Jason Burke is the Founder and CEO at New Primal, a clean-label meat snack brand making better-for-you jerky, meat sticks, and kid-friendly protein snacks. He launched the brand in 2012 after a homemade jerky recipe caught on with coworkers and has since built New Primal into a national CPG brand. In his role, Jason leads the company’s growth strategy, product innovation, and retail expansion, helping push the meat snack category beyond traditional jerky into poultry-forward, lunchbox-friendly options. 

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [3:23] Jason Burke’s early experiences and the entrepreneurial drive that shaped his career
• [4:55] How personal family health challenges influenced Jason’s interest in better-for-you food
• [6:30] The unexpected beginnings of New Primal as a homemade snack shared with coworkers
• [8:42] Why the meat snack category was ready for a cleaner, more modern alternative
• [12:30] What inspired New Primal’s focus on families, kids, and lunchbox-friendly options
• [15:22] How familiar flavors helped introduce consumers to new protein snack choices
• [18:49] Jason discusses the lessons, relationships, and persistence behind long-term brand growth
• [38:57] Jason’s practical advice for emerging CPG brands navigating awareness, retail, and scale
• [44:35] What keeps Jason energized as he continues building the brand and changing his family tree

In this episode…

Some categories seem fixed until a founder looks closely at what consumers are avoiding, compromising on, or never invited into in the first place. In better-for-you CPG, growth often comes from making the familiar feel easier, cleaner, and more relevant to everyday routines. So how do you take a dated category and turn it into something families, retailers, and new consumers can actually get behind?

As a CPG founder with expertise in clean-label meat snacks, Jason Burke answers that by focusing on access, familiarity, and long-term discipline. Rather than simply creating a better version of jerky, he saw an opportunity to rethink price point, format, flavor, audience, and usage occasion, moving from premium jerky into meat sticks that could work for lunchboxes, parents, and variety-seeking snackers. Jason emphasizes the importance of staying close to consumers, building strong retail relationships, using familiar flavors to reduce trial friction, and knowing when to narrow focus instead of chasing every adjacent opportunity. His approach shows that category disruption is less about one big breakthrough and more about consistent, intentional decisions that compound over time.

In this episode of the Brand Alchemist Podcast, Taja Dockendorf chats with Jason Burke, Founder and CEO of New Primal, about building a cleaner meat snack brand and reshaping a legacy category. Jason shares why focus matters, how familiar flavors drive trial, and what it takes to grow through retail. He also touches on packaging, expansion, founder resilience, and future innovations.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Taja Dockendorf on LinkedIn
• Pulp+Wire: Website | Email
• Jason Burke: Website | LinkedIn 
• New Primal 
• Natural Products Expo West 

Quotable Moments:

• “You know, I never thought I would be in food or consumer products or any of those things.”
• “It wasn’t like I woke up one day and said this is what I want to be when I grow up.”
• “Grass-fed beef quickly became table stakes in the category.”
• “The belief was just so strong, even when there were headwinds, and there were always headwinds.”
• “I think survival is a skill in startup CPG.”

Action Steps:

1. Focus before expanding: Narrowing in on the strongest product, audience, and retail strategy helps brands build traction before chasing too many adjacent opportunities.
2. Make trials feel familiar: Using recognizable flavors, formats, and use cases helps reduce consumer hesitation and makes new products easier to understand.
3. Build retail relationships with intention: Investing in core retail partners helps brands create stability, test products, and deepen distribution over time.
4. Stay close to the consumer: Listening to how people actually shop, snack, and use the product helps brands make smarter decisions around packaging, positioning, and innovation.
5. Keep moving before everything is perfect: Launching, learning, and refining along the way helps teams avoid overthinking and build momentum.