Ancient Crunch, the New York-based better-for-you snack company behind MASA and Vandy, has secured nationwide distribution in Whole Foods Market stores this August — converting a 93-store test earlier this year into a full-chain rollout that brings the brand's total U.S. retail footprint past 3,000 doors. The move comes with two senior hires designed to professionalize the company's retail and marketing infrastructure ahead of what the founders are calling a much larger national build.
The Leadership Additions
Al Matulis joins as Head of Retail, bringing more than two decades of channel experience from Fortune 100 companies including Kimberly-Clark and Kellogg's, as well as scaling stints at Kernel Season's and Quinn Snacks. His background spans natural, mass, e-commerce, and club — exactly the channel mix Ancient Crunch will need to navigate as it moves beyond specialty retail. Greg Reintjes Jr. comes on as Chief Marketing Officer; he most recently served as SVP and Head of Marketing at LALO Spirits, where he built the marketing organization ahead of LALO's acquisition by Tito's Handmade Vodka, and held brand management roles at Beam Suntory before that. Matulis characterized the hire as a deliberate pivot: the company is transitioning from a DTC-led model to a full omnichannel operation across its house of brands.
What Operators and Buyers Should Watch
The product set heading into Whole Foods is tight and focused. MASA — a tortilla chip made from organic, nixtamalized corn cooked in 100% grass-fed beef tallow — enters in Original and Lime. Vandy, a kettle-style potato chip using the same tallow-based, seed-oil-free approach, enters in Original and French Onion. No artificial additives, no fillers. The positioning squarely targets the "clean ingredient" shopper that has driven velocity at retailers like Erewhon, Sprouts, and The Fresh Market — all of which already carry Ancient Crunch product alongside Target, Amazon, and a handful of independent and lifestyle-oriented specialty outlets.
For buyers and category managers in the snack and better-for-you set, the Whole Foods conversion signals something worth tracking: the seed-oil-free segment, once a niche talking point on social media, is now moving through mainstream natural-channel gatekeepers at scale. A brand that can pass Whole Foods' ingredient standards, achieve 93-door test velocity strong enough to justify a full national unlock, and simultaneously recruit executives from Kellogg's and spirits acquisition targets is no longer operating in the fringe. Distributors watching the tallow-cooked snack category — adjacent to the broader animal-fat cooking revival in foodservice — should expect more brands to pursue a similar retail trajectory over the next 12 to 18 months.
For operators in hospitality procurement or food-and-beverage retail, the Ancient Crunch build also illustrates a repeatable launch architecture: validate in specialty (Erewhon, Bristol Farms), prove at a regional natural chain (Sprouts), earn a Whole Foods test, convert to national, then use that credentialed distribution story to open mass and club conversations. Matulis's hire from the Quinn Snacks orbit suggests the company is already thinking about that next tier. Brands seeking retail-ready distribution support would do well to study this sequencing.
The co-founders, Seth Goldstein and Steven Rofrano, framed the Whole Foods rollout as a milestone rather than a ceiling — a signal to the trade that the fundraising, hiring, and channel investment cadence is not slowing. For vendors, agencies, and brokers working the natural and specialty grocery corridor, Ancient Crunch is now a live account worth engaging at the national level.
Operators building private-label or co-branded snack programs around clean-ingredient positioning — a growing priority in hotel minibar, airline catering, and upscale foodservice retail — should also note the category momentum this represents. Coverage of how similar brands are approaching operator intelligence in snack procurement is worth bookmarking as this segment matures.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
