Legendary Foods CEO Ron Penna sold his first protein bar company, Quest Nutrition, for $1 billion. His newest flex is selling fitness freaks \u2018healthy\u2019 versions of cinnamon rolls, donuts and chips\u2014and now brings in $180 million in revenue.<\/p>\n
Ittakes Ron Penna<\/strong> eight minutes to get to the Legendary Foods headquarters in Santa Monica, California from his $12 million mansion in Brentwood. Penna and his wife purchased the property\u2014which has changed hands among celebrities, including Courteney Cox and Tobey Maguire\u2014in 2017, two years before his first protein company, Quest Nutrition, sold for $1 billion. In between the lush hedges and sprawling gardens sits one of the Pennas\u2019 most beloved places: a 4,000-square-foot personal gym.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, nutrition is magical,\u201d says the 54-year-old Penna, a once-skinny kid who added (and has retained) 70 pounds of muscle in his twenties. \u201cI\u2019ve eaten a weird diet most of my adult life\u2026I’ve done higher fat, keto diets, all kinds of things. The one that has really become a staple, is my protein\u2014I usually eat between 40 to 50% of my calories in protein.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if that means chowing down on cookies and cake.<\/p>\n In 2017, shortly before he sold Quest to Denver-based Simply Good Foods, Penna cofounded his junk food protein brand, Legendary Foods, laying the foundation for his second act and building a direct competitor to his first unicorn. Both companies aim squarely at the recently accelerated consumer desire for protein-infused indulgences. At a time when 12% of American adults have used Ozempic or a similar GLP-1 medication (according to research by the San Francisco-based nonprofit healthcare foundation KFF), more people are eating smaller portions and spending less on food, according to a study done by PWC<\/a>. This also means that consumers are extremely reliant on high-protein, low-calorie choices to maintain muscle as they drop in weight\u2014and still say sated.<\/p>\n Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy\u2019s initiative to Make America Healthy Again by scrutinizing food ingredients also resonates with the GLP-1 crowd opting to eschew junk food habits and taking a deeper interest in the quality of their meals and snacks.<\/p>\n But humans are creatures of habit, counters Julia Mills, a food and drink analyst at London-based research firm Mintel. We don\u2019t like to give up on our favorite treats. \u201cThat\u2019s largely why consumers are drawn to junk food with protein in it,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n Founded in 2010, Quest has long been a dominant player in the protein bar market, reporting revenues of almost $400 million at the time of its 2019 sale. The business took off after expanding its product line into snacks including protein chips, pizza and shakes. Quest also sells cookies, candy and muffins. But Legendary Foods, with products like donuts and cinnamon rolls, take a much obvious swing at sweet tooths looking for dessert alternatives.<\/p>\n \u201cI don’t think I’ve seen just so much ardent desire,\u201d Penna says of consumers\u2019 reaction to Legendary Foods in comparison to Quest.<\/p>\n Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland to two Brazilian doctors, Penna found himself more demoralized than inspired at the prospect of work as a teenager. He recalls a high school project meant to encourage students, where he and his classmates spoke to adults about what it was really like to have a job.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of kids came back to class and were all excited, but I remember thinking, Wow, I got to figure a way around this.\u201d<\/p>\n Penna decided the best way to do that for the rest of his life was to get rich. After an unsuccessful stint as a realtor at 18 years old, he attended Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, where he and his friends started several side hustles most of which failed. After college, he and his college roommate, Mike Osborn, founded a web design company together that fared decently.<\/p>\n In 2005, Penna met his wife, Shannon, on a dating website, bonding over a shared love of healthy eating and exercise. A few years later, Shannon, then a fitness trainer, started making her own protein bars in the couple\u2019s kitchen. \u201cWe talked about nutrition constantly,\u201d Penna says. \u201cAt the time, we didn’t really eat any, and we said, \u2018God, why don’t people make a protein bar a certain way?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Shannon developed Quest\u2019s initial 13 flavors at home, the first being vanilla almond crunch. Penna and Osborn later brought on a former marketing executive Tom Bilyeu and spent the first year making bars by hand and giving away plenty of free products to gyms, or anyone who would ask. The samples truly grew the company, Penna insists.<\/p>\n Quest booked $3 million in revenue in its first full year. \u201cThe product would just attract its own customers,\u201d he says, calling the original Quest bars \u201cmagnetic.\u201d<\/p>\n By 2012, Penna and Osborn purchased around $500,000 worth of manufacturing machinery to keep up with demand and launched in stores, ending the year with $21 million in revenue. Quest started selling protein powders in 2013 and rapidly expanded into big box retailers like Walmart and Target. By 2014 the brand was taking in $250 million.<\/p>\n In 2015, VMG Partners, a San Francisco, California-based investment firm, injected Quest with capital for the first time to boost production. The deal valued Quest at $900 million and gave VMG 13% of the company, which initially left nearly 30% equity for each of the founders.<\/p>\n That year, Quest nearly doubled its revenue to $420 million. But the following year, VMG grew skeptical when Quest started developing tortilla chips and frozen pizzas. Around that time, Penna grew frustrated with the company\u2019s direction. Research and development were the hallmarks of the brand in Penna\u2019s eyes, and he wasn\u2019t a fan of how Quest was now spending tens of millions a year on marketing and videos, which he considered unnecessary.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like we got away from our strength as we got bigger and bigger,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought we were distracting ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeing an acquisition on the horizon, Penna started kicking around the idea of his next venture, and in 2017 he founded Legendary Foods as a flavored nut company\u2014choosing to veer away from protein products before his noncompete agreement was finalized.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone thought it was crazy,\u201d he recalls. \u201cPeople said \u2018Wait a minute, you haven’t sold Quest. Everything’s going so well. What the hell are you doing?\u2019 I thought it was just a really good way to test the waters.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweet Success: Legendary’s newest products include frosted donuts, which are now sold at more than 100,000 gyms and stores across the country.<\/p>\n Legendary Foods<\/p>\n Legendary sat on the back burner until Quest\u2019s sale in 2019, when the company sold in the largest protein bar acquisition at the time. The deal netted Penna about $220 million post-tax. His non-compete agreement prevented him from creating some Quest-specific items like tortilla chips, protein bars and ready-to-drink products for three years.<\/p>\n Bringing on former colleague Michael Veni as a cofounder (who owns a small share of the company), Legendary also took several other Quest employees from the research and development team. The new company started to take off in 2020 with the launch of a Pop-Tart-like toaster pastry.<\/p>\n \u201cLegendary became a laboratory to see if I could do this again, and do it more cleanly and leanly,\u201d Penna says. \u201cMy goal was to build two unicorn companies back-to-back.\u201d<\/p>\n Legendary entered retail locations within four months of launching its first few products. Navigating the early months of the business\u2014let alone getting back into Walmart\u2014wasn\u2019t as easy as Penna expected. Ingredient sellers who had worked with Penna at Quest wouldn\u2019t take his calls and approaching familiar retailers felt like starting over.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody cares about what you did in the past,\u201d Penna says. \u201cIt probably didn\u2019t hurt that we were at Quest [before], but I would’ve thought it would’ve helped at least ten percent. We had to completely re-earn the trust.\u201d<\/p>\n Early products like sweet rolls eventually made their way onto shelves. By 2021, Legendary brought in almost $6 million in revenue, which increased $18 million in 2022. Maximizing retail partners was the most important growth path for Penna as the brand expanded flavor options and into products such as donuts. In 2023, the company saw around $60 million in sales and surpassed $120 million in 2024. Legendary also became a profitable business in 2024.<\/p>\n The business was doing well but it was also hindered early on by not having its own manufacturing site. In May 2025, Penna opened a facility in Bell, California exclusively for Legendary\u2014a choice many in his life discouraged due to the cost of maintaining a plant in the Golden State.<\/p>\n Creating the products themselves continues to be an arduous task, especially since Penna\u2019s goal was to outdo his work at Quest. It took two and half years to develop the prototype for the Legendary Foods donut, which Penna set out to make much more shelf-stable than the products Quest made.<\/p>\n It is easier to create products with moderate protein content, many companies \u201csprinkle in\u201d protein to boost the nutritional figure. It\u2019s much harder to make a pastry with 20 grams of protein with 180 calories, which requires the brand to make dough and frosting out of protein (without using sugar or carbs). \u201cIt’s a little bit like putting yourself in a straitjacket and saying, \u2018How am I going to work myself out of this?\u2019,\u201d Penna explains.<\/p>\n The result is a very pricey product, sometimes 500% more expensive than a traditional sweet snack. A box of four toaster pastries from Legendary Foods costs about $12. A pack of eight actual Pop-Tarts cost less than $4.<\/p>\n \u201cOur cost of goods is way higher than most companies are going to do,\u201d Penna says. \u201cThat’s why Quest was ultimately acquired. The magic really was in the research and development. Legendary just took that to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n For all Legendary Foods\u2019 sales success, it\u2019s not exactly a ubiquitous product. Customers who leave reviews on Target and Walmart\u2019s websites, for instance, tend to rate its products lower than at, say, health food store GNC\u2014which has almost exclusively glowing reviews. More health-oriented consumers are clearly willing to cough up a few extra bucks to hit their necessary nutritional goals or simply avoid feeling guilty. \u201cA high-protein cookie or some chips may feel like a more permissible indulgence if it has added benefits like protein,\u201d Mills says.<\/p>\n Legendary is now on track to bring in more than $180 million in revenue this year and is stocked in more than 100,000 gyms and retail locations across the country. Penna says the brand has spent no money on marketing save for the occasional Instagram post. That means no sponsored social media posts or advertising campaigns, just \u201cevangelists\u201d who love the product, according to Penna. Last year, Penna says a major corporation offered him $1 billion for Legendary Foods, but he\u2019s not ready to sell just yet.<\/p>\n Some 3,000 miles away from California, a 7-Eleven in New York City shelves Legendary desserts right next to several cake-flavored Quest protein bars. A customer on her way back from the gym eyes her options: the familiar Quest snack or a product new to her, the formidable-sized cinnamon roll touting the same macronutrients. She picks up the Legendary roll and skims the packaging briefly before heading to the register, opening the wrapper before the card reader has time to process her charge.<\/p>\n \nMore from Forbes<\/strong>ForbesHow YoungLA Pumped Up Its Activewear Startup To $176 Million In SalesBy Simone Melvin<\/a>ForbesThis Protein Bar Cofounder Sold His Company For $600 Million. Now He Wants Another Bite Of The Market.By Simone Melvin<\/a>ForbesHow Crumbl Devoured AmericaBy Simone Melvin<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary Foods CEO Ron Penna sold his first protein bar company, Quest Nutrition, for $1 billion. 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