This episode of Pivotal, we talk with Frank Beard, Director of Special Projects at CStore Decisions and Director at Shop Safe, about the huge changes happening within the convenience sales channel. Frank Beard broke onto the convenience and fuel retailing thought leadership scene by traveling across the country and only eating at convenience stores for 30 days. We discuss how COVID-19 has affected convenience and fuel retailing and why those trends are only a dress rehearsal for the future. Finally, we expand on the future of c-stores by discussing third-party delivery start-ups like goPuff, Instacart, and DoorDash, channel consolidation, CPG direct to consumer, and many more insightful topics that you won't want to me.   

Frank Beard Articles :

The Vitamin Shoppe 2020Q3 earnings report was released on 11/4/2020 under its owner Franchise Group Inc.. While the financial information in the report continues to be relatively small, I was able to collect insightful information on the quarterly performance from the Franchise Group Inc. conference call, previous corporate press releases, and public interviews from CEO Sharon Leite and other leadership team members at the specialty supplement retailer. Additionally, I shared some sports nutrition category trend data from a presentation that Jack Gayton (head merchandiser of category at The Vitamin Shoppe) provided at the AHPA Virtual Sports Nutrition Congress. I also update you on how much benefit The Vitamin Shoppe is seeing from the GNC Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Finally, I talk about my previously predicted operating model change to franchising at The Vitamin Shoppe that was finally formally announced by Franchise Group CEO Brian Kahn.

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! On this episode, we talk with Leonard Armenta, CEO of SINFIT Nutrition and Secret Javas, about his new leadership role within GenTech Holdings Inc.. Before diving fully into that, we get nostalgic about how we both met and how that eventually led me to move to Denver and work with him at MusclePharm. Now leading the functional CPG brands SINFIT Nutrition and Secret Javas coffee, Leonard explains the progression of the brand strategy and positioning for future growth plans. Finally, Leonard discusses what could be next for the GenTech Holdings Inc. portfolio and why Leonard believes they have an extremely bright future.

Glanbia is a global nutrition company that owns various nutritional supplement and sports nutrition brands. These brands include names like Optimum Nutrition, BSN, Think!, Isopure, Amazing Grass, and Slim Fast. Using the recently filed Glanbia earnings report and supplemental earnings call and presentation slides, I'll update you on how the Glanbia Performance Nutrition portfolio is performing against the complex global operating environment. Additionally, I'll discuss how the Glanbia Performance Nutrition transformation project is progressing against its original goals and timeline. Finally, I'll cover how the progressively stronger Glanbia balance sheet is setting up for the company to likely add another acquisition in the near-term. (Note: I suggest a few functional CPG brands for Glanbia Performance Nutrition leadership at the end of the episode.)

I consume more content weekly than the total creepiness level of the Burger King Mascot. While not all of the content it's good, some are awesomely interesting, so instead of keeping it all in the labyrinth they call my brain, I figured I would start highlighting five of the most interesting things I've read, listened to, or watched during the week. 

In the third Weekly MIT episode, I share the following stories; 

◼️ Notorious B.I.G. Drops a New Freestyle About Pepsi

◼️ Burger King Pranks Competitors on Halloween

◼️ Nestle Adds Key Piece to Becoming the Personalized Health Leader

◼️ Nielsen Shares Food and Beverage Category Winners and Losers From 31 weeks of the Coronavirus Pandemic

◼️ KIND Keeps the “Battle of the Bars” Going With CLIF

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! On this episode, we talk to Diana Morgan, Head of Scientific & Regulatory Affairs at Care/Of, about the fascinating world of personalized nutrition. We dive into the current state of personalized nutrition, differences in personalized nutrition companies, and what the future holds for the nascent disruptive force in the supplement industry. While companies selling supplements based on testing and surveying methods is still relatively small, the Nutrition Business Journal (NBJ) predicts it will hit an astonishing $4.3 billion, representing 6.4% of all supplement sales by 2023. This phenomenal growth rate is driven not just by new entrants, but by the fact that the potential of this market has captured the attention of large companies with extensive resources, such as Care/Of (now owned by Bayer) and Persona (now owned by Nestle). Finally, we reminisce to a simpler time when networking in the supplement industry could be done in-person, as Diana has launched a new event called "What's Up With Supps".

With over 50% of The Simply Good Foods Company’s revenue coming from the nutritional/protein bar category, the race is on to further diversify its product mix due to near-term headwinds. On 10/26/2020, The Simply Good Foods Company reported its fiscal fourth quarter earnings for the period ending 8/29/2020. While the company performed well overall, it was a mixed bag with brand-level performance. The biggest bright spot was in the Quest Nutrition brand, that had the best revenue creating quarter under the new ownership of The Simply Good Foods Company. That being said, retail takeaways of both brands could be signaling some tough roads ahead for the overall active nutrition snacking category. I'll finish the episode with covering the five most important areas of focus for The Simply Good Foods Company right now...including bonus commentary on future M&A. 

How is the American economy doing? According to the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book, optimism and positivity across districts is balanced against degrees of uncertainty, but what about the CPG industry specifically?

The Beige Book is a Federal Reserve System publication that collects mostly qualitative information, gathered directly from District sources. This consumer data creates an opportunity to characterize dynamics and identify emerging trends in the economy that may not be readily apparent in the available quantitative economic data. Additionally, most CPG businesses today are offered nationally through e-commerce or large brick and mortar retail chains, so it’s important to understand that America is not a one-size-fits-all economy, especially during the coronavirus.

Because of that, the Beige Book can potentially help you with regional insights that can be applied to create advantages in your business. To save you time from reading the whole document that comes out every 45 days, I started a content series that takes five CPG industry related highlights that I found most insightful from the latest Beige Book and share it with you guys…along with some additional commentary on how it could potentially impact you.

On this episode, I also wanted to share some additional quantitative government data on September 2020 Retail Sales from the Census Bureau.

I consume more content weekly than Joey Chestnut consumes hot dogs at the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. While not all of it's good, some are awesomely interesting, so instead of keeping it all in the labyrinth they call my brain, I figured I would start highlighting five of the most interesting things I've read, listened to, or watched during the week.   In the second Weekly MIT episode, I share the following stories; ◼️ Cryptocurrencies Just Became Besties with PayPal’s 346M Users  ◼️ Hormel Foods Solves Your Hot Stinky Mask Breath Problem ◼️ Walmart Crushes Local Smoothie Artists' Dreams ◼️ Danone Tests Old Adage of “If you measure it, it will improve” ◼️ Adidas is Social Distancing Itself from Reebok

Building a great functional CPG company today requires more strategic alignment than strategic vision. While all the strategic variables can easily be found throughout the coffers of the Age of Information, understanding how each is aligned together is what makes the magic happen over a materially long period of time. I could probably make a 12-week course on the importance of strategic alignment in the functional CPG industry today, but for this piece of content I want to focus on one extremely important area...Channel Strategy. This is an area that I see functional CPG entrepreneurs miss on way too much lately and it’s likely because they haven’t considered its increased importance in the last half-decade.

The functional CPG industry of yesteryear generally focused on building their business through specialty retail and they didn’t have to think about any further steps unless they struck gold and a large brick and mortar retailer was interested in carrying a few products. That isn’t the case today with functional CPG brands having endless distribution intensity models, including one strategy that has become extremely viable...Amazon only (or mostly defined as over 80% of business).

Why does it matter that you can build 8-figure functional CPG businesses on Amazon only today? It becomes extremely attractive to lean heavy into Amazon for your channel strategy, but the entrepreneur must make that conscious choice early in the brand development to align all business strategy accordingly. My hope for this piece of content is that it can serve as a sort of guide for functional CPG entrepreneurs considering their channel strategy comparing;