eight 0% of the folks that are buying Khloud at Target are buying popcorn at Target for the first time. That's, uh, yeah, my mind is blown. I dunno what to say about that. It's very strange, but it seems like the opportunity is humongous then at that point. I mean, it seems like it's almost like Poppi, right?
I mean, for all the consumers that weren't drinking soda before Poppi became their first soda. Exact same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. What else is amazing is your PR team, Cooper Consulting over here is. Yes. Also a world class organization. Yes, absolutely. And Rachel and her team are just doing an amazing thing.
And obviously, you know, for all the praise I I give this team, I, I think it really matters. PR is important and making sure that you're sending the right message out to the right audience is critical. When you're looking for PR help in support, what are you looking for? How do you know when you found a partner can that, that can deliver on.
You know what you need to do, particularly as an early stage brand. So PR has completely changed. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, PR was writing a brief and then pitching it to 15 editors of long lead magazines and maybe local morning radio and local morning television and radio. I know this is Taste Radio.
This is a podcast. We're going, we're going back. This is digital radio. It's much more evolved. Oh, I see. XM and uh, today it's as much about the influencer and about the digital social. Apparatus that you're building as it is about those original outlets. So the way that we approach PR is very different, and I don't think we're necessarily looking for a traditional firm.
There are plenty of traditional corporate firms that represent p and g and Koch and Craft and Nike, and they can do great long lead outreach and that's fine. But what we're more excited about is somebody who can take our content. Amplify it in the appropriate way through the right digital channels and reach our next generation audience.
Remember that we're not talking to grandma, we're talking to Gen Z, and because we're talking to a younger consumer, they consume media in a different way. And so we have to have a Rachel Krupa who understands how to translate corporate messaging that is written in a brief to much more dynamic conversation messaging that.
Resonates with a younger consumer. We go back to the fun fact about the 80% of folks at Target. They don't necessarily read the newspaper and they're probably not watching a lot of tv, and if they are, it's probably YouTube TV or some sort of a non-linear format. So how do we engage? And connect where they are.
You're doing a next generation PR company for the next generation brand. Exactly right. Alright, Jeff, thank you so much for taking the time. I know how busy you guys are, you and um, I really appreciate you sitting down with me today. Really excited for Khloud and really excited for the tortilla chips.
Please send some to our office. Yes. So I can hold them in mine and uh, not share with any of my teammates 'cause uh, especially the Buffalo one. Good product, isn't it? Really good product. Yeah, yeah. No, once again, thank you so much for the time and I look forward to staying in touch. Thank you.
