Matt Adelmann of Switchback Foods: "Living Loud" and Charting Your Own Path

For Matt Adelmann, co-founding Switchback Foods was about more than creating snacks with real-food ingredients - it was about redefining success and living with intention. In this episode of The New Pantry, Matt shares the story behind Switchback’s motto, “Live Loud,” and what it means to pursue what matters most and build a mission-driven food brand. Discover insights on entrepreneurship, wellness, and purposeful living from a founder who’s challenging the food industry to think bigger.

Transcript

Jillian (00:00)
All right. Hi, Matt.

Matt (00:01)
Now pretend that we're still just hanging out talking. Your recording's not happening. It'll be great.

Jillian (00:04)
That changes everything.

It changes everything.

Matt (00:10)
Right? Yeah. Cause you can,

you edit. You get to make this thing get rid of the, crap, I sucked there. And now, now we just have fun.

Jillian (00:19)
Well, I appreciate that and I appreciate you because honestly, your encouragement is a big reason why I started So thank you. Like, thank you for that. You know, we were having having coffee and reminiscing about Target days and what it takes to build brands nowadays at Target. And you really encouraged me to start getting getting my thoughts out there. So thank you.

Matt (00:28)
Of course. Yeah.

Absolutely. I'm excited to see where you take this because I, the idea of the new pantry, when I saw the name of the podcast and was like, that's brilliant. I wish I would have thought of that name. This is such a cool platform and can be such a powerful podcast as you build it up. So congrats. Good job getting going.

Jillian (00:59)
Thank you. Thank you. Much appreciated. So for our listeners, just tell us about yourself and also about Switchback Foods.

Matt (01:06)
Sure, I'm a Capricorn, I like long walks on the beach. I mean, I've been in food and in bed for almost 20 years now, so most of my time has been spent in big CPG, big retail. I was at Target, like you mentioned. ⁓ I ran the deli there for about five years. I was at Land O'Lakes and marketing, and so I have this big CPG traditional background. About two and a half years ago,

I was introduced to Oli who was the brains behind Switchback Foods. He found a way to freeze dry fruits and veggies and turn it into a instant 10 second shake and make smoothie. And the first time I saw it, like I've been on this big health and wellness journey and he handed it to me and being an ex-buyer and being in CPG forever, every founder's like, I got the next best thing, right?

And so when he's telling me this, I'm thinking, yeah, whatever. Like, okay, it's gonna be full of crap. Something in it is gonna be just not good. And I flipped it over and I looked at the ingredients and I was like, what's the catch, man? Like, it's just fruits and veggies. Like, where's all the crap that I was expecting to see? And he's like, yeah, it's fruit, it's what I told you it was. And that was kind of the start. tried it I was like, this is actually really delicious and it's super healthy.

⁓ And for me, this is exactly what I was looking for. And I was like, I wanna join. I wanna like help you grow this thing, which then morphed into me becoming a co-founder as well. And here we are two and a half years later, trying to grow this health and wellness food and beverage brand.

Jillian (02:29)
It's very, it's very, very cool. And so you went from that, at least at both lives, like you were a target buyer, now a target broker. And then you've also made this transition to be on the founder side as well too. And what made you have a light bulb moment that said, you know, I'm going to lean more into this building brands arena.

Matt (02:47)
I think, you so I am still, you just said it, ⁓ I'm a broker at Target, so I still help lots of brands call on Target, right? We represent hundreds of millions of dollars of product. And that's like a full, full, full, full-time thing, right? Why do I do this on the side? think over the last 20 years being in food and beverage, like I'm not here to talk bad about food and beverage, but there is an opportunity to make it better.

And there are so many really cool, fun brands coming out now that are trying to have an impact and make a difference. You have a brand, you're trying to grow better snacks for kids. It's amazing. That didn't exist 10 years ago, right? It was just big companies doing it. So I saw this as an opportunity to A, make people healthier and get a healthy, super exciting product out in front of people. And selfishly, my day job,

I'm helping brands and founders try to grow and try to sell into Target and manage these massive budgets. this is just a really good way for me to get truly hands-on experience in a different way. I relate to a founder way differently now being a co-founder than I could have ever done it. so I'm really passionate about getting better products out there, so that checks the box. I'm learning a ton, and I just really believe in what we're trying to do.

That's why I do it, guess, and why I try to juggle all these hats.

Jillian (04:05)
So when you started looking at switch back and just that name, it feels adventurous. It feels like full of motion. Was there a specific moment or story that inspired that name

Matt (04:17)
Yeah, think ⁓ so. The idea was switchback was that. first of all, Oli is a big hiker. He hikes a lot of mountains. And so when you're in the hiking world, you never go straight up, right? You always take these switchbacks. And so it's this slightly easier path to navigate, to get to where you're trying to go. So that was part of it was like, if you're trying to get healthy, you don't just like flip a switch and magically tomorrow you're doing everything right. Like.

You need to take a switch back. You need to take like guides that get you to what you're trying to achieve, right? If you want to lose 10 pounds, it doesn't happen in a week. It happens over months or years or whatever it is. So that's part of it. think the second thing is the idea of switchback is meant to be not the end all be all. It's like, Hey, I ate like crap today. It's okay. Switch back to switch back. Or, you know, I I'm off track. All right, we get we got it. Life is busy. Your parent, your

you're a kid, whoever's consuming it, stuff comes up, you get off track, great, switch back. Switch back to switch back. And so that's the whole idea behind the name and why we named it what it is.

Jillian (05:19)
That's very cool. And do you see it as a something that's on the go kind of in those in those use case?

Matt (05:25)
Oh, 100%.

Yeah, like I'm going to the Boundary Waters in a month and I'm bringing like 15 switchbacks with me. Because it's freeze-dried, you just add water, it's super simple. And so like we get a lot of people who will bring it when they travel, right? If you're going to go on an airplane, you're going to go to a trade show or conference or family vacation, right? I've done a couple cruises. Yeah, they have some fruit, but they don't have like really the fruits and veggies that I enjoy eating. So I bring switchback. I have it with me.

you bring to the gym. Like it's super simple to have it on the go. that is a big part of why we have it in the packaging the way it is. you know, like my preferred way, I just have it for breakfast. Wake up and have one in the house and I'm good to go. But it doesn't really matter. However it fits into your life, it's meant to be consumed where you need to consume it, you know?

Jillian (06:08)
And it is delicious. I had the opportunity to try it and it's really, really, really good.

Matt (06:11)
Thank you.

we had an Instagram comment or something the other day and it was, this is tasty, but it's greens. But greens are good. So it's tasty greens. Like, I like this, it's just more green than I thought. And I was like, well yeah, it's like three cups of spinach and kale. It's supposed to be a little green, but it should be, you know, balance it out with fruit, make it delicious.

Jillian (06:33)
It's surprising how delicious it tastes. it.

Matt (06:36)
it's,

you know, this industry, the whole health and wellness industry and greens potters in general, ⁓ it's always been like we drink it because we have to, you know, only is he's very outspoken, but I'm a little more. He's very outspoken. He calls all the other stuff, swamp water. He's like, I'm not making swamp water. I'm not making stuff that tastes like crap. I want something that tastes delicious. But you know, if you've ever had other greens potters before, that's the impression in your head when you hear, this is a greens potter. You're like, it's going to be not great. And then.

what always happens when we're demoing, they see the color, because it's green. The green drinks are green. Jungle Mango and Tropicor are very green, and then the Banana Berry Bite is more of like a brownish-reddish color because of the strawberries. But people look at it and they're like, that can't taste good. It's too dark. It's too green. There's no way. Just try it. Just try it. Just try it. And we give it to people. try it they're like, oh my god, that actually tastes really good. What the hell? I don't get it.

It's food, it's gotta taste good. We're in the food industry.

Jillian (07:30)
Number one thing, taste. It's gotta taste good. And so you decided to leave Target and go towards a new path, what did that feel like in real time when you decided to transition to the next phase of your career?

Matt (07:32)
Absolutely.

man, the Target transition. So this happened during COVID. We got sent home in March, everybody, all of Target did. And so I was in my basement office and I was just taking a new role ⁓ at Target. I was moving over to the dairy team to be in charge of sourcing. And it's just, everything was weird. I don't know if you remember that time or if you...

A lot of people black it out and don't think about it, but it was like, we don't know what the hell is gonna happen ever again. Like this is such a weird situation. It was very weird working for a large corporation that all of a sudden everything's on Zoom. just was like, and we Minneapolis had George Floyd and like there was so much going on where it was like, what the hell is happening anymore? I don't know if this is like, if ⁓ I need to pick a new future and this is no longer the thing corporate America and being in, you know.

an office building, like, what do I want to do? And so it was a lot of reflection and thinking like, maybe sales and maybe like building my own thing. It's the time to do it. Cause you know, I'd been in corporate America for 15 years at that point and traditional route, got an MBA and did all the things that you're supposed to do. ⁓ And then I was like, I kind of want to build my own thing. I kind of want to like go out and see what I can do with this experience. so.

Opportunity presented itself. We were at home. The world was changing. I was like, now's the time. Just jump and make the switch. And that was, that was, so that was 2020. And then, you know, I didn't join Switch back until 2023. So I had a couple of years of figuring it out in between there.

Jillian (09:11)
That makes sense and switchbacks tagline it's live loud and bite back. And so how does that philosophy, you know, show up those decisions that you were making and whether then or now like what does that tagline, you know, kind of mean to you?

Matt (09:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I think the live loud part is like most people don't. know, most people just kind of get stuck in a routine and they just keep doing the same crap. And then they're like, why am I bored or sad or lonely or whatever? Because you're not doing anything. Like you're stuck on screens or you're just writing and teach their own. It's just for us, it's like go out and live. I mentioned Oli loves to hike and he goes salmon fishing in Alaska. And like he's outdoors and adventurous. I run marathons and

play hockey and coach my kids sports. We're just live loud, be exciting, figure out what matters to you and go do it. The bite back part, I don't know, I think it's just the tiger. That part doesn't jive with me as much as the live loud part. It's like, you get one chance here, so go find what makes you happy and go do it. You don't have to be stuck in corporate America in an office building your whole life and then work when you get home and then wake up early and start work again.

This is a chance to have some fun and do some crazy things.

Jillian (10:20)
I love that. It definitely speaks to me. I appreciate that sentiment and life's too short. Life is too short and how do you make the time that you've got here and the things that you're passionate about and not only those hobbies, but you also mentioned your family and your friends and really enjoying that time together is so important. So important.

Matt (10:28)
It is.

It is.

Yeah, I was listening to a podcast yesterday and like, I don't know why this really sticks with me, but if you look at the history of the world, you know, they're talking about money and you do you need to make more money to be happy? And so the there is something like 113 billion people or something like that have been on this planet in the history of the world. And if you look at the history of the world right now, we are like the richest, the wealthiest, the healthiest, the most opportunity ever in the history of mankind.

Yet we're the saddest, most depressed, most out of shape, most neglecting our bodies. How does that even happen? And so live loud. We have the opportunities that have never been here ever in the history of our species. Go do something with that. Go have fun. You know what I mean? Would you rather live now or in the 1800s? I'd rather be here now. Go do something.

Jillian (11:32)
Yeah.

Why do you think that is? Why do you think there is this shift in terms the loneliness epidemic has continued to be more and more challenging and continuing to be on the rise. why do you think that is?

Matt (11:43)
Yeah.

I honestly, I think we are a very confused generation that just doesn't know what we want. We don't know what makes us happy. We don't know what we enjoy. We don't know what we want to do for work. We don't know what we should eat. We don't know how we should exercise. Like we don't know. We just keep looking at other people's lives and looking at other things and going, well, I could do that. What about that? Well, they do it this way. Instead of just going, like take, I do marathons.

Who cares? No one else has to. I just found it fun. I never was a runner before. Don't do, find your thing, you know? And like, I didn't know that until four years ago. oh my god, I love this now. And now it's like, cool. I don't care about, I used to try to do CrossFit and all. Nope, doesn't matter. For me, what makes me happy. And people need to do that work and really figure it out. The diet thing, like, I gotta do keto or whole foods or carnivore or low carb or what?

Why? Like what makes you happy? What do you enjoy eating? Don't force this crap onto you that you're never gonna stick to. Because then you just don't stick to it and then you feel like crap again. I think that's a big part of it and like we just don't, we don't do this. We don't talk to people as much as we used to. So I think it's just a little bit of soul searching is needed right now for everybody on what is happiness? Really? Like do you need those fancy things or that car or that house or the whatever it is?

Like, people are happy living in huts all over this world. Why aren't we? You know, because we don't look at it that way. We look at what we don't have instead of what we do have.

Jillian (13:05)
Right. ⁓

That's a good reminder to just figure out what is going to make you happy, you as an individual.

Matt (13:16)
Yeah.

I'm not an expert in this stuff. That's just what I've noticed the last, especially the last few years, just getting, you know, I'm in my 40s now. I've seen a little more. My kids are a little older. I just have a little more experience. I wouldn't have any of this 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I would have been like, well, I'm climbing the corporate ladder. I'm doing all the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now I'm like, well, is that really what I want? You know, I wish I would have 10 years ago sat down. So is that really what I want? Do I really want to do this? So.

Jillian (13:41)
Well, I love that I think you're brave to say like, I'm going to take my own path.

I think that comes with a lot of courage to be able to do that.

Matt (13:49)
and support for my wife. Yeah.

Jillian (13:50)
Right. Yes. Yes.

Absolutely. So you mentioned you're a marathon runner, right? You're kind of working on these multifacets of your career. What does your own kind of daily routine kind of look like these days?

Matt (14:06)
⁓ daily routine. I used to be really good at this until about six months ago. I mean, I, so I always try to get some sort of workout in and I don't, I'm not like, I used to get really focused on like, it's gotta be a workout, you know, and it's gotta like hit all these metrics. I just gotta get out and do something. So if that's like, I bring my kid to martial arts at five o'clock at night and I've got an hour while he's there and I'm gonna go walk for 45 minutes, I'm gonna go do that. I gotta do something.

I play hockey, I'm in a men's league, so I play a lot of hockey. I coach all my kid stuff, so I'm always on the ice with them and super active. ⁓ And as much as I can train to run, I try to run three to four times a week and lift weights a couple times a week. it's not, it used to be, like when I'm really, really training marathons, it's like structured. And I'm not like an amazing runner, right? Like I'm not like three hour Boston marathon. But still, like you gotta really regiment it out.

I've gotten a little lax the last few months on that part, but I mean, daily routine, it's sort of, now that I'm thinking through, I gotta get back to it. But the biggest thing for me is just eat well and move, somehow, some way. And if everybody just did that, that would be at least a great start.

Jillian (15:17)
Yeah, I love that. And just trying your best, right?

Matt (15:19)
got a little, you know, watch tracker thingy and like I try to get my heart rate, even if I'm just going for a walk, like get your heart rate up, get it up some somewhere. And then of course, you know, Ron and strength training and all the other stuff later, but.

I, I

for the most part do intermittent fasting. So that sort of like helps me stay on schedule a little bit. and it has made my mornings less foggy. ⁓ and then have a switch back, and get the nutrition going. But the movement part is the biggest one where it's like, I don't feel like working out or running at whatever time of the day. Well, I don't care how I feel anymore. Like go do it, put your shoes on. Last week I was so tired. It was like Saturday afternoon. I just was tired. I'm like, I need to run.

I gotta go get a training run. I don't want to, but I've never felt bad afterwards. You know what I mean? The hard part is just go do the dang thing. And afterwards, you're like, wow, I feel so much better. So get the right nutrition. This is all the stuff that we've been told forever. I don't know why we lost track of it, but the biggest thing for me is eat well, get sleep, get movement, and just start there.

And that's, like, if I'm at work and I'm just dragging, you know, I'll go out and we'll go walk around the building a few times. Come back, and I cool, I can go tackle that next project.

Jillian (16:30)
Just those simple kind of quick breaks and transitions to keep you moving, keep you resetting.

Matt (16:36)
Yeah,

I've tried, look, I've tried waking up early and meditating and doing all, I've tried, I have a sauna at home, I use that, like I've done cold plunges and you know, it's just for me, that stuff is too, it goes back to this extreme thing, it's just too much. I've got two kids, they're 11 and seven, my wife and I are super active with their lives and everything that's going on, like I'm probably making an excuse, I don't care, it's just I can't do the structured.

I wake up and I cold plunge and I sauna and I meditate and I journal and I do, like I find ways to do that throughout my day, but for me it's the movement part has to happen. I don't care where it is in my day necessarily. If it's 10 o'clock at night and I need to go get movement in, I'm gonna go do it.

Jillian (17:17)
Switchback just landed recently on Sprout's Shelf. congratulations. what's next?

Matt (17:22)
Thank

Well, mean, so the sprouts thing. So, I mean, we're health and wellness, right? And if someone's listened to this and they don't know sprouts or they don't, you know, you're not familiar with that grocery chain. They're, the largest, second largest, largest natural specialty health retailer in the country. They have 450 stores, primarily in the South, Southeast, Southwest. And they're like the hallmark for any brand that's on a mission to, to.

make health and wellness better. It's like Sprouts. I want to be in Sprouts someday. so, um, switch back. We're a year into an e-comm only for the most part. And we were invited to participate in Sprouts innovation set, which they bring new brands in, um, every couple months and they bring you in. And if you do good, maybe you get to go on and continue in the store. And, uh, you know, we did really well in the innovation set. Like we, it's a grind. We really, we demoed, we did all sorts of stuff. Oli was down in Arizona.

⁓ and you know, Abby, who does our social media, they were all over the place just trying to get the word out. so, you know, how do we celebrate it's, I don't even know what we did. Honestly, I think they jumped on a plane and went and demoed and met a bunch of people and maybe we did lunch or something, but, it's that getting in is just the start. And I always tell people in retail, it's like, you think laying in the account is the good thing. Well, that's, that's like,

That's like the batter's box. You haven't even really got to first yet. You've got so much work to do to make this thing successful. so we're going to continue pushing, and we're hoping to launch in another 250 stores here in the next couple months. And I don't know, maybe we'll celebrate at the end of the year. But for us, it's like, just get back. Keep going. Keep pushing. Keep running the business. You know what I mean?

Jillian (19:00)
Absolutely. I think that's often not talked about the velocity that you need, to continue to drive the business and to continue to get the purchases in store in order to keep that shelf space.

Matt (19:04)
yeah.

100

% like this is the part that people don't understand when they look at brands that are like, oh my god Look at I'm in 800 new stores or I'm in 10,000 locations like book great But are you turning are you selling a lot of product because you can go get store count pretty easily But you'll get kicked out really fast if your products aren't productive You know and this this kind of goes back to our conversation a few minutes ago on like what do you actually want? Like as a company you needed to find what do you actually want?

Right? Like, are you chasing someone else's dream? Are you looking at a brand that's 10 years in, that's in 20,000 stores, and you think that should be you, and you're in year one? You know what I mean? Like, you gotta have the right, you gotta understand what reality is for where you are. So for us, for Switchback, like, it's e-commerce and keep going on e-commerce, and then it sprouts. And let's do great there, and then hopefully Whole Foods. And let's do great there, and then hopefully Target or Costco, or who knows after that, but, you know, it's this.

stepped approach.

Jillian (20:11)
The word patience comes to mind and whether it be personal patience with yourself when you're training for a marathon or when you're a founder and you're starting a company.

Matt (20:21)
it persistent patience. You gotta keep doing it, but it's a great point. Let's use the marathon example again. If you wanna run a marathon and you've never really done it before, maybe you've ran a little bit, but you're not trained, you don't just go do a 15 mile run in day one. You know what I mean? That would kill you. It wouldn't kill you, but you'd probably get injured and then you'd probably be out for a while and it would suck and it would be miserable and you wouldn't wanna keep training. Same thing in business.

You want to be this overnight success doing massive volume, but you couldn't even handle it. Right? If Target came to Switchback right now and said, hey, we want you in 1800 stores, I'd be like, we can't do it. You'd bankrupt us. You'd kill us. It would be a bad choice. We wouldn't be able to execute how you need it to be executed. And too many people are like, well, yeah, let's do it. We'll figure it out. OK. Some do, but you're like the 0.01%.

Jillian (21:08)
Yeah, that's a good outlook to have. Going back to that velocity and continuing to support switchback, how can our listeners support switchback? Where can they find you? How can they follow along in your journey?

Matt (21:21)
man.

Switchbackfoods.com is that's the website we so we're e-commerce focused. Everything that we sell is on the website. We do have Amazon as well so you can get through Amazon but I guess either way is totally fine by us. ⁓ And then if you are in any Sprouts areas, Sprouts is the retailer that we've tried to partner with most and most likely we'll have Proct on the shelves. you know honestly like that I think the thing that we just love most

mean, buy our products, hopefully, yay, we would appreciate that. But also, take the message and do something with it. If you don't like our product, that's OK. But go get better. Go make yourself better. Go live loud. Go have fun. And join our socials. Engage. Be a part of the community of people that are trying to incrementally change things for the better. You know what I mean? That's as important as not everyone's going to like everything. Totally get it. It's fine.

But I think we should all try to support each other to get a little bit better, you know?

Jillian (22:15)
Is there anything that we didn't get a chance to talk about today that you want to share with our listeners?

Matt (22:15)
Yeah.

boy, I mean we could keep going for hours probably, I think. You know, like we're just on a mission here. I really encourage everyone. I don't want to be preachy, I don't want to tell anyone what to do, but I can just speak from my experience when I actually took control of my life and what I wanted to be and getting healthier. Like when I graduated college, I was like 215 pounds and like just eating and drinking and I didn't know any different. I didn't have anyone that was like, hey dude, like...

You know, figure it out. so I think just figuring out for yourselves and what you want, what you want to do, where you want to go. I just encourage everyone to do that. Just take an hour. Take a weekend. I don't know how you do it. just what makes you happy? What do you want? What are you trying to achieve? And just go do it. Start doing it. There you go. It sounded like a broken record, but that's just really kind of the mission we're on right now is help people get to where they're trying to go.

Jillian (23:10)
so well said. Thank you, Matt. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for the time. I really appreciate you

Matt (23:16)
Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I'm a huge fan of what you're doing and I'm a huge fan of your product. I know we didn't talk about it all, but you have such a cool thing too. And I'm excited to see where you take it as well and follow your journey. So we're definitely going to keep in touch and keep pushing.

Jillian (23:31)
Love it. Thanks, Matt. Take care.

Matt (23:33)
Of course. Take care.