“There’s no real method to our madness” is what Nick Saltarelli told me, co-founder of Mid-Day Squares, as we spoke about their brand.

If you live under a rock, Mid-Day Squares is a brand of refrigerated better-for-you snack bars, crushing it in North America and well on the way to their goal of $100m in revenue.

I had the opportunity to chat with Nick and Jake Karls, two of the brands co-founders, about the launch of their new product, their approach to brand and design and a whole bunch more.

This is going to be the best newsletter article you read this week for one very specific reason:

energy transfer.

It is impossible to talk to Jake or Nick and NOT get hyped up. Nick said there’s no method, but I can tell you: he’s wrong. It’s their energy.

Their business runs on a rare kind of momentum.
The kind you can’t fake, can’t hire and definitely can’t put in a spreadsheet.
It’s loud, relentless, a little chaotic and completely contagious.

In a world full of polished brands following the rules, Mid-Day Squares wins by feeling different. This article is for those who want to understand how.

LFG baby.

This edition of supergoods is proudly brought to you by Stickybeak 

I’m teaming up with the legends at Stickybeak to talk about my favourite topic: packaging effectiveness.

This is not a webinar you half-listen to in the background while demolishing an overpriced bánh mì and pretending it counts as a lunch break.

You’ll want to actually pay attention.

We’ll cover:

• Practical frameworks for effective packaging design

• How to think about distinctiveness (without the fluffy brand waffle)

• What to validate with consumers — and when it’s actually worth doing

Normally, I charge a lot of money for this.

But we’re doing something a bit silly and giving it all away for free.

Hit the link for dates and details.

The brand built on intuition

Before we jump into it, I wanna come back to that quote from Nick because there’s something that everyone building brands can learn from in it.

The idea that you can just sit down and build a brand is a fallacy. You can get all the right pieces together, but Nick believes Mid-Day Squares has been formed like clay, evolved and honed over time in a way that gradually starts to take shape.

I’m a staunch proponent of marketing science but I believe this to be true. It’s not so much that you need to build something that consumers fall in love with and tattoo on their heads, but that you need passionate people pushing the brand forward into the world.

Learning and adapting and using the brand as an expression of themselves and their vision. That’s exactly what Mid-Day Squares is, it’s Nick, Jake and Lezlie, kicking a dent into the world in their own way (with delicious snacks).

Two years in the making, a new category created by Mid-Day Squares: No Bread PB&J.

We kicked off our chat by jumping into where they are right now. It was 36 hours into the launch of their new product - a “No Bread PB&J” that took two years in R&D to get right and come to market.

Jake shared a little about how the launch has been going so far. It was still rolling out into Target stores, but it’s already flying off the shelves where it’s available. 

In true Mid-Day Squares fashion, they have an organic, somewhat scrappy approach to launching the new line. The launch video is a simple, shot on a phone style clip that showcases the product BENEFIT in all it’s beauty with utmost simplicity.

Jake elaborates on why he think it works.

We spoke about the idea of viral hits and overnight successes. They just don’t happen. The only reason this one video hit so quickly is because they’ve put in the reps and they’ve been damn patient.

And that’s exactly why they are so confident about this launch. Because it took them such a long time to get the product right. We spoke about the strategy behind the innovation development.

The reality of grocery and the fundamentals

Here’s the thing that most people miss about Mid-Day Squares. Their story isn’t “they’re loud and built a community”, loads of brands try that. The story is that they’ve had to learn - publicly and in real time - how to turn pure energy into something that actually performs in grocery.

Nick expressed that they were getting their ass kicked by brands that had the fundamentals nailed. And it wasn’t until they really honed their focus onto the 4 P’s (price, product, placement, promotion) that they started to make headway in grocery.

So how do you respect the fundamentals without “selling out”?

This raw experience and pure insight is what every person reading Supergoods understands and the heart of what we love most about CPG. There are always tweaks, adjustments and shifts you can make that help you win bigger and better. It’s a game that’s never won, a hill you just keep climbing. But that endless battle is half the joy.

Harnessing core range momentum into category expansion

This PB&J isn’t just significant ‘cause it took a while to come to life. It’s meaningful because it’s the moment where the Mid-Day Squares brand is stepping out of their core range and unlocking incrementality in the fridge.

Refrigerated snacks are booming in North America right now, but adding another chocolate bar to their range is just going to cannabalize their sales.

This launch is an evolution of Mid-Day Squares into a multi-category brand.

They aren’t just going after the same shopper, but they have their eyes set on the freezer aisle where PB&J sandwiches are booming too. Smuckers have built a $1 billion brand in sandwiches but no one has nailed a fridge fresh product that hits the same consumption occasion.

Eyes locked on the prize: long term thinking

The final thing that stayed with me after the conversation wasn’t PB&J, packaging or even category strategy. It was time horizon.

Jake spoke about growth in decades, not quarters - a mindset that’s increasingly rare in a world obsessed with speed, virality, and instant feedback loops. The truth is, most brands don’t fail because the idea was bad. They fail because the founders run out of patience before anything has time to compound.

Mid-Day Squares feels different because they’ve paired energy with endurance. Intuition with fundamentals. Creativity with restraint. Seven years of showing up, learning publicly, and refining the craft.

That’s the real method behind the madness.

And it’s the part most brands never stick around long enough to earn.