{"id":38185,"date":"2019-01-07T11:21:17","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T17:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/?p=38185"},"modified":"2020-07-20T15:16:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T20:16:41","slug":"chomps-pete-maldonado-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/chomps-pete-maldonado-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"Chomps Co-Founder Pete Maldonado on Starting His Business in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a teenager,\u00a0Pete\u00a0Maldonado<\/a>\u00a0grew up eating the snacks most often found in the checkout aisle of convenience and drug stores. He loved the portability of the foods, the mix of sweet and savory, and that he could eat them anywhere, anytime. Flash forward eight years, Maldonado \u2014\u00a0then\u00a020 years old and working as a personal trainer \u2014 wanted to practice what he preached, and started taking the time to understand ingredients and food labeling. Reading the following three words on his favorite meat snack, \u201cmechanically separated chicken,\u201d changed his entire attitude toward food. He knew that he needed to know more about both ingredients and nutrition to do better by his clients as a trainer.<\/p>\n

But as\u00a0Pete Maldonado\u00a0steadily improved his personal diet and those of his clients, he still longed for the taste and satisfaction of his favorite jerky snack. So, after 10 years as a personal trainer, at the start of 2012, he decided to create his own. He knew he wanted to create a snack stick made from high-quality meats that were certified non-GMO and free of unnecessary additives. Upon further research into creating his ideal snack, he found there was a big difference between meat that was “grass-fed,” and meat that was both “grass-fed and finished.” He learned the latter was far superior and decided to create a food snack with this as the foundation. He found a local food manufacturer and by December 2012,\u00a0Chomps<\/a>\u00a0was born\u00a0in Chicago.<\/p>\n

A month after launching the\u00a0Chomps\u00a0site, the brand’s snack sticks were selling briskly\u00a0as the brand had found an audience.\u00a0Chomps\u00a0was pure entrepreneur gold: with just a co-packer for his snacks and his friend (an e-commerce consultant) Rashid Ali moonlighting as\u00a0Chomp\u2019s finance manager,\u00a0Pete\u00a0Maldonado built\u00a0Chomps\u00a0into a multi-million dollar business in a few years.\u00a0Within months Chomps became of the fastest-selling snacks at Trader Joe’s. In 2017, with\u00a0Maldonado still the company\u2019s only full-time employee,\u00a0Chomps\u00a0sold nearly $10 million dollars worth of meat snacks. This year, 2018,\u00a0Chomps\u00a0started selling in retailers like Safeway, Albertsons, Fresh Thyme and 7-Eleven and introduced a new turkey variety. And as the brand continues to grow,\u00a0Pete\u00a0finally decided to hire a few people to help him take the business to the next level.<\/p>\n