This week, we got a very interesting PR kit. A wooden crate with a metal pry bar, addressed to “Jenna and Nate’s Orchard” 👀.

Inside were some fun treats from a new candy brand called Refresh’d. They make freeze-dried fruits (grapes, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, and mango) that have been covered in a sugar and citric acid coating. Think Fruit Riot, but freeze-dried instead of frozen!

Each flavor came in its own little bag shaped like the fruit inside. CANDY SHOULD BE THIS FUN!! Check out our live review over on our instagram.

Something really interesting about this brand is that it fits into a new category we’re seeing form inside the broader new wave of candy, which is candy that is basically just fruit. There’s a shocking amount of date-based ones like Smood Sweets, Joolies, Super Loops, True Dates, and Daddl, just to name a few. Beyond dates, then there’s a few more fruit-forward ones like Fruit Riot and Final Boss Sour.

Part of what’s driving the new wave of candy is the idea that candy can be better for you and still actually taste good (see Harken and Happy Candy for example). This whole “just fruit” side of the trend is the most literal version of that, without just being fresh fruit. It lines up with where food in general has been heading, where many consumers want a shorter ingredient list of real, whole ingredients that doesn’t feel overly processed.

And with that, let’s get into our (individual) picks of the week →

Nate’s Pickup:

Paco Jones Mexican Ketchup and BBQ sauce

We might be out of grilling season here in the Northeast, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy some fries or a solid burger. And honestly, I’ll never say no to a hot dog. Sue me! We first tried Paco Jones at the Fancy Food Show in NYC this summer, where they made my list of top picks from the show, and now they’re making my top picks of the week. Hell, I’d even put these on my list of all-time favorite CPG products. Yes, they’re seriously that good.

I know, I know, there are a lot of sauces out there. There are countless regular ketchups on the market alone, but these bring a certain je ne sais quoi that’s hard to explain, so let me do my best. A lot of it comes down to how well they fit into this new wave of interesting fusions, where brands either pair a specific cuisine or flavor with something familiar or, in this case, take the familiar and give it a little twist.

• Quick Facts: Paco Jones is a new condiment brand that reworks two American staples with Mexican ingredients. It launched with two sauces, a Tomato Chipotle Mexican Ketchup made with chipotle in adobo and jalapeño, and a Strawberry Fresno Mexican Barbecue Sauce that swaps tomato paste for strawberries and adds Fresno and pequin chiles. Both are sweetened with agave.

• Reasons to love:

  • A twist on two classics. Ketchup and barbecue sauce are two condiments whose taste and texture you can probably picture in your head right now. They’re classics for a reason. Paco Jones takes those and reframes them with bold Mexican flavors I didn’t even know I wanted in these sauces. The barbecue sauce was particularly intriguing to me because in lieu of tomato paste it uses sweet strawberries (!!!) and red chiles for a sweet, spicy, tangy sauce you’ll want to put on simply everything. Who would have thought of that?! It’s so good! The ketchup is a bit more classic, still made with tomatoes, but it’s more savory and made with smoky chipotle and some jalapeño for added heat. It’s a much warmer-feeling sauce than your traditional Heinz with so much more depth to it, and I’m SO happy they did what they did. And this unique angle on the product really fits into something I think helps new CPG brands win, and that is when you’re slightly novel but mostly familiar. Consumers get sacred of true newness a lot of the time.

  • Not too sweet, not too spicy. I’ll preface this thought by saying I’m very comfortable with spice, so these might run a little hot for someone who can’t handle it. For me though, they land perfectly in the sweet spot between sweet and spicy. I’d also add tangy in there too! It’s a middle ground that works so well across all the major food groups, by which I of course mean chicken wings, hot dogs, onion rings, french fries, and burgers. I’d also like to add chicken nuggets (Chick-fil-A nuggets) to this food pyramid because they were amazing with the BBQ sauce!

Where to buy: Pacojones.com or in select retailers nationwide

Jenna’s Pickup:

Made by Marge - S’mores Cookie Dough

Today’s pickup is going to be short and sweet, because this product speaks for itself. Made by Marge makes frozen cookie dough that can go straight from freezer to oven, and it bakes out perfectly every single time. It’s simply a damn good cookie, no functions or benefits to speak of (besides… pure joy?), and a brand that every partygoer or host should have stocked in their freezer this holiday season.

• Quick Facts: Ready-to-bake cookie dough handmade by the lovely Marge in Dallas. Marge uses the same from-scratch recipe—including real butter, cane sugar, organic flour, all the good stuff—that she’d shared with family and friends in college, now packaged for anyone to enjoy at home.

• Reasons to love:

  • Bakery-quality, homemade taste. These are easily up there with the best cookies I’ve ever had, including the $8-but-swear-it’s-worth-the-line varieties from the buzziest NYC bakeries. They bake to perfection, with a slightly crispy-chewy bottom and soft, gooey center. I love the OG Chocolate Chip, but the S’mores is something really special—it includes vegan marshmallows that caramelize to perfection and cinnamon graham crackers that offer a lovely crunch and delicate spice.

  • For solo or sharing moments. Each bag comes with 12 (hefty) cookie dough balls, so you can make a full batch or bake a single-serve on a night when you need a little treat.

  • Guest gift hack. I recently brought these to a friend’s house (to watch Love is Blind, of course), and it was one of the the best guest gifts I’ve ever bestowed. You could bring the cookies pre-baked and win over any group or party, but it was equally delightful to bake the cookies at the destination—the gift of both an intoxicating, house-filling scent and the resulting treat. All of my friends agreed—this is an absurdly delicious cookie that you would never know came from the freezer. It’s the ultimate hack to be the most memorable guest or host this holiday season.

Where to buy: Online or in Pop Up Grocer (NYC), Foxtrot locations, or a few Texas retailers.

In case you missed it… 🎧

And in case you missed it, this week on our podcast we tackled a big question: when did “acquisition” become such a dirty word in CPG?

When an emerging brand gets acquired by a bigger company, the public reaction isn’t always positive. But is it actually a bad thing? We dug into some recent acquisitions, explore how some consumer rhetoric might not actually match what’s really happening, and talk through when an acquisition might (or might not) be something to worry about.

Catch the full episode below 👇

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to the Express Checkout podcast wherever you get your podcasts! New episodes drop weekly.

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Nobody does founder content like Mid-Day Squares. So it caught us off guard when co-founder Nick Saltarelli told us it’s stopped moving the needle...

The challenge is that Meta only shows ads to people who resemble the person in it, so the same founder faces just keep reaching the same fans. With MDS now heading into Costco and Walmart in the US (!!!), Nick needed new faces, fast.

We talked with him about how Vidovo turned one winning script into 10 creator ads. Four became winners (the industry average is about 1 in 20), and they’re still running nearly a year later at 15–20% lower CAC.

Founder content builds the fanbase, but creator content (critically, not AI content) reaches everyone else.

Learn how Mid-Day Squares scales content while saving time ->

What what we’ve been thinking about…

The second great cereal renaissance is being led by a retailer.

This week, Little Spoon launched Dolphin Divers, its first-ever kids’ cereal, exclusively at Target nationwide. On its own, this is yet another better-for-you kids brand expanding its set in a major retailer. But what’s actually happening is more interesting… because this wasn’t actually Little Spoon’s idea.

Last fall, Target confidentially told the better-for-you kids brand Little Spoon—its biggest-ever food and beverage brand launch—that it was about to ban cereals with artificial colors, and asked if it wanted in on the category. One year layer, Dolphin Divers was born. Meanwhile, Target has spent the past few months championing another new kids’ cereal brand: Backflip, the brand from YouTuber Ben Azelart and Béis co-founder Shaun Neff, which launched exclusively at Target in July.

Target looked at its cereal aisle and saw a need for entirely new brand entrants rather than seeking innovation from its current set. How did we get here?

This isn’t Target’s first cereal renaissance. Magic Spoon launched in 2019 as a DTC brand with high-protein, low-carbs, and a premium vibe (and price tag to match). It spent three years winning over more than 1M+ customers online before landing its first retail deal: about 1,300 Target stores. Three Wishes arrived the same year with a grain-free chickpea base, macro callouts, and similar premium feel, and later used Target as its exclusive launchpad for its first move beyond cereal.

This first cereal renaissance was rooted in a macro-first pitch that landed hardest with adults. The kids’ shelf stayed Big Cereal’s turf… until this year.

The catalyst for a new kids cereal aisle in Target looked something like this:

• First, the dye-free boom. In February, Target announced it would sell only cereals made without certified synthetic colors by the end of May, and drop brands that didn’t reformulate. Big Cereal moved fast: General Mills finished pulling dyes from its US cereals in August, and Kellogg is doing the same by the end of 2026, a year ahead of its own deadline.

  • But that alone wasn’t a big enough reason on its own to call-in Little Spoon; 85% of Target’s cereal sales were already dye-free. Mostly, it gave Target an excuse to reset the whole set. Target added an exclusive dye-free Froot Loops, its own Good & Gather kids’ line, and new varieties from Lovebird and Seven Sundays.

• Target then realized it needed to fill another gap: The broader push for better-for-you kids products (which we wrote about here). Millennial parents who rebuilt their own pantries around clean labels have turned that same lens on their kids, but most recent “better” cereal innovation targeted adults. Kids got “cleaner” versions of the same old boxes, while the brands actually built for them—with the shapes, mascots, color, and age-appropriate macros—never arrived.

Enter the second wave of cereal: kid-first, Target-first. The sub-category’s two buzzy new hero brands are approaching it from different angles:

• Backflip sells to the kid. The YouTuber-founded brand’s star-shaped cereal boasts a fun flavor mascot on every box, and even launched character trading cards to lean into the brand world. It’s built for the 6–12-year-olds who already watch Azelart. And it seems to be working (at least so far): In its first eight weeks on shelf, Backflip was the #1 most productive item in all of breakfast at Target, in both dollars and units.

• Little Spoon sells to the parent. Dolphin Divers is organic, date-sweetened and wrapped in a ’90s ocean theme to appeal to millennial parents. Little Spoon as a brand is built on parent trust: it already outsells Gerber at Target, and has strategically built its product lines to grow with a child, from infant formula and first bites to big kid meals and snacks, and now a full breakfast lineup. The brand doesn’t have to find an audience in the cereal aisle, because it’s bringing one.

The reality is, cereal is still shrinking. Cold cereal sales fell 0.5% in 2026 after a 1.5% drop in 2025, and a dye-free Froot Loops won’t bring lapsed buyers back. But wholly new brand entrants can, because they show up with their own audiences—trusting parents and YouTube fan kids alike.

Big Cereal can reformulate its way back onto Target’s shelf, but it can’t reformulate its way into new households. Target stopped waiting for the next great cereal brand to find it, and went out and built one. 🥣

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Does every founder have to be an influencer? , ’s Substack newsletter, answers that question in its latest piece, where HEYDOH founder Clarissa interviews founders from brands like Sourmilk, Biena Snacks, Fly By Jing, Pistakio, and Honey Dept. Subscribe for a regular peek behind the news and into the real stories from the front lines of entrepreneurship.*

• Kewpie’s getting company. Bachan’s is branching out from Japanese BBQ sauce with a new mayo lineup. The rage will include Original, Spicy and Black Garlic all made with free-range egg yolks and rice vinegar. They’re launching exclusively at Whole Foods nationwide.

  • This is Bachan’s first new line since Marzetti acquired it for $400M in May, but it’s apparently not an overnight post-acquisition pivot. Founder Justin Gill says the mayos have been in development for more than four years.

  • Bachan’s isn’t the only brand betting on mayo. Cabi launched its Japanese mayo in October 2024, while Graza’s olive oil mayos, Molly Baz’s Ayoh and Smash Kitchen are giving the aisle a refresh with different oils, bolder flavors, and an expanded focus on ingredients. Even Sauer Brands just renamed itself Duke’s Mayo Company after selling its spice business. If that’s not a bet on mayo, we don’t know what is.

• How diet brands are angling against GLP-1s. Atkins is repositioning its shakes, bars, and other foods as options for people maintaining their weight after stopping GLP-1s. The pivot comes as Atkins sales fell 20.9% in fiscal 2026, dragging parent company Simply Good Foods’ total net sales down 6.5% to $1.4 billion.

  • When Atkins—one of the most iconic names in diet culture—starts rethinking who it’s for, you know this shift is real. The brand built its name on the idea that eating specific foods could help you lose weight. Now, diet brands can’t compete against this magical medication making everyone skinny… and they’re now forced to pivot. 11% of US adults currently take GLP-1s for weight loss, up from just 3% in 2024, and 15% have tried them at some point.

  • The question many consumers are probably thinking when they see an Atkins is: Why choose a legacy diet brand when a more fun, tasty option can deliver the same benefits? Its best shot here may be to lean in, like a SoWell, and build products for the specific needs of GLP-1 users and not just repackage the same diet-culture pitch for everyone. Otherwise, brands like Atkins will soon fade away as consumers find those benefits in much more exciting brands and products.

• Everything is getting drizzled on. TRUBAR has launched Drizzle, its first product beyond bars—dessert-inspired mini rice cakes with 5g protein and 3g fiber per serving, available at Walmart.

  

  • Looks awfullyyyy similar to Drizzilicious, the drizzled rice cake brand by Snack Innovations that’s been around since 2016. TikTok made them a sellout years later (451K+ units on TikTok Shop alone), after a boom of TikToks highlighting the brand (fans credit an Alix Earle shoutout as the origin). Circana named the company a 2025 Growth Leader in the $100M–$500M tier. Numerator also ranked Drizzilicious #3 on its fastest-growing Brands to Watch for 2026.

  • Naturally, the dupes are following. RITZ launched “Drizzled Minis” in January, Like Air launched Drizzled Rice Cakes in June, and now TRUBAR’s version arrives with familiarly indulgent flavors like “Hey Shorty, It’s Your Birthday Cake” (which, we must credit them, is at least a creative spin on birthday cake). When Drizzilicious’s TikTok bio starts calling itself “The Original,” the shelf is getting crowded.

    • Separately: There has to be a synonym for “drizzle.”

  • A viral format becomes a category fast, and you can’t trademark a drizzle. It’ll be interesting to see what will help the new entrants stand out—for TRUBAR, the “twist” is added protein at the same calorie count—and what the OG brand will do to respond (we think a rebrand is in order…).

  • Why now? Permissible indulgence. Shoppers want dessert without committing to dessert, and a 90-calorie bag of birthday cake rice cakes is about as low-stakes as a treat gets. We dug into the dessert-ification of everything on our recent podcast!!

• Avo oil’s trust problem. PepsiCo faces a proposed class action in Illinois over Siete Family Foods chips, which a UC Davis study found contain canola, corn, soybean, and sunflower oils despite being marketed as avocado oil products.

  • Siete is far from the only brand in the hot seat. That UC Davis study, published in July, tested 54 products labeled as using only avocado oil and found 48 of them (89%!) were inconsistent with the pure oil, including 93% of chips, 71% of mayos, and every single salad dressing. Since August, lawyers have filed 32 federal class actions against Kettle Brand, Boulder Canyon, Primal Kitchen, Sir Kensington’s, Chosen Foods, Jackson’s, Sensible Portions, Sprouts’ store brand, and Siete. And Texas AG Ken Paxton has opened an investigation into Primal Kitchen, Siete, and Chosen Foods.

    • The problem isn’t new, either: UC Davis found 82% of bottled avocado oil was rancid or adulterated back in 2020, and a batch of suits over store-brand avocado oil at Walmart, Aldi, and Trader Joe’s was headed for consolidation in 2024.

  • Cue the internet’s favoriteeee post-acquisition narrative (which we’ll be unpacking on the pod this week…): Big CPG buys the beloved brand, then swaps in cheaper ingredients. But this case doesn’t really prove it. The UC Davis samples were bought post-acquisition, yes, but there’s no “before” to compare against. And the brands getting sued span every kind of owner: Campbell’s, Unilever, Kraft Heinz, and PepsiCo, plus Chosen Foods, Jackson’s, and Sprouts. The study’s lead author thinks the adulteration likely starts with suppliers a few layers up the chain, and says brands may not even know. Siete may well have been buying the same oil before and after the deal.

  • A few years ago, none of this would’ve made headlines. Avocado oil became the go-to swap thanks to the anti-seed-oil movement, which lumps canola, corn, soybean, sunflower, and four others into the “hateful eight.” Back in May, we wrote about how avocado oil went from wellness niche to retail expectation, with buyers asking brands for seed-oil-free versions. The science still doesn’t back the scariest claims, but that’s beside the point for shoppers who paid a premium specifically to avoid them. Brands charged extra for a promise, and now they have to prove they kept it. Expect a lot more lab testing (and “third-party tested” on the back of the bag) very soon 🥑

• Game time for clean hydration. The Lakers named wellness brand Just Ingredients their official electrolyte partner, bringing its products to the team. The two are also launching a co-branded canned electrolyte drink in Lakers purple and gold later this season.

  

  • This feels like a big strategic shift in how pro sports is thinking about nutrition and wellness. The Lakers went from longtime hydration partner Gatorade to BioSteel in 2021 then to Prime Hydration in 2024 and all these brands primarily lead with sports and performance first. Now they’re partnering with a brand rooted in a much broader conversation about what goes into our food, supplements, and everyday routines. It’s clear the Lakers are betting that the growing appetite for “clean” ingredients isn’t just a wellness-aisle trend anymore, but something much bigger.

  • And we do love seeing a brand like this make it to the big leagues. Founded by Karalynne Call in 2019, Just Ingredients grew out of an Instagram wellness community and now sells nationwide at Target. It also landed at No. 440 on the 2026 Inc. 5000, with 797% three-year growth. And the Lakers aren’t its only sports partner! The brand also works with the Utah Jazz, Utah Mammoth, Los Angeles Angels, Philadelphia Phillies, and Vegas Golden Knights. From an Instagram community to a whole roster of pro sports partnerships… not too shabby!

• The race to sweeten your coffee. Cargill launched Craftiva, a line of reduced-sugar flavored syrups and sweetener packets. The syrups contain 7 grams of sugar per serving versus the ~20 grams in a leading full-sugar syrup. Both the syrups and packets will be using both cane sugar and stevia. They’re available on Amazon and are rolling out to TikTok Shop, U.S. retail stores, and foodservice distributors in the coming weeks.

  • Coffee syrups have been getting more, let’s say, exciting over the past few years. Torani and Monin are no longer the only game in town! Brands are taking different approaches, like reducing sugar or adding fiber, but the common thread is bolder flavors that bring the café experience into the home. Brands like Transcendence, Nooly, Motif, and Proper (which just launched in Target!) are leading with bold flavor, natural sweeteners, and quality ingredients rather than just a mere sugar-free pitch. So you can think flavors like Miso Salted Caramel from Transcendence or Almond Croissant from Nooly. Sound delightful! For consumers looking to cut sugar, brands like SUP and Skinny Mixes are offering lower- and zero-sugar options while POCA is adding a functional twist with portable, zero-calorie squeeze packets that add some fiber. Honestly shocked there isn’t a clear protein one yet.

• Hydration is headed to recess. Vita Coco launched Vita Coco Kids, a kid-sized coconut water line exclusive to select Walmart stores, available in Original Coconut Water and a dairy-free Strawberry Coconutmilk Beverage with 0g added sugar.

  • Just like with adult hydration products, there are many more brands playing in bringing extra hydration to the children. Once Upon a Farm launched Electrolyte Blends in October, a refrigerated fruit-and-veggie pouches made with coconut water and sea salt. Roxberry, a coconut water–based sparkling drink for kids, recently raised $4M and landed in Walmart’s modern soda aisle.

• Target wants to own your scent. Haeze is launching exclusively at Target with five “layerable” fine fragrance scents priced $10–$49, co-developed by the retailer. Plans include expanding into home and laundry in 2027.

  

  • “Layerable” just means wearing two or more scents at once, so you build a “fragrance wardrobe” instead of one signature scent. Searches and social posts about it jumped 63.9% in 2025, and everyone’s on it: Bath & Body Works rolled out a Blend Bar, and Snif and Sol de Janeiro both launched layering bundles and solids. It’s also a very elegant way of saying “buy more than one” (hi, $20 five-mini Discovery Set 👀).

  • Target needs a beauty win. Ulta’s shop-in-shops left 600+ Target stores last year (we covered the breakup here), and fragrance is the fastest-growing beauty category in mass, up 15% in the first half of this year. An exclusive brand gives Target something you can’t price-match anywhere else, and with laundry and home next, one scent can pull you through three aisles (and basically own your lifestyle, not just your personal scent).

• Uncrustables hits $1B and finally solves the thaw problem. J.M. Smucker launched a fridge-friendly Uncrustables that keeps for five days—no 30-minute thaw required. Smucker says 50% of non-buyers would be more likely to purchase, and 72% of existing fans would eat it more often.

  • Uncrustables is having a moment well beyond the lunchbox. The brand has been growing at a 20% compound annual rate and crossed $1B in annual sales this year, which is wild for a sandwich from the ’90s. There’s still room to grow, too: about half of consumers have never tried one. (Smucker also says impatient fans have been thawing them on car dashboards and by sitting on them… we have questions.)

  • And now everyone wants a bite. As we’ve spoken about before, PB&J wars go back to Smucker suing Chubby Snacks over lookalike packaging in 2024, and the field has only gotten more crowded since. Smucker sued Trader Joe’s over its “copycat” version last year. DropOut’s JAMS launched with 10g protein and no seed oils. And Welch’s, which owns the “J” after all, rolled out a Real PB&J at Walmart with 12g protein and 50% more sandwich.

  • An ingredient deck is easier to copy than a behavior change. Keeping the bread from going stale or soggy in the fridge took real R&D, and the BFY crowd now has to match it. RIP to the dashboard thaw. :’(

• Celebrity hair care just got a biology degree. Jennifer Lawrence just launched her first brand, Mes° (pronounced “mess”), a prestige haircare line she co-created with Jasmina Aganovic, the MIT-trained engineer behind biotech beauty company Arcaea.

  

  • The story goes that Lawrence watched Aganovic’s TED Talk three years ago, asked for a meeting, and the two have been building the brand since then as 50-50 partners. It launched DTC-only and is all built around the idea of getting more days out of a wash and less time in front of the mirror. Lawrence also joined Instagram in September specifically to roll this out and had over 8 million followers by launch day. Not too shabby for some free brand awareness!

  • While other haircare leans “clean,” Mes° is leaning more “science-y.” Mes° is really leaning into its partnership with Arcaea and everything that they’ve built as a way to stand out from the slew of celebrity haircare brands on shelf.

  • There’s been a lot of discourse online about whether this brand will actually work, mostly centered around the celebrity brand playbook rather than the products themselves. One viral video pointed out that the whole ethos of the brand is embracing messiness and freedom from perfection, while in the same press cycle, Lawrence is walking through the cosmetic procedures she’s had done.

  • The controversy continued when consumers found Lawrence’s cover interview with The Cut, where she said she’d have “no clue what success numbers would look like” and whispered “I don’t know” when asked whether the company has investors. (Technically it does, since Arcaea is her partner in the business and has raised $78 million). When you position yourself as the one building the brand, and then admit ignorance to the press, it’s hard to maintain credibility. To her credit, though, Aganovic seems very well aware this rhetoric. She told Beauty Independent she was skeptical of partnering with a celebrity, and she told Glossy that “as wild as it is to say ‘building something with Jen,’ I don’t view it as a celebrity brand.” Luckily, early reviews of the products have been favorable, and Aganovic is a very legitimate founder running this company. This just goes to show the risks of celebrity brands….

Retail

• Target is making grocery a destination. Target debuted a New York-inspired food market in the lower level of its SoHo concept store, swapping conventional dry goods aisles for freestanding display cases—part of a broader renovation that also added a snack bar, wellness section, and home decor area.

• Every retailer wants in on beauty. Victoria’s Secret’s Pink launched The Pink Mini Bar, a beauty collection with 16 exclusive products from nine brands—including Vacation, Mario Badescu, and Fazit—available online and in US stores with dedicated beauty sections.

  • Pink’s spin is co-branding: all 16 products are exclusives in limited-edition Pink packaging. For indie brands like Vacation and Touchland, a non-beauty retailer with a young, loyal customer is a new discovery channel, without fighting for shelf space at Ulta.

• Retailers on notice for price-gouging by algorithm. The FTC has ordered Target and Walmart—along with airlines, rideshares, and food delivery firms—to disclose how they use personal data to set prices, with 45 days to respond or face federal court.

Funding, Mergers, and Acquisitions

• Add to cart: Instacart. DoorDash agreed to acquire Instacart for $17 billion ($65 a share), and plans to keep Instacart’s brand and app running. Don’t hold your breath, though: the deal still needs regulatory approval and isn’t expected to close until late 2027 or the first half of 2028.

  • We asked Eleanor Hayden, founder and CEO at Veriti (a shopper marketing and retail media agency for some of the coolest better-for-you brands), for her take:

    “I don’t see DoorDash cutting the Instacart name. They’re two very different use cases for grocery: Instacart is the routine shopper doing a traditional grocery run, while DoorDash is the reactive shopper. Both brands are strong and cater to different people.”

  • The companies pitch it the same way: their joint release says families use Instacart for the big weekly shop and DoorDash for meals. The numbers back it up: DoorDash handled 993 million orders last quarter to Instacart’s 91.4 million, but Instacart moved $10.5 billion in order value on those far fewer orders (read: much bigger baskets). DoorDash has been creeping onto stock-up turf, though: in September, it landed its first nationwide Costco deal, a retailer that’s run delivery through Instacart for nearly a decade.

  • And Instacart isn’t selling from a weak spot. Last quarter its order value grew 15% and ad revenue grew 23% to $331 million, and its stock was up 25% this year when the deal was announced. Add DoorDash’s own ad business, which passed $1 billion in 2024, and brands are looking at one giant grocery ad platform. So your retail media budget is about to lose a line item, and the one that’s left probably won’t be any smaller 👀

• Mondelēz found its next better-for-you bet. The Oreo maker took a majority stake in Undercover Snacks, the chocolate-covered quinoa crisp brand that’s currently sold in 25,000+ stores and on United Airlines flights. Founders Diana and Michael Levy will keep a significant minority stake and stay on to lead the business.

  • When you hear Mondelēz you probably think Oreo, Cadbury and Chips Ahoy. Right? But the company has been putting money behind better-for-you snacking, building a lineup that includes Perfect Snacks, Hu, and Clif bar. And this doesn’t include the brands they simply invested in through Snack Future Ventures rather than outright acquired. Undercover fits right into the “permissible indulgence” conversation we had last week on the podcast.

  • One of the biggest things that I (Nate) think helped this brand win is the United Airlines partnership. United handed out more than 175 million samples since 2023, putting Undercover in front of people who might never have picked it up in a store. And they weren’t just seeing the brand—they were actually trying it, for free, at 35,000 feet with little else to do. That kind of trial is hard to come by for an emerging snack brand and I’d bet it helped Undercover feel much bigger than its shelf space alone would suggest.

• Two drinks, one tab. Quench Ventures announced $4.4 million in investments split between SipMARGS ($2.4M follow-on), the RTD sparkling margarita backed by Alix Earle that grew from 8 to 46 states via Sazerac in three months, and Kenetik ($2.0M new), a caffeine-free ketone drink moving from DTC into retail.

  • Influencer + tequila RTD is officially a genre. A few weeks ago, college-hoops-turned-twinfluencers Haley and Hanna Cavinder joined Azúcar Tequila as Creative Directors, and we noted it looked a lot like what Alix Earle did when she became SipMARGS’ largest individual investor as part of its $3M relaunch in March 2025. The real rocket fuel came this year, though: Sazerac took an equity stake and exclusive distribution rights in May, and per Quench’s announcement, SipMARGS went from 8 to 46 states in three months (the brand’s own number, and getting into stores isn’t the same as getting reordered). Alix gets people curious enough to grab a can, and Sazerac gets that can on shelves. And fun fact: Quench founder John Green was in that 2025 relaunch round too, so this is an OG backer doubling down.

  • Kenetik is the wilder bet. Ketones are the fuel your body makes when it burns fat instead of carbs (the whole reason people do keto), and Kenetik puts them in a can as caffeine-free energy and focus, with no added sugar. Until now, ketone drinks have mostly lived online with the biohacker and intermittent-fasting crowd. And retail is a much tougher room: a shopper has about three seconds at the shelf to figure out what a ketone is and why they’d want one. Meanwhile, caffeine keeps finding new ways into our bodies (lip pouches are now a thing!), so Kenetik is betting there’s a crowd that wants the lift minus the jitters.

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And with that, let’s get into our picks of the week →

Nate’s Pickup:

momentm hydration (poached pear)

“Hydrate or Diedrate,” they always say, but I think a lot of us are hydrating maybe (way) too much? There is an endless supply of hydration mixes and beverages right now, and it’s fun to try them all. As much as I enjoy water, I will almost always reach for a flavored liquid instead, whether that’s a hydration drink, a soda, a juice, or a lemonade, because I simply do not want plain water all the time. My hot take is that this is the whole reason the hydration category exists at the scale it does. People don’t actually like plain water, so they will happily buy packets and drinks that make water taste like something, and the “electrolytes” part is mostly the permission slip.

The other reason, obviously, is that people are being bombarded by podcasters telling them they need 1,000mg of sodium in their water every morning (hello hypertension!) when most of us really, really do not. Electrolyte drinks started as a medical solution for people who were actually dehydrated, like cholera patients and marathoners, and somewhere along the way they got repackaged as a daily essential for people who walked to the subway. Did we learn nothing from the 2006 comedy Idiocracy?! Anyway, momentm is one of the few brands in this space that seems to have read the room, so let’s get into it!

• Quick Facts: momentm’s Ignition is a stick-pack drink mix that combines everyday electrolytes (Himalayan pink salt, coconut water powder, potassium citrate, and marine-derived magnesium) with adaptogens and metabolic ingredients like tulsi, a patented astragalus blend called InnoSlim, and a bioavailable curcumin. It comes in five flavors: Açaí, Apple Cider, Blueberry Lemonade, Pineapple Lychee, and the new Poached Pear.

• Reasons to love:

  • Reasonable hydration. This drink mix is truly meant for everyday hydration. It contains a very reasonable amount of sodium, magnesium, and potassium, an amount designed for actual everyday use rather than for someone who just finished an two Ironmans. momentm has a nice 150mg of sodium, 80mg of magnesium, and 300mg of potassium. Like I mentioned above, the electrolyte powder and electrolyte drink market is booming right now. Everybody’s apparently under-hydrated and every brand keeps upping their sodium and electrolyte levels, but none of y’all are Olympic athletes! You’re going on a 5-mile run in midtown Manhattan, or you’re on a bike for an hour, or you’re just sitting at your desk, tippity tapping away at emails all day. You do not need 1,000mg of sodium from ONE DRINK to rehydrate you, because you were never dehydrated to begin with. Most electrolytes are loaded with sodium that can spike blood pressure and cause bloating.

  • Magical flavors. I don’t know how, but these could be the best‑tasting hydration drink mixes on the market. Jenna and I first tried them at their event for the new Poached Pear flavor, and I never expected it to become my favorite. It tastes just like poached pear, with a little warm spice in there. I recently sampled the other flavors, and they are all exceptionally well formulated, it’s actually crazy. The flavors also feel designed for adults, which I really appreciate. They’re a bit more sophisticated than a basic, overly sweet, and candy-leaning flavor. They do use stevia but they’re using Reb M stevia which doesn’t have the same aftertaste.

  • Not just hydrating. I’ll say upfront that I am a functional-claims skeptic, but I do still think there’s something interesting going on here beyond the electrolytes. The idea behind the brand is that modern life with all the irregular meals and bad sleep and too much caffeine throws your metabolism out of wack. So the formula is designed to steady that out rather than just rehydrate you, with a mix of adaptogens, minerals, and patented actives aimed at stress resilience, glucose balance, and non-stimulant energy. It pulls from both Ayurveda and clinical research, which I find very interesting and a nice balance. I can’t personally vouch for any changes in my blood glucose levels, but what I do appreciate is that every ingredient has a dedicated job and a cited human study attached to it, rather than some good vibes. That’s a bar a lot of functional bevs in my fridge don’t always clear.

Where to buy: Online and TikTok Shop

Jenna’s Pickup:

Fur Flash Repair Jelly

Buckle up, strait-laced subscribers: we’re talking BODY HAIR today.

Because, the reality is, we all have it—and some of us want to alter or remove it, and some of us face uncomfortable repercussions in doing so. The most sensitive among us, in fact, sometimes experience straight-up pain in doing so, and no cream or hair-removal method or prayer seems to address that pain.

The co-founders of Fur knew this discomfort all too well, and—a full decade ago—decided to build an entire brand (and category) around it. We interviewed the brand’s co-founders for an upcoming podcast to learn more about building a taboo category, and the brand shared some of their newer products to try ahead of the interview. I had high hopes, but I didn’t know just how much this one product would change things for me.

As a sensitive-skinned gal, I got to a point in my adult life when I essentially surrendered to always having razor bumps and redness wherever I remove hair. But since trying this product, I’ve learned that there’s an alternative option. Fur’s Flash Repair Jelly has entirely altered the way I view shaving, and it would be selfish to gatekeep this product from you… however spooky it may be to chat body hair pub(l)icly. 👻

• Quick Facts: Positioned as a “first line of defense against ingrown hairs, redness, irritation, and bumps,” this hypochlorous acid jelly treatment can be used right after waxing, shaving, or laser to soothe reactive skin. Fun fact: You can actually use this on your face, too!

• Reasons to love:

  • Shockingly effective. This isn’t one of those products that you have to use over multiple weeks to notice a difference; it works immediately. Right after getting out of the shower, I apply this to freshly-shaven skin, it cools the skin + absorbs instantly, and it visibly calms down in minutes. The expected razor bumps and burn just never come (even when I apply deodorant right after… IYKYK). As one reviewer shared on Fur’s site: “Flash Repair Jelly has PREVENTED so many ingrown that I rarely need my other Fur products now.” I love when a brand is so committed to effectiveness, it invests equally in prevention and treatment—knowing one could cannibalize the other.

  • Luxury feel, clinical effectiveness. I typically assume that a product with a luxe feeling or vibe must be just that—purely reliant on vibes, with minimal expectations for effectiveness. But Fur’s products destroy that conception. The brand feels elevated, the product feels luxurious to use (that cooling gel format…), and the results are undeniably effective. Fur proves that brands can achieve that “cool girl” aesthetic, while simultaneously leaning on science; every product is gynecologically- and dermatologically-tested, and this product is accepted by the National Eczema Association.

  • Breaking the taboo. Fur was one of the very first brands to show us the massive potential that comes from addressing a taboo, and it gives me so much hope for other stigmatized sectors. If you’re interested in learning more about how co-founders Laura and Lillian built this so effectively, stay tuned for our upcoming podcast!

Where to buy: Ulta, Target’s new Beauty Studio, online.

In case you missed it… 🎧

Happy almost-Halloween! ‘Tis the season for sweets, and we’re celebrating the best way we know how: by overanalyzing how brands are playing into indulgence.

First, we’re sharing news about a fascinating innovation in sweetener science from Oobli and the latest from a forgotten friend in the modern soda aisle, Zevia (and why building a brand around a specific sweetener is risky behavior).

Then, we’re getting into two theories shaping the sweetest brands—“dessertification” and permissible indulgence—both backed by news stories from this week and recent launches.

What’s the spookiest sweet trend to you? Over-exaggerated dessert-themed marketing, portion-controlled indulgences, or function-packed treats?

Catch the full episode below 👇

First, we’re sharing news about a fascinating innovation in sweetener science from Oobli and the latest from a forgotten friend in the modern soda aisle, Zevia (and why building a brand around a specific sweetener is risky behavior).

Then, we’re getting into two theories shaping the sweetest brands—“dessertification” and permissible indulgence—both backed by news stories from this week and recent launches.

What’s the spookiest sweet trend to you? Over-exaggerated dessert-themed marketing, portion-controlled indulgences, or function-packed treats?

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to the Express Checkout podcast wherever you get your podcasts! New episodes drop weekly.

📧 Get the inside scoop Subscribe to Express Checkout, our newsletter packed with consumer insights, trends, and exclusive content straight to your inbox at expresscheckout.co.

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💬 Join the conversation Have a product you’re curious about? DM us your questions or drop them in the comments—your topic could be featured in our next episode! If you have any thoughts/questions/suggestions, feel free to email us at hello@expresscheckout.co :)

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⭐ Help us grow If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps other curious consumers find us!

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Join Great Jones, Topicals and Tin Can and get your first 3 months free.

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What what we’ve been thinking about…

There’s a very specific genre of brand that’s having a field day in the snack category (and beyond): self-manufactured platform brands.

In human words (🤡), these are companies that own their factories and manufacturing (which is rare in CPG), and use those factories to spin one core ingredient into a whole lineup of different products.

The two brands that caught our attention this week didn’t set out to own manufacturing; they built their own plants because they had to, and then realized the factory was the most valuable thing they owned. Once you’ve built a plant around one unusual ingredient or process, the natural next move is to make more things with it. Necessity became the moat, and the moat became the platform.

First up: Ancient Crunch, the company behind premium beef-tallow chips MASA and Vandy. This week, the brand launched Vandy Classic Steak Fries, its first frozen product. Made with organic potatoes and grass-fed beef tallow, the fries join a growing set of upgraded frozen fries from brands like Jesse & Ben’s (which recently raised a $10M series A and is crushing with its own beef tallow SKU), Folkland, and Naked Fries.

• Ancient Crunch has spent the past few years building a beef tallow platform brand. The company launched in 2022 with MASA tortilla chips, right as the anti-seed-oil movement was gaining traction—but also when no co-manufacturer was set up to fry in beef tallow. The founders had to build their own factory, and that early detour is now their moat: The plant turns out roughly 500,000 bags a month and is consistently innovating in beef tallow snacking occasions (they’re also launching beef tallow popcorn next year).

• Beef tallow brands that were later to market (including Beefy’s Own, Rosie, Tips, Vaca, and even Boulder Canyon, which now has a tallow SKU), can rent capacity from co-manufacturers now that tallow is more mainstream, but few can match that scale, and fewer can turn around and launch a frozen line off the same infrastructure. Sure, MASA and Vandy’s premium branding (and HEFTY price tag to match) helps them stand out on an increasingly tallow-heavy shelf, but the factory is what lets them keep up.

Next up, WILDE, the brand proving chicken is the new whey. WILDE, the snack brand making chips and crackers out of chicken breast (sounds wild, tastes delish), took the same path with a very different ingredient. This week, the brand raised $40M from S2G Investments as its protein crackers head into 3,500 Walmart stores. 🤯

• Like Ancient Crunch, WILDE built its own factory because nobody else could make its product. Turning chicken breast into a chip required a proprietary process and custom-engineered equipment, so in 2021, the brand opened its own plant in Winchester, Kentucky. Now it’s scaling again: WILDE recently opened a new 130,000-square-foot USDA-regulated facility that expands production capacity sixfold, just in time for its nationwide Walmart launch.

• This company is doing a LOT right. Its protein comes from a natural, whole source, which consumers increasingly want. Its manufacturing is built on custom equipment, which is pretty hard for a strategic to copy. And it’s building a platform, with chips and now cheese crackers built around its hero ingredient, chicken breast.

• Most importantly, perhaps, WILDE sits in a uniquely powerful spot in protein snacking: Whey concentrate prices are up 250% year over year, and while competitors scramble to reformulate around it, WILDE can promise protein without fighting over a scarce ingredient.

As seed-oil-free and protein-packed callouts flood the snack aisle, brands will need to find unique ways to innovate quickly and avoid the risks of crowded co-manufacturers and shaky supply chains. Ancient Crunch and WILDE are proving it’s possible, and we’re eager to see how a category expansion and a major investment alter their trajectories.

And stay tuned for the other big topic on our minds… dessert. 😋 This Wednesday on the Express Checkout podcast (find it wherever you listen to pods!), we’re going to be chatting about two new themes we’re seeing across CPG this week: the “dessertification” of everything and “permissible indulgence.”

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Martha Stewart, CTO? Relax, she’s not joining an AI startup (thank god). She’s joining Stars + Honey, a collagen protein bar brand known for dessert-inspired flavors, as its first Chief Taste Officer, working with the team to develop new flavors.

  

  • If you haven’t come across Stars + Honey yet, it’s a beast of a young brand. They only launched in 2023, but have already expanded into Target nationwide and select Costco clubs after growing 300% in 2025. In June, they raised $24M from VMG Partners to help fund that expansion, including a new 60,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility. At the time, they said they were on track for about $50M in revenue in 2026—a lot to build in just three years.

  • So why do we think it’s working? For one, they’re leading with taste and thoughtful function for everyday life, rather than just gains for gymgoers. A lot of protein bars still feel like they’re made for the fitness consumer, and Stars + Honey is giving people a reason to reach for one outside of a workout, with indulgence on the brain. We’re seeing a similar shift in hydration with brands like Leisure Hydration, which has hydration designed for the everyday moments rather than post-sweaty workout.

  • Consumers, now more than ever, want to satisfy a dessert craving and get some functional benefits along with it. You can’t tell us that a Cherry Chocolate Waffle Cone (one of the brands elaborately indulgent-sounding flavors) doesn’t make you drool a little. And that’s why Martha (and the Taste Officer title) feels like such a perfect partner for the brand. She’s the queen of culinary, and brings the comfort, luxury and premium taste this brand is trying to convey to consumers—scooting itself far away from the fitness bros.

  • The other interesting element of Stars + Honey is its beauty and skincare angle, featuring collagen as a key ingredient. This fits nicely into Whole Foods’ 2027 “Beautrition” trend, which we talked about on last week’s podcast: the idea that what we eat is becoming part of how we think about beauty and skincare.

• From savory protein to sweet protein. PepsiCo’s Good Warrior, which launched earlier this year with beef sticks, is expanding into protein bars: a cocoa marshmallow bar, cookie dough brownie crisp, and cookies-and-cream “cremewich,” featuring 15g of protein, 7g of sugar, and 5g of fiber.

  

  • When Good Warrior first launched, we thought PepsiCo was just getting into meat sticks, which wouldn’t be a bad bet on its own. This now looks more like a broader protein brand, with a clear lean into “dessertification.” Rather than making one protein bar in dessert-inspired flavors, Good Warrior is positioning this rollout as three different protein desserts with textures that match their flavors, just in bar form (ie. the “cremewich” isn’t just cookies + cream flavored, it’s cookie crunch with a cream filling). That feels like a more interesting approach than another cookie dough-flavored bar, and not necessarily what we’d expect from Big CPG. Dare we say, (somewhat) innovative?!

  • The decision to build Good Warrior is particularly interesting given how acquisitive PepsiCo has been over the past few years (see Siete and Poppi). Maybe they’re confident enough in protein and fiber that they see room to build a brand themselves, rather than buy their way in with something like Chomps or even Stars + Honey.

• Meanwhile, other strategics are leaning into beef sticks. General Mills, Archer, and Conagra all expanded their meat snack portfolios as the $5.7B category grows at 9.5% annually—three times faster than overall snacking—with online sales up 41%.

• The GF cracker trifecta is complete! After more than 90 years (!!), RITZ is finally launching a gluten-free version of its iconic cracker! It joins fellow cracker favorites Goldfish and Cheez-It, which both recently announced GF versions of their products, much to consumers’ delight. The new crackers will hit Walmart and Albertsons this month, with a full rollout in February 2027.⁠

  

  • This year, both Goldfish (Campbell’s) and Cheez-It announced their first-ever GF versions, and we spoke about how it felt weirdly… late. Clearly, RITZ (a Nabisco company, owned by Modelez International) felt the same pressure from its fellow OG salty snacks. It’ll be interesting to see how brands built specifically as GF alternatives to the big guys (like FitJoy, which has a great GF RITZ dupe) will fare—will GF consumers stick to their tried-and-trues, or experiment with

• Honey, I’ve shrunk the ice cream! McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams, a 78-year-old brand of premium (DELICIOUS) ice cream, launched its first-ever half-pint format: 8-oz cups in a four-pack, exclusively at select Southern California Costco locations.

  • If you (like us) are fans of Alec’s Culture Cups, this format may sound familiar. Though McConnell’s half-pints are double the size of Alec’s Culture Cups, the idea is similar: an adjusted serving size, but nothing adjusted or missing in the ingredients. Indulgence remains, but the portion shrinks amid changing portion preferences (see: GLP-1s and their influence on just about everything). The smaller format also gives shoppers a lower-commitment way to try super-premium ice cream, and opens up grab-and-go occasions.

• A community-built beauty brand. Beecee, the Gen Z sister brand to Counter from Beautycounter founder Gregg Renfrew, launched the Jelly Gloss Lip Shine in eight sheer shades—a name chosen by its 25,000-member community, which was also involved in product testing, before the brand sold a single product.

  • This story reminded me (Jenna) of the long-forgotten CPG crypto era. In 2021–22, CPG tried “community-built” brands with crypto through DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or blockchain-based orgs “owned” and created by their communities). An example of this was when the prominent social DAO Friends With Benefits partnered with canned beverage brand Taika to co-create a community-designed beverage, and token holders voted on elements of the product experience, functioning as a decentralized focus group and brand incubator.

  • While the model was buzzy for a minute, it didn’t hold. The promise of Web3 fizzled when the crypto bubble popped, and CPG DAOs silently fell off. But, the idea of building a brand with community outlived crypto, and Beecee is a great example. The brand is swapping tokens for commission: members can earn on sales, Beautycounter’s seller model rebuilt for 14-to-30-year-olds. The community grew from 10K to 25K in just two months!

• Sweet proteins crack chocolate’s hardest problem. Oobli, a sweet protein startup, announced a sugar replacement system for chocolate co-developed with Dutch giant Cosun Ingredients, pairing sweet proteins with Frutalose chicory root fiber to replicate sugar’s bulk, mouthfeel, and crystal structure.

• Are gel-based supplements the next big category? Kate Hudson joined supplement brand HealthyCell as an investor and brand partner, backing the brand’s patented MicroGel® technology, which the company claims delivers 165% better nutrient absorption than standard tablets.

  • “Bioavailability” is the new buzzword in supplements these days. Where it used to be enough just to get your supplements in any form (be it capsule, gummy, powder…), new brands and wellness thought leaders (including, evidently, Kate Hudson) are getting nitpicky about delivery. We spoke about this in a previous newsletter about the category we’re calling “meta-supplements,” or supplements for your supplements.

• Celebrity name, neighborhood vibes. Cardi B’s Grow-Good haircare brand is rolling out to six independently-owned beauty supply stores across New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles.

  

  • This brand is KILLING it. Grow-Good launched online on 4/15 after a sold-out March presale, and the full line sold out in under an hour. Restocks of the Get Rich mask and Everything Serum have gone in about 10 minutes, and the waitlist reportedly represented more than $40M in potential sales.

  • It’s so cool to see Cardi prioritize affordability and accessibility with this launch. Cardi could easily slap her name on a $45 hair mask, but keeping everything under $20 and selling through local beauty supply stores feels much more her. When we first covered the brand announcement, fans had already been following her wash days and homemade hair recipes for years. Instead of chasing a prestige beauty counter first like an Ulta or Sephora, she’s starting with community stores where her core customers already shop.

eCommerce

• TikTok Shop gets intimate on stream. Christina Aguilera’s sexual wellness brand, Playground, launched on TikTok Shop with a livestream hosted by the singer. The stream included health and sexual wellness education along with the debut of its $22 Hydrating Intimate Cleanser. The platform required special approval to sell the brand’s products (TikTok Shop still restricts the sale of sexual wellness products). Ulta moved up the cleanser’s launch from Q1 2027 to coincide.

  • While the intimate wellness expansion element is interesting, we’re actually even more fascinated by the celeb co-founder livestream model. In this hour-long livestream, Aguilera was joined by a sexologist, dermatologist, TikTok creator, and Playground’s co-founder and CEO Catherine Magee, with different segments on health and sexual wellness.

  • This looks more like a talk show than a QVC pitch, and that format matters for a category that needs explaining (and permission). Live shopping is where TikTok Shop is growing fastest: live sales more than doubled in the first half of 2026, with live sessions up 60%+. Expect more founders to host their own shows, and if they’re in wellness categories, bringing on experts as the supporting cast.

  • We’ve been tracking the category’s move into the mainstream for a while! Catch up on our sexual wellness deep dive.

Retail

• The mall is back. Bath & Body Works opened its first Feel Good concept store at Charlotte’s SouthPark Mall, giving the mall staple a much-needed makeover 👀. Two more locations are coming to Columbus and Miami this fall.

  

  • What is inside: an Eau de Parfum bar, a lip-and-blend station, demo sinks and a digital quiz that matches shoppers with scents—a fully discovery-focused experience centered around scent. This is all part of the brand’s Consumer First Formula turnaround plan.

  • B&BW seems to be trying everything to get back on top, from the Hype Lab fragrance drops we covered last week to expanding beyond its own stores into Ulta and Amazon.

Funding, Mergers, and Acquisitions

• The Goodles deal is closed. A few weeks ago, we learned about the Goodles acquisition by Barilla, and just about everyone in CPG had something to say about it (LinkedIn feeds ran wild with noodle theories). Now, the acquisition has officially closed, and the numbers behind the deal were revealed: Barilla bought Goodles for $750 million in an all-cash deal—over 4x Goodles’s revenue and 10x the brand’s $75 million valuation from three years ago.

  • At the time of the acquisition announcement, we compared it to the other major deal that happened around the same time: Purely Elizabeth’s acquisition by Ferrero. Little did we know, they were actually quite similar deals. Ferrero paid a reported $850M for Purely Elizabeth, roughly 4x its revenue, and both deals keep the founder in charge and the brand standalone. Where they differ, though, is that Purely Elizabeth has been around for 17 years… while Goodles is the new kid on the block, just 6 years old.

  • Goodles was delivering higher dollar velocities than Kraft and Annie’s less than three years after launch, it turned its first profit in 2024, and it’s been cited for some of the highest repeat-purchase metrics in CPG. Founder Zeszut says 92% of the US still hasn’t tried Goodles yet, which is the growth that Barilla is really betting on here.

• The bet that TikTok fame can outlast the algorithm. POV Beauty, Mikayla Nogueira’s skin-prep brand, raised $15M in a Series A led by Silas Capital, with RÉDO Capital and Imaginary Ventures participating. The brand entered Sephora six weeks prior and beat first-week sales projections by 80%.

  • What makes this one different from the long list of creator brands that fizzled is who’s running it. Nogueira brings the audience (around 21 million followers across TikTok and Instagram), but her co-founder and CEO, Ani Hadjinian, was previously GM of North America at Augustinus Bader. Creator plus seasoned operator is the combo that tends to survive after the launch buzz fades. Nogueira also has real floor experience: she worked at Ulta before going full-time on social in 2020.

• Stevia soda may be struggling. Zevia raised $20 million in convertible preferred equity from GP Investments—the firm founded by the entrepreneurs behind ABInBev and 3G. Last year, Zevia hired bankers to (likely) explore a sale… so landing here indicates that there wasn’t much interest, or at least not at the price Zevia was hoping for. The terms of the deal are also favorable for GP, and they’re now taking on a “strategic reset” including exploring adjacent categories and attempting a single-can strategy (as opposed to its typical multipack strategy).

  • The truth between the lines is that Zevia stabilized after two years of cuts, couldn’t get a buyer, and brought in a disciplined minority partner to fund a push into the territory the newer functional soda brands have been winning.

  • While you could look at this and solely blame the new soda entrants that are taking market share, or the new appetite for function, I (Jenna) think there’s more at play here. Namely, I’m most curious about how shifting sweetener preferences impacted the perception of Zevia’s hero ingredient, stevia. Stevia was a peak-2010s sweetener, flexed as “natural” as opposed to its artificial counterparts, but consumers are now opting for lower-sugar (but real sugar) options instead.

• And in other, (kids) soda news: Roxberry, a kid-positioned coconut water–based sparkling drink brand made with real fruits and veggies, backed by Foxtrot founder Mike LaVitola, has raised $4 million of a $5 million open offering, with Habitat Partners and Red Hots Capital among investors. In January, it became the first kids’ beverage in Walmart’s modern soda aisle, across 2,200 stores, and it has since added H-E-B.

  • For every better-for-you product made for adults, there must be an equal (yet smaller) version for the kiddos. The brand’s own survey of 4,000 modern soda shoppers found nearly 60% were looking for a kid-friendly option!!

• Betting on flavor. Dan-O’s Seasoning Co. has secured $25 million from private-equity firm The Newcastle Network to fund new formats and expand the brand’s retail and online availability. The Louisville-based seasoning company, founded by Dan Oliver in 2015, is now sold in more than 22,000 U.S. retailers, with Oliver and CEO Phillip Crosby continuing to lead the business.

  • This is the second massive PE fundraise by a seasoning brand in the last two weeks, with last week seeing EZ Bombs (shelf-stable Mexican seasoning bombs) raise $25 million from CAVU Consumer Partners. Clearly, investors still see room for scaled growth in differentiated pantry brands.

• The pretty bandage company gets a new owner. Forward Consumer Partners is acquiring Welly, the colorful bandage and first-aid brand, from Unilever. Founder Eric Ryan will return as an advisor and board member. This is Forward’s first consumer health investment.

  • Forward is a 3-year-old firm run by Matt Leeds, who spent years at L Catterton before starting his own thing. Its portfolio includes Kodiak, Firehook, Xochitl, and Bar Keepers Friend. And Welly isn’t its first Big CPG carve-out—they also got a 51% stake in Justin’s from Hormel Foods. The firm raised $425M for its first fund in 2023 and already closed a $500M second fund in March, and is writing checks between $25M and $250M for majority stakes in brands. Welly is currently deal number eight.

  • Big CPG has spent the past few years shedding non-core brands, with the buyers ranging from private equity firms to smaller strategics willing to take on businesses their owners no longer want 😢 To list ‘em off….

    • Conagra sold Chef Boyardee to Brynwood’s Hometown Food for $600M. Reckitt sold Air Wick and the rest of its Essential Home division to Advent in a $4.8B deal. Danone sold Horizon Organic to Platinum Equity. General Mills sold Yoplait and Go-Gurt to Lactalis and Sodiaal for $2.1B, then handed Muir Glen to a PE-backed buyer in January. Nestlé has been especially active: It moved Perrier and S.Pellegrino into a joint venture with Platinum ($3.4B for half the business), sold Nature’s Bounty, Nuun, Puritan’s Pride, and four other vitamin brands to Yellow Wood Partners for $1B, and is selling what’s left of its ice cream business to Froneri, the joint venture it already co-owns with PAI Partners, after CEO Philipp Navratil called the category a “distraction.” Church & Dwight got itself out of gummy vitamins. Hain Celestial sold Terra and Garden Veggie Snacks to Snackruptors for $115M and then sold its entire international business to PE firm Aurelius for $323M. Colgate-Palmolive is reportedly shopping Softsoap, Irish Spring, and Speed Stick with Goldman for a package that could fetch more than $1B (potentially to Yellow Wood Partners).

  • Unilever, in particular, seems to have made this a bit of a habit. Welly joined the Unilever family when the company bought a majority stake from Eric Ryan in 2021, and now it’s already heading back out the door, just five years later. Before that, Unilever sold Dollar Shave Club to Nexus Capital in 2023 (while keeping a 35% stake), sold Kate Somerville to Rare Beauty Brands this month after an 18-month turnaround that didn’t take, and shuttered REN outright. In personal care, Unilever sold Suave’s North American business to Yellow Wood Partners, then sold the firm the entire Elida Beauty portfolio, which includes more than 20 brands, including Q-Tips. Yellow Wood later bought ChapStick from Haleon for about $510M and folded it into the Suave business.

• The vitamin brand for the whole fam. Paine Schwartz Partners, a ~$6.5B food-and-agribusiness PE firm, announced a strategic investment (amount wasn’t disclosed) in First Day, a clean-label family vitamin and supplement brand that has sold over 500 million gummies since 2019.

  • First Day has been on a heck of a run. It’s a nine-figure brand, and in late December it made its first-ever retail move, launching nine gummies at Target with a dedicated endcap. Where it stands out from other supplement brands is its distinct focus on customer-specfic products. Founder Alice Li figured out early that mothers wield the most influence over family health, and typically buys for her kids, her teens and herself, which is why First Day frames itself as a whole-family brand—with specific age-based lines for each member of the family—rather than just a kids’ brand.

  • Paine Schwartz’s CEO credited Li with scaling the brand with “remarkable capital efficiency,” and Li says the goal now is a “defining omnichannel family health brand.”

If you haven’t yet, please subscribe, like, leave a comment, and share! It helps us continue to bring you the most interesting news + nuance in consumer and retail every week.

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Expo West is somehow already only 4 months away (!!!), and there’s one major thing to start planning now if you want to make an impact this year… and it’s not your booth.

We’re talking MERCH. Let’s face it: when you come home from Expo, every sample you tried is one tummyache blur. But merch is what actually lives on. It’s the conversation piece at the airport, the tote that becomes your grocery run go-to, and the reason you remember a brand among 3,000 exhibitors.

If you’re doing merch, though, you can’t just slap your logo on a tote. Every year, brands have upped the ante on merch and showed us what it means to stand out, from Belgian Boys’ pink puffer tote in 2025 to wildwonder’s fruit bag last year.

That’s where Tart Merch comes in. Tart Merch (the designers behind Expo merch/uniforms for brands like Oats Overnight and wildwonder), builds everything from scratch with its factories instead of pulling from a catalog, with low minimums and pricing in line with standard swag suppliers. Here’s a peek into everything Tart offers!

We’re working with Dasha at Tart Merch to do Express Checkout’s first merch drop (eep!), including a custom tote, sweatshirt, t-shirt, and snack pouch… and we’re obsessed with every piece. Throughout the design process, Dasha was incredibly thoughtful in incorporating Express Checkout’s story into every item—not just our “vibe” or “aesthetic.” It was fully customized every step of the way, and the pieces came out better than we could’ve imagined (can’t wait to show you!).

Fully custom merch takes 6-12 weeks to move through design, sampling, production, and shipping, so NOW is the time to hit up Dasha for your Expo West merch or uniform needs!!!

First 10 readers to book a call get two FREE custom merch concepts!

Brainstorm the next viral Expo merch!

And with that, let’s get into our picks of the week →

Jenna’s Pickup:

Unwind - Sparkling Calm Beverage

I have been, for lack of a better term, incredibly hopped-up as of late.

The past three weeks have been pretty overwhelming—featuring our major acquisition announcement, two trips, onboarding, and a new (hefty) commute. While it’s all been SO exciting, I have sent at least seven texts in the last 15 days featuring some rendition of “my brain is on fire.” I’ve been waking up at random hours of the night out of pure, heart-racing eagerness. I could not get myself to calm down… which is why Unwind’s recent launch couldn’t have been more perfect timing.

Unwind is a new functional beverage brand by the founders of THC bev Nowadays. It’s one of the many pivots we’ve been seeing as THC brand builders navigate the looming federal hemp ban: Cann launched a 0mg line—which also includes magnesium and L-theanine—and Cantrip’s makers launched On the Brightside, a soda made with kanna extract (we had the founder on a pod, where he explained the ban SO well).

Nowadays is a really successful THC bev, so I had high hopes for their next endeavor. Needless to say, it did not disappoint.

• Quick facts: A sparkling functional beverage in fun fruit flavors, made to help you relax, featuring magnesium L-threonate, L-theanine, and chamomile.

• Reasons to love:

  • It actually works. If you’re a long-time reader, you know I’m a functional bev + supplement skeptic, but this functional drink is actually functional. It was thoughtfully crafted with two forms of magnesium: Magtein, a clinically-studied form of magnesium L-threonate designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and elevate magnesium levels directly in the brain, and magnesium bisglycinate, which is gentle on the stomach and great for physical relaxation. The addition of L-theanine offers a calm focus that slows some of my racing thoughts (a challenging task indeed!). This specific, intentional blend of ingredients allows Unwind to offer a mind-and-body relaxation effect, without causing any digestive upset often triggered by cheaper forms of magnesium.
    
    For me, the effect was noticeable nearly immediately. I can drink just half of one of these cans, and quickly feel like I have fully exhaled, like the thoughts running around in my brain can finally sit down, maybe even put their feet up. The most significant shift I’ve noticed is in my sleep—after having half an Unwind a bit before bed, I fall asleep and stay asleep, avoiding that 4 AM wake-up that results in an hour of tossing and turning. For someone who is often plagued by middle-of-the-night rumination, this actually feels like a miracle.
    
    Disclaimer: Of course, all bodies are different!!! I don’t know how this will impact you, dear reader, but I can only hope you can sip into a semblance of the calm I’ve felt upon consuming these.

  • Fruity and light. In an industry bombarded with new functional sodas, I actually appreciate that Unwind isn’t a soda, but a light sparkling bev with a juicy, just-sweet-enough fruit flavor. The cherry is by far my favorite; it tastes like real cherry juice, not that artificial, cough-syrupy flavor I associate with most cherry bevs. At only 25 calories and 4g of sugar, it’s a light beverage that you can feel good about sipping before bed, no impending sugar crash or funky fiber emergency to stall your sleep.

Where to buy: Walmart and TikTok Shop!

Nate’s Pickup:

Gnü bone broth chews (for dogs)

As much as I love a treat for myself, I LOVE getting a treat for my dog even more, because she is my world and she deserves everything good in life (especially if I can get her healthier, better-for-you treats). She doesn’t know any better. She’s just a little girl. She’s a little 3-year-old Jack Russell Chihuahua mix (hi Ginger) who doesn’t know any better, and I’m here on this earth to take care of her. And thank god we got served an ad for this brand, because there’s so much I love about Gnü, so let’s get into it.

• Quick Facts: Gnü makes a long-lasting dog chew where the primary ingredient is slow-simmered bone broth, solidified into a stick that softens as the dog chews. hey come in six flavors (Beef Bone Broth, Chicken Chamomile, Beef & Bison, Maple Bacon, Beef & Berry, Peanut Butter & Pumpkin) and are made in New Hampshire.

• Reasons to love:

  • Ginger adores this. If I’ve learned one thing having a dog, it’s that they absolutely have preferences for their food and their treats. They might try to eat a lot of things, but there’s always one thing they like more than the others. She was almost immediately obsessed with these bone broth sticks. You could see it in her eyes how excited she got about them. When I tried to take one away from her, she would run away with it…very fast. She never did that with any of the bully sticks we’ve gotten her, and we have tried a lot of different brands. It lasted longer than a bully stick too, and she was never not interested in it. The brand says their small chew keeps the founder’s 25-pound terrier mix busy for two to three days, which from what I saw for my 12-pound little girl tracks.

  • Built different. This isn’t some half-assed, half-baked treat. Developing it apparently took 15 months of R&D, more than 1,200 formulation batches, a team of three food scientists, and PhD materials scientists from MIT. Exactly the kinds of nerds I want making food! The ingredient list is bone broth, collagen peptides, a touch of gelatin, natural flavor, and sea salt, and that’s it. Each chew is also up to 82% protein, low fat, ~100 calories, and packs 28 grams of broad spectrum collagen. The texture is also really impressive. It’s firm enough to last a while but softens on contact with saliva and re-firms when she puts it down, so it doesn’t splinter or fracture the way bully sticks can. I’m less worried about her chocking on it. They put the same effort into this that somebody would put into human food, and I think it shows.

  • Nothing goes to waste. This part I thought was very very clever. So when a chew gets down to a nub, you can bake it and it puffs up into a whole new treat. So the entire stick gets used, just in different forms along the way, so there’s no sad little end piece getting thrown out or (worse) swallowed whole.

    

Where to buy: online

In case you missed it… 🎧

This week, we’re back after a little hiatus, and we’ve got an extra fun episode for you in our fancy new Morning Brew studio!!!

We’re kicking things off with Coke and Pepsi’s latest functional soda wars and the booming “hard sports drink” category. Then, we’re diving into the Whole Foods 2027 Trends Report (check out the full report here)—what we loved (Beautrition, Dish Reinvention, Yoshoku Effect, The Bean Boom), what missed the mark (Ingredient Minimalism, Zero Waste 2.0, Terroir’s New Territory), and the two massive trends Whole Foods left out entirely. 👀

Catch the full episode below 👇

This week, we're back after a little hiatus (news alert: we got acquired by Morning Brew!), and we've got an extra fun episode for you in our fancy new studio.

We're kicking things off with Coke and Pepsi's latest functional soda wars and the booming "hard sports drink" category. Then, we're diving into the Whole Foods 2027 Trends Report (check out the full report here)—what we loved (Beautrition, Dish Reinvention, Yoshoku Effect, The Bean Boom), what missed the mark (Ingredient Minimalism, Zero Waste 2.0, Terroir's New Territory), and the two massive trends Whole Foods left out entirely. 👀

Let's get into it →

The Breakdown:

0:00 - Intro and why things look/sound different...

1:46 - Our fave finds of the week

4:53 - The new Coke vs. Pepsi battle

12:44 - The "hard sports drink" boom

16:12 - Whole Foods 2027 Trends Report: The four trends that we liked (Beautrition, Dish Reinvention, Yosoku Effect, and The Bean Boom)

33:28 - Trends that missed the mark for us... (Ingredient Minimalism, Zero Waste 2.0, Terroir's New Territory, Bitter Done Better)

40:42 - The trends we'd add to the list

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to the Express Checkout podcast wherever you get your podcasts! New episodes drop weekly.

📧 Get the inside scoop Subscribe to Express Checkout, our newsletter packed with consumer insights, trends, and exclusive content straight to your inbox at expresscheckout.co.

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💬 Join the conversation Have a product you’re curious about? DM us your questions or drop them in the comments—your topic could be featured in our next episode! If you have any thoughts/questions/suggestions, feel free to email us at hello@expresscheckout.co :)

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It’s late October, and the what-ifs are officially piling up:

What if a TikTok mention triples demand overnight? How much hot sauce did we sell last BFCM? What if we have to re-route orders to our second warehouse?

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🚨 Calling all SF-Based founders!!! 🌁 🚨

Next Monday (10/26), we’re putting on our FIRST event in SF!!! Our wonderful former intern Natalie, an SF resident, is bringing together an exclusive group of folks from the SF CPG community for a post-work sauna + cold plunge wellness experience in partnership with RetailReady!

If you’re a CPG founder or brand operator in SF, or know someone who is, request to join here.

Now, onto the news of the week →

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Pepsi is having a no-good, very bad week:

  • Poppi is going flat. PepsiCo marked down what it expects to owe Poppi’s founders after a $1.95B buyout. The earnout, once promised at $300M if Poppi hit certain growth targets by Q3 2027, is now valued at $12M, down from $117M in June and $278M in December. 😱

    • According to Pepsi, Poppi’s volume is still growing (double digits last quarter). But that growth isn’t close to what the brand was seeing pre-acquisition.

    • There are many factors at play here, but one of them is simply that the category may be peaking. Coke has Simply Pop (and now, is playing with its prebiotic versions of its OG brands), Pepsi has two prebiotic sodas, and the shelf is crowded. Mintel’s analyst said as early as this spring that prebiotic soda growth could be close to topping out, since most people still drink soda for a familiar, indulgent taste. Olipop is slowing down too, so this isn’t only a Poppi problem.

    • Though it’s worth noting: earnouts are mostly IOUs anyway. 🤷‍♀️ Drew Fallon points out that earnouts rarely pay in strategic CPG deals. In his analysis of 100+ M&A deals from the past few years, only about 12% of total earnout value was ever paid.

  • Meanwhile, KFC gives Pepsi the boot. KFC announced it’s ending a 40-year exclusive Pepsi partnership in the U.S. The switch starts in January 2027 and covers roughly 3,700 U.S. restaurants by spring. This one especially stings, because Pepsi used to own KFC. PepsiCo bought the chain in 1986 and spun it off in 1997, and KFC and Yum stayed with Pepsi anyway. The WSJ reports KFC was one of Pepsi’s biggest U.S. restaurant sellers!!

    • A moment of silence for Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning, the KFC-exclusive peach-honey soda, which will be phased out of KFC locations in spring 2027. May we all pray that Taco Bell’s Baja Blast doesn’t see the same fate.

  • And then Gatorade got recalled. PepsiCo pulled 122,021 cases of Gatorade Lemon Lime, Lemon Lime Zero, Orange, and Orange Zero across 37 states (objectively the worst flavors, but I digress), because the bottles contained Yellow No. 5 and/or Yellow No. 6 that weren’t on the label.

    • The extra awkward part is that those are the exact flavors Pepsi promised would go dye-free. This fall, fruit punch, lemon lime, and orange Thirst Quencher and Zero were set to switch to colors from fruits and vegetables only. Pepsi hasn’t said what went wrong, but synthetic dyes missing from the label—in the flavors you’re actively marketing as moving off dyes—is a rough look.

• A big week for the future of caffeination:

  • Never enough (clean) caffeine. Just Ice Tea launched Awaken Cold Brew Tea, bringing 120mg of caffeine from yerba mate, green tea, and white tea to a 12-ounce can. It comes in Strawberry Spark, Tropical Takeoff, and Honeydew Lime Lift, with 17g of sugar and 80 calories.

    • This feels like a natural next step for Just Ice Tea: take a familiar brand, and move into a new, but complementary, occasion. Plus, energy drinks are seriously growing in popularity: US energy drink spending has grown 8% annually since 2019, with better-for-you options bringing more people into the category. Just look a Bloom’s Sparkling Energy Drink brand; since launching 2 years ago, they’ve already surpassed 500 million cans sold!

    • Our thesis is that Just Ice Tea doesn’t need to convince, say, a Celsius or Alani Nu consumer to convert. It’s there to bring the “not really an energy drink person” crowd something they’re more comfortable trying—something organic, without all the bright branding and candy-adjacent flavors, that offers a more premium aesthetic and more approachable caffeine content than the other brands in its category.

    • We can’t not point out the sugar content here. This bev, which boasts being “Just Sweet Enough®” has a whopping 17g of added sugar, which certainly makes it stand out among the category’s fastest-growing brands (many of which have 0g sugar). The source is Organic Cane Sugar, which presents an interesting question for natural shoppers: do they care more about organic, natural ingredients and a “clean” sugar source, or grams of sugar?

  • RTDs, watch out. There’s a new format on the block. C4, Bucked Up, and Rockstar unveiled nicotine-free caffeine pouches at NACS, joining the growing crowd of brands offering an energy boost you tuck under your lip instead of a drink from a can.

    • With the rise of ZYN, it was only a matter of time before other brands started using the pouch format to deliver something besides nicotine. And there are so many now: Ultra, Sesh, WIP, Mojo, Nectr… even the founders of Starface got into it with Blip (which did happen to shut down less than two months after launching its functional pouches). Same thing happens anytime a format is “proven.” See: gummies.

    • One thing these pouch brands seem to understand, though, is who they’re talking to. There’s an obvious overlap with the consumer who already reached for a ZYN—largely young men and in finance and tech. They’re discreet, easy to use at your desk or the gym, and already part of the routine for many of these consumers. The bet is that people like the pouch format itself, not just the nicotine or whatever functional ingredients are in there.

  • Going beyond the beyond. Beyond Meat, now branding itself as Beyond the Plant Protein Company, is giving its protein drinks a caffeine kick. The brand launched Beyond Immerse Protein + Energy, a sparkling drink with 20g of plant protein and 160mg of caffeine, in Cherry Berry and Watermelon Strawberry.

    • Beyond is clearly having an identity crisis. This follows September’s trend-stacked Phytosphere lineup—protein powder, jerky, and veggie burgers—which we shared many thoughts on here. We get the impulse to move beyond meat alternatives, but checking every wellness and wellness-adjacent box isn’t really the same as giving shoppers a good reason to choose you.

• Back to ACV? Bragg announced Tropical Zing, a sparkling beverage with one tablespoon of its organic apple cider vinegar (ACV), real fruit juice, 40 calories, and no added sugar per can.

  • It’s interesting to see Bragg launch this now, especially when brands like Olipop and Poppi (which originally launched as an ACV drink) have pivoted away from leading with gut health and toward simply saying “we’re a better-for-you soda.”

  • More broadly, we don’t really hear much about ACV as a wellness ingredient anymore, so maybe this is Bragg trying to bring it back into the zeitgeist. But with fiber getting more popular, gut health is due for another wave of attention—and maybe a classic wellness ingredient like ACV gets to come along for the ride.

• Graza takes another dip. Graza launched Garlic Confit & Chive Hummus at select Costco stores in the Southeast. Made with its extra virgin olive oil, slow-cooked whole garlic cloves, and fresh chives, it comes in a behemoth 22.5-ounce (1.3 POUND) tub suited for its Costco launch.

  

  • Graza has come a long way from putting olive oil in a squeeze bottle. The brand now offers a full line of olive oil potato chips, mayo, and now, hummus. Graza made its name in olive oil, got people to obsess over and trust the brand, and is now bringing that into other products with olive oil at their core. You don’t have to reinvent every aisle you enter. Sometimes making really good food that your existing customers want to try is enough. All while reportedly exploring a $600M sale with Lazard. Hard to deny what they’ve built.

  • What’s especially interesting about this launch is that hummus isn’t new territory for Graza. Its 2025 collab with Ithaca Hummus made its way into Whole Foods, Target, and Costco, and picked up a NOSH Best New Product award. While we don’t know the details of the split, Ithaca now has its own Olive Oil SKU, and Graza has become a shelf-mate at Costco.

    • This whole collab-to-launch pipeline has us thinking: do brands see collabs as soft entries into other categories? The Ithaca collab is looking more like a testing ground than an authentic collab in retrospect…

• The 3-in-1 body wash of booze. Why have separate drinks for the party and the morning after? For everyone who thinks shampoo, conditioner, and body wash belong in one bottle, apparently your booze and morning-after sports drink do, too. White Claw maker Mark Anthony Brands introduced RefreshAde, its take on a hard sports drink. Yes, that’s a sports drink with booze included, and no, that doesn’t make it a hangover cure. It joins Super Lyte and SpikedAde in this growing hard sports drink category.

  • We went from drinking Gatorade the day after a night out, to chugging a Liquid IV while leaving the function, to putting the sports drink and the booze in the same can. The low-calorie, low-sugar pitch that helped sell the first wave of hard seltzer apparently isn’t enough anymore. Today, consumers are looking for added function, not just a lack of the “bad” stuff.

  

  • And the category is booming. Super Lyte, a vodka + electrolytes RTD from the company behind Surfside, moved 120,000 cases in its first five weeks after launching in March and is now projecting 4 million cases by end of 2026. Last month, Boston Beer incubated Rally Dog Vodka Ade, another “vodka ade” made with real vodka and a hint of sea salt for electrolytes. And just last week, Constellation Brands acquired SpikedAde for $75 million, with up to another $278 million tied to performance. These are pretty big bets on sports-drink-inspired booze. With that kind of traction, it’s not surprising the company behind White Claw wants in on the category too.

• Target may be the next Whole Foods, but Walmart is becoming the next Target. We’ve spoken ad nauseam about Target’s new focus on better-for-you groceries and wellness, and now, we’re seeing Walmart take on a similar thesis:

  • This week, Reprise Health, a brand that brings traditional Eastern herbal remedies into convenient, tasty gummy formats, has expanded into 470+ Walmart stores nationwide through the retailer’s new Trending in Wellness set. This is Reprise’s first entry into mass retail after launches at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and The Vitamin Shoppe.

    • Reprise Health is one of my favorite supplement brands! The founders both grew up with Eastern herbal remedies, and these vegan gummies are their modern answer to an accessible version of that tradition. They are incredibly thoughtful about sourcing their ingredients (from a 5th generation Taiwanese family), care deeply about quality and testing (they lab-test each batch 3x!), and develop all of their blends with doctors. Great find by Walmart!! - Jenna

  • This feels especially timely, because earlier this month, Walmart launched a new category: Mood & Mind, a beverage set specifically focused on functional drinks, in ~1,000 stores. The category includes brands like TRIP, Recess, Neutonic, Nowadays, and more.

  • With the focus on up-and-coming, buzzy wellness brands—like Reprise Health—and spotlighting functional, wellness-forward categories, Walmart is solidifying itself as yet another mass-retailer-turned-brand-discovery-destination.

• A big W for the frozen aisle. Big Mozz, the frozen mozzarella stick brand, is launching its Original Mozzarella Sticks nationwide at 1,500 Target stores. Also joining the freezer: a Target-exclusive SAUZ collab pairing Mini Mozzarella Nuggets with Creamy Calabrian Vodka Sauce. Brilliant. This might be the most well-aligned collab we’ve seen in a minute—not surprising once we learned that the collab’s impetus was a Target buyer dreaming this up on the Expo West floor!!

  • The fact that they went with the Creamy Calabrian Vodka Sauce, instead of a traditional marinara, adds to the brilliance of this collab. Big Mozz is known for its “big flavor,” and SAUZ is known for its nontraditional pasta sauce flavors. This collab beautifully marries the two, and we actually cannot run to Target fast enough to try this.

• Proda’s bringing protein back, yeah! Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel have joined Proda, a zero-sugar protein soda brand, as co-founders in their first joint business venture. They join original co-founders and co-CEOs Matthew Postlethwaite, an actor and wellness entrepreneur, and Jeff Church, who previously built Suja Organic. Barry’s executive chairman Joey Gonzalez is also joining as a co-founder.⁠

  • We’ve spoken before about what it takes to build the “perfect” celebrity brand, and honestly, we’re waiting with baited breath to see how this one plays out.

• Another influencer tequila RTD. Haley and Hanna Cavinder, former college basketball players turned twinfluencers, are joining Azúcar Tequila as Creative Directors, helping shape its content, storytelling, and events. The canned margarita brand is rolling out in Dallas and Austin, and is made with real tequila, fruit, and agave nectar.

  • Feel familiar? It should, because Alix Earle did something very similar with a very similar product when she joined SipMARGS as an investor and partner. Apparently, everyone needs a tequila RTD to go with their following (or, more likely, every tequila RTD needs an influencer to stand out in an increasingly competitive category…).

• The Hunger Games of haircare. Jennifer Lawrence is officially entering beauty with her first brand, mes°, a hair-care line. The brand was co-created with Arcaea a biotechnology that raised $78M from Chanel, Givaudan and Olaplex back in 2021. More details are teased for October 27th. ⁠

  • JLaw’s entering a crowded haircare aisle, but an even more crowded celebrity haircare aisle: Beyoncé’s Cécred, Blake Lively’s Blake Brown, Shakira’s Isima, Tracee Ellis Ross’s Pattern and Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie.

• Fragrance at the speed of TikTok. Bath & Body Works launched Hype Lab, a small-batch fragrance initiative that develops scents in 8-12 weeks based on social trends, in partnership with MANE fragrance house. The first drop—a viral dessert-inspired trio—sold out online in three minutes. Hype Lab will be hosted on Bath & Body Works’ new online platform, [Drops](https://www.bathandbodyworks.com/t/drops?), which releases early-access products and other online exclusives.

  • This is part of a larger play by the retailer to turn around the business: Bath & Body Works’ Q2 sales fell 2.3% year over year to $1.5 billion, with U.S. and Canadian store sales down 5.4%. The only bright spot remains seen in digital sales, which grew 3% (likely partly due to the brand’s Amazon launch in February). Looks like B&BW will be leaning in further to digital sales (and other retailers, like Ulta) as part of its Consumer First Formula turnaround plan.

eCommerce

• As TikTok Shop volume grows, value shrinks. TikTok Shop beauty sales reported $992.9M in Q3 2026—up 39.1% year over year, but growth has slowed sharply from 96% in Q1. GMV (gross merchandise value) per active beauty video collapsed from $379 in Q3 2024 to $96 today as video volume surged 76% YoY.

  • TL;DR: As TikTok Shop Beauty sales get closer to $1B, and more and more brands join the platform and pump out content, the category’s growth rate is slowing down and the value per video decreases.

  • K-Beauty continues to lead the platform, with brands like Medicube and Dr. Melaxin holding strong at the top—though they’re now subject to the same sales dips seen across the platform.

• Google wants in on every transaction. Google launched Universal Cart in the US, a shopping hub in Search and Gemini that tracks price drops and surfaces promo codes across retailers (right in time for the holidays). It’s built on the Universal Commerce Protocol, Google’s open standard for AI-assisted checkout.

  • As Amazon and OpenAI continue building out their own agentic shopping experiences, it will be interesting to see who wins the next era of ecommerce.

Retail

• Carbone’s parent just put money into groceries. Wilder Market & Kitchen is opening this fall in Miami as an 8,000-square-foot neighborhood market backed by Major Food Group as a founding investor—MFG’s first investment outside its own restaurant operations, with Michelin-starred Grassfed Culture running the food program.

  • Danielle Axman, founder of Wilder, told Forbes: “We are reimagining the neighborhood market by bringing together thoughtfully sourced groceries, a café, and chef-driven prepared foods under one roof. Everything we carry and make is held to the Wilder Standard, our vetting framework that brings together thoughtful sourcing, high-quality ingredients, and food that tastes great, so the homework is done before anything reaches the shelf.”

  • TBH, this sounds a whole lot like a few other fancy grocery stores we’ve encountered—including another one in the same city, Nude Miami. In June, we wrote about how everything is Erewhon now, and this is yet another supporting point.

Funding, Mergers, and Acquisitions

• TikTok to Target to $25M in under two years. EZ Bombs raised $25 million from CAVU Consumer Partners. The brand’s shelf-stable Mexican seasoning bombs scaled from zero retail doors in 2025 to 8,000+ locations—including Walmart and Costco—after going #1 on TikTok Shop last year.

  • We’ll be watching this one closely, because this really is a new model for CPG growth. Where DTC-first was king for a decade or so, we’re now seeing this model arise: social shopping first. For a product like EZ Bombs—which requires some education for use—the social-first, visual-first strategy just makes sense. What CAVU is betting on, really, is that the virality (and subsequent retailer validation) catalyzed by TikTok Shop is sustainable.

• The Kelce bros have cracked beer. Garage Beer, the Ohio-based light lager brand co-owned by Jason and Travis Kelce, secured a $20 million revolving credit line from Tiger Finance to expand its product lineup and enter new markets.

  • Beer is having a rough go of it lately. The industry is facing rising supply chain costs, big swings in drinking habits, and breweries shutting their doors or filing for bankruptcy left and right. Garage Beer, meanwhile, is now Ohio’s biggest craft brewer by volume and 12th largest nationally—and is growing faster than the overall beer category itself! As of late 2025, it was already valued at roughly $200 million, just two years after it spun off from Braxton Brewing into a standalone company. Jason and Travis obviously play a role in selling Garage, but that overlooks what’s really being built here. We think this could be America’s next big beer brand—unless someone bigger scoops it up first 🤷.

  • What’s especially interesting is that this is a celebrity brand that doesn’t fully feel like a celebrity brand. The Kelces are heavily involved, but if we’re being honest, nothing about two football guys selling a beer called Garage Beer feels like much of a stretch. Everything about this brand makes sense for them and the people who follow them, which transcends to what’s actually in the can: a no-frills light beer that comes in classic or lime.

• Big skincare money is at the doctor’s office. Galderma, a pharma and skincare company (known for injectables) has acquired ZO Skin Health, a dermatologist-founded skincare brand primarily distributed through physicians and med-spas, for $1.5 billion, or ~4.5x its $330M in net sales. Blackstone (majority owner) and the founding Obagi family are selling; combined with Alastin, Galderma now holds 19% of the U.S. professional skincare channel.

  • Physician-dispensed skincare has a major leg-up on the broad, non-sticky skincare category. As Hayden Williams, partner at BrandProject, told Beauty Independent: “Skincare shoppers are not known for their loyalty. Every week brings a new TikTok trend, a new hero ingredient, a new brand promising glass skin by Friday. Most brands end up paying to win the same customer over and over again. A brand whose customers actually stick around is rare, and rare is expensive, which is where physician-dispensed skincare has an edge.”

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There are a lot of new readers here, which means a (re)introduction is in order! If this is the first Express Checkout edition to hit your inbox…

1. WELCOME, we’re thrilled you’re here!!

2. You’re about to gain significantly more joy from the chore of grocery shopping (you are welcome).

3. We’d like to give you a little peek into what you can expect from us:

We infiltrate your inbox (consensually) twice a week.

In the beginning of the week, you get smarter about CPG and retail with a full breakdown + deeper insights into the most important news from the past week, plus a longer deep dive into an industry topic we can’t stop thinking about (like the decaf coffee boom, why coconut water is trending, or if Target is the new Whole Foods).

On Fridays, you get a glimpse into our (overflowing) pantries, medicine cabinets, fridges, or freezers. We share our favorite CPG finds of the past week, so you stay in-the-know about the coolest new brands… and hear which are actually worth the hype.

And with that, let’s get into our picks of the week →

Jenna’s Pickup:

HEYDOH - Classic Soy Sauce

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that elevated versions of everyday culinary ingredients (hey, olive oil) hold a lot of power. Though their core promise is higher-quality liquid than their conventional counterparts, their net effect looms much larger. Unlike a Kirkland Olive Oil, for instance, premium, single-origin culinary ingredients tell a story about the person who buys them—what they care about, their standards, their ambitions. Even when they’re just sitting pretty on a counter, they signal intentionality and thoughtfulness.

HEYDOH is the new brand doing that for soy sauce, and I feel strongly that you learn about it before it claims the counter space of every West Village apartment.

• Quick Facts: Non-GMO Taiwanese soy sauce made with whole, single-origin black soybeans fermented with just sea salt (naturally 25% lower in sodium than other brands), water, wheat, and yeast—resulting in complex, layered soy sauce that elevates any dish.

• Reasons to love:

  • Ingredient difference you can taste. I know it’s been a long run, but it’s time to break up with Kikkoman. Mass-market soy sauces, like Kikkoman, are typically brewed using defatted soy meal or soybean mash from yellow soybeans—an industrial byproduct left over after soy oil is extracted. Meanwhile, single-origin producers like HEYDOH use 100% whole heirloom soybeans (in this case, select-harvest black soybeans). Because the natural oils and proteins remain completely intact, the resulting sauce is much richer, with a rounded, full, umami base and a hint of molasses-y sweetness on the finish.
    The brand dared me to taste the product side-by-side next to the soy sauce in my pantry; I didn’t expect to sense much of a difference, and was proven wholly wrong. HEYDOH makes any other soy sauce taste like murky, one-note salt water by comparison.

  • Rooted in heritage. All three co-founders are Taiwanese, and two of them are based in Taiwan (grateful the third, Christine, is based in the US, because I had the pleasure of meeting her recently!). Co-founder Clarissa, a James Beard Finalist and cookbook author, dreamt up HEYDOH when she was writing a cookbook in the US—and couldn’t find any soy sauce that reminded her of the artisanal soy sauces from Taiwan. Frustrated with her flat, lackluster options, she decided to source the best stuff herself.

  • A gorgeous gift. Spoiler alert: there is a large chance you will be seeing this again in our gift guides. 👀 The perfect gifts, IMO, are practical in use but utterly luxurious in feel. HEYDOH nails that challenge. They put so much thought into their liquid, and the bottle itself matches that. The branding is transportive, bright, and narrative in nature. It’s a love letter to Taiwan, and a conversation piece for your counter.

    • Note: I’ve only tried the Classic Soy Sauce so far, but I’m certain the quality will translate across the entire line of products. I cannot wait to try the Silky Soy Sauce, which is a glossy, velvety finishing sauce for dipping or drizzling!

Where to buy: Online!

Nate’s Pickup:

Party Of Snacks

Popcorn is one of the most classic snacks out there, but most of the time the flavors are pretty run of the mill. When a brand does go wacky, it’s usually a seasonal drop that’s gone before you can even restock, like LesserEvil’s limited edition Watermelon Lime. Party Of is changing the popcorn aisle, making fun, flavor-forward popcorn all year round in unique, fun flavors.

• Quick Facts: Thai-inspired popcorn founded by four sisters who grew up in their mom’s Thai restaurants and wanted a snack that represented both sides of their upbringing. They have 3 flavors so far: Pad Thai, Thai Chili Lime, and Mango Sticky Rice Kettle Corn, with a sampler pack if you can’t decide.

• Reasons to love:

  • The flavors. Each bag tastes exactly like the thing it says it tastes like. Who thought Pad Thai would make a great popcorn flavor? I wouldn’t have, and I’m so glad they did because it’s so freaking good! My personal favorite is the Mango Sticky Rice Kettle Corn, but I have a sweet tooth, so take that with a grain of salt (or sugar). Mango sticky rice is having a moment right now, with Trader Joe’s selling a frozen pre-made version and a buzzy new NYC restaurant that’s gone viral for selling the best mango sticky rice in the city! If you’re bringing globally inspired flavors to an American audience, you have to start with things people already know and love enough to actually pick up off the shelf, and Pad Thai, Thai Chili Lime, and Mango Sticky Rice all clear that bar.

  • Popcorn was the right call. I think there are two snacks that are near-perfect vehicles for bold flavor, popcorn and chips, with pretzels a close third. The popcorn itself is very good here, but the point is how well it carries flavor and lets the seasoning lead. It’s also the easiest snack in the world to overindulge on without feeling the weight of it, and when something tastes this good, overindulging is exactly what I want to do.

  • The branding. It’s bold, fun, and colorful, and it tells you exactly what you’re getting. I still think the American consumer, especially away from the coasts, is hesitant to try globally flavored products, even with plenty of brands bringing ethnic and globally inspired products to shelf and succeeding. We have a long way to go as a country before that feels normal. Party Of does a really nice job bridging that gap. It looks like it belongs in Happier Grocery, Erewhon, Sprouts, or Wegmans, but there’s a lot of authenticity underneath it, in the flavors, in details hidden on the packaging, and especially in the founders’ story.

Where to buy: Online and select independent retailers

In case you missed it… 🎧

The other week, we’re sitting down with wildly impressive Tristan Walker, who built and sold Walker & Company (the parent company behind Bevel) to Procter & Gamble. He also sits on the board of Shake Shack and recently joined Collaborative Fund to help launch Collab Holdings—a private equity arm built for consumer brands that don’t fit the traditional VC/PE playbook. He also runs Heirloom Leathercraft, a trade school and atelier bringing fine handcraft back to America.

He walks us through building Bevel from a personal shaving problem to a national brand, the difficult decision to sell to P&G, and why he now believes most founders shouldn’t take VC money in the first place. We also dig into what makes a CPG brand “durable,” why Gen Z is increasingly skeptical of private equity, and whether AI can ever replicate intuition. 👀

Catch the full episode below 👇

There’s one big question every brand operator finds themselves asking around this season: Is a Black Friday customer worth it?

Our friends at Wayflyer crunched the numbers, and the answer is: a little less than you’d hope, but nowhere near as bad as the “bargain hunter” reputation suggests.

BFCM shoppers spend about the same as anyone else on their first order, but they’re roughly 13% less likely to come back. This impacts lifetime value, and twelve months later, a customer acquired during BFCM has LTV 5% below a customer that was acquired in January through October.

The big surprise is discounts: the deeper the Black Friday discount, the more likely the customer is to return. Shoppers who got 40% off came back 33% more often than those who paid full price!!

For 21% of SMBs, Black Friday is the biggest sales event of the year, but it requires a major stock up and marketing push now for sales that will come later.

If working capital is holding you back from your biggest Black Friday yet, apply with Wayflyer today (it just takes 10 minutes!!) and receive funding in as little as 24 hours.

Get up to $20m in funding

News From the Week

It’s an awkward time to be a big CPG brand.

Data is telling strategics that they need to play in functional and better-for-you, and PepsiCo’s own Q3 results credited protein, fiber and simpler ingredients for what worked this quarter.

Historically, though, better-for-you + functional hasn’t really been BigCo’s thing.

• Coca-Cola’s in-house swings have a short shelf life: it pulled Coca-Cola Energy from North America after just over a year, and drastically cut distribution of its Aha sparkling water as sales slid.

• So far, the biggest wins for incumbents have come from buying in. PepsiCo bought Poppi (more on that below), and Hershey bought a clean-label popcorn brand to get into better-for-you snacking.

• But private equity is now heavily competing for the same emerging brands, so strategics are scrambling to innovate in-house.

Without access to expensive data and insights, innovation at an emerging brand is largely rooted in intuition. Innovation for a larger CPG brand, on the other hand, is largely rooted in data—looking at the little guys and trying to square a pattern it can copy-paste onto its own products. The final result doesn’t feel natural or creative; it feels forced, almost viscerally cringe, and often misses the mark.

This week, both Coke and Pepsi showed us that awkwardness in action:

Coke announced it will add 6g of prebiotic fiber to Coke Zero, Sprite Zero and Fresca, piloting at the end of October in parts of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A whole new line of its beloved brands, now slapped with added fiber.

For context, this is Coke’s second major swing at the prebiotic soda category: Last year, Coke launched Simply Pop under its juice brand.

Strategics can get any data they want, and Coke’s is clearly telling them that prebiotic soda is having a moment, and fiber is the factor worth stealing. But what the data doesn’t tell them is why people buy—that je ne sais quoi cool factor. And, from what we’ve seen, Olipop and Poppi’s “cool factors” were never really about fiber:

• Poppi is the clearest case study, because its fiber claim has already been tested in public. In 2024, the brand was hit with class actions arguing that its 2 grams of fiber per can was too little to do anything for your gut. Poppi denied wrongdoing and settled for $8.9 million.

• If gut health were the reason people bought Poppi, that should have hurt… and it didn’t. As the suits were being filed, Poppi’s U.S. dollar sales were up 171.5% to more than $273 million, per NielsenIQ. A year later, PepsiCo paid $1.95 billion for the brand with that claim still under legal challenge.

• Poppi knew it, too: co-founder Allison Ellsworth said publicly that most people drink Poppi for the flavor, and the brand moved away from gut health toward a lifestyle positioning.

Fiber wasn’t the core reason people were buying Poppi. It was a health halo, a secondary justification for buying the product they already wanted for its taste, its branding, and what it says about them. But that one visible, replicable halo is the part Coke is copying.

Meanwhile, PepsiCo is taking something good… and forcing its strategic lens on top of it. When faced with the same threat of the modern soda category, PepsiCo took the opposite route of Coke: it bought the whole Poppi brand, context included.

But now, growth calls (it always does for Big-Boy Brands), and PepsiCo is similarly falling into this forced innovation cycle:

Last week, PepsiCo unveiled Poppi Lift (energy) and Chill (relaxation), pushing Poppi beyond its gut-health origins into new consumption occasions.

• While the idea of an actually-functional Poppi isn’t a bad one—and in fact, could really take off—it does feel like an awkward, forced departure.

• It reads, again, as a strategic brand haphazardly applying data (this time, from the rapidly growing energy and relaxation drink categories) to an existing brand. It’s asking a brand that was loved for being fun to start justifying itself with function.

Put side by side, Coke and Pepsi ended up in the same awkward spot from opposite directions: Coke copied the most visible trait of a brand it couldn’t buy, and PepsiCo bought the brand… but is now bolting new traits onto it. In both cases, the data showed what’s selling, and the brands mistook it for why.

Big CPG will always have more data than the little guys. What it keeps struggling to buy—or hold onto once it starts tinkering—is the gut feeling that made anyone care in the first place. Until the incumbents figures that out, expect a wholeeee lot more awkward. 🥴

CPG & Consumer Goods

• A cure for the back-to-school hangover. Once Upon a Farm, the organic kids’ snack and meal brand, launched Electrolyte Blends, These are fruit-and-veggie hydration pouches for school-age kids made with coconut water and sea salt for “active kids”. The pouches are available at select retailers nationwide, while the brand’s broader lineup spans 25,000+ retail doors.

  

  • Electrolytes are the latest wellness darling, so it’s no surprise that hydration has reached the blossoming kids aisle. Last month, Nestlé USA entered the pediatric rehydration space with Gerberlyte (a more medically-skewed product), and claimed that the pediatric electrolyte market is expected to reach $451 million by 2031. Though Once Upon a Farm is actively avoiding any language around medical rehydration or sustained energy for this product, it’s slotted into the same sphere.

  • Nearly 50% of U.S. parents buying products for ages 6–12 look for electrolytes, according to SPINS’ 2024 survey. Cure already makes kids’ drink mixes; Once Upon a Farm is bringing that pitch to pouches.

  • One thing is clear: kid’s products are no longer an afterthought. We’ve spoken about this before, but the same parents who upgraded their own pantries and medicine cabinets want better options for their kids, too. The same effort going into adult formulation, packaging, and design is finally going into kids’ products, with ingredients suited to their age and formulations they actually enjoy:

    • Hiya Health built its whole brand around better supplements for kids, from zero-sugar multivitamins to probiotics and fiber.

    • Baby care brand Frida moves into personal care for ages 6–11, with everything from body wash to deodorant and electric flossers.

    • Shay Mitchell’s (highly controversial) Rini is bringing K-beauty to kids with various gentle formulas and playful face masks.

    • There are even multiple brands trying to bring the Modern Soda category to kids’: NoBiggie, Roxberry, and Wave Kids.

  • These brands aren’t just selling to the parents anymore. Modern kids have opinions!! In PwC’s 2026 survey of U.S. kids ages 7–14, 61% said social media makes them want to buy things, and 81% said they have at least some influence over skincare and beauty purchases. They’re online seeing the same brands we are, and they want the cool stuff and not a watered-down kids’ version. The ingredients need to pass the parent test, but the packaging, flavors, and experience need to be something a kid actually asks for. Mom might have the credit card, but she’s not always picking what goes in the cart 👀

• Can ramen save Kraft? Kraft Mac & Cheese is launching Cheesy Ramen in April 2027, its first new category in two decades. The $2.99 microwavable bowls come in chicken, spicy, and pork flavors. Apparently, defending the blue box now means getting into someone else’s noodle business 👀

  

  • Kraft Heinz is trying to regain its footing. After pausing its planned split earlier this year, CEO Steve Cahillane said the company is investing $700 million in marketing, sales, and R&D. Kraft Mac & Cheese’s marketing spend alone is up 35% year over year. The brand’s first “innovations” included protein-heavy PowerMac and a “gourmet” Restaurant Edition. Now, it’s expanding into other noodle categories. Kraft wants to give people more reasons to reach for its iconic blue box by meeting demand for trends such as more protein, distinctive flavors, and options beyond the same mac they’ve eaten since childhood.

  • Kraft isn’t competing with just another store-brand mac anymore. Goodles has been winning shoppers with protein, fiber, and fun flavors. Meanwhile, Korean noodle maker Otoki already launched a Cheesy Ramen lineup in January, with flavors like Cheddar & Mascarpone and Spicy Chili & Cheddar in cups and packets. A-Sha has cheesy noodles with chef Andrew Zimmern, too, including Vermont Cheddar. Everyone is meeting in the same cheesy noodle aisle. This Kraft ramen move looks like both a defense strategy of its comfort-food territory and an attempt to grab some of theirs.

  • These launches, though they’re rooted in cultural flavors, aren’t trying to recreate traditional dishes. Otoki is making Korean noodles with cheddar and mascarpone, specifically for North American shoppers, while Kraft is putting its familiar cheese into ramen—neither is trying to sell you an authentic bowl from a ramen shop (we recommend Crafty Ramen for that). At the same time, this isn’t necessarily “dumbing things down” for an American palate, either. It’s more of this mash-up, built around what the consumers are already buying and eating.

  • Global flavors and formats are already all over US grocery, and now even Kraft wants in. They’re no longer confined to the “ethnic” aisle or left to smaller brands and imports. Ramen is familiar enough that Kraft sees it as a place to put its cheese, and that says a lot about how Americans eat now.

• Pepsi’s bargain era is over. PepsiCo reported Q3 revenue of $25.27 billion, up 5.6% year over year, beating expectations—but cut its core EPS (earnings per share) growth outlook to 2.5%–3% (from 5%–7%) and reiterated plans to raise prices 15% to offset rising input costs.

  • Quick refresher: earlier this year Pepsi went the other direction, cutting prices to win back volume, and it cost the company 280 basis points of North America core operating margin. 😅 So this is a reversal, and an expensive lesson in what a price cut costs… even when you’re the biggest player in the aisle.

  • Meanwhile, what actually worked this quarter looks more like an insurgent brand’s vibe: protein, fiber, simpler ingredients, and portion control (think Doritos Protein, Lay’s Baked with Olive Oil, the dye-free NKD line, and lower-sugar Gatorade). Pepsi is raising prices on the core while borrowing the better-for-you playbook to make the new prices easier to swallow.

  • So, what does this mean for smaller CPG brands pricing into a Pepsi-led inflation environment? The upside is a bigger price umbrella: when Lay’s goes up 15%, the gap between it and a $6.99 bag of better-for-you chips shrinks, and a brand that holds price (or raises less) suddenly looks like the reasonable option on shelf.

• HOT DOG! Gleezy, the premium hot dog brand making double-smoked beef brisket dogs 😋, is rolling into 684 Walmart stores across 15 states with its dogs and Carolina Dog Sauce. The expansion follows a $2 million raise earlier this year.

  • Even the humble hot dog is getting a premium upgrade! There’s never not a category in need of a little touch up, and Gleezy is doing that for the wonderful world of hot dogs.

• Distribution is the new DTC. Some of the biggest DTC brands of the 2010s are finding a new home in retail, and seeking ever more distribution to solidify their status as retail brands:

  • AG1, the DTC darling and all-in-one greens powder turned broader supplement brand, announced expansion into Walmart, Kroger, Harris Teeter, and Wegmans, bringing its US retail footprint to more than 8,000 doors—up 75% from earlier this year. AG1 Energy+ launches in November, with an RTD line to follow in 2027.

  • Daily Harvest is expanding its frozen meals at Kroger, Wakefern, Target, Fresh Market, and Meijer—its biggest retail push since Chobani bought the brand in May 2025.

    • Daily Harvest has spent the past few years figuring out its lineup and where shoppers want to buy it. After refreshing its smoothies and oat bowls, ditching the DTC subscription requirement, and building out its freezer-aisle presence, the brand seems to finally be finding its footing. Now, it has Chobani’s retailer relationships behind it to help get it to the next level. Getting on shelves is one thing, but becoming a freezer staple is another beast.

• Beauty looooves fragrance. 2026 has been the year of beauty brands entering fragrance, with nearly every beauty brand—from drug store to premium—entering the space. Earlier this year, we saw Summer Fridays launch its first fine fragrance, as well as Mikayla Nogueira’s POV Beauty launch fragrance in collaboration with Snif. As we shared in a previous newsletter, beauty brands launching fragrance (think: Glossier) is a massive signal of lifestyle ambition—that a brand wants to live in your full beauty routine, not just one step of it. As the Glossier era fades out, there will need to be a new player that can be the all-in-one beauty brand, bleeding into lifestyle. This week, these brands are throwing their hats into the ring:

  • Merit is launching New Wave L’extrait De Parfum, its second fragrance, on Oct. 22 at $92—created with master perfumer Dominique Ropion. The brand’s first fragrance, Retrospect, is now its #5 SKU, with customers averaging four repurchases over two years.

  • e.l.f. Brands launched e.l.f. POP, a new fragrance and body care line debuting with a Norway-inspired holiday drop—three SKUs priced $12–$13 on TikTok Shop, its website, and Amazon. A full destination lineup follows in January 2027. The e.l.f. POP name is an ode to the limited edition scent Jelly Pop.

    • Earlier this year, e.l.f. dabbled in fragrance with another limited-edition scent collab with H&M. That was a more premium collab—an eau de parfum as opposed to the new fragrance mist.

    • e.l.f. also introduced its haircare line earlier this year, which we covered here.

  • Per Circana, fragrance is really where the money is—in both prestige and mass retail. In the first half of 2026, consumers traded up into higher-concentration formats, with eau de parfum (EDP) and perfume posting double-digit growth. Meanwhile, fragrance was the fastest-growing beauty category in mass retail, with sales increasing +15% and units rising +7%.

    

• When the strategy is selling… nothing. Tower 28 opened its first pop-up with Sephora in Venice, Calif., offering shade matching for the Swipe Serum Foundation, SOS Rescue Spray refills, and limited-edition merch—no products sold on-site. Founder Amy Liu framed it as a community test, not a revenue play.

• Is this the Four Loko for Gen Z? Monster is (re)launching Monster Protein Energy, a 30g-protein RTD built on an ultra-filtered milk base, with just 2g of sugar and 6g of fiber, in Chocolate and Vanilla, slated for early next year.

  • If you’re a hardcore Monster fan, you may remember when the brand attempted a very similar product with the same name in 2018 (surrounding the Arnold Expo. At the time, the product was higher sugar, slightly lower protein, and came in a screw top bottle. Now, the product is relaunching into a very different consumer environment—one that is actively seeking protein outside of athletic environments, and is familiar with the concept of a canned high-protein beverage (thanks to brands like Nurri and Slate). Because there is now precedent for protein in a can, Monster was able to maintain its classic energy format while introducing the protein functionality.

  • Do we think this is going to take off? In all likelihood… no. The major hurdle here is that consumers already have an understanding of the experience of drinking a Monster—and a creamy, indulgent milk beverage simply doesn’t jive with that experience.

  • An important note: on the front of each can, it says “GLP-1 Aligned,” which is frankly bizarre copy (”aligned?” Is this a board meeting?!), but also is very telling. Clearly, Monster is betting that this innovation will attract the GLP-1 consumer, which seems to be an increasingly popular target for protein products. Maybe this was added for the NACS audience of buyers and retailers, but we wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up on shelf too.

• Another 🍃 bev brand ditches the “funny stuff.” Louie Louie, the THC-infused drink, launched a separate modern soda brand, Louie POP!, promising “natural sodas without the funny stuff.” The four-flavor lineup skips the functional pitch entirely, there’s no fiber or prebiotics or protein, just soda sweetened with sugar and monkfruit.

  • This is the fourth THC beverage maker we’ve seen build a THC-free offering recently all thanks to a looming ban. A change to the federal definition of hemp is set to take effect December 11, 2026, excluding finished hemp-derived cannabinoid products with more than 0.4mg of combined THC and similarly acting cannabinoids per container. That’s well below the 2–10mg in many popular drinks. Congress is considering alternatives, but right now it looks like this is going through.

    

  • Louie Louie does stand out among what the other hemp-based beverage makers are doing. The rest are still leaning hard into function, trying to help people unwind without the weed: Nowadays’ founders launched Unwind earlier this month, swapping THC for magnesium and L-theanine in a sparkling drink debuting in roughly 1,000 Walmart stores, with TikTok Shop to follow mid-October. Cantrip’s makers took a similar approach with On the Brightside, a “feel-good soda” built around Zembrin, a kanna extract (check out our podcast episode with founder Adam Terry!). Cann is making that shift under its existing brand launching its 0MG line in July, pairing their flavors with magnesium, L-theanine, electrolytes, and passion flower.

eCommerce

• Anotha one bites the (AI-powered discovery) dust. TikTok launched its agentic AI shopping experience, featuring Shopping Assistant (a conversational AI agent) and Buy Direct (one-click purchases from directly inside the FYP), letting consumers discover and buy products without leaving the app.

  • As Retail Dive explained, the move raises a major question for brands: who owns the customer relationship when customers never actually have to enter your brand’s ecosystem? When shoppers don’t have to go to your website or socials, don’t have to provide any first-party data to the brand, the company no longer owns the customer relationship… TikTok does.

Retail

• A more equitable grocery store. New York City is moving ahead with five city-owned grocery stores—one in each borough—as part of its effort to address food insecurity. The NYC Economic Development Corp. has brought together four firms to shape how those stores look, sound and work: Gander, Librarie, Noble Signs and Seven Roots.

  • A lot of the coverage focuses in on the firms’ buzzy-brand credentials—which they rightfully have a lot of. Gander has a long list of clients like Graza, Magic Spoon, Banza, Stiller’s Soda, and Gotham Greens.

  • To us, the “bougie” framing misses the whole point. A city-run grocery store is an ambitious, exciting project on its own. And if the city can make these stores feel as good to shop in as the fancy markets around town—while keeping prices in reach for more people—that’s a win for everyone.

  • Affordable groceries shouldn’t mean a worse shopping experience. Target’s Good & Gather and Walmart’s bettergoods show that private-label can be more than a cheaper substitute and can give people products and a shopping experience they actually want at better prices. City-run grocery stores deserve that same care. People should be able to shop somewhere welcoming and thoughtfully designed, and buy what they want without paying premium-market prices.

• The drones keep coming. Wing and Walmart are expanding drone delivery to Denver and Seattle by 2027, pushing their partnership toward 270+ Walmart locations and 40 million customers. The two new metros join Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Houston, and Orlando.

Funding, Mergers, and Acquisitions

• RTD bevs keep winning. Constellation Brands acquired SpikedAde, a zero-sugar, vodka-based RTD founded in 2025 by serial CPG entrepreneur Jason Cohen (founder of SkinnyPop and Core Hydration), for $75 million—with up to $278 million in performance payouts over five years.

  • As much as everyone loves to cite stats about alcohol dwindling, it isn’t dead yet. In particular, RTD cocktails are booming as the rest of the category seems to be struggling. Spirits-based RTDs grew 30% in dollar sales in Q1 2026 and now make up 28% of off-premise spirits volume; core spirits fell 4.4% in volume and wine 8.3% over the year to March. The catch is that the growth is getting narrower: malt-based RTDs are still declining, and more than 750 spirits-based cocktail brands are now fighting over the same shelf.

  • Love this analysis from Drew Fallon on LinkedIn:

“SpikedAde went from first can to 9 figure exit in 15 months. Up to $353M all within 15 months of its NYC debut last summer. My key takeaway here, which I’ve said a bit recently, is that strategics are increasingly ‘risk on’ as they’re more willing to make bets on relatively ‘unproven’ brands that haven’t been around very long. This is the opposite of the patterns we saw the few years prior and signals to me that strategics are feeling some squeeze and pressure to do M&A.”

• Capitalizing on Greek yogurt’s second wave. Clio Snacks, the refrigerated Greek yogurt bar, has been acquired (for an undisclosed amount) by Stride Consumer Partners, a growth-equity firm with $1.3B AUM. The brand has more than quadrupled revenue since 2021 and is now sold in ~60,000 stores, on track to produce 150M+ bars this year.

  • This isn’t one of those scale-fast-sell-fast brands; Clio has been around for 11 years! Instead, this is one of those examples of a brand that found its footing with the trend cycles. As protein—and therefore Greek yogurt—grew more popular, the idea of a Greek yogurt bar became more approachable and sought-after.

• More cash going into function. Supermush raised a $3 million Series A led by Ndude Labs. The functional mushroom snack brand joins a crowded-but-growing adaptogen space as investors continue betting on functional food.

• The bean renaissance is HERE. Bare Beans, a Native woman-owned Idaho startup, raised $2.79M in seed from Raven Indigenous Capital Partners to fund a DTC launch of vacuum-sealed, preservative-free, ready-to-eat kettle-cooked beans, with retail expansion to follow.

  • As someone whose wifi network is quite literally named “beansforpresident,” I (Jenna) have strong feelings about the bean movement we’ve been witnessing. Beans are the perfect food for the modern wellness environment: they’re a whole food (AKA non-UPF), and naturally high in protein and fiber.

  • The biggest blocker for beans’ takeoff is that, if you’re looking for the good quality stuff (as opposed to canned beans which are cooked in their tins with preservatives), they typically require preparation. Bare Beans solves for that.

  • More broadly, this is a really interesting brand and founding story. The founders are Indigenous women; Indigenous founders receive roughly 0.05% of US VC, and women received just 0.6% of VC funding in the US this year.

• Family buys back the brand. MadeGood’s founding Fotovat family has repurchased Prelude Growth Partners’ minority stake, returning Riverside Natural Foods to full family ownership after 4 years—during which net sales grew 2.5x and the brand expanded to 40,000 retail doors globally. Terms were not disclosed.

In case you missed it… 🎧

Last week, we sat down with the wildly impressive Tristan Walker, who built and sold Walker & Company (the parent company behind Bevel) to Procter & Gamble and recently joined Collaborative Fund to help launch Collab Holdings—a private equity arm built for consumer brands that don’t fit the traditional VC/PE playbook.

He walked us through building Bevel, and why he now believes most founders shouldn’t take VC money in the first place. We also dug into what makes a CPG brand “durable,” why Gen Z is increasingly skeptical of private equity, and whether AI can ever replicate intuition. 👀

Catch the full episode below 👇

If you haven’t yet, please subscribe, like, leave a comment, and share it! It helps us continue to bring you the most interesting news + nuance in consumer and retail every week.

Subscribe now

Well this has been a crazy week, hasn’t it? In case you missed it, WE GOT ACQUIRED!!! Express Checkout is now officially part of the Morning Brew Inc. family, and we couldn’t be more excited.

If you want the full story on what’s going on, we shared more in our last newsletter. Short version: you can still expect Express Checkout’s usual newsletter, podcast, and socials, and it’s all still coming from us! We just have a whole lot more support and firepower behind us to grow + create even more.

We also want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who replied, texted, DMed, posted, reposted, or otherwise blew up our phones this week. We read every single message, and a few of them may have made us tear up at our desks. This thing started as a side project fueled by a love for CPG, and it only got here because you all kept opening, forwarding, and nerding out about this industry right alongside us.

If you’re curious about why MBI went with us, check out CEO Robert Dippell’s LinkedIn post, this ADWEEK piece, and ’s piece on the deal!

If you’re a new reader, WELCOME! Highly recommend checking out our past editions for a better sense of the Express Checkout experience! ✨

Now, let’s get into our picks of the week →

Jenna’s Pickup:

Row 7 Koginut Winter Squash

Fall enthusiasts: brace yourselves. I don’t mean to come for your gourd prowess, but I am about to introduce you to a new squash that just might displace a Honeynut or Kabocha in your rotation. In fact, it just might become the Squash of the Season (you heard it here first).

I learned about this special squash last week during a Whole Foods Market press trip, where we had the opportunity to try a delicious new Whole Foods Market pizza featuring Row 7’s Koginut Winter Squash. While we indulged, we spoke with Row 7’s co-founder and one of the creators of this seed. Not God (nice try), but someone close: Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Michelin-starred Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Dan shared all about Row 7’s mission and thought process around developing its seeds: prioritizing flavor and nutrition above all else by selecting the best genes from different produce varieties. There is so much thought that goes into every single one of Row 7’s seeds, and I promise you can taste the difference in the final product. In this case, that product is a squash that puts all other Winter squashes to shame.

Note: If you’re wondering if I have any authority to talk about produce… fair. This is a CPG newsletter, but that’s exactly why this is an interesting pick. There’s been a recent blurring of lines between CPG and branded produce, and it’s something we like to keep tabs on; last year, we wrote about the “rise of branded fruit,” and this falls within that same discussion. TL;DR: if it’s branded and consumable, if it’s priced as a brand and not a commodity, then we think it should be discussed in the same circles as CPG. Feel free to debate.

• Quick Facts: Row 7’s elevated take on Butternut squash, shaped like a small pumpkin and with the taste and texture of a Honeynut squash.

• Reasons to love:

  • Specifically selected for flavor + texture. Koginut was created as a cross between two of the season’s favorite squash: Honeynut and Butternut. It has the sweetness and velvety texture of a Honeynut, with the size, durability, and storability of a Butternut—packaged in what looks like a small pumpkin. If you don’t think of yourself as someone who can detect the minute differences between squash varieties, I dare you to try this. You will notice its richness, creamy texture, gorgeous bright color, and nutty, honey-like flavor.

  • She’s a skin-on variety. Whenever I try produce prepared by someone with more culinary cachet, the inevitable fear crops* up: what if I can never make it this well at home? For a hearty winter squash, that fear is primarily rooted* in my mediocre knife skills. I was thrilled to see that the Koginut on the Whole Foods Market pizza actually still had the skin on it. The Whole Foods chef who developed the pizza told me that the skin is so soft, it actually bakes beautifully—offering some delightful textural variety and a slight crisp rather than the leathery, tough skin of most butternuts.

  • Produce you can feel extra good about eating. You can (and should!) feel good every time you eat something that came from the ground. But certain things come from the ground better, and this is one. Row 7 partners with regional growers who care for their land by employing organic practices. By sharing their seeds (instead of patenting them so no one else can grow them), Row 7 gives small organic farmers a source of income and encourages biodiversity above and below ground. Their growing process is so transparent, you can trace the exact farm your Koginut grew on here!

*: Pun alert!!!! Hide your hobbyist gardeners, stat!!

Where to buy: Try the new pizza at your local Whole Foods Market hot bar in the pizza section! Or buy the squash itself online or in Whole Foods stores.

Nate’s Pickup:

WashWise Reset Spray

Laundry is one of the hottest aisles right now, and WashWise is one of the most exciting new entrants to this space. I’m someone who deeply cares about how I present myself when I’m out and about. How I smell, if my clothes are wrinkly, if my fly is down… you get it. Being out and about nearly every day and night of the week at CPG events, trade shows, conferences, I need to look put together at 8pm for a shirt I may have been wearing since 8am!

On top of simply fitting into my new “going out” routine, this fulfills my need to find new EDC (Everyday Carry) products. Something small that I always have in my bag, and solves a specific issue. This one has earned a permanent spot in my backpack.

• Quick Facts: WashWise’s Reset Spray is a water-based fabric mist that neutralizes odor, relaxes wrinkles, and lightly cleans clothes that have been worn but don’t need a full wash yet. It comes in two scents, Cotton Grove and Verde Rise, in a 6oz can for $29 and a TSA-friendly travel size.

• Reasons to love:

  • Creative innovation. It’s great to see so many brands launching new ways to clean your clothes (like our fave, Wishing Well), but there haven’t been many new brands that touch on the in-between moments of doing laundry. Which is perfect for me because I make SO MUCH laundry that I probably don’t need to be making. What I love is that Reset rolls a few products into one, so instead of owning a wrinkle spray and a fabric refresher you’ve got one can that handles all of it. And, on top of all that, this one cleans the fabric a bit by lifting off sweat and body oils. That’s crazy!

  • Genius positioning. Dry shampoo for clothes. Are you kidding me?! What a brilliant way to describe this product! It so clearly gets the point across of what it does, when to use it, and where it lives in your routine.

Where to buy: Online

In case you missed it… 🎧

This week, we’re sitting down with wildly impressive Tristan Walker, who built and sold Walker & Company (the parent company behind Bevel) to Procter & Gamble. He also sits on the board of Shake Shack and recently joined Collaborative Fund to help launch Collab Holdings—a private equity arm built for consumer brands that don’t fit the traditional VC/PE playbook. He also runs Heirloom Leathercraft, a trade school and atelier bringing fine handcraft back to America.

He walks us through building Bevel from a personal shaving problem to a national brand, the difficult decision to sell to P&G, and why he now believes most founders shouldn’t take VC money in the first place. We also dig into what makes a CPG brand “durable,” why Gen Z is increasingly skeptical of private equity, and whether AI can ever replicate intuition. 👀

Catch the full episode below 👇

This week, we’re sitting down with wildly impressive Tristan Walker, who built and sold Walker & Company (the parent company behind Bevel) to Procter & Gamble. He also sits on the board of Shake Shack and recently joined Collaborative Fund to help launch Collab Holdings—a private equity arm built for consumer brands that don’t fit the traditional VC/PE playbook. He also runs Heirloom Leathercraft, a trade school and atelier bringing fine handcraft back to America.

He walks us through building Bevel from a personal shaving problem to a national brand, the difficult decision to sell to P&G, and why he now believes most founders shouldn’t take VC money in the first place. We also dig into what makes a CPG brand “durable,” why Gen Z is increasingly skeptical of private equity, and whether AI can ever replicate intuition. 👀 Let’s go!

The breakdown:

0:00 - Intro + Tristan’s background and new role
3:42 - Building Bevel: from personal problem to national brand
6:35 - The P&G acquisition and life after
11:45 - Launching Collab Holdings
20:27 - What makes a durable CPG brand
27:48 - Good brands, bad capital, and the true cost of VC money
35:16 - Heirloom Leathercraft and bringing fine handcraft back to America
42:30 - Outro

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💬 Join the conversation Have a product you’re curious about? DM us your questions or drop them in the comments—your topic could be featured in our next episode! If you have any thoughts/questions/suggestions, feel free to email us at hello@expresscheckout.co :)

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In case you didn’t hear, we had some BIG news to share today: we’re officially part of Morning Brew Inc.!

As a two-person team running this media biz for the past 2 years, this is the wildest, most exciting moment of our careers. Today, we officially become part of something much larger than ourselves and the business we built, and we are SO excited for what this means for the future of our content.

To us, Morning Brew Inc is the true pioneer of creative, engaging business media—just look at creators like Dan Toomey (Good Work), Macy Gilliam (Out There), Neal Freyman and Toby Howell (Morning Brew Daily). Express Checkout always aspired to that unique lens: speaking to professionals while being approachable to consumers. In building an audience of CPG professionals, we organically reached an audience of “curious consumers” too—the people who nerd out about the coolest new snacks, have a LOT to say about wellness trends, and are really annoying to grocery shop with.

Like MBI, we believe that thoughtfully curated, accessibly presented information makes professional audiences better at their jobs, and equally brings value and joy to consumer audiences.

That’s why this move makes so much sense, and why we are thrilled to share it with you. Here’s what it means for you:

• Nothing about your experience of Express Checkout is changing. We’ll still be the two people behind our twice-weekly newsletter + weekly podcast, maintaining our unique voice and perspective. We’ll still gather the CPG + retail community through events, and we’ll still share our beloved carousels and short-form videos. :) It’ll still be the two of us leading the charge, and prioritizing our community above all else.

• What will change is our ability to reach a larger audience, significantly improve the quality of our content, and put on more creative + larger-scale events. We’ll finally be able to execute some of the ideas that we’ve been sitting on, because we’ll have a whole team of incredible media professionals supporting us.

If you’re curious about why MBI went with us, check out CEO Robert Dippell’s LinkedIn post and this ADWEEK piece!

We’ve had a crazy few days preparing for this moment, so we’ll be keeping this newsletter short and sweet. If you’re a new reader, check out our past editions for a better sense of the Express Checkout experience! ✨

CPG & Consumer Goods

• From Peloton instructor to CPG founder. Former Peloton instructor Kendall Toole and partner Alexander Brzozowski launched DRESSi, a dressing-and-drizzle line with 4g of protein per serving (via whey protein isolate) made with 100% olive oil. The dressings contain no seed oils, gums, or added sugar and come in four flavors: Chipotle Lime, Lemon Caesar, Green Goddess, and Bang Bang.

  

  • Probably not shocking to anyone reading this, but DRESSi isn’t the first sexy BFY sauce we’ve seen. In the past fews years we’ve seen She’s The Sauce, Sauce Revival and the soon-to-launch Lighten Up Foods, made with EPG—one of the first non-David products to use it!

  • Companies like Primal Kitchen and Chosen Foods already proved out the demand for BFY salad dressings. But in Kendall’s announcement video, she specifically called out the other “healthy salad dressings” that included “avocado oil” (with air quotes) which we’ve now discovered is often a blend of oils. The differentiator here is that it’s 100% olive oil, with a few grams of added protein, and a cutesy squeeze bottle donning millennial pink. It’s a smart move for Kendall’s wellness-obsessed audience and an increasingly discerning cohort of BFY shoppers.

• The final boss of protein. There we have it folks, Mars has finally released protein Cheez-Its. There will have 7g of protein per serving and 100% real cheese, rolling out to retail shelves nationwide this month.

  • Mars isn’t first to this party, though—in fact, they were beat at their own game. In May, WILDE launched protein cheese crackers made with chicken breast, bone broth and real cheese, with 12g of protein per serving vs. Cheez-It’s 7g. The WILDE ones are seriously tasty and I’m curious to see how the legit Cheez-It ones will compare to both WILDE’s and to the OG Cheez-It.

• THC founders, zero THC. Nowadays founders Justin Tidwell and Anthony Puterman launched Unwind, a caffeine-free sparkling drink made with magnesium L-threonate and L-theanine for “everyday calm.” It’s in ~1,000 Walmart stores now, with a TikTok Shop launch in mid-October. The duo previously scaled Nowadays to $100M+ in sales in 3.5 years.

  

  • This is becoming a pattern. In July, the makers of Cantrip launched On the Brightside, a zero-THC “feel-good soda” made with Zembrin. Around the same time, Cann launched 0MG, its first zero-THC line, made with magnesium, L-theanine and passion flower. It’s all about finding a way to keep the “take the edge off” occasion but drop the THC.

  • A lot of this likely comes down to how uncertain things are with THC right now. The federal hemp ban is supposed to take effect this fall, with drinks getting an extra month until December, and some states, like New Jersey, have set their own deadlines on top of that. With that much up in the air, it makes sense that these founders would want a THC-free product to lean on, and it doesn’t hurt that it opens the door to retailers like Walmart, which have mostly steered clear of THC to date. We spoke in depth about this with Adam Terry founder of On the Brightside here in our podcast interview with him.

• Finally, some REAL gummy supplement innovation. OLLY, the gummy supplement brand owned by Unilever, has launched Mochi Bites in four formulas: Beauty, Sleep, Multi and Energy. They have a soft, chewy mochi texture, just 1g of sugar per serving, and they’re vegan.

  

  • It’s great to see a brand like OLLY, which Unilever acquired seven years ago, come out with a new format before any emerging brand has. Usually it’s the startups that test something new and the bigger brands that follow, so this is a nice change. Mochi is such a unique and interesting take on the gummy, and the data seems to back it up, with interest in mochi-related products up 17.1% year over year, and up 45.1% on TikTok, according to Spate.nyc.

  • What this really validates, though, is that gummy supplement brands know they’re selling a treat just as much as they’re selling a wellness product. If OLLY was just about the benefits, R&D would focus on ingredient innovation, and launches would be propped up by claims, not by new foodie formats.

  • As from Punam Patel, OLLY’s VP of Product told us: **

“We were drawn to mochi’s soft, pillowy texture and the unique experience it creates, but the challenge was figuring out how to pair that experience with the functional benefits consumers expect from a daily supplement. We worked on bringing these two worlds together for over three years, rethinking what a supplement could look, feel and taste like, while still delivering on what’s inside. For us, Mochi Bites are about pushing the boundaries of the category and giving consumers more choice in how they support their wellness goals.”

• Making fiber fun. Physician’s Choice, the supplement brand best known for its probiotics, is launching Fiber Jelly, a new snackable fiber treat with 6g of prebiotic fiber, 30 calories and 1g of sugar per serving. It hits TikTok Shop on 10/1 and Walmart on 10/24, where it’ll sell for $9.97 for a 7-count.

  

  • Fiber obviously isn’t new, and Physician’s Choice already sells a fiber powder and a fiber gummy. But this format feels like a peek into where fiber is going next. Launching on TikTok Shop first says a lot: the product itself is fun and unique in a way the rest of the lineup really isn’t. Most of Physician’s Choice’s products look pretty clinical and dry, while Fiber Jelly looks much more playful and social-first, which is exactly the kind of product that has a shot at going viral!

• Celebrity doesn’t always pay the bills. Scarlett Johansson’s clean skincare brand, The Outset, is shutting down after four years in business. The brand hasn’t shared why, but co-founder and CEO Kate Foster stepped down in 2025. It launched DTC in 2022 before expanding into Sephora, Nordstrom and Amazon.

  • From what we saw, ScarJo was pretty involved in The Outset, so this might have just been a case of the brand never getting to the scale it needed. Still, it’s a good reminder that a famous name can only take you so far as a brand. The Outset now joins a long list of celebrity beauty brands that have shut down, like Kim Kardashian’s KKW Beauty, Drew Barrymore’s Flower Beauty, and Gwen Stefani’s GXVE Beauty.

• TikTok <3s K-beauty. Dr.G, Korea’s No. 1 skincare brand, is pushing forward with its U.S. expansion with a TikTok Shop launch. The dermatologist-founded brand, which L’Oréal acquired in 2024, first debuted stateside on Amazon and is now bringing seven of its best-sellers and five exclusive bundles to TikTok Shop.

  • K-beauty keeps growing, with global sales up 53% year over year according to NielsenIQ, so it makes sense that L’Oréal picked TikTok Shop as Dr.G’s next stop.

  • At this point TikTok Shop is pretty clearly becoming the new Amazon. EMARKETER projects it’ll hit $23.4B in U.S. sales this year, up 48%, which would put it ahead of the U.S. ecommerce businesses of Target, Costco, Best Buy and Kroger. Retailers like Ulta, Sephora, Ralph Lauren, Olaplex and Best Buy have all opened TikTok storefronts recently to get in on the surge of sales.

Retail

• Walmart’s making pricing digital. Walmart announced a customer-facing upgrade to its in-store digital price tags: shoppers can now use the Walmart app to flash a green light on the shelf label for any item they’re searching for. But because these are digital price tags, it’s raised concerns that these labels could enable “surge pricing.” Our new coworkers (🥹) covered this on the Morning Brew Daily podcast on Friday.

Funding, Mergers, Acquisitions

• More creators on the cap table! Comedian and Therapuss podcast host Jake Shane has invested in Dolce Glow, the self-tanning brand that became Sephora’s No. 1 self-tanner within six months of launching there. It’s his first brand investment, but not his first foray into CPG—Shane is also the Chief Creative Officer of Katje’s, a vegan gummy candy company.

  • We’ve been seeing creator CPG investments more and more. Creators used to mostly launch their own brands, but now many are doing both. Alix Earle launched her skincare line, Reale Actives, and has also backed SipMargs and invested in Cymbiotika this summer. Jake Shane isn’t even the first big name on Dolce Glow’s cap table—Sofia Richie Grainge and Olivia Culpo joined the brand’s $11M Series A back in August. Brands are leaning into the trend, too! ESW Beauty recently named TikTok creators Katie Fang and Aliya Rachinski its first “creator equity partners.” There’s even a dinner series built around it, with Bulletpitch hosting a monthly “Influence Meets Venture” dinner connecting early-stage founders with top creators.

• Clean milk finds a clean home. Three Trees, a 14-year-old clean-label plant-based milk brand, has been acquired by Next in Natural for an undisclosed sum. Next in Natural also owns Chameleon Cold Brew, pairing the brands as a coffee-and-milk duo poised to expand distribution nationwide.

• The functional NA boom. Hiyo, a functional non-alcoholic “tonic” brand, raised an oversubscribed $20.8M Series B to expand its retail footprint and push deeper into live entertainment and nightlife.

  • Just as we mentioned above with the launch of Unwind, functional non-alc is a massively growing category of bevs—it almost feels like the next version of the prebiotic soda boom. Hiyo was ahead of the game—it was co-founded in 2019, developed for two years, then launched in 2021. Since then, its rolled out into over 11,000 retail locations nationwide (including Target, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and more) and secured a major multi-year national partnership with Live Nation (the same strategy that pushed Liquid Death to success).

  • Now, the brand seems to want to double down on that Live Nation strategy. If it can succeed at a concert, why not at a bar or a club?

• Boujee soda bucks. Something & Nothing, a premium soda brand, raised $6.4M led by Venrex to fund its first national US consumer marketing campaign, bringing total raised to $15.7M. The UK-founded modern soda brand now generates 65%+ of revenue in the US, with 70% revenue growth in June–July 2026 and Amazon sales more than doubling.

  • There are a lot of modern soda brands out there. But Something & Nothing lives by its name: it offers a little something special in flavor (really unique, fruit-forward flavors like Hibiscus & Rose and Mango & Thai Basil) but nothing in terms of added sugar of sweeteners—just a natural base of fruit juice and botanicals.

  • The design itself rejects modern soda. Instead of leaning into the playful designs of its shelf companions, this brand is minimalist and art-driven, a sophisticated older cousin of the pops of the set.

Subscribe now

In case you haven’t heard, we’re hosting the second edition of In Season this Tuesday, October 6th, in NYC! So if you’re local, in town for Adweek, or just passing through, we’d love to see you there!

In Season is Express Checkout’s quarterly event exploring the season’s three biggest trends and the brands bringing them to life. For this edition, we’re transforming a downtown gallery into a museum of trends—with plenty to taste along the way. Think a little Willy Wonka (wink wink), a lot of snacks, and a room full of people you’ll want to meet.

• A quick note: The event is reserved for select brands, investors, media, and tastemakers. If you’re a B2B platform or service provider interested in joining us or activating, hit reply to hear about our remaining sponsorship opportunities.

Getting this community together is one of our favorite things we do. Want to host a highly curated private dinner for our network of CPG professionals or partner with us on a future event? Just hit reply.

Now, let’s get into our picks of the week →

Nate’s Pickups:

Legit Queso

Hey, so you like cheese, right? You'd be crazy if you didn't. Honestly, even if you're lactose intolerant, you should still like cheese. Cheese is one of the main food groups, it's near the top of the pyramid, it's all over MyPlate. I'm just trying to say cheese is amazing and should be part of everyone's diet, especially in liquid form. Queso is one of the best ways to enjoy cheese if you ask me, and I know you were thinking it too. You can dip into it, coat a sandwich in it, and drink it if you so please (I wouldn't, that's too far). In my opinion, queso is best enjoyed with a nice tortilla chip, like these from a brand I'll cover soon, TOZI Superfoods (they have incredible products!). Let's get dipping, folks!

• Quick Facts: Chef-crafted, small-batch queso from Kiersten Bartlett, a Kansas City native turned Napa Valley chef who wanted a cheese dip made with whole ingredients and no preservatives. Comes in three heat-and-eat varieties: Queso Dip, Buffalo Queso, and Queso Mac.

• Reasons to love:

  • Scratches the dip itch. I don’t know about you, but when I think of queso, good or bad, I picture the store-bought Tostitos version. It has the right texture, the right taste, and even the right color, though that color isn’t exactly found in nature. I bring this up because most of the healthier, cleaner quesos I’ve tried over the past decade just haven’t been good. They’re grainy, or thin, or they taste like someone described queso to a person. The only other queso I’ve truly enjoyed has come from a restaurant or a bar. These are excellent. You won’t get the neon orange glow, because they’re made with real ingredients. And taste-wise, sorry Tostitos. It tastes homemade. Plus, the texture is perfect. It has that slightly thick, slightly loose consistency you picture when you imagine queso.

  • It’s legit. The name really does check out. These use real and fresh ingredients. Bartlett grew up on the classic Velveeta, then spent time at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa and got deep into farm-to-table cooking, which raised her standards for everything she cooked and bought. So she rebuilt queso from scratch. Getting the right queso texture with natural ingredients apparently took Bartlett a while to nail, and you can taste that effort. It also ships refrigerated, which tells you a lot about what’s inside (and what isn’t).

  • Refreshing founder story. This one doesn’t feel as buzzy or growth-hacky as a lot of new brands do. Bartlett has about 30 years of entrepreneurial ventures behind her. The queso idea came when her Kansas City catering business was asked to put together a football party pack. She later moved to Napa and opened a shop called Legit Provisions, which sold the queso until it closed in 2022. She planned to retire, then decided to bring her queso to a broader market instead. She started by selling to local specialty stores, wineries, and the farmers’ market, and she’s now picking up East Coast momentum launching soon in Gopuff and Pop Up Grocer.

Where to buy: Online (ships cold) and in select retails

Jenna’s Pickup:

NUFS Hot Honey Drizzled Crackers

This week, I had the absolute privilege of flying out to Austin with the wonderful Whole Foods Market team for a sneak peek at their (very exciting) 2027 Trends Report, which we’ll be sharing more on in an upcoming newsletter. 👀 During the trip, the WFM team introduced us to multiple brands, including some of the successful graduates of their LEAP Program, an incubator program that discovers and develops promising local and emerging brands through mentorship, a 12-week curriculum, and investment opportunities.

One of those brands was Austin-based NUFS, and I got to chat with co-founder Jessica Tran at length. Jessica started the business with her sister, Kristine, after their father was diagnosed with diabetes, and they struggled to find low-sugar, filling snacks made with clean ingredients. After dabbling in a few different formats, they landed on the humble cracker—and have produced one of the cleanest crackers on the market, without sacrificing a single hint of culinary excellence.

• Quick Facts: Gluten-free, simple-ingredient crackers made with extra virgin olive oil and hand-drizzled with delicious hot honey (real honey).

• Reasons to love:

  • Bold statement alert: This is the perfect cracker. The base is like a gourmet, better-for-you Wheat Thin (slightly sweet, snappy, craveable), and the drizzle adds the most satisfying textural note and spicy-sweet decadence. I love the concept of a drizzled cracker; it adds some textural variety and a pop of flavor that makes these ridiculously satisfying on their own, but also perfectly primed for any cheese board they may grace.

  • Super simple, recognizable ingredients. The whole impetus of this brand was to create something really “clean”—a term I often take issue with, but can appreciate when it’s done right. NUFS uses a base of almond, rice, & cassava flour, tapioca starch, and EVOO, plus spices and a drizzle of real honey.

  • A hosting hack. NUFS should be a pantry staple for any frequent host. They’re naturally gluten-free and dairy-free, so they’re a safe go-to for any entertainment occasion involving crackers (every good one does) and diet-restricted partygoers (again, every good one does). I love an option that everyone can have, but also everyone loves—it doesn’t feel like a cardboardy diet-friendly copout cracker. The packaging is also elevated enough that you could put out the whole box, but the drizzled cracker also stands on its own aesthetically.

Where to buy: Online, Whole Foods Markets, or another store near you!

In case you missed it… 🎧

This week, we're sitting down with Aaron Butterworth, Senior Specialist in Product Development at Häagen-Dazs, who's been developing flavors for the brand for over 20 years!

She walks us through the entire journey of making ice cream for a massive brand, from brief to shelf—including the "ice cream charcuterie" brainstorming process (as dreamy as it sounds), why some great flavor ideas can never survive a factory, and how Häagen-Dazs's commitment to a clean label shapes everything about the product.

Plus, we're tasting two new flavors on air (!!!!), getting the inside story on Häagen-Dazs's discontinued non-dairy line, and learning how the brand thinks about trends.

Catch the full episode below 👇

We’ve got something very exciting coming to NYC next week!

On October 6th, we’re hosting the second edition of In Season—Express Checkout’s quarterly event spotlighting the season’s three biggest trends and the brands bringing them to life. This time, we’re taking over a gallery in downtown NYC and turning it into a museum of trends, complete with plenty of opportunities to taste your way through it. Willy Wonka would be proud (hint hint). You’ll want to be at this one!

• A quick note: This event is reserved for select brands, investors, media, and tastemakers. If you’re a B2B platform or service provider interested in attending or activating, reply to this email to learn about our remaining sponsorship opportunities!

We can’t wait to bring so many members of our NYC community together in one room. :) If you’re interested in hosting a highly curated private dinner for our network of CPG professionals—or want to get involved in one of our larger events—just hit reply.

Let’s get into it →

News From the Week

When every brand seems to be launching into Target… what does a Target launch actually validate?

A few years ago, a Target launch meant something big for a growing brand: you’ve finally reached mass-market appeal, you’re widely distributed, you’ve made it. But as Target shifts as a retailer, the meaning of the bullseye logo shifts, too. This has been coming up in countless conversations we’ve been having with investors, and we decided it was time to finally dig in.

A little background: Last week, we talked about how many better-for-you and premium brands are skipping the natural/specialty channel launch strategy and launching straight into Target (or Walmart).

It looks like a win-win from both ends:

• Target, as we’ve covered before, is looking to change its reputation to be seen as a discovery channel for buzzy food, bev, and wellness brands.

• Brands seek the mass-market appeal of a Target launch. Adding that coveted Target logo to their decks, sharing that (AI-generated) social post of a giant rendering of their product in front of a Target store, means that they really made it.

Or, at least, that’s what it used to mean. As more and more emerging brands launch into Target every week, the bullseye may not be the prize it used to be.

Disclaimer: This isn’t a knock on Target. Target is still choosy about what it brings in, but it does want to test a lot of brands; to become a grocery + wellness destination, so you need an exciting assortment.

At the same time, when a retailer is testing that many brands, some won’t take off for a variety of reasons, and some just aren’t built for a nationwide footprint.

We asked 5 investors how they’re evaluating this brand milestone. We’ve anonymized answers at the request of interviewees.

Investor A (VC firm targeting early-stage brands):

“Getting into Target used to be a really big validation and milestone for an emerging food & beverage brands, but over the past year or so that distinction has lost its sheen as we’ve seen a surge of approvals to launch at Target including brands with little to no traction elsewhere. It seems Target is throwing everything at the shelf and seeing what sticks.

We have also seen that, without signing up for Roundel, Target’s in-house retail media network, emerging brands have very little chance of being successful because they won’t even be eligible for placement in out-of-aisle displays and endcaps that drive real trial and increased velocities.

Target is still a leader in the beauty and personal care space for emerging brands, and a stronger signal for us there [than food and beverage].”

Investor B (PE firm targeting growth-stage brands):

“Performance at Target has become increasingly important for the brands we diligence, in part because Target is often the first brick-and-mortar or mass retail partner for emerging brands. How a brand performs there is a leading indicator of how it will fare in a truly competitive retail environment, versus eComm or the more curated natural channel.

Performance immediately post-launch can be hard to parse. Target often invests heavily behind new launches—end caps and other preferential real estate in a brand’s first few weeks—so early numbers can flatter. What matters most is repeat purchase and velocities versus competitor brands.

Retail remains hyper-competitive, and the pace of innovation and new product launches only accelerates year after year.”

Investor C (VC firm targeting venture-stage and growth-stage):

“Target seems to be willing to bring in almost anyone very early these days. While it’s still an awesome signal to land the account, what ultimately matters is what you achieve once on shelf.

I have a theory that Target is basically pitting brands against each other by bringing in multiple new brands per category before determining who actually gets a placement. As an investor, I now want to know how your product performs at Target, not just that you won the placement.”

Investor D (VC firm targeting early-stage, seed):

I wouldn’t say it carries any more or less weight than it did 5 years ago, because national mass distribution at Target is a huge accomplishment. Now every large retailer has built an emerging brands funnel. Shelf count went from scarce to abundant. The thing that matters most, both then and now, is VELOCITY.

Other major signals for us are:

1. Cohort repeat. Not “we have x% repeat rate,” but “what is the repeat rate at 90 and 180 days, and whether it is improving with each cohort.” This is the single most predictive stat to look at in consumer.
2. Unsupported velocity in challenging door. a brand doing top decile in U/S/W in a chain with no promos, no demos, and no trade budget tells me much more than a national launch with significant discounts, trade spend, and sampling. It shows true product-market fit.
3. Full price sell-through. Is your product moving without giving it away?

There are a few risks to launching in target:

1. Scaling a leaky bucket. If your repeat rates aren’t proven, then national distribution doesn’t solve that for you. It just makes the problem larger.

2. Cash. Free fills, slotting, inventory build, trade spend, and long payment terms all hit before you receive a dollar back!

3. Failure is public. You only get one national launch at target- and if you blow it you are ‘screwed.’

4. Concentration. One merchant can control a large majority of your sales.

Investor E (VC firm targeting venture-stage and growth-stage):

“Target is a fantastic retail partner, but just getting in isn’t enough. We need to see Target is investing in the brand over time - more stores, shelf space, additional SKUs, preferential retail marketing opportunities, etc.”

”It’s critical to ensure there’s already demand built up for your product, and that consumers will be looking for it on shelves as organic discovery won’t be as efficient. Also important to ensure the supply chain is set up to support such a large retailer as you won’t get the chance to redo a Target launch again.”

What do you think about Target launches?

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Would you drink an EVOO beer? Athletic Brewing and Graza launched Cold Off The Press, a limited-edition non-alcoholic pils actually brewed with Graza’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil!

  • Graza looooves testing a new category via a collab—it’s how the brand proves its thesis that olive oil can be a platform brand, without having to commit to creating that product from scratch. Historically, this has looked like:

    • An Olive Oil Hummus with Ithaca Hummus

    • Olive Oil Crackers with Firehook

    • Olive Oil Popcorn with BjorQorn

    • And even another non-alc bev, its Olive Oil Martini (”Dry Guys”) with Aura Bora (RIP)

  • This is one of those brands that feels like it’s collab’ing with everybody (see also: Good Girl Snacks and Fishwife), so seeing another Graza Collab surely induces some eye-rolls. But with Aura Bora’s bev out of the picture, and the name recognition + brand loyalty of Athletic Brewing, this one is actually a collab we can get behind.

  • Just last week, we talked about how we’re seeing a lot of innovation in the NA beer space. For the past three weeks, we saw an NA innovation every week: first, Herb Light came out with a first-of-its-kind NA beer featuring 1mg of hemp-derived THC. Then, Optimum Nutrition launched the first protein NA beer. And last week, C4 Energy launched a beer-flavored energy drink, All Hopped Up, with its classic 200 mg of caffeine and added vitamin B12. This week marks a full month of NA-beer-related innovations, which tells us that brands are seeing this category as ripe for innovation—or at least as a strong base for testing LTOs.

• There’s a first for everything. Hidden Valley Ranch has launched its first-ever seasonal holiday release, Spooky Ranch, a limited-edition black-colored dressing made with fruit juice and cocoa, all packaged in a fun glow-in-the-dark bottle.

  • It’s wild to think that Hidden Valley hasn’t done any seasonal launches yet. This is their first one, ever. They’ve done a lot of different flavors and collabs (who remeber Van Leeuwen?) but they haven’t done a seasonal product, which is a staple of the CPG world now. Every big (and small) CPG brand has at least one season a year they’ll make a product for. At the end of the day we’re just happy it wasn’t pumpkin spice flavored.

    

• Beyond, take notes. Voyage Foods, a food-tech startup that makes cocoa-free chocolate, beanless coffee, and allergen-free spreads, is exiting retail to double down on B2B ingredient supply. Voyage will partner with Cargill to bring its ingredients to CPG and foodservice companies at scale, using its nearly 300,000-square-foot Ohio facility it built last year to help lower costs, shore up supply, and hit sustainability goals.

  • A quick Voyage Foods recap: Voyage Foods was founded in February 2021 by food scientist Adam Maxwell and co-founder Alec Lee. Their goal was to build a food technology company that makes alternatives to cocoa, coffee, and peanuts. Its mission is to separate popular foods from supply chains that are unstable or ethically troubled. The company uses up-cycled ingredients and cheap commodity crops like grape seeds and grains to match the taste and texture of the originals. Its core strategy is built around keeping those products affordable and allergen-free. Voyage came out of stealth in May 2022 with a $36M Series A and later that year, it launched its first product, a Peanut-Free Spread, starting at Sprouts. In October 2023, its Peanut-Free and Hazelnut-Free Spreads went nationwide at Walmart and online. In 2024, Voyage signed an exclusive global distribution deal with Cargill and raised another $52M, bringing its total to about $94M. It also announced a 284,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Mason, Ohio, backed by a roughly $25M USDA-guaranteed loan. This May, Voyage and Cargill launched NextCoa, its cocoa-free chocolate ingredient, in the US.

  • This pivot makes a ton of sense. Many of the food-tech startups that took off in the early 2020s assumed consumers would care about the science upfront. Most shoppers really just care whether something tastes good, is priced right, and makes their lives better. Often, once they hear a product isn’t “real,” there tends to be some backlash and confusion. We’ve seen this play out across plant-based meat, with Beyond Meat struggling to turn innovation into lasting demand. The B2B angle lets Voyage keep the technology behind the scenes and sell brands on benefits that actually move the needle. And, honestly, that may be where a lot of food-tech startups belong. They can build incredible science, but they’re often not great at branding or world-building or giving consumers a real reason to care. It makes more sense to become a valuable ingredient supplier and to let the founders and teams who actually know how to build brands turn that innovation into products people want to buy.

• No one is safe from the Costco. This week, Costco’s Kirkland Signature brand launched its very own Liquid IV competitor: their hydration electrolyte drink mix.

  • Costco is building a health-and-wellness empire. Kirkland Signature already has whey protein and ready-to-drink protein shakes, and earlier this year it launched an energy drink aimed squarely at Celsius. Their energy drink in particular made some serious waves. Celsius’s namesake sales fell 12% year over year during the quarter, with CEO John Fieldly reportedly pointing to Kirkland’s lower-priced competitor as a main factor. Costco is a HUGE account for Celsius, representing roughly 11% of Celsius’s global revenue last year before rolling out the dupe. Brutal stuff, man!

• I’ve got a golden ticket! Ferrero is bringing the iconic Wonka candy brand back to shelves with four new limited-edition treats tied to Netflix’s new series, Wonka’s The Golden Ticket—and it looks like this is more than a one-off collab. After the brand largely disappeared from US shelves around the time Ferrero acquired the rights back in 2018, the company is calling this the start of a “new chapter” with reportedly even more Wonka products already in the works.

  • And if we got anybody from the Ferrero and Wonka team reading this newsletter, please bring back the Wonka donut! For the love of God, that was one of my favorite candy products ever. It’s probably my golden goose of discontinued products. - N

    

• Sexual wellness is back on the beauty shelf. Maude, a premier sexual wellness brand founded by Éva Goicochea, is entering more than 600 Target Beauty Studios and nearly 400 Ulta Beauty stores in its largest retail expansion to date. The rollout includes its lubricants, massage products, and vibrators.

  • Sexual wellness is becoming one of beauty and personal care’s next frontiers as retailers stretch “wellness” beyond skincare and supplements. Ulta now counts intimate care among four key wellness growth areas and believes wellness could become its next $1B category. The bet both Target and Ulta are taking stands in sharp contrast to Sephora, which brought Maude into US stores in 2023 but has since scaled back its overall wellness assortment and moved several sexual wellness products—including Maude’s Vibe vibrator— to online only 🤷‍♀️

  • For more on how sexual wellness is moving into mainstream beauty and personal care, read our deep dive: Let’s talk about sexual wellness!

• Haircare you can drink. Arrae, a wellness supplement brand best known for its Bloat capsules, launched Hair Protein. A real thing. It’s a lemonade-flavored daily stick pack with around a 3g keratin-and-collagen protein complex. It’s designed to target shedding, stress, and overall scalp health. The brand developed it with celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton and his daughter, Kitty Bluu, positioning it as a protein-first alternative to the endless sea of biotin gummies.

  • Beauty is getting a lot more snackable. Ingestible beauty used to mean pills, like a lot of pills. Then collagen powders and gummies came on the scene, and those formats have only gotten bigger and bigger thanks to brands like Lemme, Grüns, and even Arrae. But now, the category is getting broader in format and much more targeted in what each product is supposed to do. Freaks of Nature launched an electrolyte for skin-barrier and UV support. Kylie Jenner’s k2o made a skincare-focused hydration stick with collagen and hyaluronic acid. ARMRA even put its very popular colostrum into a can. And now Arrae is making a protein powder specifically designed to support your hair.

  • And haircare overall is absolutely booming. The category has moved way beyond simple shampoos and conditioners into scalp serums, growth systems, supplements, hard-water treatments, and even menopause-specific solutions. Hair, like body care, is getting the full skinification treatment.

• Third time’s the charm? Skims has confirmed a 2027 launch for Skims Beauty, Kim Kardashian’s latest cosmetics play after KKW Beauty and SKKN by Kim. The $5 billion brand has already hired Ami Colé founder Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye as Executive VP Beauty.

  • All we have to say is this is going to absolutely CRUSH it.

• Is this the next viral soap? Three former Bubble Skincare execs have launched LeNose, a $10 Soap de Parfum line backed by a $3 million oversubscribed pre-revenue round from Era (Aesop’s early investor) and Fifth Growth Fund. They’re launching across DTC, TikTok Shop, and Amazon before entering retail in 2027.

  

  • Accessible luxury is bleeding into every corner of consumer. Gen Z is finally growing up, I mean the oldest are nearly 30! These newly formed adults have jobs but that doesn’t mean they have a whole lot of disposable income to fill their apartments and homes with Aesop. Shoppers are more price-conscious than ever, but they still want the scent, taste, vibe, and visual language of a luxury product. Luckily, founders everywhere heard them. We’ve watched brands like Laundry Sauce, Snif, and Homecourt turn everyday home products into these little luxuries by making them smell better, look good enough to leave out, and cost WAY less than the products they’re trying to emulate. LeNose is making the same bet at the sink. Gen Z has taste, but not everyone wants to part with a crisp $100 bill for a few ounces of soap. A crisp $10 bill, though? That just might work. And they’re not being subtle about the ambition either. They named it Soap de Parfum not just hand soap.

  • You can also see plenty of Bubble in the launch. Bubble took a sleepy, colorless, medical feeling category and made it bright, cheaper, and very very Gen Z coded and it very much worked. Bubble does over $100M in annual sales, is sold in over 17,000 doors and hired Centerview last year to explore a sale. LeNose is that playbook applied to the home. Era’s Claire Cherry made the comparison herself, saying the team’s ambition is “akin to what the team achieved with Bubble.”

  • And this is just another note in the fragrance boom we’ve been seeing. Scent is no longer the job of a traditional fragrance brand. Traditional fragrance is popular, more than ever, but fragrance is so much broader now. Body care, personal care, haircare, home care, and even laundry brands are treating fragrance as a core reason to buy, layered on top of any efficacy claims. Efficacy, is basically table stakes now. Fragrance is one of the easiest ways to make an everyday product feel expensive. For Gen Z consumers—who increasingly treat scent as a form of self-expression but don’t always have full-size perfume money—a $10 hand soap is a pretty low-stakes way to buy into luxury. We made the same point in our luxe-laundry deep dive from a few weeks ago.

Retail

• ALDI is coming over for dinner. The grocer is launching its first fresh ready-made meal line, with five single-serve options under $8 and two family-size meals under $15. The protein-forward lineup begins rolling out in October and will reach stores nationwide by January 2027.

  • There’s a lot more here than another private-label launch from a major retailer. Prepared foods are becoming a regular grocery habit for shoppers. According to McKinsey’s State of Grocery North America report, 61% of consumers now buy ready-to-eat grocery meals at least monthly and purchase frequency overall rose 9% year over year for the category. Roughly one-quarter are using them instead of restaurants largely for convenience and time savings efforts.

  • And yes, there’s a GLP-1 angle here as well. With around 11% of U.S. adults now taking GLP-1s for weight loss—up from 3% in 2024—the market for smaller, fixed portions is growing rapidly. ALDI isn’t explicitly targeting these shoppers, but single-serve meals with 30–46 grams of protein fit neatly into how many consumers are eating now. They want less volume, more protein, and fewer leftovers.⁠ We wouldn’t be surprised if this was a main driver here.

Funding, Mergers, & Acquisitions

• Squeezing toward an exit. Graza, the viral olive oil brand, has reportedly hired Lazard to explore a sale that could value the company between $450 million and $600 million. The brand generates a reported $30 million in EBITDA and is seeking a 15x–20x multiple.

  • This ambitious price reflects Graza’s crazy rapid rise to stardom. The company is now the fifth-largest national olive oil brand, drove a reported 24% of the category’s growth in 2025, and doubled its retail footprint to more than 11,000 doors. After generating $48 million in gross sales last year, Graza says it’s on track to triple that figure this year alone.

  • Graza’s impact extends beyond the numbers too. Its instantly recognizable squeeze bottles became fixtures in viral recipes and stylish kitchens, helping to turn olive oil from a basic pantry staple into a design-forward, relatively accessible, and culturally relevant CPG category. Just look across the olive oil aisle today and you’ll see basically everyone has launched their own version of Graza.

• Fertility for all! Fertility supplement brand Bird&Be raised $13M to expand its product line and double down on a “both partners” approach to reproductive health. BDC Thrive and BFG Partners co-led the round, with participation from BAM Ventures, Founder Collective, Rejuvenation Ventures, and HSR Ventures.

  • Fertility has long been marketed as a women’s issue—even though conception isn’t really a one-person undertaking in making a baby. That’s what makes Bird&Be’s approach so refreshing. Fertility—and as we mentioned earlier, sex more broadly—has been treated as awkward and taboo for way too long, with women expected to carry most of the burden here. Bringing both partners into the conversation makes the category feel a lot more honest and equitable and actually reflective of how making a baby works.

• Bye bye silver foxes. Unilever Ventures, alongside existing investors Greycroft and Female Founders Fund, invested in Arey’s Series A round. The haircare brand makes supplements and topical products designed to slow—and potentially reverse—gray hair using vitamins, antioxidants, and peptides (classic). Funding terms were not disclosed.

In case you missed it… 🎧

Last week we sat down with Aaron Butterworth, Senior Specialist in Product Development at Häagen-Dazs, who’s been developing flavors for the brand for over 20 years! We learned how Häagen-Dazs thinks about then actually makes new pints and flavors of ice cream!

Catch the full episode below 👇

If you haven’t yet, please subscribe, like, leave a comment, and share it! It helps us continue to bring you the most interesting news + nuance in consumer and retail every week.

Subscribe now

This week, we hosted the most incredible dinner that we now must brag about publicly: we partnered with the wonderful team at Petra Labs to bring together 20 top growth marketers + founders in consumer brands at Dirty French in NYC.

We learned a ton from this stacked lineup of guests, from how they’re thinking about attribution and AI search discovery, to what a day-in-the-life of a viral candy brand founder looks like (shoutout Leo from BonBon). The evening was full of fantastic conversation, learnings, and connections—not to mention ridiculously good food that we’re all still thinking about…

If you’re looking to curate a room of interesting folks in consumer brands in NYC, reply to this email. We’d love to chat!

Now, let’s get into our picks of the week →

Nate’s Pickups:

Saint Spritz

I’ve been really into wine lately. I mean, I did just spend a week in Lisbon earlier this month—home to some of the world’s best wines—and drank a lot of it while I was in Portugal. Saint Spritz isn’t exactly straight wine, but it scratches a similar itch. Who doesn’t love a wine spritz? It’s light, refreshing, and one of the best ways to enjoy a spritz-y drink. I actually first tried these these at our Yom Kippur break-fast meal recently. Me and my friend each went through each of the flavors, and then finished up the night with the non-alcoholic versions. We were very happy with this situation and recommend everyone do the same.

• Quick Facts: A family-led brand co-founded by JoJo Fletcher (of Bachelor and Bachelorette fame), Mallory Patton, and Ben Patton. It’s a line of Italian-inspired canned wine spritzes made with 25–35% real fruit juice and come in three core flavors—Amalfi, Hugo, and Sicily Lemon Basil—plus complementary non-alcoholic versions with no added sugar. The brand is sold online and at major retailers including Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, H-E-B, Albertsons, and Total Wine & More.

• Reasons to love:

  • Tastes fresh. These taste like something I’d drink at a bougie Italian coastal hotel by the ocean. Like i’m on that Italian season of White Lotus! And I mean that in the best possible way. They taste incredibly fresh, probably because they use 25–35% real fruit juice—which is apparently 10x more than the leading canned spritzes. They’re well-formulated and do not compromise on flavor whatsoever. They taste like a homemade wine spritz you’d get at a bar or restaurant. Basically, they taste like vacation in a can.

  • A perfect pair. One thing Saint Spritz has done that I really like, and haven’t seen many alcohol brands do, is launch complementary non-alcoholic versions of its canned cocktails. So you can kick off the night with the boozy drinks and wrap up with the non-alc ones, while keeping the same flavors going. They are also made with real fruit juice and no added sugar and honestly they taste great in their own right.

  • The branding is gorgeous. The branding, marketing, and positioning are all incredibly strong. It looks and feels very premium, like an Italian wine spritzer in a can. Shocking. The brand also leans into the “better-for-you” side of the consumer world really well but without being pushy, keeping everything still elevated and aspirational.

Where to buy: Online and in select retailers.

Jenna’s Pickup:

Sāch Artisanal A2 Milk Paneer

This is partly a Weekly Pickup, but mostly a public service announcement: We are all sleeping on paneer as a society. If you’re unfamiliar, paneer is a soft, non-melting Indian cheese made by curdling milk with lemon juice or vinegar. It’s used in many vegetarian Indian dishes, almost like how you’d use tofu, but it offers a richer taste and more satisfying texture.

As a pescatarian (something I find myself accidentally preaching in nearly every newsletter…), I’m always looking for more non-meat protein options that can be the star of a meal, especially for hosting. If you’re catering to a veg-friendly crowd that contains a sneaky tofu hater (every dinner party does, statistically), paneer may be your new best friend—and Sāch is doing something really special with theirs.

• Quick Facts: Artisanal, small-batch paneer made by two first-generation Indian immigrants seeking better-tasting, high-protein meatless options.

• Reasons to love:

  • Gut-friendly dairy 🤝 paneer. Typically, paneer is made with normal cow’s milk, but Sāch is thoughtfully innovating with A2/A2 milk. This milk contains only the A2 beta-casein protein, which many find to be gentler on the gut! If you’re dairy-sensitive and still looking to enjoy a paneer dish, this is the only one I’d recommend.

  • Quality you can taste. This paneer is made in small batches with high-quality dairy, and you can taste the difference. Even my friend from Delhi said it was the best paneer he’d had in the States, and tasted just like dishes he’s had at home! If you’ve ever cooked with paneer at home, you know that the options are fairly limited in the US, with many stores only offering one SKU. I was so excited to see a brand innovating in paneer here, recognizing that better options can sometimes create demand, rather than the other way around.

  • You actually cannot mess this up. Though cultural dishes can be intimidating, I promise, you will not mess up a paneer dish. Paneer is easy to work with—you don’t need to cook it through (like meat proteins) and it doesn’t rely on add-ins to improve its texture. Like tofu, paneer acts like a sponge in most dishes, absorbing sauces beautifully. But unlike tofu, it offers a smoother, creamier, more homogenous texture, and a light, cheesy flavor—none of the sometimes-polarizing earthiness of tofu. I added my paneer to a curry dish by just… throwing it into the pan with sauce and peas and leaving it for a few minutes. It came out perfectly, and I’m already planning my next paneer creation.

Where to buy: Find in a store near you!

In case you missed it… 🎧

This week, we're sitting down with Aaron Butterworth, Senior Specialist in Product Development at Häagen-Dazs, who's been developing flavors for the brand for over 20 years!

She walks us through the entire journey of making ice cream for a massive brand, from brief to shelf—including the "ice cream charcuterie" brainstorming process (as dreamy as it sounds), why some great flavor ideas can never survive a factory, and how Häagen-Dazs's commitment to a clean label shapes everything about the product.

Plus, we're tasting two new flavors on air (!!!!), getting the inside story on Häagen-Dazs's discontinued non-dairy line, and learning how the brand thinks about trends.

Catch the full episode below 👇

The breakdown:

0:00 - Intro + Aaron’s role at Häagen-Dazs
3:01 - The flavor development process
7:44 - How to make ice cream factory-friendly
12:00 - “Overrun” and what’s not in the ice cream
16:00 - Where flavor ideas come from
23:34 - The science of texture
25:14 - Behind the (discontinued) non-dairy experiment
35:31 - Tasting our fave new flavor + what’s next

PS. If you’re in NYC and interested in attending our seasonal trends event on 10/6, you can request to join us here!!! :)

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Tuesday newsletter coming at ya after we both took off for the Jewish holiday yesterday. Enjoy this day-late send :)

Crazy fact of the week: for the average food or bev brand, a dollar of wholesale sales translates to just ~$0.81 in the bank (after trade, promos, and deductions).

Roughly a fifth of every gross wholesale dollar never even arrives. Amazon keeps the most ($0.93); wholesale keeps the least.

This data comes from Drivepoint’s new Food & Beverage Brand Benchmark, built from the reconciled P&Ls and order-level cohorts of food, beverage, and ingestible brands, with DTC, Amazon, and wholesale kept separate. A few more sneak peeks of the gold mine of data in this report:

• $56 to win a DTC customer, breakeven at the one-year mark, and median LTV:CAC at day 360 is 1.02x.

• Amazon customers cost $16 and pay back 2.38x.... before merchant fees and fulfillment take roughly a quarter of sales.

• The pool overall: 66% gross margin, 1.8% EBITDA margin, 54% growth. Most brands are running near breakeven and buying growth on purpose!!

• 91 days of inventory, a 39-day cash conversion cycle. Food brands don’t usually die from a bad product. They die from working capital.

The guide closes with five numbers to pull from your own books this week, with the quartile thresholds to score yourself against.

Download the free Food & Beverage Benchmark here!

News From the Week

Last week, another premium, better-for-you brand launched straight into Target—adding to the growing list of brands bypassing the natural channel.

In today’s slightly different deep dive, we’re sharing an interview with the brains behind that brand, then digging into our thesis around this strategy.

Let’s get into it →

Interview with Mark Ramadan, Co-founder of Riff

Every “convenience” meal brand of the last decade has optimized for one thing: getting you further from the stove.

Riff is a new meal kit from Mark Ramadan (Sir Kensington’s, Hu) and Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park) that’s betting the opposite—that the 15 minutes of actually cooking is the part people want back.

We (virtually) sat down with Mark to talk about why he built a meal kit instead of a heat-and-eat, what two very different pantry categories taught him about standing out, and why Target, not Whole Foods, got the first call.

On designing for both standalone eating and customization:

The small idea for Riff is to help people make dinner; the big idea is to bring joy back into the kitchen. Riff is delicious straight out of the box, but the real opportunity is helping people feel confident experimenting with veggies, proteins, herbs, or whatever is in the fridge. Testing recipes as both standalone products and bases for customization certainly added complexity.

The baseline question for us was––can we stand behind this SKU as-is, and does it become even more restaurant-quality, even more exciting, when just a few simple ingredients are added? It’s easy for something to feel incredible if you add expensive inclusions at home (fresh grated parmigiano reggiano, for example), but our goal was for it to feel just as special with ingredients you could buy anywhere, anytime (like broccoli), so that was our focus. In practice, that meant designing a simple, standard preparation system rather than focusing on any single combination.

On choosing the format itself (inclusions optional, “riffing” encouraged):

It was a mix of data and intuition. Data shows people are cooking at home more than at any time since 2012 (over 80% of meals), but they’re also exhausted after work, budget-conscious, and overwhelmed by endless recipe content.

Intuitively, we knew that weeknight “what’s for dinner?” stress all too well. We craved an “in-between” option: not an hour-long, fully-from-scratch meal, but not expensive delivery or plastic microwave meals either. We made Riff for how people actually want to cook—providing structure and inspiration while leaving room for creativity based on what’s in the fridge.

On choosing Target as the first retail partner:

Target has always been on the side of innovation, and this has been especially true in food over the past several years. Though my experience with Sir Kensington’s and Hu has been that the natural channel typically comes first, in the case of Riff, we wanted to create something that had mainstream appeal and affordability from day one. We feel like the question of dinner is a big one, a common one, and we couldn’t think of a partner better able to deliver on that opportunity than Target.

This “day-one mainstream” bet is becoming increasingly common, and we think it could be the new trajectory of premium, better-for-you CPG brands: bypass the natural channel entirely, and launch direct-to-mass-market.

And it seems that, among the new-age brands going straight to the Targets and Walmarts, many are structured similarly: celebrity co-founded with a CPG vet, accessibly-priced, relatively simple + non-polarizing packaging.

Some recent examples:

• Earlier this summer, we broke down Glen Powell’s condiment brand, Smash Kitchen, which debuted in Walmart with its entire product assortment priced under $5 to compete head-on with Kraft-Heinz rather than court the natural aisle first—and is on track to hit $100M in sales this year.

  • Co-founder Sameer Mehta (who cut his teeth in DTC with Casper and the natural channel with Honest Company) has said getting the price point competitive with the biggest incumbents was central to the strategy from day one, just like what Ramadan is describing with Target.

• HallPass, the new candy brand from Peter Rahal (okay this one isn’t a celeb, but Rahal is basically a CPG celebrity from RXBar and David) and Michael Tierney (formerly of Stuffed Puffs), similarly launched nationwide at Walmart. It’s priced alongside classic candy brands, which is unusual for better-for-you confection.

• cadootz! is a creator-led version going through Target. Rachel Mansfield (influencer + now cookbook author) launched her kids’ cracker brand nationwide at Target in June as its first time in stores, following a DTC debut whose first production run sold out in under two hours in January. The difference is that it tested DTC briefly first, but it still went straight to a mass retailer and skipped natural.

• Bero, the premium non-alcoholic beer brand co-founded by Tom Holland and John Herman, formerly the president of Nutrabolt, launched online-only in late 2024, and its first retail step was a nationwide Target launch.

For ~15 years, the standard path for a BFY brand was natural and specialty first, then mass. But now, BFY stopped being a niche, mass retailers are explicitly asking for it, and the founders who know the natural-to-mass path best are the ones who are skipping it in their second go-around.

The risk in the mass-first strategy is that it doesn’t leave much room for error. While a brand that isn’t flying off shelves in specialty can stealthily fix itself, a brand in 4,000 Walmart doors gets delisted publicly. That’s why this model works best for founders with a track record—but we’re curious to see if first-time founders start attempting this track.

CPG & Consumer Goods

• The Swedish candy boom is here.

  • Sweden’s most-bought car is now at Target, and we’re only kind of kidding here… Cloetta Group, the 164-year-old Swedish confectionery company, launched its Ahlgrens bilar candy car brand exclusively at Target stores nationwide. The car-shaped foam candy has been a Swedish staple since 1953 and comes in four varieties including Original, Sour, Fruity Duo, and Sour & Fruity. Cloetta says the brand sells ~2.6 billion candy cars every year in Sweden alone.

  • And in the same week, BonBon launched its two Moomin-branded varieties in more than 1,900 Target stores nationwide for $4.99 a bag. The rollout marks a major leap from niche specialty treat to mass-market category

  • The past few years have made one thing pretty clear: American candy does not cut it for consumers anymore. There has been a huge rush of Swedish and Swedish-adjacent candy, all building up for this moment.

    • The story actually begins in 2010, when Sockerbit, a pick-and-mix Swedish candy shop founded by a Swedish-American couple, opened in the West Village—years before it was a trend. But BonBon, founded in 2017 on the Lower East Side, was the real catalyst for the viral Swedish candy takeover. Rather than importing and reselling Swedish candy like Sockerbit, BonBon built original, Swedish-inspired products and invested heavily in design and a cohesive brand world. It was the perfect storefront for the social media era, and blossomed from a retailer into a beloved brand.

      

    • From there, the pick-and-mix format multiplied—Lil Sweet Treat, Candor, and others opened in its wake, offering the experiential shopping moment of choosing your own sweets. And once shoppers expect a format in-store, grocery follows, because it always does.

    • Bubs went from zero US presence to 60,000 retail stores in twelve months. Katjes has been having its moment in the sun, too, and recently named TikTok comedian Jake Shane its chief creative officer and launched Sourpuss—an octopus-shaped sour gummy named for his TikTok handle—into 1,200 Target stores.

    • And Funday—Australian, not Swedish, but featuring the same foam-on-gummy texture play—hit $100M in sales in five years and just landed 1,300 Target stores.

    • Even Smart Sweets, a brand with zero Swedish DNA, launched its first-ever foam candy this year (and it’s SO GOOD)—because the texture itself has become the trend, independent of the country of origin that popularized it.

    • This trend really shapeshifted from being more about experiential retail into being more about the product itself. The product was introduced into the US at the exact right time in wellness + food culture history: a bouncy, foam-forward texture American candy never had, sour profiles built for a generation that treats sour as a flex, and clean-label positioning (no dyes, no high-fructose corn syrup, natural colors) that reads as healthier even when the sugar content mostly isn’t.

• Add this to the growing list of things that didn’t need to exist: C4 Energy just launched a beer-flavored energy drink, All Hopped Up, with its classic 200 mg of caffeine and added vitamin B12—no alcohol (thank goodness), but flavor inspired by a hoppy brew. It’ll be sold on TikTok Shop (of course) and Amazon.

  • As a sucker for a pun, I’m glad this product exists so this name can shine. But as a discerning human with taste, I’m… concerned. Are people really seeking the taste of beer at the same hour that they’re seeking 200mg of caffeine?

  • In the last two weeks, we saw two other attempts to functionalize non-alcoholic beer: first, Herb Light came out with a first-of-its-kind NA beer featuring 1mg of hemp-derived THC. Then last week, Optimum Nutrition launched the first protein NA beer—we shared our thoughts on that in last week’s newsie. 🙃 Clearly, brands think that NA beer is a format that is ripe for functionalizing; the irony isn’t lost on us that it was created explicitly to de-functionalize beer.

  • Separately, C4 seems to be experimenting with trends. Last month, the brand came out with its first non-energy drink RTD: a protein soda. The lesson we’re learning here: when in doubt, launch something with protein or non-alc beer and hope for the best.

• In other energy news, is Red Bull on the outs?? Kroger has stopped selling Red Bull nationwide, citing that the last units sold in August and in-store coolers/displays were removed at the end of last month, while continuing to carry other energy drink brands.

  • The reason? According to inside sources, it was something of a pricing standoff: Red Bull wanted to raise wholesale prices, and Kroger wasn’t interested.

  • The reality is that a major retailer like Kroger would be willing to pay for a brand driving incremental growth to its category. Red Bull is, unfortunately, no longer that brand. As brands like Alani Nu and Celsius command shelf space with colorful brand blocks and pull in new consumers, that silver can is struggling to justify its existence.

• And one last piece of energy news… Nello is expanding its RTD energy drink line after a successful initial launch with Apple Rush. Now the functional powder brand is bringing four new flavors of its energy line to Target. Flavors that interestingly all feel surprisingly summer-coded. Rainbow Sherbet, in particular, has our attention.

• The new generation of Halloween candy is coming.

  • SmartSweets is launching its 2026 Halloween lineup at Target, including returning Gummy Worms and Sour Zombie Buddies (3g sugar, 50g bags) plus a new Mini Sweet Fish in 24-count snack packs.

  • This adds to a growing stack of new better-for-you Halloween candies emerging: Last year, Unreal Snacks launched its 26-count Halloween-branded variety packs of better-for-you chocolate-based candies. Other better-for-you brands with Halloween-specific snack-packs include YumEarth and Skinnydipped. Curious to see how the transition from the old guard (Snickers, Milky Ways, M&Ms, Skittles… and my personal favorite, Almond Joy) to these new, “cleaner” candies plays out as younger Millennials and Gen Z become parents.

  • But, despite legal efforts, a new, more realistic Reese’s pumpkin will not be part of the stack: Hershey secured dismissal of a lawsuit alleging its Reese’s Halloween pumpkins lacked the carved designs shown on packaging. The judge found plaintiffs suffered only “subjective disappointment,” not economic harm. And TBH… yea.

• A better bowel movement, now in gummy form! Grüns launched its newest product, Müves, a prebiotic fiber gummy with 10 grams of soluble fiber per pack. The Strawberry Kiwi gummies come in low- and no-sugar options.

  • Slowly but surely, Grüns is following the same path as many other gummy supplements: start with the multivitamin to get mass market appeal, then break the benefits out into many single-purpose products (see: OLLY). Across the Ü Snacks portfolio, it now has Grüns for greens, Nütrops for cognition, Immün for immunity, Jüced for pre-workout energy, and Müves for digestion—all (except the energy SKU) functions promised in the OG Grüns gummy product.

  • AG1 is also moving in a similar direction from “all-in-one” promise to a multi-SKU brand: It began with its all-in-one powder and had that for around 15 years before adding other products like AG1 Pro with creatine for the wellness maximizers, AGZ for sleep, and they even launched gummies for a more casual users. The play for both of these brands is to build a portfolio for every type of wellness consumer all under one roof.

  • At $66 for 28 servings, this is still very expensive fiber. Most consumers can get the same nutrient for much less from a powder or, you know, a salad (without the cyclospora of course). But the gummy format is much likelier to become a daily habit. There’s a reason Grüns was sold to Unilever for $1.2 billion!

• Prestige laundry hits mass retail. The Laundress, which Unilever acquired in January 2019 for a reported $100 million after it built its business mostly through its own website and Amazon, is headed to 600 Target stores with 15 SKUs and a Target-exclusive fragrance called Cloud. This marks the brand’s first major move beyond DTC into national brick-and-mortar retail, with over 1,000 stores planned by March 2027.

  • These scents were developed with a perfumer, and Target is even adding scent testers to the display! Fragrance has become one of the biggest trends in personal care, across traditional perfume to body wash, deodorant, and now laundry—offering an elevated feel that makes a chore feel like an upgraded ritual.

• Home care, meet the wellness industrial complex. Dropps, the DTC home-care brand best known for plastic-free laundry and dishwasher detergent pods, rebranded with updated packaging, website, and positioning (”Messy Life. Kind Ingredients. Actually Clean.”).

  

  • Function is only one part of how a product wins these days. Yes, the cleaner needs to clean your clothes or clean the floor or clean your dishes, but it also has to fit into the consumer’s current view of wellness. The old Dropps branding spoke more directly to a plant-based, sustainability-first shopper who may have even been on the crunchier side. But this new identity keeps their ingredient credibility they’re known for but packages it in a more modern and premium way. It then opens up the brand to this new wave of consumers who care just as much about how a product looks in their home as what’s inside it.

  • In case you’re unfamiliar, this brand kinda invented laundry pods: Jonathan Propper founded Dropps in 2006, spinning it out of Cot’n Wash, a gentler-detergent formula his mother developed in the 1980s for her cotton mill. He patented the pod format years before Tide brought its own version to shelves in 2012, and the brand ran on that eco-first identity for over a decade before taking its first outside money—$16M in 2020 from The Craftory, a firm that explicitly funds “anti-VC,” slow-growth, mission-driven brands. Dropps is now officially translating cred it’s held since before “clean” was a shelf category.

• A recipe for hyptertension (AKA, electrolytes for the “everyday consumer”). Momentous launched Daily Hydration, an electrolyte powder made for everyday use (not workouts) with 100mg sodium, 150mg chloride, 50mg potassium, and 2g functional carbohydrate.

  • We’ve been seeing more and more brands launch hydration products catered to the “everyday consumer,” and honestly, we’re getting a little concerned. If you’re not profusely sweating on a day-to-day basis, you likely don’t need to down a bev with added sodium for funsies. If anything, you may be overdoing it on the sodium front… and a generation of wellness-obsessed non-athletes hooked on electrolyte powders may lead to an aging population with seriously high blood pressure 🙃 - J

• Everyone wants in on matcha. La Colombe launched a line of RTD Matcha Lattes—Everyday, Strawberry, and Vanilla—made with single-origin Japanese matcha and lactose-free whole milk. Unsurprisingly, matcha sales at La Colombe cafés have grown 188% since 2023.

Retail

• Costco bets big on same-day. Costco expanded nationwide same-day delivery to Uber Eats (~600 locations) and DoorDash (~630 locations, 47 states + D.C.), adding two marketplace partners alongside incumbent Instacart. CEO Ron Vachris called same-day the fastest-growing segment of Costco’s digital business, and Uber One perks (fees waived on $60+ orders) makes Costco a loyalty amplifier for both brands

  • This will be interesting for Instacart in particular, which, up until this point, had been the go-to for Costco ecomm orders.

Funding, Mergers, & Acquisitions

• Celebrity checks keep flowing into CPG. Podcaster Jay Shetty has invested in Sleep or Die, the buzzy new wellness brand behind Sleep Strips (think Listerine stripes but for sleep). Shetty is no stranger to the CPG world. He also owns Juni, a sparkling tea brand that’s sold nationwide.

  • High-profile names are increasingly investing in brands rather than starting another their own brand from scratch. In the past few months alone we saw, Alix Earle invest in Cymbiotika, Bethenny Frankel took an ownership stake in DpHue, TikTok creators Katie Fang and Aliya Rachinski became equity partners in ESW Beauty, and NBA players including Draymond Green and Anthony Davis invested in Beekeeper Coffee. And then there are brands like TRIP, which has added a whole roster of high-profile names—including Joe Jonas, Alessandra Ambrosio, Paul Wesley, Ashley Graham, and last week just added Kylie Jenner—to its cap table. For the brands? It’s a way to get capital and reach and cultural relevance in one fell swoop. For the celebrities and talent? It’s more often than not a much better way to participate in the crazy CPG without having to actually build something from scratch.

  • This brand also feels very aligned with the type of content and vibe that Jay Shetty puts out there into the world. Maybe this is a bit more bold of a brand but what it’s trying to get at, especially in the sleep category, feels very aligned with everything else that he’s building for his personal brand.

• Allergy care gets a glow-up. Wizard Wellness, the allergy brand launched in January by beauty-industry veteran Lorne Lucree, raised $1 million. Wizard is also expandin while rolling into more than 4,000 Target, Walmart, and CVS stores. The company is also bringing in Clueless actress Elisa Donovan for its first celebrity campaign.

• A French beauty portfolio. Caudalie, the family-owned skincare company known for grape-powered formulas, acquired Talm, a French sensitive-skin and maternity brand sold in about 60 doors across 12 countries. It’s Caudalie’s first acquisition, and Talm will remain independently run by founder Kenza Keller

• Little bottles, big bucks. Sol-ti has raised $30.3M in equity, per an SEC Form D filed in June, as the glass-bottled juice and shot brand positions for expansion in retail and foodservice.

• Loves an RTD. Sazerac acquired Au Vodka, the UK-based gold-bottle vodka and RTD brand founded in Swansea in 2015, expanding its UK portfolio and giving Au a path into more global markets. Terms were not disclosed, though Bloomberg’s source puts the deal at more than £300 million.

  • Au is the second-largest player in the UK’s RTD cocktail market, and it now sits in the same portfolio as the category leader, BuzzBallz, which Sazerac bought in 2024. Together the two brands hold about a fifth of UK RTD sales by value (per NIQ data cited by The Grocer).

  • Au is also Sazerac’s third RTD bet this year, following its March purchase of the canned cocktail brand Dirty Shirley and a May stake in Sipmargs, the canned margarita brand backed by TikTok creator Alix Earle. IWSR expects RTDs to be the only alc category to grow in 2026, so the owner is buying its way into the one corner of spirits that’s still growing.

• Brain food buys snack food. Cerebelly, the company that makes brain-focused baby food, acquired Fresh Bellies, a plant-based, freeze-dried kids snack brand founded in 2015, to expand into snacking. Financial terms weren’t disclosed; both brands will operate separately under shared ownership with distinct retail presences.

In case you missed it… 🎧

Last week, we caught up on a bunch of launches from the past few weeks, from David Protein’s new ready-to-drink milkshakes (fresh off a $2.2B valuation), to the Liquid Death founder’s new canned bubbly brand, and Beyond Meat’s latest (bizarre) attempt to regain relevancy.

Plus, what “peak function” looks like now that Folgers is doing functional coffee, why “supplements for your supplements” might be the next big thing, and more.

Catch the full episode below 👇

If you haven’t yet, please subscribe, like, leave a comment, and share it! It helps us continue to bring you the most interesting news + nuance in consumer and retail every week.

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Now, let’s get into our picks of the week →

Nate’s Pickups:

Chocxo Dark Milk Chocolate Cookie Butter Cups

This might surprise many, but I’m not always the biggest chocolate fan all the time. When I do enjoy chocolate, I prefer either very dark chocolate or chocolate that’s richly flavored and filled, usually with peanut butter or caramel. But, I’m a candy person, so I try everything. And it’s my job but that’s besides the point.

Chocxo makes some of my favorite filled (and lower sugar) chocolate candies, and this is probably their best one. I mean, come on. Who doesn’t like taste cookie butter, speculoos, or a Biscoff cookie on a Delta flight? Mhmm?! You know you do. That’s exactly what it is, you take a Biscoff cookie and a jar of cookie butter and put it in a chocolate cup….but with a twist! 👀

• Quick Facts: These are speculoos-inspired cups with a cookie butter center made from cashew butter blended with white chocolate, cinnamon, and molasses, all wrapped in 43% organic dark milk chocolate and finished with toasted graham cracker crumbs on top. Each cup has 5 grams of sugar, sweetened with organic cane sugar. They’re also USDA Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, and certified gluten free.

• Reasons to love:

  • Great flavor formulation. Shockingly, there are no speculoos or Biscoff cookies in the filling. It’s cashew butter blended with white chocolate, cinnamon, and molasses to achieve that speculoos flavor. Until I sat down to write this, I hadn’t realized that! That’s some impressive flavor science at work. The taste of a Biscoff cookie is so universally well-known, it’s a beloved thing, that the only way to make this product good is to do it 100%. It must taste exactly like the original, and it does.

  • Well-constructed. This is a well built piece of candy. The filling-to-chocolate ratio is perfect, for my taste at least. There’s enough filling that every bite delivers and enough chocolate that it still feels like candy and not a spoonful of just the spread. If I wanted that I’d buy some Oat Haus. And one thing I love about Chocxo’s chocolate cups is that they have a little texture on top. In this product it’s graham cracker bits, but almost all of their products have some added crunch and it just adds so much to the experience.

  • Low sugar that doesn’t taste like it. If sugar alternatives mess you up, this is the candy for you. Chocxo uses real cane sugar and no artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols in any of their products, so if other sweeteners upset your stomach or you simply dislike their taste, this option should work for you. You might wonder how it can be low sugar when it uses real cane sugar. Well, according to the brand, the way they source their cocoa and the quality of the beans make the chocolate naturally sweeter so less added sugar is needed to coverup anything.

Where to buy. Online and retailers nationwide

Jenna’s Pickup:

Tsubi Soup - Red Miso Soup with Spicy Mushrooms

It’s back-to-school season, AKA illness season, and last week, I humbly discovered that I have not outgrown it (perhaps because I still refer to weeknights as “school nights,” and essentially live on a college campus, but I digress). While I was down for the count, I was craving soup constantly—and felt like the luckiest girl in the world when a package of Tsubi Soup arrived at my door. I proceeded to have Tsubi nearly every day last week.

If you (like me) grew up on the delicacy that is Cup Noodles, this format won’t be too surprising to you. A just-add-hot-water freeze-dried soup situation, with real veggies magically sprinkled in. But Tsubi is a major flavor + nutritional upgrade from its styrofoamed predecessor, and I am so excited to have it as part of my Fall-Winter soup rotation.

• Quick Facts: Premium, freeze-dried instant soup cubes (just add hot water), made in Japan.

• Reasons to love:

  • You can taste the quality. Every ingredient in Tsubi is sourced from Japan, and the product was made in Japan in small batches—and it tastes like it. If I didn’t make it myself, I’d never know it came from a freeze-dried cube! As a mushroom enthusiast, I LOVE the Red Miso with Spicy Mushrooms. It includes four gourmet Japanese mushrooms—shiitake, enoki, maitake, and nameko—so you get full mushroom (and lots of variety, umami-style) in every bite.

  • SaaS (Soup as a Snack). I’m gonna be real with you: these are nowhere near hearty enough to have as a full meal. They’re mostly a rich miso broth with some mushrooms (other flavors have tofu, but it’s still a small portion), and come out to just 35-45 calories depending on the flavor. That is at MOST a small snack, but I actually love that reframe: a warm, flavor-packed snack you can slowly sip rather than mindlessly chow down in 2 minutes. It feels so luxurious—as a vegetarian, I imagine this is how the bone broth girlies feel.

  • Ridiculously convenient. Have you ever wanted to BYOSoup? Or literally throw soup in your bag and take it on-the-go? Now you can! I love that these come in small, super light packets you can fit in anything and take anywhere (take THAT Cup Noodles). These would be fabulous to stock at your desk as a office snack, bring along on travel days, or just keep in your bag as an emergency snack that isn’t another protein bar.

Where to buy: Online or in stores (Whole Foods North Atlantic)!

In case you missed it… 🎧

This week, we’re catching up on a bunch of launches from the past few weeks, from David Protein’s new ready-to-drink milkshakes (fresh off a $2.2B valuation), to the Liquid Death founder’s new canned bubbly brand, and Beyond Meat’s latest (bizarre) attempt to regain relevancy.

Plus, we’re getting into what “peak function” looks like now that Folgers is doing functional coffee, why “supplements for your supplements” might be the next big thing, and more.

Catch the full episode below 👇