Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! On this episode, we talk with Leonard Armenta, CEO of SINFIT Nutrition and Secret Javas, about his new leadership role within GenTech Holdings Inc.. Before diving fully into that, we get nostalgic about how we both met and how that eventually led me to move to Denver and work with him at MusclePharm. Now leading the fun...
Nov 04, 2020•38 min
Glanbia is a global nutrition company that owns various nutritional supplement and sports nutrition brands. These brands include names like Optimum Nutrition, BSN, Think!, Isopure, Amazing Grass, and Slim Fast. Using the recently filed Glanbia earnings report and supplemental earnings call and presentation slides, I'll update you on how the Glanbia Performance Nutrition portfolio is performing against the complex global operating environment. Additionally, I'll discuss how the Glanbia Performanc...
Nov 02, 2020•14 min
I consume more content weekly than the total creepiness level of the Burger King Mascot. While not all of the content it's good, some are awesomely interesting, so instead of keeping it all in the labyrinth they call my brain, I figured I would start highlighting five of the most interesting things I've read, listened to, or watched during the week. In the third Weekly MIT episode, I share the following stories; ◼️ Notorious B.I.G. Drops a New Freestyle About Pepsi ◼️ Burger King Pranks Competit...
Oct 31, 2020•11 min
Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! On this episode, we talk to Diana Morgan, Head of Scientific & Regulatory Affairs at Care/Of, about the fascinating world of personalized nutrition. We dive into the current state of personalized nutrition, differences in personalized nutrition companies, and what the future holds for the nascent disruptive force in...
Oct 28, 2020•35 min
With over 50% of The Simply Good Foods Company’s revenue coming from the nutritional/protein bar category, the race is on to further diversify its product mix due to near-term headwinds. On 10/26/2020, The Simply Good Foods Company reported its fiscal fourth quarter earnings for the period ending 8/29/2020. While the company performed well overall, it was a mixed bag with brand-level performance. The biggest bright spot was in the Quest Nutrition brand, that had the best revenue creating quarter...
Oct 27, 2020•15 min
How is the American economy doing? According to the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book, optimism and positivity across districts is balanced against degrees of uncertainty, but what about the CPG industry specifically? The Beige Book is a Federal Reserve System publication that collects mostly qualitative information, gathered directly from District sources. This consumer data creates an opportunity to characterize dynamics and identify emerging trends in the economy that may not be readily app...
Oct 25, 2020•18 min
I consume more content weekly than Joey Chestnut consumes hot dogs at the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. While not all of it's good, some are awesomely interesting, so instead of keeping it all in the labyrinth they call my brain, I figured I would start highlighting five of the most interesting things I've read, listened to, or watched during the week. In the second Weekly MIT episode, I share the following stories; ◼️ Cryptocurrencies Just Became Besties with Pay...
Oct 24, 2020•10 min
Building a great functional CPG company today requires more strategic alignment than strategic vision. While all the strategic variables can easily be found throughout the coffers of the Age of Information, understanding how each is aligned together is what makes the magic happen over a materially long period of time. I could probably make a 12-week course on the importance of strategic alignment in the functional CPG industry today, but for this piece of content I want to focus on one extremely...
Oct 21, 2020•19 min
Hi my name is Joshua Schall and I’m here to apply for the GNC’s newly open position for CEO. Wait GNC no longer has a CEO? If you are a bit confused, that’s OK because the news of Ken Martindale not being offered a position with the newly emerged from bankruptcy specialty retailer GNC wasn’t exactly front-page news. Instead, it was actually buried in some SEC reports that probably few people read for fun like me. So, with no current CEO to run the biggest specialty retailer in the VMS category, ...
Oct 19, 2020•27 min
I consume a Rocky Mountain 14er level of content weekly...some of it good and some of it bad. Instead of keeping it all in the labyrinth they call my brain, I figured I would start highlighting five of the most interesting things I've read, listened to, or watched during the week. In the first episode, I share the following stories; ◼️ Goya Foods Uppercuts Cancel Culture ◼️ Hipsters Rejoice Over Ability To Drink Weed and Keep Street Cred ◼️ Amazon breaks $10B in 48 Hours ◼️ Kraft Sends Noods and...
Oct 17, 2020•8 min
Walmart feels like the retail version of Rocky Balboa because every time you think they can’t overcome the odds, they seem to miraculously fight their way back. So, I guess if I’m going suggest Walmart is Rocky Balboa, I better define which retailer gets to be Ivan Drago is in the fourth edition of the epic movie series. I think the only logical choice would be Amazon (and they are enhanced with the “COVID-19” Effect” steroid). Amazon has been crushing its competition in arguably one of the most...
Oct 14, 2020•17 min
What kind of milk to you drink? Whole, 2%, Skim, or do you not consume any traditional cow’s milk anymore? It wasn’t too long ago that this question would seem odd to ask. That's because Americans have historically drank a lot of fluid cow’s milk, but that’s not really the case anymore. Here lies the root of the problem for Dean Foods, the largest milk company in the United States, that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2019. It’s easy to spot consumption or sales data declines, but it...
Oct 13, 2020•13 min
The “COVID-19 Effect” created health concerns to the highest levels I can remember in my lifetime and created economic hardships to the highest levels since the Great Depression. These will no doubt have major impacts on every aspect of the supplement industry for years to come. Fact is, this isn't a socioeconomic set-up that looks very appealing to most entrepreneurs, unless you operate within the supplement industry. These market dynamics created a defining moment for the supplement industry a...
Oct 08, 2020•21 min
Race to the bottom this, race to the bottom that. Listen to a group of active nutrition CPG industry professionals long enough and eventually they will blame the race to the bottom as a main reason causing their assessment of the deterioration within the industry. But, is it really as bad as everyone seems to think it is? While the “race to the bottom” has several meanings depending on its socio-economic context, the active nutrition CPG industry usually refers to this as the competitive situati...
Oct 06, 2020•13 min
What does Spotify have to do with Kraft-Heinz? Before you guess, I’ll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with new remix of Nigerian dancehall recording artist Ketchup by DJ Mustard. Odds are when you think about the music streaming and podcasting company Spotify, you don’t easily connect it with the almost 150-year-old CPG conglomerate The Kraft Heinz Company, the owner of iconic food and beverage CPG brands, including namesakes Kraft & Heinz, Oscar Meyer, Kool-Aid, Jell-O, Lunchables, Pl...
Oct 05, 2020•8 min
Can you imagine running a company that’s so massive that you have a segment called “other” on your financial statements that will do more than $20 billion in revenue this year? For those wondering, that would make the “other company” aka Amazon’s Advertising business segment around the 150th biggest American company. At that size, its bigger than all of Kohl's, two Ebays, or three Simon Property Groups (the biggest mall retailer). It also makes them the third biggest digital advertising company ...
Sep 29, 2020•16 min
A common question I get asked by supplement brand owners is if third-party certifications are worth the investment? While my answer differs depending on the brand’s nuisance, I always mention one prediction that has marketing bending potential. What is this market bending potential and how likely will it happen? The answer to the latter part of that question might surprise you just how far along it already is...
Sep 28, 2020•12 min
Every industry has its behemoths. In packaged non-alcoholic beverages, it’s really a head to head battle between The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, but this isn’t a piece of content about the war between Red & Blue. It’s a piece of content about when any of the CPG industry behemoths enter a nascent functional category through internal product development of new offerings. Should this be seen as a net-positive or net-negative? The inspiration of this content came from the recent announcement...
Sep 23, 2020•14 min
In today’s dynamic interconnected economy, it only takes playing the business version of the game six degrees of Kevin Bacon to know that huge shifts in one area, can result in huge (mostly unintended) countereffects to just about any other sector of the economy. In the case of restaurant food delivery, COVID-19 accelerated an already in-motion trend. I believe that trend is, has been, and will continue to be secular, which will have major long-term implications to a number of stakeholders in th...
Sep 22, 2020•19 min
If you would've asked me what’s one of the hottest functional CPG brands that the general mainstream market probably hasn’t been paying attention to yet, I would have said Laird Superfood. Fact is, that's all about to change because Laird Superfood recently filed their S-1 paperwork with the SEC for a projected $40 million IPO. Laird Superfood is an emerging consumer products platform focused on manufacturing and marketing highly differentiated plant-based functional CPG. This places them right ...
Sep 14, 2020•18 min
Who cares that an 85-year-old American vitamin retail business is going to be acquired through bankruptcy by a Chinese company, right? Well it seems a few powerful and loud voices have stepped up to share their thoughts on the GNC bankruptcy sale. One such voice is Marco Rubio, who has requested a full review of this transaction by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The heart of the concern comes from three main areas; (1) Customer Data (2) Military Base GNC locati...
Sep 13, 2020•11 min
Cash rules everything around me (or in this case CPG brands)…C.R.E.A.M.…get the money…dollar dollar bill y’all! Confused? That's likely because you aren't a classic hip-hop fan or ever heard the 1994 record C.R.E.A.M. by the Wu-Tang Clan. What I'm talking about from a CPG business strategy perspective is that cash conversion cycle, which is a measure of how many days it takes for a business to turn invested cash (usually purchased inventory) back into cash in its bank account. Why is this so imp...
Sep 10, 2020•15 min
How is the American economy doing? According to the Federal Reserve September 2, 2020 Beige Book, the outlook remains uncertain and volatile, but what about specifically for the CPG industry? You might be asking yourself WTF is the Beige Book and why should I care about what it says about the economy? The Beige Book is a Federal Reserve System publication about current economic conditions across all 12 Federal Reserve Districts. It characterizes regional economic conditions and prospects based o...
Sep 09, 2020•16 min
After more than 18 months "in the dark", MusclePharm Corporation (MSLP) filed a collection of late earnings reports on 8/25/2020. On this podcast episode, I'll breakdown the most important key year-end financial data and explain why the sports nutrition brand hasn't filed any financial reports to the SEC in more than 18 months. Additionally, I catch you up through a collection of publicly-disclosed news from those last 18 months. Finally, I cover a variety of risk footnotes that were in the late...
Sep 02, 2020•16 min
The four largest pure-play specialty retailers in the active nutrition category have struggled immensely to retain market relevancy at the least and business continuity at the most. With the active nutrition product categories consistently reaching high single-digits CAGR over the last decade, what is happening? Where is all that buying power going? This is what is dubbed the Wal-Mazon Effect. Walmart, Target and Amazon have seen the largest gains over the past decade in category buyer count. So...
Sep 01, 2020•16 min
FitLife Brands fought one of those perfect storm level quarters that they likely wouldn’t have survived a few years ago. Why are things different now? It starts so casually. You land a large customer, your products hit the shelves and it starts to pull off shelf well. You break out the champagne. Soon, that customer is 30% of your business. Then 50%. Then 70%. No one can say no to them anymore. But why would you? This is what happened to FitLife Brands, the owner of a collection of sports nutrit...
Aug 24, 2020•13 min
What does Linens n Things, Dressbarn, Pier 1 Imports and Modell's Sporting Goods have in common beyond their retail downfall? They have all been acquisitions by a little-known investment firm called Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV) that was founded last year. Maybe that doesn’t seem too odd, but what if I told you REV was run by a former NASA scientist that founded a successful dating app and Tai Lopez or “here in my garage” guy that Vice News called the Internet’s Most Hated Self-Help Guru in 20...
Aug 20, 2020•15 min
Any press is good press, right? I guess not when you consider a bankrupt specialty retailer in the midst of one of the most challenging periods in American business history. In this podcast episode, I want to tackle 3 areas; (1) top-level financial data from GNC Holdings 2020Q2 earnings report that was released last week (2) cover any updates on Chapter 11 bankruptcy news since the last podcast episode about the subject on 7/12/2020 (3) cover “what ifs” around missing deadlines or requirements w...
Aug 19, 2020•13 min
Is it time for Glanbia Performance Nutrition to go “over the top” in its strategy as it continues to slip in importance of the overall Glanbia portfolio? Glanbia is a global nutrition company that owns various nutritional supplement and sports nutrition brands. These brands include names like Optimum Nutrition, BSN, ThinkThin, Isopure, Amazing Grass, ABB, and Slim Fast. I'll use the recent earnings report and earnings call notes to update you on how the massive consumer behavior event COVID-19 h...
Aug 13, 2020•17 min
A fast-paced and busy lifestyle is pushing consumers to switch to quick and healthy meal options. This has resulted in the penetration of RTD protein shakes that promote active lifestyles. In this podcast episode, I'll utilize the recent quarterly earnings report and conference call for BellRing Brands to update you on the growth of the portfolio's consumer brand Premier Protein. Additionally, I'll breakdown how the RTD protein beverage category is performing in the challenging retail environmen...
Aug 11, 2020•15 min
