How Khloé Kardashian’s snack brand Khloud got ahead of the protein craze: ‘The timing was everything’
Fortune · C · trust 21/100
Khloé Kardashian is off camera on Zoom, scrolling through her old emails. She’s looking for the date she started working on her protein popcorn brand Khloud, which over the past year has taken the snack aisle by storm. With pastel-colored bags and friendly clouds on its packaging, the product stands out both in the snack aisle and in a sea of bro-coded protein-maxxing. She finds the first emails: 2023. “It’s been a few years,” she says.
Of all the brands in the Kardashian-Jenner family— Skims , Kylie Cosmetics, 818 Tequila —Khloud may have had the best timing. Kardashian and her team started working on the brand before consumers’ protein craze really kicked off, and were ready to launch in spring 2025. “It just so happened that it was in this protein-frenzy era,” Kardashian says. “How long it takes to produce snacks and food and packaging and all of the really boring things—you can’t just wing that and get it on the shelves quickly.”
Last fall, the brand brought on Jeff Rubenstein as CEO; he’s an alum of Poppi who helped the soda brand secure a $1.95 billion acquisition by PepsiCo . With Kardashian, he’s turned Khloud over the past year into the “fastest-growing salty snack with protein at Target” and obtained a Starbucks deal that contributed to doubled sales on Amazon as consumers discovered the product .
This week, Khloud is launching protein chips that also include collagen (official name: Khloud Plus Collagen Protein Chips), a Walmart exclusive that experiments with how many health-maxxing ingredients consumers want packed into their snacks. Kardashian and Rubenstein spoke with Fortune about the launch, the brand’s growth, and what prepared the reality TV star for this chapter of her career. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
Tell me about collagen. When did you start taking it and what has it done for you?
Khloé Kardashian: I love collagen. I started taking it in a powder form in my coffee maybe three or four years ago, and I just love the way it makes me feel. It helps with joints, all that kind of stuff, but aesthetically, I really do think it helps with the fine lines and wrinkles and all of that kind of stuff.
Where do you think we are in the consumer cycle with collagen? If you compare it to protein, does everyone know about it yet? What new ways do you think we will see collagen being offered to consumers?
K.K.: Collagen in food, I think that is a newer thing. I haven’t seen it really done in a lot of places. Collagen being baked into snacks that you could readily buy, I think that’s pretty innovative.
Jeff Rubenstein: I would agree with that. If you think about the history of where collagen has been found—bone broth and chicken cartilage—it’s very different, a lot less mainstream, and much more niche. What we’re doing is we’re democratizing collagen in food, and that I think is really novel.
Khloé, what have you learned over the years about what makes a brand of yours successful?
K.K.: A lot of it was trial and error. I’ve learned that I have to go after the things that I’m passionate about. Consumers are so incredibly smart, and they know when someone genuinely believes and uses a product versus someone licensing their name. When I first started, you’re just so green and you’re so excited and you can’t even fathom that you’re getting the opportunities that you’re getting. So maybe I did things or said yes to things that weren’t so much in my wheelhouse or weren’t things that I had such a passion for. The older I got and the more long-term and established I got, I got more confidence. I understood how much authenticity matters and how smart the everyday consumer is, and how I wanted to be proud of the brands that I’m building and what I’m standing for. I really do think it’s so transparent. People can smell it, they can breathe it, they can see it.
I will say every business definitely has its uncertainty. So I’m not saying just because you’re passionate about something and just because you believe in it means it’s going to be successful. But eventually, you’re just going to have to trust yourself and put yourself out there and say that you believe in this product or brand enough to start something. You believe in it enough to take that risk.
With Khloud, for example, it was created because there was such a lack in the market of protein snacks that weren’t so bro- or gym-focused. I wanted to create something that would fit into the way that I actually ate, the way I wanted my kids to eat. I didn’t just want another celebrity product out there and to put my name on it. Every single product genuinely needed to earn a place in my pantry before it earned a place on any market shelf.
That’s how Khloud started, and it just so happened that it was in this protein-frenzy era. But none of that was perfectly timed. How long it takes to produce snacks and food and packaging and all of the really boring things—you can’t just wing that and get it on the shelves quickly. The timing was everything. I kissed a lot of frogs to get here is what I’m trying to say.
Making a protein option that’s not so bro-y—what has the response been to your branding, the pastels, the clouds? Are women shopping the brand or is it being bought by everyone?
K.K.: I sort of see that it’s being bought by everyone. Kids even relate to the packaging a lot—the nostalgia of the packaging, the colors are soothing. We did a lot of research seeing what else was on the shelves, and we wanted something that had a lot of contrast so it stood out when you’re going up and down the store aisle. I don’t think we looked and were like, we need this to be female-oriented. That wasn’t really the plan there.
J.R.: With this new [collagen] product, we’re going into a set which is called the wellness set at Walmart, where you primarily have science-backed brands like Quest and Wild. These are chips that have 20, 30 grams of protein designed for the Bro Alpha. That entire area is masculine. The whole thing…
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