Man those “Cola Wars” with Coca-Cola in the late-1970s into the early-1980s must have really made Pepsi angry because did you know they went out and made a deal with the former Soviet Union to acquire a whole bunch of naval ships including attack submarines? The story starts with the Soviet Union getting a taste of Pepsi during the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow. More than a decade later, now President Nixon sent a Department of Commerce commission to the Soviet Union to encourage trade between the two Cold War rivals. On the trip was Pepsi CEO Donald Kendall, who was then the head of Pepsi international relations back in 1959 and had arranged for his good friend Nixon to give Khrushchev the Pepsi taste-test. This time Kendall nailed down what would become a hugely lucrative deal for Pepsi, with the two countries signing a countertrade agreement that brought Stoli vodka to the U.S. market. When the original trade agreement became close to expiring in 1989, PepsiCo wanted more cash to offset the countertrade agreement. With its faltering economy, the USSR did not have many consumer products that it could successfully sell to the West. But one thing it did have, thanks to its bloated Cold War military budget, was a lot of surplus equipment for its armed forces. And so, in what must be one of the oddest commercial agreements ever signed, then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to new $3 billion deal that saw PepsiCo take ownership of…17 Soviet Navy attack submarines, 3 warships, and a handful of other ships. Under the new agreement, PepsiCo retained exclusive rights to Stoli, as well as Cristall, and another Vodka brand. PepsiCo would double their bottling plants and use sale credits to bring Pizza Hut to Moscow. However, the “deal of the century” (which it was dubbed collapsed when the Soviet Union broke apart in December 1991. 

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Can we officially say now that Glanbia Performance Nutrition is back on track after a few hiccup years? Glanbia Performance Nutrition had 2021 full-year revenue of $1.44 billion, which increased 17.1% YoY on a constant currency basis from both strong pricing and volume increases. They also benefitted 1.2% from the mid-year 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 the Glanbia Performance Nutrition portfolio include; Optimum Nutrition, BSN, Think!, Isopure, Amazing Grass, and Slim Fast. I'll use the recent earnings report, earnings call, and associated news to update you on how the Glanbia Performance Nutrition portfolio is performing against the complex operating environment. Additionally, I'll dive deeper into the Optimum Nutrition (which grew 35% YoY globally in 2021) and Slim Fast brands, provide an update on the Glanbia Performance Nutrition strategic transformation project, and explain how Glanbia will likely make additional "bolt on" acquisitions within both divisions in 2022. 

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Celsius Holdings (NASDAQ: CELH) set more company records as the business almost triples in revenue, but will that continue in 2022? The current set-up looks great, but it won’t be without marketplace challenges and competition breathing down on Celsius Holdings from all directions. This includes the important female energy drink buyer for Celsius, as upstart brand Alani Nu is growing at 600%+ YoY with annualized run rate revenue that close to $200 million. Celsius Holdings will need to continue focusing on expanding performance in several key sales channels that includes ecommerce (Amazon), fitness, and the granddaddy of them all...convenience stores. In 2021, Celsius Holdings reached another inflection point in its business, one which positions the energy drink brand for exponential growth and market share gains. This is above and beyond the recent brand popularity spike that has seen year-over-year quarterly revenue growth expand aggressively. In the last two years, Celsius Holdings have grown from two-tenths of a percent to now amassing just over two percent market share in the energy drink category. As the brand hits critical mass with a run rate now over $400 million in revenue, it has has been able to navigate the challenging marketplace dynamics that are creating higher barriers of entry for smaller scale new entrants that are now paying significantly higher shipping, raw materials, co-packer fees, and not being able to pass costs on and stay competitive due to Monster Energy and Red Bull pricing strategy. 

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With Russia invading Ukraine this past week, what effects could it have on the functional CPG industry? I think the easiest way to understand this topic would be for me to provide a zoomed out CPG industry view, before zooming back into the functional food, functional beverage, and nutritional supplement CPG categories. Many might not be aware that Ukraine is nicknamed the breadbasket of Europe. The Ukraine and Russia conflict is further exacerbating a run-up in prices for food commodities, which have been affected by extreme weather, labor shortages and a host of supply chain issues over the past year. For food manufacturers that rely on wheat and flour as key ingredients, the Ukraine and Russia conflict is yet another element for them to weigh as they attempt to control price increases. It’s not just the threats to grain shipments that could drive inflation, as Russia is a major low-cost exporter of nearly every kind of fertilizer. If global trade of fertilizers gets disrupted, it will mean higher costs for farmers, and in turn, more food inflation. As you can see, contagion and trickle-down risks are all over the place that will impact the functional CPG categories, but what about direct hits? I'll breakdown possible finished goods trade impacts and also a few ingredients that are used in common functional CPG formulations. 

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The Vitamin Shoppe grew topline revenue to its almost matching the company's history peak in 2014-2015. This is along with achieving operating profit growth of over 1800% YoY. Yet, I would guess that most still haven’t fully grasped the results of massive multi-year turnaround plan at The Vitamin Shoppe. I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but it’s time to wake up people. Since The Vitamin Shoppe is shielded in the public markets by the Franchise Group ownership, the supplement retailer’s turnaround hasn’t been front and center, but overlooking it would be a mistake.  Fact is, 2022 is setting up very nicely for The Vitamin Shoppe. They will have store growth for the first time in half a decade, they have a growing customer file for the first time in half a decade, and they are positioned inside of a growing specialty category that isn't seeing a market slowdown because of supply-chain pressures. In this particular episode, I will dig deeper into two exciting areas of The Vitamin Shoppe; Franchise Store Development and Private Label Creation. 

The Vitamin Shoppe Undercover Boss = https://youtu.be/K8Uy-8qlTqE

Sports Nutrition Industry Event Predictions = https://youtu.be/hzSpGJyPFSs

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Unilever might have been lacking direction over the last few years, but a recent strategic transformation decision now has the European CPG conglomerate positioned squarely inside my wheelhouse. According to comments made during the latest Unilever earnings call, CEO Alan Jope stated, “after months of careful review, we have concluded that accelerating the shift of Unilever's portfolio into consumer health and well-being would position the company for faster growth in the coming decades.” I agree with that assessment, but why publicly show your hand to the competition? The problem was Unilever reportedly made an offer to buy the consumer healthcare division of GlaxoSmithKline that was created as a joint venture with Pfizer. With that failed M&A move showing the strategic intentions at Unilever, it became necessary to publicly assure shareholders that this is still the direction of portfolio evolution. That being said, Unilever leadership though clarified that they would not be proposing transformational acquisitions for the foreseeable future. Instead, Unilever intends to improve value creation in three ways including bolt-on acquisitions in Functional Nutrition. With its current Functional Nutrition portfolio in mind (Equilibra, OLLY Nutrition, Liquid I.V., SmartyPants Vitamins, and ONNIT), I discuss a handful of categorical bolt-on M&A moves that would make sense for Unilever.

Functional Nutrition brands mentioned: KOS, MaryRuth Organics, HumanN, Mud/Wtr, and HUEL.

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Are several converging consumer trends finally putting enough pressure towards getting a public health tax policy approved that’s more than a decade in the making? Public health? Taxes? I know what you’re thinking, but I assure you that how these topics relate to the supplement industry is quite important. It revolves around reclassifying certain meal replacement products and dietary supplements, that do have FDA approved health claims, to be permissible medical care expenditures for reimbursement within tax-favored Health Savings Accounts (known as HSAs) and Flexible Spending Accounts (known as FSAs). This is the heart of an argument that goes back more than a decade when a coalition that included the American Herbal Products Association, Herbalife International, GNC, Council for Responsible Nutrition, and several other large companies and trade organizations began working with a bi-partisan group of lawmakers to introduce legislation promoting tax parity for certain meal replacement products and dietary supplements under HSAs and FSAs. To give some additional insider color to this topic, I had a recorded discussion (included in content) with my good friend John Venardos, the former VP of worldwide regulatory & government affairs for Herbalife International, that was a major player in that coalition at the time. Fact is, it shouldn’t have been difficult historically to understand why establishing tax deductibility for certain products that promote a healthy lifestyle, weight loss or disease prevention, is an important public health policy initiative, but consider how the importance has been supercharged because of the “COVID-19 Effect.” While this is a tax question wrapped around a public health matter, I wish the legislative branch of the government would zoom out and just try to focus on asking the hard questions around root causes that are related to obesity. We are in desperate need of a comprehensive strategy to encourage healthy nutrition and to fight obesity. An extremely high percentage of all deaths in the United States are related to poor diet and physical inactivity. These are about incentivizing the right daily choices. Maybe that starts with tax deductibility for certain products that promote a healthy lifestyle, weight loss or disease prevention or maybe it doesn’t but we need to start thinking about improving nutrition and physical activity of the mainstream population.

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As in-person trade shows come roaring back in 2022, it’s the perfect time to talk about how you can make impact at these events without spending tons of money being an exhibitor. For a lot of you that work at or own functional CPG brands, being involved at trade shows (B2B or B2C) or heck even just having the opportunity to live sample at events/retailers is very important. B2B events like Natural Products Expo West or Fancy Foods Show are the perfect place to meet with dozens or hundreds of potential wholesale accounts. B2C events like Arnold Classic Expo or the Mr. Olympia Expo are where you can get major trial and build awareness for your consumable functional CPG products. With all this pent-up demand and the desire to revenge spend like it’s going out of style, you likely want to jump back into exhibiting anywhere and everywhere possible, right? I get it, but this could also be an emotional response that makes for messy cost inefficient decisions. Stop and think about this for a second…the world has fundamentally changed because of the “COVID-19 Effect”, so why do the same ole same ole with your experiential marketing at trade shows? I recognize the handful of trade show experiential marketing hacks that I’ll discuss aren’t a one-to-one swap for exhibiting, but they will hopefully provide a springboard for you to challenge establishment mechanical thinking inside your functional CPG brand.

GHOST Lifestyle YouTube Channel = https://www.youtube.com/c/Ghostlifestyle

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Have you heard the joke about the time a baseball card, pack of chewing gum, and a piece of sports apparel walked into a retail store? No? It’s OK…there probably isn’t a joke in the entire historical catalog of jokes that combine those things. That being said, all those consumer products categories do have a commonality and that’s because it was announced in early January that Fanatics would acquire The Topps Company for $500 million. You might be thinking…that’s great, but what the heck does that have to do with the CPG industry focused content you normally put out. Well...it’s a CPG division of Topps that was left out of this M&A deal with Fanatics that has me wondering what’s next? I'll explore if the current owners of Bazooka Candy Brands can channel "2011 era" Michael Rubin and turn these unwanted assets into a multi-billion-dollar company.

Greatest CPG Brand Pivots of All-Time - https://youtu.be/tUDax0gXEZk

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If you’ve been online for even a short period of time during the past few weeks, you’ve probably encountered social media posts made up of green and yellow blocks. My thesis when I started to research Wordle was that it’s just another pandemic-era viral phenomenon. Things go viral on the internet for no good reason all the time, but that fact seems to have become more random during the last two years. After digging into Wordle a bit more, I found it was quite a intriguing case of virality that was worth spending some time thinking more deeply about. Wordle’s organic viral success provides a fascinating look into how to generate buzz, cultivate fans, and achieve the level of velocity needed to break out from the media abundance. So, what can CPG brands learn from the viral success of Wordle?

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