THE picnic cracker of the summer.
+ sour candy dates?!
Hello hello!
Whitelisting, Spark Ads, Partnership Ads—they’re your highest-ROI channel in 2026. And minisocial is the fastest way to scale them.
Heres what a brand recently had to say about their results with minisocial:
“minisocial helped us cut through the sameness of traditional digital advertising with authentic creator content and high-performing whitelisting partnerships. The results gave us one of the strongest returns we have seen from a paid media initiative; a 30x ROAS!” - Taylor J. Shafer, SEO & Digital Advertising Manager
With minisocial, it’s easy:
Just submit your brief, approve your hand-picked creators, and watch as content fills your dashboard for you to review and approve before it gets posted by high-quality creators, and you have access to the fully-licensed content AND permissions to run the posts as partnership ads/whitelisting ads!
Plus, for the next month minisocial is giving Express Checkout readers 15% off their first project!
Ready to turn creators into your best-performing ad channel? →
Now, onto the goods 👇
Nate’s Pickups:
Joolies Date Sours
I can safely say that these are some of the best things I’ve had all year. Top 5 at the very least! Joolies already has some of the best, juiciest, softest dates you can buy at a regular grocery store, so when I got these I was already expecting to be impressed. And guess what? I was more than impressed, I was shocked. This product fits nicely alongside all the other whole-date candy products out there like Smood Sweets, Gato, and True Dates.
Quick Facts: A better-for-you alternative to sour candy, combining organic, pit-free Medjool dates with nostalgic candy-inspired sour coatings. They offer the soft, chewy texture of whole fruit with a puckering, sour finish, zero added sugar, and no sugar alcohols. Available in Watermelon, Blue Raspberry, Peachy, and Cherry Cola.
Reasons to love:
Flavor blasted. I don’t know how they did it but each flavor is so good, so powerful, and perfectly sour. You’ll pucker a bit, sure, but these aren’t so sour they knock you on your ass. If you ask me, which of course you are, they picked the best flavors to launch with. These are iconic candy flavors and pair just so well with the dates. Honestly, mixing them all together tastes even better. Plus the flavor and sweetness of the dates still come through all that citric acid and flavoring. They’re just perfect.
They’re soft. And I mean this in a good way. Joolies has some of the best packaged dates on the market. Every one is so soft, flavorful, and huge—these are BIG dates—they look and feel incredibly fresh. This quality and texture luckily carries over to this new product. Biting into one is just as satisfying, but instead of a regular date you get a sour punch of candy flavor!
A tasty play on candy. There are a ton of better-for-you candies out there. Like, so so so so many. And I am so grateful that Joolies decided to step in and lay claim. As I mention any time we discuss a candy product: I eat so much god damn candy, it’s a really bad habit. But a satisfying one I don’t plan on kicking any time soon (sorry to my dentist). So it’s nice to know that when I get a candy craving (which is often) these will actually satisfy that itch and leave me feeling a little better about my little addiction. Hey, these do have lots of fiber after all!
Where to buy: Online at Target and in select Sprout stores
Jenna’s Pickup:
Sfizi - Fennel Taralli
In case you haven’t heard, we have officially entered picnic season. The days are long and the evenings are balmy—by conditional logic, that means: the people want to crack open a chilled Lambrusco with various crunchy vehicles + creamy dips on a picnic blanket in their nearest grassy area (Mt. Joy humming from a portable speaker nearby).
Unless you are an absolute SQUARE of a picnic attendee, you should probably start dreaming up your seasonal picnic snack offering. And I’d like to throw in my first suggestion from a shiny new brand: Sfizi (pronounced sfeet-see—we cannot have you looking like a newb with this posh pick).
Quick Facts: Traditional Italian snack crackers made in Italy, purveyed by a husband-and-wife duo, Joe Fiorenzo and Sheela Prakash (cookbook author, recipe developer, and food writer).
Reasons to love:
Authentically Italian. Each batch of Sfizi is made by two Italian brothers in Puglia who left their desk jobs to follow their passion for culinary heritage. They make their taralli the authentic way, boiling them before baking (kinda like a pretzel). It results in this delightfully crumbly, crispy, light-as-air cracker—how taralli is meant to be experienced.
Thoughtful ingredients + fantastic taste. Made with just a few simple ingredients, these achieve the most spectacular taste and texture. They are the perfect in-between of sweet + salty, pairing a nutty, buttery, olive oil base with the warm, delicately sweet, licorice-adjacent flavor of fennel. They would pair beautifully with a creamy goat cheese, whipped feta, or even hummus.
Look at that packaging! Sure, it’s what on the inside that counts, but I would be remiss not to mention the stunning packaging here. The colors are bright and inviting, the typefaces blend modern and traditional, and the tiny window offers a peak into the fun-shaped crackers inside. The box makes these feel like a real luxury—a hosting gift or (of course) picnic offering that feels elevated.
Where to buy: Online!
Check out our most recent episode of The Curious Consumer. We were joined by Priyanka Ganjoo, founder of Kulfi Beauty—the first South Asian female-owned makeup line to be carried at Sephora. Priyanka shares her journey building an inclusive beauty brand, and the power of a strong emotional and cultural moat.
Plus, we’re chatting about the boom of Erewhon lookalikes (and how they’ll survive when mass-market becomes a discovery channel), the water brands capitalizing on fear of microplastics, one brand’s attempt to legitimize peptides, and more. →
Thanks for reading! Anything you think we should try for an upcoming edition of Express Checkout? Email us at hello@expresscheckout.co