Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Karls. Them and their team share their story with us below:
In 2017, inspired by her passion for plant-based cooking, Lezlie (Co-CEO) and her husband, Nick (Co-CEO) decided they wanted to launch into the food industry with a unique product that combines the plant-based and chocolate categories. Realizing the power and attraction of the community that Jake had created with his previous company, Lezlie, his sister, and Nick approached him with the idea of creating a new age chocolate conglomerate. Jake accepted to join as the third co-founder, and Mid-Day Squares was born (August 2018) with the intention of revamping and redefining the way we eat chocolate snacks. Their goal was simple: they want to put their flag next to all the other big chocolate conglomerates while staying unapologetically themselves. Lastly, they are a family business. Yet, they are not a family business because of being family, but because the three of them complement each other’s skill set, and they are proud to announce that Mid-Day Squares is the modern day Willy Wonka.
Notable achievements:
Sold over 5 million in chocolate bars in three years
Produced over 10 million squares
Built our own fully automated chocolate factory
Produce 90,000 bars per day in our factory.
Built an amazing team of 65 team members
Rejected an acquisition offer from Hersheys
Consecutively Over 150% year over year growth
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. When we first started, we were making the chocolate bars in our condo by hand, and we had to figure out how to scale the process. Like most food & beverage companies, in order to scale, they work with a co-manufacturer to handle scaling production. We went to 26 different bar co-manufacturers across North America and Europe, and not one was able to make our product. They said either we change the product to fit their mold or we invest 3 + million dollars in machinery in their facility. We decided against all odds to go out and build our own fully automated factory that can produce 90K bars/day.
A second difficult time was March 2020, when the covid pandemic began. Instantly, our retail sales dropped 70% and we had 10K$ left in the bank account (basically unable to pay payroll). We decided, at that moment, that we were going to go on offense when everyone was on defense. We shifted our entire budget from retail and allocated it to media, social media, digital marketing and e-commerce. We went out and hired 20 new team members and ended up having our highest revenue year to date.
We have many more difficult times that we can discuss if you guys want.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Mid-Day Squares?
Mid-Day Squares created the first functional chocolate bar:
Our mission is simple: We are building the next, biggest better-for-you chocolate snacking company. We make functional chocolate snacks that taste epic, have clean ingredients and a kick-ass flavour profile.
Something unique about us is our approach to the media. We took the approach of showing everything- and I mean everything. We believe that authenticity and transparency is the future of CPG. We have our media team document everything- the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in-between. We do this by building our media team full of creators [videographers, photographers, editors, creative directors, producers, etc.]. We use social media platforms as the vehicle to share these day-to-day stories of building this business. Our approach was to make us founders like a boy/girl band. Instead of selling records, we sell chocolate. The goal was to celebratize the humans behind the business… so that when the consumer sees the product at the grocery store, they feel like they are buying from a friend/neighbor/family member. This strategy allows us to differentiate ourselves, not just from being a product of innovation but from all other CPG brands.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
The biggest shift and trend will be that companies will need to become more authentic and transparent with their consumers.
From a trend standpoint, we believe the future of CPG will rely on food integrity (how food reacts in your system. i.e: does this food spike your blood sugar levels).
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.middaysquares.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/middaysquares/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MidDaySquares/
- Other: https://www.middaysquares.com/pages/mid-day-squares-uncensored
Image Credits:
Dominique Lachance
