Juan Nino - Building a 5,000+ Door Brand with 15 Family Members

On this episode, we’re joined by Juan Niño, the Director of Marketing at Artisan Tropic, a family-owned, better-for-you snack brand rooted in Colombian heritage and powered by plantains, cassava, and regenerative agriculture.

Juan’s journey is anything but typical. After a career as a professional fútbol player in Colombia, he found himself helping his aunt and uncle fulfill e-commerce orders for a small snack startup. That startup is now Artisan Tropic, a national brand found in Whole Foods, Sprouts, H-E-B, and Costco, and Juan is at the heart of its marketing, storytelling, and operational strategy.

We dive deep on Artisan Tropic’s founding story, how the family transitioned from distributing Takis to launching their own clean-label snack brand, and what it really takes to build and scale a vertically integrated CPG business that owns its own farms, believes in regenerative agriculture, and still manages to thrive in mainstream retail.

Juan also shares real-world lessons on family business dynamics, packaging refreshes, Costco launch strategy, and how to market plantains and cassava to an American audience.

Episode Highlights:
🌱 From family health crisis to mission-driven CPG brand
🇨🇴 Why Artisan Tropic built their supply chain in Colombia
📦 What they learned from doing their packaging redesign in-house
📊 How they balance storytelling with paid shopper marketing
🛒 Lessons from landing in 5,000+ doors, including Costco and Thrive
🔁 The long game of regenerative agriculture and vertical integration
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Why working with 15+ family members actually works for them
🧪 How third-party certifications (like seed oil free) shape consumer trust
💰 When and why to go all-in on retail-specific formats, media, and SKUs

⏱️ Table of Contents:
00:00 – Intro & Juan’s Fútbol-to-CPG Origin Story
04:00 – From Takis Distributors to Better-For-You Founders
07:30 – Building a Brand With 15 Family Members
12:00 – Bringing Plantains & Cassava to U.S. Retail
14:00 – Regenerative Ag, Vertical Integration & Soil Health
19:00 – Marketing That Educates (and Converts)
22:00 – Cracking Costco 
26:00 – Retail Sales Tactics
30:00 – Packaging Lessons & Brand vs. Product Hierarchy
34:00 – Hiring for Integrity and Learning By Doing

Links:
📦 Artisan Tropic – https://www.artisantropic.com
📸 Follow Artisan Tropic on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/artisantropic
📬 Contact Juan – [e-mail]
🔗 Follow Juan on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-nino-7a47ba304/

🎧 Follow Adam on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg
📐 Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support.