RJ Naturals: Snacks families can trust.
- KLS
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
For the 239th feature of our "Together Talks" campaign, we collaborated with RJ Naturals and Co-Founder, Russell Menez. RJ Naturals is a real-food snack brand based in Southern California, founded by cancer survivor Russell Menez and his wife Julia.
Their flagship product, Nature’s Candy Bar, is a 100% organic, whole-food bar that’s naturally sweet, nutritionally dense, and crafted for freshness and performance.
RJ Naturals was created during Russell’s recovery from stage 4 cancer, driven by a simple belief: real food should be accessible to everyone. Their mission is to build a household name every family can trust, delivering clean, comforting snacks made with purpose.
Now stocked in leading natural retailers across Southern California, including Mother’s Market, and expanding through regional distribution as we build the next generation of real-food snacks.
"Together Talks" feature 239: RJ Naturals presented by KLS - Your Trusted Shipping Solutions In The USA
What separates you from your competition? What have been the biggest challenges? Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur? What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most? Share a decision that you made that was detrimental? What is your why?
Story of how it was created?
Three years ago, I was battling stage four cancer. During that time, my wife, Julia, and I completely shifted our diets to whole foods only while I underwent aggressive chemotherapy.
She was making everything from scratch in the kitchen—including the bars we have today.
Long story short, those bars really helped me get through that time.
We couldn’t find anything on the market that felt real and clean—nothing we truly trusted. Most of what was out there felt overly processed and filled with ingredients we didn’t want in our bodies.
Those homemade bars became a staple for me during that period.
Once I hit remission, we had the idea to share them with our community. People loved them immediately, and that’s really how the brand was born. Two years later, we’re now in 50 stores and growing quickly.
I feel like we’ve found a new purpose and mission—to share the same sense of comfort that helped me during that time and make healthier snacks more accessible to others.
I’m now two years in remission—all glory to God. It’s been an incredible, humbling journey, and what started as something deeply personal has turned into our full-time work.
Before this, I was in the music industry and Julia was in fashion, so this is a completely different world for us. But we’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset. Now, being in CPG, it feels like what we’re building carries a much deeper purpose than anything we’ve done before.
We’ve fully committed to this path.
What separates you from your competition?
Our bar is a refrigerated snack bar, so in terms of competition, we sit within the refrigerated grab-and-go category.
But the real difference is in how the product is made.
Most snacks are engineered. Ours is simply real food. It’s made with ingredients people actually recognize—no preservatives, no shortcuts. We are also the first grass-fed butter bar on the market.
Beyond the product itself, what truly separates us is the story. This wasn’t created in a boardroom—it came from a real moment in life where trust in what I was putting into my body truly mattered.
That authenticity resonates with people.
What have been the biggest challenges?
We’ve gone from making these bars at home, to operating out of a commercial kitchen, and now transitioning to a co-manufacturer. At the same time, we’re building out the entire cold chain, logistics infrastructure, and supply systems.
There are a lot of moving parts.
On top of that, we’ve been raising capital without having a traditional background or network in that space.
So in many ways, it feels like we’re building the plane while flying it.
Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
This next phase is all about scale and evolution.
We’re expanding beyond what RJ Naturals started as and building a larger brand behind the scenes, which we’ll be announcing soon.
At the same time, we’re onboarding a co-manufacturer, expanding retail distribution, and currently in discussions to do Costco roadshows toward the end of the year.
The goal is to move from a strong local presence to building a national brand.
What were your concerns to transition to starting your own business?
Entrepreneurship itself wasn’t new to us, but this felt very different.
This felt bigger—and more real.
The concern was stepping into something with a much higher level of responsibility—not just creatively, but financially and operationally. Building a true CPG company comes with a different level of pressure.
There was also the question of scalability. It’s one thing to create something at home—it’s another to turn it into a product that lives on shelves and can grow sustainably.
At the same time, going through cancer shifted my entire perspective. It made me realize that life is too short to play small.
So for me, it became simple: go all in on the mission of making healthier snacks more accessible.
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that you don’t need to have everything figured out to move forward.
A lot of this journey is about taking action, learning quickly, and adjusting along the way.
I’ve also learned how important relationships are. Almost every opportunity we’ve had has come through people.
And ultimately, I’ve learned that no one is coming to save you.
If you want something to work, you have to put in the effort and make it happen yourself.
What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?
What I appreciate most is the freedom to build something that truly means something to me.
This isn’t just a product—it’s deeply connected to my life, my health, and my family.
That makes the work feel different. It gives it weight and purpose.
Share a decision that you made that was detrimental?
One of the biggest mistakes was trying to do everything ourselves for too long—and honestly, we’re still working through that transition.
We’ve been producing everything in our own commercial kitchen, and there’s a lot of pride and control that comes with that. But at a certain point, you realize that if you want to grow, you have to let go.
You have to trust other people, hire, and start thinking bigger.
Holding on too tightly can actually slow growth.
In the early days, one of our advantages was that we had a real product we could test and validate in the market. That was powerful.
But now, as we scale, I’ve had to learn to trust others with different parts of the business. It’s like a baby to us—but in order for it to grow, you have to let it.
Has your why changed over time?
My “why” hasn’t changed—if anything, it’s grown stronger.
Seeing people light up when they try our product for the first time, or getting messages from customers saying it’s become part of their daily routine—that’s everything.
People appreciate having something they can truly trust to put in their bodies, especially compared to other snack options on the market.
It feels like we’re bringing real food comfort to people who have been looking for it.
That’s incredibly fulfilling.
Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?
It’s really the small moments.
Seeing someone try the product for the first time and genuinely love it—that always stands out.
It’s also amazing to see kids gravitate toward our bars. When kids love it, you know you’ve created something real.
And honestly, just walking into a store and seeing our product on the shelf—it still feels surreal every time. That feeling hasn’t gone away.
What is next for the company?
When we first started sharing the bars, we knew we had something special, but we weren’t focused on the brand name.
We initially called it RJ Naturals—Russell and Julia—just to get things off the ground. But we always knew that if we wanted to scale, we’d eventually need something more marketable for retail.
Over the past two years, as we tested the product, it became clear that the product worked and had strong velocity in stores. However, there was still confusion around the name.
We refer to it as “RJ Naturals Nature’s Candy Bar,” which led people to ask: is it a candy bar or an alternative?
To us, it’s neither—it’s a real food comfort bar. A refrigerated snack that delivers both nourishment and comfort.
So behind the scenes, we’ve been working on a full rebrand that we’ll be announcing soon.
It’s designed to better capture the feeling we want people to associate with the product—comfort, trust, and simplicity.
At the end of the day, it’s the same product—just with a name and identity that better reflects what it truly is.
Piece of Advice
Have so much belief in what you’re building that other people might think you’re delusional.
In the beginning, it won’t make sense to anyone else. Honestly, it might not even fully make sense on paper.
But if you can see it clearly and stay consistent, that’s what separates the people who actually build something real from those who don’t.
Promo Code
Purchase from their site, RJ Naturals, and use below! KLS15 -> 15% off!
Community Callout
Julia Suh (Co-Founder, RJ Naturals)
My wife and partner in everything. This doesn’t exist without her. She’s the one who started making these bars in the first place, and she continues to shape the product and vision every day.
Ashley Rogers (Founder, ShelfMade)
A true mentor to us. She’s helped us navigate key decisions as we’ve grown and has been instrumental in how we think about scaling into retail the right way.
Brian Gibb (Co-Founder, Vaca Chips)
A fellow CPG founder who’s been an incredible friend and sounding board. Having people in your corner who understand the journey makes a huge difference.
Maryam Siahatgar (Founder, Sia Brands)
Our brand designer who has brought so much care and patience into helping us refine our vision. She’s played a big role in how we think about our next phase.
Sean Riley (Founder, DUDE WIPES)
Someone we look up to in the CPG space. His support and belief in what we’re building has meant a lot to us as we continue to grow.
Dorothy Carlow (CEO, Mother’s Market)
A strong leader in the natural grocery space. We’re grateful for the opportunity to be in Mother’s and to learn from operators at that level.
Brad Hill (Director, Fermentation Farm)
One of our earliest believers. Brad and the team at Fermentation Farm gave us a real shot early on, and that kind of support is something we’ll never forget.
In Closing
KLS wants to thank RJ Naturals and Co-Founder, Russell Menez, for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!