Contracted Operator
Build system to service fanatic demand
The brand existed as an idea and a name. Nothing else. No recipe. No ingredients. No manufacturer. No UPC. No value chain. No accounts. The founders — David Hughes and Craig Allen — had the vision and the partnership. What they needed was an operator who could build the actual CPG operations behind it.
The constraint was scope: this was a contract engagement running concurrently with my role at CLEAN Cause — with the full knowledge and support of both parties. Every decision had to count. There was no budget for learning through failure.
Built the recipe from zero. Sourced and contracted a chef to develop the product formulation. This was not a reformulation or a white-label product — it was a recipe created from scratch, iterated to a spec that could survive a manufacturing process.
Built the supply chain. Sourced raw ingredients, identified and qualified co-manufacturers, and stood up the full value chain — ingredient procurement through finished-goods production. Got the product out of the kitchen and into a manufacturable system.
Handled all compliance infrastructure. UPC registration, nutrition facts panel, label compliance, and all regulatory requirements to put a food product on a retail shelf. None of this existed before I built it.
Made the hardest call: vertical to co-manufacturer. The original model was vertically integrated production. I made the call to transition to a co-manufacturing model — the right decision for scale and margin, but a meaningful operational change that required rebuilding supplier relationships and production logistics.
Opened retail accounts. Built the initial distribution footprint — natural channel retail and DTC, primarily Texas-based. Got the product on shelf at Central Market & unleashed a wave of fanatic level demand that required us to tighten operations quickly.
From zero to nearly $1M ARR at handoff — a brand that didn't exist became a functioning revenue-generating business.
Texas retail distribution established across natural channel food accounts.
DTC revenue stream live and operational.
Full value chain standing — recipe, manufacturer, supply chain, compliance, and accounts all built and handed off as a running system.
Most operators are handed a running business and asked to improve it. This engagement had no business to hand off — only an idea and a deadline (The UT Football Season). Every element of the commercial infrastructure had to be built from scratch, in sequence, without the luxury of learning on someone else's playbook.
The concurrent framing matters: running this alongside CLEAN Cause wasn't a distraction — it was evidence. Named operators run multiple things at once. That's what separates them from functional managers.
Whether you’re building something, running something, or thinking about what’s next — I’m worth a conversation.