Instacart is Coming for Venmo

group buying finally comes to the US

Community buying on apps is a trend that grew out of Asia, by 2022 it was being embraced in Latin American markets, particularly Brazil, see Facily, (we wrote about this entire thing in our deep dive here) but unlike these markets that popularized group buying in lieu of discounts and a collective interest, it’s being introduced in the US (land of individualism) with the benefit of convenience—genius.

Instacart has launched FIZZ, a GenZ oriented app that allows you to throw parties and buy food and drinks for them as a group, without having to split the bill or Venmo back your friends. Once you create an event on FIZZ app or website, you can share the link with friends so they can add on whatever they are looking to snack or sip on, each person pays for whatever they added on the list, once the list is done, everything is ordered at the same time and delivered together.

Instacart has also partnered with popular app Partiful, it’s integrated so you can do the ordering withhin the app without having to actually download the FIZZ app which I think it’s great because that helps foster the adoption of it and so smart because this will for sure remove a good chunk of business from apps like Venmo, hopefully this can help turnaround CART 0.00%↑ —their CEO just made the jump to *checks notes*… OPENAI.

* Not to be confused with Fizz that is now sueing both Instacart and Partiful*

Grüns Reaches $500M Valuation

Gruns has raised a $35m Series B reaching a valuation of $500M of selling you basically an Athletic Greens meets gummy bears, they apparently sell 4M gummies per day, each of their bags has 28 daily servings with each one containig 8 gummies, meaning they are selling around 17,000 bags per day with an ARR that is in the 9 figures.

This doesn’t surprise me at all, I’ve deep dived into the massive opportunity that supplements offer in what I call the $40B deficiency market, you can check out the full deep dive here:

Everyone’s Out for Uncrustables’ Lunch

Lunchables is the latest brand to try to steal market share from the $1B brand that is Uncrustables. Do we see a lawsuit in the near future, we know Shmuckers does not play lightly when it comes to defending its unicorn. Lunchables continues to expand beyond the idea of “lunch” first into the frozen aisle and now into breakfast, as Kraft Heinz has been trying to keep the $2B brand afloat.

Sweetgreen Debuts Korean Dishes

For a limited time only you’ll be able to grab the SG x COTE KBBQ dishes, I think it’s a smart move on the part of Sweetgreen to let go of the celebrity partnerships of the past to work on doing these “affordable luxury” style dishes—it’s not every day Michelin star restaurant meals meet the masses, maybe this helps Sweetgreen’s stock do a turnaround and better compete with CAVA.

Hershey’s Wants to be Tariff Exempt

The only time Herhsey’s has probably leveraged its influence for good, and only because tariffs will gravely affect them as a company, they estimate it will cost them around $15-20M during the remainder of Q2 and $100M for each remainding quarter. Cocoa can’t be grown in the US no matter how many MAGA heads think it can, so they are hoping to appeal tariffs on one of the most popular commodities in the world.

Brands that are positioned to ride this out? The alt-chocolate ones like Voyage and Compound Foods.

What is A Crunchy Teen? Don’t Ask the NYTimes

As always, we’re ahead of the curve when it comes to spotting cultural shifts, we wrote about crunchy teens and holistic himbos last year, to this date one of our most popular pieces, and the New York Times finally caught on this week…

Sprite Finally Beat Pepsi

Pepsi has not only lost its 2nd place in the world of sodas to Dr. Pepper it has now been overthrown from 3rd place by Sprite—though some speculate its because Sprite has been able to remain culturally relevant with collaborations with emerging artists and sports stars, I’m wondering if it’s also a shift in palette preferences… would love to hear your takes!

Meati Will Sell for $4M

The downfall of plant based continues, steep falls following some steep valuations, from Beyond to now Meati, who once raised upwards of $400M, now to be sold for scraps. To be fair, mostly blame the VCs who ended up propping this category the way it ended up instead of understanding that any meaningful tech advance would take time to scale, alas venture corruption strikes again!