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BP Bob Pankey On The Startup CPG Podcast

“Consumers will tell you something, but you have to read between the lines, because they think they want this, but what they really want is that savory eating experience. … You may have the best, highest amount of protein. You may have the highest amount of fiber. You may be gluten-free. Whatever your other guardrails are. If the product doesn't eat well, you don't have a product.”

The Startup CPG Podcast · Alternative Proteins · November 2026

“Consumers will tell you something, but you have to read between the lines, because they think they want this, but what they really want is that savory eating experience. … You may have the best, highest amount of protein. You may have the highest amount of fiber. You may be gluten-free. Whatever your other guardrails are. If the product doesn't eat well, you don't have a product.” — Bob Pankey, The Startup CPG Podcast

Context

Pankey had described a focus group where consumers said they wanted more meat in a frozen snack but, given samples, chose more cheese. He draws a rule for his food-startup clients from it.

Listen to the episode → More from Bob Pankey → More Alternative Proteins quotes →

Transcript

The Startup CPG Podcast Around 35:10 into the episode
Bob Pankey

…was consumers, more meat, more meat. You couldn't put enough meat into a hot pocket. But then we would run a focus group study with them. We would show them a sample that had 20% more meat in it. And then we'd show them a sample with 20% more cheese in it. And hands down, they wanted the cheese.

Adam Yee

That's funny.

Bob Pankey

So consumers will tell you something, but you have to kind of read between the lines because they think they want this, but what they really want is that savory eating experience. And that's another thing that I tell my clients: your product has to taste good. Your product has to be something that people want to continue to eat. Okay. You may have the best, highest amount of protein. You may have the highest amount of fiber. You may be gluten-free. Whatever your other guardrails are. If the product doesn't eat well, you don't have a product. Yeah, for

Adam Yee

sure. Definitely. Bob, it was so good to talk to you. You can tell you have a lot of knowledge. So I think anyone should reach out and just pick your brand for 30 minutes. So thanks so much for being on the show. Thank

Bob Pankey

you very much. This was fun. Thank you.

Adam Yee

Thank you for listening to Startup CBG's RD Radio. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. We've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CBG podcast. I'm proud to be part of the team that's part of the top globally ranked podcast at CPG. As you may know, we're not just…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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