John F. Maggio of JM Enterprises joins Zack Oates to share decades of experience building and investing in consumer brands. From co-founding Boulder Canyon Chips to working with brands like Justin’s, Duke’s Smoked Meats, Bigs Seeds, Jackson’s, Good Day Chocolate, Big Mouth Snacks, and Cocktail Squad, John has seen what separates ideas that scale from products that stall. His career spans early natural food pioneers through modern retail expansion, giving him a rare perspective on what truly drives CPG success.

Building at the Right Time (03:50)

John reflects on launching Boulder Canyon Chips during the early growth of the natural foods movement. “It was a really lucky time for the national organic industry.” Market timing created momentum that would have been difficult to manufacture later. Success often depends on recognizing when a category is about to rise.

When Restaurants Enter Retail (09:03)

John explains why established restaurant brands have an advantage in CPG. Retail buyers understand the name immediately. Consumers require less education. But brand awareness alone does not guarantee success. Execution still determines whether a product stays on shelf.

The Four Pillars of Investable Brands (10:32)

John evaluates opportunities using four pillars: brand strength, market opportunity, team capability, and capital access. “People love brand… but is there really an opportunity? Do you have the team? Is it investable?” Passion without structure rarely scales.

Why Some Products Fail (12:45)

Not every product works, even with experience behind it. John shares examples where pricing, consumer demand, or capital shifts changed the outcome. “Flavor, flavor, flavor. It doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t taste good.” Consumer adoption ultimately decides everything.

Return on Luck (15:57)

John describes his journey as a “return on luck.” Being in Boulder at the right time created opportunity, but execution turned it into traction. “I love the people that actually put pen to paper… and stand at the farmers market and try it.” Ideas are common. Action is rare.

The conversation reinforces a clear takeaway for restaurant operators. Entering CPG requires more than brand recognition. It demands disciplined evaluation, strong teams, capital strategy, and relentless focus on product quality.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-f-maggio-b98b593/

https://www.instagram.com/cocktailsquad/?hl=en

Transcript

00:00:00:10 – 00:00:25:14

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give An Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zack Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and tactics to help you create a five star guest experience. This podcast is powered by ovation, the feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what’s actually happening in your restaurants and exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:00:25:19 – 00:00:53:19

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation up.com. It really excited today because we have someone who is just an incredible operator, incredible entrepreneur. John Maggio and John and I met in Vegas. I think through some mutual friends, Rush Bowls, which is an amazing brand. But we met and I started talking to him about his career and was blown away. I mean, John, you have done it all.

00:00:53:19 – 00:01:03:18

Zack Oates

And a bag of chips, pun intended here. Yeah, you started Boulder Canyon Chips, which sold to yurts. The hey pants. I actually have ever since portfolio now.

00:01:03:18 – 00:01:12:19

John F. Maggio

Yes, actually just cut the number one spot in, potato chips in the US outside of Frito-Lay. So pretty cool. But that’s how long a brand takes, right? Three years later.

00:01:12:21 – 00:01:14:23

Zack Oates

Yeah, just a couple years into your,

00:01:15:02 – 00:01:16:08

John F. Maggio

Yeah, a couple of years into it.

00:01:16:14 – 00:01:41:15

Zack Oates

Yeah. But not only that, but actually, Ellen, let me let me just read some of these brands because I know that you probably won’t brag about yourself as much, but just for some context here, that’s where he started. And then he went to Big Mouth snack. Then he did some children got involved in children’s arts supplies, then Jackson’s, which was on Shark Tank, which is, potato chips and tortilla chips.

00:01:41:17 – 00:02:07:17

Zack Oates

Justin’s like the peanut butter brand Duke’s smoked meats and big seeds. JJ sweets Good Day Chocolate Adventures, which does a lot of CPG products. Not only that, you were also in the midst of all this. You decided to go and be a part time teacher. And so because you had all that free time cocktail squad, New Frontier Foods, JM enterprise, I mean like you have just done so much in the CPG space.

00:02:07:19 – 00:02:08:08

Zack Oates

You’re making.

00:02:08:10 – 00:02:09:04

John F. Maggio

Hard.

00:02:09:06 – 00:02:21:00

Zack Oates

Are you kidding me? You’re making me hungry, John. I look at this stuff. And first of all, my first question is like, how are you so fit? What? You have been doing so much snack food your whole life? Yeah.

00:02:21:00 – 00:02:38:00

John F. Maggio

You know, part of it is I stopped to see you in friend in Boulder 30 years ago, Zach. And it’s like Boulder is one of those places where you get a license pulled if you don’t, could do something every day. So, you know, you’re always climbing a mountain or, you know, running or doing something and everybody’s on their own track, but it’s all about fitness and eating.

00:02:38:00 – 00:02:40:19

John F. Maggio

Well, it’s I ended up in a lucky place.

00:02:40:21 – 00:02:51:11

Zack Oates

And tell me about this journey. So you started in Boulder and was this a dream of yours to get into food or how did you get into this tricky?

00:02:51:11 – 00:03:11:19

John F. Maggio

You know, I was in school in South Florida. I had a little small construction business for a year after that, and then ended up in a well that went pretty well and went back to the Midwest, where I’m from and did this little entrepreneur course and, and thought, okay, well, we got to try to buy this potato chip company that I grew up eating, that when my dad would send him to college and everything, everybody went crazy.

00:03:11:21 – 00:03:31:08

John F. Maggio

But still in one is still today in one county in Illinois. So very small brand. But we had visions of bringing it into the Chicagoland and up into Milwaukee and so forth, and I spent a few months with the owner, and it was clear that he was really excited about it, too, which wasn’t as exciting for me because I didn’t want him involved going on.

00:03:31:08 – 00:03:50:13

John F. Maggio

So I said, you know, maybe this isn’t going to work. I’m going to drive west. I had one friend in Boulder, you know, it snowed 17in the night I got here. We ate dinner outside the next day. I was like, well, this is pretty cool. Like, I should stay here for a week. I turned into 30 years, so, oh my gosh, I haven’t really, you know, a lot of smart people like moving here now, but when.

00:03:50:13 – 00:04:17:08

John F. Maggio

So we’d started our own snack food company out here. My brother came out and we thought, hey, we’d be in Denver someday with Secret Sauce. Really? Is that Whole Foods Market which I’d never heard of? If you look back, went public within literally weeks of us incorporating older chips. So it was a really lucky time for the national organic industry, which I think at the time was going to be like, you know, they were thinking it could be up to 3 or $4 billion a year, and I think it was like 400 last year.

00:04:17:08 – 00:04:35:08

John F. Maggio

So you’re in a little bit of a rising tide, ended up being a guy that kind of knew how to do it. And I have so many stories, but people reaching out to me to ask me about a UPC code for a bag, because they were selling these little pita chips in a kiosk in Faneuil Square. And I was like, listen, Stacy, I don’t even think this is a good idea.

00:04:35:08 – 00:04:53:14

John F. Maggio

But for a couple hundred million dollars later, Frito-Lay bought Stacy’s pita chips. So there’s a lot of cool people at the time just helping each other and natural products. Expo West was it today the largest? I think, natural organic show in the world. But at the time, I mean, people show up in flip flops to go to the beach for half a day because there wasn’t much to do.

00:04:53:16 – 00:05:10:06

John F. Maggio

But we had a great run and ended up just kept going and still going. So it’s a lot of fun. That startup side, you know, talked to hundreds of companies, helped them raise a lot of money over the years as well. Then various parts of what are the ones you mentioned in More Rush Bowls today is kind of an intersection of all that.

00:05:10:06 – 00:05:29:21

John F. Maggio

So, you know, it’s in the intersection of health and wellness. No added sugars, no dyes, all the stuff that Maha is talking about. Yeah, here we are with this great opportunity. So bring in a little bit of some different core competencies. We’re actually launching some CPG brands within Rush Bowls, which is really fun for me. But the gift that keeps on giving I mean, biggest industry in the world, people keep eating.

00:05:29:21 – 00:05:34:18

John F. Maggio

They always will, right? Yeah. Can’t stop that. So even the DLP ones won’t stop us.

00:05:34:20 – 00:05:47:16

Zack Oates

No. Oh my gosh. I mean look, I still buy my bags of chips. I just they just last a little bit longer now that I bought my GLP ones or so. By the way, are you still involved with Boulder or are you totally excellent.

00:05:47:16 – 00:06:03:13

John F. Maggio

Oh, no. Well, not as an ownership side. I mean, they had is, they were nice enough to have my brother and I for some anniversary stuff lately. I think they post things periodically. They’ve got, you know, the right to do all that. And we’re proud to see them succeed. They’re they’re really nice people and they’re doing a great job with what started.

00:06:03:15 – 00:06:12:07

Zack Oates

So what’s it like as a founder to see your brand like you go to the gas station and you’re like, oh, look, that’s a company that I started. How does that feel?

00:06:12:09 – 00:06:38:05

John F. Maggio

Yeah, there’s that. Yeah, I mean, I could there’s a million stories, but I’m on the University of Miami and the University of Miami, Florida. My, our daughter’s a senior there, and I’m on the alumni board at the university. So I get down to Miami frequently. And to be a kid on campus and back in the day and then walking through as an adult, the little convenience store on campus and seeing Boulder chips there and seeing it at all the vending machines is pretty cool.

00:06:38:05 – 00:06:51:21

John F. Maggio

Yeah, sort of like I didn’t know what I was going to do in college, right? So here I am with product. That’s one of the cooler ones. I think some friends and I and my wife did the rim to Rim and Grand Canyon, a few years ago, which is, I think, illegal. So don’t say that out loud.

00:06:51:22 – 00:07:10:20

John F. Maggio

Oh, is it really? So you cross the Grand Canyon, you try to cross in one day instead of three, which was like 12 hours for us, you know, trained for months and months again, one of the older things, but it’s like 6000ft down. You go across 4000ft to climb out. It’s 100 degrees and everyone’s here snacking and got all their stuff with him.

00:07:10:20 – 00:07:29:15

John F. Maggio

And I’ve got all mine with me and we’re ready to go. And there’s this place, Phantom Ranch, that the government owns at the bottom of the bottom. And they’ve got like a little convenience store. They’ve got lemonade, Clif bars and Boulder chips. I was like, well, that’s pretty cool. So. So yeah, that was fun. I was like a year the bottom of the Grand Canyon, I guess.

00:07:29:15 – 00:07:47:08

John F. Maggio

Now you have a brand. So that side of it again is there’s that there’s a lot of messages in there, but brain building, it’s hard and slow. And we’ve got some shortcuts now with social media and with influencers and with viral things that happen on, especially for various age groups. It’s Snapchat and TikTok and all those things.

00:07:47:08 – 00:07:56:04

John F. Maggio

So pretty cool to still be involved at new levels where, I mean, I is kind of, gosh, taken over marketing in a lot of ways, you know, just crazy.

00:07:56:06 – 00:08:15:04

Zack Oates

Yeah. And as you’re building these brands, thinking about it back, I mean, again, some incredible brands that you’re talking about here, like, I mean, everyone knows Stacy’s, everyone knows Justin’s peanut butter, everyone knows Boulder like, these are not brands that are like, oh, yeah, I think I heard about them. Like, these are giant brands. What would you say?

00:08:15:04 – 00:08:31:08

Zack Oates

As someone who I would put you as the foremost CPG expert I have ever met, I’d probably ever even write about. What would you say if there’s a restaurant brand who’s looking to get into the CPG space? Yeah. What advice would you give to them?

00:08:31:14 – 00:08:49:04

John F. Maggio

Yeah, well, that’s nice to say. I mean, there’s a there’s sort of the old guard, which is really literally like guys who were hippies. They were like, we got to eat better. When Steve demos, who started Silk and White Wave and all those things, and Marc Westhoff and Bernie Bloom, guys who started Celestial Seasonings and really were like that, there were trailblazers, for sure.

00:08:49:04 – 00:09:03:08

John F. Maggio

But yeah, I’m kind of the second wave of that, which has been fun. And all of a sudden, like, here I am years later, it’s happening. Zach. And it’s interesting to see at retail when you go in, you know, and you talk to a retail buyer and he’s like, what are you going to do to grow this brand?

00:09:03:08 – 00:09:24:06

John F. Maggio

How are you going to can’t do enough demos, can’t spend enough money? Well what’s happening is some of the restaurant brands are coming in with their own brand, which the buyers then are like, well, that makes perfect sense. Everyone will get it without too much education. So we actually licensed 26 years ago. We licensed TGI Fridays for snack, so anything that was in my bag.

00:09:24:10 – 00:09:40:00

John F. Maggio

TGI Fridays invented the potato skin. In 1965. We had a product that was kind of a light sheet of dough and a dark sheet of dough. So think of like a Pringles with two pieces. It looked like a potato skin. So we launched TGI Fridays. Potato skins in still out there. As a as a go brand. Yeah.

00:09:40:00 – 00:09:57:15

John F. Maggio

So that was sort of our company, but we had so it’s been going on for a while. TGI Fridays was really a leader in that years ago because then they’d have their Bloody Mary mix and alcohol and, and so forth for us. You know, today you go down the aisle and start to look I mean you’re going to see Chick-Fil-A mustard makes perfect sense.

00:09:57:15 – 00:10:13:21

John F. Maggio

I mean, those are some of the biggies, right? But those guys that are starting to leverage their name and bring it into retail think it makes a lot of sense. I’d be hard pressed not to think getting out would have something soon. I mean, at McDonald’s when we were in the toy business, McDonald’s is the number one toy seller in the world, which is, I think of that.

00:10:13:23 – 00:10:32:03

John F. Maggio

These hamburgers. But a lot of people go through that environment. So there’s, a lot of cool brand things happening, and I think you’ll see more of them. I think Sweet Lauren’s is doing a great job with Barbie right now. So bringing kind of this Barbie mentality, especially after the movie that came out into a gluten free space and just doing great.

00:10:32:03 – 00:10:50:03

John F. Maggio

So lots of examples of those kind of things. But for me, I’ve got my sort of four pillars, which is brand, market, opportunity, team and capital. And I asked brands, hey, you know, score yourself on these. How are you doing 1 to 10. And people love brand. They love the way their food tastes. But is there really an opportunity?

00:10:50:09 – 00:11:11:18

John F. Maggio

Do you have the team that can take the capital or is it investable so you can actually grow that business the right way? So we found over the years, Excel and some other places that grow in the brands with entrepreneurs that were super passionate and super driven was part of the equation. Not all of it. So we need to kind of bring those other pillars to bear the way the market works today.

00:11:11:20 – 00:11:13:12

John F. Maggio

But I hope that makes sense.

00:11:13:12 – 00:11:25:13

Zack Oates

Does a local brand like if I’ve got 10 to 50 locations, is it worth it for me to get into CPG or is that too big of a task? Is it more of like the chick fil A’s of the world that we’ll see at successful growth.

00:11:25:14 – 00:11:51:01

John F. Maggio

Polls is a good example. You know, if 55 stores were open in 20 this year and we’ve already got roast bites in our stores that are peanut butter protein balls, three SKUs. We’ve got some more products coming out this summer. So with that you say, okay, well, we can sell those just in our own environment and have kind of this great opportunity for our consumers to take home something that they’re like in the store, take it with them, ordered online in some cases, and that kind of thing.

00:11:51:06 – 00:12:11:22

John F. Maggio

If that transitions into broader retailer and broader retail, you’d probably have to have a little more saturation. I mentioned chick fil A and TGI Fridays. I mean, obviously at the time those are really big brands, right? So so people get it when they walk into the store. So yeah, there’s always an opportunity. I think what happens is the people involved in the business don’t know how to do it.

00:12:11:23 – 00:12:27:09

John F. Maggio

They like we they do one thing really well and then they’re like, gosh, where do I make a fizzy beverage? How do I do that? What am I? And then pretty soon it’s sort of like, that’s a distraction from your core business. So what Andrew and I are working at at Rush Bowls is kind of bringing a couple of backgrounds together to enhance that.

00:12:27:11 – 00:12:45:12

Zack Oates

That’s amazing. And when you look at the things of what makes a good CPG product, what are some things that you see in terms of why some go and some don’t? And I know we’ve talked a lot about your successes. Have you had any that haven’t worked out any CPG products that haven’t.

00:12:45:14 – 00:13:03:24

John F. Maggio

Run with you. Yeah. There’s a whole just so there’s a lot on the cutting room floor and some of them are still a good idea. Actually, Clementine should still be going into you know, we had, no petroleum crayons and we had paint that you literally eat. Miami. What it wasn’t is it wasn’t fire engine red and it wasn’t $0.99.

00:13:03:24 – 00:13:32:09

John F. Maggio

So we didn’t want to make it in China. We wanted to make it the US and all those kind of things. And you know, we also ran into kind of 2008, 2009 where even though we were in target in some big places with that product, you know, people just wouldn’t pay that kind of a premium. So you do look at some of the things that cocktail squad, we were maybe first or second to market with Cutwater at the time and in canned cocktails, and we were really in the space of a high alcohol, canned, regular alcohol.

00:13:32:09 – 00:13:54:15

John F. Maggio

So like a real tequila margarita that was going to give you an experience like drinking a real margarita. What the market really said they wanted is a bunch of watered down drinks for $1.99, and we just didn’t make those products. So, you know, as the market kind of changes and shifts that might come back or something. But for now, you have products out there that are just made of kind of grain and neutral spirits with a little flavored lemon or something in them.

00:13:54:15 – 00:14:14:02

John F. Maggio

But there’s things that didn’t work. You can say that today. You know, capital is a really big deal. And again, kind of those four pillars that dovetails with team. Are you investable for me to put 3 to $5 million in over time capital changed since right before Covid when we had the the economy was sort of like, hey, are these big companies or hormel’s in the General Mills?

00:14:14:02 – 00:14:32:16

John F. Maggio

Are they still going to buy brands? Or that’s started to sort of wane a little bit, Kellogg starting to separate and that those kind of things. And then right after Covid, you get the Silicon Valley bank really changed things for financing in our industry and an onward to like, wait a minute. Like, maybe we need to make bigger bets.

00:14:32:16 – 00:14:52:17

John F. Maggio

So venture capital has come started to matriculate towards private equity. It’s kind of like, okay, well, you know, we can’t throw as much at the wall to see if it sticks. Now we need to make sure it’s it’s a little bit of a shame because that’s not really what venture is. I mean, I think at Excel we had over 40 investments over time, which is really fun.

00:14:52:19 – 00:15:14:23

John F. Maggio

And some of the too great you know, cat snacks are harmless, harvest coconut water, some really good ones, and they’re still Four Sigma really cutting edge. You know guys, they kind of invented mushroom coffee. I think they were $300,000 when we invested in them. So they’re pretty massive brand at this point. But anyway, I mean, if things happen, flow and change along the way today it’s do you know how to do it?

00:15:15:00 – 00:15:22:05

John F. Maggio

Do you have a great product? Is it an a great market flavor, flavor of flavor. Flavor. Right. So it doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t taste good.

00:15:22:07 – 00:15:47:05

Zack Oates

And as you’re talking about it doesn’t really matter if the consumers aren’t going to buy it. Right. It’s like timing is a big part of it. And I think with every entrepreneur I’ve talked to, with every, I would say realistic entrepreneur, I’ve talked to everyone attributes a little bit of the success to luck because like, I mean, just like you said, you happen to be starting a boulder at the right time and there is a movement of that.

00:15:47:05 – 00:15:57:19

Zack Oates

I think a lot of it is about that timing and luck. But again, it’s like you got to get up there to the plate and take the swings and see what you’re going to hit. And anyway. And so it’s just it’s amazing to see that.

00:15:57:20 – 00:16:17:02

John F. Maggio

I call out my role living here and all this time and being part of it is my return on luck, instead of ROI, because it really was like, what if Whole Foods hadn’t gone public? Wild oats was here with alfalfa as they had seven, eight, ten stores apiece. They got together, got to 120 or 30 stores, and then Whole Foods bought them.

00:16:17:07 – 00:16:34:20

John F. Maggio

So that’s really where Whole Foods got a lot larger. Maybe it was even more than that, by the way. But save those same people when it’s a very, very small world. Right, Zach. So these these people from the wild oats days ended up with sunflower and sprouts, which is a major winner today as well. And just a lot of people I think also doing the right thing.

00:16:34:20 – 00:16:51:05

John F. Maggio

So return on lock of like hey, this actually went where everyone thought it could go if we were all like, let’s just keep eating fried food and that cola like that’s, that wasn’t going to work. So there is a lot of luck attributed to it. But again, it’s changed over the years. It’s not, as I mean, with entrepreneurs all the time.

00:16:51:06 – 00:17:07:11

John F. Maggio

I love people that have ideas. That’s sort of cute, but I love the people that actually put pen to paper and go out and put some in the package to stand at the farmers market and say, hey, we’re going to try this. That’s a way different thing than just saying, I got an idea. Mean I had four ideas this morning.

00:17:07:13 – 00:17:09:10

John F. Maggio

So yeah.

00:17:09:12 – 00:17:29:01

Zack Oates

Think yeah. Put a little bit of the elbow grease to go to it. Go do it. You know, this was such a fun conversation. I feel like we’ve chatted for much longer. Like and I know that we can have this podcast for hours. Just have love. Good stories that you’ve shared. John, where can people go to find and follow you if they want to keep up on your adventures?

00:17:29:03 – 00:17:47:10

John F. Maggio

Oh man, maybe I should do some about that. I’m pretty private outside of LinkedIn, but I let most people in that that have sort of, instead of, hey, I just want to connect. It’s like, hey, let’s talk about this or that. Like, let’s do that. I’m open to it. So usually at, LinkedIn and it’s John F Maggio at LinkedIn, which I think keeps some people out, but, come on in.

00:17:47:10 – 00:17:49:20

John F. Maggio

Yeah. Happy. Happy to talk to you. I’m an open book.

00:17:49:20 – 00:17:58:22

Zack Oates

So awesome. Well, John, for letting us take a dip into your chip experience. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Giving Ovation.

00:17:59:01 – 00:18:00:20

John F. Maggio

Thanks, brother. Good to see you, Zach.

00:18:00:22 – 00:18:23:09

Zack Oates

Thanks for joining us today. If you liked this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen. We’re all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by ovation, a two question, SMS based, actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants. If you’d like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at ovation up.com.