Every industry has its behemoths. In packaged non-alcoholic beverages, it’s really a head to head battle between The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, but this isn’t a piece of content about the war between Red & Blue. It’s a piece of content about when any of the CPG industry behemoths enter a nascent functional category through internal product development of new offerings. Should this be seen as a net-positive or net-negative? 

The inspiration of this content came from the recent announcement that PepsiCo was launching a functional packaged beverage called Driftwell. This functional beverage would specifically be considered a relaxation beverage, which is a small segment in the overall functional water beverage category worth $2.97 billion in the U.S., that is anticipated to grow 5% this year. That small market size is what makes this launch so intriguing because it could have lasting implications on the nascent functional beverage category for years to come. 

In today’s dynamic interconnected economy, it only takes playing the business version of the game six degrees of Kevin Bacon to know that huge shifts in one area, can result in huge (mostly unintended) countereffects to just about any other sector of the economy.   In the case of restaurant food delivery, COVID-19 accelerated an already in-motion trend. I believe that trend is, has been, and will continue to be secular, which will have major long-term implications to a number of stakeholders in the grocery CPG industry. 

If you would've asked me what’s one of the hottest functional CPG brands that the general mainstream market probably hasn’t been paying attention to yet, I would have said Laird Superfood. Fact is, that's all about to change because Laird Superfood recently filed their S-1 paperwork with the SEC for a projected $40 million IPO. Laird Superfood is an emerging consumer products platform focused on manufacturing and marketing highly differentiated plant-based functional CPG. This places them right into the middle of the trifecta intersection of CPG trends (1) Better-For-You (2) Plant-Based (3) Functional. Question remains though if this alone will be enough for Laird Superfood to be successful on Wall Street. 

Who cares that an 85-year-old American vitamin retail business is going to be acquired through bankruptcy by a Chinese company, right? Well it seems a few powerful and loud voices have stepped up to share their thoughts on the GNC bankruptcy sale. One such voice is Marco Rubio, who has requested a full review of this transaction by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The heart of the concern comes from three main areas; (1) Customer Data (2) Military Base GNC locations (3) United States and China Trade Tensions. If Marco Rubio is successful in his national security concerns, GNC will need to move into Plan B or C with their bankruptcy auction that officially ended for bidders on 9/11/2020.

Cash rules everything around me (or in this case CPG brands)…C.R.E.A.M.…get the money…dollar dollar bill y’all! Confused? That's likely because you aren't a classic hip-hop fan or ever heard the 1994 record C.R.E.A.M. by the Wu-Tang Clan. What I'm talking about from a CPG business strategy perspective is that cash conversion cycle, which is a measure of how many days it takes for a business to turn invested cash (usually purchased inventory) back into cash in its bank account.

Why is this so important? Cash rules everything around CPG brands! If you are a growing business cash is king and the better cash position you have gives you an incredible amount of optionality. Anyone running a CPG business knows what rapid growth can do to your cash balance. As you pay down suppliers and order more inventory, in a blink of an eye, your cash can drain to zero. Optimizing your cash conversion cycle can be the difference in your business continuity. 

In this podcast episode, I'll go through the cash conversion cycle, provide some application to a few well-known businesses, and also give you some practical advice on how to improve your cash conversion cycle in your business.

Interested in watching the YouTube video with accompanying slides that show the calculations and equations? Click ➡️ https://youtu.be/vmTmUY55HqY

How is the American economy doing? According to the Federal Reserve September 2, 2020 Beige Book, the outlook remains uncertain and volatile, but what about specifically for the CPG industry?  

You might be asking yourself WTF is the Beige Book and why should I care about what it says about the economy?   

The Beige Book is a Federal Reserve System publication about current economic conditions across all 12 Federal Reserve Districts. It characterizes regional economic conditions and prospects based on a variety of mostly qualitative information, gathered directly from District sources.  

Why you should care is that the qualitative nature of the Beige Book creates an opportunity to characterize dynamics and identify emerging trends in the economy that may not be readily apparent in the available macroeconomic data. 

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, I thought it would be valuable if I started a video series where I take five highlights relating to the CPG industry that I found most insightful from the Beige Book, that's released every 45 days, and share it with you guys…along with some additional commentary on how it could potentially impact you.

After more than 18 months "in the dark", MusclePharm Corporation (MSLP) filed a collection of late earnings reports on 8/25/2020. On this podcast episode, I'll breakdown the most important key year-end financial data and explain why the sports nutrition brand hasn't filed any financial reports to the SEC in more than 18 months. Additionally, I catch you up through a collection of publicly-disclosed news from those last 18 months. Finally, I cover a variety of risk footnotes that were in the latest 10-K, but leave the shareholders and stakeholders with some positive hope at the end of the video.

The four largest pure-play specialty retailers in the active nutrition category have struggled immensely to retain market relevancy at the least and business continuity at the most. With the active nutrition product categories consistently reaching high single-digits CAGR over the last decade, what is happening? Where is all that buying power going? This is what is dubbed the Wal-Mazon Effect.  Walmart, Target and Amazon have seen the largest gains over the past decade in category buyer count. So, what's changed now that is extremely important to the active nutrition industry?

FitLife Brands fought one of those perfect storm level quarters that they likely wouldn’t have survived a few years ago. Why are things different now? It starts so casually. You land a large customer, your products hit the shelves and it starts to pull off shelf well. You break out the champagne. Soon, that customer is 30% of your business. Then 50%. Then 70%. No one can say no to them anymore. But why would you?

This is what happened to FitLife Brands, the owner of a collection of sports nutrition products that are sold to mostly GNC franchises. What’s the solution to overexposure in both customer/channel/market? "Diversify...Diversify...Diversify.” So, how are they doing on that quest for independence from the bankrupt supplement retailer GNC? 

What does Linens n Things, Dressbarn, Pier 1 Imports and Modell's Sporting Goods have in common beyond their retail downfall? They have all been acquisitions by a little-known investment firm called Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV) that was founded last year. Maybe that doesn’t seem too odd, but what if I told you REV was run by a former NASA scientist that founded a successful dating app and Tai Lopez or “here in my garage” guy that Vice News called the Internet’s Most Hated Self-Help Guru in 2015.

In this podcast episode, I'll explain what is going on with REV and why this could be important in the retail industry.