How Maxx Chewning Sold Candy for $75M: The Sour Strips Playbook That Hershey Couldn’t Resist.
Last week I talked about Hershey buying LesserEvil; now I’m back with another sweet play from Hershey: a $75.5M acquisition of Sour Strips, a sour candy brand built by… wait for it… fitness influencer Maxx Chewning.
Yep, a gym guy sold sweets to a $48B conglomerate. And no, this wasn’t luck. It was leverage.
It’s a blueprint for creators, operators, and brand builders who are moving from content → commerce → category leadership.
This week, we're unpacking what may be the most underestimated acquisition play of the year, Hershey's $75.5 million acquisition of Sour Strips.
This isn’t just a sweet exit. It’s a blueprint Let’s break down what you need to know:
The Sour Truth Behind the Sweet Deal
When Maxx launched Sour Strips, he wasn’t entering the candy market with fancy ingredients or a groundbreaking recipe. What he built was a cultural product, a brand that looked like streetwear, spoke Gen Z, and performed on TikTok.
This wasn’t candy designed in a boardroom. It was a personal obsession turned viral, and it resonated. In four short years, the brand scaled to over $40M in annual revenue. More impressively, this happened without institutional funding or traditional CPG playbooks. There were no expensive B2B sales teams, no endless retail pitches. Just a powerful personal brand and a highly visual, addictively shareable product that consumers wanted to be seen eating.
That demand made its way offline too. Eventually, Sour Strips hit the shelves of Walmart, Target, and HEB, not because Maxx cold-pitched them, but because the brand already had pull that retailers could not ignore. In a category dominated by legacy players, Maxx proved that demand built through direct-to-consumer traction and community storytelling can be the new ticket into mass retail.
Why Hershey Had to Buy In
From the outside, this looks like a typical acquisition. But the truth is, Hershey didn’t just buy candy; they bought attention, loyalty, and the culture Maxx created.
It helps that the sour candy market is booming, projected to reach $2.7B by 2030, growing at a faster pace than chocolate. Hershey knows this. They also know their current brands don’t speak TikTok fluently. Sour Strips does. It looks like a brand made for the internet because it was.
So while the numbers were compelling, the brand’s explosive revenue, it’s retail presence, and its growing dominance among Gen Z. The real asset was intangible: a founder-led brand that moves like a meme and sells like a story. That’s the kind of brand no in-house innovation team can replicate.
Lessons Worth Studying
A few takeaways every modern CPG founder, influencer, or creator-turned-entrepreneur should burn into their brain:
First, he treated the product like content. Every piece of packaging, every video, and every Instagram story was on-brand, self-aware, and fun. Sour Strips didn’t look like traditional candy. It looked like something cool. Something that belonged on a shelf next to sneakers or GFuel, not Lifesavers.
Second, he didn't rush into retail; rather, he let retail come to him. By building demand for DTC and proving velocity online, he walked into retail with leverage, not desperation.
Third, and maybe most crucially, he never stopped being the face. Hershey kept him on board post-acquisition, not as a figurehead, but as the ongoing driver of brand, marketing, and innovation. That says everything. They didn’t just want the candy; they wanted the creator energy that powered it.
The Bigger Shift: Creator-Led CPG Is Just Getting Started
What we’re witnessing is a signal of what’s to come.
We’re entering a new era where the most valuable CPG brands are creator-led, content-native, and community-powered, where storytelling is baked into the product, and where influence isn't borrowed and it's owned.
Maxx Chewning showed the world what happens when you combine a viral product with a viral personality. But the playbook is wide open. Whether you’re building snacks, supplements, skincare, or sparkling water, the path from $0 to acquisition is clearer than ever.
Start small. Build loud. Stay visible.
And remember: retail follows brand velocity, not the other way around.
FOUNDERS, ASK YOURSELF:
Is my packaging bold enough to stop thumbs and carts?
Am I building product + media + merch as one brand?
Am I more focused on B2B pitches than on making people care?
Could my brand win in culture without paid ads?
Until the next drop, keep building.
David.