Burlington, Vt.-based The Farmer Companies has closed a $17 million Series A financing and appointed Randy Johnson as chief executive officer, positioning the premium cheese snacking platform for national scale behind its WHISPS and Cabot Creamery Popcorn brands. Founder Adam Farmer steps into a Chairman role, retaining board influence while handing day-to-day operations to Johnson.
The round was led by Raff Ventures, the direct private investment arm of Rafferty Holdings, with participation from AJAX Capital Partners. Proceeds will fund manufacturing partnerships, national distribution buildout, and potential follow-on acquisitions, according to the company.
Johnson's Track Record
Johnson's credentials in the salty snack space are hard to argue with. As CEO of Dot's Pretzels, he scaled the brand from $19 million to $250 million in annual revenue over three years before Hershey acquired it in 2021 for $1.2 billion. That trajectory — regional cult brand to national powerhouse in a single leadership tenure — is precisely the playbook The Farmer Companies is looking to replicate in the cheese crisp segment.
"Under Randy's leadership, Dot's Pretzels became one of the greatest success stories in snacking history," said Farmer. Johnson framed his own mandate concisely: "Adam has already proven this category has room to grow. My job is to help it scale."
The Portfolio and Channel Opportunity
The Farmer Companies currently operates two properties. WHISPS is a 100% cheese crisp brand with strong existing retail penetration across grocery and natural channel accounts. The second is an exclusive licensing deal with Cabot Creamery to produce Cabot Creamery Popcorn, which the company says is the fastest-growing popcorn brand in U.S. Food among the top 13 brands tracked by NielsenIQ.
For convenience channel buyers and category managers, both brands sit squarely in the better-for-you snack set — a shelf segment that has consistently outperformed conventional salty snacks in c-store velocity data. WHISPS, in particular, checks the high-protein, low-carb boxes that drive impulse purchase among the health-oriented shopper increasingly walking forecourt-adjacent doors. The cheese crisp format also carries favorable shrink and ambient-temperature profiles versus refrigerated better-for-you alternatives, reducing back-of-house complexity for single-store operators and large chains alike.
What This Means for Operators
The infusion of $17 million in growth capital, paired with a CEO whose prior company commanded a $1.2 billion exit, signals The Farmer Companies intends to push distribution aggressively. For c-store buyers scouting the snack aisle, that likely means broader promotional support, improved fill rates through manufacturing investment, and the kind of field-sales infrastructure that only materializes after a meaningful capital raise.
The cheese snacking category more broadly has benefited from post-pandemic consumer interest in high-protein snacking occasions. NACS data and category research consistently show convenience shoppers skewing toward portable, single-serve protein-forward snacks, a trend that has lifted meat snack sales and — more recently — cheese-based formats. The Farmer Companies is betting that WHISPS and Cabot Creamery Popcorn can carve out a durable position in that c-store snack-aisle daypart, much as Dot's carved its niche in the pretzel fixture before the Hershey deal closed.
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.
