About this episode

Krishna Kaliannan discusses the journey of building Catalina Crunch, a high-protein, low-sugar cereal brand, and the challenges of DTC in the food industry.

This episode is brought to you by The Hidden Gems. Hiring agencies is risky. Most overpromise and underdeliver. The Hidden Gems connects founders with highly vetted, brand-loved boutique agencies across media, creative, dev/design, events, and more — at preferred rates. Free for Consumer VC listeners → https://thehiddengems.com/ Building a food brand through DTC sounds great. Until you realize… it might not actually work. In this episode, Mike sits down with Krishna Kalyan , Founder of Catalina Crunch , the high-protein, low-sugar cereal brand that went from a personal health experiment to a multi-million dollar business sold in major retailers. Krishna shares how being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes forced him to rethink everything he ate, why he spent years eating eggs before creating his own cereal, and how a simple Venmo from a friend turned into the start of a company. They break down the realities of building a food brand from scratch, why DTC doesn’t always work for low-price products, and how Catalina Crunch scaled through retail instead. The conversation also dives deep into product development, functional foods, category expansion, and the balance between taste and…

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