Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, once said his obsession with improving Feastables led him to secretly monitor Walmart shelves, spend thousands of hours studying the problem and even shell out six figures a week to protect the customer experience.
Why MrBeast Secretly Planted GoPros In Walmart Stores
During an appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast in 2025, the YouTube star opened up about the extraordinary lengths he went to after noticing that Feastables chocolate bars were frequently breaking on Walmart shelves.
Donaldson said his team initially dismissed his concerns, telling him the issue was common across the chocolate industry. But he wasn’t convinced.
“I just [needed] to know why my bars were breaking,” he said, explaining that he repeatedly saw shattered chocolate bars during store visits.
After Walmart declined to share security camera footage, Donaldson said he secretly placed GoPros to observe what was happening on the shelves.
The footage, according to Donaldson, revealed that customers weren’t mishandling the products. Instead, the packaging design was flawed.
As shoppers picked up one box, neighboring boxes slid forward, tipped over and sent chocolate bars crashing to the floor. Because the original bars lacked the segmented break points found on most chocolate bars, they often shattered on impact.
How Packaging Mistakes Led To A $100,000-A-Week Fix
Donaldson admitted Feastables made several early mistakes, from designing bars without easy-to-snap sections to overlooking the importance of packaging engineering.
“I learned what a package engineer is and I was like, ‘Holy… this is your full-time job to make it where my boxes don’t fall over,’” he recalled.
While working on a permanent packaging redesign, Donaldson said he hired workers to visit every Walmart carrying Feastables each week to remove broken bars and reorganize displays.
According to him, the effort cost roughly $100,000 per week, but he believed it was worth it to prevent shoppers from encountering damaged products.
‘I Don’t Do Anything Halfway,’ Says MrBeast
Donaldson said his hands-on approach extended beyond packaging.
He described spending “thousands of hours” obsessing over every aspect of Feastables, from ethical sourcing to retail placement and even making road trips to visit dozens of Walmart stores to study sales and product displays firsthand.
“I don’t do anything halfway,” he said.
How MrBeast Built A $2.6 Billion Empire Beyond YouTube
MrBeast’s net worth is estimated at $2.6 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Much of his fortune comes from his majority stake in Beast Industries, the holding company behind his media, food and technology ventures.
After rising to fame through viral challenge videos, elaborate stunts and massive giveaways, Donaldson expanded beyond YouTube with the launch of MrBeast Burger in 2020, Feastables in 2022 and a reported $100 million Amazon deal for an exclusive streaming series in 2024.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo: Joe Seer On Shutterstock.com
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