Jonathan Neman

🗞️What’s new this week with CPG brands? Let’s celebrate the wins from emerging brands! Here are news stories you have to read: 🛒 𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐋 𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐒 🥭 Jack & Friends, founded by Jessica Kwong, is now available at the Whole Foods Daily Shop in Lennox Hill, NYC, with plans to expand to all Whole Foods Northeast locations next month. 🌾 Chasin' Dreams Farm, founded by Sydney Chasin, has launched its regeneratively farmed sorghum snacks at Whole Foods South Pacific. 🌿 SEEDLY, founded by Mateen Pouyafar, has launched its low-sugar Seed Bark in MOM's Organic Market, bringing three delicious seed-packed flavors to health-conscious shoppers. 🍛 Lentiful, founded by Ben Bacon, is now available in Wegmans Food Markets, 370 Walmart stores, and on Misfits Market, solidifying its presence in key grocery chains across the Northeast. 🌶️ Maazah, founded by Sheilla and Yasameen Sajady, MBA, is gearing up for major retail expansion with upcoming partnerships with Costco, Whole Foods, and Target. 🚀 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓 𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒 ☕ BAUER'S BREW, founded by Mike Bauer, has debuted COLDSPRESSO, crafted using a proprietary Cold'Xtraction process to elevate coffee from a commodity to an art form. 🤝 𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒 🧃 MIZO, co-founded by Holly Paul and Chris Tran, secured a Walmart Open Call Golden Ticket, paving the way for its hard juice pouches to hit Sam’s Club shelves nationwide in 2025. 💸 𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐂𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 🥣 Lil Bucks, founded by Emily Griffith, closed a $3M Series A round led by Proterra Investment Partners. 🎉 𝐍𝐄𝐖𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄 🥄 Little Spoon, co-founded by Ben Lewis and Angela Vranich, became the first baby food company in the U.S. to test every batch for 500+ toxins, setting a new industry safety standard. 🌱 Wild Bay, founded by Sid Sharma, was honored to be featured at Ignite Capital's Baltimore showcase, spotlighting its current fundraising efforts. In collaboration with Amber Caro from Marketbite. Read more about each story here: https://lnkd.in/g4pbia-E Have your own news to share? Submit here: Foodbevy.com/submit #CPG #FoodandBeverage

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This deal has the potential be an interesting one. On the surface, Mars acquiring a snacking business like Kellanova makes strategic sense— complementary, fast(er) growing snacks category with nice margins for food; however, on the surface, Kellanova appears dilutive to Mars on growth and margin, so there need to be significant synergies to make a deal work. Here's a hypothesis…  Mars will spin out Kellanova’s cereal business, returning it to WK Kelloggs. The Kellanova portfolio still derives ~25% of global sales from Cereal outside North America. Cereal has slower growth and lower margin than Kellanova’s snacks portfolio; however, Kellanova depends on Cereal for scale operations outside the US where it accounts for ~45% of sales. Under a scenario where Mars acquires Kellanova, the scale problem is solved and cereal is no longer needed. For WK Kelloggs, re-integrating the international cereal business would restore the synergies lost (R&D, ops, innovation, brand management—it’s a long list) when the portfolio was split by the creation of Kellanova. There is value here. I remain critical of Kelloggs’s transition to Kellanova + WK Kelloggs. It’s nothing more than financial spin that damages the brands and brings no value to consumers. If this Mars play is perhaps the endgame that the Kellanova architects had in mind, then I may owe them an apology. If not, then it’s a fitting end to the short and unremarkable chapter that was Kellanova. www.avenirstrategies.net https://lnkd.in/eVipvXFF

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I've been in CPG for over a decade now and while I see many stories about those who have been successful in the #CPGindustry, I don't see many people talking about the daily nitty gritty details you need to know. So I'm giving it a shot! Today we're diving into some 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 🤓👇 --- One of the most common things I've noticed is that brands try to do too much when it comes to retail. But you can't please everyone! Here's how to find the best retail strategy for 𝘺𝘰𝘶.

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Update for Non-Alcoholic Beverage Shoppers If you’re picking up alcohol-free drinks like Giesen, Athletic Brewing, or newer health-focused options like TranQuini Dei Soi and Kin Euphorics, here’s something to know: major retailers like Target and Walmart may ask for your ID at checkout. Even though these drinks are non-alcoholic, they’re often sold next to traditional alcohol, and some states, like New York, require ID for these beverages as well. Target has been quietly implementing this policy for some time now, and while some customers find it inconvenient, it’s all about following regulations and ensuring these products meet growing market standards. next time you grab a non-alcoholic drink, just be prepared to show your ID, even if your on social security 😂😎🤝

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Another incredible CPGX session in the books... (Consumer Packaged Goods eXecutives Forum) I founded the CPGX Forum almost 12 years ago with intention to gather & learn from the best CPG brands in Utah (Hot Bed for Entrepreneurs) with the first session hosted at Skullcandy Inc. in 2013. Flash forward to today, the relationships have strengthened and the brands have grown substantially. As experiences build, richer conversations are taking place - sharing best practices together as brand builders that service the world's largest retailers. Gozney (Daylen Bushman - THANK YOU!) hosted the session. Gozney is changing the way the world cooks outdoors with a focus on pizza ovens. No one is addressing this growing demand for outdoor ovens like these guys. Beautiful new office space - great tour, and even more exciting vision & mission. Congrats on the explosive growth! Topics for discussion included: Capturing consumer insights in brick & mortar retail (Brij, Kait Stephens' software was a meaningful part of the discussion). TikTok and current advertising best practice and tactics for increasing units/store/week across distribution was another topic. We closed out discussing PURPOSE and using our brand platforms to lift consumers and to make a difference in the world. Such good energy!! Thanks to the many brands & executives that have supported the CPGX Forum over the years. Shout out to some of this week's attendees: Dan Griffiths (Lume Deoderant), Thomas Bishop (Pale Blue Earth), David A. Kizer (Owlet), Steve Clark (Just Ingredients), Colby Bauer (Thread), Joe Boud (SPG/Carhartt), Rich Israelsen (Downeast), Sterling Jones (JoJo's Chocolates), Sam Alexander (PMD Beauty), Tiffany Vail (Brandless), 🌮 Scott Craig Porter (San Diablo), Paul Norat (Northern Plastics), Tyson Andrus (Atmos) among others. To those brands that couldn't make it today... see you next time! Denny Bruce - Congrats on the Gozney vision & strategy! (Our thoughts are with your family in Florida in the path of the hurricane 🙏 )

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"How long until I start making money in CPG?" "Is it possible to survive as a self-funded, bootstrapped company?" "What are the pros and cons of small CPG brands to go after the big players in the natural grocery world, like Whole Foods Market or Sprouts?" These were the burning questions that ponders my mind during my first one-and-a-half years in the CPG industry to run Hotpot Queen. A couple of months back, I shared a LinkedIn post discussing insights from fellow entrepreneurs and industry veterans. It turns out these are common questions many startup founders grapple with but often struggle to find answers to. Fortunately, after reading my post, Melissa Traverse reached out and suggested we organize a BevNET.com community call to delve into these rarely addressed yet crucial questions. We were lucky to have experts like Dwight Richmond and Sarah Dorey to join the panel. I'm excited to announce that the podcast is now released! (On Spotify and Apple podcast). You can listen to it using the link in the comments below. We covered a wide range of topics, and there's even potential for a part two. Being part of the startup CPG community has been incredibly rewarding. I want to share my experiences as brutally honest as I can to uplift and educate one another through our collective successes and setbacks.

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Two things: 1) Helena Bottemiller Evich's Foodfix is an unbelievable source of great info on food policy and what's happening behind the scenes. The subscription is essential in my view for senior leaders across food. Such great journalism, and 2) Holy smokes this lightly/un-regulated compounding of GLP-1 drugs and resulting massive availability at very low prices to consumers is something most food leaders probably probably do not fully understand. Scary from both potential health impacts from dosing and/or quality issues, AND for the potential for much wider and faster adoption of the drugs, and implications for food industry volumes. The most common push-back from industry is that because the drugs are too expensive, they will spread slow and with limited food volume impact. Nope, now you can buy this stuff from hundreds of online sources that are compounding it very openly and as a result it has the potential to spread very fast and wide, and likely already is. Food volumes seem very stubbornly stuck across many categories. Just a coincidence? I do not know, but it sure seems like an interesting question to ask and get under.

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