TreeHouse Foods, the nation’s leading manufacturer and distributor of private label packaged foods and beverages, is exploring strategic options for its business. Over the past several years, it has closed several plants, reduced SKUs, cut jobs and abandoned business units to become a more focused, nimble company. Despite those efforts, the changes have done little to excite investors with the stock price hovering around the same price as when the CEO change happened in early 2018. With activist investor Jana Partners recently taking a sizable stake, it forced a strategic review that determined TreeHouse Foods should exploring options that could include a complete sale of the company or a divestiture of a large portion of its meal preparation business segment to focus on snacks and beverages. Something that wasn’t talked about (or at least not publicly) was an idea that I’ve tossed around in different iterations. This is the strategy that leverages the contract manufacturer to consumer model, attaching a brand development division, and creating strategic partnerships with celebrity and influencers to create food and beverage CPG brands. Fortune favors the bold and, increasingly, the many celebrities who’ve made the leap into the CPG industry. The success stories are plentiful, so why not add a vertical integration partner and make it much easier for celebrities to monetize themselves in the food and beverage CPG space. Plus, TreeHouse Foods could really use that Hollywood sparkle to put some excitement back into the business.

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If you haven’t looked deeply into Herbalife Nutrition recently, it might give you the “new company who dis” vibes. Almost all businesses were forced to transform themselves to some level after the “COVID-19 Effect” severely interrupted normal business operations. For Herbalife Nutrition (and other MLM companies), it's business model was severely impacted because the MLM operational structure relies a great deal on a distribution strategy that brings value through frequent personal interactions with customers that are hyper-localized and predicated on results-orientated relationships. The “COVID-19 Effect” limited face-to-face interactions, physical shopping and health and fitness goal-orientated behaviors globally and replaced them with digital interactions, ecommerce, and high-stress sedentary behaviors. The astounding thing is that Herbalife Nutrition didn’t just survive this shock to its business, it thrived with consistent quarterly record sales results. Herbalife Nutrition will have revenues just shy of $6 billion in 2021 (up from $4.9 billion in 2019). While only 25 percent of its total sales comes from North America, United States has become an important growth engine for the company contributing to almost half of that total Herbalife Nutrition two-year stacked growth. So, what’s at the heart of this strategic transformation?

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Everyone knows that the supplement industry supply chain is a total mess right now, but crawling into the fetal position and crying yourself to sleep nightly isn’t going to help your supplement brand. I guess I should take a step back and explain what I mean when I talk about supply chain challenges in the CPG industry, what are we trying to solve? At the core, it’s about keeping inventory on shelves (physical or digital). Yes, skyrocketing inflationary costs are also a major problem, but higher costs can be managed more effectively with various strategic levers. In the CPG industry, out of stock products are the cardinal sin and extended out of stock situations leave you out of business in a hurry. This is especially true right now when many consumers aren’t hesitating to shop elsewhere if their favorite products are out of stock. Over 60 percent of consumers have been unable to buy at least one item due to availability over the past three months, with only 13 percent saying they waited for the item to be back in stock. Consumers have tons of substitutes in the market for your supplement CPG products and brand loyalty is at an all-time low. So, what are five short-term fixes and/or long-term planning solutions that can help you combat these supply chain challenges...

Supplement Industry Supply Chain Situation Update = https://youtu.be/gJ95Ox3OVx8

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Why do I feel like the Monster Beverage and Constellation Brands merger reports resembles a famous early 1800s French erotic painting? How’s that for an odd introduction? Stay with me though because it will make more sense by the end of this episode. Last week, reports surfaced from Bloomberg that Monster Beverage Corporation (NASDAQ: MNST), the maker of Monster Energy drinks, is exploring a business merger with beer, wine, and spirits brand portfolio Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ). This is a pretty wild business combination when you consider that both beverage CPG brand portfolios each have current market capitalizations of more than $40 billion. It’s like the Keurig Green Mountain and Dr Pepper Snapple Group mega beverage merger from 2018, but by a likely multiple of three times larger. While these Monster Beverage Corporation and Constellation Brands talks are not anywhere near finalized (or even official) and may not even end in any full merger or asset deal, I thought it would be fun to dissect its parts and get a deeper understanding of why these two beverage giants would even consider a deal.

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Huel is looking for a huge exit event soon, but should the plant-based meal replacement maker go the initial public offering route or opt to sell the business? Are you familiar with Huel (which stands for Human + Fuel)? You should be if you’re an avid follower of my content because I’ve mentioned the active nutrition brand on a handful of separate occasions over the past year. These Huel mentions spanned M&A target commentary in Glanbia and MyProtein content (which I’ll drive deeper into at the end of the content), but I’ve also highlighted the nutrition brand in my functional beverage trends content this past the summer. This is where I stated the idea of “Convenience Bio-Hacking” would have market share reshuffling power in the near term. Convenience Bio-Hacking is a phrase I coined to better explain the trend concept and current phase of active nutrition (human optimization) personalized nutrition commercialization. This is exactly the cross-section of the market that Huel sits in now and it's been highly lucrative. That's why in the past week it was reported that Huel had hired bankers to advise them on a dual-track exit process through a potential sale of the business or the preferred option to fund future growth by an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. In this latest episode, I'll look at both options within the dual-track exit process a bit deeper and explain which direction would I hypothetically take?

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Should active nutrition brands get ready for a “New Year, New Me” pull-forward effect? In the active nutrition industry, the first quarter is generally its version of the Super Bowl. There’s a front-loaded seasonality to the active nutrition industry that usually sets the tone for how well the active nutrition brand’s year is going to shape up. This is because almost half of all adult Americans (~120 million) make some type of weight loss or dietary/exercise regimen New Years Resolution goal each year. It's no secret that Americans struggle with their weight with latest CDC numbers stating 42% of American adults are obese. So, combine these grim health trends and popularity of the New Years Resolution weight loss goal with the fact that interest in supplements never been higher in history, and one might expect this to add up to a sales spike for the weight management market over the last few years. Not quite. In fact, the $2 billion weight management category has struggled over recently (especially in 2020 and 2021). So, will 2022Q1 be any different? Many industry analysts like myself have been talking about 2022Q1 as one of the biggest weight-loss seasons ever (weight loss supercycle). But should active nutrition brands be waiting until January 1st to attract these "New Year, New Me" consumers? The U.S. consumer market has been conditioned over the “COVID-19 Effect” period to buy early and not wait for out-of-stock items to be replenished. Does that mean it will create a strong pull-forward effect in December of 2021 for the 2022Q1 period? 

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Will the launch of energy drinks help MusclePharm diversify away from the challenging protein markets that left the "Athletes Company" badly beaten up this quarter? In the third quarter of 2021, MusclePharm (OTCMKTS: MSLP) saw its net sales decline 25.6% YoY. While that declining sales trend is alarming, it's nothing compared to gross margins that declined 3090 basis points YoY to 0.2%. So, why did MusclePharm lose $3.5M operationally (mostly stemming from COGs) this quarter? About half of MusclePharm's quarterly revenue is tied to Costco (key customer risk) merchandising its whey protein SKUs globally. Despite the whey protein costs doubling in 2021, MusclePharm is in a precarious position because they know how much other competitors want those merchandising slots. MusclePharm can’t materially raise pricing or lay off the gas on promotional monies with the wholesale retailer. That is causing massive short-term profitability pressure that likely won't change throughout 2022. Alternatively, changing course with Costco strategy could create long-term business continuity risks if they decide to swap out MusclePharm for another competitor in the Health & Beauty Aids (HABA) merchandising section. This is all going on in the background when MusclePharm is launching into a new (and ultra-competitive) product category. It's important to remember that just because a brand has awareness within another active nutrition category at mainstream retailers like Costco, it doesn’t mean the market instantly gives you the authority to be a platform brand across multiple categories at large physical retailers. MusclePharm is going to need to become a "marketing machine" again. This makes the profitability discussion even more complex.

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Is Post Holdings (NYSE: POST) bailing out its former wholly-owned Active Nutrition brand portfolio? BellRing Brands (NYSE: BRBR) is a portfolio that owns a collection of convenient nutrition brands like Premier Protein, Dymatize Nutrition, Powerbar, and Joint Juice. Consumers are looking to purchase better nutritious products and improve their overall health. The “COVID-19 Effect” created a huge sedentary period that consumers are now trying to fight back against. This has resulted in the increased household penetration of RTD protein shakes that promote active lifestyles. In this latest episode, I'll utilize the recent BellRing Brands earnings report, earnings call, and publicly disclosed news as the backdrop to discuss what it could mean to the overall active nutrition market in the liquids, powders, and bars formats. Bellring Brands had a phenomenal FY21Q4 with net sales reaching $340 million, which was up 20.3% YoY. Premier Protein (83% of BellRing Brands revenue) grew 18.2% YoY off strong demand and pricing increases. Dymatize Nutrition was up strongly at 41.3% YoY stemming from both extremely strong volume and pricing. That being said, is it crazy to think that BellRing Brands could have actually grown quicker this quarter if it wasn't for supply chain shortages? How can BellRing Brands overcome these supply chain challenges and create strong growth above analyst expectations in FY2022?

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As the premium coffee market built by Starbucks matures, consumers are craving “a fresh set of brands.” To stand out, these coffee brands aren’t attempting to take on the coffee giant directly, instead they’re carving out unique niches to speak to certain demographics or geographies. With extremely strong founder market fit, Black Rifle Coffee Company looks to be in the early years of a long-term growth story. Black Rifle Coffee Company is veteran led and veteran controlled, with approximately 50% of its employees also being veterans or veteran’s spouses. The mission of Black Rifle Coffee Company is to have a massive, positive impact in the veteran community and premium coffee and content will be that conduit to making it happen. This is the founding team’s passion, and every decision is aligned to the mission. You can see how successful the coffee brand has been by looking at the top three reasons customers purchase Black Rifle Coffee Company products; (1) the company support for the military and veterans (2) has great tasting coffee (3) brand alignment with their values. Black Rifle Coffee Company has an exciting and growing brand, an early RTD coffee business with lots of wholesale growth runway, and an exciting experiential retail Outpost model. Glue all of that together with a fully aligned purpose-driven business strategy and a leadership team that has a relentless dedication to execution and it’s hard to imagine anything less than positive results long-term to happen at BRCC.

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Is the Glanbia Performance Nutrition brand portfolio still the gold standard in the sports, active, and lifestyle nutrition market? Glanbia Performance Nutrition 2021 Q3 growth was reported net revenues growth of 23.2% YoY on a constant currency basis from both strong pricing and volume increases (at 18% and 4.4% respectively). They also benefitted 0.8% from last quarter's 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 presentation slides 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 and Slim Fast brands, provide an update on the Glanbia Performance Nutrition strategic transformation project, and explain how Glanbia used it's strengthened balance sheet to make another "bolt on" acquisition within the Glanbia Nutritionals division. Finally, I'll explain why a pending 9-figure transaction could create massive opportunities for $500 million plus M&A deals in the near future.

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