The "real food" movement just cleared another retail gate. Ancient Crunch — the parent company of MASA tortilla chips and Vandy kettle-style potato chips — is going nationwide in Whole Foods Market this August, and it's staffing up with two veteran CPG operators to keep pace with the demand.
For operators and buyers tracking the better-for-you snack surge, this is a case study in how a direct-to-consumer darling makes the jump to national grocery shelves. The move follows what the company calls a "highly successful" test launch in 93 Whole Foods locations earlier this year — a proof-of-concept that has now converted into full chainwide distribution.
The Whole Foods Rollout: What's on Shelf
The nationwide Whole Foods assortment centers on Ancient Crunch's core lineup across both brands:
- MASA Original
- MASA Lime
- Vandy Original
- Vandy French Onion
The differentiator is the fat. MASA is a traditional tortilla chip made from organic, nixtamalized corn and cooked exclusively in 100% grass-fed and finished beef tallow — no seed oils. Vandy applies the same philosophy to kettle-style potato chips: grass-fed beef tallow, simple seasonings, and no industrial oils, fillers, or artificial additives.
With this rollout, Ancient Crunch products are now stocked in more than 3,000 retail locations across the U.S., including Target, Sprouts, Erewhon, Bristol Farms, Citarella, Pavilions, The Fresh Market, Butterfields, Happier Grocery, SunLife Organics, Nude Miami, Meadow Lane, and Amazon.
Two Hires Built for the Omnichannel Push
To support the next phase of growth, the company appointed Al Matulis as Head of Retail and Greg Reintjes Jr. as Chief Marketing Officer.
Matulis brings more than two decades scaling consumer brands across the natural, mass, e-commerce, and club channels. He has held leadership roles at Fortune 100 companies including Kimberly-Clark and Kellogg's, plus high-growth brands like Kernel Season's and Quinn Snacks. He holds a background in biomedical engineering and an MBA in finance.
"I am excited by the opportunity to help lead Ancient Crunch's evolution from a DTC-driven business to an omnichannel focused house of beloved BFY brands," said Matulis. "We're building a best-in-class retail organization to support the incredible momentum we're seeing and continue bringing Ancient Crunch to more consumers nationwide."
Reintjes will lead growth strategy and marketing across the portfolio. Most recently he served as SVP and Head of Marketing at LALO Spirits, helping build the marketing organization behind the brand's rapid growth and eventual acquisition by Tito's Handmade Vodka. Before LALO, he held brand management and commercial strategy roles at Beam Suntory, and earned his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
"Seth and Steven have identified the most important shift within CPG in the U.S. Consumers are demanding high quality food made from natural ingredients," said Reintjes. "I am honored to build the brands that meet that demand."
Co-founders Seth Goldstein and Steven Rofrano framed the hires as a bet on experienced leadership to match momentum.
"We've always believed there was a massive opportunity to bring real-food snacks back to grocery shelves," said Goldstein and Rofrano. "As we continue scaling nationally, we're investing in world-class leadership that shares our vision and has the experience to help us build the next generation of better-for-you brands. Expanding nationwide at Whole Foods Market is an exciting milestone, and we're just getting started."
Why It Matters
Two signals here are worth flagging for anyone in food and beverage procurement, category management, or brand building.
First, the seed-oil-free narrative is now a shelf strategy, not just a talking point. Consumer scrutiny of industrial seed oils and demand for traditionally made, clean-label snacks has moved from niche wellness circles into mainstream grocery. A tallow-cooked chip line earning nationwide Whole Foods placement tells buyers this is a category worth stocking and testing in their own sets — the "made the way they used to be" positioning is resonating at scale.
Second, the hires are a template for the DTC-to-omnichannel leap. Ancient Crunch is pairing a retail leader with deep natural, mass, and club experience with a marketing leader who scaled a brand to acquisition. For emerging brands, the takeaway is concrete: winning a chainwide rollout is an operations problem as much as a demand problem. Distribution across 3,000+ doors requires the trade, supply, and brand infrastructure to back it up — and that's exactly what these appointments are meant to build.
For retailers and foodservice operators, the practical move is to watch how the tallow-cooked, no-seed-oil segment performs at Whole Foods. Strong velocity there is often a leading indicator for what mainstream grocery and menu development will chase next.
Where do you land on the seed-oil-free snack wave — real staying power, or a passing wellness moment? Weigh in below, and explore more of our coverage on better-for-you product trends and clean-label brands scaling through premium grocery.
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 founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
