The Children Yearn for SNAX

shelf stable hummus, frozen pasta sauce, protein schmear

Back from our college tour and I can attest the youth is all right, in Boston I stayed around Prudential which is now a shrine to PE from Sweetgreen to Blank Street (which at any time of day had a crazy line out the door) and the weather was warm and welcoming in one of those rare spring weeks that remind me of the beauty of the Northeast. I’d love to thank Brooke Robinson (a second year student graduating this year) for organizing my talk at Harvard Business School—I got to meet some cool founders like Jess Haghani from Lucille Health who is building a “better for you Ensure” for the elderly demographic (they just closed a round) and Brian Youngblood who founded Prest, the only shelf stable hummus brand I’ve come across.

At Wharton, Veronica Rivera, a second year student who is the founder of Sabe (a yummy, clean and convenient salad dressing) helped organize our chat as well as student one on ones where I got to chat everything from their most famous alum in CPG Aimee Yang from Better Bagel, in what ways VC has corrupted CPG, and pitfalls to avoid as an early founder. Was also able to check out their amazing food lab and some student founders like Jessica Zhu from Zen Broth.

• David’s road to $300M in revenue is paved with mixed intentions—

  The brand predicts that it’ll do upwards of $300M in revenue by the end of the year, the key here is in them revealing they are back to selling EPG as part of their business, something they originally had abstained from (and later sued for, it’s important to note all lawsuits have since been dismissed), David expects to sell to both domestic and international companies wanting to use EPG. Their capacity to produce it has 5x as they are not only expanding their retail footprinting from launching at Walmart and now Costco (Texas for now); their ice cream brand is set to launch soon as well, as Nick’s retired their EPG ice cream line, they will be the only brand out there using it now, but not the first.

• Here’s why Target is betting on hemp—

  Walmart continues to beat out Target, not to mention their grocery division eclipses theirs, so I’m not surprised that they’ve expanded into hemp and THC and have now disclosed they are lobbying Congress on policies regarding hemp in food and beverages, something Walmart and Costco shy against for the moment, a good way to gain leverage over your competitors.

  

• Nutella’s new flavor might be it’s savior —

  With cocoa prices being so volatile and prices rising at it’s highest in the last few years, it should come at no surprise that Nutella would launch a peanut flavor as a way to hedge against the cocoa price crisis. I have to give it to them for not succumbing to the pistachio craze, either way nothinig can beat a jar of Pistakio.

• Is Chobani clearing the path for another try at IPO?

  The dairy giant is cleaning up its act by refinancing expensive debt, improving their balance sheet and simplifying their balance sheet, for Chobani it’s all about growth. Capex has nearly doubled, they’ve invested over $1B in bigger factory and expanding product lines, and their EBITDA is rising fast. Though not immediate, a cleaner capital structure is a lot more trustworthy all around, considering their original IPO window was around the time Oatly did theirs, their stock is now 97% down not to mention the lawsuits that came after from investors alleging inflated numbers.

All in good measure, even pasta sauce.

A frustration of mine that I know others can relate to is having to figure out a way to save a half opened can of sauce or paste, not to mention the anxiety around opening a jar of sauce that I only used a quarter off, and now it’s a race to finish it while it remains fresh in the fridge. Monte’s used to have these perfect servings in a bottle, but as they scaled they were forced to get up to standard bottles in retail (makes total sense) so I’m excited to see brands like Silly Witch and Pantry Gems offer solutions like pre-portioned pasta sauce and tomato paste.

Frozen is an interesting leverage to have for a pasta sauce brand, it’s not at all as competitve as shelf in their category, plus frozen is also the biggest segment growing throughout grocery stores, post-pandemic saw many Americans expand their freezers, and it shows no signs of stopping—it also makes it feel fresher than shelf stable, there’s lots of potential for this brand, if they can nail the logistics.

What’s in a trail mix?

The people yearn for savory snacks, I love these two new brands, Wild Board snackified small plates from tapas to mezze and Beest is a crunchy meat brand expanding their lineup with charcuterie trail mix that combines dried meat, puffed cheese and nuts.

Gluten’s return heralds a cake mix renaissance.

Betty Crocker has failed to yassify itself and thus we are seeing a new crop of cake mixes that are not only offering better aesthetics, but cleaner ingredients overall, the category pioneer here has been Ollin and other’s are following closely, Batta is being smart about launching more culturally relevant flavors as well as a cleaner frosting mix.

Productive Scoops—

One stack to rule them all, protein powder is so passé—creatine and colostrum continue to rise in popularity, and Marrow is a smart brand that has just stacked them all in one, convenience will always be king.

New generation espresso tonics.

This isn’t the first time espresso tonic RTDs gain popularity, see the end of the 2010s, but a new wave of them coming at the heels of GenZ’s obsession with iced coffees and espresso martinis and combined it with really fun branding. Esspo, Esspritz and Solzi have launched within months of each other, more will follow.

A solution for those with an egg ick.

Search on Reddit or social media and you will see how many people actually detest the taste of eggs, an upcoming brand Crack’d Up is smart enough to capitalize on that inconvenience, creating a line of flavored eggs that spans from savory to sweet, only in America! This will do numbers at HEB, trust me when I say this.

Are we buying the protein dip?

Recently came across Schmeard, a protein cream cheese brand that recently launched, and this week Little Sesame debuted their “protein hummus”—chickpea brands like dairy ones are capitalizing on adding protein on the label to a product that already has existing protein in itself….

Mark & Spencer is pulling a Foxtrot

I’ve been made aware of Mark and Spencer slowly yassifying their entire private label, that looks more and more like Foxtrot and Trader Joe’s fucked and birth an in between of their styles. From Walmart to Target and Aldi, private label understands that Millennials and GenZ want their groceries with a side of aesthetics.