Chomps rebranded jerky away from the cowhide.

Chomps is a lesson in counter-coding a rugged category. Founded in 2012 by Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali — bootstrapped for years on a few thousand dollars — it grew into one of the fastest-growing meat-snack brands, built on clean-label, grass-fed, zero-sugar meat sticks (the first such snack to be Non-GMO, Paleo, Keto and Whole30-friendly). It remains founder-controlled and independent.

Its design is the story. Chomps started with a dark, rugged, cowhide look like every other jerky — then rebranded to bright, cheerful, colour-blocked wrappers (a flat per-flavour colour and a clean “CHOMPS” wordmark). The driver was audience: its customers skew heavily female, and the clean, modern look stands out precisely because it isn’t macho.

(Honest notes: Chomps is independent and founder-controlled — it took a single minority investment in 2021 (from a private-equity firm) but the founders keep majority control; a widely cited ~$1 billion valuation is a 2026 estimate, not a purchase; and its real tagline is “All stick, without the ick,” not other lines sometimes attributed to it. No official brand hex is published.)

Chomps lives in bright, per-flavour colour. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Chomps’ identity is bright, clean and colour-coded — a Chomps teal, a coral, a yellow, an off-white, and an ink. Each flavour owns a flat, cheerful colour, with a simple wordmark and clear callouts (“grass-fed,” “10g protein”). It signals clean, modern, better-for-you — deliberately the opposite of dark, rugged jerky. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is clean colour can disrupt a rugged category. Chomps’ world is bright and friendly on purpose. For designers, it is a reminder that inverting a category’s visual clichés (cowhide and rust → flat, cheerful colour) can reach an audience the category ignored — here, women — and stand out on shelf. The takeaways: identify the category default and consider inverting it; use flat per-flavour colour for clarity; and treat any single hex as unofficial — using a deep teal for small text so the brights stay clean.

The wordmark spirit is a clean modern sans — friendly and fresh.

Chomps’ identity carries a clean, modern, friendly spirit — a simple “CHOMPS” wordmark on bright, colour-blocked wrappers. A clean modern sans captures the mood: it is fresh and approachable, the register of a brand that rebranded away from macho jerky to reach everyone. Set against flat, cheerful colour, the clean type feels modern and inclusive — exactly the better-for-you personality Chomps carries. It is fresh rather than rugged, mirroring a snack that reads as clean-label at a glance. (Chomps’ real wordmark and packaging are trademarks and trade dress we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not published, so we don’t assert it.) Because the specific mark is not ours to use, the honest description is “a clean modern spirit,” not the Chomps logo. The type behaves like the brand: clean, fresh and friendly.

Chomps stands for clean.

Chomps is a lesson in designing for who the category forgot. Jerky coded itself rugged and male; Chomps discovered its buyers skewed female and rebranded to bright, clean, colour-blocked packaging that reads as better-for-you, not macho. The look did the positioning — clean-label values, made visible. The differentiator is a deliberate design inversion aimed at an open audience.

For designers and brand-builders, Chomps offers a clear takeaway: a rebrand can unlock a new audience. The lessons: question the category’s default aesthetic and who it excludes; use flat, clean colour and clear callouts to signal better-for-you; and let real audience data drive the design. It is also a reminder to stay accurate: Chomps is founder-controlled and independent (one minority investment in 2021), and its ~$1 billion figure is a 2026 estimate — with the palette here an unofficial interpretation. Chomps ditched the cowhide — proof that a design inversion can be the difference.

Keep Chomps’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.