Grazification of Condiments

the kids love plastic maxxing

From Taste Cooking’s “Big Squeeze” piece, illustrated by Azra Hirji.

We’re in the amazing deep dive Taste Cooking made on Graza’s squeeze bottle impact across the industry, highly recommend you give it a good read for my thoughts on why this is happening but TLDR, Grazafication of condiment industry is two fold.

One—utility and convenience.

Yeah the squeeze bottle isn’t necessarily innovative but when it comes to olive oil, it was not something you saw before. You can’t unlearn convenience, once Millennials and GenZ got ahold of this format and embraced it, the race to squeeze olive oil began across the world from new brands to legacy, beyond olive oil to avocado and and more.

A few examples of new brands that have launched squeeze bottle olive oil.

Legacy olive oil brands have equally embraced the squeeze model.

Two—branding and signaling.

It’s the branding, stupid. Who knew that our generation’s need to status signal with everything, thanks to us growing alongside social media would lead to a condiment renaissance, wherein we’ve witnessed the yassification of everything mundane, from chili paste to mayonaisse.

Grazification of condiments entails pretty millennial coded branding.

What we’re discussing in this issue—

• GORGIE wants to be Alani Nu so bad

• What does a health Monster look like?

• Everyone is nabbing Chipotle’s exes

• There’s a Ghost haunting Mondelez

• Could Pepsi afford to buy Celsius?

Not Another Gendered Energy Drink

Today, GORGIE announced its $24.5M series A raise, led by Notable Capital, who is an existing seed investor, with investments from Coefficient Capital and individual investors like Jason Cohen (Seven Mile Brands) and Yossi Nasser (Fullstride Ventures) bringing their total funding to $37 million since their launch back in 2023. That’s crazy to think that a 2 year old brand would necessitate that much money so early on—I get that they are trying very hard to be what Alani Nu is, but in comparison Alani Nu raised around $14M over the span of 7 years and increased sales by 300% in the span of two years before being acquired by Celsius for almost $2B.

What’s wilder is that when you read the actual press release it’s filled with vague highlights like—

• #1 fastest growing energy brand in the US natural channel

• 1st energy drink smoothie at Erewhon, and a top brand in energy and all sparkling beverage at the retailer

• Over 1.6 billion organic social impressions driven by a thriving creator community

OK? That doesn’t really justify this amount of raise except that is signals to me they might be spending an insane amount of money to get to … just that and need the VC subsidy to perpetuate the narrative and also to subsidize their launch across 1,900 Target stores…I remember when they launched in Costco and seeing that the press release failed to mention them, can’t imagine that went well.

Similarly, Lucky Energy raised $14.2M in their Series A1 round, with a similar insane total funding of $40M, but at least they are actually in 10,000 retail points across the US so I understand that urgency as they expand into more, although I’ve heard some rumors… and if you’ve heard them also, reach out to me.

Either way—time will tell whether or not this has legs to stand on, but one thing is certain, its definitely not wings.

Monster is Ready for Its Health Era

Better-for-you energy drinks beware— MNST 0.00%↑Monster Energy is looking to enter its wellnes era and YOU and I are NOT prepared for this considering just how insanely succesful this brand has been, did you know they have the best performing stock in the SP&500 in the past 30 years?

Run, don’t walk to apply to this job—here’s what I’m thinking this means:

creatine, matcha, and perhaps paraxinthe… Monster energy drinks.

Did Ghost Fuck Mondelez Over?

Continuing on the topic of energy drinks, Mondelez MDLZ 0.00%↑ has been fighting Ghost around the licensed products that include some of their iconic candy brands, claiming that they don’t want any confusing amongst kids now that the brand has been acquired by Keurig Dr. Pepper. Let’s be real though, this sounds like a bitter ex-who didn’t realize what they had until someone else swooped them up. So far the judges have ruled in favor of Ghost—but Mondelez pushes litigation on.

Could Pepsi Even Afford Celsius?

Highly recommend this thread by one who has become a favorite follow, Drew Fallon from Iris, wherein he hypothesizes that Pepsi might go all in and buy Celsius—his bet on the price tag? A whopping $10 billion dollars.

Sweetgreen Is Betting on Chipotle’s Ex

It seems that everyone is going after Chipotle’s exes, Sweetgreen recently announced that they are bringing in Jason Cochran, the ex VP of operations at Chipotle, as their new COO— SG 0.00%↑ has been on a downward path for the past 6 months so maybe this will definitely help turnaround things. That’s exactly what Starbuck’s hoped bringing in Brian Niccols, the company says turnaround is happening although they missed earnings and revenue estimates for Q2….

Meanwhile, Chipotle announced its about to expand into Mexico, that is a wild bet—hopefully it pays off, since they are working together with ALSEA I believe this will be a succesful venture.