WTF have I been up to lately in my personal life? Over the last year, things have changed a lot and it's long overdue that I provide an update. I guess I’ll start at the trigger of this all, the “COVID-19 Effect.” Everything lately seems to trace back to this event that impacted everyone and everything in different ways. For myself and my then girlfriend and now fiancé Leena, one of the areas that it touched us was in making us think differently about our place of residence. With us both being frequent work travelers, our small downtown Austin apartment never seemed too crammed or not to our functionality standards. Traveling fractions of our normal rate throughout 2020, we found ourselves struggling to balance two extremely busy 24/7 “work from home” lives. We know we had it much easier than most during this challenging time, but it still made us reconsider our near-term plans to continue living in downtown neighborhoods of a major city. That being said, we decided to do what tons of others in our similar position did and started looking to buy a home in the suburbs. So, that’s what we did and ended up signing a contract to build a new home at the end of 2020. With a projected home completion date in August 2021 and an end date of our rental in March 2021, we decided to book a monthly Airbnb rental, buy a plan ticket, and pack up a large suitcase each. Until the new home was built, we would officially be digital nomads. This was an incredible journey with a lot of ups and a lot fewer downs (even though I admittedly had my share of frustrations). One thing is for sure: I’ve learned a shit load of things living this wacky digital nomad lifestyle. Now that I’ve been living two weeks in the new home, I wanted to share some of my reflections and lessons learned that might inspire you to explore the digital nomad life or maybe just get out of your comfort zone.

If you spend enough time in the functional CPG niche communities across the internet, you’ll likely hear members saying, “there’s no innovation anymore in the space.” I disagree. I think there’s actually an oversupply of innovation. Consumers don’t know how to fit all of it into their lives. Whose fault is that though? It’s surely not the consumers. The problem is that brands are using an outdated product development process. Supply Side Innovation, paired with the lower barriers of entry across all business modalities have created an overabundance of innovation in every product category. So, what’s the solution? Demand Side Innovation. Instead of starting at the product, brand or competition level, functional CPG brand owners should be starting at the customer or consumer perspective. If you do not understand the deep, detailed, and real reasons why the customer chose to “hire” your product, you’re operating blindly. Start having deep discussions with a set of your customers. You are looking to get into the small details and look for patterns to emerge that show pain points. With that perspective, you can find ways to rapidly improve your existing products. Additionally, if you listen well, you may find a solution your customer wants but didn’t even ask for. This is ideal result and where those special product development projects emerge from. In my final thoughts, I share a case study on the Target private label brand Good & Gather, which I believe shows a great real world example of demand side innovation success. 

The Coca-Cola Company recently did something frankly a bit odd, but could that strange product development be signaling a future strategic shift? Like its "captain obvious" marketing slogan from 1941 “Coca-Cola is Coke”, the the third largest (in terms of revenue) beverage company in the world (at least in the U.S. market) is singularly focused on packaged and foodservice beverages. The Coca-Cola Company is not its hated rival PepsiCo that has extensive food operations under its Frito Lay and Quaker Foods product portfolios. That being said, The Coca-Cola Company did recently launch a product format that’s neither a packaged nor foodservice beverage. Smartwater+ powder has now entered the chat. I'll breakdown this ready-to-mix product innovation into the individual strategies to help you understand why this is important and also how it might signaling future moves at The Coca-Cola Company (including M&A). 

Just when MusclePharm had profitability on its mind, the sports nutrition company gets slammed back down to face its historical reality. In this episode, I'll provide you with various insights pulled from the MusclePharm (OTCMKTS: MSLP) 2021Q2 earnings report, earnings call, and additional publicly-disclosed information released by the company. They will collectively be used to update you on the sales performance and profitability plan of action at MusclePharm. I will also provide an extensive update on the energy drinks project that includes MP Performance Energy and FitMiss. This includes a longer term outlook on segment-level revenue expectation and details of categorical challenges and potential land mines. Finally, I will express my confusion on the MusclePharm energy drink instead of the Combat protein RTD beverage strategy.

Can Celsius Holdings eventually take the energy drinks "game of thrones"? At over $250 million ARR, with 117% YoY and 30% QoQ growth, Celsius Holdings is starting to fire on all cylinders. They just crossed 100K retail locations and showing 333% YoY in distributor revenues from an extensive overhaul of its DSD distribution network over the last few years. Celsius now has a ~1.6% market share in the energy drink category. In this episode,  I'll take a deeper dive into four specific sales channels (Digital, Fitness, Vending, and Convenience) that will provide additional color to Celsius Holdings growth story. Finally, I will discuss a potential growth accelerate that Celsius Holdings hasn't touched yet and how they are dealing with the supply chain constraints to keep fill rates high. 

I hope you weren’t caught headline reading when the impressive Glanbia Performance Nutrition 21H1 growth was reported because it might not tell you the whole story. Yes, Glanbia Performance Nutrition net revenues increased 28.1% YoY on a constant currency basis from both strong pricing and volume increases (at 22.2% and 5.6% respectively), but what about on a two-year stacked basis? Using the latest Glanbia Plc earnings report, conference, and publicly-disclosed information, I'll update you on how the global nutrition company is performing throughout the first half of this year. 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 acquire a gamer nutrition brand named LevlUp. Finally, I concluded with why a question posed during the earnings call irked me big time and shows Glanbia still has a great deal of legacy mechanical thinking that will come back to bite them in the butt’s once again in a few years.

Is it crazy to think that Premier Protein, with its approximately $1 billion in trailing 12-month revenue, might actually be in the early innings of its growth story? Bellring Brands had a phenomenal FY21Q3 with net sales reaching $343 million, which was up 68% YoY and 21% QoQ! Premier Protein (83% of BellRing Brands revenue) grew 65% YoY off strong demand and pricing increases. Dymatize Nutrition was up an astounding 99% YoY stemming from both extremely strong volume and pricing. That being said, why did BellRing Brands have this much quarterly growth? 

Does this science-driven wellness company have what it takes to improve your financial health in the public markets? On July 16th, Thorne HealthTech filed its S-1 document to the SEC with the intention of raising up to $100 million from the sale of shares through an initial public offering. While it’s unknown at recording when the IPO date will be, the company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol THRN. Thorne Research (as it was originally known as) was founded in July of 1984 by Al Czap with a singular dietary supplement product. As Thorne Research grew, the company developed a reputation as an industry leader in setting the standards for making nutritional supplements. In 2010, Thorne Research merged with Diversified Natural Products, and current CEO Paul Jacobson took the helm. Then six years later, the company transitioned from a direct-to-practitioner supplement company and began selling direct to consumers. In February 2021, Thorne HealthTech merged with Onegevity to create a science-driven, vertically integrated wellness platform built to deliver best-in-class, end-to-end nutritional solutions and health intelligence. The future of health will be data-driven and wellness-centric with a guiding focus on preventive care that extends the health span of each individual. Thorne HealthTech is at the intersection of those trends and this podcast episode will breakdown what makes them unique, from its omnichannel sales strategy to vertical integration and positioning within large health trends. 

Though the “algorithms rule us all” rhetoric is almost always viewed negatively, could machines help Americans overcome the obesity epidemic? News Flash! Americans are fat. I’m not just saying that as someone with an opinion, but because it’s a fact. The most recent CDC data says that 43% of American adults over the age of 20 are obese. If you pull that back a bit, 74% of American adults over the age of 20 are overweight or obese. It makes no sense if you think about…In America, we have highly trained health and wellness professionals, remarkable facilities, and access to newest drug innovations and technologies. So, what’s making us so unhealthy? Poor nutrition is the leading cause of mortality in the U.S. and obesity creates a total economic cost of 1.7 trillion dollars. While living in the Information Age and Endless Aisle Age can be positive factors in the fight against obesity, they can also create negative effects. Too much information. Too many food choices. Marketers have unparalleled access. You get the point…But, how can technology help Americans that are drinking from the firehose of information and drowning in food options?

What could the GNC shopping experience of the future look like? Turn your TV dials to ABC because The Jetsons is about to start. On this episode, George Jetson heads to his local GNC. In October 2020, GNC had an open CEO position. I shared what I would do as the next CEO of the specialty retailer and some of that information covered would obviously be ingrained into the future of GNC. While I’ll certainly touch on the original proposed CEO strategic initiatives like; Defining Exactly Who GNC Is, Redefining the Role GNC Has in Customer Journey, Reimagining the Frictionless Retailing Experience, Putting Yourself Out of Business, I will be focusing on a longer-term vision of this subject matter. Think late-2020s and early-2030s GNC. This predictive futuristic content will revolve around my vision for my ideology around the role stores will play in the future of commerce. In my opinion, the store of the future must become a physical portal into brand and product experiences that are relevant to the target audience. That means it becomes a place where consumers can be inspired, learn, socialize, and experiment with new products. It should be a place that prioritizes service, while also using digital touchpoints that drive in-store traffic and enable physical stores to operate as part of a broader, interconnected ecosystem. This will mean that the store network will become an increasingly vital part of last-mile fulfilment. Taking that into consideration, I will explore those ideas within the GNC Store of the Future perspective. 

GNC CEO Application = https://youtu.be/7pyCfzOuSk8