Who needs real meals anyway?
+ Alix Earle's skincare line, all the protein, hard sodas, and much more
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News from the week
Last week, Danone announced it’s acquiring Huel for a reported $1.15 billion.
If you’re not familiar with Huel, the brand makes powders, RTD shakes, hot meal packs, and more—all plant-based, all formulated to deliver complete nutrition in a single serving. It’s a big number for a brand that is still gaining recognition beyond nutrition-forward consumers. So what exactly did Danone just buy—and why now?
Huel (literally named for Human + Fuel) was founded in the UK in 2014 by Julian Hearn on a simple premise: most of the food people reach for when they’re busy is nutritionally lacking, and there needed to be a faster, more affordable, plant-based alternative.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is—Huel emerged from the same cultural moment as Soylent, the Silicon Valley meal replacement brand that became a punchline for tech-bro anti-food sentiment in the mid-2010s.
The pitch was basically identical: food is inefficient, nutrition is the point… here’s a powder. The difference was execution and positioning: Soylent embraced the robot-food aesthetic and wore its contempt for mealtimes openly. Huel softened the edges—better ingredients, a sustainability story, a broader target audience—and called it food instead of fuel. But the underlying cultural proposition didn’t change much: convenience above all, efficiency over experience, the meal as a problem to be solved.
That repackaging built a real business. By 2024, Huel surpassed $284 million in revenue, tripling its profit year-over-year. The brand achieved B Corp certification, built a fiercely loyal DTC subscriber base across 80+ countries, and expanded its product line without losing its nutritional North Star. It also moved aggressively into retail—store distribution more than doubled to over 25,000 locations globally, landing at Target, Sprouts, and Life Time Fitness in the US, and GNC.
What Danone is betting on. On the surface, this looks like a large food conglomerate scooping up a buzzy brand. But there’s some more at play here:
A cultural bet: the shift away from meals as experiences and toward meals as logistics. That a growing number of people don’t want to cook, don’t want to think about it, and don’t want to sit down. They want complete, efficient nutrition that fits into the margins of their day—tingle-serve, hyper-individual, optimized. Social meals were a nice idea that fewer and fewer people have time for.
The GLP-1 angle (of course). Danone has been deliberate and clear in its adaptations to consumers’ increased use of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs—and Huel fits neatly into this narrative.
Last August, Danone launched Oikos Fusion—a drinkable yogurt specifically formulated and advertised for GLP-1 users, designed to help consumers build and retain muscle mass during weight loss. Danone has even built a dedicated nutrition hub for GLP-1 users on its North American website, featuring product recommendations across its entire portfolio.
Huel extends this strategy into a full meal solution. Consumers on GLP-1s have suppressed appetites but still need complete nutrients—and a nutritionally complete RTD or powder, maximum nutrition in minimum volume, is almost perfectly calibrated for that use case in a way a drinkable yogurt isn’t.
Danone has been quietly building out a functional nutrition portfolio, and Huel slots in as the consumer-facing anchor. The Huel announcement follows Danone acquiring a majority stake in Kate Farms to enhance its medical nutrition portfolio, and the prior acquisition of The Akkermansia Company, a specialist in biotic science focusing on metabolic health.
The group is applying a benefit-led approach to its entire portfolio—moving away from formats to purpose-driven nutrition. Huel, with its complete-nutrition positioning and loyal subscriber base, is the piece that makes the whole picture legible to a mass consumer.
Danone had already tried to build this itself. Danone entered the meal replacement category with Alpro Meal To Go, released in Europe—a plant-based drink positioned as a “nutritionally complete, ready-to-drink meal.” But Danone had effectively formulated a Huel alternative without Huel’s brand affinity. Scaling that into a real competitor would have required years of marketing investment that Huel had already spent. Buying Huel was faster, and probably cheaper, than closing the gap organically.
What this acquisition really confirms? The food-as-fuel proposition has gone fully mainstream. Soylent was a curiosity for people who openly didn’t care about food. Huel made the same bet more palatable—literally and figuratively—and built it into a $1 billion asset.
As the maker of Activia yogurt, coffee creamer International Delight, and plant-based brand Silk, Danone already has a strong hold on conventional dairy and mass-market plant-based alternatives. Huel built its brand on a basis of resistance against conventional food—emphasizing sustainability and complete nutrition above all else. It’ll be interesting to see how the brand maintains that messaging and ethos under a conglomerate like Danone.
But either way, the deal is a signal: convenient, all-in-one nutrition is no longer a niche proposition for tech bros who hate food. It’s where the food industry is going.
CPG & Consumer Goods
Influencer brand done right. Alix Earle, a social media personality and podcast host with nearly 14M followers across platforms, now has a new moniker: CPG founder. This week, she launched her skincare brand, Reale Actives, after two years in stealth mode. The brand was born from her years-long battle with cystic acne, built with real dermatologists, and led by CEO Andrea Blieden, an ecommerce and beauty veteran with past roles at Kiehl’s and the Body Shop.
For a creator who built her brand on “Get Ready With Me” TikToks, where she opened up about her struggles with acne, this makes perfect sense—it feels like a natural extension of her personal brand, and a ripe opportunity to capitalize on her built trust. But the brand’s launch feels diminished within the context of a flood of recent skincare brand launches… especially those touted by influencers.
Alix is no stranger to the world of CPG—she’s an influencer after all. She has a long list of brand partnerships with companies like Hero Cosmetics and Benefit Cosmetics. More recently, she’s gone even deeper by becoming an investor in Poppi and a strategic investor and partner in two other drink brands: canned margarita brand Sip Margs and the energy drink brand Gorgie. Increasingly, we’re seeing influencers start and invest in brands.
One of the most important things a brand can do today is build media attention. Creators have become some of the most valuable investors because they control that attention.For creators, promoting businesses through paid posts moves the needle. However, increasingly, they want more than cash compensation. They want ownership in the businesses they help grow, aligning incentives on both sides. This works especially well at the earliest stages where founders can’t afford creator rates, and creators don’t always have access to the next hot emerging brand. - Brett Perlmutter founder of Bulletpitch
Could this save chocolate?? California Cultured is gearing up to launch its cell-based cocoa powder, having secured self-affirmed GRAS status and raised $15.9 million to date. Targeting baked goods and beverages and with around $15.9M in funding to date, the startup aims for a late 2026 debut, riding the wave of interest from major chocolate players amid real fears about the future of cocoa supply.
California Cultured grows cocoa plant cells in bioreactors to produce a cocoa powder with roughly 20x the flavanol content of conventional cocoa (the compound that makes chocolate so heart healthy)—at a price point competitive with supermarket chocolate, thanks to the relatively low input costs of plant cell culture compared to cultivated meat or precision fermentation.
For context: West Africa supplies roughly 70% of the world’s cocoa, and the past two years brought a near-perfect storm—extreme weather, widespread crop disease, and aging farming infrastructure all hit at once, sending cocoa prices up nearly 300%. Prices have come down from their peak but remain structurally elevated, and nobody expects a full return to the old normal.
The pressure is already reshaping brand behavior. Some companies are quietly reformulating to reduce cocoa content; others are pivoting away from chocolate altogether. Mid-Day Squares—known for their refrigerated functional chocolate bars—launched their first-ever non-chocolate product, the No Bread PB&J bar, explicitly citing cacao prices as the catalyst. When a brand built entirely on chocolate starts diversifying, that tells you something.
The only thing better than perfect? Perfect Bar, known for their iconic refrigerated simple-ingredient peanut butter bars, is launching new Protein + Prebiotics refrigerated bars, offering 20 grams of protein and no artificial additives. Available in Peanut Butter Chocolate Crunch and Chocolate Mint Crunch, these bars are set to hit Whole Foods Market later this year.
We know, we know…another protein bar? But if anyone is going to make a cleaner protein bar that also tastes great (and isn’t made with meat byproduct) it’s Perfect Bar. They’re one of the OGs in clean snacking!
Soda on hard mode. Beverage legend Ben Weiss, who built Bai and sold it to Dr Pepper for nearly $2B, is back with Crooked Pop, a zero-sugar hard soda made from fermented ancient grains (quinoa, amaranth, millet, cassava) with 4% ABV and 80 calories. Weiss calls it “organic super dry alcohol,” a category he’s betting will sit just beyond hard seltzer.
This is not the only hard soda launching. Owl’s Brew, a female-founded brand specializing in “clean” boozy beverages and mixers, is launching its own line of hard soda in a range of flavors, including cherry cola and Dr Pepper.
This is the Olipop/Poppi effect for you. We’ve seen a litany of brands launch better for you sodas over the past few years riding on the success and category creation from Olipop and Poppi so it’s not surprising to see this come into the hard RTD market. Consumers are bored of malt-based hard seltzers and brands are betting hard sodas are the next big thing.
THERE’S NO STOPPING PROTEIN. Marzetti, a brand of refrigerated dressing and dips, launched a line of protein ranch dressing and dips with 3-4g per serving. It’s great brands want to jump into these trends, but this feels like a stretch here.
However, Marzetti is not the first to market with “protein-ified” dressings and dips. We have She’s The Sauce, Protein Basics™ protein condiments, Sturdy protein tomato sauce, Build the Body protein ranch seasoning, Devious protein seasoning shakers, Bon Cuisine Protein rubs and seasonings, Buffy chicken protein dips, and Benji’s cottage cheese sauce. And we are sure there are countless more being built as we speak.
Seniors deserve better than Ensure. Lucille Health just launched a line of high-protein, high-calorie whole-food shakes for older adults, AKA a modern-day, better-for-you Ensure. The direct-to-consumer brand is targeting the $6.2B senior nutrition market—a market that, despite representing our collective future as consumers, is often an afterthought—long dominated by overly processed, clinical products. Backed by New Fare Capital, Lucille is bringing real, “clean” ingredients, actually fun and delightful branding, and—most importantly— dignity to a long neglected category of consumers.
The incredible founder behind Lucille (and granddaughter to a real Lucille), Jess Haghani, was the first guest in our new Grocery Run series on IG (more to come)! Check out her go-to Whole Foods picks—and cross your fingers for Lucille’s one-day WF launch!!
eCommerce
“Sephora, help me find new moisturizer” Sephora is embedding its app within ChatGPT—allowing users to receive personalized beauty recommendations and shop directly through the interface. This move taps into the growing trend of AI-driven consumer experiences, with plans for future integrated payment options.
They’re joined by Target, Etsy, Walmart, and Instacart who all launched a shopping experience within ChatGPT itself.
The move feels strategic beyond the novelty—Sephora built its brand in brick-and-mortar on education and experience, with product-trained floor staff as its core differentiator. As consumers increasingly turn to social media and AI for that same guidance, the retailer needs a new home for its authority. The timing is pointed: Ulta has been leaning hard into social commerce through its TikTok Shop partnership, chipping away at Sephora’s turf. A ChatGPT presence won’t win back market share on its own, but it’s a smart signal that Sephora knows where the beauty education conversation is moving—and it intends to be in it.
Funding news
It pays to smell this good. Private equity firm Advent International acquired premium body care brand Salt & Stone, known for its clean formulations and iconic scents. The brand reportedly sells one deodorant every five seconds (40% of their sales come from DTC). The deal will close in April, promising to further global expansion for the brand. Salt & Stone reached $165M in revenue in 2025, surpassing its predictions.
NA shows no signs of slowing. Constellation Brands is set to acquire HOPWTR—a premium non-alcoholic beverage brand known for its hop-infused, calorie-free sparkling water. The deal, expected to close in early April 2026, follows a 22% growth in the non-alcoholic segment in 2025, further expanding Constellation’s moderation-focused portfolio.
Bets on consumer continue. Forward Consumer Partners closed its Fund II at a hard cap of $500 million, significantly oversubscribed since launching in December 2025. The firm plans to make equity investments between $25-250 million in well-positioned consumer brands.
Another wellness bev… Bansk Group is set to acquire a majority stake in wellness shots brand So Good So You, which recently launched sparkling energy drinks with Target. The brand has seen over fivefold sales growth in four years.
The growing market of hair growth. KilgourMD secured Series A funding—led by Prelude Growth Partners—to boost its R&D in scalp health and hair regrowth. Founded by dermatologist Dr. James Kilgour, the brand’s two-step serum system has sold a bottle every 20 seconds since its debut.
And speaking of haircare… Henkel is set to acquire Olaplex for $1.4 billion—offering $2.06 per share, a 55% premium over its recent stock price. This deal, approved by Olaplex’s board, aims to enhance Henkel’s hair care portfolio and will likely close in the second half of 2026, leading to Olaplex’s delisting from Nasdaq.
We told you, this is the next 100-year brand. Chobani is investing $567 million in expanding its La Colombe plant in Norton Shores, adding over 200,000 square feet and nearly 340 jobs. This growth reflects rising demand for ready-to-drink lattes, while also boosting local milk purchases from Michigan farmers—up to 615 million pounds annually.
The people want better pretzels! Stellar Snacks, a woman-owned premium pretzel company, is securing a strategic minority investment from Main Post Partners, aiming to expand its distribution and production capabilities.
The brand built its name through airline partnerships with Southwest and Alaska—a smart, captive-audience play that got the product in front of millions of travelers before it ever had to fight for shelf space at retail.
What makes Stellar interesting is that it doesn’t lead with the “better-for-you” angle even though it’s there; the focus has always been on flavor first, with clean ingredients as a bonus rather than the pitch.
Started in 2019 a mother-daugther duo, and co-founder (mother) Elisabeth Galvin is no rookie—she founded Delyse Inc. 25 years ago, so the better-for-you snack space is essentially her career. This investment is about scaling what’s already working.
Diverse beauty for the win. Nopalera, a “modern Mexican lifestyle brand made for the modern beauty explorer,” secured $4 million in funding led by Morgan Stanley’s Next Level Fund, co-led by L’ATTITUDE Ventures (the largest Latino-focused early-stage venture capital fund). The cash infusion aims to expand its retail presence and product offerings, reinforcing its mission to redefine Latino culture in beauty.
This week on The Curious Consumer, we sat down with Chimene Ross, CEO of Killer Brownie, for a discussion on the power of branding in bakery, running a family business, and moving from private-label to a branded product.
We also dive into the convergence of beauty + wellness (ft. hydration powder with UV protection…), why owning manufacturing is the new CPG moat, and Little Spoon’s entrance into infant formula →
We recently got some great data from our friends at Faire highlighting the dichotomy of “clean” vs. science-forward positioning for beauty and wellness brands. Check it out here →
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Lol just have to say your title hooks get me to click every time 🤗