{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Startup CPG Podcast","title":"Kitchen to 4,000 Stores: The Cold Email That Launched a Ghee Snack Brand","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1828,"description":"In this Founder Feature, host Caitlin Bricker sits down with Darin Alpert, founder of Gheelish, a snack brand built around ghee, the clarified butter, as its star ingredient, for the story of how a cold email to Sprouts turned a kitchen popcorn recipe into a nationwide launch.\n\nDarin co-created Find Me Gluten Free about 12 years ago, an app that now has roughly 3 million users, and spent 15 years selling enterprise software to companies like Caterpillar, IBM, T-Mobile, and Costco before building a CPG brand of his own. With severe gluten and lactose intolerances, he struggled to find snacks free of seed oils, and a single SKU of ghee popcorn, discovered while his wife was pregnant, sparked the idea of building a whole platform around ghee.\n\nCaitlin and Darin dig into how Gheelish went from a kitchen to Sprouts nationwide in 2024, why second-time founders often focus on distribution before product, how ghee compares with tallow, what makes the brand’s air-popped popcorn lower in calories and fat than leading brands, and the sales-training science behind the cold outreach message that earned Darin a spot on the show.\n\nListen in as they discuss:\n\nHow his wife’s pregnancy and a single ghee popcorn SKU sparked the idea to build a snack platform around ghee\nWhat ghee actually is, and why its butyric acid has earned a reputation for gut-friendly benefits\nHow Gheelish’s air-popped approach delivers about 30% fewer calories and nearly 60% less fat than leading popcorn brands\nWhy second-time founders tend to focus on distribution before product\nHow a cold email to the Sprouts forager team and hand-labeled Sharpie bags led to a nationwide launch\nGrowth from roughly $300K in 2024 to about $2M in wholesale sales in 2025, with no D2C or Amazon\nThe protein cookie launching at Sprouts nationwide in December, and why Darin wishes he had launched cookies first\nHow ghee and tallow compare, and why Darin calls ghee the “cousin” of the tallow movement\nThe science behind outbound...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/pMuUaMpWaAi3tfCEgC2OkLBVzokuLjLsIzwDIbGFqi4/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9hMTFl/MTgxNTNlZTAwZjU1/ZmNmNWM1ZjkwMDg5/NTU4MS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}