Tom Reilly Returns with Grocery Wins and Creatine at VMI Sports | Episode #226

Tom Reilly, president of VMI Sports, returns to share the brand's newest grocery wins, a full creatine product lineup, and what's coming next in Episode #226 of the PricePlow Podcast.

Tom Reilly, president of VMI Sports, returns for Episode #226 of the PricePlow Podcast, just five months after his debut on Episode #205. This time, Ben is joined by Spencer, PricePlow's VP of Partnerships and Operations, who steps in for Mike and steers a big chunk of the conversation toward retail strategy.

Tom walks through how VMI keeps winning grocery shelf space at Wegmans, Giant Eagle, and now Wakefern's ShopRite banner, and why understanding vendor portals, credits, and shipping requirements matters as much as the formula itself. He also unveils VMI's newest creatine lineup, teases an unnamed protein snack headed for shelves by late summer, and explains why the brand waited two years to find the right creatine gummy manufacturer.

Along the way, Tom breaks down VMI's GNC franchise partnerships, a new VP hire aimed at the beverage business, and the MAX Catalyst-powered formula behind KXR Stacked.

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Video: Tom Reilly of VMI Sports on Grocery Wins, New Creatine Launches, and What’s Next

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Detailed Show Notes: Tom Reilly and VMI Sports

• 0:00 - Introductions

  Table of Contents

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  Ben welcomes Tom Reilly back to the show for his second appearance, noting his last stop was Episode #205. This time, Spencer Lynn joins as co-host, and Ben predicts listeners will hear more from Spencer than usual since the conversation leans hard into retail and grocery strategy, an area Spencer covers closely for PricePlow. Tom, president of VMI Sports, jumps in enthusiastic about catching the team up on what's changed since February, from new retail wins to a full slate of product launches. The dynamic feels familiar fast, and the three dive straight into how VMI's year has gone.

• 0:45 - VMI's 2026 Grocery and Gym Push

  Tom kicks off with a progress report: the last 18 to 24 months have been VMI's best stretch yet, including a spot on the Inc. 5000 last year and a new push into the GNC channel. Heading into 2026, Tom and his team mapped out where to double down. Grocery and gym are the two channels VMI knows best, so they focused on deepening existing partnerships with chains like HEB, Giant Eagle, and Hy-Vee while also chasing new doors. At the same time, VMI has invested more in direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales, using AI to help manage website tasks as social media growth finally gave the brand a real shot at speaking straight to consumers.

• 4:00 - Why Omnichannel Doesn't Mean Everywhere

  Ben raises a common industry critique: trying to be everywhere at once rarely works. Tom pushes back with nuance. VMI avoids channels where it doesn't fit, like convenience stores, but that doesn't mean sticking to just one lane either. The key is knowing where the brand belongs and building real partnerships there. Tom points to VMI's social strategy as an example: rather than just driving traffic to VMI's own website, the team increasingly ties digital ads and emails back to specific retail partners, like a recent blast to Northeast zip codes near new Wegmans locations, letting shoppers know exactly where to find VMI on shelves they already visit.

• 6:30 - Wegmans, HEB, and Regional Loyalty

  Regional grocery works for VMI because shoppers there tend to be creatures of habit. Tom cites HEB as the classic example: it converts well on social because it's practically the only place many Texans shop. Wegmans works the same way in the Northeast. Spencer jumps in to congratulate VMI on its new Wegmans placement, noting the chain runs roughly 120 locations and is expanding into Pittsburgh, moving into Giant Eagle and Kroger territory, with a new store slated for 2027. For Tom, the appeal is simple: get a loyal regional shopper to notice you once, and they'll keep buying from that same shelf every week.

• 8:15 - New SKUs Land on Wegmans' Shelves

  Spencer notes Wegmans has quietly built a reputation for its own third-party testing requirement, something most retailers never bother with. The chain also loosened its ingredient restrictions after COVID, including on sucralose, opening the door for brands like VMI. Tom credits Wegmans for striking the right balance: strict enough to protect shoppers, reasonable enough to let proven products in. VMI landed two SKUs of its entry-level KXR Sport pre-workout plus two flavors of its flavored creatine, one original and one PEZ collaboration flavor. For the PEZ SKU, VMI picked an apple flavor for both, a deliberate nod to the apple-heavy Northeast demographic surrounding many of Wegmans' upstate New York stores.

• 10:00 - Giant Eagle's Full-Circle Kroger Reunion

  Spencer shares a fun bit of grocery trivia: Giant Eagle actually began as a Kroger merger back in the 1930s before splitting off on its own, so Kroger's recent acquisition of the chain is something of a homecoming.

  

  Tom Reilly, president of VMI Sports, walks through a decade of building a bootstrapped supplement brand -- from Lone Star Distribution house brand to grocery chains, the PEZ collab, and two mystery canned beverages on the horizon, on Episode #205 of the PricePlow Podcast.

  Tom expects little to change for shoppers day to day. Giant Eagle already runs a strong regional footprint that Kroger doesn't have much presence in, so the more likely outcome is fresh investment and store updates rather than a rebrand. Local Pittsburgh news coverage stoked fears about rising prices, but Tom and Spencer both think Kroger's buying power could just as easily push prices down.

• 11:45 - Supplements Take Over the Grocery Aisle

  Ben points out how much shelf space supplements now command in grocery, noting his local Wegmans dedicates four full aisles to healthy foods and supplements. Tom traces the shift to better formulas, tighter quality control, and more brands doing real testing, which has let retailers expand what used to be a four-foot set carrying a handful of legacy brands into something much bigger. Wegmans' protein shake section alone rivals a full aisle now. For Tom, the logic is simple: people are going to shop at a grocery store regardless, so supplements just meet them where they already are.

• 14:00 - What Understanding Grocery Really Means

  Ben asks what "understanding the business" actually means for a brand with Tom's distribution background. Tom's answer starts with a bigger-picture point: specialty stores remain a strong channel when run well, but the real growth story is a wider population of consumers now taking supplements at all, informed by YouTube and AI in ways that didn't exist a decade ago. Grocery, meanwhile, comes with its own operational language. Case-packed UPCs, pallet height requirements, and warehouse-versus-store delivery all vary by retailer, and Tom credits VMI's distribution background with preparing the team for logistics that catch a lot of first-time grocery vendors off guard.

• 17:00 - Sell-In vs. Sell-Through: The Credits Trap

  Ben points out one of the most common mistakes he sees: brands that focus entirely on winning the purchase order and forget that someone still has to sell the product once it's on the shelf. Without understanding chargebacks, credits, and shipment requirements, a brand can watch a promising $300,000 PO shrink fast, leaving founders confused about why retailers aren't paying full invoice. Tom's distribution background gave VMI an early education in refrigerated shipping, longer payment terms, and the reality that inventory returns and expired-product credits are just part of doing business in grocery.

• 19:30 - Vendor Portals and Retail's Hidden Grind

  

  Stim or no stim? VMI Sports just launched both. A three-source caffeine Creatine Pre-Workout and a stim-free Creatine +Hydration, each with a full 5g creatine, all in Patriot Pop for America's 250th.

  Spencer adds another layer most consumers never see: every grocery chain runs its own vendor portal, and none of them look alike. Onboarding a full SKU lineup into one chain's system means starting from scratch the next week at a different retailer, often through software that feels frozen in 1999. Tom agrees the interfaces rarely change even when the underlying systems do, and the real challenge is decoding what each portal actually wants: some pallets can only reach a certain height, some retailers allow just one item per pallet, and getting it wrong slows everything down.

• 22:15 - Cracking Wakefern and ShopRite

  VMI's foot in the door at Wakefern, the parent company behind the ShopRite banner's 300-plus Northeast stores, came through one of its smaller franchise groups willing to take a meeting. With roughly 80 to 90 percent of Wakefern's stores franchise-owned, some running 50 to 100 locations, a single relationship can open a real runway. Tom leaned on VMI's historical data and its status as a fellow Northeast brand, and the group approved four items after years of failed attempts elsewhere.

  Ben shares his own ShopRite history: his first job was working a cash register there in 2014, when a customer suggestion notebook in the health aisle collected requests for creatine, back when many still thought it was a steroid.

• 25:45 - A New Protein Snack Is Coming

  Spencer jokes that Stop & Shop should be next on VMI's grocery hit list. Tom pivots to new product news, confirming the two beverages teased on the last podcast are still in R&D, a longer process than he'd like to admit. The bigger reveal is a new protein snack landing in the next couple of months. Tom keeps details close to the vest since trademark and IP paperwork are still pending, but confirms it falls into the protein bar category, one VMI has circled for years after testing concepts like muffins and cookies that never felt different enough from what's already on shelves.

• 28:30 - Dialing In the New Snack's Macros

  VMI is targeting roughly 220 to 230 calories and 20 grams of protein per serving, landing between a mass-gaining bar and a lighter option like Power Crunch that falls just short of the 20-gram mark.

  Tom wants the snack "macro clean" without skimping on taste, since flavor was the team's top priority through several rounds of iteration. Spencer points out VMI already has strong gym placement for its existing products, making the new snack a natural fit for the same shelves and coolers where shoppers already know the brand.

• 30:45 - 97% Approval and What Food Feedback Really Looks Like

  

  Early feedback has been remarkably strong. Tom describes local sampling sessions at gyms and nutrition stores that scored the new snack in the high 90s for positive response, a bar Ben notes is unusually high for a food product, where there's almost always at least one person a formula doesn't click with.

  The only real critique, from roughly 3 to 4 percent of testers across three of five test flavors, was that it tasted a little too sweet. Tom isn't worried. VMI has seen this pattern before with its PEZ flavors, where testers assumed candy-branded flavors would taste sweeter even when the sucralose level matched VMI's standard lineup exactly.

• 33:15 - Three Creatine Launches in Three Months

  Tom pegs the new snack's launch for roughly the end of summer, then pivots to what's occupied VMI's last three months: a full expansion of its creatine lineup timed around the Fourth of July's Patriot Pop flavor. VMI got into flavored creatine early, building out a PEZ collaboration line that kept selling faster than expected. This year's twist was combining creatine with categories VMI hadn't touched before. Rather than treating creatine as a single SKU, the team built it into a new pre-workout, a stim-free hydration product, and a gummy line, each designed around a genuine reason to combine categories rather than chasing a trend for its own sake.

• 36:30 - Inside the New Creatine Pre-Workout

  Tom calls VMI's new Creatine Pre-Workout one of the formulas he's proudest of this year. For years, VMI deliberately kept creatine out of its pre-workouts, treating it as something lifters would add on their own. This one breaks that pattern on purpose: a full 5g of creatine monohydrate alongside a three-source caffeine blend totaling roughly 300mg, HydroNox™ L-citrulline HCl and Agmass® agmatine sulfate for pumps, and VitaCholine® choline bitartrate for the mind-muscle connection. VMI launched the formula in a Patriot Pop flavor for the Fourth of July, with three additional flavors following about a week later.

• 38:30 - Creatine +Hydration Meets Aquamin

  VMI's other new launch, Creatine +Hydration, pairs a full dose of Pürest Creatine™ (NNB Nutrition's ultra-high-purity creatine monohydrate) with Albion's chelated TRAACS® minerals and Aquamin® sea minerals, the same quality-first approach VMI already uses in Protolyte and Aminogex Ultra. Tom didn't want to just throw creatine and electrolytes together for the sake of a trendy combo.

  

  VMI Sports KXR Stacked brings pumps, focus, and 200mg caffeine with MAX Catalyst absorption. Is this the smarter pre-workout you've been missing?

  The response caught him off guard: he's fielded more inbound interest in this single SKU than almost anything else VMI has launched, including a call from KeHE about a potential CVS placement. Tom's realistic about that particular lead given how much smaller CVS baskets run compared to grocery, but the demand signal for a combined creatine-and-hydration product is clearly real.

• 41:15 - Finding the Right Creatine Gummy Partner

  Creatine gummies sat on VMI's must-do list for a couple of years before Tom pulled the trigger, mostly because he couldn't find a manufacturer he trusted on testing, minimum order quantities, and transparency. The partner VMI settled on agreed to test and pay for overage upfront and share third-party results before anything shipped, which mattered enough to Tom that he built the whole launch around that relationship. VMI's point of differentiation turned out to be simple: its Patriot Pop gummy packs three flavors, lemon, cherry, and blue, into a single bottle, something Tom says he hasn't seen another brand do. Giant Eagle and HEB picked it up almost as soon as they saw it.

• 44:15 - Solving the Creatine-to-Creatinine Problem

  Ben recalls PricePlow's own testing work in this category: checking creatine gummies for creatine content, then testing failures for creatinine, the compound creatine breaks down into over time. The pattern was clear: the further a gummy's manufacture date sat from the test date, the more likely it had converted. Tom's answer was to run smaller, more frequent batches rather than sit on two years of inventory, paying more for freshness the way a good restaurant avoids old ingredients.

  Spencer credits that original testing wave with pushing the creatine gummy category forward roughly a year, forcing brands that knew better to prove it. Tom agrees, framing accountability as something that should raise the bar for good actors, not just the bad ones.

• 47:30 - Patriot Pop Gummies Hit Grocery Shelves

  Spencer asks whether the gummy's small-batch approach means it's mostly a direct-to-consumer play. Tom says it's actually a mix. Beyond VMI's website and Amazon, several grocery chains picked up the Patriot Pop gummy the same week production wrapped, including Giant Eagle and United Supermarkets, the Albertsons banner covering Texas and New Mexico. Since Patriot Pop is a limited-time Independence Day flavor, Tom isn't sure every chain will keep carrying it, but larger retailers typically hand VMI a 90-day demand projection, which helps the team plan production runs without over- or under-committing.

• 49:45 - Amazon's Testing Rules and the Middleman Squeeze

  

  VMI Sports expands their PEZ Candy collaboration with L-Carnitine 3000 and L-Carnitine 1500 Heat. Pure metabolic support vs thermogenic fat burning, both in PEZ Grape and Cherry. Because carnitine doesn't need to taste clinical.

  The conversation shifts to Amazon's product testing requirements, a topic Tom has mixed feelings about. Unlike Wegmans, where a phone call to a buyer can resolve an issue, Amazon operates at a scale where there's no one to call, and its testing rules shift often enough that brands pay tens of thousands every few months to retest products that barely changed.

  Tom lands in the middle: he understands why Amazon enforces the same rules on everyone, since bad actors won't police themselves, but the redundancy hits smaller, honest brands hardest. Ben recalls an off-the-record talk with Amazon's head of risk about a year and a half ago, and notes the FDA has since sent Amazon a warning letter treating the platform like a retailer.

• 53:00 - Why the Brick-and-Mortar Shakeout Was Healthy

  Ben argues the shakeout in brick-and-mortar specialty retail, painful as it was, mostly weeded out stores that never built real community loyalty, pointing to brands like Nutrition Factory and Natural Body Inc as proof a well-run specialty store still thrives. Tom agrees completely: retailers with a genuinely good business, whether GNC franchisees or independent shops, tend to keep winning regardless of what Amazon or big-box grocery does around them. That segues into one of VMI's strongest specialty relationships, its network of GNC franchise groups.

• 56:15 - Inside VMI's GNC Franchise Partnerships

  VMI's specialty push runs through several GNC franchise groups it joined over the past year: the Dalton group in the Carolinas (roughly 12 to 14 stores), the Eric Miller group across Pennsylvania (15 to 20 stores), and the Jensen group on the West Coast (four to five stores). VMI got roughly 20 to 21 items approved right out of the gate, a strong showing for a new partnership.

  Spencer credits these three groups for building their own community identity within the GNC system, citing Dalton's annual block party and Christina Grable's work running stores for Eric Miller. Tom sums it up simply: the groups that train employees, sample product, and treat the store like their own business are the ones that win.

• 1:01:00 - A New VP and the Beverage Roadmap

  VMI recently brought on Mike Murphy as its new VP, a longtime friend who worked alongside Tom and Frank Fenimore at Lone Star, then at GNC and UNFI, before spending the last three years at the beverage brand FitAid. That beverage-side experience is exactly what VMI needs right now.

  Murphy's focus for the rest of the year is auditing VMI's existing KXR RTD network: where it's sold, where flavor gaps exist, and where cooler space could expand or shrink, laying groundwork before VMI's two beverages still in R&D are ready to launch. Muscle Foods has been VMI's biggest beverage distribution partner to date, alongside Sport Life Distribution and DNA on the West Coast.

• 1:05:00 - Room to Grow in Pre-Workout RTDs

  

  VMI Sports Protolyte isn't just another whey isolate. 24g protein with TRAACS chelated minerals that actually absorb, digestive enzymes to prevent bloat, and flavors with real freeze-dried ingredients. They've been ahead of the curve since 2019.

  Tom's eyeing a lower-stimulant KXR RTD option, dropping from 400mg to roughly 300mg of caffeine and removing alpha-yohimbine entirely, aimed at the everyday consumer who wants less intensity than VMI's flagship can. Part of the timing lines up with C4 Ultimate changes, which Tom expects to open a gap in that mid-stim lane.

  He also makes the case that pre-workout RTDs remain underserved compared to energy drinks generally. Every day, a new crop of younger gym-goers graduates from energy drinks to real pre-workout, and Tom compares the category's current state to protein RTDs a few years back, when Glanbia shuttered ABB and options briefly dried up before roughly 40 new entrants flooded the space.

• 1:09:00 - MAX Catalyst and the KXR Stacked Formula

  Ben asks about yohimbine dosing across the KXR line. Tom clarifies that KXR Original carries alpha-yohimbine, while KXR Stacked, VMI's performance-oriented option, carries none at all, leaning instead on VitaCholine, taurine, tyrosine, and betaine. That leaves the new Creatine Pre-Workout sitting in the middle at 300mg of caffeine, between Original's 400mg and Sport's 200mg.

  Tom explains why MAX Catalyst shows up specifically in Stacked: with net caffeine capped at 200mg, he wanted to maximize how much of it the body absorbs, and rather than loading in 10g of citrulline malate, VMI used 6g paired with MAX Catalyst instead. Tom calls the ingredient underutilized and admits it isn't cheap, but users regularly ask what else is in the formula.

• 1:14:15 - Solving the Caffeine Goldilocks Problem

  Caffeine dosing is its own psychological puzzle. Ben recalls sitting down with Applied Nutrition years ago debating whether 200mg felt too light and 300mg too heavy, with 250mg often landing as the assumed sweet spot. Tom's answer combines transparency with smart formula design. VMI lists total blend weight on its labels, so KXR Stacked shows 292mg even though only 200mg is actual caffeine, the rest coming from the malic and citric acid bound to ingredients like dicaffeine malate.

  Because MAX Catalyst improves absorption, Tom says the real-world effect often feels closer to 250 or 275mg. Using multiple caffeine sources with staggered onset also helps explain why VMI rarely hears complaints about crashes or headaches.

• 1:16:15 - Dre's Rebrand and Shelf-Ready Labels

  Spencer gives a shoutout to Dre, VMI's in-house creative lead, for the Patriot Pop labels and the brand's overall look. Tom credits Dre with essentially the entire rebrand, calling it the reason VMI went from a decade of zero label compliments to constant praise, down to small details like the cherry vanilla design that Spencer says looks more appetizing than actual ice cream packaging. For Tom, the bigger point is that as a retail-focused brand, the physical label matters more than any digital render, since he's seen too many brands invest in polished product photography only to have a flat, uninspired label sitting on the real shelf.

• 1:21:00 - Wrap-Up and Where to Find VMI

  Tom wraps with an open invitation: find VMI Sports at vmisports.com or on Instagram and TikTok at @vmisports, and connect with Tom personally at @tom_vmisports. Spencer recommends following Tom on LinkedIn too, both for his industry insights and his running series of airport-inspired musings. Before signing off, the crew gives a shoutout to Perfect Shaker, promising Tom another custom shaker cup, this one earmarked for Dre as an employee-of-the-month gift. Ben and Spencer thank Tom for another candid conversation, and Tom leaves the door open for a return trip once VMI's next round of launches is ready to share.

Where to Follow and Learn More

Connect with Tom Reilly and VMI Sports

• LinkedIn: Thomas Reilly
• LinkedIn: VMI Sports
• Instagram: @tom_vmisports
• Instagram: @vmisports
• VMI Sports Website
• VMI Sports on PricePlow - Sign up for news and price alerts

Resources Mentioned

• Episode #205: Tom Reilly on VMI Sports, PEZ Collab, and Two Mystery Canned Beverages
• VMI Sports Launches Creatine Pre-Workout and Creatine +Hydration for America's 250th Anniversary
• Pürest Creatine: NNB Nutrition's Ultra-High-Purity Creatine Monohydrate
• VMI Sports KXR Stacked: More Pumps, More Brain Power, Less Buzz
• VMI Sports Protolyte: Premium Whey Isolate with TRAACS Minerals
• VMI Sports Aminogex Ultra -- Not Your Standard BCAA
• PEZ Candy Flavors Come to VMI Sports L-Carnitine
• VMI Sports K-XR: High Energy High-Stim Pre Workout
• Creatine Gummy FAIL: 46% of Brands Failed NOW Foods' Testing

Products Discussed

• VMI Sports Creatine Pre-Workout and Creatine +Hydration
• VMI Sports KXR Stacked
• VMI Sports Protolyte
• VMI Sports on PricePlow - Full lineup, pricing, and availability

Big thanks to Tom for coming back on so soon and walking us through VMI's grocery wins, the new creatine lineup, and everything still cooking on the beverage side. We're grateful to VMI Sports for sponsoring this episode, and we'll be watching closely for that protein snack reveal.

This episode is also brought to you by Perfect Shaker -- thanks for keeping VMI's shaker game strong. Grab your own incredible shaker cup at PricePlow.com/perfect-shaker or PerfectShaker.com.

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