Park City-based Jupiter CPG helps entrepreneurs grow their business

Are you an aspiring entrepreneur who could use help launching your new product to the market? Or perhaps you’re a small-business owner hoping to expand your company? You could hire a marketing person to help you achieve your goals, but onboarding can be time consuming, and there’s the hefty cost of a full-time salary, benefits and paid time off to consider as well.  

This is where Jupiter CPG comes in. With over 100 years of combined experience, Jupiter CPG’s team will assist with everything from product placement to providing logistic solutions and analyzing consumer behavior and retail trends.

A key part of the proposition is that you get an experienced management team — including senior roles from sales, marketing and finance — without all the typical hassles and costs that go with it.

Since its inception 15 years ago, the Park City-based business has “helped many up and coming companies launch into retail and promote their products.”

The CPG in the company name stands for Consumer Packaged Goods and it refers to merchandise that customers use and replace on a frequent basis. Think of items like food, beverages, cosmetics and toiletries. 

According to founder and CEO Chris Rebsamen, this can include many “cool little creations” such as Dog Brew Bone, a broth topper for dogs produced by Anheuser-Busch, and Chicka Chicka Boom, a children’s book published by Simon and Schuster.

Another current collaboration is with the international company Amaxi Nutritional. Rebsamen’s company acts as a vice president of sales and marketing for the $300 million group. This includes end-to-end distribution of many of their products.

“Our job for Amaxi Nutritional is to create a go to strategy and to bring their products to market,” said Rebsamen. “We have completely built out a retail distribution business. We are executing that as an end to end distribution process, from ideation to shelf and everything in between.”

One of these processes was used for Kathy Ireland Worldwide Nutritional Products, made up of a plant based protein mix, powder collagen and a green energy mix.  

Rebsamen’s team also partnered with a company out of South Korea and helped them launch a volcanic water line called JeJu 16 Water.

“This was a division of RCA Television and this product moved the company in a whole new direction, concept wise,” Rebsamen said. “To provide them immediate exposure and results, we built out an entire social media campaign from the ground up.” 

As a locally-owned business, the company and Rebsamen have found ways to support Park City and its small-business owners.

“I am one of the founding members of Pando Labs, which is an entrepreneur incubator,” he said. This Park City-based community group brings business owners together to connect and engage with each other. “Jupiter CPG is part of the team that assists the entrepreneurs and helps to provide the members with unique ways to look at things.”  

He said his company broken its revenue records for the past three years, and has has increased its “fire power” by adding to its executive leadership. New team members include Market Strategist Julie McPeek and Chief Revenue Officer Brian Maggio.

It hasn’t all been unrelenting success, however.

“After our initial formation, things were going very well. We were busy working with both start-up clients, as well as Fortune 500 companies,” He said. Then six years ago, “it all went sideways” when “I had a three-year battle with cancer, which put everything, including the business, underground.”

Treatment worked and the cancer went into remission three years ago. And he rebuilt his business.

“Following that, I had to reach deep and start over. Although it was very difficult, I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go,” Rebsamen said. After some counseling, I was able to relaunch Jupiter and bring it to where it is today.” 

He said the original launch 15 years ago was kind of an accident after he and his family moved from New York to Park City in 2009.

“We wanted the mountain lifestyle,” he said. “I have been skiing since I was 5, and it was always my dream to live in a ski resort town.”

So with no job or real plan, Rebsamen, wife Elizabeth, son Connor and their dog, Bode, “came here on a whim. For the first few months, we lived with my sister in a small two-bedroom condo. Eventually we found a place of our own and settled in.” 

This was while the Great Recession “really hitting the country hard.”

“I had some retail contacts that needed help to keep their sales processes in place,” he said.

With a 30-year career in executive roles in consumer packaged goods, he was a logical choice to turn to for assistance. Soon, others were hearing about his consulting assistance and before long, he was being sought out for advice.

“After four years of helping out as a hobby,” Rebsamen said, he thought, “it may be time to turn it into a business.”

Of course, a business needs a name, right?

“I was skiing the Park City mountain with Connor, who was then in fourth grade. I was talking to him about [my idea to start] a company. We were on the Jupiter Bowl Lift and he said, “Why not call it Jupiter?”

Now Jupiter CPG is celebrating its 15th year in business.

“We are at a tipping point.” Rebsamen said. “We want to grow our business and thereby continue to help entrepreneurs grow their business.”