The war of "clean" vs. science.
+ the truth about David Protein's calorie controversy
Hello hello!
There’s a war going on the beauty world—and it’s worth digging into.
We partnered with Faire to analyze the trends shaping one of the most active categories in CPG right now: beauty & wellness. And—after dissecting their robust data from both retailers and brands—we discovered something fascinating: both “clean” and science-backed, chemical-sounding ingredients are trending in a big way.
Though these are contradictory trends at face value, they say a lot about what today’s beauty/wellness consumer is seeking—and how to sell to them.
We wrote a report using Faire’s data, featuring a framework for making sense of what consumers actually want, what retailers are betting on, and where the real white space is. Check it out here ⬇️
We also had the pleasure of interviewing Faire’s CRO, Jen Burke, for this week’s episode of The Curious Consumer, coming out on Wednesday! Stay tuned for an insightful conversation on the future of retail (Jen had some great takes here) and how brands can use this data to their advantage.
News from the week
Strap in… we’re going there. It’s time to talk David Protein.
In case you haven’t heard (congratulations on protecting your peace), there is currently a class-action lawsuit against David Protein. The lawsuit alleges that, according to laboratory testing, the brand’s protein bars contain up to 83% more calories and 400% more fat than what’s printed on the label.
The internet, naturally, lost its collective mind. TikTok and Instagram exploded with “I’ve been Regina George’d” videos.
Since the lawsuit went public, founder Peter Rahal and the company responded quickly and bluntly, stating simply that the David bar “is 150 calories”—very matter-of-fact about it all. And, despite what you feel about this brand, food science is on its side here.
TL;DR: The lawsuit used a form of calorie testing called “bomb calorimetry” as the basis of its argument. But that kind of calorie measurement doesn’t—and shouldn’t—apply to these shiny gold bars and their novel star ingredient.
So what’s actually going on? Let’s dig in →
We can’t talk about this whole situation without discussing EPG, or esterified propoxylated glycerol. EPG is the secret sauce behind David’s jaw-dropping macros: 28g of protein, 150 calories, 0g sugar.
EPG is a modified plant-based fat derived from rapeseed oil. During manufacturing, the oil is split into glycerol and fatty acids, a food-grade propoxyl connector is inserted, and the two components are relinked.
The result is a substance that looks, tastes, and bakes like fat—but largely passes through your body undigested because the modification blocks the digestive enzyme lipase from breaking it down.
Think of it like insoluble fiber for fats. It’s there, it contributes to texture and mouthfeel, but your body isn’t extracting meaningful energy from it.
Side note: David acquired Epogee, the sole manufacturer of EPG, in 2025—a move that has attracted its own set of complaints and lawsuits… but that’s (somehow) an entirely different conversation.
This lawsuit presents a fascinating question: how does a novel ingredient, like EPG, actually get approved and regulated?
When something entirely new enters the food supply, it doesn’t just show up on shelves. The primary pathway is through the FDA’s Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) process:
The company behind the ingredient compiles a dossier of scientific evidence demonstrating safety—toxicological studies, dietary exposure assessments, the works.
An independent panel of qualified experts reviews the evidence and concludes whether the ingredient is GRAS for its intended use.
The company can then voluntarily notify the FDA, which reviews the submission and issues a “no questions” letter if it’s satisfied, essentially confirming that the FDA has no objections to the GRAS determination.
The GRAS notification process is voluntary. Companies can technically self-determine GRAS status—a loophole that consumer advocates have long criticized. The FDA actually proposed a rule change in 2025 to make these notifications mandatory, partly in response to political pressure.
In the case of David, the brand and Epogee worked with the FDA through the GRAS process—and EPG was assigned a caloric value of 0.7 calories per gram, compared with 9 calories per gram for traditional fats. David Protein’s nutrition labels reflect this FDA-recognized value and complies fully with FDA labeling regulations.
EPG has actually been through this process multiple times. The original GRAS notice (GRN 583) for confectionery uses was filed in 2015.
Additional notices expanded its approved uses to baked goods, frozen desserts, snack foods, protein products, and more. Each time, the FDA responded with “no questions” to the new ingredient.
For EPG, the paper trail is extensive and public. So where are the accusations even coming from?
Apparently, the testing referenced in the lawsuit relies on bomb calorimetry, a calorie testing method that simply shouldn’t apply to ingredients like EPG. David dropped a video from Dr. Mitch Culler, the Director of R&D at Epogee, explaining the situation:
(granted, Mitch does look like Aaron Rodgers)
It comes down to how EPG is—or more accurately, isn’t—absorbed by the human body. When you burn EPG in a bomb calorimeter, it looks like a full-fat ingredient—but because it isn’t digestible, like insoluble fiber, your body doesn’t treat it that way.
Bomb calorimetry is simply the wrong method to use for foods that contain ingredients like dietary fiber or fat substitutes like EPG.
If bomb calorimetry isn’t right here, what is? The FDA actually has 6 different calorie calculation methods, including multiple specifically for similar ingredients that aren’t digestible:
The 4-4-9 rule adjusted for non-digestible carbs and sugar alcohols: This is the most common estimation method used by brands: 4 calories per gram for protein, 4 for total carbohydrate, 9 for total fat. But total carbohydrate is reduced by the amount of dietary fiber before calculating, since fiber isn’t fully digested.
Soluble non-digestible carbohydrates are calculated at 2 calories per gram, insoluble non-digestible carbohydrates are typically treated as 0 calories, and sugar alcohols are substituted with specific caloric values, reflecting how they are only partially absorbed
FDA-approved specific food factors: caloric values for particular foods or ingredients that have been reviewed and approved by the FDA.
This is the one that matters for David. When the FDA has reviewed an ingredient and assigned it a specific caloric value, brands are expected to use that value, not the generic one.
If you want to go deeper on the testing science, our friend Hydroxide (a food scientist on TikTok) put out a great explainer—we highly recommend checking it out and following her!
And the bigger picture here: We’re not here to be David’s defense attorneys (wouldn’t wish that job on our worst enemies 🙃).
Some people love the bars. Some people think the ingredient list reads like a chemistry textbook. Some people have opinions about the brand’s controversial marketing, and even Peter Rahal himself. All are warranted. This is a polarizing brand, and consumers have plenty of reasons to opt out of supporting it.
But at the same time, this class-action lawsuit built on a fundamental misunderstanding of food science isn’t productive. It’s great that people are taking interest in what’s in their food, but legal fees, court time, and media attention are all being directed at a labeling practice that—to our knowledge—follows FDA guidelines.
If anything, the real conversation should be about whether the GRAS process and calorie measurement processes should be more transparent.
Companies are raking in millions for selling us a story of “guilt-free” foods—and even if they are safe for consumption and check off all of our macro desires, is there really such thing as a free lunch? Are non-nutritive ingredients a cheat code, or just a different kind of cost?
Only time—and evidently, extensive litigation—will tell.
CPG & Consumer Goods
Poppi is making (more) moves this week:
Poppi drinks are now available at Starbucks locations in the US. They’re launching with their Grape and Shirley Temple flavors to start. This is actually not that surprising when you realize that Pepsi (who owns poppi) also makes and distributes Starbucks ready-to-drink products.
Buzzy Gen Z skincare brand Bubble is launching Talk Back Lip Serums in three Poppi-inspired flavors—Strawberry Lemon, Grape, and Root Beer—exclusively at Walmart for $9.99 each.
Just the other week, OLIPOP collaborated with Cocokind on soda-flavored lip products. As we’ve previously covered, lip care is the category in beauty right now—it only makes sense to see the brands shaping the beverage aisle dip into beauty.
Beauty loves beverage. And on the flipside, this week, a beauty brand turned itself into a beverage. Kiehl’s just launched a collab hydration beverage with Spritz Society—the beverage brand’s first non-alc offering. This is also Kiehl’s first-ever food and beverage collaboration.
This feels like Kiehl’s attempt to bring itself back into the conversation. Kiehl’s is a beloved classic beauty brand, but it’s likely losing cultural relevance as new buzzy beauty brands targeting Gen Z seem to be launching weekly. The “hydration” angle also positions the brand as part of the camp of beauty brands that sees beauty through the larger lens of wellness.
The boys are back in town. And by boys, we mean George Clooney, Rande Gerber, and Mike Meldman—the three founders of Casamigos which was sold to Diageo in 2017 for $1 billion. They’re back with Crazy Mountain—a premium non-alcoholic lager with some strong Americana vibes. The brew comes in Original and Lime flavors, with 65 calories per 12 oz can.
The NA beer market has exploded over the past few years, driven by wellness-conscious consumers who want the ritual and taste of beer without the alcohol or hangover—with Athletic Brewing at the helm, defining and legitimizing the category. Unlike other NA categories—spirits, wine, cocktails—beer has achieved taste parity with its alcoholic counterpart, making it the most accessible entry point for consumers exploring the space.
It’s wild how many celebrity-backed NA beers there are: Years NA Beer (John Mulaney), Wild AF Brewing (Charlie Sheen), EASY DOES IT BREW (Erik Ellington, a professional skateboarder), Ted Segers Brew (Dax Shepard), and BERO (Tom Holland).
Should Heinz be worried? Maybe 👀 American Airlines is partnering with Smash Kitchen—the organic condiment brand co-founded by actor Glen Powell—to serve its sauces alongside the airline’s slider meals in First Class and Main Cabin. It’s the latest in a string of food partnerships for the carrier, including Pecan Lodge Barbecue and Lavazza coffee.
Joining the meat stick boom. PepsiCo is diving into the crowded meat snacks arena with its new internal brand, Good Warrior, launching March 16. Featuring original and jalapeño flavors, the single-serve sticks pack 10 grams of protein.
Very curious to see how this one fares for PepsiCo, they have done a good job building internal brands before–see Bubbly–but there are a lot of brands they could have simply purchased and integrated into their network. Like with Poppi.
As we mentioned in our Expo trends recap, meat sticks were a big theme of this year’s show. Brands like Singing Pastures, The New Primal, Chomps (with its new chicken stick) and more have set the stage for massive meat stick demand, and now PepsiCo is swooping in to get in on the hype.
Another protein bevvie… Javvy Coffee is expanding beyond coffee for the first time, launching powdered clear protein refreshers (because of course they are). They’ll be available online and in select Targets.
For any of our readers, it’s probably unsurprising that a brand is launching another protein SKU after the brand’s powdered protein coffee launch. But what is interesting here is that they’re launching clear protein—moving fully away from their namesake to get into the “refresher” game (popularized by Starbucks). This product leans into all of the trends: clear protein (and the tropical, bright fruity flavors it allows), hydration, and energy drinks.
… and another new gut-health soda. Jarritos, the the beloved Mexican carbonated soft drinks brand, has entered the gut-health beverage chat with a brand-new lineup called Sana Sana. They’re a line of prebiotic soft drinks designed to offer a gut-friendly, modern twist on their nostalgic sodas.
They’re not alone on shelf. We’ve loved watching the explosion of brands leaning into the same nostalgic, traditional Mexican and Latin American flavors like De La Calle, Mayawell, Xochi, and Agua Bonita.
And add it to the list of all the other “modern” sodas like Olipop, Poppi, Culture Pop, Perfy, Cove, Popwell, Stiller’s, Slice, Nixie, NoCap, Spindrift, Bloom, SunSip, and Zevia...just to name a few 😵💫
The men’s grooming boom continues. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s PAPATUI is launching its first acne line for men at Target, priced under $10. The range includes a facial cleanser, pimple patches, and body spray, targeting men’s number one skincare concern with dermatologist-tested formulas designed for thicker, oilier skin.
As we mentioned in our Faire report, the demand for men’s skincare has been building for years—but there haven’t been enough interesting new launches to fill the gap. Sub-$10 pricing at Target is a smart TAM-expansion play—this isn’t for the guy who’s already buying The Ordinary or Kiehl’s, it’s for the guy who’s never bought a skincare product at all.
More supplements at Ulta. Cymbiotika is partnering with Ulta Beauty to introduce its beauty-from-within products, launching online on March 15 and hitting over 1,000 stores on March 29. The lineup includes liposomal supplements (which are intended to be more “bioavailable”) for skin health, detoxification, and sleep.
The broader context: Ulta has been aggressively expanding into wellness as a way to compete with both Target’s beauty buildout and Sephora’s prestige dominance. It’s no surprise that it’s seeking out some of the new, buzzy wellness brands to round out its selection.
Another beauty brand enters fragrance. Summer Fridays is launching its first fine fragrance, Sunlit Vanilla Eau de Parfum, a warm, gourmand scent “designed to evoke sun-kissed skin.” This launch follows the massive popularity of the brand’s Vanilla Lip Butter Balm and a previous launch of a limited edition “Soft Vanilla” rollerball in 2021.
This is a classic brand equity monetization move: Vanilla Lip Butter Balm built an identity around a specific scent signature, and fragrance is the logical extension—a higher-margin, higher-AUR product that lets existing fans buy into that same sensory world at a premium.
This is a premium priced product, at 1.7oz for $82—and we think that’s a credibility-building move, signaling that it belongs in the fine fragrance conversation, not just the lip care one.
Skincare brands launching fragrance (think: Glossier) is a massive signal of lifestyle ambition—that a brand wants to live in your full beauty routine, not just one step of it. As the Glossier era fades out, there will need to be a new player to step up to the plate to be that all-in-one beauty brand that bleeds into lifestyle.
And speaking of the beauty → scent pipeline… Mikayla Nogueira, a beauty influencer with tens of millions of followers across platforms and her own beauty brand POV Beauty, stepped into the fragrance arena with her debut scent, Only Sunshine ($68), in partnership with Snif. The product launch marked Snif’s first foray into TikTok Shop, selling 1,000 units in just 20 minutes during a livestream that attracted over 60,000 early sign-ups (!!)
This was such a brilliant partnership + launch strategy: Snif’s been building DTC fragrance credibly for a few years, but TikTok Shop is a different distribution bet, and it requires a creator who can actually convert.
eCommerce
…but isn’t everything on Amazon? Amazon is expanding its Shop Direct program, allowing brands to sell directly without listing on Amazon.
This is Amazon acknowledging that its marketplace model—built on product listing dominance—has a real cost to brands: loss of control over pricing, customer relationship, and brand experience. Shop Direct is a concession that some brands will only show up on Amazon if they can maintain that control.
Retail
TikTok Shop comes for us all. Ulta Beauty is set to launch on TikTok Shop with a curated selection of exclusive brands.
The TikTok Shop launch is probably best understood in the context of the brand’s recent admission of relatively slower growth. This is Ulta acknowledging that beauty discovery has structurally shifted online, and that its customer is already shopping on TikTok whether Ulta shows up there or not.
The smart detail in the TikTok launch is that Ulta is bringing a curated, exclusive assortment—just the brands you can only get at Ulta. That protects its retail relationships while still planting a flag in the channel.
Is Erewhon next? Whole Foods is doubling its UK footprint by opening six new Daily Shop locations in London, transforming former Amazon Fresh stores into smaller-format markets. This expansion will increase its UK store count to 12, filling the grocery gap left by Amazon’s recent closures.
It’s hard to parse here whether this expansion is due to more demand for Whole Foods in the UK… or just the failure of Amazon Fresh. Right now, it appears to be the latter.
Target’s still trying to make amends. Target is lowering prices on about 3,000 products—ranging from baby essentials to apparel—by 5% to 20% this spring to attract busy families. The retailer aims to regain lost customers with expanded baby offerings and “improved shopping experiences.”
3,000 SKUs at 5–20% reductions is meaningful scale, but the question is whether price alone wins back customers who left for Walmart or Aldi when they felt the squeeze. Price cuts are table stakes; the harder work is repositioning trust (which was clearly lost over a rough period last year).
Funding news
Alc winners want in on the NA space. ChillyOnes Beverages Inc. welcomed Paul and Melissa Meehan—co-creators of NÜTRL Vodka—as significant investors and strategic advisors. As the brand expands its footprint in North America, it aims to redefine the light lager category with its 3% Lager and non-alcoholic offerings available at major retailers.
Light lager has been a value/legacy category (Bud Light, Miller Lite) for so long that there’s genuinely white space for a premium-positioned, better-for-you entrant. Meehans’ credibility is the shortcut past the “why should I pay more for less alcohol” objection.
Offering both 3% and NA is such a smart move. This gives ChillyOnes optionality across the sober-curious spectrum and alcohol moderation trend.
Three cheers for girl beer. Hurray’s GIRL BEER is raising $5 million to support its national retail expansion, including launches in Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons. The brand plans to introduce seven new flavors—like Strawberry Watermelon and Grapefruit Guava—while targeting a demographic that craves more flavor in their beer.
Just like with energy drinks, albeit slower, we’re starting to see more brands come to market specifically targeting women in the beer space. Traditionally a largely ignored subset of the category.
Now there is Girl Beer, Beer Girl (just went on Shark Tank), Talea Brewing. I We think we’re going to see a lot more of this in the beer space, and especially cross categories. Just look at Hot Girl Pickles, Hot Girl Soda, and Hot Girl Sauce—which are somehow all separate companies.
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: Bet on consumer. Coefficient Capital closed its oversubscribed Fund II at $290 million, boosting its assets under management to over $800 million. Focused on growth-stage consumer brands, the firm is actively deploying capital across sectors, including beauty and pet food.
The oversubscription signals LP confidence in consumer growth investing at a moment when many have pulled back from CPG due to DTC fatigue and margin pressure.
There’s a “your mom” joke in here somewhere. Henkel is set to acquire “Not Your Mother’s,” a fast-growing hair care brand known for its diverse range of products including Curl Talk and Clean Freak, for an undisclosed amount.
Henkel already owns Schwarzkopf and Dial—this is a clear signal they want a foothold in the indie-to-mass hair care consumer, which skews younger and has largely abandoned legacy brands like Pantene and Herbal Essences.
Mochi’s having a moment. Morinaga & Co., Ltd. is acquiring My/Mochi Ice Cream, the leading mochi ice cream brand in the U.S., to bolster its presence in the $8.6 billion novelty ice cream market. This move aligns with Morinaga’s growth strategy, which includes expanding HI-CHEW® production in 2027.
Japanese and Japanese-adjacent food brands are having a significant cultural moment in the US (just look at mochi and matcha!). This acquisition sits at the intersection of that and the premiumization of frozen desserts—a smart double bet.
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