FTC targets one of the biggest supplement brands with a “first of its kind” Amazon case only two months after updating its advertising guidance document for the supplement industry. I tried to warn you in previous content about the FDA and FTC that things would be getting gnarly in for supplement industry stakeholders in 2023! On February 16, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action against The Bountiful Company, maker of Nature’s Bounty dietary supplements, with “review hijacking” o...
Feb 21, 2023•10 min
Offense and defense are terms that we’re mostly familiar with when talking about sports, but these words are also applicable in business strategy. The easiest way to think about offensive versus defensive business strategy is that when a company is playing offense, its making investments that move the business forward. Alternatively, when a company is playing defense, its making investments to prevent potential downside. Offensive and defensive strategies are equally important, but when you util...
Feb 18, 2023•11 min
Are there evolving sociological patterns that could be driving the massive growth of energy and nootropic products? I’d argue that the consumer interest in caffeine has never been higher. I’ve seen a collection of recent surveys that state between three-fourths and more than four-fifths of American adults consume caffeine daily. While coffee has been powering Americans before America was even a thing, more recently consumers are increasingly grabbing some of the other “energy everything” product...
Feb 08, 2023•11 min
Are the recent Premier Protein and Dymatize Nutrition product innovations enough or is it time for BellRing Brands to go M&A hunting in 2023? As I normally do with my performance update content of publicly-traded functional CPG brands, I will use the recently filled earnings report, earnings conference call, and any relevant publicly disclosed news, in this case it’s BellRing Brands (NYSE: BRBR) 2023 Q1 earnings release, to obviously update you on the performance of brands in that portfolio,...
Feb 07, 2023•14 min
Last year saw a rise in legislative and regulatory attacks on the supplement industry. Should supplement industry stakeholders be concerned things will continue or even worse…accelerate in 2023? If you caught my recent content regarding the revised FTC health products guidance document, at the very end of it...I stated that whether it was that particular regulatory update, state legislatures attacking supplements, federal legislatures calling for supplement industry regulatory reform, or several...
Feb 01, 2023•26 min
Have you heard the story of how Cola-Cola gave the white business community of Atlanta an ultimatum to help Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? So, I’m not sure if this unofficial content series will eventually become an official one, but I do want to more frequently share obscure CPG industry historical stories that I find interesting. I’m highly motivated to do this mostly because as every year I grow older (and hopefully a bit wiser), I’ve found it more important to study the American history that th...
Jan 30, 2023•9 min
Who is TINA and why does she seem to hate the energy drinks market? In mid-December 2022, Truth in Advertising (TINA) and the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health sent letters to more than 40 energy drink companies urging them all to review their marketing. Why? TINA believes these energy drink companies are engaging in deceptive and unfair marketing tactics that are targeting minors. While 40+ energy drink companies were targeted, none more so than GHOST Lifestyle. TINA didn’t just se...
Jan 26, 2023•26 min
Logan Paul, KSI, and the team at Congo Brands just launched PRIME Energy, but does it any stand any chance at outselling PRIME Hydration? If you haven't noticed, the internet has gone crazy for PRIME Hydration with the company stating its 2022 sales number reached around $115 million. Remember that’s basically with 11.5 months of business activity, and in Year 1 out the gate. That’s essentially unheard of with any new beverage launch that isn’t a brand or product extension by one of the biggest ...
Jan 24, 2023•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! So, if we were putting together a 21st century beverage industry version of Mount Rushmore, my recent guest would have to be up for major consideration. From successful exits at ZICO Coconut Water, CORE, and BODYARMOR, to his current involvement in ZOA Energy, Chamberlain Coffee, and Athletic Brewing…Danny Stepper is th...
Jan 23, 2023•52 min
Imagine you create a piece of content that gets millions of views. How long would it take you to make a follow-up? A few hours later…the same day…or maybe a few days at the most, right? I guess you could say the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wouldn’t cut it in today’s creator economy. That’s because it took the regulatory agency 25 years to update its previous 1998 guidance document, “Dietary Supplements: An Advertising Guide for the Industry.” You might be thinking that A LOT has probably chan...
Jan 17, 2023•26 min
What happens when a bunch of shred zepplins, swolezillas, and Broseidons circle around a stack of price inflated sports nutrition products and start making event predictions about the supplement industry? This will basically be the personification of that imaginary scenario! My one big rule for these annual prediction lists is that I don’t allow carryover from previous years. Additionally, since these are "outlandish" predictions, I try and take Happy Gilmore level swings. The second rule was pu...
Jan 13, 2023•9 min
Which sports and active nutrition industry trends do I predict will be the biggest in 2023? Believe it or not, this will be my fifth annual list of sports and active nutrition industry trend predictions. Many of you know that I cut my teeth in the sports nutrition space…plus I’ve always believed the best and brightest companies in sports and active nutrition are the influential epicenter for the entire CPG industry. So, there’s always an extra layer of maybe self-generated pressure that I put on...
Jan 11, 2023•14 min
Better, softer, yummier…is this newly reformulated Quest Bar a gamechanger in sustaining market leadership in the active nutrition snacking category? In this latest episode, I'll utilize the 2023 Q1 Simply Good Foods Company (NASDAQ: SMPL) earnings report, earnings call, and supplemental presentations that were filed on 1/5/2023 as the backdrop to provide broad nutritional snacking market insights. In Q1 of fiscal 2023, both Atkins Nutritionals and Quest Nutrition performed in the top-tier of ca...
Jan 09, 2023•11 min
It’s that glorious time of year again, where my content creation morphs into a collection of Top 5 lists that either gives me the chance to highlight key insights from the last year or provides me the opportunity to put my reputation on the line as a forward-leaning CPG strategist and make predictions about the coming year. Believe it or not, this will be my fifth annual list of functional food and beverage trend predictions. For those that are new to my content, I only have one big rule for the...
Jan 05, 2023•12 min
Rick Ross is one of the most successful musicians in the world, but few realize he also dabbles in the world of consumer packaged goods (CPG). So, what can CPG professionals learn from the hip-hop legend? I’ve always believed that hip-hop and CPG entrepreneurship are linked together. This is probably why you see so many hip-hop artists that are involved with CPG entrepreneurship or investing in this consumer sector. While his overall business activity is lower compared to Jay Z, you might be sur...
Jan 03, 2023•12 min
Who doesn’t enjoy a trick, shortcut, or innovative method for accomplishing familiar tasks more easily and efficiently, right? While these type of lifehacks are heralded throughout society, it’s fraternal twin known as biohacking feels like a strange cultlike mix of amateur DIY medicine and things you’d read in futuristic sci-fi novels. Depending on which biohacking subculture you ask (e.g. grinders, transhumanists, primitivists or immoralists), you’ll get a different definition of what biohacki...
Dec 29, 2022•11 min
It’s that glorious time of year again, where my content creation morphs into a collection of Top 5 lists that either gives me the chance to highlight key insights from the last year or provides me the opportunity to put my reputation on the line as a forward-leaning CPG strategist and make predictions about the coming year. Outside of just ranking which five sports nutrition brands I thought were the biggest winners in 2022 (plus another handful of honorable mention brands), I also toss in numer...
Dec 26, 2022•15 min
Isotonic beverages, sports drinks, hydration products…whatever you call them, blurring lines and new positionings are creating one heck of a fascinating CPG category. For those looking beyond water for their hydration needs, the market is heavy with functional beverages and powdered supplements. While just about every CPG category has been filled with brands “skating on ice” trying to meet the everchanging consumer demands, none closely compared to the hydration category that was once defined pr...
Dec 22, 2022•12 min
I want to welcome you back to another episode of what I’ve branded Pivotal since these interview-style segments tackle impactful CPG industry topics and lessons from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! As we close out another year, it only seems right that I would focus this latest episode on both recapping some sports and active nutrition trends/themes from the last year and look forward to predicting what trends/themes are getting hotter and others that might be cooling off. Instead o...
Dec 20, 2022•54 min
If you watched to my last content about the (not yet officially announced) new CEO at MusclePharm, I unfortunately had to leave you on this sort of cliffhanger. While I was alerted about the MusclePharm intellectual property (IP) portfolio sale a few days before that content was published, it wasn’t my place to break that news publicly and I provided my reasoning for that to stay transparent with my audience. But this content will get the important stuff, such as why MusclePharm is selling a col...
Dec 15, 2022•11 min
Back in December 2021, I successfully predicted that the biggest YouTuber in the world, Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast, would build on the successful momentum of the MrBeast Burger virtual restaurant concept and launch a CPG product. Two months later, MrBeast launched Feastables, a better-for-you snacking brand with its first product being the MrBeast Bar. The current Feastables product portfolio, which now also includes plant-based cookies, is just the beginning of a much bigger vision. What will ...
Dec 14, 2022•11 min
Keurig Dr Pepper (NASDAQ: KDP) finally got off their butt and landed a key strategic partnership in the energy drinks market. On December 8, KDP and C4 Energy entered into a strategic partnership that includes a long-term sales and distribution arrangement, which is expected to meaningfully increase retail availability and household penetration for the C4 Energy brand. KDP is making a pre-tax cash investment in Nutrabolt of $863 million, in exchange for preferred equity ownership stake of approx...
Dec 09, 2022•15 min
MusclePharm (OTCMKTS: MSLP) has a new CEO and every supplement industry veteran will recognize his name. At the time of filming this content, the CEO change isn't exactly public information yet, but I can confirm that it's Eric Hillman. Who is "Big E", which he has been signing off on MusclePharm social media interactions? Eric Hillman is the co-founder of the supplement industry distributor Europa Sports Products (now known as Europa Sports Partners). After acquiring its second-largest competit...
Dec 06, 2022•11 min
1st Phorm isn’t like other supplement brands. That’s by design, but it seems to cause a level of ignorance by sports nutrition industry pundits that has always felt downright disrespectful to me. My belief is that outside of a rare few, the vast majority are one trick ponies that see the sports nutrition space through one lens only. Basically, they like to fit brands into boxes based on their understanding of the supplement market. The problem is that 1st Phorm doesn’t fit neatly into a box. Reg...
Nov 30, 2022•13 min
In a challenging business environment, where managing innovation risk has become critical, should you be expecting more than the typical brand-supplier relationship in the CPG industry? With tens of thousands of new CPG products launching every year, simply putting “new” on a bottle won’t get any meaningful market attention. There’s no doubt in my mind that innovation done right accelerates company growth in the CPG industry, but anticipating consumers’ needs, and measuring and managing innovati...
Nov 29, 2022•11 min
Is the future of product development within the supplement industry heading towards more condition-specific or multifunctional formulation approaches? This juxtaposition in supplement industry product development approaches has been on mind for a while now...and there are so many considerations at play here coming from both the brand-level and supply side of the supplement industry, but also with how it all interacts to consumer behavior. We know that ingredient advances are enabling formulators...
Nov 28, 2022•15 min
Purchasing volume has fallen for both Premier Protein and Dymatize, yet total revenues for the brands keep climbing…what’s going on here? As I normally do with my performance update content of publicly-traded functional CPG brands, I will use the recently filled earnings report, earnings conference call, and any relevant publicly disclosed news, in this case it’s Bellring Brands (NYSE: BRBR) 2022 Q4 earnings release, to obviously update you on the performance of brands in that portfolio, but als...
Nov 21, 2022•11 min
Did y’all really think the party was over for Celsius Holdings after the PepsiCo deal? Come on man! Celsius Holdings (NASDAQ: CELH) hit another record quarterly revenue ($188 million - up 98% YoY) and represented its 17th consecutive quarter of sequential growth for the energy drinks brand. While Celsius energy drinks saw massive growth in convenience stores, mass retailers like Walmart, the club channel, and the Amazon marketplace...the big news this quarter was that the brand announced they pa...
Nov 14, 2022•12 min
Will revamping SlimFast and BSN be the answer to solving the struggles of both Glanbia Performance Nutrition brands? Glanbia Performance Nutrition had 2022 Q3 revenue growth of 13.7% YoY on a constant currency basis from strong pricing increases. They also benefitted from the mid-2021 acquisition of LevlUp, a gamer (esports) nutrition brand. Glanbia Performance Nutrition is one of two wholly-owned segments of Glanbia plc (LON:GLB), a multi-billion dollar global nutrition company. The brands in t...
Nov 13, 2022•14 min
On August 27, 2018, Sharon Leite officially took over the role of CEO at The Vitamin Shoppe. How has she done in my opinion? Firstly, I'll transport us back in time, so we can get a sense of what was happening at The Vitamin Shoppe when we took over the job. The peak revenue and store count era was in 2016, but cracks quickly began to show at The Vitamin Shoppe (and GNC), as they struggled to compete with Amazon, changing consumer expectations with shopping experiences, and the dissemination of ...
Nov 10, 2022•14 min
