The Retention Flywheel That Drove 80% Growth and a $150M Revenue Run Rate

About this episode

Little Spoon turned a century-old category on its head by betting on fresh, refrigerated baby food when shelf-stable jars had dominated for decades—reaching a $300 million valuation and profitability in just seven years. The co-founders identified a glaring disconnect: parents could order fresh food for their pets but not their infants, and they positioned the brand at the intersection of two explosive growth trends: organic baby food and direct-to-consumer food delivery.​​

Instead of fighting for grocery shelf space, Ben Lewis and Angela Vranich built the entire business direct-to-consumer first, shipping personalized meal plans on subscription and conducting over 20 customer calls weekly to iterate products in weeks rather than years. This DTC-first approach unlocked four compounding advantages: direct customer data for rapid iteration, better unit economics that allowed premium ingredients at under $5 per meal, deep personalization that created switching costs, and supply chain control optimized for freshness over shelf stability using HPP technology.​

The operational grind became the moat:

• Built cold-chain fulfillment infrastructure across three centers for 1-2 day delivery nationwide when no co-packer would manufacture fresh baby food​
• Adopted EU-aligned safety standards testing every batch for 500+ contaminants, then published all results publicly with an AI chatbot for parent questions​
• Created a product portfolio spanning ages 0-10 with 120+ products, expanding customer lifetime value without additional acquisition cost​
• Achieved 79% compound annual growth rate over five years selling 80+ million meals entirely online before entering retail​
• Launched in 1,800 Target stores in September 2025 as the retailer's largest food and beverage launch ever, only after proving the model for eight years​

Little Spoon didn't just make better baby food—they designed for customer lifetime value expansion and turned operational complexity into competitive advantage. By investing years in manufacturing relationships, cold-chain logistics, and radical transparency around safety testing, they built barriers to entry that justified premium pricing and made the brand defensible when competitors inevitably followed.​

The brand reached profitability in 2024 and is on track to exceed $150 million in revenue for 2025, proving that premium DTC food brands can scale profitably when you master one channel deeply before expanding. For operators building in trust-sensitive categories: the boring operational work everyone else avoids becomes your sustainable moat.​