The Operations Playbook for a CPG Founder Who Leads and Lives with Rachel Cheng of Yay's Snacks

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Rachel Cheng was a COO at her first food brand at 22 and has never looked back. After seven years at Popcorn for the People, she joined Marlon and Ben as co-founder and COO of Yay's Snacks. Their mission is simple: prove that beef jerky is better crispy. The product is built on Marlon's grandmother's recipe, and every piece that leaves the facility is held to that standard.

Behind that product is an operation Rachel built carefully enough that she can take a vacation without worrying about what is happening in the kitchen. That comes from documented processes, visual training tools, and a team culture built on trust and shared goals.

A founder focused on the big picture, she believes, is building something sustainable. Her advice is to designate a production manager as your first line of communication, stay proactive rather than reactive, and remember that you owe it to yourself and the people in your life to rest.

Subscribe to the Food Means Business Podcast with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones to hear the personal stories and "secret ingredients" of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.

Tune in to hear…

• How she trains a team to make Marlon's grandmother's recipe to her exact standard

• Why hiring for willingness to learn matters more than food industry experience

• What it means to be proactive rather than reactive and why it changes everything

• The personal side of building a company and what she says every founder owes themselves

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About Rachel Cheng
Rachel is a New Jersey native who graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in Supply Chain Management. In her short career, she’s already led teams of 90+ individuals in the CPG and non profit industry. Currently she serves as the COO and co-founder of Yay’s Snacks, a crispy take on classic beef jerky. As Rachel continues to steer Yay’s Snacks toward new milestones, her journey exemplifies her unwavering commitment to innovation, quality, and the human-centered approach to business growth.

Connect with Rachel Cheng and Yay’s Snacks:
Visit the Yay’s Snacks website
Follow Yay’s Snacks on Instagram
Follow Yay’s Snacks on Tiktok
Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn

Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
Visit Hudson Kitchen
Follow Hudson Kitchen on Instagram
Connect with Djenaba on LinkedIn

• READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:36)

  Today I'm so happy to welcome Rachel Chang from Yay Snacks. Hi, Rachel.

  Rachel Cheng (00:42)

  but thank you for having me.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:44)

  Thanks so much for being here. So we know each other very well. How we work together for.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (00:49)

  over three years. So I wanted to just kind of jump in if you could give us a little bit of information about yourself and yeas and then we'll talk about some other stuff.

  Rachel Cheng (00:58)

  Yeah, thank you. I'm a lover of food and I'm lucky that both my professional experience since leaving college have been involved in different food startups. When I left college, I joined a nonprofit popcorn company called Popcorn for the People and I started out as their COO at 22, but learned everything

  Rachel Cheng (01:25)

  and so much more to learn, but learned what being a COO meant. And I stayed there for seven years. And right after popcorn, I accidentally met Marlon, who is the founder of Yays. And I am also the COO, but also a co-founder of Yays. So together, me, Marlon, and Ben, we are the founding team.

  Rachel Cheng (01:46)

  And we are on a mission to get everyone to understand beef jerky can be crispy, doesn't have to be chewy, and it's actually, I think, more enjoyable crispy. So that is what I do on a large scale. But basically, I just make beef jerky every day.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (02:05)

  So when your team was working in Hudson Kitchen, I was always fascinated at the way that they were working together. Meaning everything was so efficient from receiving the ingredients down to packaging the product and sending it out to the customer.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (02:21)

  I wanted to work with you and have you work with our food business bootcamp students on operations. And one of the things that I also noticed that you were actually able to take a vacation. You were able to be away from the kitchen and do some other things. So can you just talk a little bit about what is it like to, I guess, train your employees to make your own product and kind of step away from your baby, essentially?

  Rachel Cheng (02:45)

  Sure.

  Rachel Cheng (02:46)

  I have to explain that the fact that...

  Rachel Cheng (02:48)

  I was able to take a vacation without thinking about what's going on in the kitchen. I think should be every founder's goal because everyone needs a reset. You owe it to yourself and you owe it to your family, your partner, or whatever you else, your dog, if you just have a dog, whatever you have in your life, you owe it to yourself to take a break. And that's something I really had to learn at Popcorn. And I think...

  Rachel Cheng (03:16)

  at Yeas, I really kept that forefront of, of course, growing the company with every fiber of my being, but knowing that I'm a human being and I need to take a break.

  Rachel Cheng (03:27)

  it's all about how you set up for it. It's as you're hiring your team, you're setting forth the standard of the work ethic and the expectations of communication and respect for each other. And aside from that, it's training. every single...

  Rachel Cheng (03:40)

  thing you do in the kitchen should have a corresponding training method to it between pictures and verbal descriptions and just repetition. Everything to create a successful business needs to have a standardized process. And that...

  Rachel Cheng (03:58)

  I would say is the core of quality of your product, but also being able to entrust your team to lead without you physically being there all the time.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (04:09)

  Yeah, so let's talk about that team. So you have a pretty great team. And then have you hired them and trained them over the years? What tips can you give other people that are wanting to step out of the kitchen? What do they need to do to feel comfortable with that?

  Rachel Cheng (04:25)

  Sure, so this product, was Marlin's grandmother's recipe. So I learned from her and now I have taught my team. But in the beginning, it's a lot, it's very hands on. You're supposed to be there and training as you would want someone else to be handling your product. not only is there a lot of standardization, there's a lot of honor.

  Rachel Cheng (04:47)

  for our products because we want to make sure we're making it as close to grandma's way as possible. But everything can be taught in that way. when we're training the team, we're working together, the beginning is very hands on, but there has to be an end of when that hands on period has to stop, you know? And...

  Rachel Cheng (05:05)

  Everything can be documented, written down. I have pictures of beef jerky crisps that are, you know, I have like a big circle next to it and that says like, yes, and then I have one that has like a big X on it that says no, if it's like too many peppers, if the piece is too thick, you know, you have your specifications for your product that you have to list out, not only as a standard of,

  Rachel Cheng (05:29)

  teaching somebody, but it's also quality assurance. You want to make sure even for myself, it's like, hey, I'm writing down, I threw out this piece of jerky. Why? Well, because it was too thick or it wasn't enough sauce or something was wrong with it for whatever reason. There's all of these protocols you have to put in place to be a manufacturer or just to be a sound.

  Rachel Cheng (05:48)

  ethical company that you have criteria and you have guidelines and you have standards that you have to put in place. So just making sure that's communicated well by doing it with your team. They see your standard for work and they see what is expected of the product and of what they should understand themselves.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (06:06)

  Is there a particular time frame that someone should be looking at? mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but looking at somebody making your product, seems to be fairly simple and straightforward. So I'm wondering, from actually hiring somebody to you actually being able to not be there every day, what does that need to look like? What is the expectation that a business should have?

  Rachel Cheng (06:28)

  think time wise it varies depending on what your team looks like and difficulty of the product. But for us, I'm glad you think it looks simple. I feel like...

  Rachel Cheng (06:40)

  It is a simple, it's a straightforward process. I'll put it that way. Like you are doing, you know, it's beef, it's marination, and then it goes into the dehydrator. But like, there's lots of like nuanced details that I have to make sure the piece is perfectly flat. Like this is marinated right there. The marination is seeping in for X amount of time and making sure that each piece is coated perfectly. So it's perfecting the little details to get your ultimate

  Rachel Cheng (07:07)

  result to what you would do it as, you know, and it's repetition of those items. in terms of laying out how to do it, it's meeting benchmarks. It's like, hey, if your process is complicated, we're very complex, many steps focus on like perfecting one step at a time.

  Rachel Cheng (07:24)

  and put a timeline on like or put it put like a milestone on when this should be perfected like the marination of this should be perfected by you know this is the symbol of this it looks right all the pieces come out in the same uniform color there's different factors and how you can judge each portion but it shouldn't

  Rachel Cheng (07:44)

  For it depends on how many like products you have and recipes and things like that. But for us, we have a streamlined process. All of our products are made almost the same way. It just depends on the marinade and depending on time of dehydration and temperature, depending on the.

  Rachel Cheng (07:59)

  pork or beef and things like that. So having those variations and you can have reminders on the wall for like if it's pork, make sure you're dehydrating it for longer or at this time or this temperature and beef. Like you have to put your things that can, the little details maybe make it more obvious and post it around your kitchen and have little signs everywhere. I used to put the time and temperature right next to the buttons when people are setting it to make sure that it corresponded with the proper.

  Rachel Cheng (08:26)

  dehydration time attempt, but just going through the milestones, working with your team, communicating to see where they're confused, what parts are too difficult. I'm always asking my team, Hey, is there something else that even because it's easy for me, doesn't mean necessarily easy for someone else at the same step.

  Rachel Cheng (08:44)

  or vice versa. So is there a better brush I can get? Is there a thicker brush? Is there a better tray or a better mat or a better container that I can use to help you be more comfortable in this process? So it's things like that, but it's training in the beginning, but also remembering to do refresher trainings

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (09:02)

  Yeah, that makes sense. So I'm wondering, this is me, as you were talking, I was thinking, and this has happened a couple of times in the kitchen where someone is feeling comfortable leaving their employees to make their product. And then all of a sudden something happens and that one employee leaves for whatever reason. And they get kind of thrown back into things. Have you figured out a way to combat that? Like where you're not the person stepping into the kitchen?

  Rachel Cheng (09:26)

  So I like to say I'm not the first line of defense. Like I'm not the next person who's called. I try not to be the next person who's called when something goes awry. And sometimes you can't avoid it, but the best way to do it is...

  Rachel Cheng (09:43)

  Designate, depending on how large your production is, designate one or two people as your production manager. Ideally two, if your operation allows for it. Currently I only have one. We have a team of five, it's pretty straightforward. But designate one person to be the production manager. And that way you're relying on one.

  Rachel Cheng (10:02)

  individual to be able to communicate problems to you and kind of like be your eyes when you're not there. Doesn't mean they have to be like...

  Rachel Cheng (10:11)

  mean or, or, you know, like the boss or anything. Like

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (10:13)

  you

  Rachel Cheng (10:14)

  I don't even call myself as like the boss. Like we are all one team. have one collective goal and it's to produce beef jerky. Then the highest quality way in the best way possible and maintaining customer satisfaction, you know, so that is all our cumulative goal. And that's communicated to every single team member, especially production manager. I exemplify that whenever I can in any way that makes sense, but

  Rachel Cheng (10:39)

  having that kind of level of trust in one person and having a backup person if your budget allows or your team is large enough maybe. But it makes sense to have someone that you can rely on who can...

  Rachel Cheng (10:54)

  be there if something else goes wrong. So, and if that person gets sick, hopefully the second in person in command could kind of help out with there. But there's also times, you know, for example, my production manager went away last week and on a well-deserved vacation, but we planned it out so that I was like, okay, this week I will have to step in more than normal. But also like that's not every week, you know, that is everyone deserves a vacation. and it's kind of just making sure things are still done right.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (11:22)

  So talk a little bit about your hiring process. Where do you find people? What type of questions at a high level do you ask them? And how do you ensure that they're gonna fit into the culture of the company and fit into the team?

  Rachel Cheng (11:36)

  Sure, the best way that I can say to hire people is through recommendations. Almost

  Rachel Cheng (11:42)

  almost always somebody within your team knows someone else who's looking for a job or something like that. And honestly, I never had such an easy time hiring than I did, but then being in Hudson kitchen, you know, at popcorn, was like you get recommendations also as a different business model at popcorn. was it was a different structure, but even hiring support staff and things like that, it really depends on.

  Rachel Cheng (12:07)

  It's luck a lot of times, but it's also like what you're the question you have to stage your questions to kind of understand how this person will react to certain things and the critical thinking that goes behind it and just like the overall team player like team camaraderie ideals that they have and that's

  Rachel Cheng (12:26)

  Honestly, and willingness to get along with somebody and willingness to comply is probably the biggest thing you want to look for in hiring anybody. The rest of the process can generally be taught. You don't necessarily have to have food experience. You can teach those things. But the willingness to learn something and the willingness to be a team player is the biggest thing I look out for when I'm hiring someone new. But luckily, in...

  Rachel Cheng (12:51)

  a setting like Hudson Kitchen, everyone's got a friend who needs another hour or something like that. So that was like one of the best parts, you know, if,

  Rachel Cheng (12:59)

  Victor needed something else here and I could ask for another friend here and it worked out because sharing between different companies worked out but it asked for recommendations from your current employees and it's usually turns out that's the most reliable way I can say but I have had to turn to Indeed in general job posting sites and it's just about

  Rachel Cheng (13:21)

  getting the right person in the door and getting someone who understands and someone who feels you feel like cares about you and your company to an extent. know, it's not like you're going to get another founder who's caring as much, but you should get someone who at least likes the product maybe that helps.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (13:38)

  Yeah,

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (13:38)

  I would say like, yeah, your team is pretty great. Like they, could tell they care. Like you could, you could just, you could see it in this, way that they interact with each other and the product. So it was always nice to, like, when I would take a peek and see what was going on to see them.

  Rachel Cheng (13:51)

  Yeah, it's

  Rachel Cheng (13:52)

  good team spirit. I believe it's very, very important for me to lead with that example of like, you know, we celebrate the small things, the birthdays, the this, the that. And it's like, we have each other's back. And that's the most important, one of the most important things to kind of give set an example of.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (14:11)

  Is there any tips that you have for those that are considering stepping away from the manufacturing and kind of leaving it to a production manager or another employee?

  Rachel Cheng (14:24)

  I think the biggest thing people need to remember, it's like, yes, this is your baby. This is your company. And you may have the mindset and you may see all these things on social media that tell you like, no one's going to do it as well as you. Or, you know, if, that horrible, but sometimes accurate saying of like, I should have myself. I want to one done right. And I am probably one of the biggest people who feel that way about things. But you

  Rachel Cheng (14:48)

  can't if you want to have a life outside of this company. And I think it just took me so long to feel like I could even say those things. But there needs to be a realization of you as a human being and you need to rest. And my process is 24 hours. So like, if I'm on 24 hours, I would never actually sleep. And that's

  Rachel Cheng (15:14)

  not good. Like you can't live that way. And you know, I owe it to my husband to be a good partner. And we have an understanding that this job is more than just a job. It's everything I want for my future and our future and everything.

  Rachel Cheng (15:30)

  I am basically just saying I get it. I get why you want to be there 24 seven, not let go of anything. And I'm not saying, you know, to turn a blind eye to any issue or anything like that, but there's a way and there's a time for every priority. I have a thousand things on my plate as a founder. have,

  Rachel Cheng (15:49)

  to worry about production, but I also have to worry about selling the product. I have to go and meet with clients. have to go and make sure I meet with potential co-packers and other manufacturers and other things that are really important for building and growing my company to where I want it to be. That if I'm focusing just on the day-to-day, it's not a sustainable company. And that's why I try to tell anyone starting a company, it's like...

  Rachel Cheng (16:13)

  I get it in the beginning, setting up your process, training your employees and your team and making sure things are done a certain way. But at a certain point, the goal is to be able to look at big picture and not just day to day. If you're stuck doing day to day, you honestly don't have a real company. It's not sustainable. And this is coming from someone who had to learn that the hard way.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (16:36)

  thank you for that. That's really, really important. It's so interesting, like I have clients like you who are like, out of the kitchen. There are some people that have been members of the Hudson Kitchen that I probably saw three times over the years, because they really trusted their team to

  Rachel Cheng (16:52)

  Yeah.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (16:53)

  do it. And there's some that are still kind of in the kitchen.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (16:56)

  on a day-to-day

  Rachel Cheng (16:57)

  Yeah.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (16:57)

  basis and I also I just find it so fascinating and I'm like I keep wondering like what will the transition be for them to get to the other to get to the other side

  Rachel Cheng (17:06)

  Yeah,

  Rachel Cheng (17:06)

  and I even have to say like it's not about like only trust like I trust my team 100 % I still go in

  Rachel Cheng (17:14)

  At least sometimes for all like for an hour every you know, luckily live close to my production facility So it's not like it's a huge commitment. But if I can do it remotely I have to remember like if I can communicate something remotely Then do it that way if I can't Then is there something wrong with the way i'm communicating it because there needs to be a new process put in place. How? Can I? Make sure i'm able to step back from that issue from before, you know and just like looking at what I

  Rachel Cheng (17:42)

  to go into the kitchen for. Because if I'm not in the kitchen, I'm able to say, hey, I can look at this. I can look at cost savings here. I can meet with this supplier there. There's so many other things that you as a founder need to do to grow your brand that anything from day to day and putting out fires can just really bog you down. So it's how do you prevent those things from happening?

  Rachel Cheng (18:04)

  As the operations individual of the company, I'm always thinking about how to be proactive instead of reactive. know, reactive is honestly too late. That means something already happened and proactive is preventing something bad from happening as much as you can. So, and that means not being there all the time.

  Rachel Cheng (18:20)

  It's how can I set up a system that allows me to prevent something from happening?

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (18:25)

  Yes, that makes sense. Well, Rachel, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Let everyone know where they can find out about you and Yay Snacks.

  Rachel Cheng (18:33)

  If you haven't already seen my wonderful, crazy, hilarious founder Marlon posting TikToks and Reels and YouTube videos, I don't necessarily like being in front of the camera, but sometimes I am scrolling through Instagram and I'll see myself. My mom will send me some video that she saw of me that Marlon posted. And so that's where you can find out all about Ye's.

  Rachel Cheng (18:56)

  and our website and just social media. Marlon has a great time on there and he tells the story well. So take a look. It's entertaining.

  Djenaba Johnson-Jones (19:01)

  He really does. So cool. Thank you.

  Rachel Cheng (19:06)

  Thank you so much.