🎙️ Shelf Help Podcast: Tyrel Johnson - The Ice Cream Upstart Taking Over the Freezer at Erewhon

On this episode, we’re joined by Tyrel Johnson, the Co-Founder & CEO of Natty Ice Cream, the high-protein, clean-label ice cream brand rapidly breaking into the frozen set.

Tyrel and his brother Garrett turned a home fitness journey, a Ninja Creami obsession, and relentless R&D into a brand that's gaining traction fast.

Tyrel shares the inside story of building Natty from a Breville machine to a fully licensed dairy manufacturing facility, then making the pivotal decision to shift from in-house production to a co-packer to support scale.

We dive deep into brand identity and how Natty’s bold, dark packaging and Greek-god iconography carve out visual white space behind foggy freezer doors. Tyrel shares tactics on breaking into frozen retail, working with brokers and distributors, managing trade spend, and building a brand that wins the first trial and earns repeat.

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Episode Highlights:

🍦 The fitness journey that inspired Natty Ice Cream
🧪 How they cracked the code on high-protein ice cream texture
🏭 Building a licensed dairy facility - then pivoting to a co-man
🎨 Why contrast drives frozen aisle packaging strategy
🔍 Visual storytelling and owning white space in frozen
📈 Breaking into Erewhon and early retail traction
🤝 Working with brokers, distributors, and deciding when to scale
📊 Modeling trade spend, margins, and operational realities
🚀 Emerging brands and trends Tyrel is tracking across CPG

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Table of Contents:

00:00 - Intro
00:37 - Natty Ice Cream origin story
03:12 - Building a brand with family
05:33 - Early days of formulation and R&D
09:46 - Product roadmap
10:48 - Pivoting to a copacker
13:34 - Brand identity and packaging design
18:24 - Operating in the frozen category
20:35 - Strategies to stand out in frozen at retail
23:30 - Erewhon
27:37 - Brokers and distributors
31:22 - Brands and trends Tyrel is watching

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Links:

Natty Ice Cream – https://nattyicecream.com/
Follow Tyrel on LinkedIn –   / tyreljohnson  
Follow me on LinkedIn –   / adam-martin-steinberg  

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out KitPrint.