New Roles, New Focus
Catalina Snacks, the Indianapolis-based maker of better-for-you Catalina Crunch cereals and snacks, has restructured its senior leadership team as the brand's retail footprint eclipses 30,000 doors. Lauri Luker, previously Chief Operating Officer, moves into the newly defined role of President and Chief Customer Officer, concentrating on sales strategy and retail partnerships. Simultaneously, Dan Robin has been hired as the incoming Chief Operating Officer, taking ownership of supply chain, procurement, and plant operations. Both executives report to CEO Doug Behrens.
The dual appointment reflects a deliberate split between commercial momentum and operational scaling — a structure increasingly common among high-growth better-for-you brands competing for premium shelf space in grocery, mass, and the convenience channel. For c-store buyers and category managers tracking the better-for-you snack and cereal segment, Catalina Crunch's expanding retail presence makes it a brand worth watching at the point-of-sale reset.
What Each Executive Brings
Luker's elevation underscores how central customer-facing execution has become to Catalina Snacks' growth model. In her expanded role, she will deepen retail partnerships and lead the sales organization as the brand pursues further distribution gains. "We have an incredible opportunity to deepen our retail partnerships, strengthen our sales organization and find new ways to bring Catalina Crunch to more consumers nationwide," Luker said.
Robin arrives with more than 25 years of operations and supply chain leadership across high-volume food, packaging, and manufacturing environments. Most recently he served as Chief Supply Chain Officer at Monarca Food Solutions, where he led a turnaround across a six-plant manufacturing network with measurable gains in profitability, quality, and safety. Before that, Robin held senior operations roles at Hearthside Food Solutions and Peacock Foods, where he drove lean transformations and safety-culture initiatives — backgrounds directly relevant to scaling co-manufacturing and contract-pack relationships that fuel rapid retail rollouts.
Channel Context
Catalina Crunch's portfolio — Protein Cereal, Protein Snack Mix, Chocolate Cookie Bars, Protein Granola, and Snacksize Multipacks — positions the brand squarely in the better-for-you snacking trend that continues to outpace conventional salty snacks in velocity data. For convenience operators, high-protein, lower-sugar grab-and-go formats are among the fastest-moving better-for-you packaged food SKUs in the front-of-store cooler and impulse set. Brands with the supply chain depth to maintain consistent in-stock positions across tens of thousands of doors tend to earn preferred placement over time.
Behrens framed the restructuring as a sharpening of focus rather than a correction. "Lauri has been instrumental in building strong customer relationships and driving growth," he said. "Dan brings a strong combination of operational leadership, supply chain expertise and a people-first approach. Together, their leadership will strengthen the capabilities and infrastructure needed to support Catalina Crunch's next phase of growth."
With distribution already at scale and a leadership team now explicitly divided between selling and executing, Catalina Snacks appears to be positioning for a push deeper into channels — including convenience — where high-protein snack formats continue to capture incremental basket spend.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
