New Primal - Revenue Is Vanity: The Hard Truth About Scaling CPG

Strategic focus and operational discipline drive sustainable growth in consumer brands, often requiring the difficult decision to prune successful but distracting product lines. Jason Burke, founder of New Primal, demonstrates this by removing $15 million in revenue to eliminate complexity, improve margins, and reallocate management bandwidth toward core protein snacking. Growth is an output rather than a strategy; therefore, businesses must prioritize high-velocity, margin-accretive products over chasing every retail opportunity. By shifting focus to lunchbox-friendly chicken snacks, the company successfully captured an incremental market segment without diluting its core identity. Retail distribution provides a starting point, but brands must own the 360-degree execution to convert shelf space into consistent consumer demand. Ultimately, long-term enterprise value depends on discerning which opportunities deserve limited resources rather than simply pursuing expansion for the sake of top-line revenue.