Based on the popularity of this trend prediction content from the last three years, I decided to again put my reputation on the line and try and predict the Top 5 Sports & Active Nutrition Industry Trends in 2022. My one big rule for these annual trend prediction lists is that I don’t allow carryover from previous years. This makes it more challenging, but also a little odd since trends are multiyear in nature with the strongest ones lasting a decade or more. That makes my previous predictions valuable to review as they likely still have huge commercialization value.

In no particular order, here are my prediction for Top 5 Sports and Active Nutrition Industry Trends in 2022:

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Have you noticed that Quest Nutrition is impressively executing on a very difficult CPG strategy, yet The Simply Good Foods Company isn’t getting enough credit for it? In this latest episode, I'll utilize the 2022 Q1 Simply Good Foods Company (NASDAQ: SMPL) earnings report, earnings call, and supplemental presentations that were filed on 1/5/2022 as the backdrop to provide broad health and fitness snacking market insights. In Q1 of fiscal 2022, both brands had strong retail takeaway growth, with Quest Nutrition specifically having more than 36% growth. Quest Nutrition also has seen massive success in its Quest Nutrition Protein Chips. It has been the single biggest contributor to the growth in Quest Nutrition household penetration growth and the product has brought in a significant number of new buyers that were incremental to the brand. Even with YoY growth more than doubling, the Quest Nutrition Chips could have been an even bigger impact to the brand if it wasn’t for lack of inventory due to outsized growth. Once more supply is brought online in 2022, there will be a huge opportunity for Quest Nutrition to continue extending into the salty snack aisle. “COVID-19 Effect” aided or not, I predict we will be looking back at this period in a few years and remarking on how catapulted the brand from a single-product category leader to a leading multi-category platform brand.

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How did J. Schall Consulting do in 2021? For those that only know me as a “content creator” shame on you, well I guess shame on me for not better explaining who I am and what I actually do for a living. I certainly don’t make money creating content, on the contrary, it costs me a shit ton of money in opportunity costs annually but don’t worry I’m not quitting anytime soon. The variety of business strategy content does serve as a great content marketing tool for my consulting company J. Schall Consulting. Believe it or not, 2022 will mark the ten-year anniversary of J. Schall Consulting.  Within the last almost decade, I’ve successfully built my boutique consulting company into a world-renowned leader in growth strategies for clients that are positioned inside the emerging and intersecting categories of functional food, beverage, and nutritional supplements. These CPG clients range in size from pre-launch to billion-dollar companies. They are also not always traditional consumer “brands”, as 2021 brought even more diversity in projects with one-third of all projects being on the supply side of the industry. These ranged from contract manufacturers to ingredient suppliers to agricultural technology to flavor companies and everything in-between. My projects focal points range throughout the full entrepreneurial ideation to consumerization cycle, with very few areas being outside of my wheelhouse. Before I get started with some recap statistics, I would like to thank everyone for making this my most impactful year ever. I know I said that last year, but we built on that momentum and that snowball rolling down the hill is growing in size. For those that trusted me by giving me some of your attention, I’m humbled and don’t take that for granted as I know the caliber of person that consumes my content and that time you give me is extremely valuable. For those that took it a step further and not only consumed but implemented something from my content into your business, you owe me dinner at the next trade show we are both at!  Just kidding and thank you to those that have messaged me privately saying something from XYZ piece of content helped you in 2021. For my clients, we anticipated that 2021 wasn’t going to be easy, but everyone kept a positive agile mindset. You trusted me and I can’t thank you enough for being a major part of my successful year. If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere, right?

Digital Nomad Lifestyle = https://youtu.be/31OBQDhl-ME

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Based on the popularity of this trend prediction content from the previous three years, I decided to again put my reputation on the line and try and predict the Top 5 Functional Food and Beverage Product Trends in 2022. My one big rule for these annual trend prediction lists is that I don’t allow carryover from previous years. This makes it more challenging, but also a little odd since trends are multiyear in nature with the strongest ones lasting a decade or more. That makes my previous predictions valuable to review as they likely still have huge commercialization value.

In no particular order, here are my prediction for Top 5 Functional Food and Beverage Product Trends in 2022: (1) Nutricosmetics and “Eating for Beauty” Markets Converge (2) Lab to Fork Becomes Red Hot (3) Sexual Health Isn’t Taboo Anymore (4) Putting All Your Cards on the Table Becomes Table Stakes (5) Commercialized Diversity

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Welcome to the 2021 J. Schall Consulting Awards. This is the third annual year-end awards show that focuses on better for you CPG product categories, along with the grocery, brick and mortar, and internet retailers. This is the pinnacle of award shows that are light on tradition, peppered with randomness, and heavy handed with personal bias.  While the awards categories were selected at random, the winners were thoughtfully considered and I provide my accompanying logic to make the content more insightful. A few of the awards categories include: ◼️ Best Better for You CPG Acquisition by CPG Competitor ◼️ Best Grocery Retailer  ◼️ Best Retail CEO ◼️ Best New Experiential Store Design ◼️ Best New Better For You CPG Beverage  ◼️ Best New Better for You CPG Food ◼️ Better for You CPG Beverage Brand of the Year ◼️ Better for You CPG Food Brand of the Year.

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Remember all those low barriers of entry that disrupted the functional CPG industry…well let’s just say things are becoming just a tad bit different now. The functional CPG space is incredibly competitive and very low switching costs at the consumer-level. That makes being a success story in the functional CPG market tough enough, but I do have some additional bad news. The way entrepreneurs historically did business pre-pandemic is over. Stop trying to hang on to the past, especially when you consider a scenario that few are talking about and that’s an elongated "COVID-19 Effect" situation. The quicker you learn to adapt/evolve, the more likely you’ll limit your business continuity risk. So, what am I talking about? The often-cited low barriers of entry within the functional CPG industry are starting to disappear, as the cost of starting a brand, growing a brand, and sustaining market share have increased substantially over the last two years.

This episode of the podcast will focus on five major themes of change:

While these might seem like distinct business concentrations, they are more interconnected than ever in today’s market. The functional CPG industry is entering a new era. One that will likely have higher barriers of entry. For functional CPG brands to prosper in the 2020s, they must embrace this new way of doing business or face higher business continuity risk going forward.

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Most times corporate marketing is extremely boring, but sometimes…it's different! Corporate marketing is a type of marketing that promotes the company as a whole, as opposed to individual products. Ultimately, the main goal of corporate marketing is to improve brand image, while strengthening relationships with your customers so they become brand advocates. When corporate marketing is working correctly, it should keep the flywheel spinning by attracting new customers, while engaging leads, and delighting current customers. For most companies, corporate marketing is performed through some boring tactic or strategy like writing a blog, press releases, posting dull things on social media, or regular investor reports if the company is a publicly-traded entity. What about the companies that do corporate marketing differently? That is what I want to highlight in this latest episode of my podcast. I collected ten examples throughout history that I think will be insightful, entertaining, and hopefully inspiring to all entrepreneurs.

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Around 80% of executives at big CPG companies believe mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deal-making activity will continue increasing after the lows during the pandemic year of 2020. This makes a lot of sense if you think about it in the simplest manner; (1) the CPG industry has had an amazing two-year run (2) CPG companies would have likely been more aggressive in 2020 if it weren't for the high levels of uncertainty across the economic landscape. With 2021 providing more clarity (M&A has seen an uptick), the year has seen big CPG divest unwanted pieces of their portfolios and look to add new upstart brands to spur growth and better reflect current consumer trends. This will continue into 2022 as further economic stimulus, low interest rates, cash stockpiles, and surging equity markets will give more ammo to groups looking to buy. Key food and beverage CPG targets will be within some cross-section of; (1) “Better for you” (2) Functional (3) Plant-based (4) Localization. The inspiration for this podcast episode was that I recently was approached by Business Insider to provide my thoughts for an upcoming prediction article surrounding likely food and beverage CPG brand targets that could get acquired in 2022. As you can imagine, I had a laundry list of thoughts that were either too long for Business Insider to include completely or too “wild” that likely wouldn’t pass the editor sniff test. But since this is the Joshua Schall Audio Experience, I don’t have any gatekeepers telling me what to say…Here is my unedited list of 10 food and beverage CPG brands that could get acquired in 2022.

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There’s this classic rule in business that you shouldn’t talk about your competition, but is that still applicable today? The most typical way that business leaders think about competition can be summed up by business icon Jack Welch that once said, "Number one, cash is king; number two, communicate; number three, buy or bury the competition." For many, competition is a central driver in business that’s usually seen through the “winner takes all” or “zero sum” lens. Most businesses do not talk about their competition publicly, but on the rare occasion that brands do speak a competitor's name, it's usually negative, like an attack ad. Over the last two years, there has been a lot of negative energy bubbling up across America. So, instead of brands adding to the hate and negativity, maybe brands can help to lead us toward a more civil discourse? Furthermore, maybe there’s even a better payoff for being nice. While Jack Welch might be the business spirit animal of many, there’s an alternate way to think about business competition. "There's always competition in the world, but you don't have to be enemies. You can empower each other." You might see that ideology as weak, but consider arguably one of the most competitive businessmen in the world Gary Vaynerchuk who often says “you can build the biggest building in town without having to tear the others down.” If you are a brand, it turns out that praising your competitor, saying nice things about them, can boost your own sales. So, will we see more brands start deploying this BRAND New Friends strategy? I sure hope so because I believe business has a large role to play in our society and we can use some more positivity right now.

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We are coming to the end of 2021, so it’s that time of year again where I create numerous content pieces that either recap some aspect of the current year or put my reputation on the line as a forward-leaning strategist and make predictions about the upcoming year. In this first year-end list podcast episode of the season, I cover the top 5 biggest sports nutrition brand winners of 2021.

Honorable Mentions - Gorilla Mind, RYSE, Glaxon, Bare Performance Nutrition, and C4 Energy

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