Upcoming must-attend NYC event alert: Wayflyer’s Visionaries Summit is coming to KidSuper Studios in Brooklyn on August 26th and 27th and you will NOT want to miss it!!!

You might’ve seen clips of the London edition online, featuring UK brands like Trip, SURI and PerfectTed. Now Wayflyer is bringing the Summit to New York, with speakers confirmed from Dame, Bobbie, Ghia, Dad Gang, Stakt, Jones, Sauz, and more to be announced. Picture a room packed with brand owners, operators and investors, all speaking openly about what has and hasn’t worked as they’ve grown their businesses.

Tickets are FREE but spaces are limited, so book the panels you want to attend now 👀

We can’t wait to see you there!!!

News From the Week

The hottest new products are hiding in the… laundry room?

This week, WashWise—a clothing care brand built entirely around the “between-wears” moment—raised $1.2M in pre-seed via a SAFE.

The debut product is Reset Spray, which the brand describes as “the dry shampoo for clothes” (brilliant). It neutralizes odor at the source, releases wrinkles, and buys you another wear. WashWise claims a single bottle saves up to $300 in dry cleaning, ~6 hours of laundry, 110 gallons of water, and 13 kWh of energy. 🤯

Admittedly, it’s a small round, and the brand just launched. But it lands in an aisle that is absolutely heating up right now: laundry-care.

U.S. laundry-care sales hit $19.4B last year, up 3% across price points, with the global market at roughly $110B and a projected 4.7% CAGR over the next five years. P&G’s laundry care business alone does nearly $3 billion (they own about 60% of market share)! It’s a serious market that was ripe for some disruption.

And boy is it getting disrupted. The emerging brands are coming in hot:

• Let’s back up to the first wave (cycle? 😉): Innovation in laundry-care really started with The Laundress, which was founded all the way back in 2004. The brand, positioned as the first luxury lifestyle brand in laundry-care, thoughtfully aligned itself with early lifestyle/fashion bloggers and the burgeoning clean beauty movement to in the early 2010s. By the mid-2010s, the company was sustaining a 30% year-over-year growth rate, making it an obvious target for Unilever’s $100 million buyout in 2019.

  

• Lindsey Boyd, who co-founded The Laundress, came back to laundry this past April with Lindry Lab. A luxe laundry brand with 17 SKUs—including six detergents at $45 for 32 ounces—all built around cleaner ingredients and functional fragrances.

• Laundry Sauce raised a $7.2M Series A in January (~$17.7M total from Melitas Ventures, Morrison Seger, 3cubed, Patrick Ventures, and Talent Resources Ventures), and expanded into Target stores in March—its first national retail win after years of DTC.

• Wishing Well is betting that laundry can be cool. The brand launched in 2025 with a non-toxic, ultra-concentrated detergent in a compact aluminum pump bottle in fragrance-inspired scents like Afterglow, Sunday Reset, and Boyfriend Material (one of Jenna’s fave products). The brands explicit goal is to make laundry feel like self-care rather than a boring chore.

• Homecourt, Courteney Cox’s home fragrance brand, expanded into laundry in March 2025 with a full collection built off its existing scents. Seven months later it closed an $8M Series A led by CULT Capital, and it’s now in 300+ doors across Nordstrom, Bluemercury, and Revolve.

  

• And the fragrance houses also are entering the space:

  • DedCool became Sephora’s first-ever laundry SKU back in 2022 across 210 doors, and is still the only laundry brand on those shelves.

  • Snif has a full laundry collection translating its fine fragrances directly into the wash. It’s also now on shelf at Ulta.

  • D.S. & Durga sells luxury detergent in a reusable aluminum bottle in partnership with Guests on Earth, sold through Revolve.

    • And Guests on Earth is a luxury home care brand that also sells a premium, high-concentration plant- and bio-based laundry detergent free from heavy chemicals.

Even Tide (which controls 40% of the laundry-care market) is trying to innovate here! In February, P&G rolled out Tide evo nationally—a 3.5-inch waterless “tile” of compressed detergent fiber, six layers deep, with something like 15 miles of woven scrubbers plus stain treatment, brighteners, and odor removers built in. It took 50+ patents, 15 chemists and engineers, more than a decade of development, and almost two years of test marketing in Colorado.

This is a surprising move in big CPG. The playbook in a mature, concentrated category is (usually) to defend share, cut costs, run a limited-edition scent, and buy the challenger once it clears $50M. Innovation is what you do when you’re losing, and as we said, P&G controls ~60% of the market—looks like a winner. Cannibalizing your own liquid business with a format that costs 2x per load is the harder, almost dumber-looking path, and they took it anyway.

Even the big guys are seeing that scent, format, and premiumization are about to reshape laundry.

So why is fancy laundry detergent is having a moment?

• Fragrance is booming, and it’s bled into everything. US mass fragrance grew 15% in 2025 versus 5% for prestige—the real growth is in luxe-coded scent at accessible prices. And it isn’t staying in the fragrance aisle. We’re seeing brands win on fragrance in body care, hair care, hand sanitizer, hand soap, and now the laundry. Detergent may be the purest version of this, because it’s a scent you apply to (almost) everything you own all at once.

• Everything is the lipstick index now. A $45 detergent is a lot more than Tide, sure, but it’s a small upgrade that makes an unglamorous chore feel expensive. When everything else in the cart costs more than it did two years ago, people will buy the little thing that makes them feel like they’re doing a lot better. It’s the same instinct we keep seeing at the grocery store shelf, where shoppers trade up on olive oil and soda to feel like they’re living a more luxurious life.

• Skincare-level ingredient scrutiny. Wellness culture (and its many influencers) taught everyone to read the label. Consumers now care an enormous amount about what’s in their products and what those products come in. Scrutiny that started in food and skincare has been migrating to every category under the sun, and detergent was always going to make the list. It touches every part of you! They want the free-from list (SLES, SLS, endocrine disruptors) and functional additives that do something, which is the exact tension we wrote about in clean vs. science and functionwashing.

• The home became a place for self-expression. The “shelfie” started in the bathroom, moved to the kitchen counter (see Graza, Fly By Jing, Loonen), and has now arrived in the laundry room. A neon green plastic jug is a chore you hide under the sink. A $45 aluminum bottle in a trendy, muted color is something you leave out.

Though the laundry room might be the last place you expected buzzy CPG brands to enter, it has potential to be one of the stickiest destinations. Watch (wash?) this space👀

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Some cheesy innovation. GOODLES just launched Twirly Mac, a new spiral noodle format coming in three flavors—Cheddar Weather, Alfredo Heights, and Hotshot Jackpot. Each box offers similar nutrition to its other mac & cheese: 14g protein, 7g fiber, and 21 nutrients from plants, and all Clean Label Certified.

  • Both the format and the flavors (alfredo with white miso, chili garlic) suggest that this is a launch geared more towards an adult consumer, offering a permission slip to the guilty Goodler who regularly makes mac, but wants to upgrade to the more mature pasta.

• Celebrity CPG keeps growing. Chef Esther Choi, one of Food Network’s fastest-rising personalities, just launched Sessy, a new Korean pantry staples brand starting with soy sauce, sesame oil, and gochujang. The products are made in partnership with Korea’s longtime ingredient maker Sempio. All products are available now direct-to-consumer with retail expansion planned for 2027.

  

  • It’s nice to see a celebrity-led brand launch that feels authentic, high quality, and like a meaningful addition to a very crowded category—sauces and condiments in this case, but really broader CPG too. Celebrity-led brands run the risk of just feeling like a merch line, or something that simply doesn’t have legs once the talent gets tired.

  • But alongside Sessy, we’ve seen a lot of really good creator-, celebrity-, and chef-led brands lately that lean into being authentic brands with products people actually want to buy and that also get massive national distribution: Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings keeps expanding at Target, Momofuku has become a genuine pantry brand off David Chang’s chili crunch and noodles, Molly Baz turned Ayoh into a legit condiment brand that landed national retail fast, and Chamberlain Coffee and Feastables have both scaled into real shelf presence. Sessy fits into that mold with fewer SKUs, great branding, and a engaged founder.

• America has a new favorite protein bar.* In a sea of countless protein bars, the emerging brand Prima just became the top-selling protein bar SKU at Sprouts and Erewhon, and it’s now on shelves at Kroger nationwide!! The formula: 10 recognizable ingredients, 21g of grass-fed animal protein, under 250 calories, and no seed oils, artificial sweeteners, or fillers.

  • Prima is rich and dessert-like, unlike some of its absurdly dense aisle-mates, and is available in Mint Chip, Cookie Dough, Mocha, Cacao, and Salted Caramel.

EC readers get 25% off with code EXPRESSCHECKOUT25 → Shop Prima

• Is the the beauty collab of the decade? The #1 and #2 brands with U.S. teens (according to Piper Sandler) just merged their holy grails. Beauty brands e.l.f. and Bubble just dropped three new products mixing the best of both lineups—e.l.f. bronzing drops dual-chambered with Bubble’s moisturizer, Camo blush cut with hyaluronic acid serum, and a lip balm built as a lip serum. These are currently live on both the brands sites and at Target.

  

  • THIS IS WHAT WE LOVE TO SEE!! This is an incredible collaboration, and maybe even a hint at a cheeky acquisition? We could see e.l.f scooping up Bubble in the near future.

  • This is also a continuation of the trend of beauty doubling as skincare. Curious to see if there comes a point when there is no line between the two—when all beauty products provide a function, and most skincare offers an instant appearance boost rather than long-term promises.

• Khloud launches Walmart-exclusive higher-protein chips. Khloe Kardashian’s Khloud brand just launched its first Walmart-exclusive line: Protein Chips Plus Collagen (a collagen-boosted version of their OG protein chips). At $3.49 per bag, these present a value option compared to their $5.99/bags of the OG (they’re also a single-serving at 240 calories, vs. the other line which is 4.5 servings at 170 calories and only 7g protein).

• Beyond the ointment. Beiersdorf’s Aquaphor has launched its first-ever daily lotion and cream line, featuring 6% and 9% hyaluronic acid blends respectively, both approved by the National Eczema Association and available at Walmart, Target, and Amazon.

• Hope for hemp. This weekend, the Senate voted 90-6 to pass a spending bill delaying the federal hemp THC ban from November 12 to December 11, after rejecting Sen. Ted Budd’s amendment to keep it on track (Senator Budd is a THC hater. You actually cannot make this sh*t up). As the CEO and Co-Founder of Nowadays, Justin Tidwell, explained:

“We’re seeing multiple positive signals come out of Washington at the same time. The Senate not only voted to extend the current federal framework, providing the industry additional time to work toward a long-term solution, but we’re also seeing lawmakers advance legislation like Representative Van Duyne’s Hemp-Derived Beverage Regulatory Clarity Act, which provides a thoughtful roadmap for how hemp beverages could be regulated within the traditional three-tier system.

While there is still significant work ahead, these developments suggest the conversation in Washington is beginning to shift from whether hemp beverages should exist to how they should be responsibly regulated. We believe that’s an important and encouraging change for consumers, retailers, and the industry as a whole.”

• And in other THC news: Cann, makers of low-dose THC social beverages, launched a Half & Half line with NBA legend Dwyane Wade, available in two varieties: a 3mg THC/6mg CBD microdose and a zero-THC 0MG version with functional ingredients like passionflower, magnesium, and L-theanine.

  • We spoke to Jake Bullock, co-founder of Cann, about the impending ban on the Express Checkout podcast. He gave a great insider’s view into how the impending ban has been affecting THC brands, and what they’re doing to address it.

eCommerce

• Hey ChatGPT, add lemons to my list. Albertsons launched a plugin inside ChatGPT for its Safeway brand, letting shoppers reorder lists, build carts, and discover products via natural language chat. And then, of course, check out on Safeway’s own platform. It extends the retailer’s existing AI shopping assistant and Ask AI tools it has implemented over the past year.

Retail

• Walmart’s AI just got a promotion... is your brand ready? Walmart’s global CTO says the retailer now runs AI across forecasting, replenishment, scheduling, and routing—an “intelligence layer” he calls the conductor of the whole supply chain orchestra. The result is a sub-hour delivery windows and US e-commerce up 26% in Q1.

  • But there’s a catch for suppliers: that intelligence layer only works if what’s coming in the door is clean. As Walmart’s ordering and routing get more automated, there’s less human slack to absorb someone else’s late ASN or mismatched pack count. The brands eating chargebacks and OTIF penalties will be those with backends that didn’t catch up to their biggest retail partner’s.

  • Which is exactly the gap Endless Commerce1 closes. Instead of bolting on a third-party EDI middleman, CommerceOS builds EDI right into the platform already running your inventory, orders, and warehouse—so a retail PO lands like any other order, setup takes days (not the mythical 6-8 weeks), and you keep control of your own ops. Mission control for consumer brands, built by founders who’ve lived the chaos themselves.

• Flexing their grocery authority. Target has launched “Good & Gather: Discover Delicious Every Day,” its first-ever cookbook featuring 100 recipes built around its owned food brand with every single ingredient listed shoppable at Target.

  • We (and countless people online) have said this over and over again over the past year, “Target is the new Whole Foods.” It’s become this amazing grocery destination for both quality and discovery—we wrote about it here. Using a cookbook as a way to market that is genius, better to show, not tell!

  • Private-label used to feel like the lesser choice, the option you go for if you’re shopping on a budget. But Target is pulling out all the stops to make Good & Gather feel aspirational—from partnering with Michelin-star chefs on exclusive Good & Gather product lines to creating this cookbook and sending out sharable PR mailers…

    

• Another win for the legend of the mall. Claire’s is relaunching its in-store piercing experience across the US and Canada with redesigned store layouts and updated safety/training standards. The move is part of a broader brand rebuild under Ames Watson, which acquired Claire’s out of bankruptcy last year, and comes as the retailer doubles down on brick-and-mortar while expanding through licensing partnerships with Walmart, Kohl’s, CVS, and other retailers.

  • First Bath & Body Works is getting back in the conversation with its Ulta partnership, Amazon launch, and Hilary Duff-led new Fruit Fusion line. Then Gap is bringing back its ’90s fragrance collection as part of its broader beauty push. The late ‘90s-early 2000s mall is really having a moment, and it makes sense: The people who grew up on Japanese Cherry Blossom, Gap Dream, and Claire’s piercing chairs now have jobs, kids, and disposable income. Brands are realizing there’s some power in dusting off the emotional IP of the mall era and rebuilding it for how people shop today.

• Sephora bets on K-beauty. Olive Young partnered exclusively with Sephora to bring 19 Korean skincare brands to 500 U.S. locations starting Aug. 20, with a dedicated Olive Young space at Sephora’s Times Square flagship.

  • This come four months after Olive Young opened its first two US locations in LA, with three more on the docket. Now, the retailer is expanding through the store-in-store format with Sephora. Though this does give Olive Young some credibility to the US consumer, we actually think Sephora benefits more in this partnership; U.S. K-Beauty sales hit $2.8B in early 2026, up ~48% YoY, and only seem to be growing. As Sephora battles its new competitor in beauty discovery (Ulta), it will need to present new occasions for discovery and social relevance. This partnership is a great starting point.

Funding news

• Protein coffee 🤝 $1 billion. Javvy, a functional protein coffee brand sold at Walmart, Target, Sprouts and more with ~$300M in annual revenue, is exploring a sale that could value it at ~$1 billion.

  • As the brilliant Keven Ryan of Malachite Strategy and Research detailed in his newsletter, , the biggest opportunity for today’s protein beverage market is “protein layered onto an existing daily routine.” Rather than introducing an entirely new usage occasion, or trying to compete on macros alone, adding protein on top of an existing routine (like drinking coffee) is the “lowest-friction play”…and evidently, one that’s worth a lot. Pair it with mass-market distribution, approachable pricing, and constant flavor innovation (we must try the Cookie Butter), and you have a winning product.

• The $3.8 billion acquisition decades in the making. Procter & Gamble acquired Thorne, a practitioner-trusted VMS (vitamins, minerals, supplements) brand, from L Catterton for $3.8 billion. Less than three years ago, L Catterton bought Thorne for $680 million. But, unlike Gruns’s acquisition, this was hardly an overnight success:

  • Thorne spent its first three decades building credibility the slow way, launching in Seattle in 1984 as a practitioner brand and earning trust through clinician word-of-mouth, NSF manufacturing certification (the brand is fully vertically integrated), and a 2016 Mayo Clinic research partnership rather than consumer marketing.

  • That clinical foundation became the launchpad for a DTC pivot starting around 2016, followed by a 2018 direct-to-consumer relaunch and a 2020 acquisition of at-home biomarker testing platform WellnessFX, the moves that let Thorne sell its practitioner-grade reputation directly to consumers instead of through doctors’ offices.

  • Thorne went public via SPAC in late 2021 at a $525 million valuation, but only temporarily; L Catterton took the company private in an August 2023 deal worth roughly $680 million (a 94% premium to Thorne’s unaffected share price), a signal that the growth story was still underwritten even as public investors soured on it.

  • Under L Catterton, Thorne leaned into a generational repositioning, from prevention-focused boomer brand to performance-focused Gen Z and millennial pick, posting a 30%+ compound annual growth rate and crossing $500 million in revenue in 2025, growth fast enough to draw reported interest from Unilever earlier this summer before P&G locked in the deal.

  • The story here is really: a decades-old credibility moat gets rediscovered by a new generation, scaled aggressively under sponsor ownership, then sold to a strategic acquirer once the growth curve is steep enough to justify a premium multiple… sounds familiar (see: Garden of Life, Nature’s Bounty).

• An all-in-one pet brand? The Farmer’s Dog has acquired Woof, the refillable enrichment brand behind the Pupsicle, expanding beyond fresh dog food into play and wellness. Financial terms were not disclosed, and Woof will operate as an independent division.

• The hemp hype continues. Uncle Arnie’s raised $2 million from returning backers Mindset Capital and Boston Beer co-founder Harry Rubin’s investment office, doubling down on both recreational cannabis and hemp-derived THC drinks.

• PE goes after hydration. Axum Capital Partners has acquired a controlling interest in BARCODE, the better-for-you performance hydration brand co-founded by NBA champ Kyle Kuzma, with NBA All-Star Victor Wembanyama staying on as shareholder and strategic partner. No deal terms disclosed.

• Make! Alcohol! Fun! Again! (responsibly…). Unifying Spirits, makers of Boba POPS®—an alcohol-filled popping boba brand—raised $2.238M from 462 investors on Wefunder, bringing total equity financing to ~$8M. The brand hit $2.8M in revenue in 2025 (3.6x YoY growth) and is in 10,000+ doors across 75 national chains. The funding will increase manufacturing, distro, and innovation, including an upcoming ready-to-drink beverage line.

  • Founder Ray Rozycki, a teacher and entrepreneur, brought on some beverage and CPG powerhouses, including Mark Andrews, who built Castle Brands and sold it to Pernod Ricard for $300M.

• More protein from leaves! Plantible raised $35M—a $25M USDA-backed loan via X-Caliber Rural Capital plus $10M equity from RA Capital—to expand RuBisCO production fivefold to over 1,000 metric tons at its Eldorado, Texas facility. A new duckweed strain has already boosted yield 40%!

  • A recap for those who missed the RuBisCO deep dive: RuBisCO is the most abundant protein on Earth, which exists in literally every green leaf. It has the best essential amino acid profile of any commercially available protein, a PDCAAS of 1.0 (Protein Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score—1.0 is best-possible!), and digests 5-6x faster than whey.

  • As egg and whey volatility (avian flu, global whey shortage) create a demand catalyst for alternative proteins, companies like Plantible and Leaft will look to increase production capacity significantly.

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

You may notice the podcast looks a little bit different this week.

In an effort to unify our branding across our properties, we rebranded our dear podcast The Curious Consumer to Express Checkout!

If you’re a fan of the newsletter, you just might be an even bigger fan of the pod. Express Checkout (the podcast) is where our stories really come to life—where you get all of the CPG and retail news (plus our hottest takes), recent product finds, and exclusive interviews like this week’s, where Troy Bunde, co-founder of Sauz, shared exactly how his $22M brand thinks about innovation and content.

We’re also about to hit 12,000 subscribers on Substack and 63K on Instagram, and we’ve been ramping up our events, including kicking off our new private dinner offering and quarterly event series, In Season, celebrating the biggest trends in CPG each season (next one is October 6th—save the date)!

If you’re looking to get in front of our amazing audience of emerging-to-BigCo CPG and consumer professionals, investors, and retailers, we’d love to hear from you. Fill out this quick form, and you’ll hear from us very soon :)

Partner with Express Checkout!

Nate’s Pickup:

Hot Box Pretzels

If you came up to me on the street in one of those street interviews in Washington Square Park and asked me what is the one food I always crave, my answer every time would be a pretzel. Soft, hard, salted with cheese, with cinnamon sugar. A pretzel. I love, love, love a pretzel. And I particularly love just a plain salted pretzel. I could eat those any day of the week, any time, any season. But I will say I have a particular soft spot for a hot soft pretzel. And I’m always on the lookout for a good pretzel, whether it’s in a restaurant or a food service stand or in a grocery store. Damn do these really hit the spot.

• Quick Facts: Frozen soft pretzel bites out of Jacksonville, Florida, from Roman Desmond—who dropped out of college to run a single pretzel food truck at local markets and festivals. He ended up competing on season two of Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars, where Ramsay and Lisa Vanderpump were the first two people to ever taste the product. They use lye-dipped dough, nothing artificial, no seed oils, and ship frozen nationwide. Each bag comes with its own seasoning packet, and they’re ready in minutes in the oven or the microwave. Comes in flavors like Salt, Cinnamon, Honey Butter, and Everything Bagel.

• Reasons to love:

  • Genius simple packaging. This is somehow one of the easiest frozen food items that I have received to heat up and also be really good and really tasty. You can warm these up a few ways, either frozen or thawed but my favorite method that I’ve tried has been from frozen, directly in the bag, right into the microwave. And it doesn’t really get soggy. They get soft. They get pretzel-y. I’m really impressed at this method and at the fact that you can just heat it up right in the bag that it comes in. This product is a treat. I can easily heat the whole bag and a treat is something that I want immediately. This form of heating up, being able to microwave it just in the bag, is perfect.

  • The perfect size and texture. I have tried the bigger soft pretzels at home and they just never heat up or perform well. I’m really glad they actually went with smaller bites. Size is not too small that it doesn’t get all of the seasoning on the surface but it’s also not too big that a lot of it just falls away and you don’t get anything. It’s truly the perfect size to capture all of that flavor. I also think the size lends itself to a really fluffy and airy texture as well. Compared to the smaller bites you might find at the mall, these are a really good texture. Also, there’s just something really satisfying about popping these little bites into your mouth one at a time. It feels even more like a treat.

  • The flavors. These flavors are perfection. They’re very creative. They’re very treat-like and they lend themselves very well to the vessel that they’re attaching themselves to. The other thing is that the way that they include the flavor packets and all of that makes it really easy to season these. You put it all right into the bag. You can add the melted butter if the flavor requires it or you can just add the flavor packet that they include in the package.

    • This is really another brand that proves to me how good the frozen aisle has become.

Where to buy: Online

Jenna’s Pickup:

Noon Protein - Honey Banana

I am typically not a proponent of replacing meals with something in a can or bar form. Typically, I find these products come with a stench of guilt-induction—have this instead of your meal, because eating a full meal is synonymous with overeating, and the only way you can properly restrict is by having something contained to a package. This messaging is icky! Bad! I do not like it!

BUT (and a heavy but indeed), I do like having feel-good options for when I am, admittedly, too lazy to make a meal. Instead of the language of “replacement,” I prefer the concept of optionality, of having another choice for a meal that doesn’t shame you, but provides alternative nourishment when you’re busy. NOON Protein’s Liquid Breakfast is the perfect example of that, and I’ve really been enjoying it lately as one of multiple options on my breakfast rotation.

• Quick Facts: Australian ready-to-drink canned protein beverage (”liquid breakfast”) that just made its US debut in Targets nationwide after raising a $2.5M seed round.

• Reasons to love:

  • Tiny can packed with nourishment. In just one very-portable 8-oz can, you get 20g of protein, 5g fiber, and 150 calories. Made with super simple ingredients like milk, oats, and real banana puree, it doesn’t feel like some wacky “meal replacement” that’s engineered to keep you artificially full—it’s much closer to a liquid version of a breakfast I’d probably make when I have the time.

  • Branding. So many “meal replacements” or meal shakes feel sterile, weirdly masculine, or diet-coded. Noon just feels fun. Its bright, bold typeface, emphasis on flavor with the ingredients front-and-center, and modern feel make this a can I want to reach for, as opposed to something that feels like a punishment. The brand focuses less on restriction and what it doesn’t have, and more on what it offers: the protein of 3 eggs, the fiber of 2 bananas, and real milk + oats.

  • The banana flavor!!!! I’ve been so on-board the banana train. As many have noticed, banana has been a huge flavor trend this summer—spanning categories from protein bars (Barebells) to beauty (Glow Recipe). I know that banana-flavored things can be controversial; but this Honey Banana Flavor tastes like real banana—probably because it’s made with real banana puree. I absolutely love the combination of banana and coffee, so my recent favorite “hack” has been pouring a NOON over my cold brew for the fastest, tastiest, multifunctional “liquid breakfast” of all time.

Where to buy: Target nationwide!

This week we sit down with Troy Bonde, Co-Founder of Sauz, the brand that's rewriting the rules of the $10 billion tomato sauce category. Troy takes us through his wild journey—from a COVID-era hand sanitizer dropshipping hustle to building Sauz into a nationwide brand at Target and Sprouts, backed by $22 million in funding.

We dig into how Sauz found its brand moat, the story behind the name, their viral "pimping Troy out" social campaign, the new Basic Basil marinara launch, and what's next for the brand.

Let’s get into it!

The breakdown:
0:00 - Intro
0:36 - Introducing Troy
1:08 - From hand sanitizer to pasta sauce
5:35 - Learning CPG through angel investing
7:47 - Breaking category norms
11:33 - The story behind the name “Sauz”
14:37 - The California Naturals tomato lip balm collab
19:16 - Launching Basic Basil marinara
24:44 - Sauz’s viral social media strategy
29:31 - Measuring repeat purchase and loyalty
31:25 - Scaling distribution: Target, Erewhon, and beyond
39:17 - Closing thoughts

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to Express Checkout 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.

🗣️ Let’s connect! Follow us for behind-the-scenes content, quick tips, and more: @expresscheckout

💬 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 :)

Leave a comment

⭐ 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!

If your fiscal year starts in January, your 2027 budget should be built in the next 90 days. 😬

And this year, there’s even more to account for than usual: tariffs are back in the picture, demand is soft, and DTC inventory is sitting at 133 median days with real cash tied up. A single static budget just... doesn’t hold up against that.

The smartest brands budget differently. That’s why our finance pro friends at Drivepoint took what their best customers do, and turned it into a playbook. This FREE guide breaks down what it actually takes to plan a year that can flex, including...

• A month-by-month calendar. August data cleanup through December plan lock, laid out as a checklist you can run with your team, no matter when you’re starting.

• The five million-dollar decisions. Tariff pass-through, inventory buys, channel mix, marketing efficiency, and cash runway, each one grounded in a real number. (One brand modeled a “cost-saving” facility delay and found $4M hiding in it!!)

• The software math. Where FP&A tooling actually fits in the budget cycle, and why that decision window closes in October.

This playbook is already used by finance teams at 100+ consumer brands, including Oats Overnight, Mad Rabbit, Graza, True Classic, and Curology!

Get the FREE 2027 Planning Playbook →

News of the Week

It’s time to talk about sex(ual wellness).

Over the past few years, the pharmacy has slowly but surely been overtaken by wellness culture. Aisle-by-aisle, we’re seeing emerging consumer brands bring prestige and a wellness lens to just about every traditionally unsexy category within the walls of a Walgreens.

It started with overhauling vitamins and supplements (in favor of gummies and powders), then it was about denoting a “cool” factor to acne care (see: Bubble, Starface, Good Molecules), yassifying Metamucil (BelliWelli, Bio.me), bringing modern branding and organic claims to feminine care (LOLA, Cora, August), and recently, swapping oral care’s bulky brushes for trendy devices (SURI) and functional toothpastes (Dayly, Boka).

Most of these categories, in their ultimate premiumized form, have expanded beyond the sterile, blindingly-lit aisles of CVS to wellness-focused, discovery-oriented retailers like Erewhon.

Yet somehow, new-age retailers have overlooked one critical aisle: sexual wellness. Though premium brands like Dame, Maude, Mila, and more have entered the category, K-Y Jelly, Trojan, and clunky vibrators still occupy those dusty pharmacy shelves—and wellness destinations steer clear of entire subcategories.

Retailers have been opting for “libido supplements” or massage oils that nod to sex as a concept, while avoiding the players that are in the room where it happens: vibrators.

• At one glorious point, things were different. In February 2022, Sephora introduced premium brands like Dame, Maude, and Smile Makers, bringing their vibrators, lubes, and more into stores and online. But since that groundbreaking launch, Sephora has slowly (and silently) pulled back.

• As of the end of last year, Sephora unceremoniously halted sales of all sex toys. Now, when you browse the “intimate wellness” category on Sephora’s website, you’ll find a shrunken line of massage oils, ingrown hair treatments, and “pH-balancing” washes—no toys or lubricants.

But where Sephora is shrinking its sexual wellness assortment, another beauty retailer is seeing it as an opportunity to go deeper: Ulta Beauty. This week, plusOne, the sexual wellness brand and market share leader of devices in the US, launched in Ulta Beauty’s Wellness section—proving that devices are part of wellness.

• The brand started in Walmart, and has since moved to drug stores. Though brick-and-mortar is its largest channel, over time, the brand has run up against some restrictions in its mass-market and drug channels: products are tucked behind glass cases or strapped with spider wrap.

• Kathryn Pratt, SVP of Marketing and Innovation at Beacon Wellness Brands (parent co of plusOne), told me that delivery services have also come into play in a big way, with consumers Instacarting and DoorDashing devices (either out of convenience or to avoid the social discomfort of shopping IRL).

Ulta and specialty retail makes products that much more accessible. “This is just as much about where we’re in-store, as how we’re in store,” Kathryn told me. At Ulta, she explained, shoppers can touch and feel the product, see the packaging in full, and—perhaps most critically—interact with highly educated store staff to break that social barrier and isolation that can come with shopping for sexual wellness products.

Just a few years ago, this same conversation would’ve looked vastly different. Kathryn attributes much of sexual wellness's come-up to the destigmatization of adjacent women's health categories—perimenopause and menopause chief among them. As those conversations went mainstream, they brought sexual wellness with them… just a few steps behind.

Over the last two years, hormone health and menopause care have been reframed by VCs, retailers, and media alike as essential—a wellness and longevity play, backed by health claims. Sexual wellness is on that same road, but hasn't yet earned the same language.

• Alexandra Fine, cofounder and CEO of Dame (a premium sexual wellness company once carried by Sephora), made this exact case in an op-ed published today (what timing!!): that the system has somehow decided that erectile dysfunction is medicine while women’s sexual pleasure is a lifestyle choice—and that double standard isn’t just a branding problem, it’s a health one.

• She spent two years suing the New York MTA after it rejected Dame's subway ads for their "sexual nature," all while Hims plastered the same trains with cheeky ads for ED pills…. and Dame won (bad-ass). The push just hasn't reached everywhere yet: ad platforms like Meta, insurers, and VCs still treat women's pleasure as optional in ways they don't for men. But Fine's own comparison is the hopeful one: menopause care spent decades buried under shame and a flawed cancer warning (HRT) and is finally climbing out. Sexual wellness is on a similar climb, a few years earlier in the timeline.

Which is why the plusOne launch matters more than a single retail deal usually would. When a mainstream beauty destination like Ulta puts this many sexual wellness products on its Wellness section shelves, it's validating the category, very publicly, in the place shoppers already trust for the rest of their routine.

“What Ulta brings to any category is that stamp of validation, which is a massive shift” - Kathryn Pratt, SVP of Marketing and Innovation at plusOne

And the demand side is only pushing harder. Kathryn, who talks to plusOne customers ranging from college students to postmenopausal women, sees the shift coming straight from the next generation. “I’m very optimistic about how younger generations are embracing and open about sexual wellness and aren’t carrying taboos,” she told me.

Thanks to retailers like Ulta, we're closer than we've ever been. We're just still not saying the quiet part out loud: women deserve orgasms!! And THAT—far more than random greens powders, unregulated injections, adaptogenic toothpaste, and god-forsaken colostrum soda—IS wellness!!

xoxo, Jenna

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Don’t worry, your ultra-filtered high-protein milk is safe. Coca-Cola says fairlife has resumed most production after a ransomware attack temporarily paused operations. Retail availability has apparently been unaffected thanks to existing inventory, product safety was not impacted, and the company does not expect any financial hit.

• Mycelium is eating the breakfast aisle. MyForest Foods has entered Wegmans with MyBacon, its plant-based bacon made from whole-cut organic oyster mushroom mycelium. The brand reports 74.8% growth and a 35.5% dollar share in the natural channel, even as the broader plant-based breakfast meat category contracts.

  • As we’ve talked about a lot over the past few years, the alternative meat market has not exactly been a runaway success story. Beyond has seen significant losses, repositionings, and pivots recently, and Impossible also hasn’t really borne the fruit of all that early hype. But that clearly does not mean plant-based meat is dead. There are still consumers who want these products.

  • It’s also worth noting that Beyond is moving in a similar direction with mycelium, launching a whole-cut steak filet at Wegmans and H-E-B.

• Two massive Target launches:

  • David Protein launched its high-protein frozen dessert pints (don’t say ice cream, or the internet gets mad at you) at Target nationwide, priced at $7.99. Each pint packs 30g protein and 210–260 calories across four flavors. The brand’s online debut of this product sold out in 28 minutes.

  • Cravings by Chrissy Teigen expanded into two aisles at Target, bringing its mochi pancake mixes into ~1,600 stores and cake kits into >1,200—building on an earlier launch and pushing the brand past 3,500 retail doors nationwide.

• Getting fizzy with it.

  • C4 launched C4 Sparkling Protein, a caffeine-free RTD beverage with 20 grams of protein, zero sugar, and five vitamins and minerals.

  • Premier Protein also launched a sparkling protein soda with 15g whey protein isolate, 90 calories, and 3g of sugar in four flavors.

  • While protein + sparkling might sound weird, the real ones know this is not the first brand to do it! * cracks knuckles * there’s Genius Gourmet, Lumen, Waay, Gym Soda, Clean Simple Eats, Bucked Up, Vital Proteins, Vuum, SkyPop, Proda, and even Barebells.

    

• You can’t escape the hydration train. Truvani, the clean-label wellness brand best known for organic protein powders, launched a powdered electrolyte mix with 585mg of electrolytes, zero sugar, and monk fruit sweetener in three flavors.

• Poppi founder’s next gig. Allison Ellsworth is officially teasing her next startup, which she claims will be the “next billion dollar brand.” They’re already hiring in ops, sales, marketing, HR, and more… which means they’re (likely) pretty far along already. The brand, according to the email address listed in the hiring callout, will be called The Vacancy Project. Any predictions?!

• The natural next step. Nello, makers of functional drink mixes, has officially entered the ready-to-drink category with the launch of Nello Energy, a clean, zero sugar, sparkling energy drink beverage. They’re launching with one flavor, Apple Rush, perfecting timing for fall.

  • Apple is gearing up to be the next pumpkin spice this fall 👀—especially in energy drinks. Gorgie launched a candy apple flavor; Bloom has had one since last season; Unwell Energy launched an Apple Cider Donut flavor; FLRT is launching Apple Bottoms Up; Gorilla Minda launched a candy apple; and Alani Nu is rereleasing its Witch’s Brew flavor (similar to candy apple) while also dropping a second apple flavor, Ruby Apple.

    

  • And that’s just energy drinks—apple is showing up across lots of other brands too. Poppi just launched sour apple; Samuel Adams is launching a Apple Spice Ale; and Noosa yogurt launched an apple pie flavor.

• Caffeine alone is no longer enough. Free Rein Coffee, founded by actor and entrepreneur Cole Hauser, launched a Protein Coffee Collection—K-Cup pods with 10g protein and RTD cold brew cans with 20g protein—alongside near-chainwide Walmart distribution for its core line.

  • This is just one of many recent protein coffees we’ve seen hit the market (though the K-Cup format is admittedly really innovative). There are many protein RTDs that have developed a coffee SKU (like Slate, Premier Protein, Nurri), but seeing brands make the opposite move—from coffee-only to coffee + protein—has been a more recent development.

• Smelling nostalgic. Gap is relaunching its 1990s fragrance line reimagined as a modern, premium scent collection. The launch includes five eau de parfums priced from $20 to $52

  • Gap is really betting on beauty as part of its comeback tour. The last two years have gone pretty well for them. Zac Posen made Gap a red-carpet thing, there was the KATSEYE denim campaign that was everywhere, and they keep dropping absolute heat in store.

  • And now, it’s pushing all that attention into beauty, which carries better margins and gets repurchased every few months instead of every few years. Gap Inc. announced the expansion back in September 2025 focused on Gap and Old Navy stores. It’s been a phased rollout with a 150-store pilot toward its full 1,200+ fleet. They’re launching their own internal brands alongside mass market brands like TonyMoly, Neutrogena, Skin Gym, Patchology, and Mario Badescu.

Retail

• 25 states are suing over Trump’s tariffs. If you’re affected by the 99.4% of US imports impacted by tariffs (how is this real…), you’ll want to check out this awesome (free to use!) tariff calculator by our favorite EDI provider, Endless Commerce*, to understand the impact to your bottom line and navigate the ever-changing situation!

  • Check it out and think of Endless Commerce next time you’re fed up with document fees, accepting an order with changes in SPS, or trying to make sense of next month’s inevitable tariff surprise.

• NYC is opening its own grocery stores. Mayor Mamdani unveiled that the 5 city-run grocery stores opening up over the next few years will provide a 30% discount on a core basket—all produce, meat, seafood and ~20 pantry categories.⁠

  • Hunts Point will be the first location in the Bronx opening by end of 2027, then La Marqueta in East Harlem. The Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island sites are still TBD.⁠

  • The discount applies to everyone regardless of income, and prices get locked in monthly rather than swinging week to week. The city projects it’ll cut the average grocery bill by 15%, or about $90 a month and ~$1,000 a year.⁠

  • The city has allocated ~$70 million in the capital budget to pull this off, and NYCEDC just issued an RFP for private operators to actually run the stores (responses due October 16). More information can be found here.

Funding

• Dairy proteins, no cows required. Israeli startup Plantopia raised $9M—led by Schreiber Foods and Siddhi Capital—to build a molecular farming facility that grows all four types of casein proteins in sprouted oats, targeting $15–20/kg parity with conventional casein.

  • We talked about molecular farming in our piece about the new alternative protein market that’s forming as a result of the whey protein shortage. While plant-based protein options saw a drop in demand, it’s looking like the supply-side of things is bringing real dollars and innovation back to the animal-free market.

• ...but real dairy is certainly still kicking: Whisps (the cheese crisp company)’s parent company, The Farmer Companies, raised a $17M Series A round to support manufacturing, retail expansion and potential M&A—bringing on former Dot’s Pretzels CEO Randy Johnson as chief executive, with founder Adam Farmer shifting to chairman.

• Beef tallow is still getting bucks. Vaca Chips raised $1.5M in a Bam Ventures-led round to scale its DTC beef tallow tortilla chip brand, positioning as a mainstream-friendly alternative to Masa.

  • While we do think beef tallow is actually a “healthy” ingredient (it’s very high in saturated fat and calories, and is certainly not “healthier” than seed oils), consumers do seem to enjoy the taste. As brands like Masa make their rounds in the spotlight at a casual $14+ at many luxury retailers, it’s a smart move to present a more mass-market option in familiar, fun flavors.

• The spirits industry’s biggest game of chicken. Sazerac has renewed its $15B all-cash bid for Brown-Forman (maker of Jack Daniel’s) at $32/share, disclosing projected combined 2026 revenues of $12B+ and a 30%+ EBITDA margin—but the Brown family, holding 50%+ voting control, has already called it “not actionable.”

  • If this merger were to take place, they’d be a behemoth of a bev company: second only to Diageo in revenue, per Forbes. But for now, it looks like that will remain Sazerac’s (public) pipedream.

• Queen B bought out the house. Beyoncé has acquired full ownership of SirDavis American Whisky from Moët Hennessy, LVMH’s spirits arm, which co-launched the $89 rye-barley blend with her in 2024. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Creators on the cap table. ESW Beauty—a women-owned, K-beauty-inspired skin care brand best known for affordable sheet masks and eye patches—announced TikTok stars Katie Fang and Aliya Rachinski as its first “creator equity partners,” marking the brand’s first outside investment in nearly seven years. ESW generated more than $11M in revenue in 2025 and is projecting more than $20M in 2026, with distribution in 19,000+ doors including Whole Foods, Target, Walgreens, and Urban Outfitters.

  • While we’ve seen a lot of creator-led and creator-run brands, we’re starting to see more creator-invested brands. Creators are basically the new celebrities, so it makes sense that they’re joining the cap tables of brands they already love, promote, or want to help build. There’s even a company called Bulletpitch hosting dinners in NYC that pair creators ready to invest with brands looking for capital and more cultural relevance.

• Consumer VC is still open for business. Align Ventures closed an oversubscribed $125M Fund II to back around 15 to 20 early-stage consumer brands with $2M–$10M checks. The firm is leaning into categories like beauty, personal care, health, wellness, pet, and home—areas where it already has some wins in with names like Hims (public), Billie (acquired by Edgewell), Touchland (acquired by Church & Dwight), Coterie (acquired by Mammoth Brands), Olipop, Starface, Jinx, and California Naturals.

• PE’s got its claws in body care. TSG Consumer has acquired a majority stake in Saltair, the masstige body care brand founded by Iskra Lawrence in 2022. TSG—which previously backed PHLUR (fragrance brand) and Summer Fridays (which also launched body care just last week)—plans to accelerate growth across e-commerce and retail.

• More money pouring into dermocosmetics. Epicutis raised $25 million in a Series C led by GroundForce Capital (Bobbie, Liquid Death) to scale its professional dermocosmetics channel. The Princeton bioscience-derived, patent-protected skincare brand has 4,100+ active accounts across medspas and dermatology practices nationwide on the back of ~100% CAGR over two years.

  • The science-backed skincare wave is only growing. It feels like every week, we see more investments geared towards science-backed brands (see recent raises by REMEDY, Good Molecules, OneSkin). Epicutis in particular emphasizes “biotechnology,” with its core ingredients being TSC (tetramethylhexadecenyl succinoyl cysteine, its patented molecule) and DSD (disodium S-phytyl diglycoloylcysteine).

  • For years, chemophobia loomed large in beauty, and these ingredients could’ve been seen as a major deterrent for consumers. Today, consumers seem to be seeking efficacy above all else—a stark contrast to behavior seen in food and beverage that emphasizes minimal-and-”clean.”

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

Right around this time last year, we both went all-in on Express Checkout. It was a crazy leap of faith—a pivotal moment in our trajectory that many readers and fellow founders here will resonate with. And turns out, when you dedicate yourself to something, it pays off. One year later, and we’ve grown… a lot.

We’re about to hit 12,000 subscribers on Substack, we just passed 62.2K on Instagram, and we’ve been ramping up our events, including kicking off our new private dinner offering and quarterly event series, In Season, celebrating the biggest trends in CPG each season (next one is October 6th—save the date)!

Along the way, we’ve worked with some pretty incredible partners who have made this whole thing possible. And as we ramp up our offerings, we’ll be bringing even more qualified partners into the mix… to get results like these:

If you’re looking to get in front of our amazing audience of emerging-to-BigCo CPG and consumer professionals, investors, and retailers, we’d love to hear from you. Fill out this quick form, and you’ll hear from us very soon :)

Partner with Express Checkout!

Nate’s Pickup:

ZestyZ Fiber Pita Chips

Disclaimer: I’m an advisor to this brand. But everything I’m about to say is exactly why I decided to advise them. The products are absolutely incredible, and the co-founder and CEO, Alexander Harik, is one of the best operators I’ve seen.

If you’re a longtime reader you know I love me some candy. But, the other thing I constantly crave is a salty snack! So think a pretzel, and of course, a cracker. I really sound like Alicia Carmody from RHORI here 😂

When I first met Alexander he was selling za’atar—in olive oil and in a shaker bottle—and I will forever miss those products! Then, a few years back, he told me had an idea to pivot to something still relevant to the brand, but something completely different. Pita chips!! And these are of the best damn pita chips on the market. The big thing with these chips were they had low net carbs and were high in fiber. He was one of the first founders to make a bet on fiber before I saw the industry really leaning into it. So let’s get crunching!

• Quick Facts: High-fiber, lower-carb pita chips rooted in authentic Mediterranean family recipes. Made by a mom-and-son founding team, these twice-baked freshly made pita chips pack 5g of fiber and 3g of protein per serving into just 100 calories. Currently sold in two flavors: plain and garlic parmesan (more coming soon!)

• Reasons to love:

  • The loudest crunch. This thing has such a solid crunch on it, it’s wild. Not so thin that it shatters, not so thick that you fear for your teeth, if that makes sense. I mean you can hear it when you crunch down. I bet that because it’s twice baked from freshly made pita it just lends itself to something super crunchy. It’s simply so satisfying to bite into and really helps scratches that itch you have when you want a fun salty and crunchy snack.

  • Holds up to everything. The same thing that gives it that glorious crunch is what lets it stand up to any dip i’ve thrown at it. I’ve been on a Cotto cottage cheese dip kick lately, buffalo of course, but it pairs just as well with hummus, baba ganoush, and everything in between. I’m also a huge fan of the rectangular shape. That shape makes it just so much easier to get all that glorious dip onto the vessel. It’s great plain too, don’t get me wrong. I love them plain. But what is a cracker if not a vessel for dip????

  • Great nutritionals. While this isn’t a big concern for me personally, but these fit so well for the current GLP-1 and health conscious consumer! They’re high fiber and lower net carbs, exactly what those types shoppers need and want from a snack right now. It’s why they recently landed on WeightWatchers at 2 Points a serving. Which is amazing if you ever have been in the WW ecosystem. And what I love most about this brand is that while it has great macros it’s built for the mass market. Reminds me a lot of Jesse & Ben’s, where it meets a specific health need, still feels open to everyone. Doesn’t feel like it’s push an agenda down your throats.

Where to buy: Online, Amazon, WeightWatchers, and select retailers

Jenna’s Pickups:

NOYZ Fragrance Mylk de Parfum - Unmute

We’ve seen a ton of innovation in the fragrance world lately… but rarely do I see something come in an entirely new form. I recently discovered NOYZ, a modern premium fragrance brand, and fell in love with its complex scents and gorgeous, innovative packaging and skin-first formulas. I first tried its solid fragrance, which comes in a refillable lipstick format with a very satisfying magnetic lid. Then, I learned about its Mylk de Parfum, and became a true brand fan.

• Quick Facts: NOYZ is a next-generation fine fragrance house by Shaun Neff, a serial entrepreneur and the brand force behind Moon, Pattern, BÉIS, Sun Bum and now the new better-for-you cereal, Backflip (what can’t he do?!). NOYZ’s Mylk de Parfum is similar to a lotion, but with eau de parfum strength (15x the scent power of body lotion).

• Reasons to love:

  • A truly unique scent experience. NOYZ is known for its “unpredictable pairings that evoke luxury, with an edge,” and this scent does just that for me. Unmute is their take on a vanilla scent—and I’m usually not a huge gourmand person. But this vanilla is special: it has notes of black plum and pistachio for added depth of sweetness, while offering that “edge” with crisp amber and cashmere woods. It’s sophisticated—which isn’t a word I typically use for a vanilla scent—a little woodsy, not overly sweet, and I actually can’t get enough of it.

  • This format is brilliant. It’s a pour-on “liquid silk” (more easily understood as the texture of a milky serum) infused with hyaluronic acid to leave skin hydrated and nourished. It leaves a visible sheen that isn’t sparkly, glimmery, or overdone. I’ve loved using it on my neck, shoulders, and clavicle for a subtle highlight and scent. Because this absorbs into your skin, I find that it lasts quite long. And if you’re someone who likes to layer your fragrances (which, I hear, is increasingly popular these days as Gen Z builds out “fragrance wardrobes”), this makes for the perfect base layer that other scents can effortlessly cling to.

Where to buy: NOYZ’s site!

Check out our most recent episode of The Curious Consumer, when we dive into coconut water’s surprising resurgence—why a 2010 darling is suddenly back in the spotlight and what brands are doing to capitalize on it. Then, we dig into how the PB&J wars are heating up, a new squeezy peanut butter, Smash Foods’ fresh $18M raise, and the truth about Gen Z drinking habits. Let’s get into it!

Thanks for reading! Anything you think we should try for an upcoming edition of Express Checkout? Email us at hello@expresscheckout.co

Then, we dig into how the PB&J wars are heating up, a new squeezy peanut butter, Smash Foods’ fresh $18M raise, and the truth about Gen Z drinking habits. Let's get into it!

The Breakdown

00:00 Intro

02:12 Why coconut water is the hottest bev right now

14:29 The PB&J wars heat up

22:14 Squeezy PB launches in US

24:42 $18M for jam

28:11 Gen Z is indeed drinking again

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to The Curious Consumer 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.

🗣️ Let’s connect! Follow us for behind-the-scenes content, quick tips, and more: @expresscheckout

💬 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 :)

Leave a comment

⭐ 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!

Excited to share not one, but TWO fantastic upcoming events for our NYC CPG friends, from our partners at Wayflyer, the go-to growth capital provider for the fastest-growing businesses:

• This Wednesday (7/29) from 6-9PM, Wayflyer is hosting From Cart to Shelf—where you can discover your next favorite CPG brands all in one place! This night brings together 20 rising names for hands-on product discoveries, tastings, candid founder chats, and genuine connections over drinks and a live DJ. Expect a room full of energy, insight, and good company, with founders, investors, and operators mingling alongside brands like Sourmilk, Baris, Motif, Pandy, and more. RSVP here!

  • I’ll be there!! - Nate

• And on August 26th and 27th, Wayflyer is bringing its iconic Visionaries Summit (which was held in London earlier this year) across the Atlantic. They’ve brought together the best minds of innovative brands across New York for this FREE event. Hear from brands such as Jones, Stakt, Buttergirl, Ghia, Bobbie, Random Golf, Bub’s Bakery and more! Sign up to get your ticket at launch here.

Both events will be stacked with some of the coolest founders and operators in NYC. Couldn’t have put together better rooms ourselves ;)

Now, let’s get into the news of the week →

News of the Week

If we’ve learned anything in 2026, it’s that the 2010s are hot again. Frozen yogurt is all the rage, we’re gushing over flavored rice cakes like they’re a real treat and not a diet snack, and coconut water has re-entered the zeitgeist as if it’s sauntering in for the very first time.

This week, Vita Coco—the public brand that controls more than half of the US coconut water market—acquired Copra, a super-premium cold-chain coconut water brand, for up to $275M ($175M upfront plus a $45–$100M earnout in 2029). The brand currently has a goal of reaching $1 billion in sales within the next five years, and it’s looking increasingly possible with this acquisition.

One brand, staring down $1 billion in a category that we could’ve sworn would disappear in 2016? How the heck did we get here?

Let’s back up to 2004, where it all began. After meeting two Brazilian women in a NYC bar who said they missed coconut water, Michael Kirban and Ira Liran founded Vita Coco to bring packaged coconut water to the US. (Very convincing women, or very desperate potential founders?)

• Side note: this was also the same year that Zico, the other breakout coconut water, was founded. It ultimately saw a very different trajectory… a fascinating story for another time.

After chugging along for 5 years, Vita Coco got its time in the sun when Madonna invested in the brand in January 2010 and brought in a slew of other celeb names. That halo had serious leverage, powered by a distribution deal with Keurig Dr Pepper that year. It was the perfect bev for the time: consumers were starting to move away from sugary carbonated drinks and sought beverages they perceived as more “natural.”

The growth curve was explosive, which created a crazy feedback loop. Vita Coco went from $20 million in sales in 2009 to $40 million in 2010 to an expected $100 million in 2011—hockey-stick growth that pulled in competitors, retail buyers, and more celebrity money simultaneously.

… and then, it all came crashing down. In 2012, Vita Coco was sued for false advertising for exaggerated health claims. It settled for $10 million, plus a commitment to regularly test nutritional content.

• At the same time, multiple other coconut water brands were sued for similar reasons, and the FDA issued warnings in response to the volume of complaints and lawsuits over misleading health claims industry-wide.

• By 2016–2017, the category was already being described as “maturing and consolidating.” Zico had been bought by Coca-Cola a few years prior in 2013, and then Coco Libre got acquired by New Age Beverages, leaving Vita Coco as basically the only large private player standing as smaller entrants got squeezed out or bought up.

During coconut water’s lull, Vita Coco continued pushing ahead through:

• Private label, starting in 2016. Vita Coco shifted strategic focus in 2016 to also serve private label demand for major retailers, most notably Costco. Private label eventually became roughly 24% of its business.

• Expanding beyond coconut water: In 2018, it acquired Runa, a guayusa-based plant energy drink (that was, in retrospect, too early for the natural energy drink trend), and Ever & Ever, a canned water business. Though neither brand stuck around, these hedges helped protect against the declining coconut water category.

• Staying independent gave them room to try, fail, and refocus on the core brand without a parent company pulling the plug (the opposite of what happened to Zico inside Coca-Cola, which is now private yet again trying to gain lost ground).

• And by 2021, the company IPO’d at a fully diluted market value of roughly $1.1 billion, with Vita Coco holding a 46% US coconut water share, a 36-point advantage over its next closest competitor. The proceeds from the raise funded the launch of PWR LIFT, a protein-infused post-workout water.

  

Fast forward to 2026, and we’re in a very different place than the OG 2011 coconut water boom. Back then, it was celebrity investment, newness, and a vague health halo creating aspirational buzz. This time, it’s:

• The “loaded water” trend on TikTok. Loaded water (water customized with electrolyte powders, fruit, coconut water, caffeine mixes, or supplements) has gone viral on TikTok, with creators assembling elaborate, visually stacked concoctions. Coconut water here is a base component people reach for, a default hydration ingredient rather than a standalone category.

• Coconut water is coming for sports. Back in January, Vita Coco announced it was returning to its fitness roots because coconut water was taking share from Coca-Cola’s BodyArmor and PepsiCo’s Gatorade. Kirban said sports drink customers had been driving a third of the brand’s growth, and that the pace had accelerated. The consumer education push now leads with: “coconut water has 3.5 times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink.”

• Minimal consumer education required. Unlike other functional beverages, coconut water’s whole pitch is that it’s…. just coconut water. While hydration beverages with added ingredients require some speculation on dosing and claims, coconut water, as a single-ingredient bev with previously established health benefits, is immune to the functionwashing that many new beverages see.

• New households, not just new shelves. Vita Coco says roughly two-thirds of its US branded growth is coming from increased household penetration and a third from velocity per household, with category penetration at about 25% (which also means that 75% of households can still contribute to incremental growth).

• And the category’s got some fresh faces. There’s been a surge of cool and buzzy new brands bringing life back into this dusty category. 100 Coconuts is running Costco road shows and Kroger end-caps this summer off its strongest year yet; Tom Brady launched Good Nut (yes, Good Nut… see our thoughts here) with Gopuff in three flavors; Coaqua is doing flavored cans; Strange Water is selling still and sparkling in mini cans and is behind some of the trendiest cafes’ matcha coconut water concoctions. Rather than competing on health claims, these entrants are often competing on format and occasion—cans, carbonation, even chocolate—all indicating new addressable moments rather than fragmenting its shelf.

Meanwhile, Vita Coco’s shares are up 43.2% year-to-date and 98.6% over the trailing 12-month period. Which brings us back to Copra: Copra, which uses Thai Nam Hom coconuts and avoids high-heat pasteurization, posted $100M+ in 2026 sales and a 48% 3-year CAGR. Now, Vita Coco can participate in the emerging + premium market with these new players, without sacrificing its OG mass-market brand.

The coconut water boom of 2010 didn’t die because of demand; it died because of over-claims. Now, in an industry run by better-for-you brands fraught with claims and added ingredients, coconut water is refreshingly transparent and simple. Cheers. 🥥

CPG & Consumer Goods

• The PB&J Wars are truly in full swing. Just two weeks ago, we were talking about how Welch’s just entered the ready-to-eat, crustless PB&J space. Now, here we are again, experiencing some deja vu and also a sudden hankering for a paper-bagged lunch, and reporting about even more PB&J innovation:

  • Lunchly, the brand from MrBeast and Logan Paul, has launched Lil Sammies. These are, you guessed it, crustless peanut butter sandwiches with 13g of protein per pack, now rolling out to retailers. Lunchly also launched an innovative Cookies & Cream flavor, with no PB or J—almost closer to an ice cream sando.

    

  • Sola, makers of high protein bagels and bread, launched Sola Bites, peanut butter-filled bagel bites exclusively at Walmart in two flavors, Grape and Strawberry. Each serving packs 11g protein, 17g fiber, and 4g net carbs. At least they decided to go for balls rather than sandwiches.

    • Smucker’s (Uncrustables) owns roughly $1B in category sales and has been litigious in defending the format—which killed Chubby Snacks and threatened Trader Joe’s. Now, there are so many competitors that either Smucker’s lawyers will be pulling all-nighters, or the brand will decide to thoughtfully compete rather than litigate.

• Speaking of peanut butter… Drizzy, an Australian brand backed by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, RiverPark Ventures, and Nucleus Network, has officially launched in the U.S. with a two-ingredient squeeze-bottle peanut butter—because you know people love a squeezy bottle!! It’s made with American peanuts and peanut oil, with no added sugar or palm oil.

  

• The ultra-filtered milk boom continues. Nurri, the canned protein milk brand, just launched multiserve ultra-filtered, lactose-free protein milk with 20g protein nationwide at Walmart.

  • Ultra-filtered milk is just 7% of total milk dollars but growing dollar sales 14.8% and unit sales 5.5% over the last year, and Fairlife alone accounts for 96% of that category’s dollars. Nurri is the third major multiserve entrant this year, after Organic Valley’s Protein Plus in March and Muscle Milk’s ultra-filtered reformulation in May

• Pastel is protected. Van Leeuwen won a $23.8 million federal trademark ruling against better-for-you ice cream brand Rebel Creamery after a judge found the brand deliberately mimicked its monochrome pastel pints and black cursive script. Rebel has been ordered to redesign its packaging from scratch.

  

  • It’s hard to look at this and not see it as a deliberate attempt to communicate that Rebel is “just like Van Leeuwen, only better-for-you.” And this should be a wake-up call for all BFY founders: the “better-for-you version of X” isn’t enough of a moat. It’s—frankly—a lazy way to feign brand affinity, and falls apart as hastily as it was put together.

• For a cleaner bath time. California Naturals, a brand known for accessible naturally derived hair and body care, has launched a new kids’ collection. The line features gentle and dermatologist-tested formulas designed specifically for kids.

  

  • Will this be as iconic as L’Oreal Kids was for us? We’re not sure if anything can really beat those products, but these are some damn cute bottles. The pump, the colors, it all just screams products for kids yet with an elevated status—perfect for the trendy millennial parents buying it. This launch fits into this new set of skincare and body care for kids that we’ve been talking about for months now. Parents are looking for everything they get in products marketed towards them, but designed and built for their offspring. They want the same ingredient transparency, cuter branding, and “clean” yet effective formulations.

• Back at it again. Curie unveiled a sweeping gender-neutral rebrand built around “clean performance.” The seven-year-old, eight-figure body care brand refreshed pretty much everything but the name. They redid packaging, logo, messaging, and its DTC site. The goal is to showcase its evolution beyond being just a deodorant brand and lean into active lifestyles more broadly, with natural products formulated for active consumers.

  

  • The overhaul was reportedly driven by shelf data from the 4,300 Walmart stores Curie has been in since 2023, with founder and CEO Sarah Moret bringing in iconic branding agency Gander—the Brooklyn studio behind Graza, Magic Spoon, Banza, Yellowbird, and Pop Up Grocer. Gander knows how to take a brand and make it both feel new and fun, but also accessible to a wide audience of consumers.

  • Curie has really been around the block. Moret, a CPA turned VC investor, started it back in 2018. Within their first year they did $125K and grew that to $700K by 2020. And then they went on Shark Tank in 2022. Post-air, Curie did $250K in three days (double its entire first year) and rode that to ~$10M in revenue, per the company. This success and Shark Tank episode got them into Walmart stores by 2023.

  • This is a great example of a brand built for a different era that was willing to change and evolve. The product Curie created had a strong angle, branding, and story for 2018‑early 2020s. Today, consumers want a brand that feels natural yet more aligns with their active, fitness‑focused lifestyle. Curie’s new branding and brand identity maintains the same clean ingredient standards that many consumers still want while appearing more effective to consumers than the previous branding. It’s less crunchy, and will probably reach an even broader audience than before.

• Is this the future of licensing? Kraft Heinz just struck a multiyear deal with the Walt Disney Company, including becoming the exclusive provider of select condiments, mac & cheese, and cream cheese across Disney’s North American parks, resorts, and cruises; access to Disney characters and stories for 10 Kraft Heinz brands; and Kraft Heinz funding co-created content with Disney’s studios and streaming platforms.

  • Earlier this year, Kraft Heinz partnered with the NFL on a similar, five-year deal: the league’s first-ever global condiment partner across stadium visbility, co-branded marketing, and even international games.

  • The BigCo is trying to regain relevancy through experiential and foodservice. As buzzier brands enter the condiment scene, and sales continue to decline (organic net sales decrease 3.4% for the full year in 2025 and has projected declines between 1.5% and 3.5% for 2026), the company is lifting marketing investment to roughly 5.5% of net sales, up from 4.9% in 2025, as part of a broader push back to profitability.

• The pretzel king goes private. 105-year-old Utz Brands has been sold in a $2.9 billion go-private deal to Germany-based Intersnack, exiting public markets after debuting on the NYSE via SPAC six years ago. The snack maker owns Utz, Zapp’s, On the Border, and Boulder Canyon.

• More protein RTDs. RYSE has launched a bottled RTD protein shake line, leveraging its supplements/powder credentials as it scales beyond energy into broader functional beverage. The 12 oz shakes feature 30g of milk protein blend and are rolling out at GNC, The Vitamin Shoppe, and Walmart, with a goal of reaching ~10,000 doors by year-end.

  • It’s only going to get increasingly more challenging to stand out in the crowded RTD protein space. The 30g callout is no longer all that impressive (just look at fairlife’s 42g Core Power line…), so RYSE will need to compete on something other than macros. It looks like it’s going to borrow from Ghost’s playbook: co-branding (and therefore leveraging the credibility of household names) on flavor collaborations like Fudgsicle®.

• Gen Z actually is drinking. IWSR’s Bevtrac survey found that Gen Z drinking rates have stabilized at 74% (up from 66% three years ago)—nearly matching the total adult rate of 76%—while Boomers actually hit a generational low of 71%, with the fewest occasions and smallest drinks per sitting (2.6 per occasion).

  • I’m (Nate) drinking right now as I write this! Having a brewski at Craft+Carry. I think a big issue in reporting on Gen Z drinking habits is that Gen Z was (1) younger and (2) more likely to underreport. Anecdotally though, I’ve never felt that our generation was drinking any less—though that may be because I live in NYC, where bars are constantly full and people are always out and about. - Nate

  • The industry loooved citing that Gen Z wasn’t drinking anymore—a result, we all presumed, of sweeping health and longevity culture (and perhaps something about less IRL socializing generally). Non-alc boomed, and we cited that, too, as an indication that the youngest consumers didn’t want the hard stuff. In reality, I think—like any generation—there are pockets of drinkers, occasional drinkers, and non-drinkers. The difference was that non-alc innovation finally enabled occasional-to-non-drinkers to make better swaps. Now, thoughtful, Gen-Z-minded innovation in alcohol is similarly bringing those occasional drinkers back to the category. Less a story about the generation, more a story about the industry. - Jenna

• Prestige taste, Old Navy prices. Glampton, an accessories and self-care brand, is launching in 45 of Old Navy’s highest-volume stores this month, landing in the retailer’s new “Beauty Must Haves” set alongside Garnier, Neutrogena, Aveeno, Mario Badescu and Skin Gym.

  • The brand was founded in 2024 by beauty vet Lori Waiser (Bobbi Brown, Chanel, Barneys). They sell trend-driven basics at mass market prices: $10 disposable washcloths (its most viral item), $19.99 satin sleep sets, $14.99 shimmer mists, and $5–$10 lip treatments. It hit $1M in first-year sales and is reportadly growing 40% year over year.

  • Gap has much bigger plans here. It has flagged beauty as a new business category back in September 2025. They piloted it in 150 Old Navy doors and plan to be in all 1,200+ by the end of this year. The mix is in-house (Old Navy Beauty Co., $7.99–$16.99 hair and body) plus 40+ third-party brands like Glampton, e.l.f., Neutrogena, Garnier, Nivea, Aveeno, Mario Badescu, Patchology, Skin Gym, Mixik Skin, and K-beauty label TonyMoly. CEO Richard Dickson says beauty can be 5% to 20% of sales for fashion retailers that carry it, and Gap’s ‘90s beauty line reportedly did $200M–$300M, about 6% of revenue, in 1996.

• Body-ody-ody-ody. Summer Fridays, the influencer-founded skincare brand, is launching into body care with a Body Fragrance Mist and Body Butter Balm.

  • Body care is one of the fastest-growing segments in U.S. prestige skincare, up 9% in dollar sales to $1.5B in 2025, and the brands winning are the ones dragging facial-care ingredients south of the neck. Brands that traditionally lived in hair, face, or lips are all broadening into body:

  • Amika, a haircare brand, just added a bodycare line. Bobbi Brown’s Jones Road, a makeup brand, rolled out a five-piece Body Collection. Tower 28 took its sensitive-skin SOS formula into a body wash. And Junoco, who we covered last week, debuted 14 products at Ulta on the back of its year-to-date body care sales up 115% from the same period last year.

  • Then there’s the investment and acquisition side of things: Humble Growth wrote a big check into Salt & Stone just two years before the brand got acquired by Advent International this year. Iota, the microbiome bodycare brand, took its first outside capital in March from Sidekick Partners, Touch Capital, Era VC, Palette Ventures, and Blueprint Capital to fund its Ulta and Nordstrom rollout, after self-funding to an estimated $8–10M in revenue. And L’Oréal’s BOLD fund put money into Hanni, months after backing Uni, which is now in all 1,600+ Ulta doors. Even the brand-new entrants are getting funded before they have scale, like Dewsy from ex-Kenvue and Church & Dwight execs, which oversubscribed its $4M seed.

Retail

• So cute that Trump just dropped another 2.5% tariff overnight this week. 🙃 Our favorite EDI provider, Endless Commerce*, makes an awesome (free to use!) tariff calculator for brands trying to understand the impact to their bottom line and navigate the ever-changing situation!

  • Check it out and think of Endless Commerce next time you’re fed up with document fees, accepting an order with changes in SPS, or trying to make sense of next month’s inevitable tariff surprise.

• It’s 30 min or BUST. This has really become the new standard, huh? Hy-Vee launched chainwide rapid fulfillment, so delivery or pickup in as fast as 30 minutes or less.

  • And we all know who set this new standard….why it was Amazon, of course. Amazon started testing 30-minute grocery delivery in Seattle and Philadelphia last December, after dropping perishables into Same-Day Delivery and pushing the service to over 2,300 cities. Walmart is doing this as well (20% of its delivery orders now land in under 30 minutes), Target’s testing overnight, and now a beloved Midwest chain is following suit. And this isn’t even including all the companies testing drone delivers all over the country getting to you in potentially even less time!

Funding

• PE coming for your water. Nestlé has agreed to sell a 50% stake in its water business to Platinum Equity for $3.4 billion, forming a joint venture called Peranel to house Perrier, S.Pellegrino, and Acqua Panna. The deal values the combined unit at $5.6 billion and is expected to close in early 2027.

  • Perrier has been under a French regulatory investigation over undisclosed water treatment methods for two years now, a scandal that's cost Nestlé fines, plant shutdowns, and reputational damage in its home market. Structuring this as a 50/50 JV rather than a clean sale lets Nestlé bank roughly $3.4 billion in cash while keeping half the upside, but it also lets Platinum Equity absorb operational and regulatory risk that Nestlé no longer wants sitting entirely on its own balance sheet.

  • This fits Nestlé's broader retreat to core categories. CEO Philipp Navratil has spent the past year narrowing Nestlé's portfolio toward a handful of priority categories, and premium bottled water, capital-intensive, logistically brutal, and now a legal nightmare in France, doesn't fit that.

• And back on that PB&J train… Smash Foods, makers of better-for-you chia seed jam and snacks (like its Jammy Protein Bites), raised an $18M Series B led by L Catterton, with The Family Fund and Eclair Ventures following on, to scale up production on the Bites line and roll out newer products over the next few years. The brand says it tripled its business over the past year, is profitable, and has doubled its store count since its Series A to over 10,000 doors. They’re in Costco, Target, and Whole Foods nationwide as well as in about half of Walmarts.

  • This is yet another signal that better-for-you pantry staples are still attracting growth capital as brands prove velocity and win broader mass retail placements. But one of the major reasons Smash secured $18M is because it isn’t just a single-aisle brand—it’s a platform brand. The Jammy Bites brought the brand to different aisles, and offered consumers a way to trial the jam in a fun, impulse-purchase format without committing to a jar.

• Meet PB’s new rival: pistachio. Peppertux raised $2.35M in a bridge round led by Santatera Capital, with Lever VC participating, to expand its pistachio-based spreads and snacks into thousands of conventional grocery stores. The pistachio-only brand runs a full lineup—butter, dessert-ready cream, a pourable drizzle, and even pistachio coffee—and already sits on shelves at Costco, Target, Whole Foods, and Wegmans, where it bills itself as America’s #1-selling pistachio spread (their claim).

  • Pistachio’s peak was definitely surrounding the Dubai chocolate craze, which took off on TikTok in 2024. By 2025, it felt like every single brand had a pistachio SKU, even pistachio fragrance searches spiked 852% YoY.

  • And while the moment has definitely cooled, especially as search interest for Dubai chocolate is down, that doesn’t mean pistachio spread and pistachio-based products have no place. The move is a bet that pistachio can graduate from just a viral flavor to a more permanent pantry staple. Peppertux literally markets its unsweetened spread as a “rich man’s peanut butter,” and this raise is the wager that enough peanut butter and Nutella shoppers will trade up to make pistachio a real fixture in the nut-butter-aisle rather than a hangover from a viral trend.

  • Of course, they’re not alone in trying to make this the next PB: Brands like Pistakio, Stesh, and even private label spreads from Whole Foods and Walmart’s Bettergoods. Outside of private label, we predict there can only be one or two winners here.

• Cans that sell one every four seconds. Moth, a London-based canned-cocktail brand, raised £11m (US$14.78m) from Puma Growth Partners, Beringea, Guinness Ventures, and Rianta Capital to expand UK convenience retail and push into the US, after posting £20.9m in 2025 revenue—up 67% year on year. The brand sits in more than 40,000 UK locations, with convenience accounting for 54% of sales by value.

  • Moth competes in the “real cocktail in a can” lane with Cutwater, Tip Top, and On The Rocks, the spirit-forward segment that climbed from roughly 8% of the RTD market in 2021 to nearly 18% in 2025. Its edge is the proven convenience velocity most US entrants launch without (thanks to our lovely three-tier system…).

• Tons of money for another functional brand, eh? Canadian “wellness platform” (AKA superfood and supplement brand) Organic Traditions has raised $10.5M to fund its U.S. expansion. The family-owned brand is under its second generation of leadership, now one of Canada’s fastest-growing wellness brands. Its product portfolio includes daily greens, mushroom coffees, functional lattes, and a fiber line, Fiber Flow.

  • Expansions like this one feel like a no-brainer when the brand is offering something that simply doesn’t exist in the US. But not only do these kinds of products exist within the US, but they are some of the most capital-drenched categories in US wellness. The daily greens category saw Bloom, AG1, IM8, and more. Mushroom coffee is already a billion-dollar US category led by Ryze, Everyday Dose, and Mud\Wtr. Fiber may have a little more wiggle room as a more emerging category, but brands like Belliwelli, Supergut, bio.me have already captured customer attention as “the modern Metamucil” subcategory. That being said, Organic Traditions has been incredibly successful in Canada for decades, and it’ll be interesting to see where (and how) it wedges itself into the existing US superfood/supplement market.

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

You need one number: Your true margin on the Whole Foods PO after trade spend, why velocity dipped at Sprouts last week, whether that new SKU's slotting fee is even worth it… should be a simple question. But getting it means pinging the analyst, waiting on a Looker refresh, or rebuilding a report from scratch. By the time the answer lands, the buyer's already off the phone.

Drivepoint built an MCP server that skips the whole production. Plug your commerce data into Claude and just ask it things, no report request or analyst you have to chase down. It answers straight from a data layer built by actual finance people, so it’s not guessing at your numbers to sound smart.

You can test the whole thing for FREE on a sample brand before it ever touches your real data. No setup, sales call, or credit card required!

Get board-ready answers in seconds

Nate’s Pickup:

Mimi Cheng’s Frozen Dumplings

If you had to ask me the most exciting space in CPG right now it would be frozen. Hands down. There is so much innovation, new products, and exciting brands being built in this wildly difficult space. As I wrote literally a year ago in my article for The Quality Edit, the next wave of frozen food is here, and it’s actually good. Really good. Everything from fries, to scallion pancakes, to grapes (of course I’m talking about Fruit Riot here), to banana pudding, to high protein pizzas, and of course to dumplings. There are a ton of excellent dumpling brands out there, like a lot of really really good ones. But, today, I want to talk about a recent love of mine.

• Quick Facts: Restaurant-quality frozen dumplings from the cult NYC shop sisters Marian and Hannah Cheng opened in the East Village back in 2014, built on their mom Mimi’s Taiwanese family recipes. Made from scratch with no preservatives or artificial ingredients, and ready in 7–10 minutes whether you steam, boil, pan-fry, or air fry.

• Reasons to love:

  • Giving restaurant-to-retail a good name. Add this to the ever-growing list of amazing restaurants that have decided to go into the CPG world and have also decided to absolutely NAIL IT. These taste like I was handed a freshly made batch of dumplings at their shop in the Lower East side. I can comfortably say this is truly restaurant quality products you happen to be able to find in the freezer section of your local Whole Foods!

  • Heats well. This is the most exciting thing about the new wave of frozen. These warm up so well no matter how you do it (though pan searing is the best, IMO). I have (unfortunately) microwaved these a few times, because I always find myself working all day without eating anything real and then end up absolutely starving by 9pm. The last thing I want is to spend more than 5 minutes on my meal. All I want is to sit down and watch my shows!! What’s wild is that these microwave shockingly well. Usually when you microwave a frozen meal (any frozen meal) it gets soggy. It’s so depressing. But not these bad boys. Microwaved, they eat more or less like you’d steamed them. Of course a bamboo steamer does work much better, for the record, but damn I was impressed.

  • Stuffed to the brim. One of my biggest criticisms of a lot of frozen foods, and especially dumplings, is that they’re never stuffed enough. I WANT MY FILLING. The dumpling part is great and all, but it’s a vehicle…a vehicle for filling!! Gimme my Chili Crisp Honey Chicken, my Korean-Glazed Beef, my Chicken and Bok Choy. These are filled perfectly to the brim, and they still don’t pop open when you microwave them or heat them any other way. That’s definitely a testament to the dumpling itself. These are well made and well constructed. But that filling, that filling is perfect. Perfect amount and perfect flavor.

Where to buy: In the freezer aisle at select Whole Foods nationwide, on Goldbelly, or find a spot near you on their retail locator.

Jenna’s Pickups:

Brami Protein Pasta - Radiatori

The other day, I found myself in a conversation about my favorite protein products (naturally). I was chatting with a 2026 bride who’s working with a personal trainer to prep for her wedding, and has been trying to increase her protein intake accordingly. She wasn’t particularly impressed with any of her current protein stack, and was seeking new ways to sneak in #gains without defaulting to another bar. Brami was my very first recommendation, without hesitation.

Brami is, by far, the best protein pasta I’ve ever tried. It’s my go-to meal when I want something hearty and delicious but low-effort—the first legitimate reason to eat buttered noodles for dinner and safely call it a complete meal.

• Quick Facts: Two-ingredient, protein- and fiber-rich premium pasta made in Italy.

• Reasons to love:

  • Not like the other protein pastas. “Protein pasta” has a reputation that precedes it (too starchy, weirdly chewy, often accompanied by a funky aftertaste). But Brami defies all preconceptions. This doesn’t just taste like “normal” pasta; it tastes like really exceptional “normal” pasta. Unlike the other protein pastas, Brami doesn’t have any added protein or pea protein (which often contribute to the weird texture and taste). Every detail was considered in the making of this premium pasta, down to the bronze-cut texture that helps sauce cling to it effortlessly.

  • Just two ingredients for a nutritional powerhouse. Brami is made with only two authentically Italian ingredients: semolina durum wheat and lupini beans. Semolina durum wheat is the gold standard for pasta—it has a unique texture that prevents pasta from getting too mushy, and holds its shape well. Lupini beans offer the nutritional accolades: these underrated beans offer more plant-based protein and fiber than any other legumes! Paired together, you get a premium-tasting pasta that packs in 21g protein and 9g fiber per 200-calorie serving. With macros like these, you could easily swap your sad protein bar with pasta as a mid-day snack—and who doesn’t want pasta as a mid-day snack?

  • The shape! Small but critical note: I have never seen another protein pasta attempt the Radiatori shape, which, to me, is the superior pasta shape. These little pasta coils (that, yes, actually do look like radiators) offer the most satisfying bite. They hold sauce perfectly, have a little bouncy chew, and just feel fun on the plate.

    • (Nate here, he agrees, best shape)

Where to buy: Online or in a store near you!

Check out our most recent episode of The Curious Consumer, featuring an interview with Kristina Garrido, Director of Emerging Categories at Whatnot, the fastest-growing livestream shopping platform in the U.S currently valued at nearly $12 billion.

In this episode, Nate (just Nate, no Jenna today) also recaps his incredible 24 hours at Target’s HQ for their Food & Beverage Discovery Day where he had the opportunity to chat with SVP of F&B merchandising, John Conlins. Plus some fun CPG news including Coca-Cola’s “Spricy” trademark, Final Boss Sour’s $4M raise, and Fairlife’s production pause after a massive ransomware attack. Let’s get to it!

Thanks for reading! Anything you think we should try for an upcoming edition of Express Checkout? Email us at hello@expresscheckout.co

The Breakdown

00:00 Interview with Kristina Garrido, Director of Emerging Categories at Whatnot

13:34 24 Hours at Target HQ

25:01 Spicy Sprite?!

26:49 Final Boss Sour’s sick $4M raise

30:21 Fairlife shuts down

31:27 Outro

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to The Curious Consumer 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.

🗣️ Let’s connect! Follow us for behind-the-scenes content, quick tips, and more: @expresscheckout

💬 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 :)

Leave a comment

⭐ 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!

Though this summer heat may make it feel like Q4 is far away, it’s right around the corner for brands.

Because the brands that win BFCM and Holiday aren’t the ones who start planning in October.... they’re the ones who spent their Q3 months building out proven creative. Most holiday winners are evergreen winners in disguise, assets that earned their place through months of testing and iteration long before the seasonal push.

Grapevine AI is built for exactly this.

Because they’re full service from creator sourcing through post-production, every creator becomes a pool of raw content their team can keep iterating against, one shoot becomes a library of assets you refine all year and repurpose for peak season. That’s a huge advantage when it’s time to scale what’s already working into your holiday winners.

Book a demo in the next 30 days and get $500 off your first creator campaign.

News From the Week

Last week, I (Nate) got to spend the day at Target HQ in Minneapolis for their F&B Discovery Day. It’s a full day of founders pitching, buyers tasting, and a room full of the buzziest emerging brands.

While I was there, I sat down with John Conlin, Target’s SVP of Food & Beverage Merchandising, to talk about what’s actually going on with grocery at Target. Because something is absolutely going on….something really exciting.

This is probably no surprise to anyone reading this newsletter, but Target is trying to become the next “it” grocer. You can see it for yourself in person, or simply search “Target” on basically any social platform and you’ll find countless videos making the same point: Target is becoming “the new Whole Foods.”

Creators of all sizes are walking the aisles, holding up the newest functional soda or better-for-you high-protein frozen thing, and marveling that this is at Target. The comparison is a little reductive, sure, but it’s pointing at something actually happening: Target is quickly becoming one of the most interesting places in mass retail to discover a new brand and, increasingly, the place you also do your actual weekly haul.

It seems to be working for them already, and they’re only getting started.

• F&B is now a ~$24B business for Target, up almost $9B since 2019.

• It counts for ~25% of total sales (biggest department by far), grew 6%+ YoY in Q1, and lands in over 55% of Target baskets!

• They added 3,000 new F&B items in Q1 alone…. and the new stuff is selling 50%+ better than what it replaced. Crazy!

PLUS they’re remodeling 100-250 stores a year for the next few years, each getting 20–30% more room for food, and with the ~300 new stores planned over the next five to ten years, food will be right at the front door.

For years, food at Target was a while you shop—a basket builder—and this whole strategy is about turning that while into a why you shop.

“Increasingly, I want it to be the trip driver… to get people to come in more often for regular routines, accessible wellness, and these big seasonal moments that we’re very good at. That’s the bet, and it’s paying off so far.” - John Conlin

The logic was all over the presentations at the event. Grocery gets people in the store every week and keeps them loyal, and those weekly trips convert into more beauty, home, and apparel purchases.

But in order to get people to swap their weekly Whole Foods or Sprouts run for Target, they need a good reason. You could see those “3,000 new items” as Target just stuffing shelves with newness, but it’s more than that. As John explains:

“Curation being distinct is just part of our DNA. I think we have an opportunity to be more uniquely Target and more distinctly Target in our assortment strategy.”

The goal is doubling the uniqueness of the assortment over the next few years, without adding shelves. “Post-peak” brands and tired line extensions are getting cut to make room for emerging and founder-led brands.

It’s increasingly clear that consumers are begging for exactly this. Bain found that 113 insurgent brands captured ~36% of all FMCG market growth in 2025 while holding less than 2% of share!

But Target isn’t building another wellness hub for a coastal few. It’s doing something more ambitious and frankly more useful: taking the discovery experience that used to require a specific store and a specific budget, and making it the default for the masses. As John emphasized, they’re not trying to be Erewhon:

“We’re trying to be more accessible than other wellness retailers from a price standpoint… the products we bring forward need to be affordable. They need to be understandable.”

Discovery was a luxury good. Now it’s being democratized.

The general consumer, especially since COVID, is more interested in CPG and new brands than ever before. Target’s filter is busy families who want fun, approachable, and better-for-you at the same time. Joyride, Backflip, Jesse & Ben’s, Gonanas—none of them are winning by scolding you. The product is good and the health part comes standard.

Target has spent decades earning shoppers’ trust in its taste. It’s the store that made “cheap chic” a thing, and their premium private label brand Good & Gather (on pace to be a $4 Billion brand, no artificial ingredients since day one) proved that trust extends to food. So when a Target shopper spots an unfamiliar functional soda in the set, the decision-making is simple: Target put it there, so it’s probably good, it’s probably not $9, and I don’t need a nutrition degree to understand it.

And the trust runs both ways, because the brands are doing a lot of the heavy lifting too. Target figured out it doesn’t have to handle consumer education itself. The founders and brands are the education layer. They’ve already explained the function and the ingredient story on TikTok or Instagram, built the community, and earned the credibility. Target just puts the product where that viewer is standing. We covered this dynamic in our newsletter All Roads Lead to Target a few months ago when DTC darlings Little Spoon and Butcher Box launched in store.

The big takeaway: The thing that struck me most from my day in Minneapolis is how rare this is. A legacy player of Target’s size taking a real, intimate interest in small emerging brands. You can feel how much they want the grocery department to be a unique, desirable selection, not just a wall of the usual suspects.

Target is carving its own lane as the place where the mass consumer discovers what’s next in food. Erewhon sells discovery to thousands of people at $25 a smoothie. Target is selling it to millions at $3.99. The store that taught America “Tarzhay” is now running the same playbook on your pantry, and the early returns say the “while you shop” is well on its way to becoming a “why.”

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Egg prices broke food; fermentation might fix it. ADM is partnering with The EVERY Company to commercially scale OvoPro™, the first precision-fermented egg-white protein, at its Clinton, Iowa facility. EVERY’s orders in the first four months of 2026 were 550% of all 2025 volume. 🤯

  • So, what even is precision fermentation? Basically, scientists identify a microorganism to be the host (in this case, a yeast), and then inserts the DNA sequence codes for the protein (chicken ovalbumin, here), into the yeast. The yeast produces recombinant protein that are molecularly identical to egg whites, and using large-scale fermentation tanks (massive industrial bioreactors, like what ADM can provide here), they can brew the yeast, and therefore the protein, at-scale.

  • OvoPro™ is a high-quality protein with a PDCAAS score of 1.0 (the best amino acid profile possible) that provides binding, gelling, foaming, and whipping functionality, making it great for baked goods, frozen and prepared foods, and protein bars.

  • Protein is a tough ingredient to come by these days; we’re currently in the midst of a whey protein shortage. We broke it down the other week HERE, but the basics are that demand has blown past processing capacity. Prices topped $11/lb and some brands saw their costs jump 40%+ in a year. With 70%+ of Americans saying they want more protein daily, and us covering a new protein-enriched product daily at this point, it’s no wonder supply can’t keep up.

  • Kris Lutt, ADM’s VP for innovation and growth, said in a statement.

“The only way to meet the growing global demand for protein is to add innovative new ingredient options that can expand the supply of high-quality protein”

• • Luckily, alongside OvoPro, there are plenty of others trying to tackle this issue—from Leaft Foods pulling protein straight out of green leaves (a PDCAAS of 1.0 that digests 5-6x faster than whey), to Scoops turning peanuts into a 27g isolate, to Mozza Foods engineering soybeans to grow real dairy casein. We went deeper into some of these solutions in a previous newsletter HERE.

• Speaking of protein, is the next protein trend….soup? Campbell’s launched a new Protein Soups line with 20g of protein and bone broth base across five varieties—Homestyle Chicken, Italian Wedding, Lemon Pepper, Southwest Black Bean, and Mediterranean Lentil—rolling out on Amazon and retailers nationwide for $3.19.

  • Any time a big CPG company drops a product with some trendy callout, we’re always quick to wonder what took them this long. But Campbell’s….what took you so long?! Bone broth has been a hot (protein rich) commodity for ages now! These protein and fiber rich soups are a no brainer!

  • But the protein soup we’re most excited about is just about to launch in a few days…Caldo. They’re bone broth soups with some very cute branding.

    

• “Why is it spicy?” Coca-Cola filed a trademark application for “Spricy,” hinting at a potential spicy Sprite innovation.

  • This has looming viral TikTok product written all over it. Spicy, sweet, sour...or a combo of all three. Consumers love unique flavor combinations and they especially love anything spicy. 65% of Americans now say they love or like spicy food, and purchase intent for anything labeled “spicy” has climbed from 39% to over 50% in the past decade.

• Fairlife goes dark. Coca-Cola’s Fairlife dairy has temporarily suspended all U.S. production after a ransomware attack hit its systems. Fairlife is one of the most popular ultrafiltered milk brands right now: the brand does an estimated $4 billion in annual sales. Hopefully, the brand figures things out before it affects supply chains.

  • I am a subscriber for the Fairlife core power drinks….they’re perfect - Nate

• DTC-to-shelf, body-first. Junoco, a DTC-native skincare brand, is launching exclusively at Ulta Beauty with 14 body care products across 850 stores, as the brand’s YTD body care sales climb 115%. The brand raised $6.3M to scale manufacturing ahead of the move.

  • This is another example of the masstige takeover in beauty and skincare. Junoco looks like a cross between Le Labo and The Ordinary: elevated, minimal, ingredient-forward, but priced for much broader adoption. And that’s the sweet spot right now. Consumers may be strapped for cash, but they’re not too strapped for a $15 serum that looks more expensive than it is and feels like it works just as well as the luxury version. That’s especially true as shoppers get more fluent in ingredients and less convinced that a higher price automatically means better results.

  • According to Circana data cited by Beauty Independent, masstige beauty sales were up 16% in Q1 2024, outpacing prestige at 15% and mass at just 3%. Skincare is one of the clearest examples: masstige skincare grew 28% last year, making it the fastest-rising masstige subcategory, even though it still represents just 9% of skincare sales.

  • This is the lane powering brands like e.l.f., The Ordinary, Bubble, BYOMA, Naturium, Good Molecules, Lume, and Glossier. The category is also getting blurrier: brands are playing in both mass and prestige. Most importantly, consumers are mixing high and low without caring what bucket a brand sits in. They want what works—and what TikTok tells them works. And Ulta is basically the headquarters for this movement, sitting between drugstore and Sephora.

• Skin care to functional NA. The team behind skincare brand Symbiome is launching Hopkind, a functional non-alcoholic beer formulated with Senactiv and L-citrulline designed for muscle recovery and hydration.

  • The more interesting piece is how directly Hopkind is leaning into function. Most NA beer already sits on the wellness side of the aisle by virtue of being alcohol-free, but this goes a step further. It honestly reads less like a beer alternative and more like a post-workout recovery drink in a beer format. Not only does the front-of-pack say “hydrate and recover”—two classic callouts for sports drinks—it’s also leveraging Senactiv, a patented plant-based sports nutraceutical from NuLiv Science that’s often sold as a muscle-repair supplement, which just pushes the positioning even further into performance recovery.

  • We’re just glad it’s not protein beer. 🙃

eCommerce

• DoorDash x Shopify. DoorDash launched a native Shopify integration letting U.S. brick-and-mortar merchants add their catalog to DoorDash’s marketplace directly from Shopify.

  • This is DoorDash’s play to become the same-day layer for everything that isn’t restaurants. Groceries and convenience were the first non-food expansion; embedding into Shopify’s merchant base is how it scales into apparel, beauty, home goods, and specialty retail without a single new enterprise deal.

  • For Shopify, it’s a defensive convenience move against Amazon’s same-day gravity—giving its merchants a local-delivery option without pushing them onto a marketplace that competes with their own storefront.

• Instacart is buying its way into the aisle. Instacart has acquired Arpalus, a shelf intelligence company whose AI scans store shelves in real time with 95% accuracy, feeding inventory data to Instacart’s 600,000 shoppers and Caper Cart network. Terms were not disclosed.

  • Instacart has spent years as software sitting on top of other retailers’ stores, and its retail media revenue reflected that ceiling—strong on data, less so on physical presence. Cameras on carts in 100 cities give it a first-party sensor layer inside the store itself, the thing that separates a retail media network from an ad-serving middleman. Retail media is the highest-margin line in grocery right now, and this is Instacart betting that owning the shelf data, rather than renting a view of it, is how it earns a permanent seat at that table.

Funding

• Beckham’s gotta stay relevant somehow. IM8, the subscription vitamin and longevity drink brand co-founded by David Beckham and Prenetics founder Danny Yeung, secured $1 billion from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF) to help scale customer acquisition without selling equity.

  • This is not a traditional venture round—so don’t read “secured $1B” as a fundraise. CVF is more like non-dilutive growth financing, so IM8 can use the capital to cover up to 70% of customer acquisition costs, then repay GC through a capped share of revenue from the customers funded by that spend.

    The structure is built for companies with predictable subscription revenue. If IM8 can keep customers subscribed long enough, the model gives the brand a massive marketing budget without diluting Prenetics or Beckham’s ownership.

  • And according to Prenetics, IM8 is already putting up some real numbers with just two SKUs. The company says the brand is the “fastest-growing premium supplement brand ever recorded,” delivering more than 50 million servings to date (since its Dec 2024 launch), shipping roughly 200,000 servings per day, and on pace to reach $300 million in annualized run-rate revenue by the end of 2026.

• The largest female-founded buyout fund, ever. Citation Capital announced the final close of Citation Fund I at $1.2 billion in total commitments—oversubscribed past its $1.1 billion LP hard cap—ranking it top-10 among inaugural buyout funds in the last decade and the largest female-founded buyout fund ever launched.

• The next Kool Aid? FAVE, an organic drink mix brand founded by 20-year CPG veteran Ryan Raish, raised a $1M seed round led by Supernatural Ventures (backers of Poppi and Goodles) and launched in nearly 500 Sprouts Farmers Market stores nationwide, becoming the first certified organic brand in the ~$1B drink mix category.

  • We’ve talked ad nauseam about how hydration is booming and hydration sticks are having a moment, but there’s been surprisingly little innovation in just the pure flavored drink mix space. Every product seems to come loaded with added function (electrolytes, vitamins, adaptogens).

  • Just like we’re seeing across snacks broadly, there is a growing appetite for products that are simply great-tasting with upgraded, cleaner ingredients and little to no gimmicks. FAVE fits squarely in that trend, but that trend has mostly played out in sweet treats, where indulgence is already the point. It remains to be seen whether there are enough consumers who want that same “cleaned-up nostalgia” in drink mixes and whether enough people are simply looking to flavor their water rather than seek out added function.

• The ultimate gamer snack. Final Boss Sour raised $4 million, backed by Mondelez SnackFutures Ventures and Evolution VC Partners, bringing its total to $12 million. The brand makes gaming-inspired sour snacks from real dried fruit coated in a proprietary sour candy shell. It is now rolling into seven major retailers including Walmart, Kroger, H-E-B, Wegmans, Hy-Vee, Target, and 7-Eleven.

  • There are countless brands are trying to make indulgence feel a little cleaner, but what makes Final Boss Sour interesting is how simple and clever the product actually is. It is real dried fruit with a sour candy coating, which kinda puts it in the same world as Fruit Riot, just not frozen. But, Final Boss takes the idea further by gamifying the whole experience. The sour levels, retro-game branding, and a digital-first playbook make it feel like a new format for the category.

  • The digital success is what makes the story especially compelling. Final Boss says it has generated more than 2 billion organic video views, built the largest YouTube subscriber base of any sour candy brand, and became the largest sour candy brand on TikTok Shop. The brand clearly understands how to turn flavors, drops, collaborations, and community into content, and having London Lazerson, a creator with 8.9 million TikTok followers, behind the company gives it a serious advantage.

  • And all of this is coming from a team that has seen what works and what does’t. Final Boss was built inside Science Inc., the Los Angeles venture firm and startup studio founded in 2011 by former MySpace CEO Michael Jones and entrepreneur Peter Pham. Science has been behind major CPG success stories including Dollar Shave Club and Liquid Death.

• The Heated Rivalry of venture. Hockey Stick Ventures announced a $3M Fund I, transitioning the three-year-old beverage investment syndicator into a formal venture fund after backing several emerging brands.

  • They’ve built a solid track record so far, investing in Liquid Death, Recess, Coconut Cult, Leisure Hydration, Slate, Katy Perry’s De Soi, and Emma Watson’s Renais.

  • Hockey Stick was started by Sean Hershman, MBA, a former Numerator sales exec who also played minor league hockey, which is why the fund’s investor base includes past and present NHL players and others across the hockey world. Hershman isn’t the only Numerator alum moving into CPG investing, either: friend of the newsletter Kyle Fitzpatrick came out of the same company before launching Paperboy Ventures’ $3M fund.

• No whey needed here. BUFFS, a puffed meat snack positioning itself as a high-protein alternative to bars and jerky, raised a $1.1m pre-seed and is launching to first customers on Aug 11th. Co-founders George Zhou and Beckett Kitaen started the brand as college juniors.

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

We hear it all the time from our favorite brands: they finally land their dream retailer (Whole Foods, Target, Sephora...) and then face an operational reality that can feel totally impossible to manage:

Buried in the onboarding docs, there’s a three-letter acronym they suddenly have to become an expert in: EDI.

Most brands get stuck with that from a legacy provider like SPS Commerce, where onboarding is painfully slow, the software looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2007, and every document comes with its own little fee (which, if you’re doing the quick maths, add up fast).

Endless Commerce skips the middleman and builds EDI right into the platform already running your inventory, orders, and warehouse.

Setup takes days (not the mythical “6-8 weeks”), retail POs land like any other order, and you keep control of your ops. Consider it mission control for consumer brands, built by founders who’ve lived the operational chaos themselves 🙃

Book 15 mins for instant PO flow!

Nate’s Pickup:

Gallant Tiger PB&J Sandwiches

There’s a lot of noise about the ready-to-eat frozen PB&J sandwich market, which you could essentially call the Uncrustables market, since they dominate the space. They’re a billion-dollar brand for Smucker’s (big enough that they’ve reportedly gone after little guys like Gallant Tiger with cease-and-desist letters over the whole crustless thing). New brands and players are entering, including a multitude of private-label options and buzz-worthy brands like JAMS. The TikTok I made about Welch’s entrance into the space had nearly 300K views!

@nate.rosenWelch's has entered the PB&J wars #cpg #consumer #brands #uncrustables #pbjsandwich

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

And while many of these consumers are undoubtedly adults, they all embrace the nostalgic flavors and marketing of a PB&J. That’s great, and it should exist, but I’m a fully grown man who pays his taxes and wants some fun flavors in my sandwiches. I consider myself a foodie. I watch Top Chef and frequent restaurants around NYC, seeking out unique dishes. I’m that kind of consumer, and Gallant Tiger delivers.

• Quick Facts: Chef-driven, crustless frozen PB&J sandwiches made with whole fruit, real ingredients, and thoughtful technique. High in protein and fiber, and 100% vegan. Comes in Strawberry Cardamom and Blueberry Lemon Thyme (or a Mix Pack), sold in 18-packs for $59.99.

• Reasons to love:

  • Bold flavors. With flavors like strawberry cardamom and blueberry lemon thyme, how could you not want to take a bite? I’m a huge fan of mixing cardamom and fruit—the spice adds boldness to the sandwich and pairs perfectly with the peanut butter and bread. I also love blueberry and lemon; one of my favorite ice creams on the market is the blueberry lemon flavor from Jeni’s. Sometimes I just get bored with just strawberry/grape jam and peanut butter. I crave something unique, maybe even a little savory.

  • The team knows food. Gallant Tiger comes from Kamal Mohamed, the self-taught chef and restaurateur behind Minneapolis spots like StepChld, Nashville Coop, and Parcelle. He grew up cooking in a household full of Ethiopian flavor and treats flavor like art—subjective, personal, and very much worth obsessing over. You can taste that pedigree here. These flavor combinations are the kind of thing a chef would actually put on a plate.

  • Elevated nostalgia. Something I really love about Gallant Tiger is how they take nostalgic concepts and give them a twist. It’s not just about adding protein, creatine, or other functional ingredients and packaging them in a ‘90s-style product with the same old flavors. They’re elevating the nostalgic format itself. And while it may not be for everyone, it’s definitely for me, and I think a lot of other people want that too. Most of the time, when I want something nostalgic from my childhood, I go seek out the exact same product, and I treat it as a treat. But when I want something nostalgic that isn’t just a treat, Gallant Tiger really scratches that itch for me.

Where to buy: Order online at gallanttiger.com, or find a spot near you on their locations page.

Jenna’s Pickups:

The THC bevs I’ve been sippin’ this summer

This week, we talked a lot about the world of hemp-derived THC bevs. In Monday’s newsletter, we broke down the current regulatory landscape (ft. an impending November ban) and how two THC brands are responding. We then interviewed Jake Bullock, co-founder and CEO of Cann—the category-creator of low-dose THC beverages—on The Curious Consumer podcast, and got the brand’s direct POV on where the category is headed.

We’re hopeful that this ban won’t go into effect. We’re hopeful that this category can keep kicking, perhaps with some more structured, federal regulation upholding it. In the meantime, I want to keep supporting the brands I love in this space. Obviously, one of those brands is Cann—but there are so many others out there offering different flavors, aesthetics, and experiences.

Here are three hemp-derived THC bevs you may not know about, but absolutely should:

• Hyde’s Hail Mary: Shandy-style, 5mg THC beverages founded by former NFL player, Micah Hyde!

  

  • Occasion: For a hot summer day on the beach or by the pool.

  • Flavor: Absurdly refreshing, bright, citrusy, and crisp flavors with light carbonation and absolutely zero weird aftertaste. The Apple is my current favorite, but you truly can’t go wrong—try the Ginger if you want something a little more unique and layered.

  • Vibe: A little more masculine than the typical low-dose THC bev. It almost feels like a classic, trusted beer—something you could easily have in-hand at the barbecue and nobody would second-guess it. And at just 5mg, they give more of a pleasant buzz than a full high (side note: 5mg would destroy me in edible form, but it hits differently in a bev).

• Cali Sober: THC “mocktails” in classic cocktail flavors. Comes in both 5mg and “Double” 10mg SKUs.

  

  • Occasion: A low-key house party or game night.

  • Flavor: I would drink these even if they had 0mg in them… they’re that good. The Dirty Shirley (one of the two Double flavors) has my heart—flavored with real dark sweet cherry juice and cane sugar—but I also adore the Ranch Water and Berry Ginger Fizz. You can’t taste even a hint of weediness.

  • Vibe: Rebellious and bold. These are bevs that command attention, with their bright colors and retro branding. It’s impossible to hold one of these and not have someone ask what you’re drinking—but that also makes them a social lubricant by mere presence. If you’re down to feel actually high, the 10mg should do the trick for most. But if you’re looking for a happy, light buzz, the 5mg is a great option. I personally have been splitting the Doubles with a friend!

• Highlandia Easy Escape: Premium THC drinks in bold, inventive flavors with 5mg THC, 2mg CBD for a relaxing high.

  

  • Occasion: A dinner party, date night, or solo creative endeavor.

  • Flavor: This brand leans fully into flavor, with the goal of transporting you with every sip. The three flavors—Cottondew Clouds (honeydew and cotton candy), Rocket Peak (cherry, lime, and blue raspberry, like a Rocket Pop), and Tangilime Grove (tangerine and lime)—are truly unique, painting a whole landscape worth savoring.

  • Vibe: This is the Chef’s Choice of weed bevs. It feels premium, culinary, and luxe—all while staying fun and inviting. The branding and palette is enticing and bold, with flavor copy that does the linguistic labor of reminding you to savor every sip. With the addition of CBD, it’s meant to be a calming high—great for a solo creative endeavor or a romantic at-home dinner date. (Warning: Highlandia also makes a Bold Escape line, which is 50mg… personally WAY too much for me to endorse in good faith).

Where to buy: Online! (Hyde’s Hail Mary, Cali Sober, Highlandia)

Check out our most recent episode of The Curious Consumer, featuring a fascinating full-episode interview with Jake Bullock, the Co-Founder and CEO of Cann—the pioneer of the microdosed THC beverage category.

Jake breaks down the whole hemp-derived THC beverage landscape, from how it came to be (and Cann’s role in that) to the regulatory threat it now faces with the impending November ban. Plus, he shares how Cann is responding with a new product launch that just came out this week: Cann 0mg. →

Thanks for reading! Anything you think we should try for an upcoming edition of Express Checkout? Email us at hello@expresscheckout.co

Let’s get into it!

The breakdown:
0:00 - Intro
1:34 - How Cann created the microdose THC beverage category
5:52 - Navigating the dispensary channel and the 2018 Farm Bill
11:11 - Cann's original vision for distribution
13:16 - The regulatory threat: What the 2026 hemp ban means
17:08 - The industry's push for federal regulation
19:15 - Introducing Cann Zero MG (0MG)
26:58 - Distribution strategy for 0MG
31:04 - Lobbying efforts
34:11 - Closing thoughts

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to The Curious Consumer 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.

🗣️ Let’s connect! Follow us for behind-the-scenes content, quick tips, and more: @expresscheckout

💬 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 :)

Leave a comment

⭐ 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!

Last week, we covered one of the key themes we saw at the Summer Fancy Food Show: that real sugar is back. This was an especially interesting (and perhaps, slightly primed) observation for us because, admittedly, we’ve been knee-deep in sugar talk.

At the beginning of the year, our incredible intern Natalie, a then-senior at Harvard, ran a survey on sugar and sweeteners, reaching 250 of her college-aged peers. We learned a lot about how this population (mostly bicoastal, highly-educated, Gen Z) thought about sweetening their CPGs… which made us especially curious how the rest of the country felt. So, we teamed up with Pogo, a consumer loyalty app that rewards users for sharing transaction data and insights on verified purchases.

With Pogo, we ran the same survey on 500+ more individuals across the country, reflecting the general population’s preferences and behavior around sugar and sweeteners. Spoiler alert: the results were not what we were expecting.

If you’re curious about…

• The categories where consumers scrutinize sugar content the most

• Which factors most influence consumers’ opinions about sugar

• Whether consumers are more likely to buy a naturally-sweetened product with 5g of sugar or an artificially-sweetened product zero sugar

• The sweeteners shoppers feel best about consuming

… you’ll want to check this out. While this is a relatively small sample size (our biggest disclaimer!), the overall takeaways, as well as the contrasts between the two surveyed populations, are fascinating for anyone building, operating, or investing in food or beverage products right now.

Check out our State of Sugar report for free here!

And if you’re looking for data on consumer behavior and preferences from real, verified shoppers, you have to check out Pogo—book a demo to see how it could work for your brand!

Now, let’s get into the news of the week →

CPG & Consumer Goods

• THC brands are going to zero. This week, two ready-to-drink, low-dose hemp-derived THC beverage brands made pivots into the weed-free:

  • Cann launched its first ever zero-THC line, “0MG,” (get it?) in Blood Orange Cardamom and Lemon Lavender, formulated with magnesium, L-theanine, electrolytes, and passion flower. It’s available on drinkcann.com now with in-store rollout beginning in August.

  • Meanwhile, the founders of Cantrip—the THC seltzer and soda brand that’s been one of the category’s breakout players since 2020—launched On the Brightside, a “feel-good soda” debuting in Strawberry Sunshine and Guava Glow, operating as a fully separate brand under a new company, Brighter Beverages. Instead of THC, it’s built around a single ingredient: Zembrin, a kanna extract that promises calm, clarity, and social ease that most people reportedly feel within 20 minutes.

    • (Side note: we have a feeling kanna will soon take off as a functional ingredient. Unlike adaptogens or supplements like magnesium, kanna can be felt more acutely. When consumers grow increasingly skeptical over functionality, they’ll continue reaching for ingredients that offer immediate gratification. Watch this space.)

  • So, why are all these THC OGs pivoting away from the substance? Well, in part, it’s a strategic backup plan for an impending ban. For those who missed it: Congress slipped a provision into the government funding bill last November that effectively bans intoxicating hemp products—the same loophole that made THC beverages legal in the first place. Starting November 12, 2026, any hemp-derived product with more than 0.4mg of total THC per container is federally unlawful, which would wipe out roughly 95% of products on the market today. There are bills floating around to delay or replace the ban, but nothing has passed, and the clock is running out. We broke down the whole mess here.

  • These brands spent years building awareness and shelf space, and now they’re hedging their bets, stripping out the THC so the brand survives even if the category fully doesn’t. We recently sat down with Jake Bullock, co-founder of Cann, to learn more about the move. Keep an eye out for that interview later this week—it’s chock full of insights!

  • It’s also worth noting that both launches still emphasize some function. For Cann, it’s about leaning hard into calm—magnesium, L-theanine, mindfulness—something we’ve been seeing works for brands like Recess and TRIP (we broke down why everyone is seeking calm HERE). For Cantrip/On the Brightside, that function is social lubrication with kanna, which is currently unscheduled as a “traditional herbal remedy.”

  • One of the most interesting things here is how the brands are approaching this in structurally opposite ways: Cann is building 0MG inside the house: same name, same flavor language, same brand equity, just with the THC swapped for magnesium and L-theanine. The bet is that people were buying Cann for the ritual and the vibe, and the buzz was almost incidental—so the brand can carry a zero-dose line on its own name. Cantrip’s founders took the opposite path, spinning On the Brightside into a brand-new company (Brighter Beverages) with a different name, different flavors, and no visible tie back to the mothership. That bet is that Cantrip’s equity was the THC, and a THC-free product needs a clean slate to stand on—plus a separate entity conveniently puts legal and reputational distance between the old category and the new one.

  • We’re getting a rare natural experiment: the same category hurdle, with two founders making opposite calls on whether the brand or the function was the actual asset. Either way, we’ll finally learn what these consumers were buying.

• The PB&J wars has a new player… and it’s a player that knows its jams. Welch’s is launching Real PB&Js, ready-to-eat sandwiches aimed at active teens and positioned as a cleaner post-workout fuel option. They claim to be ~50% bigger than the leading frozen PB&J sandwich and contain 12g a protein (~2g more than most ready-to-eat sandwiches on the market).

  

  • Welch’s is entering a booming PB&J market. Uncrustables has turned into one of the biggest growth stories in the freezer aisle, reportedly hitting roughly $920M in sales in FY25, growing about 15% year-over-year, and now crossing the $1B mark. It’s become a real cultural phenomenon, especially in football. NFL teams reportedly go through at least 80,000 Uncrustables a year (we’re still giggling at this stat).

  • Competitors have since come in for the same space. Two years ago, Rudi’s (gluten-free bread company) launched ready-to-eat, clean-ingredient, gluten-free PB&J sandwiches, Sandos, at Whole Foods. Last year, JAMS entered the market, pitching itself as the cleaner, protein-forward, seed-oil-free version of the crustless PB&J. The moves have been fast, from national Target and Walmart expansion to JAMS’s partnership with NFL Players Inc. to create the first player-made PB&J. JAMS has since brought on famed American sports analyst and former NFL player Pat McAfee coming on as a co-owner, and DropOut (JAMS parent company), just brought in Andrew Strife, the former LesserEvil exec who helped scale that brand to its Hershey exit, as CEO.

  • We can also add this to the list of new brands and products fighting to get into the cool kids lunch box. Read more on how the lunchbox is getting an upgrade here.

• Can this be cereals comeback? YouTuber Ben Azelart recently launched a “better-for-you” cereal brand called Backflip in partnership with entrepreneur Shaun Neff (brand builder and founder of Neff Headwear, and the force behind Moon, Pattern, BÉIS, and Sun Bum). The cereal debuted nationwide at Target for $5.99 a box and is free from gluten, seed oils, synthetic dyes, and glyphosate, featuring 6g of protein and less sugar than standard competitors.

  

  • Boxed cereal has been on a slow slide for years, and 2025 didn’t break the pattern. In one of the wildest CPG deals last year, Ferrero scooped up WK Kellogg for just $3.1B and took Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Special K and Rice Krispies private. A century-old American icon couldn’t make it as a standalone public company—which tells you a lot about where legacy cereal stands. Since then, cold cereal volumes kept falling, and 2026 is projected to grow a whopping 0.2% (read: flat).

  • You could chalk this up to a total shift in morning routines, leading to cultural rejection of cereal as whole. But the decline is lopsided: The middle is hollowing out (Corn Flakes slipped 5.3% to ~$450M) while premium and organic pushed cereal e-commerce up 22.4% to $1.8B. Translation: nobody wants a plain bowl anymore, but many will happily pay $9 for a “better” one.

  • As the big brands scramble to go dye-free and high-protein, new entrants like Backflip are coming in with their macros and ingredients already in check. Pair it with playful, captivating, nostalgic branding, a nationwide Target launch, and a Mr Beast-esque co-founder with an easy-to-activate audience, and Backflip is set up for success.

• More skincare for children. Rini—a children’s skincare and self-care line from Shay Mitchell—launched a new daily care collection featuring body wash, barrier cream, and face/body lotion, all EWG verified and National Eczema Association approved, as it aims to become the go-to skincare brand for Gen Alpha.

  

  • You may remember Rini from it’s… let’s say… controversial launch. Critics accused Shay Mitchell’s skincare brand of projecting adult beauty standards onto young children, encouraging hyper-consumerism, and commercializing “self-care” for kids who might not need a full skincare routine. The brand has been relatively quiet since that and this launch is its attempt to reset the brand story. Mitchell says she understands the reaction: “I think people saw kids wearing face masks and immediately filled in the blanks based on everything happening in beauty culture.” (Not totally buying this, but appreciate the mild backtracking). Now, Rini is trying to reframe itself around safe, daily skin care (closer to a Cerave than a Drunk Elephant) and not mini-adult beauty routines.

  • Just like we talk about with snacks, skincare is getting a wave of brands designed specifically with kids in mind. Bubble Skincare has already built major retail distribution across Target, Ulta, CVS, and Walmart nationwide. Then there’s a growing class of newer entrants like Prereq, Saint Crewe, JB Skrub, Evereden, and Rally Skin all trying to create skincare that feels built for younger consumers from the start. Rini joins the cohort, targeting the youngest of the group.

  • Among these brands are a few founded by Gen Alpha, including Sincerely Yours and Yes Day. Just this week, 12-year-old Stella Dorazio launched school-project-turned-reality brand, Stellar Beauty Co., on DTC. Stellar Beauty’s four “prep, play, post” products (face mist, cleanser moisturizer, SPF) are all designed for active Gen Alpha girls.

    • Side note: We’re fascinated by the behind-the-scenes structure powering a brand founded by a 12-year-old. Will do some investigating and report back—stay tuned.

      

  • Gen Alpha, while still a very young generation, already has a lot of sway in the economy. This generation, reportedly, has north of $100 billion in direct annual spending power, with 8-to-14-year-olds averaging about $67 a week, and they influence roughly 42% of all household spending—a number that climbs to 49% in households making over $100K. And that spending power is only expected to grow. Projections say that globally, Gen Alpha will control $5.5 trillion by 2029, and this is on track to be the largest generation in history, eventually around 2 billion people.

  • Beauty is clearly a category where that influence shows up. In PwC’s survey of kids ages 7-14, 81% said they have a say in what skincare and beauty products get bought, while only 61% of parents thought their kids had that kind of pull. The real number is probably somewhere in the middle, but either way, both numbers are enormous for a category that wasn’t talking to this age group just five years ago. You can see this playing out clearly with the success Evereden has had. It launched in 2018 as a baby brand, pivoted toward tweens, crossed $100 million in sales, and now pulls 85% of its revenue from Gen Alpha-focused products.

• We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: men want to smell good. Sol de Janeiro has launched its first men’s Cheiroso cologne mists, expanding the viral body-care brand into the men’s fragrance category with a DTC and Sephora rollout starting online and expanding to stores in August.

  • Sol de Janeiro basically invented viral scent. Founded in 2015, the brand’s Cheirosa ‘62 mist (pistachio-vanilla-caramel) racked up 850M+ TikTok views by 2023 with barely any paid spend—over 90% of its 2023 growth was organic social. That moment turned a $39M business in 2019 into roughly $950M by fiscal 2025.

  • As a result, L’Occitane snapped up an 83% stake back in 2021 for $450M—so this men’s push is a portfolio play as much as a brand one, extending a proven scent formula into a new buyer.

  • As we covered in October, men’s fragrance is having a moment. Fragrance was the fastest-growing beauty category in 2024, up 25% YoY, with teen boys alone lifting their fragrance spend 26%. 35% of Gen Z men now drop $200+ a year on scent—more than Gen Z women (18%)—and they’re building “fragrance wardrobes” of 8–12 bottles instead of one signature.

  • So Cheiroso is Sol de Janeiro playing to its strength. A TikTok-native brand that already speaks fluent Gen Z, launching into the one beauty category where Gen Z men are spending like never before. The Sephora + DTC rollout is just meeting them where they already scroll.

Retail

• Another win for the legend of the mall. Bath & Body Works launched Fruit Fusion, a fruit-forward body care line with four scents priced $4.95–$18.95, naming Hilary Duff as creative partner. It also marks the brand’s first major product launch on Amazon since joining the platform earlier this year.

  • It feels like this once-dying mall brand is really making a comeback. Just last week, we talked about Bath & Body Works launching in Ulta, and with the rise of early-2000s nostalgia, the brand has a chance to take the reins once again. No wonder they went with Hilary Duff—it fits perfectly. The consumers who grew up with both Hilary Duff and Bath & Body Works are being pulled right back in, now able to buy the brand where they already shop for everything else. It’s a really smart move.

Funding news

• Chipotle ❤️s regenerative brands. Chipotle’s $100M Cultivate Next venture fund invested in six agrifood-tech companies, including SIMPLi, a regeneratively farmed pantry-staples brand. SIMPLi focuses on vertically integrated, traceable supply chains, regenerative and organic practices, and third‑party nutrient-density testing.

  • The move reflects growing investor interest in regenerative agriculture amid shifting U.S. food-policy priorities. TL;DR, as part of the MAHA Agenda (which we have many feels about, but will stick to the facts and upsides here), the USDA is investing more in regenerative agriculture projects through its Regenerative Pilot Program.

  • At the same time, as Chipotle explained, “Consumers want greater visibility into where their food comes from and how it was produced.” This made SIMPLi a great contender for Cultivate Next funding: “SIMPLi’s approach to sourcing and transparency through regenerative organic practices, third-party nutrient-density testing, and sustainability tracking aligns with growing demand for visibility throughout the supply chain.”

  • Check out our podcast interview with SIMPLi founder, Sarela Herrada, where she explains what regenerative actually means and how SIMPLi builds authentic supply chains.

• Clean beauty finds its acquirer. Belle Brands acquired Versed, Katherine Power’s clean mass-retail skincare and makeup brand launched in 2019. Versed joins other beauty and skincare brands such as JVN Hair, Pipette, and KVD Beauty in Belle Brands’ portfolio.

  • Versed was basically built for success: Katherine Power joint is the same serial founder who co-founded Who What Wear (sold to Future plc for ~$100M), then Merit Beauty and Avaline wine with Cameron Diaz. Versed was built as the first digitally incubated brand to launch straight into mass retail—a media audience funneled into a Target shelf. For anyone building media-into-commerce, she’s basically the blueprint.

  • Belle Brands was only formed in 2024, when Windsong Global scooped JVN Hair and Pipette out of Amyris’ bankruptcy. The thesis: buy depressed-but-shelved brands, share the boring backend (logistics, supply chain, manufacturing), and leave the brand’s face mostly alone. Versed slots right in next to KVD—essentially a consolidation play, reportedly a ~$20M revenue reset for a brand that once rode the 2019–2021 clean-beauty wave. The boom brands are aging into roll-up targets, and Belle is building a holding company out of exactly those.

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

Ask any brand what TikTok Shop actually earns them after commissions, fees, and returns, and most... can’t tell you. 🙃

TikTok Shop is absolutely booming this year (set to clear $112B in GMV), but the backend can feel impossible to model: creator commissions, platform fees, discount funding, returns, all tangled together. That’s why our finance pro friends at Drivepoint mapped it for you.

This FREE template (works in Excel!) runs content-driven revenue all the way down to true contribution profit, per SKU. You’ll get...

• A full P&L to contribution profit. Gross sales through platform fees, affiliate commissions, ad spend, discount funding, returns, and COGS.

• The creator-commission and content-funnel math, done right. Videos, views, click-through, conversion, and viral lift, modeled per SKU.

• A pre-built 2026–2027 promo calendar. Spring Sale, Mother’s Day, Fall Launch Season... all you do is toggle the promo months on and the forecast updates itself.

This template is already used by finance teams at 200+ consumer brands, including Graza, True Classic, Mad Rabbit, and Curology!

Get the free TikTok Shop forecasting template →

Now, onto the goods 👇

Nate’s Pickups:

Banagua

The headlines are probably right, this could genuinely be the next coconut water. Now, there’s a chance I think that because I love bananas and eat at least one a day. Who’s to say. But I’ll be honest here that this is one of the best-tasting beverages I’ve had in a long time, and I was shocked. I did not expect to enjoy this liquid so much. I get why they just raised $5.5 million and why people are already talking about it as the next coconut water. If you don’t like bananas, look away now. If you do, there’s no turning back.

@nate.rosenIs banana water the next coconut water?? @drinkbanagua might be leading the charge #cpg #bananawater #banana #foodtrend

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

• Quick Facts: Organic banana water made from heirloom Thai bananas, using a proprietary enzyme-assisted extraction that pulls the water naturally inside the fruit—so you get potassium, magnesium, and other electrolytes with no added sugar, no preservatives, and no funny stuff. Available in Original (bananas, that’s it), Cocoa Vanilla, Blueberry, and Strawberry.

• Reasons to love:

  • Tasty AF. The best reason to drink this is that it’s simply that good. It tastes like banana in the best possible way with no artificial or fake notes, probably because the only ingredient is banana (including the peel). The flavor is simple but bold, so you don’t need to add anything else, and I wouldn’t want anything added. The liquid is also a touch more viscous than you’d expect, which to me gives it a fun, unique quality to drink.

  • It uses nature to its fullest. It is literally just bananas. All the antioxidants, vitamins, electrolytes, and potassium are naturally derived from the bananas used to make this liquid. That’s exactly why people are calling it the next coconut water, because there are very few brands and very few products that can pull that off. Coconut water is the obvious comp, basically everything I’m saying about Banagua you could say about a good coconut water too. I’m not anti-added-sugar, but it’s genuinely cool to find something this simple that tastes like it isn’t.

  • Bananas are huge. They’re one of the most popular products in the grocery store by a landslide. The average American eats over 13 pounds of fresh bananas a year, about one in four grocery carts has bananas in it, and Walmart alone sells 1.7 billion pounds of bananas every year. If a brand can bottle that up it makes sense people will pay attention.

Where to buy: Online and in select retailers

Jenna’s Pickup:

Egglife Chocolate Egg White Wraps

This weekly pickup is a special one: it is both a review and a euology, because today was the fateful day that I finally ran out of my two packs of Egglife’s new Chocolate Egg White Wraps. I understand that I can buy them again, but I will feel this loss until I do, because this has quickly become the thing I look forward to every single day.

I know what you’re thinking: an egg white wrap as a source of joy is surely a sign of diet culture delusion. To that, I say: you clearly haven’t tried these ones yet.

• Quick Facts: Ready-to-eat wraps made from a base of egg whites and cocoa powder, sweetened with monk fruit. These are naturally gluten- and grain-free, dairy-free, and even keto- and paleo-friendly (if people are still doing that these days). Similar to a chocolate crepe in taste and format, but sans sugar and packed with protein!

• Reasons to love:

  • Insane macros. Two wraps is just 60 calories, zero sugar, and packs 11 grams of protein! For a treat that actually tastes great, is light + fluffy in texture, and satisfies a sweet tooth… that is bonkers. If you’re someone who must have dessert after every meal, breakfast included (guilty as charged), these feel like a real life hack.

  • Endless applications. A sweet wrap is likely an unfamiliar concept, so I would think of these as more like a crepe—a sweet, thin vehicle for all of your favorite sweet spreads or dips. These pair perfectly with peanut butter (especially PB and banana), or—if you want even more of a protein boost—greek yogurt or cottage cheese (easily a 30g protein dessert, with no protein powder required). And if you’re far more ambitious than I, you could even make them into a “crepe cake.” So! Many! Options!!!!

  • So convenient, you don’t even need a plate. Despite listing countless ways you could prepare these, I need to be so honest with you: I ate 90% of them while standing in the fridge, straight out of the pack. They taste so good on their own and are mess-free—perfect for when you’re rushing between meetings and just want something quick that still feels close to real, whole foods.

    Please enjoy this extremely hectic footage of Nate and I trying these for the first time while in Egglife’s “Protein My Ride” vehicle (a shmancy car decked out in protein-themed decor and stocked with Egglife’s newest products, joined by the company’s wonderful CMO, Andrea Schwenk). I love my job.

Where to buy: Find in a store near you!

Check out our most recent episode of The Curious Consumer! We were joined by Tara Bosch, founder of Snackish—the better-for-you potato chip brand—and the founder behind SmartSweets, which she exited for $360M.

Plus, we’re chatting about the biggest themes from this week’s Fancy Food Show (real sugar and real indulgence, the premiumization of frozen food, Indian flavors, and flavor-packed sauces), how Refresh is trying to make gum cool again, the brand that wants to bring sexual care products to Sephora, the real fridge cig, and more. →

Thanks for reading! Anything you think we should try for an upcoming edition of Express Checkout? Email us at hello@expresscheckout.co

The breakdown:
0:00 - Interview with Tara Bosch, founder of SmartSweets and Snackish
17:04 - The Fancy Food Show recap and themes
34:11 - Can functions make gum cool again?
38:38 - The wellnessification of intimate care
44:04 - There's still room for a cool ready-to-drink vodka seltzer
49:16 - Nutribolt IPOs

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to The Curious Consumer 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.

🗣️ Let’s connect! Follow us for behind-the-scenes content, quick tips, and more: @expresscheckout

💬 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 :)

Leave a comment

⭐ 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!

Coming fresh off of Fancy Foods, we’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to launch a product that actually stands out in today’s noisy CPG landscape.

The most frustrating pre-launch hurdle? Your new product’s ready, but a slow design team (or just a one-person Canva account) stands between you and launch day. You know AI tools could help, but finding the right one to produce high-quality assets is SO hard (let alone prompting correctly to get the result you want).

Kittl’s new Agentic AI feature is built to fix exactly this. You type a simple phrase like “healthy kids snack, listing photos” or “premium beauty serum, Instagram post” and it immediately reads your intent, writes an expert prompt, picks the model, and gives you the correct sizing for whatever you need.

You think in products, and now, your design tool does too.

Subscribe to get 50% off at checkout with code AGENTIC, on annual plans, for a limited time.

Try Agentic AI FREE

News From the Week

Last week was the Specialty Food Association’s Fancy Food Show, one of our favorite trade shows of the year (partly because it’s in our backyard, AKA Javits Center in NYC). Unlike other trade shows, like Expo West (which features beauty and supplement brands), Fancy Food Show is purely a food- and bev-focused event—an absolute field day of samples from all over the world.

We had the best time eating our way through the convention center, hosting a happy hour on a gorgeous rooftop with our friends at Wayflyer, and seeing our favorite people in CPG all in one place!

If you’ve been around for a bit, you know that we don’t love the idea of calling out “trends” from any given trade show. Instead, we look out for “themes,” our reasons being: 1) trends are fleeting, and 2) just because we see a lot of something at a trade show doesn’t mean it will be a trend among consumers. Too often, the industry has hyped something up that has fallen flat once it reached the masses.

With that being said, here are a few themes we saw at the 2026 Summer Fancy Food Show:

1. Real sugar, real indulgence. More and more brands are moving towards unapologetic indulgence. There seems to be some health halo around the idea of “real ingredients,” even if those ingredients are calorie-dense or, in many cases, high in sugar. It’s not news that “better-for-you” and “ingredients I understand” have been conflated—but what is interesting is that this mindset has trickled all the way down to indulgences. We’ve gone so far down the diet culture hole that we’ve actually swung back, and decided that a cookie or ice cream made with real sugar and real butter is actually healthier than the low-cal, artificial-ingredient alternatives (I believe this is what they call The Circle of Life).

   • At Fancy Food, this idea materialized in multiple protein ice cream options. As the protein ice cream subcategory booms (some news on that below), new brands in the set are hoping to stand out by being purely indulgent (not low-cal, not low-sugar)… and just happen to offer a boost of protein. Just 6 and Nymbl were two of such brands, boasting Haagen-Dazs richness, real sugar, and full-fat with “benefits”—AKA an added dose of protein (it’s what the people want, after all). Because, according to Nymbl’s site, “Getting your protein should feel like a treat!”

   • We also walked with Whole Foods Category Manager/beverage buyer Charlie New (stay tuned for our video on IG), who showed us one of his favorite sips from the show: Moozy, a canned A2 flavored milk proudly calling out 13g protein on front-of-pack. This is a seriously premium-tasting product, and I was surprised to learn that it actually contains a lot of sugar (37g, to be exact)—but that didn’t make it a no-no for the WFM team. Instead, Charlie was excited to see a canned milk beverage without any artificial sweeteners, that could be served as an occasional indulgence. “If we didn’t accept sugary products, the ice cream aisle wouldn’t exist. The cookie aisle wouldn’t exist. It’s my job to ensure there’s something for every kind of consumer—including those seeking indulgence—on Whole Foods shelves,” Charlie explained.

   • Notably, both cases seem to be hedging their bets: They lean into real indulgence, but still borrow the health halo of added protein callouts.

2. The continued boom of high-quality frozen products and meals. We’ve spoken endlessly about the frozen aisle’s glow-up era—how the category that was once thought of to be filled with sad, soggy, value options has been premiumized. Fancy Food showed us a continuation of this trend, featuring even more innovation in formats, global flavors, and more, across the entire frozen aisle.

   • “Restaurant-quality” isn’t just a bar being set—a lot of it is coming from actual restaurants (and chefs) making the jump to the frozen aisle.

     • Benihana launched frozen dumplings at the show—building out a whole grocery line betting that its restaurant name means something in the freezer aisle.

     • Mimi Cheng’s, the cult-favorite East Village dumpling shop founded by sisters Hannah and Marian Cheng, is another restaurant bringing its menu to the freezer aisle.

     • NADAS brought their unapologetically Colombian empanadas, born out of founder Carlos Santos’s mom Olga’s longstanding NYC restaurant. The new SKU, guava & cheese (a flavor that may be unfamiliar to American palettes, but is a South American classic) might be our fave of the bunch, and one of our favorite bites from the whole show!

     • Zucker’s froze their iconic hand-rolled bagels and threw them in a bag, bringing a New York appetizing-counter staple home.

     • Mad Mutz frozen mozz sticks come from Mike Hauke, the founder of Atlantic City’s Tony Boloney’s, who taught himself cheesemaking and built a whole “Mozzarella Laboratory” to make fresh-mozz sticks with real pull and trendy flavors (truffle and everything bagel).

     • Mazala’s frozen pizza (including a show fave, butter chicken pizza) is an offshoot of their physical restaurant locations, bringing Indian-spiced formats into the freezer.

   • Dumplings on dumplings. There were so many frozen dumplings at this show (Mei Mei’s, LuLu’s, Big Yum’s, and more), but there was one standout: Chenzi, a potato based stuffed dumpling described as a “love child between a dumpling and mochi.”

     

3. Sauce city—more specifically, seeking tang and unique spice. Have we finally reached peak sauce? The category has expanded a lot over the past few years, with clean-ingredient and globally-inspired entrants giving consumers the culinary toolkit to make restaurant-quality dishes at home. Now, we’re seeing sauce enter its fusion era—taking beloved American sauces and giving them the global flavor treatment.

   • Paco Jones (pre-launch) introduced us to a Mexican Ketchup and Mexican Barbecue Sauce, two condiments you think you already know, reframed with bold Mexican flavors. The Barbecue Sauce blew our socks off—it swapped tomato paste with ripe, sweet strawberries and red chiles for a sweet/spicy/tangy sauce that we will want to put on everything.

   • KimchiWorks similarly offered two chilis and aiolis—Kimchi Chili/Aioli and pre-launch Wasabi Chili/Aioli—that fuse the bold flavors of kimchi (bright, acidic) or wasabi (pungent, spicy) with the familiar formats of a chili sauce or creamy aioli.

4. Indian Influence across the board. This one wasn’t just us—we saw it echoed across other roundups of the show (shoutout to Fred Hart and NOSH), and we’re very inclined to agree. The Indian flavor influence was visible across nearly every category and format at the show.

   • On the more traditional side, we loved Panaji’s mini naans (which came in both traditional and more Americanized flavors, like Apple Cinnamon and Jalepeno Cheddar), simmer sauces from Gymkhana, and chai concentrate from Kolkata Chai (genuinely gasped upon trying their chai latte served with Oatly lavender cold foam. But Indian flavors also appeared in some unexpected places—here were some of our faves:

     • Butter chicken frozen pizza from Mazala Pizza

     • Bombay Spice and Black Salt potato chips from Keyas Snacks

     • Spiced Chai and Peanut Masala protein bars from Samsara

     • Sweet Corn Saffron from Malai Ice Cream

And now, a quick rundown of each of our favorite bites from the show:

Jenna’s Picks

1. Figa Food’s new Passionfruit Cupuacu Bar: a Brazilian chocolate alternative, made with real passion fruit seeds for the most delightful crunch!

2. Freezecake: cheesecake that was made fresh by a pastry chef, then freeze-dried into ridiculously delicious, crunchy, satisfying little bites

3. Umami Insider’s Yuzu Kosho & Barley Miso: the most flavor-packed miso paired with bright, citrusy yuzu and full pieces of barley for a delightful chew

4. Tooties Tempeh: the most buttery, nutty, non-bitter tempeh fermented without plastic (plastic bags are typically used in the fermentation process)

5. Mama Knows Broccoli & Cheddar waffles: frozen waffles made with super simple ingredients (including greek yogurt for an added boost of protein), in the most unexpectedly delicious broccoli cheddar flavor

Nate’s Picks

1. Paco Jones Mexican Ketchup and BBQ sauce: See above!

2. Female Rage Hot Sauce: hot sauces in unique flavors like Honey Garlic Carrot and Brown Sugar Peach, with actual heat and an awesome mission

3. Bagelverse Pizzabagels: the OG frozen pizza bagels you grew up with, but reinvented with better flavors and quality bagels

4. Lady Babka: just really, really good babka that tastes fresh out of the oven, Bubbe-approved

With that, let’s get into the news of the week →

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Will this move save chewing gum? Refresh Gum launched caffeinated gum and mints alongside a full packaging rebrand replacing its Pantone color blocks with a new logo and “mouthwatering visuals” designed to drive trial in the mainstream market.

  

  • While functional gum may be a new concept to some, it’s a format that’s done numbers for NeuroGum, a line of gums with different functions (like energy, memory + focus, etc). NeuroGum is sold in over 10,000 retail locations, has been on Shark Tank, Joe Rogan constantly (and organically) brings them up on his podcast, and the brand does over $10 million in revenue each month. Refresh is coming right into that functional gum category.

  • It’s worth noting, though, that gum isn’t exactly in its heyday. Global chewing gum sales officially peaked in 2011 at nearly $25 billion (adjusted for inflation), dropped to $15 billion in 2020, and inched back up to $18 billion in 2023—but US unit sales in 2023 were still down 27% from 2019. Clearly, people haven’t been consuming gum like they used to.

  • To us, that means that this category is ripe for a resurgence—and in today’s CPG world, category resurgence often means infusing a function*.* And as new formats take over the traditional supplement aisle (see: transdermal patches, oral dissolvable strips), turning a dying category into a supplement vehicle presents a smart backup retail placement.

    • A little food for thought I (Jenna) considered while writing: Do you think there’s a possibility (within the next decade) of the standalone supplement category effectively disappearing as every category introduces functional products?

• Clean up on aisle 5, there’s a mycelium outbreak in the freezer aisle. Beyond Meat launched its mycelium (mushroom root) whole-cut steak filet at Wegmans and H-E-B in a two-pack, following a DTC run on Beyond Test Kitchen where it became the top-selling item. Each 127g cut delivers 28g of protein and 1g of saturated fat.

  • Could this save Beyond? Beyond’s sales declined by 15% last quarter, which was its lowest quarterly total in seven years. Since last year’s massive revenue drop—and subsequent rumored bankruptcy and delisting warning from Nasdaq—the brand has attempted to make a comeback with a rebrand (now Beyond the Plant Protein Company) and the launch of its sparkling protein drinks (which we’re admittedly still confused about…). Looking ahead, the brand is planning to add to its more nutritious Beyond IV portfolio (ft. no seed oils and higher protein from whole food sources like fava beans and lentils), seemingly an effort to reposition itself as not just a better-for-the-earth brand, but a better-for-you brand.

  • Founder and CEO Ethan Brown is doubling down on this messaging: “I believe that [by] introducing consumers to our brand and our foundational commitment to great taste, clean ingredients, and plant-based nutrition in less controversial applications, we will bring back many to the centre of the plate,” (note: nothing here about climate). Brown’s key point is that this isn’t just a plant-based alternative—it’s actually a healthier option than the animal-based version: “Whereas consumers are typically advised to limit their consumption of steak, the remarkable nutritional profile of Beyond Steak Filet means you can turn any meal into a steak occasion.”

  • We’ve seen the mycelium steak movie before—Meati was the mycelium whole-cut darling, raised ~$450M and landed in ~7,000 stores, before a technical default let its lender sweep its accounts and the whole thing sold for a reported $4M (its steaks moved just fine—the unit economics didn’t). It’s easy to look at that story and assume that consumers aren’t ready for whole-cut, but Beyond is betting that demand wasn’t the issue. Instead, the question becomes whether a company already bleeding cash can make it profitably 🙃

• When protein demand is so big, you buy the factory. Vitamin Well Group (company behind Barebells) is merging with EMPWR, the Belgium-based contract manufacturer behind its Barebells protein bars, in a deal backed by Cinven, one of Vitamin Well’s private-equity backers. EMPWR’s owner Waterland Private Equity will retain a minority stake; financial terms were not disclosed.

  • The demand for Barebells products globally has been so massive, it only makes sense to own the plant to keep up. EMPWR will continue serving its 100+ other customers, so this isn’t a clean captive integration.

• The “fridge cig” has officially materialized. Or, at least, that’s what we’re gathering from the latest ready-to-drink vodka seltzer launch, Ciggy’s, which launched on Nantucket this past weekend, with plans to expand throughout the northeast. Ciggy’s offers <2g sugar, 100 calories, 4.5% alcohol, four flavors made with real fruit juice and sparkling water, and the aesthetic and laidback confidence of a classic beer brand.

  

  • Though the RTD alcoholic seltzer space may feel saturated to some, there’s still room for innovation from truly premium, differentiated products. The first wave of RTD seltzers, circa 2016, was all White Claw and Truly—malt-based, sold on the low-cal, low-effort promise—and that base is now the part of the category actually shrinking, with Circana logging beer-seltzer sales down 4.2% to $3 billion for the 52 weeks ending December 2025.

  • The growth migrated to spirits-based versions made with real vodka or tequila and real juice. Per DISCUS, premixed cocktails and spirits RTDs grew 16.4% last year to nearly $4 billion while malt-based seltzers shed 14 points of category share. High Noon owns the lane it defined, and even White Claw is chasing it—rolling out a 7% ABV ClawTails line in 2025 and moving into spirit-based formulations for summer 2026.

  • So Ciggy’s isn’t walking into a saturated category so much as a bifurcated one, where the malt shelf is losing but a premium, differentiated product with an actual point of view still has runway. And in this case, that differentiation is part-premiumization, but mostly vibe. “Ciggy’s wasn’t built to make drinking feel healthier,” said the founders of Ciggy’s. “It was built to make drinking feel fun again. We wanted a can that looked like it belonged in every cooler, every boat, every dive bar, and every backyard in America. Familiar. Confident. Uncomplicated.”

  • The name Ciggy’s, whether intentional or not, feels like it’s leaning into the “fridge cig” concept—a viral term for an ice-cold Diet Coke. The idea is that we know Diet Cokes aren’t the healthiest choice, but, like a cigarette, there’s something deviously nourishing about taking a break to crack one open—a carcinogenic* indulgence. Cigs are back, they’ve (tragically) regained their cool factor, and brands like this one are brilliantly borrowing that cultural cache. Sure, a vodka seltzer isn’t the best thing for you, but this brand is promising an experience that outweighs its nutritional failings.

    • *Side note for my (Jenna’s) conscience: While cigs are a widely known carcinogen, Diet Coke is still up for debate. Current research shows that aspartame’s cancer risk remains unresolved. You’d have to drink a genuinely absurd volume daily to approach the threshold of concern.

• The losing middle... General Mills announced a $3 billion cost-cutting plan over four years, targeting $750 million in savings for FY2027, as flat organic sales and a $2.1 billion operating loss reflect prolonged consumer spending pressure.

  • General Mills spent FY2026 cutting everyday shelf prices to win back cash-strapped shoppers—which helped base volume and household penetration but crushed margins—and the $3 billion (about $2 billion from its Holistic Margin Management program, the rest from a supply-chain and transformation overhaul) is how it pays for staying cheaper without gutting earnings. CEO Jeff Harmening framed the savings as critical to “offset inflation” and fund growth.

  • Management said weaker sentiment pushed more shoppers toward discount, and that pressure is expected to persist into FY2027 (organic sales guided at down 1.5% to up 0.5%). Cheerios, Betty Crocker, and Pillsbury sit in the mainstream-branded middle—priced above private label, below the premium/functional tier—which is exactly the shelf position getting hollowed out when budgets tighten.

  • This reflects something we’ve been noting a lot recently: the branded middle getting squeezed from both ends. Trade-down shoppers are moving to private-label (which can compete on price) and trade-up shoppers are moving towards premium, better-for-you options. General Mills’ answer is to compete on both fronts at once—cut costs to defend on price and invest in “remarkability,” bolting in-demand attributes like protein onto legacy brands to chase the top end.

Retail

• One of the nations largest grocers gets a smidge bigger. Kroger is acquiring Giant Eagle for $1.65 billion, adding the family-owned grocer’s ~$9 billion in annual sales and 197 supermarkets across Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and Indiana. The deal is expected to close in 2027, pending regulatory approval.

  

  • Kroger Co. already operates more than 2,700 stores under a variety of banner names, including four out of the five states where Giant Eagle operates (Pennsylvania being the new addition, with Western PA being a specific focus—Giant Eagle’s HQ is in Pittsburgh).

  • Reactions to the deal seem to be mixed: Neil Saunders, managing director with GlobalData, told Grocery Dive “For Kroger, making a success of the deal requires it to absorb a new division at the same time as fixing the core of its own business.” Others are more critical of the lack of differentiation Giant Eagle offers. While differentiated retailers like Sprouts, Walmart, and Aldi take market share, Kroger went for an acquisition of a chain that looks a whole lot like its other banners.

• Playing the curation game. Target Plus is expanding its invite-only marketplace with nine new brands including Clarks, Forever 21, and JanSport in apparel; LovelySkin and NatureWise in beauty and wellness; Serta, JLab, Hisense, and Wild Alaskan Company across home, entertainment, and food after posting nearly 60% GMV growth and 20% digitally originated comparable sales gains in Q1. The platform is targeting $5 billion in GMV by 2030, up from $1 billion.

  • Unlike Walmart and Amazon which allow any vendor to get on the platform (so long as they pay), Target is much more strict on who it lets in and hovers around 1,500 hand-picked brands, each SKU exclusive to a single seller. You apply and wait; category and brand fit decide whether you’re in, and reporting suggests Target now leans on AI vetting to screen for that fit.

  • Target Plus brands now make up more than half of Target’s total K-beauty assortment—which to us, reads that the marketplace is letting Target chase trends (K-beauty, dermatologist-owned skincare, premium wellness) faster than its physical buying cycle allows. LovelySkin and NatureWise are examples of Target extending January’s largest-ever beauty rollout without a single new endcap.

  • The logic: Target can’t out-spend Amazon or Walmart on marketplace scale, so it’s competing on taste. Curation is the product. And the payoff shows up less in take rate than in the services flywheel: marketplace growth helped drive a 24.6% jump in Target’s “nonmerchandise” revenue last quarter, the bucket that also holds Roundel ad dollars and Circle 360 memberships.

Funding

• Meet the latest supplement star. Apothékary, a plant-based herbal wellness brand, raised $16M—$10M in venture funding and $6M in debt—bringing its total funding to ~$32M. Backed by Shiseido and NextLevel Management, the brand is using the fresh capital to fuel retail growth, product innovation, and even AI advancements as it targets $40M in 2026 sales across Ulta, Whole Foods, and The Vitamin Shoppe.

  

  • Apothékary feels like the rise of a new arm of wellness. It’s not quite hippy-dippy herbalism, but it’s also not full-on biohacker bro. The brand’s whole pitch is “Ancient Herbs, Backed by Science,” with real clinical studies to match. We know a tincture alone is not going to fix systemic health issues or the chaos of modern life, but Apothékary has packaged old-world herbal traditions into a format that feels modern, accessible, and actionable.

  • That might be why the brand is hitting right now. Wellness has spent the last few years getting increasingly optimized and this feels like a softer counterpoint with a more ritualized quick fix. And that makes it perfect for TikTok Shop, their #1 sales channel. The brand turned endless video testimonials and affiliate marketing into some serious revenue, reportedly doing $1M in monthly sales on that platform alone. That makes sense! Supplements need explaining, and TikTok is very good at turning “here’s what I take every night” into “wait… should I be taking that too?”

  • And then there’s Shiseido of it all. A legacy beauty conglomerate backing an herbal tincture brand is yet another proof point that the beauty-wellness line continues to dissolve. Apothékary is also sold at Ulta in their endlessly growing wellness section, because of course it is. We’re well past the era where beauty meant only topical treatments for your face or body. Ingestible wellness is looking more and more like an existential necessity.

• C4 is heading to Wall Street. Nutrabolt announced an IPO targeting up to $1 billion, with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America leading the deal. Keurig Dr Pepper currently holds a 30% stake from a 2022 investment that valued the company at $2.88 billion.

  • Bloom has been a massive win for them: Nutrabolt first took a 20% stake in the Gen Z-favorite for $50 million in 2024, then poured in roughly $160 million more in 2025 to raise its position (it declined to disclose the new percentage)—a bet that looks smart now that Bloom’s sparkling energy drinks, creatine gummies, and hormone-health line have it touching nearly every functional trend on the board at once.

  • Stack that on the owned portfolio—C4 in energy, Cellucor in sport supplements, XTEND in recovery—and Nutrabolt is less a fully diversified functional-nutrition house spanning pre-workout, protein, BCAAs, creatine, and hormone health. The pitch to public markets is clear: whichever corner of the protein-and-energy boom keeps running, Nutrabolt can play in it.

• Protein ice cream keeps having a moment. Frozen One raised a $5.75M seed round led by Brand Foundry Ventures, just months after closing an oversubscribed $2M round. Grammy-winning Ryan Tedder and Abe Burns joined existing investor Supernatural Ventures.

  • Since a national Target rollout in April, the Austin brand—40g of protein and under 400 calories a pint—claims some of the strongest sales velocities in the better-for-you dessert set, and it’s added Wegmans, Raley’s, Bristol Farms, and Central Market on top of a footprint that hit ~2,300 doors by May.

  • The freezer aisle is filling with protein pints. David launched one, Protein Pints raised seven figures last year, Smearcase’s FroCo took money from Listen Ventures, and the legacy Halo Top/Nick’s cohort still holds shelf. The winner here will likely be whoever can hold velocity across thousands of doors without the (very delicate) frozen supply chain buckling.

• Intimate wellness is entering getting its beauty era. Mila, a new intimate wellness brand, raised a $2.5M oversubscribed pre-seed led by Mensch VC, with Sticker Ventures and angels from Spotify, Dyson, and BrewDog. The brand is built around skincare-style rituals, community, and patent-pending products like its 4-in-1 Aura device and Bloom gliding mist—with the goal of making intimate care feel more like an everyday self-care category than a taboo one.

  • The Sexual and Intimate Wellness space for years has either been taboo, or almost medicinal. That is starting to change, and, as Mila’s founder Ada Trujillo told us, “the future of intimate wellness looks a lot more like a Sephora than a sex shop.” Mila is part of a new wave of brands trying to make intimate wellness feel less clinical and more like the rest of beauty and wellness: better designed, more inclusive, higher quality, and built around rituals people actually want to participate in. The products are no longer meant to be hidden away. They are being made to look beautiful, sit next to skincare and supplements, and feel like a normal part of taking care of yourself.

  • Retailers and investors are clearly betting on the same shift. Sephora brought Maude and Dame into the category years ago, Target and Ulta have been expanding their wellness assortments, and funding is still flowing into brands that can make the space feel more modern and culturally relevant. To emphasize how new this really is, Maude was the FIRST sexual wellness brand in Sephora back in 2023, and they really haven’t expanded much since then.

  • This is also another example of wellness culture seeping into every category imaginable—but in this case, it’s very overdue. There is a massive opportunity here to not just make better products, but to take something historically stigmatized and make it aspirational, everyday, and completely normal for everyone.

• InvestEco closed its fourth Sustainable Food Fund at C$106 million ($74.6M USD; its largest) with backing from Canadian federal agencies including Farm Credit Canada, Export Development Canada, and the Business Development Bank of Canada. Its three prior funds raised a combined C$138.2 million.

• Bethenny Frankel acquired an ownership stake in DpHue, the at-home hair color and care brand founded by Donna Pohlad in 2011, joining as chief brand officer. Financial terms were not disclosed; DpHue projects 32–40% year-over-year sales growth with distribution across Ulta Beauty, Amazon, and TikTok Shop.

• Private equity comes for us all, eventually. ACON Investments acquired a controlling stake in YumEarth, the organic, allergy-friendly candy brand sold in ~30,000 doors including Target, Whole Foods, and Walmart. Global confectionery company Fini—100-country distributor, founded 1971—will take an ownership stake as strategic partner.

  • Looks like better-for-you candy is private equity’s next big bet. Lucky for them, there are now plenty of up-and-coming brands for firms to sink their greedy little teeth into. SmartSweets was an early signal, getting acquired by TPG back in 2020 for a reported ~$400 million. Since then, the candy aisle has only gotten more interesting. Joyride recently raised $30 million and has quickly become the #1 non-chocolate candy brand at Target, while a new class of BFY candy brands—Rotten, Behave, Blobs, Better Sour, Good Greed, and more—are trying to prove candy can still be fun, nostalgic, and just a little less terrible for you. We wouldn’t be surprised if Joyride is up next 👀. And these brands aren’t just DTC darlings or sitting on the shelves of mom-and-pop shops. Big retailers are taking big bets here, too: Behave, Rotten, and Better Sour are all sold nationwide across retailers from Costco to Target to Walmart. BFY candy is reaching a mass consumer more than ever before.

  • This was ACON Evolution Fund’s debut deal, which could be a signal for what’s next in consumer PE.

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

While we sadly were not in attendance at Cannes last week, you best bet we sufficiently stalked all the coverage. And we found that most takeaways circled around the same thesis: creators rule the conversation.

But the reality is, it’s not enough to just “invest in creators”—you need to do so strategically to move the needle. That’s where Grapevine AI comes in.

Grapevine AI‘s Performance Creator and whitelisting capability removes the biggest bottleneck in paid social—authentic creator content at scale. With a curated network of 700+ performance-vetted creators, content that runs through real creator handles, and full-service creative strategy, briefing, and post-production handled for you, Grapevine AI offers the authenticity of a third-party voice, with the control and efficiency of a performance channel.

Brands from SoFi and Microsoft to Prose, Arrae, and Alloy are using Grapevine AI to scale creator content that actually performs. Book a demo in the next 30 days and get $500 off your first creator campaign.

Book a demo + get $500 off!

News of the Week

We’re reporting live from the Summer Fancy Food Show in NYC! Last night, we hosted a happy hour after the show on a gorgeous rooftop, and got to see so many familiar faces and new friends :)

To those who came, thank you so much for making the evening truly wonderful. And a special thank you to Wayflyer (best in working capital for brands) for making it happen!!

We’re keeping things short and sweet today so we can focus on scouting the best bites + sips at Fancy Food and, of course, reporting back with our finds next Monday.

CPG & Consumer Goods

• Toothpaste calibrated to the body’s circadian rhythm. DAYLY launched an AM/PM oral wellness toothpaste system (can’t believe we’re saying these words) with four formulas—two for adults, two for kids—blending “up to” 12 vitamins, minerals, and botanicals “calibrated to the body’s circadian rhythm.” A single tube starts at $20.99 on subscription. Leave it to wellness culture to make you feel like even your toothpaste should be optimized to “calibrate to your circadian rhythm” at, quite literally, 6x the cost of a typical tube. 🙃

  

  • DAYLY is the loud new entrant, but it’s landing in a category that’s been wellnessifying for a few years now—the throughline being fluoride-free formulas built around hydroxyapatite, the mineral that makes up most of tooth enamel, marketed as the “clean” swap for the stuff your dentist recommends (reminder: your dentist probably knows best…). The nano-hydroxyapatite toothpaste market was valued at $422M in 2025 and is projected to reach roughly $1.69B by 2033, a 19% CAGR, and fluoride-free formulas dominate the category.

  • The demand is downstream of a recent fluoride backlash. RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement have made it a signature issue, with Kennedy directing the CDC to stop recommending community fluoridation on the logic that you already get enough from toothpaste and mouthwash.

    • Public opinion is genuinely split (a June 2026 Annenberg survey found 43% favor fluoridation and 26% oppose, with MAHA supporters markedly more skeptical), but for a hydroxyapatite brand, a divided public is the whole addressable market—every household talked out of fluoride is a household shopping for the alternative

  • Boka set the premium, clean toothpaste stage. This Essor-owned brand, which sells tubes for $10-12 (pennies compared to Dayly…), hit a $100M-plus revenue run rate on 4x growth and posted 481% retail growth in 2025. It went from Erewhon shelves to mass: first n-HA brand into Target in March 2025, then all 4,500 Walmart stores by March 2026. It’s also already chasing the next wellness buzzword, having launched a probiotic toothpaste in September 2025.

  

• But, where there’s clean innovation, science always responds: Another new brand is taking a similar bet on probiotics x oral care, but with dentist backing: Evenmouth. Evenmouth, which launched this week, is built around a patented oral probiotic strain. It seems like it’s aiming to do for the mouth what Seed and Pendulum did for gut health—turn an overlooked corner of wellness into a science-backed consumer category. Notably, its dentist founder is openly pro-fluoride and plans a fluoride version, calling out that many brands skip the ingredient partly because the OTC approval cost runs north of $100,000, not purely on the science.

• Getting creative with RTDs. Sazerac launched three new RTD brands nationally: Lovebug Hard Cream Soda (the first vodka-based cream soda, 100 calories, 5% ABV), Endless Afternoon Whiskey Lemonade (9% ABV) and Buckhorn Whiskey Lemonade (7% ABV).

  

  • A few weeks ago, we spoke about how brands are leaning into nostalgia—and these launches (especially Lovebug) say it all. Just like the Dirty Shirley trend (Sazerac actually owns the brand Dirty Shirley), these feel like attempts to recreate the flavors we drank as kids before we were allowed to drink, then hand them back to us with an ABV attached. Cream soda, lemonade, the Shirley Temple are all familiar enough to lower the trial barrier in an overcrowded RTD set, and loaded enough with memory that the flavor does the marketing before the can ever explains itself. The bet is that nostalgia converts faster than novelty, especially when the category is this saturated and a shopper has roughly three seconds to decide which cooler door to open.

  • With these launches, Sazerac is clearly trying to reach a younger consumer. The company acquired BuzzBallz in 2024 and Svedka in early 2025, bought Dirty Shirley in March, and within weeks took stakes in Kendall Jenner’s 818 Tequila and Alix Earle’s RTD brand Sipmargs. These new brands are the in-house complement to all those moves.

• Sugar-free waffles. Eggo Waffles launched two new zero-sugar waffles, a first for the Kellogg’s brand in the frozen breakfast aisle. Frozen breakfast has been one of the last comfort categories to dodge the sugar-reduction wave—this is nostalgia indulgence finally getting reformulated for a label-scrutinizing, GLP-1-adjacent shopper.

• Soda is safe, for now. A federal judge blocked the USDA from allowing five states to ban sugary drinks and candy from SNAP purchases, ruling the agency lacked the statutory authority to approve the waivers. It’s a major setback for RFK Jr.’s MAHA push to change what SNAP beneficiaries can use their benefits for.

• Some real innovation in the kids aisle. Nomie launched just-add-water, shelf-stable organic meals for kids ages 2–6—three SKUs including Butternut Mac & Cheese, Zucchini Pesto Pasta, and Black Bean & Veggie Rice.

  

  • Last week, we spoke about the new lunchbox—the better-for-you launches centering around school-aged kids—and Nomie fits right within that. We tried Nomie at the Winter Fancy Faire show in January, and totally fell in love with the products and genuine innovation! It’s bonkers that these freeze-dried meals are ready in <10 minutes with just hot water—they taste totally fresh and are made with wildly clean ingredients (non-UPF verified; no preservatives).

  • While these are technically for kids, they offer more elevated flavor profiles that anyone could love. These would be fabulous to have on-hand for hiking adventures or even as a quick office snack!

• The punter finds his PB&J. Pat McAfee, famed sports analyst and former punter, joined JAMS as co-owner in his first food and beverage venture, taking a hands-on stake in the clean frozen PB&J brand—10g of protein, no seed oils or HFCS—which is already in Walmart and Target nationwide.

  • This news comes off of JAMS’s recently-announced partnership with NFL Players Inc to create the first PB&J developed directly with active NFL players. Clearly, the Pat McAfee of it all played a role in this partnership.

• From sweets to savory snacking. Tara Bosch, founder of SmartSweets (exited the brand for $360 million in 2020), launched Snackish, a self-funded, fully female-led chip brand hitting Target shelves nationwide in the US, in five traditional chip flavors.

  • Snackish’s “shtick” is using the entire potato. The chips are made with potato protein (a complete protein!), avocado oil, cassava fiber, and potato starch for a boost of 3g fiber, 8g protein per serving.

  • We interviewed Tara about the Snackish launch, and will be sharing it in an upcoming episode of The Curious Consumer! Stay tuned 👀

Retail

• Gotta save the brand somehow. Bath & Body Works is launching in more than 600 Ulta Beauty stores and Ulta.com in July, with a curated assortment of body care and home fragrance.

  • For years, if you wanted B&BW, you had one option: a trip to the mall. It wasn’t a destination, it was THE destination. But, despite malls having a resurgence, today’s teens are looking for beauty brands elsewhere—and B&BW knows it. Its first big move came last year when the brand launched on Amazon—and quickly hit hurdles with resellers selling their products and hurting their brand image, costing tens of millions. The upside of that disaster? Those sales indicated that consumers still want B&BW, just in the places they already shop—enter: Ulta.

Funding

• Haircare continues to boom. L Catterton invested a significant minority stake in Rōz, the celebrity hairstylist-founded haircare brand projected to quadruple to $35M in sales this year. Retail sales are up 136% YoY with its hero product Milk Hair Serum selling every three minutes.

  • Rōz fits a thesis L Catterton has been building all year: founder-as-expert. The firm explicitly framed this as a continuation of its Remedy investment (dermatologist Muneeb Shah), a bet that brands rooted in founder authority hold a durable competitive advantage. Rōz’s edge is its founder, celebrity hairstylist Mara Roszak—the expertise is the moat.

  • The firm also has a track record of buying haircare and flipping it to strategics. L Catterton previously sold Frédéric Fekkai to P&G and Nutrafol to Unilever, and the comps for where Rōz could land are already on the board—Briogeo to Wella, Ouai to P&G, K18 and Living Proof both to Unilever. The Sephora relationship feels like it’s setting the stage for that same exit.

• Big pharma wants your supplements. Haleon, a British multinational consumer healthcare company (portfolio includes Advil, Theraflu, TUMS, Emergen-C, and more) has reportedly bid for Thorne, the dietary supplements brand L Catterton acquired for $680 million in 2023, now valued at up to $4 billion, as Haleon targets the $70 billion US supplements market. Meanwhile, sources are saying that Unilever ultimately did not bid for the company (after exploring bids).

  • Paying 6x in under three years shows something big about strategics: they’re looking at supplements as a core part of their consumer-health infrastructure—just look at Unilever’s bets on Liquid IV, Olly, Smartypants, Nutrafol, and Gruns.

  • It’s interesting to see Haleon in particular consider Thorne, which would be a highly premium (by comparison) addition to its existing portfolio. Unlike Centrum or Emergen-C (current Haleon portcos), Thorne is known more in the modern biohacking sphere and sits at a premium price point.

• Growing the cult. Coconut Cult, a better-for-you and, indeed, cult-favorite probiotic coconut yogurt brand, secured $12.5 million in equipment financing from Dallas-based Bridge Finance Group, a private credit firm focusing on high-growth CPG companies. The funding will help transition production nearly 5x from its current 55,000-square-foot facility in Ogden, Utah, to a new 300,000-square-foot facility.

  • Led by CEO Ari Raz since 2021, Coconut Cult has grown 142% in 2025 and is projected to hit 90% growth in 2026. What started as a small-batch operation shared among friends in 2015 has expanded nationally across high end retailers like Erewhon to Whole Foods and Target.

• Giving investors a sneak peek. FirstLook VC, a subscription box for investors, has just passed $26.6 Million in deployed capital across 103 investments and 65 brands.

  • Think of FirstLook like Shark Tank in a box! Subscribers are investors and brands raising go in the box! Brands like Beatbox (acquired), Coconut Cult (learn more about their success above), Final Boss Sour, Slate, IQBar, and Snif have raised through the box.

• The Nütrl playbook moves to tequila. Paul and Melissa Meehan invested in Los Sundays through their platform Me&Brands, leading the brand’s Canadian launch and a 100-calorie RTD Tequila Soda for 2026. Los Sundays grew 125% YoY and ranks 19th among the fastest-growing US tequila brands.

• BFY snacking wins. Functional snack brand Rivalz raised a $5M Series A led by The March Group to launch a new Puff line. The round was backed by former Mars executives who co-founded both Rivalz and the lead investor.

  • Like Snackish, mentioned above, Rivalz is one of the countless brands taking nostalgic and iconic products but adding tons of protein and fiber better ingredients. We’re very curious to see where they go with this new Puff line as there are an ungodly amount of puffed better-for-you snacks on the market.

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

SO excited to see so many familiar faces this weekend at Fancy Food Show in NYC! Hit us up if you’ll be in town :)

Before we get to the snooping, a quick word on something new from our friends at Hummingbirds. They just launched Offers, a feature now in early access that ties word-of-mouth to actual, receipt-verified purchases at the shelf.

Most marketing tools stop at the post: the impressions, the saves, the engagement rate that may or may not mean anything… but Offers keeps going. A shopper discovers your product through a creator they already trust, buys it on their next run to Target, Whole Foods, Costco, Sprouts, or Walmart, uploads the receipt, and earns a little cash back. You get verified velocity data tied to a specific SKU, sitting right in your dashboard with the redemption proof attached.

Because it surfaces to Hummingbirds’ community of 55,000+ discovery-driven shoppers and everyday creators, the trial starts the day you launch. Run an Offer on its own to build velocity ahead of a buyer meeting, or pair it with a creator campaign and watch the content and the purchase data land in the same view.

The short version: Offers is proof that your marketing actually moved product, so you never have to guess what’s working.

Get started here!

And now, speaking of what actually ends up in carts…

Welcome back to Real Receipts.

We have another special edition of Weekly Pickups this week: Real Receipts, powered by Hummingbirds—the brilliant platform that helps brands activate everyday creators in targeted markets and at real points of purchase.

Real Receipts exposes the actual grocery carts of real consumers across the country. If you often find yourself snooping on the grocery cart of the person in front of you at checkout, this one’s for you—and this time (thanks to our friends at Hummingbirds) it’s solicited. 🤝

Time to cart snoop. →

Meet Olivia Vald, an everyday creator on Hummingbirds. She’s 22, an Iowan living in California, freshly post-grad and working in social media. Olivia fills her off-hours with reading, hiking, and a healthy amount of Pinterest scrolling (she’s a social media girlie, after all).

First, let’s see the receipts:

This Target run rang up to $145.11, and offers a clear depiction of her shopping philosophy: “half list, half vibes.” Olivia keeps her non-negotiable staples on rotation and gives herself room to explore the aisles for whatever stands out. “I always joke that if it’s cute, I’m much more likely to add to cart,” she told us. “I’m just a girl, okay?!”

That philosophy is all over the receipt. The staples show up—Banza rotini and penne, Goodles, Graza, Molly’s Suds Laundry Powder—sitting right next to the more exploratory grabs like a little Swedish-candy detour (Sockerbit, BUBS) and a Bloom Pop to sip on.

Clean ingredients are the throughline: she scans labels for “clean and minimal” before anything makes the cut.

She shops with cost in mind, but she offers herself some wiggle room: “I try to be intentional about it—I have my staples I know I’ll use, and then I give myself permission to try a few new things each week.” Anything she’s eyeing but doesn’t strictly need stays on the shelf until it earns a spot in one of those “few fun purchases.”

Olivia shops weekly, and almost always in person. “I’m a big Trader Joe’s gal and get most of my staples there,” she said, “but I love browsing at Target and Whole Foods for the brands I love and to discover new-to-me products.” This week’s snoop is one of those Target browse-and-discover runs.

While Olivia does consider herself brand-loyal, she’s endlessly curious at the same time. “I love learning about brands’ stories, female founders, social initiatives, and supporting them through my purchases,” she said. She also loves to spread the word about her faves—she’s the type to text a rec to friends and family (and happily collect plenty back). A few tried-and-true favorites are:

1. Cocojune: “Currently quite obsessed with the vanilla chamomile.”

2. A dip of some sort: lately it’s Ithaca Hummus (lemon dill) and the Bitchin’ Sauce x Yellowbird collab.

3. Protein pasta: Banza and Goodles have both been earning their spot.

4. Graza: “Not a weekly purchase, but crucial to have in my kitchen!!”

5. One Trick Pony Peanut Butter: “Cute and super clean”—and freshly landed in Target, which she’s thrilled about.

6. Joolies Dates: “My fave snack with One Trick Pony PB!”

Shoutout to Olivia for opening up her cart and showing us how a brand-obsessed 22-year-old shops. Stay tuned for the next Real Receipts edition, thanks to our friends at Hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds is a community-powered retail velocity platform that connects CPG brands with discovery-driven shoppers and everyday creators.

With the new Offers feature, that same community now closes the loop—tying creator-driven discovery to verified, receipt-backed purchases at the retailers where you actually sell. One platform, one dashboard, one story: from content to conversion. Get started as a shopper or book a call to see it in action.

PS. Check out our most recent episode of The Curious Consumer, where Jenna is joined by Mike Messersmith, CEO of Lasso Labs—a Harvard-born food tech startup using a patented fiber spinning platform to create high-protein, high-fiber foods with cleaner labels and no compromise on texture or taste.

Mike shares his journey from legacy CPG to Chobani and Oatly (both at their peaks) to food tech founder, how the tech actually works, and why he believes the future of food will be won by changing the process, not just the recipe.

Thanks for reading! Anything you think we should try for an upcoming edition of Express Checkout? Email us at hello@expresscheckout.co

Mike shares his journey from legacy CPG to Chobani and Oatly (both at their peaks) to food tech founder, how the tech actually works, and why he believes the future of food will be won by changing the process, not just the recipe.

Then, we get into the protein reckoning unfolding across the grocery store right now—why the whey shortage is a symptom of a much bigger industry shift, how Lasso’s tech could meet that demand, and combatting fear-mongering around processed foods. Let’s get into it!

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction to Lasso
1:47 Mike’s background: PepsiCo, Chobani, and Oatly
3:58 From dairy to oat milk: category creation and disruption
11:49 What is Lasso and how the technology works
13:59 Inputs, outputs, and product applications
23:38 Building a brand vs. a B2B food tech company
26:28 Why big food companies haven’t cracked this yet
27:14 The whey protein shortage and what it really signals
34:02 Ultra-processed foods: separating fear from facts
38:47 Food physics vs. food chemistry

🎧 Love the show? Subscribe to The Curious Consumer 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.

🗣️ Let’s connect! Follow us for behind-the-scenes content, quick tips, and more: @expresscheckout

💬 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 :)

Leave a comment

⭐ 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!

We’re coping with some serious residual FOMO, because Wayflyer’s inaugural Visionaries Summit in London was a huge success (listen to the panels featuring the UK’s best brand founders here).

It spanned across 3 days, 9 panels, 30+ founders of brands including Trip, Suri, and Candy Kittens, 500+ guests—exploring topics like how to build credibility in a crowded wellness space, the art of creating a brand universe, and how to take market share from legacy brands.

Lucky for us, they’re now bringing it stateside (cue Stateside by Zara Larsson) the last week of August, and—trust us—you will NOT want to miss this one!!

Want to participate? They’re collecting requests for panel speakers in LI post comments and IG post comments!

Get notified when registration opens!

News of the Week

Elementary schoolers are about to have entirely new goods to barter at recess… because the new lunchbox is officially here!

In the past week alone, we saw two launches specifically targeting the school-age childhood demographic:

• Beech-Nut Nutrition Company, owned by Swiss company Hero Group, just launched its Goodies line in the US—clean-label snacks (bars, poppable bites, potato sticks, etc)—for kids four-and-up, now at Walmart and Kroger. Hero already sells Goodies across nine other markets; this is the brand finally betting on the American lunchbox.

• And the founding duo behind Yasso launched a new functional snack brand: Snack Buddies—mini muffins with 5g protein and 4–5g fiber, essentially a better-for-you Little Bites.

We’re watching a complete overhaul of what’s actually going into kids’ lunchboxes. Dyes, high-fructose corn syrup, gluten? We don’t know them. Today’s lunchbox is the cleanest it has ever been—and it’s only going to get cleaner (and more functional, protein-ified, fiber-rich, and whatever-the-next-thing-is) from here.

For years, while better-for-you products in the baby and toddler aisle saw steady growth and innovation (organic purées! single-origin everything! entire fridges dedicated to HPP baby food!), “kids’ food” meant one of two things: an afterthought (a smaller, sadder version of an adult product) or effectively candy in a trench coat (fruit snacks that are functionally gummy bears, “juice” that’s 10% juice… you get it).

How’d we get here? The defining lunchbox food of the last 40 years was invented in the late ‘80s by an Oscar Mayer exec whose literal assignment was to find a way to move more bologna (imagine earnestly being tasked with selling more baloney…). When he needed $30M to build the assembly lines, he had to pitch the board of the company that had just bought Kraft… which was Philip Morris. Yes, the Marlboro people. The lunchbox staple a whole generation grew up on (including us) was, functionally, a scheme built and marketed by Big Tobacco.

Kids’ food was an afterthought by design.

So why is everyone suddenly racing to fix it? A couple of things clicked into place at once.

• The adult better-for-you shelf is basically full. Every category has its clean-label darling, the white space is mostly gone, and the millennial parent who reorganized their own pantry around “no junk” has now turned that exact lens on their kids. Kids are the last open frontier, and the parents buying for them already shop this way for themselves.

• And the place that lens lands hardest is exactly this age. The CDC’s latest numbers shows that American kids aged 1-18 get 61.9% of their daily calories from ultra-processed food (UPF)—more than adults (53%), and peaking at a rough 64.8% for ages 6–11, which is exactly the lunchbox demographic.

• There’s a regulatory tailwind, too. The clean-label, no-synthetic-dye positioning that every one of these brands leads with maps onto the current policy mood around kids and UPF—which is exactly why “no dyes, no seed oils, no high-fructose corn syrup” has become the front-of-pack table stakes rather than the differentiator.

• But the reality is, processed food isn’t going anywhere—convenience is non-negotiable for most busy parents. So the play was never “no package,” it’s “better package”: if the kid is going to get the majority of their calories from something wrapped, make the wrapped thing as good as it feasibly can be.

Will parents actually pay for all this? The toddler aisle already answered that. In February, Jennifer Garner’s Once Upon a Farm IPO’d on the NYSE, raising ~$200M and popping 17% on day one to an ~$847M valuation. Little Spoon crossed $150M in net revenue and ran the biggest food launch in Target’s history.

The parent who happily spent $7 a pouch on organic purées does not suddenly stop caring on the kid’s fourth birthday—if anything, it’s a values decision that compounds, right up until the kid starts packing their own lunch.

So what’s actually in the new lunchbox?

• The main event (the Lunchables slot): Sunnie, refrigerated snack-pack “dippers” made to be a balanced mini-meal, free of seed oils, refined sugar, and gluten, now in ~500 Target stores. A serious upgrade from baloney’s dark past.

  • OR the PB&J: JAMS, DropOut Companies’ cleaner Uncrustables—10g protein, no seed oils (side note: DropOut just brought on Andrew Strife, the co-founder and CFO of LesserEvil, as CEO).

• The snack stack (a crowded slot, which tells you something): Happy Wolf‘s nut-free, fridge-fresh bars made from ingredients you’d recognize in your own kitchen; Skout Organic‘s shelf-stable, school-safe bars with seven-or-fewer organic ingredients; Cadootz‘s 5g-protein whole-food crackers; and Yumi, the toddler-snack brand parents admit to eating themselves.

• The drink (heating up fastest): Jubilee’s shelf-stable whole-milk boxes with hidden veggies and no added sugar, plus NoBiggie, Wave Kids, and Roxberry racing to own the sparkling/functional kids drink—a slot that barely existed before Poppi made “better soda” aspirational for the under-12 set.

• The treat: Sweet Nothings‘ spoonable, no-added-sugar smoothie; the Yasso founders’ Snack Buddies; and Gruns‘ kids gummy vitamins replace the traditional fruit snacks (functional or bust).

• The fun: Noshi—”food paint,” naturally colored fortified frosting, showing how the category has moved past pure nutrition and into experience.

Where does this go next? Every nostalgic kid SKU gets its clean remake—Lunchables → Sunnie, Uncrustables → JAMS, soda → NoBiggie… you get the gist.

The functional arms race follows the adult playbook down on a lag (protein and fiber now, gut health next). And next, the incumbents will stop building and start buying—Once Upon a Farm’s IPO and Beech-Nut’s Goodies move both signal that the next wave likely exits to a strategic rather than scaling alone.

For 40 years, kids’ food was the afterthought. Now, the same parents who fixed their own pantries are looking to reflect their values in their kids’ meals. The lunchbox was always ripe for disruption—now, it’s finally happening.

CPG & Consumer Goods

• The yogurt wars rage on. Danone has sued Chobani, alleging it uses a 6.7-ounce serving size—vs. the 5.3-ounce industry standard—to claim 20g of protein per serving on its 32-ounce tubs, when FDA rules would put that figure at 18g.

  • This is not the first time that Danone has sued Chobani… there have been lawsuits between the two brands for over a decade now. Back in 2016, Danone convinced a court to get Chobani to take down ads that implied Danone’s Light and Fit contained chlorine. In 2019, Danone failed to sue Chobani over claims its yogurt had 33% less sugar than Dannon’s Danimals line. Then in 2025, Danone filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in New York against Chobani over its La Colombe cold brew coffee line. Someone give these poor yogurt lawyers a BREAK!

  • Regardless of the outcome, Danone is clearly feeling the pressure from Chobani’s massive success. Chobani is well positioned to be the next century spanning brand. Over the past 20 years, it has evolved from scrappy startup operating out of a shuttered Kraft Foods yogurt plant to controlling 26% of the overall U.S. yogurt market and is valued at nearly $20 Billion. They single-handily drove interest in greek yogurt from less than 1% of the US yogurt market to over 50% of the entire market in 10 years.

  • Highly recommend reading our deep dive on why we think Chobani is the next 100 year brand!

• We just love this collab!! For the first time in 150 years Campbell’s is launching a gluten-free canned chicken noodle soup using Banza chickpea pasta. This is their 3rd gluten-free soup they’ve made since launching the line in 2023.

  

  • According to data cites by Campbell’s, about 30% of the US population is actively seeking out gluten free options and the market is projected to grow nearly 10% annually over the next decade. That’s a good amount of people wanting good GF options to add to their cart.

  • Sure, it makes sense for a growing number of gluten-free consumers. But this collab represents something much larger: When a legacy brand—with significant visibility, accessibility and distribution—collaborates with an emerging brand—with built-in consumer trust and a better-for-you halo—both benefit immensely. A consumer who may have moved away from the Campbell’s brand in an effort to clean up their cart could be swayed to return, while a consumer who couldn’t justify Banza’s premium prices can now trial the brand in an accessible format.

  • As Banza’s co-founder, Brian Rudolph, told us:

    “Campbell’s came to us with the idea, and recognizing how iconic the product is, we jumped at it. Our goal is to make chickpea pasta as common as traditional pasta, and there’s no better way to signal it’s here for the long term than teaming up with a brand that’s thrived for over 150 years.”

  • And (though this is entirely speculation), this could be Campbell’s testing the waters for an acquisition 👀

• Gen-Z won’t be bought—they’ll be recruited.1 poppi just opened applications for its Fall 2026 College Ambassador program. In other words: a brand now big enough to buy any shelf in the country is still hand-recruiting 19-year-olds to hawk soda at their sorority formals, because campus is where consumer habits get set for the next 40 years.

  • But... what does it actually take to reach college students at scale? One of our favorite finds lately has been Muses, the agency running some of the most recognized campus programs out there, for brands like Lucky Energy, Blank Street, and Hop Wtr. Making Gen-Z deem something “culture-worthy” is notoriously hard. These are the people who actually know how.

  • Check them out if you want in with college students!! Fall recruiting season is heating up right now—the smart brands are locking in their campus play before move-in. Book a FREE consultation with Muses and walk away with a campus blueprint for your specific brand.

• A great week for the Soy Boys:

  • Whey is expensive; soy is not. Mondelēz International announced Alpine Bio in its 2026 CoLab Tech accelerator to co-develop high-protein snacks using the startup’s fractionated soy protein isolate—a whey substitute as whey protein concentrate prices have surged over two years.

    • Alpine Bio’s OG moonshot product is molecular farming (genetically engineered soybeans to grow casein, which I mentioned here). But Mondelēz is not working with the genetically engineered casein. Instead, they’re working with FSPI (fractionated soy protein isolate), a separate product made from non-GMO soybean flour—a neutral-tasting, highly soluble complete protein designed to “do whey’s job.”

    • The rest of the 2026 cohort (precision-fermented fat maker Nourish Ingredients, GLP-1 prebiotic fiber startup Arkasa, clean-label emulsifier firm Ruby Bio) shows Mondelēz casting a wide net across ingredient resilience, not committing to soy.

  • And the most well known soy milk brand, Silk, is launching a plant-based protein yogurt and its first shelf-stable RTD protein shake across US retail this summer. The yogurt delivers 13g of complete soy protein per serving (a new target for Danone’s legal endeavors? 🙃), 2x twice the category average, while each shake bottle packs 30g.

• Good Culture fans, rejoice! Fewer out-of-stocks might be coming for the famous cottage cheese brand. Michigan Milk Producers Association announced a partnership with Good Culture to produce cottage cheese at MMPA’s newly opened Remus, Michigan facility (acquired last year), expanding the co-op’s processing capabilities and helping Good Culture scale supply and reach more shelves nationwide.

• The sunscreen aisle might look different soon. For the first time in more than 20 years, the FDA cleared an ingredient for use in U.S. sunscreens. Bemotrizinol—a UVA/UVB filter commonly used in Europe—can now be used at up to 6% after DSM Nutritional Products petitioned the agency.

  • We asked Emily Doyle, DUNE Suncare’s Co-Founder and CEO, for her insights on this suncare milestone:

“It’s a genuinely exciting moment for the industry. Bemotrizinol has been a trusted UV filter in Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Australia for years—formulators in those markets have had access to more advanced sunscreen technology than what’s been available in the U.S. for a long time. The approval of bemotrizinol matters not just as an ingredient, but as a signal. It suggests the U.S. regulatory environment is beginning to evolve in a way that can support real innovation in sun protection.”

“The opportunity gives indie brands access to a UV filter that global formulators have trusted for years, and it opens the door to new textures, protection profiles, and formats that simply weren’t always available or easy to achieve with the existing (and relatively limited) U.S. filters. For brands like DUNE, it’s a chance to build on an already strong foundation rather than solve a performance gap. The challenge is that novelty isn’t a strategy. Incorporating a new sunscreen active requires significant investment in formulation, testing, and validation. The harder question is whether bemotrizinol genuinely elevates a product or whether a brand is reformulating just to capitalize on the moment. For smaller indie brands especially, those resources are finite—so the bar for ‘why this, why now’ needs to be high.”

• At the same time, sun care is getting a tech upgrade. The90 just launched the Gem, a $299 wearable that tracks UVA and UVB exposure in real time via a photodiode sensor, marketed to women as a skin-care device. The startup raised ~$3 million led by influencer Lauryn Bosstick, with Ulta Beauty and Sephora as eventual retail targets.

• Nestlé USA officially goes fully dye-free. Nestlé USA announced the removal of all certified artificial colors from its U.S. portfolio, fulfilling a mid-2026 pledge made under pressure from the White House and RFK Jr. General Mills, Kraft Heinz, and Campbell’s have made similar commitments.

  • In June 2025, Nestle announced that >90% of its US portfolio was already dye-free, but decided to fully commit to the bit by mid-2026—following similar moves from Kraft Heinz and The Campbell’s Company, as well as retailers like Target.

• K-food’s seaweed supply chain gets future-proofed. CJ Foods announced plans to build a land-based gim (a roasted seaweed) cultivation facility in South Korea, opening in 2027, as rising ocean temperatures threaten supply. Bibigo posted 1,100% retail sales growth from 2020 to 2024.

  • Korean beauty walked so Korean food could run. K-beauty exports grew from $7.57B in 2020 to $10.23B in 2024, carried by the same Hallyu engine—K-pop, K-dramas, the TikTok algorithm—that’s now moving Korean pantry staples into mainstream carts. K-food exports hit a record $13.62B in 2025, with instant ramyeon becoming the first single category to clear $1.5B (up nearly 22% year-over-year). Food is running beauty’s playbook a few years behind.

  • Clearly, CJ Foods is betting that this is more than a fad. Climate-proofing a supply chain is a serious business, and happens only when a category has become mainstay.

• Michelob Ultra is carrying the whole bar tab. Anheuser-Busch announced a $20M investment in its St. Louis brewery and a Missouri can plant to scale up Michelob Ultra production, now the top-selling U.S. beer by volume, as part of a broader $600M manufacturing commitment.

  • Bud Light long held the crown as America’s top-selling beer, but following conservative boycotts in 2023, sales slipped. Modelo Especial stepped into the vacancy, overtaking Bud Light in off-premise dollar sales that June. Modelo’s dominance has since cooled, partly because of the Trump administration’s immigration policies dampening enthusiasm for Mexican imports. Beer is political, and there’s no denying it.

  • Michelob Ultra’s ascent can’t be separated from its relentless sports sponsorship strategy—the NBA’s first-ever global beer sponsor, official beer of the FIFA World Cup 2026, and a 30-plus-year partnership with the PGA Tour.

  • Interestingly, some of this may be fueled by the NA boom: Just one year after launching in January 2025, Michelob Ultra Zero became the #1 top-selling and fastest-growing non-alcoholic beer in America, overtaking Heineken 0.0. Circana named it the #1 innovation across the entire U.S. beer industry for the year. Michelob Ultra Zero accounted for 54% of all NA beer category growth year-to-date.

• Eat mor chikin. Archer Meat Snacks is launching its first-ever chicken product—Oven-Roasted Chicken Mini Sticks—at Target this month, as the brand bets a new protein will fuel growth in the booming meat snacks category.

  • In March, Chomps made the same move—debuting its chicken sticks after 10 years of development. We had Stacey Hartnett, SVP of Marketing at Chomps, on The Curious Consumer podcast to tell us more about the decision to go all-in on chicken—listen here!

  • We’ve covered the massive meat stick boom before. It only makes sense that as these on-the-go protein snacks boom in popularity, consumers will look for an alternative (and leaner) protein source. When all meat stick companies seem to be copy-pasting formats, flavors, and protein sources from each other, it’ll be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Retail

• Everything is a retailer now. Faire is opening its wholesale marketplace to hotels, offices, and non-retail businesses, a pivot from pure resale that follows a pilot with ~5,000 buyers. Brands like Simply Gum are already using it for hotel mini bars and client gifting.

  • As Jen Burke, Faire’s CRO, shared with us on The Curious Consumer, everything is becoming a retailer now. Faire built its business on independent retailers, but that pool is finite, and you can only grow GMV so far by signing more of the same buyer. Hotels, offices, gyms, and salons already purchase product in volume—they were just never counted as “retail.” Running a ~5,000-buyer pilot before opening the gates signals this is a deliberate land grab for an entirely new buyer base, not a one-off experiment.

  • The deeper shift is that commerce infrastructure has been commoditized. Shopify made anyone a store, retail media turned every retailer into a media company, and Faire is now making every business a buyer. “Retailer” was never a fixed identity—it was whoever owned the customer relationship and the rails to transact, and now everyone has the rails. For brands, that translates to demand without the usual cost of chasing it: a major tech office stocking protein bars in its kitchen is a recurring, higher-margin reorder and a discovery moment in a setting the brand could never buy its way into.

• K-Beauty boom continues. Olive Young, the world’s largest K-beauty retailer, just opened its second U.S. store location at Westfield Century City, following its first Los Angeles opening in May 2026.

Funding

• Hot dogs…for golfers? Gleezy Dog, the self-proclaimed premium hot dog company by golfers for golfers (there really is a niche for everything…), raised a $2 million seed round led by The Club by Old Tom Capital. The North Carolina–based brand has sold over 1.5M hot dogs to date (cannot validate how much or how little was consumed by Joey Chestnut).

  • The branded meat space is ripe for disruption, and bets are starting to be placed. Earlier this month, The Sausage Project hit Walmart as part of an expansion to roughly 3,266 stores nationwide. The DFG Ventures–backed chicken sausage brand (from the team behind goop kitchen and Cravings by Chrissy Teigen) went from about 280 doors to more than 3,000 in just over a year—a sign there’s real appetite for fresh takes on the refrigerated meat aisle.

  • In January, ButcherBox made its first big retail move, rolling fresh, 100% grass-fed beef into more than 1,400 Target stores—stepping off its DTC subscription roots and onto the retail shelf.

  • And in April, Lottie’s Meats brought its sister-founded pork sausage line to Target across Northern California, Washington, and Oregon—its biggest retail expansion yet, on top of 300-plus existing doors.

  • So, why now? It’s the same force reshaping every other aisle: consumers want upgrades to the products they already love—real food, sourced better, and with bigger flavor. ButcherBox’s Target launch was explicitly tied to the retailer’s health-and-wellness push, and all three brands adopted the same playbook as the rest of packaged food—free from additives, preservatives, and anything artificial, plus cleaner sourcing and better branding.

• Smoking hot fundraise. Algae Cooking Club raised $11.6M to scale its fermentation-derived algae-based cooking oil, which boasts a 535°F smoke point and an omega-9 fatty acid profile—positioning squarely at the intersection of the anti-seed-oil movement and premium kitchen staples. The new capital will be used to scale its retail footprint, having recently launched nationwide in Target.

  • Even if the anti-seed oil debate fades after 2027, premium cooking oils are likely here to stay. Consumer perception of cooking oil has been fundamentally reprogrammed over the last decade—from an undifferentiated pantry stable to a considered purchase, or even luxury gift (shoutout Brightland for building that frame, and Graza for democratizing it).

  • Zero Acre, Brightland, Graza, and Algae Cooking Club are all building thoughtfully in the non-seed-oil-oil category, but building differently. Brightland and Graza are the brand-equity plays; Zero Acre (cooking oil made by fermenting sugarcane into oil) and Algae Cooking Club are the IP/technology plays. Those are two different acquirer profiles—one is a Unilever or Kraft Heinz wanting a premium brand on shelf, the other is a Cargill or ADM wanting the fermentation tech.

• Protein from thin air. Solar Foods raised €77.8 million ($89.2M) in grants and loans for Factory 02, its first commercial-scale plant for Solein—a protein grown by feeding microbes hydrogen, CO2, and nitrogen instead of sugar, so the raw inputs are essentially air, water, and electricity rather than farmland or livestock.

  • The CEO is openly pitching Solein as a whey hedge (sensing a theme, here?): stable supply, no price volatility, cost-competitive. That’s the same pressure pushing Mondelēz toward soy isolate—the whey squeeze is quietly underwriting the entire alt-protein-ingredient pitch.

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