In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Caitlin Bricker sits down with Sean Knecht, co-founder of Tantos—the first and only puffed pasta chip. Tantos is built on a simple but revolutionary idea: a snack whose base ingredient is wheat and water, the true definition of pasta, bringing a brand new category to the salty snack aisle alongside business partner and celebrity chef Joe Sasto.
Sean shares how a pasta lesson, a birthday gift, and a pop-up dinner led to a bromance-turned-business partnership, what it's really like to appear on Shark Tank not once but twice, and the reality of the Shark Tank effect—including the cash flow hit nobody talks about. He also walks through his strategy for convincing Whole Foods that the snack aisle is overloaded with tortilla chips and desperately needs something new.
Together, they cover:
- How a DM about flour-to-egg ratios started a business partnership with celebrity chef Joe Sasto
- What "first and only" really means—and why Sean wouldn't have launched Tantos without it
- Appearing on Shark Tank twice: what changed, what didn't, and how to actually prepare
- The real Shark Tank effect: 3,000 orders in three days, a 3x sales floor increase, and the cash flow hit nobody warns you about
- Why Amazon held their money for over a month after the episode aired
- How their co-packer became their lead investor—and why that's an underrated startup strategy
- The Whole Foods pitch: how Sean counted every SKU in the snack aisle and used the data to make his case
- What it's like building a brand alongside a celebrity chef and reluctantly getting in front of the camera
Tantos is available online at eattontos.com and on Amazon, with national retail ambitions and a Whole Foods conversation in progress. If you've ever wanted to bring something truly new to the snack aisle, this episode is for you.
Episode Links:
- Sean Knecht on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-knecht-a1398b11/
- Tantos on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eattantos/
- Tantos Website: https://www.eattantos.com
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Show Links:
- Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)
- Join the Startup CPG Slack community (35K+ members and growing!)
- Follow @startupcpg
- Visit host Caitlin's Linkedin
- Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.com
- Episode music by Super Fantastics
