SkinnyDipped: how a mother-daughter team built a $100M snack brand

Executive overview

Val and Breezy Griffith spotted a gap in 2013: chocolate-covered almonds were sugar-heavy and low-quality. They set out to make a thin-coated, less-sweet version using real ingredients and proper culinary technique.

What started as a home kitchen experiment became a brand in 25,000+ retail doors — but nearly collapsed in 2022 when gross margins in the teens made profitability impossible and funding dried up.

Obsessing over product quality while ignoring unit economics nearly killed a fast-growing, beloved brand.

Origins and early experiments

• Breezy had run micro food businesses in Miami and New York — sorbet, sandwiches, cupcakes — all unprofitable, all teaching her how food businesses actually work.
• The chocolate almond idea emerged on a road trip to drop a younger sister at university; the concept: a thin chocolate coat on a well-roasted almond, minimally sweet, snackable.
• Existing bulk-bin chocolate almonds were "bowling balls of chocolate" with little nut flavour; a local Seattle chocolatier showed what a thin-coated almond could taste like.
• They chose to reduce sugar rather than swap to alternatives like stevia — less of the real thing, done well.
• Early manufacturing attempts: hand-dipping on forks, a paint sprayer filled with chocolate (failed completely), and four days on an enrober line in Oregon yielding one cooler of product.

Finding a manufacturer and commercialising the recipe

• Breezy found a Seattle-area chocolatier on an esoteric chocolate blog, reverse-searched his username to get his phone number, and cold-called him.
• He operated out of a converted chicken coop: no heat, no hot water, one pan (like a cement mixer), one oven bought off eBay, dishes washed outside with a hose.
• The critical piece of equipment: a coating pan that tumbles nuts while chocolate is added in layers — the technique that makes a thin, even coat possible.
• Starting capital: roughly $25,000 in personal savings.
• Three initial flavours: dark chocolate with cocoa dust, raspberry (freeze-dried raspberry powder), and espresso.

Building the brand and early sales

• Initial packaging: clear baggies labelled "Skinny Nuts" handed to friends, family, and anyone who would take one.
• The four founders — Breezy, Val, childhood friend Lizzie, and New York friend Chrissy — demoed five to seven nights a week, selling 40–50 bags per session.
• Chrissy cold-called Whole Foods buyers by showing up and waiting; she also walked into Google's Seattle campus cafeteria and convinced the chef to stock the product.
• Packaging runs happened overnight at a co-packer in Spokane; they drove progressively larger vehicles — car, Sprinter van, 25-foot box truck — as volume grew.
• Inventory was stored in home garages and basements in Seattle's cool climate.
• Investor Rohan Oza (Vitamin Water, Popchips) was met by chance in a New York bar; he sampled a half-melted bag and became an early backer.
• Bill Nye invested in the seed round against his financial advisor's advice.
• Oza's early framework: success comes down to product, people, and package — the first two were there, so they focused on the third.

The Target launch and near-disaster

• A broker introduced them to a Target buyer; expecting a 100–200 store test, they were offered a chain-wide launch across 1,800 stores in three months.
• They had no co-manufacturer, no distributor, and were still producing in the coop.
• To secure an end cap (critical for visibility at launch), they offered Target a peanut butter almond exclusive — a flavour they had just developed.
• Three days before production was due to begin, 40,000 pounds of almonds were found to be rancid.
• Breezy flew back from Denver mid-trip; Val sat in a dark conference room having bitten hundreds of nuts in half to confirm the problem.
• After exhausting normal supplier options, a contact in the nut industry pulled in a favour and delivered a truckload just in time.
• The Target launch worked; it became the proof-of-concept needed to approach larger retailers like Kroger.

Growth and the financial crisis

• By the early 2020s, the brand was in 20,000+ retail doors and had been ranked 32nd on the Inc 5000 fastest-growing companies list (6,000% revenue growth).
• Gross margins were in the teens — unsustainable, but never scrutinised because no one was asking about profitability during the growth-at-all-costs funding era.
• Finance was handled on sticky notes; founders didn't know what COGS or gross margin meant in the early years.
• In 2022, fundraising froze across the market; investors told them a business with teens-level gross margins could never be profitable.
• Breezy broke down in a hotel room in New York, unable to raise money; her husband flew out to support her.
• The leadership team — including president Mark Mortimer — deferred salaries to make payroll for the rest of the company. Mortimer also made a personal investment to help cover payroll.

The turnaround

• Cut every cost that wouldn't risk losing an account: trade spend, marketing, anything discretionary.
• Reformulated chocolates, peanut butter cup fillings, and other inputs without compromising taste.
• Moved from international to domestic ingredient suppliers where possible.
• Consolidated warehousing to more cost-efficient locations; shifted retailers from delivered to FOB terms.
• Protected the core team throughout — keeping people intact was treated as the non-negotiable.
• Raised a round in September 2023 from 65 individual celebrity investors, assembled one at a time through David Grutman (Miami hospitality entrepreneur and long-time friend of Breezy's).
• Reached profitability in 2024 — roughly a decade after founding.

Lessons and perspective

• Breezy's early failed micro-businesses (sorbet, sandwiches, cupcakes) were described in retrospect as "cultivating a skill set by failing."
• The mother-daughter dynamic: Val brought long-term consumer trend instinct and a whole-foods cooking philosophy; Breezy brought energy and execution drive.
• Val was in her early 50s when the business started and her mid-60s when it crossed $100M in annual sales.
• On luck vs. work: Breezy attributed 98% to hard work and 2% to luck, with serendipitous moments along the way (the chance meeting with Oza, the chocolatier found on a blog).
• The co-founder dynamic — four women, all close personally — was cited as a key resilience factor: when some were down, others stood up.