I failed to leave Wall Street to go to the snack company and sold it to Hershey

Charles Coristine once reveled in Morgan Stanley. He liked this pace, even woke up late at night to trade in Tokyo and London stock markets.

In 2011, after spending nearly two decades on Wall Street, Coristine burned down. He tried a variety of remedies: switch to vegetarianism, meditation, and taking MBA courses. None of them worked.

Coristine met the owner of the snack company Lesserevil at the barbecue restaurant and they talked about selling his “flat” business. He said Coristine had no experience in the food industry but was interested in the idea of ​​a fresh start – he liked the company's name “synchronous” with a healthy, mindful lifestyle.

In November 2011, Coristine purchased LesseRevil from his savings for $250,000, and a future payment of $100,000, according to documents reviewed by CNBC. He said the risk was impulsive, and LesseRevil, which aims to provide consumers with healthier alternatives to popcorn and snacks, was losing money when it lost less than $1 million in annual revenue, the company estimated.

“I don't know anyone in any of the foods…asked me if I was crazy, but it might be good. If I did a lot of research and looked at it, I would realize that the chances of success are low.”

Yet the Danbury, Connecticut-based brand grow significantly under his watch: Its popcorns and air-popped Cheetos-like puffs and curls now appear in major retailers and corner stores across the US LesserEvil grow to $103.3 million in annual gross sales by 2023, including $82.9 million in net sales and $14.4 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and ambrtization, or EBITDA.

On April 3, the Hershey company announced an agreement to acquire Lesserevil. The deal is valued at $750 million if Leserevil hits some performance milestones, according to the Wall Street Journal. A Leserevil spokesman said Coristine will remain the CEO.

That's how Coristine turned Lyserevil into a household name.

When he bought Lesserevil, Coristine worked at TD Bank and pursued an MBA at Cornell Graduate School.

In 2012, he received his MBA and began a new full-time job as CEO of Lesserevil. In his first step: Hire his graduate friend Andrew Crife as Chief Operating Officer and CFO, as well as his waterski coach as marketing director.

Together with accountants from the previous regime, the team worked from an office in Wilton, Connecticut to update the LesereRevil brand and create its own production lines. The old-fashioned brand didn't attract customers, and the company paid about 20% of revenue per sales Coristine said the co-packers who helped make and deliver snacks.

Cristine said Coristine's savings were running out, so the team raised an undisclosed amount of money from their friends and family and obtained more financing through Coristine's contact with a bank. They moved into a 5,000-square-foot factory in Danbury in 2012 and filled with used equipment purchased at auction.

Frife said the team made “welders friends on the street” who could weld wheels and popcorn to shoot mechanically. They painted the factory's exterior black and painted the yellow “Lesserevil” logo on the sides of the building. As Coristine recalls, the driver started to drive off the road, into the factory and asked, “Is this a strip club?”

“Everything is hard and as we move forward, we need to reinvent it.”

In 2014, when a nearby carpet factory moved out, Leserevil knocked down the walls, adding 2,000 square feet and adding production lines to its operations.

That year, Coristine’s personal nutritionist provided a health-centric advice: using coconut oil popcorn. Coristine kept coconut oil fresh in snack bags, so he tested it, saying, “We put it on the top of the refrigerator and it was really hot (and kept it for three months.”

The oil remains fresh and Coristine loves this surprising buttery flavor, so Listerevil launched a remade product in 2014, called it the Buddha Bowl with the new Laughing Buddha logo. The company said revenue for the year was about $2 million, accounting for one-third of LYSEREVIL's annual revenue.

Kroger, the first major retailer to sell LesseRevil, began stocking in 2015. The partnership offered another move to Lesserevil in 2017, this time a 20,000-square-foot factory.

A year later, the company received its first external funding (about $3 million) from Investeco, a sustainable food and agricultural investment company. Coristine and his team used these funds to add production lines to the new factory and updated LeseRevil's packaging again: Now each product has its own “Guru”, from the ancient Greek poet Homer to Henry David Thoreau.

Rebranding and adding products helps to drive the brand to profitability. The company said that year, Coristine began paying salaries from Lesserevi.

Lesserevil’s goal has been to distinguish ingredients from competitors, such as high levels of coconut and avocado oil, Coristine said.

Sometimes, the use of atypical ingredients can have consequences: A June Consumer Reports survey found “about the quantity of lead” in two cassava-based Lil'Puffs snacks for Kids in LesereRevil. The company apologized and has since re-launched the puffs with sorghum flour instead of cassava flour.

The company still brought in $62 million in net sales in the first half of 2024. It used another round of funding – $19 million in a fundraising round from investment firm Aria Growth Partners, Lesserevil said it opened a new plant in New Milford, about 15 miles from the Danbury plant.

Today, the company has 350 employees. Before the acquisition of Hershey, which also owns popcorn brand Skinnypop, Coristine's short-term goal involves further development of Lyserevil and launching new products. He said in the long run, he just hopes the company “becomes a brand that can exist over time.”

He added that Lesserevil has successfully helped Coristine solve a more personal problem—from 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., he has less work and has been happier since leaving Wall Street.

“It feels so it doesn't feel like work,” Coristine said.

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