Aug. 8, 2022

A South Dakota-based company earned its “golden ticket” this summer and will appear on Walmart shelves beginning in April 2023.

Muddy Bites, based in North Sioux City, was started four years ago by Jarod Steffes and Tyler Devos. After becoming the No. 4 best-selling cookie on Amazon and selling its  product in Hy-Vee and Fareway grocery stores in the region, the company pitched its business to the retail Goliath in its annual “open call” event this summer.

They were one of 4,500 businesses to apply and about 1,100 to pitch their product to Walmart and Sam’s Club buyers in June. Now, they’re one of 330 products to make the cut.

“This is your Super Bowl if you’re a startup brand,” president Michael Parisi said. “If you can crack the code to work with such a powerhouse, you go for it.”

Muddy Bites will ramp up production to meet its April deadline, but the deal also opens doors for the young company to work with other name brands, Parisi said.

CEO and co-founder Steffes, 26, grew up in Granville, Iowa, and graduated high school in Le Mars, Iowa, the “Ice Cream Capital of the World” and home to Blue Bunny Ice Cream.

Steffes remembers the hallmark of his childhood summers there: the annual Ice Cream Days, where the city would shut down the streets to celebrate ice cream, and eating sundae cones, which are vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone with the top dipped in chocolate and covered with peanuts and waffle cone pieces.

After dropping out of school at Iowa State University, Steffes got the idea of re-creating that last bite of the sundae cones and believed he had a viable product. He recruited Devos to create the waffle cone bites filled with chocolate, “sell them in a bag and see how it goes.”

It’s going well.

“We’re building one of the most nostalgic products on the market,” Steffes said.

Parisi represented Muddy Bites at Walmart’s open call event, spending two days in Arkansas pitching the product to buyers. The atmosphere was “electric,” he said.

In 2013, Walmart pledged to spend $250 billion over 10 years on products made, grown or assembled in the U.S. and uses the open call to find new products that fit such a description. Last year, Walmart committed to an additional $350 billion through 2031.

“Investing in U.S. manufacturing is not only the right thing to do for the country’s long-term economic health, it’s the right thing to do for customers today who are dealing with historic inflation,” Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart Inc., said in a news release. “We’re excited that more and more great products at strong price points are being produced in the U.S. Our $350 billion investment in items made, grown or assembled in the U.S. helps deliver our customers the goods they need, when they need them, at affordable prices, while supporting the creation of more than 750,000 jobs.”

Muddy Bites was already doing well before the Walmart deal as one of Amazon’s top sellers and with a strong TikTok and Instagram following of over 75 million views, but this contract will propel the business forward, the founders said.

“Everyone sees the credibility of Walmart and what it could scale to,” Parisi said. “That’s the power and beauty of Walmart is that you get resources from the world’s largest retailer, and then you put those resources back into the company. Oftentimes, that’s money in people’s pockets.”

The company is planning to expand machinery and add more jobs to boost production — not only for the Walmart contract but also with the expectation that they’ll be making deals with other retailers to sell their treats.

“We have that momentum now, and we’ll put this back into the business because we’re going to grow,” Parisi said. “Now, we’ll execute the game plan.”