Operator Spotlight: R&D Insights with Matt Craighead, R&D Manager Trubar

In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Hannah Dittman sits down with Matt Craighead, R&D Manager at Trubar, to explore the real product development process—from initial concept and benchtop formulation to scaled production and everything in between. Matt brings a rare blend of technical depth, operator empathy, and practical insights to what is often the most misunderstood part of the CPG journey: how products actually get created.

Matt shares how Trubar approaches R&D for their vegan, gluten-free, soy-free protein bars with no sugar alcohols, artificial sweeteners, or seed oils—navigating the complexities of formulation, ingredient sourcing, co-manufacturer partnerships, and scaling from home kitchen trials to commercial production. The conversation reveals the unglamorous realities of product development: why some projects take 2-4 months while others stretch to 8+ months, the critical importance of manufacturability over pure flavor perfection, and how small decisions like mixing order, line speed, or ingredient supplier changes can make or break a product.

Throughout the episode, listeners gain tactical insights on managing the R&D process with project briefs and clear timelines, why formula changes should always be the last resort when troubleshooting production issues, how to balance perfection with the 80/20 principle when bringing products to market, and the often-overlooked factors like water activity, allergen control, and equipment compatibility that determine whether a product can actually be manufactured at scale. Matt also discusses when it makes sense to bring R&D in-house versus outsourcing to co-manufacturers, how to navigate SKU proliferation as brands grow, and why communication and planning ahead are non-negotiable for R&D success.

Whether you're launching your first product, scaling formulations from benchtop to commercial production, or troubleshooting manufacturing challenges, this conversation offers honest lessons on what separates successful product development from costly failures—and why R&D is where everything starts.

Listen in as they discuss:

• Matt's background: 8 years in R&D and co-manufacturing, now leading R&D at Trubar
• What Trubar is: vegan protein bars with no seed oils, sugar alcohols, or artificial sweeteners
• The R&D process timeline: 2-4 months for formulation, up to 1-2 years for full commercialization
• Major R&D milestones: concept, benchtop trials, ingredient sourcing, line trials, and scaled production
• Why manufacturability matters as much as flavor: the honey formulation cautionary tale
• The 80/20 mindset: balancing perfection with getting products to market
• What makes R&D go well: planning ahead, communication, and documentation
• Common pitfalls: focusing too much on functionality without considering production realities
• Why formula changes should be the last resort when troubleshooting production issues
• Small decisions with big impacts: mixing order, line speed, cooling tunnel capacity, and temperature
• Ingredient supplier changes and how protein powder sources affect finished products
• Managing the cross-functional dance: R&D, packaging, marketing, and timeline constraints
• When to bring R&D in-house vs. outsourcing to co-manufacturers
• Choosing the right co-manufacturer: communication, food safety, allergen control, and equipment
• How to manage custom formulation processes with co-manufacturers
• SKU rollout strategy: starting with 2-4 core flavors and expanding with seasonals
• Project briefs as the foundation: flavor profile, timeline, cost targets, and macro goals
• Why water activity and allergen control are critical for ready-to-eat bars
• The importance of process control documentation and detailed production notes
  
  

Episode Links:

Trubar Website: https://www.trubarinc.com Instagram: @trubar.brands LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trubar

Matt Craighead - R&D Manager, Trubar LinkedIn: [Matt's LinkedIn URL]

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Creators and Guests

Host

Hannah Dittman

Operations and Finance Correspondent at Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Matt Craighead
Foreign. In my past, what's been really helpful is project briefs is understanding, you know, here's the flavor profile, here's the timeline, here's the cost targets, here's the macro profile and then you can kind of work backwards for yourself so you can plan and keep the brand, the client, whoever it may be, up to date and aligned on. Here's the kind of outline of the project and where I see it going. That's kind of where to start, I would say. I think it's good to stay organized that way.

00:35
Hannah Dittman
Hey everyone, I'm Hannah Ditman, operations and finance host of the Startup CPG podcast. And today I'm joined by Matt Craighead who leads research and development at Trubar. Matt has spent his career at the heart of product creation, taking ideas from concept to formulation to scaled production and shaping the R and D engine behind one of the fastest growing brands. In Better for you Snacking. He brings a rare blend of technical depth, operator empathy and practical storytelling to what is often the most misunderstood part of the CP journey, how products actually get created. In this episode we break down the real R and Development process, the major milestones, how long each phase truly takes, and why. The quality of your R and D work quietly determines the fate of your product and often your entire company.

01:20
Hannah Dittman
Through Matt's lens, we explore what new product development actually looks like on the ground. The iterations, the trade offs, the unexpected discoveries, and the small decisions that end up changing everything. This episode is practical, tactical and full of operator gold for anyone bringing new products into the world. Enjoy. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Hannah and today I am here with Matt Craighead, an R and D leader from truebar. Matt, welcome to the show.

01:52
Matt Craighead
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

01:55
Hannah Dittman
We're so excited to have you here today and to dive into some ops and R and D talk. I'd love to kick off with a brief background of your career and then ultimately what led you to truebar now?

02:05
Matt Craighead
Yeah, so I've been in the R and D space in the food industry for about eight years now and previously was with a company in the co manufacturing space. But I've known Trubar for the last six, seven years since I started back in 2018 like the back of my hand. So it's been great to start this new role with them over the last two months.

02:23
Hannah Dittman
Isn't it so nice when you are already a consumer of a product and can dive right in if you could give an overview of Trubar as well. You know, what products you make, your positioning and differentiation for context. That would be awesome.

02:35
Matt Craighead
Yes. Trubar is a vegan protein bar company and they focus on gluten free, non gmo, soy free, no sugar alcohols. Artificial sweeteners are not allowed. And then also no seed oils. That's a big one for consumers these days. And there's a flavor for everyone. And they have very creative marketing names. So like, oh, Cookie dough. Daydreaming about donuts, Strawberry Shorty, Got cake. That's probably my favorite one.

02:58
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, I love that.

03:00
Matt Craighead
Yeah, they're always very fun. And, you know, everyone else is just like cookie dough, chocolate, peanut butter. So it's similar flavors but just kind of a fun spin on it.

03:07
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, no seed oils is such a win. That is a hard thing to find. And I feel like, especially with the way ingredient list nomenclature can even be, they can get you sneakily sometimes too.

03:18
Matt Craighead
Sure. Yeah. What are natural flavors?

03:22
Hannah Dittman
And I'd also love to kind of get some context. I know you mentioned R and D, but I'd love to get some context of your role within the broader organization, what departments you work with and what the structure of the team looks like.

03:33
Matt Craighead
So still learning that obviously it's only been two months, so I'm within the R and D team, the R and D manager. So I'm on the operations side of things mostly. A lot of my weeks, as I'm learning is product development. That's what I previously did at the previous company. So I spend, I would say, about 50% of my time doing either product development for current SKUs or future flavors as well. So I have a home kitchen that I'm sitting in right now. Can be a bit messy at times, but as long as I do my dishes every day, I'm good to go. A lot of, you know, chocolate and rubbing with compound chocolates, fun flavors, looking at different protein powders, stuff like that, trying to find, you know, the cheapest possible ingredients that are still quality and safe to use consistently.

04:10
Matt Craighead
And then also I do a lot of traveling to other commands for production to make sure that things go well and that I'm there to be a decision maker when things don't, which is very infrequent. And then I also spend time with looking at like, new ingredients and alternate ingredients to make sure that in case there are supply chain issues, which or tariff issues, that we have something planned for a secondary option. So that way we can always have bars producing and in the Market to keep our customers happy.

04:36
Hannah Dittman
That sounds so fun to have a home kitchen. I bet dinner parties at your house are a blast.

04:41
Matt Craighead
Oh yeah, sir. I definitely gotta clean up every day if I do that. Otherwise it wouldn't be very presentable. But it's still fun for sure.

04:48
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, it's a really work in your home situation going on there. It would be awesome to just get a better understanding of what the R and D development process is like. What are the major milestones that you're working through, for instance, when you're launching one of these exciting new flavors or are working on a new project?

05:06
Matt Craighead
Yeah, we're very quick, we're very fast paced company. We've been growing a lot the last few years. So the R and D ideation stage is very quick. And then it gets passed on to me, say, hey, let's work on a PB&J bar, whatever it might be. And so then that idea is posed to me. Then I kind of do my thing where I look for the new ingredients, if they're needed, then like new flavors, source those, have them get delivered to my house here, and then the fun creative benchtop process starts. And that could be anywhere from two weeks to eight months. Depends on feedback and timeliness of getting samples. If it's kind of a new ingredient that we've never used before, you know, that's tweaking that process and that flavor profile with the actual other supplier. So I can take iterations.

05:49
Matt Craighead
Sometimes it could happen on the first try, or it could take 10 to 15 tries. And that's where food science and food production is very humbling. So you never say, you know, how dare you not like this. It's bigger than just you. So you want to make sure that you're, you know, meeting the needs of everyone as best you can.

06:03
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, I feel like the custom development process, even outside of food, just sense flavors, formulations. Anything you're doing that can be such a long time depending on the vision you have in your mind, how much market research, testing you're doing, how perfectionistic you're being about things, it can definitely be a long haul. How long does R and D typically take? If you had, I know, obviously that's a huge range, but if you kind of had to put a timestamp on, this is a good goal post that people should have in their mind. What do you think the R and D process should typically run? Like to be efficient? And then how long does the development process take? Once you've established the R and D phase as approved Yeah, R and D.

06:47
Matt Craighead
Phase, I think is typically quicker. Maybe two to four months, give or take at most. I think for us, it's quicker than that. I would say like one to two months at most. And then the development process, that could be a little bit longer, where especially if you don't have bar already in the market, you're starting from scratch. So that could be even a year or two doing, you know, kind of sizing up and stuff like that, line trials, et cetera. But the benchtop process, that could be a bit quicker. But it's kind of tinkering with those small little things, you know, whether it's flavor, texture, finding a cleaner ingredient, looking at the food safety aspect of like water activity, making sure that you're in range there. Like for us, we're ready to eat bars, so there's no baking involved.

07:27
Matt Craighead
So that way it's very important to focus on water activity and an allergen control, whether that's in house or at the actual co man itself, make sure that their processes are well aligned.

07:37
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, I feel like there's so many moving parts and getting through. Like you're mentioning, it's not just the small batch trials, it's also the large batch trials that end up take quite a long process to make sure it's matched. Unless you've been in the weeds doing it. I think the amount of time product development end to end can truly take can be shocking to people. I mean, if I heard three years, that wouldn't even surprise me. For a new product, easily.

08:03
Matt Craighead
Yep. It all depends on capital that you have, you know, and how much time you're willing to invest into the future of that bar flavor profile, whatever it is. Don't let Perry be the enemy of the good. But you want to make sure to do your diligence to make sure it goes well in production, because that's where the money's made.

08:17
Hannah Dittman
Yeah. It's so hard to get to the 8020 mindset on product development, especially when you're a product person and that's your whole passion and where your focus is, or a founder and you're believing in it so much and you just want it so perfect for your customers. It is a hard job to decide what is the threshold point of this is approvable or good enough for us. And to make sure that bar isn't overly idealistic, where it's an unreachable, unattainable goal. It's definitely a tightrope to walk. I'm going to be like leading the witness A little bit here. But how important is R and D to the overall product development process or your company's success? How much of the experience or the consumer demand do you think is driven by what's achieved in the R and D phase?

09:03
Matt Craighead
R and D is. I mean, that's where it all starts. Without a great tasting product and a great running product, you don't have really anything. So if you have a great product, then it's that much easier for marketing and sales to say, hey, let's go sell this product, you know, but not losing sight of that either. I've seen that be a big issue in the past. You know, R and D is the start of everything.

09:20
Hannah Dittman
So, yeah, I think there's kind of two minds in consumer, I would say, where there's either like a very marketing driven approach to something. It's novel, maybe it's a stock product. I've definitely had my experience with stock products in prior lives. Or it's very R and D driven and very uniquely product driven. And those animals cannot be different and the mindsets of those companies cannot be different. It's like two different worlds that you're living in.

09:48
Matt Craighead
Yep. I've seen in the past where you get so focused on the functionality or health benefits of a certain ingredient that you lose sight of, well, this actually manufactured well on the lines. And then you go to a line trial or first production and it fails. And that can either cost at least a timeline, if not the whole business itself. So thinking about not just the flavor profile or the macros or the health benefits of whatever functional mushroom it may be, you gotta think about, hey, can this run? You know, can we actually sell it? I think people need to think about not just the R and D, but also the manufacturing side.

10:19
Hannah Dittman
And that's such a great point. And to even expound on that further thinking about consumer psychology, I call this concept First Principles. Where you always need to have consumer psychology in mind and go back to the basics of why is someone eating this, using this, doing this in the first place, and meeting that first principle need. I think on the functional food side especially, that can get squirrely really quick. Because at the end of the day, the number one reason you're eating something like a bar is because you want to be eating something that tastes good. And you need to prioritize eating experience first and then the functional experience second. Because no one's going to eat something again that they didn't like eating or we would hope not.

11:01
Matt Craighead
For bars, it's all about, you know, typically you're on the go, you don't have time to cook that breakfast or that lunch or whatever. It's like I still want to get something healthy that has a decent amount of protein and healthy fats and this and that, you know, how can I get that and still enjoy the meal too and not just chug down a green smoothie or something, you know?

11:17
Hannah Dittman
Yeah. What are those wheatgrass shots? That was like super popular.

11:21
Matt Craighead
That's a bit much.

11:22
Hannah Dittman
So brutal.

11:24
Matt Craighead
We've come a long way.

11:25
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, we really have. We have like blended green drinks now.

11:30
Matt Craighead
Exactly. Yeah. Sweeteners, but still clean. You know, Monk fruit stevia, iulose, whatever it may be.

11:35
Hannah Dittman
Yeah. What's the picture like anecdotally of a new product development process if you know, we've kind of touched on it a little bit. But if you guys wanted to make like a whole new type of bar or maybe you wanted to get into beverage or something like that, what would the process be like through the lens of new product development?

11:54
Matt Craighead
Yeah, I think it's market research and trend analysis first kind of where you start. Cause if you're putting something out in the market that's already out there and already oversaturated, it's probably unlikely to be successful unless you have something that differentiate yourselves. And that's what it's all about is what is the vision, what is the sales story of the actual bar product, et cetera, that you're trying to launch and then going from there. If you have the time and cash flow to do the kind of upfront work of hey, let's get some consumer feedback on our first, second, third, fourth round and then kind of tweak that based on what you get feedback on.

12:25
Matt Craighead
And then invest in line trials, making sure that the product is going to run well and then really kind of trying to source and look for the best possible partners, whether that's ingredient vendors, the manufacturer side of things and really thinking about how do they look on paper, are they communicative, you know, do they have the right safety, you know, food safety practices, you know, in practice, stuff like that. And I think you can get a bit one track minded and lose sight of that, you know, when you're focused on the product and kind of, hey, this is my baby, this is my product. And I've seen that. Cause you know, brands and bars to fail. So you want to make sure to think about the whole picture and not just that one little thing. That's very important.

13:04
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, so true. I think it's like easy to get Tunnel vision on whatever part of the process you're on. But like anything else in broader operations, it's a million moving pieces that all need to come together in synchrony. And the second you stop thinking about something is the second that is the thing that breaks. It's like you have to have all the drums beating all the time. And yeah, you mentioned submissions. I think also a really important thing to have in the back of your mind is how many submissions you're able and willing to get through in a process. In prior life we had like a 2 submission target, which is insane. You know, in my current company I've worked on something for over like I think I literally had 50 submissions for something before.

13:49
Matt Craighead
Yeah, that's the way it goes sometimes. I've had 35, 40, 50 for sure. And you gotta just kind of stay the course. And you realize it's not about your feedback or your opinions, it's about everyone.

13:59
Hannah Dittman
Yeah. And it's hard. I mean, to our earlier point in the conversation, it's a hard balance of not having too perfectionistic of a mindset. And for anyone listening that's unfamiliar with submissions, it's when you're revising a product and you're getting the new iteration version of the product that's counted as one submission. So yeah, I mean there's at least like a few weeks, if not a month between submissions. So you can run up the clock really quick if you haven't budgeted the appropriate amount of time for how many realistic submissions you think you're going to get through in that process as well. And that can totally blow up the whole rest of your development process easily. Kind of going off of that a little bit, I proactively got us into a little bit of a nugget.

14:38
Hannah Dittman
But what makes R and D go well and what makes it challenging, you know, do you have any thoughts on strengths and weaknesses of where you can really help guide the process?

14:49
Matt Craighead
Yeah, I think with my role changing with Truebar versus my previous company, I think it's always important to plan ahead. I think about, hey, what do I need to be successful in four weeks from now, not just tomorrow or today? So thinking, hey, I need, you know, this flavor from this flavor house. I need to reach out now for, you know, by, for January 1st. So making sure that you're planning ahead, whether that's using a calendar or AI or whatever it may be these days, there's so many ways to do so and not just trying to keep it all up here because we're all human we're going to forget stuff.

15:16
Hannah Dittman
It's such the gut reaction to do that because the thought of you're like the amount of project management that needs to go on to avoid that is staggering.

15:25
Matt Craighead
Yep. And also it's communication at the end of the day is we all work for someone. So making sure that I'm communicating with, you know, my boss, my team to make sure that hey, here's what I have going on this week, here's my plans. Does this, you know, make sense to you? We aligned. So I think my dad always taught me like this squeaky wheel gets oiled. The more you communicate, the better. I think there's never too much of a good thing within reason.

15:44
Matt Craighead
So communication, planning and then just making sure that you have all your documentation in order, you know, reaching out to suppliers, getting all the specs and nutritionals and stuff like that to make sure that whatever the macro targets are for the finished product that you're attaining those and not realizing after the fact like oh wait, this is 10 calories too high. I gotta go back and kind of fix my mistake. Behind the scenes that doesn't look good for anyone. So kind of slow down to speed up.

16:07
Hannah Dittman
Great point. Yeah. Reworking an existing formulation you already got to approval is what nightmares are literally made of. What do you think kind of going off this too. What do you think operators should know about R D that they tend to miss? Where do you feel like people kind of have the biggest trip ups or mistakes that happen that you've seen over and over again or that you think are the most common pitfalls?

16:31
Matt Craighead
I think we've said it a couple times, but focusing too much just on the flavor or the texture you got to think about obviously we need to sell this product, but if it doesn't run, we can't sell it. So I've seen products in my past where it was focused on like honey and honey's a big thing and you know, the clean, you know, no sugar added space right now and it's great, super good for you as long as you have moderate to small amount of it. But they were so focused on the functional benefits of the honey that the amount in the formula was too high that it would not run and it failed and it did not look good for that brand.

17:00
Matt Craighead
So making sure you're thinking about manufacturability of that coman or whether you're self manufacturing, do I have the right equipment in place? The co men willing to invest or co invest in equipment to make sure that we can partner together to run the product well and then you know, communication styles, planning, thinking about working backwards of like, okay, here's where it's launching in the stores in two years. What do I need to, you know, get there? It's not just formula, it's pricing, it's lead times, it's moqs. It's a lot of different things. So there's never just one thing that makes something fail or succeed. It's 10,000 different things. I think that's daunting for a lot of people.

17:35
Matt Craighead
But the more you can either think about that yourself or reach out to the experts that know about each of those different aspects is the best way to do it.

17:42
Hannah Dittman
Yeah. And to your point on kind of like the functional benefits or the vision, I think the other place where that gets challenging is it's so cross functional across departments. And when you have someone in brand management or on the marketing side thinking that they've got like the marketing story and then packaging is already in the works in the background and you already are thinking about the product marketing and what's going to be on pack and then you're kind of re engineering your formulation to meet those PAC standards. It's like a chicken and an egg sometimes. Because I get it, you can't blow up your lead times by fully getting through formulation and then starting on pack. And there's the whole compatibility component and stability component that you want to get through your quality testing together as well.

18:26
Hannah Dittman
But I do think it's such a hard dance to make sure that order of operations is right where your North Star is always on a good product and you don't necessarily have claims or PAC running really important formulation decisions. And at the same time you're not so tunnel vision on formulation that your lead time doubled because you started PAC so much later and that whole process wasn't able to run in parallel. It is the dance we are all always doing, I think, especially as a founder myself. Like I've run into that headache so many times. But it is easier to rework artwork on pack people for sure.

19:06
Matt Craighead
That is true. Yep. But then it's if you're doing constant pack changes every month or every quarter gets to be a lot to manage and then you're having like different version numbers and like wait, I still have version two over here. What about version one? Can we use this? Is it good? Just creates headaches for everyone. So the more you can plan ahead and align on what the plans are for, packaging is better.

19:26
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, I totally agree. In a perfect world it's like everyone makes no changes. It's all perfect and it all goes in order. And that literally happens 0% of the time.

19:34
Matt Craighead
Exactly. There's always change. Change is always guaranteed. Yeah, it's how you roll with it.

19:39
Hannah Dittman
What's something that went wrong one time, now that we're talking about this, and what did you do to fix it? And how do you think someone can approach when something starts going off the rails and get it back on track quickly?

19:50
Matt Craighead
Yeah, you know, I think there's different ways of thinking about it, but in the past, I used to think, oh, it's the formula. You have to change the formula because it's not running well. It's. Formula changes should be the last resort. I think it's looking at different ingredients, looking at temperature, looking at mixing methods or mixing process. You're mixing, as I've always said in my past, is mixing matters. Order of addition. Hey, we. We have been mixing this way. Wets first, then dries. Let's try dries first and wets and see what that does. Just be willing to think outside the box and not be so tied to the typical process that you've tried in the past. Just try different things until it works. And if none of those work, then okay, maybe it's a formula change.

20:27
Matt Craighead
But that's the last thing you want to do because then you're putting your packaging, your order of ingredients at risk, and that could be an issue down the road. So thinking about in process control stuff.

20:36
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, that's such a great point. And honestly, I've run into that myself too. Even your, like, RPMs of what you're mixing at can make such a huge difference. And I've run into something like that as well, where the ingredient didn't need to change. But changing ingredient suppliers from small batch to large batch had. Even though it was the same ingredient were working with, a sterile alcohol, it had the biggest impact on texture and product performance and experience. I could not figure out what was going on small batch to large batch, for the life of me. And then we reoriented the ingredients to the original suppliers from benchmark standards and it fixed it. And it's just sometimes it's something as little as, like, you just needed to dial in where you were getting something from. Or quality differences across ingredient suppliers vary.

21:30
Hannah Dittman
I mean, the world of possibilities of what could be impacting. I mean, we're talking about chemistry, like the world of possibilities of what could be impacting something. There's infinite variables. And I agree, not knee jerking, not getting panicked and Too quickly. Throwing the baby out with the bath water is really important.

21:48
Matt Craighead
Yeah, we've seen that so many times in the past where vegan protein bar company and we've changed suppliers on protein powders and, like, didn't really think about it. It's like, why is it so different? Like, oh, yeah. And you go back to the original and you're like, oh, okay, there's where we thought it would be. That's the actual, you know, ideal gold standard bar right there. You think about, like, yeah, there's, hey, it's brown rice protein. But they could be getting it from a different place in that country or using different processing equipment on their ends. And that affects the finished product, which affects your finished product. It's a domino effect. So thinking about that can be kind of crazy, but it's super important. Make sure you're taking accurate notes as to, like, hey, this, you know, spec was a little bit higher.

22:24
Matt Craighead
You know, say the spec is 80% protein. There could be a range because, you know, manufacturing is not a perfect science. There's a range that way that they can protect their business. So, you know, seeing that change in production can make or break your formula. So understanding, hey, we need to adjust based on this spec that day is important, while keeping in mind nutritional profile and macros and food safety and all that.

22:45
Hannah Dittman
It's so true. And I think, I don't know if you feel this way. I've never been in your shoes, but I could imagine, like, not every founder and not every organization, especially a larger one, is in the level of weeds that you're in. You know, I'm a solo founder. I have, like, a high touch on everything I'm doing. I'm very involved in the formulation process. So those decisions and information flow so fluidly in my organization. I could very easily see how you have this knowledge and someone else who's making approvals on something doesn't. And then you're like two ships passing in the night and a million different things are going on and everyone's worried about something. So I think it's also just the more you sponge up information and the more understanding you have of the process and the more that it's communicated.

23:29
Hannah Dittman
I could see that also being, like, really helpful in these circumstances. For sure.

23:33
Matt Craighead
Yeah, you gotta stay here. Yes, for sure. Always ask questions. And if you don't know something, find someone who does and reach out to them and ask for help. As long as you're not trying to make it transactional.

23:44
Hannah Dittman
Definitely. If you were starting, I mean, you Kind of are early days at this new company. But if you were starting day one with a founder in a startup business with a new company, or maybe you're advising a founder on R and D, what would you want to make sure they had in place at that starting point to kick off a new project? Kind of like the immediate best practices. This is where we're going to start.

24:06
Matt Craighead
In my past, what's been really helpful is project briefs is understanding. You know, here's the flavor profile, here's the timeline, here's the cost targets, here's the macro profile. And then you can kind of work backwards for yourself so you can plan and keep the brand, the client, whoever it may be, up to date and aligned on. You know, here's the kind of outline of the project and where I see it going. That's kind of the where to start, I would say. I think it's good to stay organized that way.

24:29
Hannah Dittman
Great advice and small plug. We've had a startup CPG Ops newsletter that broke down the briefing process with a high level brief template. So I agree, definitely the more clarity you can have and on your own vision for yourself, but also for all the other people you're needing to communicate out with, the smoother and better that process goes. Because people are moving mountains. I mean, there's so much work going into development, going into all these processes. A million questions are coming up in your mind. I'm sure when you're starting something new and if you don't have that kind of North Star anchor to refer back to, that's guiding you and giving you the rails, it's almost like the world's your oyster and it's. The possibilities are so infinite you don't even know where to drive.

25:11
Matt Craighead
Sometimes I'm sure there's no vision. Then you know, it's good to have that vision from the horse's mouth.

25:16
Hannah Dittman
What's a time that a small decision you've made had a much bigger impact than you thought it would? And what was it?

25:23
Matt Craighead
So I think I talked about the mixing matters ones. That was one I brought up in the past, I think also looking at the speed of the line. So maybe you're running too fast and the bar is breaking or not running well, like let's try to slow it down. Obviously you don't want to do that from a cost perspective, but sometimes that's the only way you can do it until you really look at the formula process, et cetera. Order of addition is another way to do it. Mixing methods, temperature could be something Also where, but that can also change the soft life texture of the product. So where, you know, say you're heating a syrup, that can change it from being a very soft bar over soft life to being something kind of chewy and rock hard. And that's not what we're going for.

26:00
Matt Craighead
So that is something that can affect finished product quality but can also make a big difference.

26:06
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, there's like all these little tiny levers that you can pull that can have such a big impact on different things that you're doing. And the speed of the line one is a great call out. And I think something to think about that sometimes people forget is especially if you're not, you know, if you're a founder that doesn't have like a very extensive ops background or you're not working closely enough with your co man, you might not realize that a lot of things aren't fixed, they're being figured out. And that's why that process is so long. And I think a lot of people have cost targets and rightfully so as like the most stringent part of product development. And a conan is oftentimes trying to fit that cost target. So running a line faster helps you get there.

26:52
Hannah Dittman
But then if you're having challenges, things like that are kind of competing sometimes and if you understand that all these levers can be pulled, you might be willing to take a little bit of a cost hit knowing that your product quality is going to go up dramatically or things like that. So to your point earlier, stay curious and ask questions and don't assume anything is just kind of a given. You really need to always be questioning and really understanding why all these micro decisions are being made and what your thoughts are about them.

27:21
Matt Craighead
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I've also seen where were having issues with like coating quality, where it was coming out kind of wet. As I say, it wasn't, you know, fully solidified. And so were running too fast for the capacity of the cooling tunnel. So we needed to either slow down or figure out, hey, can we improve the capacity or cooling capacity of the cooling tunnel so that way we can still run at this speed and still get quality, consistent product every time.

27:43
Hannah Dittman
I have so much respect for all the scientists and operators that figure all this stuff out. My dad is a scientist and I just like, you just have to be thinking about so many things so creatively and I don't know if people really realize how much of an art and a science it really is. Yeah, you have to be so detail oriented. You Just really have to just be so hyper aware of everything that's going on and so attentive to things. So mad respect and appreciation for all of our formulators and operators and scientists out there that are making all of these amazing products and are really such a brain trust behind so many things that are going on.

28:21
Matt Craighead
They're underappreciated for sure. Especially in today's day and age.

28:23
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, it's almost.

28:26
Matt Craighead
Not less, it's taken.

28:28
Hannah Dittman
For granted for sure. It's kind of like Christmas. Like something just shows up and you think like magic elves made it. Like yes, some magic elf scientists did make it and we should appreciate them for that a hundred percent kind of pivoting into maybe a little bit more. For a brand that's growing or as you're kind of scaling and developing through, you've gotten through the early days, maybe you've gotten your new products underway. How can an early brand with limited resources think about R and D and what are some tips and tricks they can implement to get the job done right as they're still going on this scaling journey?

29:00
Matt Craighead
Yeah, I thinking about, you know, the partners that you have involved, looking at the different comments, I think that's gonna be a big part because typically depends on where you're starting. But you maybe you start as like a little mom and pop shop and kind of outta your own kitchen and then selling to like friends and family and then kind of moving up to like the farmer's markets and stuff like that. But then you're like, okay, where's my next step? And usually unless you have the friends in the right places, you probably can't afford to self manufacture. So you gotta find a co man and working with them is a big part of it to your success. So you want to make sure that they're communicating well, they have their right practices in place, the right people in the right places and teams.

29:35
Matt Craighead
You know, I think food quality is very important. You know, there's been a lot of, you know, I think issues in the past or issues in the industry recently with, you know, salmonella and food safety issues across all different walks of life. And you want to make sure that's not happening to your brand because that can ruin a brand. So make sure that's in place at your comment to make sure that they probably use different allergens on the same lines or different lines to make sure that they're having the right washes in place and food safety practices in place. And then, you know, at the end of the day their product to you is their service. You know, they want to make sure that they're producing your product consistently and the right way every single time.

30:11
Matt Craighead
So making sure that is understood before going into production or even a line shot with them. So having those kind of calls and in person meetings to make sure that, hey, is this the right group of people to help us grow in the future? Yes or no? So I thinking about that and slowing down to speed up, all great.

30:26
Hannah Dittman
Advice and definitely I think that co man relationship is the lifeblood in a lot of ways of what you've got going on. So I know we've covered that in prior podcasts and newsletters too. And I'm sure every founder that's ever run into a hard situation with a con man knows how critical those relationships are. You guys obviously have R and D in house. At what point in a company's journey or what dynamics would a company be operating in that it would make more sense to bring R and D in house versus keeping everything fully outsourced with a co man?

30:56
Matt Craighead
Yeah, I think depends on the situation. Like for myself or our journey, it made sense to bring R and D in house. Also, just me knowing the product so well from my past helped a lot, but that's not always the case. I think at the end of the day it's about cost. It's a business at the end of the day, so you want to make sure that the cost that you're paying for is you're getting the most out of it. And I think bringing someone in house can benefit that as long as you can afford to pay them a certain amount of money. But then some comands, you know, will offer that service kind of for free in a sense and develop products for you. And that could be a cheap way to do it. But not all commands do that.

31:31
Matt Craighead
Sometimes it's, you know, there's a fee to it for the formula development or for the, you know, the man or human hours used to actually develop the product. So it could go either way. I think at the end of the day, look at your cogs and understand what's the pros and cons of each way to do it and figure out, you know, return on investment.

31:47
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, great points. And the one other thing I will add into what you said is you don't always own your formulation. Even if you work on a custom formulation with an outsourced supplier, which maybe isn't always nuclear, but I think everyone knee jerk is, I would like to own my own formulas. I Think that gives you a lot more flexibility if you ever want to move around your supply chain, if you ever want to create redundancy in your supply chain. The next like phase of your journey that becomes increasingly more important also insulates you from competitive risk. A lot of different control factors there and you definitely can own formulation with outsourced suppliers. But I do think it's an important point to vet and I think a headache that you avoid if it's in house. And also submission restraints.

32:35
Hannah Dittman
A lot of suppliers have submission restraints and in house maybe that's not the best thing for your day to day. But I'm sure you guys have a lot more flexibility with how long and how quickly and how much effort you're putting into submissions and just a lot more product control. Obviously, how should brands be thinking about SKU rollout and their R and D strategy? Like you guys obviously have a lot of different flavors going on. I'm sure there's like the risk at some point of over skewed or are we doing too much. How do you guys think about those conversations or do you have any advice or perspective on how other brands should be thinking about those type of things?

33:08
Matt Craighead
Yeah, I think it's good to kind of start with your initial product offerings, whether that's two to four flavors, give or take. You can start with like, you know, the typical cookie doughs or brownies or chocolate peanut butters or you can do something totally different, whatever your brand vision is, then kind of establish that typical sales marketing, you know, what's the typical customer looking like and then okay, you know, maybe you know, year two, year three, whatever, depending on how the sales go. Let's look at seasonals or limited time offerings and do you know one or two a quarter, maybe more. Depends on how long the brand's been around and practices you have in place, team you have in place and how much support you need for that product.

33:44
Matt Craighead
And I think that's kind of what we're going for is kind of doing, you know, new products for seasonals. The kids bars launched pretty recently. So kind of making sure that a larger part of the company, the world is tackled because before it's hard to bring, you know, you can't bring Peanut to school anymore, not like when I was a kid. So you got to make sure that whatever the brain to school is safe. Good for you. Ideally, I think we're tackling that very well. So it all depends on costs and timelines and how quickly you're growing. I mean we did not, we've been growing a lot these last three, four years so we're able to do a bit more than say another brand and hopefully everyone else can get there too.

34:17
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, great points and definitely things to consider. I think you don't want to be over skewed but you also in food especially, it's like the variety and the veto vote of someone being like oh I just don't like that flavor so I'm never going to buy that no matter how great it is.

34:31
Matt Craighead
Is so real short attention spans these days, like if you're not doing something for them right now, they forget about you and that's just the way it is. So you gotta make sure that there's something for everyone each season and we have a ton of flavors for everyone. So whether you like peanut butter, chocolate, strawberry, fruit based stuff, there's something for everyone. So you gotta. We keep everyone happy.

34:49
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, and they keep you busy for sure. Well, I'd love to pivot into a slack question. As you know startup CPG has the largest slack community in the industry with now over 30,000 members. I'd love to pull a question directly from our channel and have you answer it as a case study for any founders that might have a similar question. Today's question was I'm working with a coman on a custom formulation. How should I be thinking about managing the process?

35:13
Matt Craighead
Yeah, I think it's important not to just think about the recipe or the flavor, but thinking about the bigger picture. Like what equipment do they have? Do they have any issues with allergen control, temperature constraints, line speeds? Are they willing to invest or co invest in equipment for you? You know, what are their people and teams like? You know, do they have food quality and R and D teams in the right places? What is their communication style? And also like when you go to you know, kind of do line trials in production you do they document everything? Do they take good notes? Process control is everything. And making sure to, you know, be transparent and share that information. So that way both the coman and the brand can actually win because when the brand wins, the co man wins and vice versa.

35:54
Matt Craighead
So it's a two way street for sure.

35:56
Hannah Dittman
Well said and all great points. Double click on the notes there. I think it's really important especially when you go through your quality or if you have certain viscosity targets or whatever and you want to double check on something or you want to compare your next run to your first run those notes. If you don't check that at the beginning, it's a not fun check at the end.

36:16
Matt Craighead
Yeah, things can change. Was the season different? Was the humidity different? Who knows? It could be a whole different thing.

36:21
Hannah Dittman
Yeah. So definitely. As much as you're having a clean, brief process and your processes are clean is important. I totally agree. And echo what you said, making sure that they are putting rigor into their processes, not just from a formulation standpoint, but from a reporting standpoint also very important. Matt, this has been such a fun conversation and I love to geek out with you on this stuff and you've been such a wealth of knowledge. Before we wrap up, I'd love to make sure there's an actionable next step for our audience to apply all of this amazing learnings too. What's the best way for founders to reach you or follow along on your journey? And also, do you have any advice for operators that might be interested in working at Trubar?

36:59
Matt Craighead
Yeah, I think the best way to find myself in trubar is truebar.com and then trubar inc. On LinkedIn and also we're big on Instagram and TikTok, so at truebar.brands on Instagram and then at truebar on TikTok and then we're definitely growing this year in 2026. So feel free to reach out to me or anyone else on LinkedIn who we see works at Truebar and we're happy to have a conversation.

37:20
Hannah Dittman
Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for your time. You clearly know your stuff. I wish I could see what your kitchen looks like because I'm dying and I'm curious. But what a fun job and what awesome work that you're doing. I'm excited to be eating your creations in the future. And thanks again for your time today.

37:36
Matt Craighead
Thank you Hannah.

37:39
Hannah Dittman
Thanks so much for tuning in everyone. If you like this episode, show us some love with a five star review at ratethispodcast.com startupcpg I'm Hannah Dittman, podcast host and correspondent here at Startup cpg. I hope you'll join me again as we dig into more juicy topics like ops, finance and all the real talk founders actually need, come say hi on LinkedIn or ping me on Slack. I'm always eager to hear your questions or brainstorm future episode ideas. If you're a potential sponsor and want to get in on the fun and appear on the podcast.

38:06
Matt Craighead
Sure.

38:07
Hannah Dittman
Shoot us an [e-mail] and last but not least, if you haven't already, don't miss out on our free Slack community For emerging brands and CPG lovers alike. Join us at startupcpg.com we'd love to have you. See you next time.