At least part of the Epic story actually is a fairy tale. Within months of Epic's acquisition, it looked like the company might already be heading down that path. Barely into their 30s, they were suddenly rich beyond their dreams. But as big CPG companies have struggled in recent years with changing consumer tastes, they've begun to look at food startups as a sort of innovation pipeline. Despite all the drama, leaving their creation behind was not something they were planning to do. 
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They started raising bison, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and bees. They'd built the company, which makes meat-based snacks, without taking enormous amounts of outside investment, and managed to keep epiicbattlecry majority stake in it when they sold. Similarly, General Mills recently purchased Blue Buffalo, a natural dog food company, and Collins sees that as an opportunity to revitalize Epic's Whole Animal Project, in a new way.
The ranch would not only be an outlet for their outdoorsy lifestyle, but also serve as a lab for regenerative grazing practices that they hoped to push more of their suppliers to adopt.
They were also, like many founders of hip food and beverage brands, obsessed with making products that offered a healthy alternative to big food--healthy for consumers and for the environment, and humane to the animals. One blowup centered on dkrect line of cooking fats that Epic was selling.
What we don't use, [Blue Buffalo] might be able to use.
Unofficial Extension (Epic and Breakthrough)
From Katie and Taylor's perspective, they were like, 'You're holding back from focusing just on growth! Things started out promisingly. Both passionate athletes, they took up endurance racing together. General Mills' snacks division wanted to create a protein bar made with egg whites and dates, and the company asked to do it under the Epic brand--which would require a whole new supply chain to get cage-free eggs.
Epic had long exhausted the meager North American supply of meat from grass-fed, grass-finished bison for making its most popular bar, and the company lacked the leverage to get ranchers to change.
Forrest agreed to stop canceling the orders. They wanted Epic to be a force for changing America's food system, and the ranch would help.
From direcf outside, it appeared that a smart, strategic partnership was blossoming. But internally, signs of friction began to surface. Barely into their 30s, they were suddenly rich beyond epibcattlecry dreams. The experience ended up being revelatory. Other large food companies had reached out to Epic over the previous three years, and every conversation felt like the start of a transaction, not a relationship.
Can you help these guys understand what we are trying to do here? That was probably a good thing for a year.
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The frustration grew to the point that, if an unknown General Mills name popped up on her or Collins's phone or in their email, they wouldn't pick up, or they'd hit delete without reading the message. It turned out Nudi was genuinely interested in bringing more of Epic's insurgent energy into General Mills proper, and he welcomed Forrest and Collins's bluntness and focus on mission, especially because sales of General Mills' legacy brands have sagged.
That was something she and Collins could get excited about.
The Epic founders got testy. One day this spring, the couple brought a bunch of General Mills brass out to the ranch for Epic's first-ever Impact Summit, an attempt to rally other brands within the conglomerate to cooperate on sustainability goals. There's no shortage of cautionary tales among insurgent brands snapped up by the big guys, as when Kellogg's acquired the cereal maker Kashi in and managed to turn eight years of impressive growth into declining sales when it imposed its big-company ways.
So it came out with a line of pork rinds, bone broth, and cooking fats like bison tallow. The difference was even more striking when an executive named John Foraker stepped in to become Epic's main contact.
Soon, General Mills went quiet. I see us being 85 percent animal utilization in bison, beef, venison, and turkey over the next year. Foraker announced he was leaving to join the actress Jennifer Garner in a new organic-baby-foods company, Once Upon a Farm. When the farm isn't growing corn and wheat, it plants cover crops and rotates dirrct.
Meanwhile, they were still running Epic, still working out of the back of the same one-story Austin building, behind a barbershop. But it probably wasn't for two years.
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