Quevos Chips: An nVenia Case Study

Chips are one of the most common snack food products for which companies come to nVenia in seek of help. But egg white chips — that’s pretty unique.

Quevos, started in 2016 by two friends, is a high protein, high fiber, low-carb egg white chip, which was born out of a business school challenge at the University of Chicago, as well as support through an incubator program at Kraft Heinz. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign, they continued to expand. But as the company grew, their challenges in scaling up became more pressing.

“We had been packaging our product by hand for a while, then tried re-packing with an outside packager,” said Nick Hamburger, CEO and Co-Founder of Quevos. “But we saw huge levels of breakage when transporting product in bulk to them.”

So the conversation shifted to the company buying its own packaging machinery. In April 2019, we got a call from Nick. With a tight timeline to keep up with demand, the nVenia sales and engineering groups gave the Quevos team a crash course in the decisions they needed to make, walking through choices like:

• The differences between linear and multi-head weighers
• The pros and cons of using pre-made bags vs. roll stock
• How to order film
• Other features such as nitro flushing

Eventually, the decision was made to go forward with an nVenia OHLSON Brand 10-head multi-head weigher and a vertical form fill seal bagging machine. The fit-for-purpose system was set for rapid delivery and installation on-site.

“OHLSON Brand equipment seemed to be the best option for quality machinery, with an American company that provides great service, at a good price for a small business like us,” said Hamburger. “I did about 6 weeks of research and the OHLSON Brand was by far the best middle ground between unreliable machinery I found online and state-of-the-art, super expensive options.”

The nVenia team worked with the Quevos team to help them find a forklift rental for the installation, and from there the machinery was up and running.

“The OHLSON Brand equipment was amazing!” said Hamburger. “They got a system on our floor within 6 weeks of us ordering and sent a great technician out here to help with install and train our crew.”

Since then, Quevos has continued to grow and expand, with new keto-friendly varieties of the product as well as new flavors, which you may have seen on Shark Tank! The classic chips now come in Sea Salt & Cracked Black Pepper, Cheddar, and Sweet Barbeque, with keto-friendly varieties of Sour Cream & Onion, Quevos Rancheros, and Dill Pickle (the last of which is an Amazon exclusive).

“We are doing over 4X the level of sales we were doing when the machine was installed 10 months ago,” said Hamburger.

Overall, it’s amazing success for a company that started just a few short years ago. The nVenia team was able to assist Quevos with scaling quickly and fulfill rapidly-increasing consumer demand.