How Barry Turner built Lenny & Larry's into a protein snack brand

Executive overview

Two former bodybuilders with no business experience turned a lunch-table observation — why can't we put protein in a muffin? — into one of the first protein-fortified food brands in America. Barry Turner and Benny Graham started in 1993, selling hand-crimped muffins to LA coffee shops for $13.20 on their first invoice. A sale he regretted almost immediately, six years of grinding on private label work, and a second chance in 2007 led to the cookie that took revenue from $11M to $94M in two years.

The core insight: most consumers won't make an extreme health choice — but they will make a slightly better bad one.

From injury to idea

• Barry Turner's career path: amateur baseball, pro wrestling training, bit-part actor (The Bodyguard, Death Becomes Her), then cast as "Cyclone" on American Gladiators
• Eight episodes in, a complete bicep detachment ended his Gladiators career; he describes it as the most depressed he had ever been
• Benny Graham, his training partner, tore his shoulder on a rival show at the same time
• The business idea came at a cafe in Marina Del Rey: eating chicken breasts and egg whites, Barry pointed at a muffin and asked why they couldn't put the protein in there
• They opened a bank account with $1,400, registered a DBA, and named the brand Lenny & Larry's — all on the same day as the idea

Building the muffin business (1993–2001)

• First attempt: dumped whey protein into store-bought muffin mix; the muffins baked but were hard as rock
• Found Montana Bakery in Santa Monica to develop formulations; switched to fruit juice concentrate instead of refined sugar from the start
• Launched three flavors (apple cinnamon, blueberry, lemon raspberry), ~15g protein per muffin, hand-crimped and stickered by hand
• First account: the cafe where the idea was born; first invoice $13.20; early accounts included Rainbow Acres, Gold's Gym Venice, Mrs. Gooch's (later acquired by Whole Foods)
• Deliveries at 3–4am to be back at the gym for personal training clients by 7am
• First-year revenue: roughly $10,000–$15,000
• Retired baker Len Hoffman joined and reframed product development: "Stop calling these recipes — these are formulas"
• Won a private label contract with Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (100+ locations); scones for them became their number-one selling product; expanded to cheesecakes, bundt cakes, then high-protein cinnamon rolls
• Private label revenue reached ~$400,000–$500,000/year; Lenny & Larry's brand remained unknown outside LA

The first sale and six years away (2001–2007)

• Benny nearly died from a surgical complication, moved back to Georgia; the bicoastal arrangement meant Barry was doing 99% of the work for 50% of the income
• Sold Lenny & Larry's in 2001 to two local buyers for $480,000; regretted it almost immediately
• Diagnosis on why the first era failed: too many products, no hero product, majority of revenue from one client (Coffee Bean), no national brand recognition
• Spent the intervening years in real estate (got out before the bust) and as president of Awareness Technologies, a computer monitoring software company — where he learned direct-to-consumer digital marketing
• In 2007, the buyer called: business was about to be shut down; Barry bought back 50% cheaply and returned as co-owner

Rebuilding as a national brand (2007–2016)

• Returned with one goal: build the brand, not just the revenue
• First product relaunch: a high-protein brownie — no one had done a protein brownie; walked into Whole Foods Sherman Oaks cold, ran into a former buyer, got listed on the spot
• Followed by GNC and Vitamin Shop listings
• The cookie was already being sold locally with a clear wrapper and a two-week shelf life; Vitamin Shop said they'd take it if the shelf life could be extended
• Redesigned the film packaging to block light and oxygen; shelf life jumped to ~15 months
• Cookie specs: ~400 calories, 16g protein, 10g fiber, 26g sugar — a full cookie, not a protein bar in disguise
• Target customer was never the bodybuilder: "better bad" — a construction worker or college student choosing this over a Little Debbie
• Retail price $1.99–$2.49; cost to manufacture ~40 cents; never raised outside capital, never carried debt
• 2014 revenue: $11M, almost entirely from the cookie
• 2015: an attorney at a trade show told him to stop playing around and double revenue; went from $11M to $27M in one year by opening and properly servicing accounts
• 2016: $94M in revenue; still ~7 employees at the time of the $27M year

Crisis management

• A meal moth infestation traced to one manufacturer and one flavor threatened the brand on social media; Barry posted his personal phone number publicly and pulled all affected product; isolated quickly because the source was identifiable
• Never worried about competitors: "If I'm worrying about what someone else is doing, I'm not worrying about what I'm doing"

The second sale (2016) and aftermath

• 28 parties expressed interest; accepted an offer from Lion Capital — 75% of the business sold, company valued at $250M at the time
• Kept a board seat and minority stake; replaced as CEO immediately
• Describes it as the second worst day of his life (after the Gladiators injury ended his career)
• Main grievance: new owners grew headcount from 17 to 59 within six months without tripling the business; revenue grew only ~6–8% per year under their ownership
• Framing: "I handed them a Ferrari and they turned it into a Ford Taurus"
• Lesson he offers: once you sell, don't expect a second bite at the apple — his attorney told him this at the time