Low and Slow Snacks: From Backyard Smoker to Costco Shelves

Jared Drinkwater smoked a bag of corn chips in his backyard smoker, doused them in BBQ rub, and watched his family finish them in 30 seconds. That moment became Low and Slow Snacks — now generating mid-six-figures per month in revenue and selling in Costco and thousands of stores across 15+ states.

The Founding Insight

Drinkwater came to the snack business with category-level knowledge most founders don’t have: he was a Frito-Lay executive before co-founding Low and Slow Snacks in 2019. That insider position clarified something the major chip manufacturers had consistently avoided — authentic smoke flavor. Most “BBQ” chips use liquid smoke flavor additives applied at the seasoning stage. Frito-Lay included. Drinkwater’s product uses real hickory wood combustion in a proprietary process, making Low and Slow what the company claims is the first-ever line of authentically smoked chips.

The manufacturing decision followed from that insight, and it was counterintuitive: rather than using a standard co-packer, Drinkwater built his own factory. Co-packers would have imposed process constraints that eliminated the real-smoke differentiator. Owning the production line was the only way to protect the product.

The Distribution Playbook

The initial launch targeted Texas — HEB and Albertsons stores in a small geographic footprint. This wasn’t arbitrary. Texas has the densest concentration of BBQ-literate consumers in the country, which meant early adopters were likely to understand and value real smoke. Regional prove-out before national expansion is conventional consumer goods wisdom, but Drinkwater applied it with unusual precision.

The Costco strategy is the most instructive chapter. Rather than pursuing a standard wholesale listing, Low and Slow Snacks used Costco Roadshows — temporary in-store demonstrations that Costco uses to test new vendors — as a velocity proof mechanism. Roadshows generate observable sales-per-unit data at Costco’s scale, which Costco’s buyers use to make permanent listing decisions. Getting a roadshow slot is itself a competitive achievement; converting one into a permanent listing requires demonstrating that the product moves at Costco’s required velocity threshold.

Low and Slow passed. It now holds distribution in thousands of stores and a Costco presence that represents both a revenue channel and a validation signal for future retail buyers.

What This Model Looks Like From Outside

The Low and Slow playbook is a version of a distribution thesis that works reliably in physical consumer goods: enter where category knowledge is highest, build with insider manufacturing understanding of what incumbents can’t or won’t do, and use high-visibility velocity events (Roadshows, farmers markets, category-specific trade shows) as proof points rather than traditional sell-in. The mid-six-figures monthly revenue figure, taken at face value, suggests a product that has cleared the hardest threshold in CPG: achieving the velocity that earns permanent retail shelf space.

For entrepreneurs evaluating food and beverage opportunities, the founding insight here is replicable: find the product the category leader is structurally prevented from making and build it with the manufacturing process that makes it real.

Content created with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy.