🎙️ What if your biggest CPG breakthrough started with stolen jerky in a Ziploc bag?

Jason Burke didn’t plan to become a food founder. He just wanted to make healthy snacks that wouldn’t kill his parents. But that side hustle turned into The New Primal. A brand born in a smoky kitchen and built into a national powerhouse through sheer grit, grassroots obsession, and a wild ride of trial by fire.

From boiling beef in a condo to scaling 36 SKUs in 36 months, Jason takes us through the wins, the wounds, and the wisdom of what it really takes to build a conscious food brand from scratch.

This is what happens when hustle meets healing. When family legacy meets CPG chaos. When the man who once sold trail mix in the breakroom becomes a leader in the clean label movement.

🎩 Summary

Jason’s journey starts in a Section 8 apartment and stretches all the way to the Whole Foods endcap. Along the way, he shares how diet changed his life and how jerky changed his career. We cover the early grind, the brand explosion, and what happened when it all got too big too fast.

This episode goes deep. Into the marriage strain. The team building. The inner rewiring it takes to shift from founder to CEO. And the costs no one warns you about. Like 140 flights in a year. Or feeling like the poorest kid at the richest school.

But Jason’s story isn’t just about snacks. It’s about service. About building with intention. And about staying sane when the margins go missing.

🎩 Hats Covered

• 🎩 1: The Soul
• 🎩 2: The Athlete
• 🎩 3: The Servant
• 🎩 4: The Entrepreneur
• 🎩 5: The Investor
• 🎩 7: The Seeker

💡 Key Takeaways

• 🎩 1: Success isn’t sustainable without non-negotiable rhythms
• 🎩 2: What you eat matters. So does what you feed others
• 🎩 3: Marriage requires presence, not just provision
• 🎩 4: Don’t scale what you don’t understand
• 🎩 5: Trade spend can eat your brand alive if you’re not careful
• 🎩 7: When you stop trying to be impressive, you can finally become impactful

👤 Guest Bio

Jason Burke is the founder of The New Primal. A clean-ingredient snack and condiment company inspired by his family’s health journey. From trail mix in a desk drawer to a multi-category Whole Foods partner, Jason has scaled intentionally while learning what real leadership requires. He lives in Nashville with his wife and two daughters and still makes time to cook.

⏱️ Timestamps

• 00:02:00 – From Section 8 to CEO: Jason’s origin story
• 00:10:00 – The diet that changed everything
• 00:16:00 – Paleo jerky, smoke-filled condos, and stolen Ziploc bags
• 00:22:00 – Launching The New Primal: DIY website and first orders
• 00:28:00 – The Publix pitch: blind enthusiasm meets real risk
• 00:36:00 – Growing too wide too fast: 36 SKUs, 36 months
• 00:44:00 – The free fill myth and deduction disasters
• 00:52:00 – Marriage strain, 140 flights, and the "we need you here" moment
• 01:00:00 – From founder to CEO: the control you must surrender
• 01:08:00 – Who Jason had to stop being, and who he became

✅ Actionables

• Start with one product. Master it
• Build a team before you need one
• Schedule non-negotiables in your calendar: family time, workouts, walks
• Know your margins before you go national
• Ask yourself weekly: Who am I showing up as?

🔥 Quotes

“Blind enthusiasm is an advantage. Until it’s not.”
“We were still demoing locally while shipping to Seattle. That’s insane.”
“CPG is a land of giants. You better know what you’re stepping into.”
“I had to stop being the Section 8 kid. And start believing I deserve a seat at the table.”
“Success without systems is just chaos in a hoodie.”

🔗 Links

• The New Primal
• Jason Burke on LinkedIn

🎩 Subscribe, share, and remember... sometimes your biggest brand begins as a bag of stolen jerky and a dream to do better.