Transforming Sweet Treats using Clean Ingredients with Kevin McCarthy, CEO of Unreal
In this episode of The Room Podcast, we sit down with Kevin McCarthy, the CEO of Unreal, a company dedicated to creating healthier alternatives to classic candy. Unreal is known for creating delicious, better-for-you snacks that ditch artificial ingredients, offering cleaner, more natural options in the world of sweets. This conversation is perfect for our fans who love to explore the intersection of entrepreneurship and health-conscious innovation, bringing forward a refreshing approach to an industry ripe for disruption. Kevin shares his journey to becoming CEO at just 24 years old, the pivotal changes Unreal made to become a leader in the health-conscious snack market, and how leadership lessons from his political campaign days shaped his approach to business.
Key topics in this episode include: the challenges of disrupting an industry during the early wave of DTC, how CPG brands find their winning formulation, and how brands like Unreal are thinking about their digital strategy for 2025 and beyond.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or watch on Youtube
T1: The challenges of disrupting an industry during the early wave of DTC
Having launched 30,000 stores on day one of the first launch in 2011, when McCarthy joined the team in 2014, he was thoughtful and intentional about the DTC strategy. When tasked with launching their direct-to-consumer (DTC) function in 2014, McCarthy viewed early DTC as a way to forge a direct connection with their audience. The focus was on creating a seamless, transparent experience. Although Unreal had no store presence at the time (after scaling down from the original 2011 launch), they prioritized DTC to truly understand their core consumers. McCarthy’s goal was to cut through the many layers between the warehouse and the customer’s pantry, establishing a one-on-one dialogue with their most passionate supporters. By making the purchasing process as convenient as possible, Unreal has laid the groundwork for what would later become a slow yet steady rollout into major retailers like Whole Foods. Today, Unreal products can be found in 25,000 stores, but the core mission — tasting great while serving consumers directly — remains unchanged.
T2: How CPG brands find their winning formulation
At Unreal, the product has always been at the heart of their strategy — better-for-you, cleaner, and simpler ingredients that still taste, as they say, “unreal.” As the company has faced pivots in product, distribution and branding, McCarthy continued his focus on the mission of building an ‘iconic brand in an important category’. McCarthy’s most salient point is that in the fun and emotional category of food, “you win at the first bite”. To do so, he stressed that supply-chain and formulation partnerships are “critical”. The challenge of reinventing a product line requires strong partnerships with manufacturers, distributors, partners and brokers to withstand the challenges — because part of leadership is having the expectation that things will go wrong. McCarthy himself spent time in the warehouse early on, ensuring that both he and the warehouse team had a deep understanding of the required process, and felt ownership over the product. While the company originally relaunched with peanut butter cups and gems, they’ve since expanded into chocolate nugget bars, and most recently, chocolate covered almonds and pretzels.
T3: How brands like Unreal are thinking about their digital strategy for 2025 and beyond
Before COVID, Unreal was heavily focused on field marketing, setting up physical shops for consumer engagement. As consumer behavior and distribution channels were turned on their head, the rebrand of Unreal Snacks was further challenged to adapt during the pandemic. Thie caused a pivot from a “field” focused approach, where the team was setting up tables outside of grocery stores, toward digital ecommerce, brand recognition and data-driven distribution. Looking ahead to 2025, McCarthy discussed the importance of maintaining the dialogue with customers above all, and striking the balance when executing digital strategy.Now, they seek a balance — using data without losing the human element. Their strategy emphasizes talking to real consumers, understanding their desires, and using product trials as the hook. Moving forward, Unreal aims to enhance in-store discovery, tying brand recognition to product consumption while seeding brand imagery to build stronger connections with shoppers.
