Rip Van Inc., a fast-growing maker of low-sugar sweet snacks, announced a former Hershey Co. executive as its new chief executive officer ahead of a push into more retail stores this month, including Walmart Inc.
Todd Tillemans most recently was chief commercial officer of Perdue Farms, the poultry company, and previously served as US president at Hershey. He’ll take over as CEO of Rip Van on Tuesday. The company is poised to reach $100 million of retail sales this year.
Tillemans succeeds co-founder Rip Pruisken, who will stay involved in the company’s daily operations, including fundraising and developing new products. Fellow co-founder Marco De Leon will stay on as Rip Van’s chief financial officer. Both founders will serve on the company’s board.
“We’re building something fast moving and on-trend,” Tillemans said in an interview. He plans to start by focusing on the company’s four top-selling products, including the stroopwafel and wafers.
In total, Rip Van sells seven lower-sugar, high-fiber types of snacks. Already available at Whole Foods Markets, Costco Wholesale Corp. and Walmart online, Rip Van is expanding to 1,800 more stores, including brick-and-mortar Walmart locations later this month, as well as Albertsons, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Wawa.
Rip Van was started by Pruisken, a native of the Netherlands, in his dorm room at Brown University in 2010, before he officially launched with co-founder and fellow Brown student De Leon in 2012. The company began as a “clean-label” stroopwafel business but took seven years to arrive at its high-fiber, low-sugar formulation after its stroopwafel factory burned in a fire in 2017.
“That was pretty tragic,” Pruisken said. “We took that opportunity to go deep existentially,” he said. “That’s where we developed the vision for figuring out whether we could go low sugar — using fiber without using chemicals or sugar alcohols.”
The cookies use high—fiber ingredients including chicory root fiber and sugar beet fiber. The company also uses some monkfruit extract to tweak the sweetness level.
Pruisken and Tillemans said they expect to do one additional fundraising round in early 2027 and use the proceeds to hire more employees and invest in brand marketing while working on creating new products and refining existing ones.