Hardware Podcasts

How "Taste to Retain" Built a Billion-Dollar Supplement Brand

The Startup CPG Podcast · 26 Sept 2026 · 41m · Episode 374

What this episode covers

Hye Rin (Juliet) Choi, VP of Product at Grüns, explains how the company scaled to a billion-dollar acquisition by Unilever through its 'taste to retain' philosophy and rigorous internal R&D. She details the multi-stage testing process, including third-party lab validation with Eurofins, and the decision to bring science, regulatory, and formulation functions in-house to accelerate innovation and ensure quality. Choi highlights that complex gummy formulations often require 30 to 40 iterations to balance taste, texture, and technical feasibility, while emphasizing the critical importance of documentation and version control for scaling operations.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Grüns, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson
Products
Neutrogena, Tylenol, Nootropics, Simune, Juice
Also
Eurofins, Stanford

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