A woman started a granola brand with $5,000. Seventeen years later it might sell for $600 million. In the same week, BTS launched 30 products at Walmart on day one. Two playbooks. Both might work. But only one was built to last regardless of whether the founder stays famous.

This week on Unpackaged Goods:

Purely Elizabeth exploring a $600M sale — founded in 2009 with $5K in savings by holistic nutrition counselor Elizabeth Stein. Over $200M in revenue across 100,000+ doors. No VC at the start. No celebrity. No viral moment. The anti-velocity story in a market obsessed with speed.

BTS launched ARIH at Walmart with nearly 30 SKUs across noodles, energy drinks, and probiotic sodas. The most ambitious celebrity CPG launch in history. Backed by Korean food giants Paldo and Hy. ARMY will deliver a massive day one. The question is month two.

BERO launched at Kroger, Publix, AND Walmart in one week — full national grocery coverage in under two years. The Casamigos alumni hire paying dividends.

Celsius plus Alani Nu volume up 26.3%. Alani specifically up 94% with prices rising. Pricing power plus demand growth simultaneously — the holy grail of brand economics. The $1.8B acquisition looks like one of the best deals in CPG history.

Amy's Kitchen quietly approaching $1 billion in frozen. 57,000+ stores. No hype. Decades of compounding.

Also covered: Celleste Bio producing cell-cultured chocolate bars for Mondelēz. Westman Atelier raising $15M approaching $100M. Hero Group acquiring The Gut Stuff in the UK. Frozen One closing $2M seed ahead of nationwide Target. Nomio closing $4M from Collab Fund for Tour de France-endorsed recovery supplements. Run The Jewels raising $2M for RTD cocktails. Laird acquiring Terrasoul for $48M. Tivoli Brewing becoming 18th largest craft brewer. Happy Dad YTD up 35.1%. Pure Genius hitting $1M in first month at Target. GLP-1 adoption doubling in the UK. TRUFF aioli launch. Capri Sun goes functional for kids. Distribution wins across Kroger, Walmart, Target, Publix, and H-E-B.

The quiet compounders and the rockets are both winning. The losers are the brands in the middle — too slow for velocity, too unfocused for compounding. Pick your lane. Commit.

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#CPG #PurelyElizabeth #BTS #BERO #Celsius #AlaniNu #AmysKitchen #UnpackagedGoods #DeeterDigest #Entrepreneurship #QuietCompounding

Two weeks ago I said every beauty and wellness founder should have their deal room ready. This week Unilever spent $1.2 billion on a supplement brand that didn't exist three years ago. Called it.

This week on Unpackaged Goods:

Unilever acquired Grüns for $1.2 billion — its first acquisition since merging food with McCormick and pocketing $15.7 billion in cash. Founded in 2023, Grüns scaled to $300M ARR in under three years, ships 10 million gummies daily, and has 95% repeat usage at 4-6x per week. Unilever didn't buy a supplement brand. They bought a daily habit. And they still have $14.5 billion left to spend.

In the same week, David Protein's class action lawsuit was dropped — the Mean Girls comparisons, the bomb calorimetry debate, Peter Rahal's "no one is getting Regina Georged" — it's all over. The science won. The social media outrage lost. David immediately launched at Costco across five states. But co-founder and former President Zach Ranen quietly left in February to start something new. The lawsuit is over. The Costco expansion is on. And the co-founder departure opens a chapter worth watching closely.

In this episode I break down:

→ Unilever's $1.2B Grüns acquisition — why the 95% repeat usage stat made Unilever write a billion-dollar check
→ The Unilever wellness portfolio map: OLLY, SmartyPants, Liquid I.V., Nutrafol, Grüns — each filling a specific daily habit slot
→ $14.5B still in the war chest — sleep, gut health, longevity, and women's health are the obvious next targets
→ The Puig x Estée Lauder $40B merger update — founding families meeting this week to finalize terms
→ David Protein's biggest week — lawsuit dropped, Costco launch across five states, co-founder exits. What Zach Ranen builds next might matter more than the Costco expansion
→ Reale Actives doing $1M in sales in under 5 minutes — the creator-to-brand pipeline produces launch velocity tradit

She co-founded Hims & Hers in 2017 and helped build it into a $4 billion telehealth company. Now Hilary Coles is back — and she's coming for your morning coffee.

This week on Unpackaged Goods, I sit down with Hilary Coles and Emily Boschwitz, the co-founders of POCA — portable, zero-sugar coffee and matcha syrups that are reinventing how we flavor our drinks. Hilary co-founded Hims & Hers and built out their physical products and brand. Emily was their first marketing hire. Together, they watched wellness overtake big pharma by 4x over the last decade and decided the next frontier was the one vice we're all still allowed to have: coffee.

We talk about the Hims & Hers origin story and what they learned building a company that proved lowercase-h healthcare was real. Why coffee and matcha are the last sacred rituals in a world optimized to death. How they formulated zero-sugar syrups using rare sugars like monk fruit and allulose that actually dissolve in iced drinks — because 75% of Starbucks orders are iced and traditional syrup sinks to the bottom. The pistachio flavor that's giving people an emotional reaction. Building a second company as moms with young kids. Why the GLP-1 movement is creating unexpected demand for flavor in protein-heavy diets. And why they worked with the Glossier design team to make POCA feel like a beauty moment, not a food product.

Plus the weekly CPG news breakdown:

→ Unilever x McCormick is official — $20B revenue, $60B combined value, $15.7B cash payment
→ KDP closes $18B JDE Peet's and splits into Beverage Co. and Global Coffee Co.
→ Chomps approaching $900M in revenue — 36% growth at massive scale
→ IM8 hits $100M ARR in 11 months — Beckham, Giannis on the cap table
→ Mars Men hits $100M in 18 months — $27.5M Series A from L Catterton
→ Create closes $20M — Mike Repole and Unilever Ventures invest
→ The Casamigos Alumni Effect — former CEO launches Por Qué No canned cocktails
→ Khloud Protein Chips debuting exclusively at Target
→ Cadence, Clean Simple Eats, and Boka all launching at 2,000+ Walmart doors
→ Cleanlogic at 6,000+ CVS stores
→ Something Sweet nationwide at Whole Foods
→ Bloom Sparkling Energy launching in Canada via KDP

The mega deals are closing. The rockets are launching. And the co-founder of one of the most important consumer health companies of the last decade just told you where she thinks the next opportunity lives — in the cup you're holding right now.

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Check out POCA: https://pickpoca.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooZl8fro92SgJTKY0ZLhh7Ah6p9CW8LMjQmxAHo1uVZofiKAGil

#CPG #ConsumerGoods #POCA #HimsAndHers #Coffee #Matcha #Unilever #McCormick #Chomps #IM8 #MarsMen #LCatterton #Create #UnpackagedGoods #DeeterDigest #Entrepreneurship #VentureCapital #FunctionalBeverages #WomenFounders

Every major story this week is about deciding what you want to be when you grow up.

McCormick and Unilever are in talks to merge food divisions — Hellmann's, Knorr, Cholula, Frank's Red Hot under one roof in a deal worth tens of billions. Danone paid $1.15 billion for Huel because meal replacement was a billion-dollar category all along. L Catterton is shopping Thorne for up to $4 billion after buying it for $680M three years ago — the most impressive PE flip in wellness history. Sazerac acquired Dirty Shirley after 934% sales growth. And Glossier is closing 9 of 12 stores to focus on hero products.

In this episode, I break down:

→ Why the McCormick x Unilever deal signals the end of the diversified conglomerate era
→ What Danone's $1.15B Huel acquisition means for every founder in functional nutrition
→ The math behind L Catterton's potential 6x return on Thorne — and why vertical integration commands a $4B valuation
→ How Dirty Shirley turned childhood nostalgia into 934% growth and a Sazerac acquisition
→ Why Glossier closing stores is actually the most bullish signal for the brand in years
→ General Mills selling $350M in Brazilian food to go deeper into pet care
→ Ferrero buying another protein brand because the company behind Nutella decided protein bars are the future
→ The 15,000-brand beverage problem — and what separates winners from the graveyard
→ DryWater adding 41,000 doors approaching $100M — the next Liquid I.V.?
→ Tilray completing the BrewDog hat-trick across three continents
→ Funding rounds from Habiza, Good Girl Snacks, Laoban, Yough, JiYu, and Funny Water
→ Distribution wins at Target, Sprouts, H-E-B, Sam's Club, Kroger, and Erewhon

The consolidation wave isn't coming. It's here. The big are getting bigger. The focused are getting smarter. And the window between emerging brand and acquisition target just got shorter.

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Rate us five stars if this episode changes how you think about portfolio strategy.

#CPG #ConsumerGoods #McCormick #Unilever #Danone #Huel #Thorne #LCatterton #DirtyShirley #Sazerac #Glossier #Ferrero #GeneralMills #PrivateEquity #MergersAndAcquisitions #UnpackagedGoods #DeeterDigest #BusinessStrategy #Entrepreneurship #VentureCapital

The firepower is real this week. David Protein gets hit with a class action lawsuit claiming 83% more calories than labeled — but the internet completely missed the science. Coefficient Capital closes $530M across two funds. PepsiCo launches meat sticks and proves they read the Bain insurgent brands report. Hims & Hers goes from GLP-1 victim to GLP-1 distributor in 14 days. George Clooney applies the Casamigos formula to non-alc beer. Monster quietly launches FLRT to chase the female energy consumer. And Once Upon a Farm posts 30% revenue growth — then watches the stock drop 20%. This is the episode that explains why your moat isn't distribution anymore.

In this episode: 

1. The David Protein lawsuit — what the lab got wrong and why EPG changes everything
2. Coefficient Capital's $530M — what it means if you're raising a Series A or B
3. PepsiCo's Good Warrior meat sticks — Big Food just read the Bain report
4. Hims & Hers' 14-day strategic pivot — the most impressive sequence in consumer health in years
5. George Clooney's Crazy Mountain — can the Casamigos formula work twice?
6. Monster's FLRT — can a corporate brand win the female energy consumer on authenticity?
7. Once Upon a Farm's public market reality check — 30% growth gets champagne in a boardroom. On Wall Street it gets a haircut.
8. Rapid fire: Henkel acquires Not Your Mother's, Morinaga buys My/Mochi, Grüns at Costco, Poppi at Starbucks, and more

Subscribe to The Deeter Digest for the weekly newsletter that goes deeper than the podcast. Link below. Rate us 5 stars if this episode made you rethink who your real competitors are. ---  Unpackaged Goods is hosted by Jonathan Deeter, founder of Pickle Advisors and creator of Deet's Eats Media.  

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This week I sit down with Bar, the founder of BoostCous — a gluten-free couscous packed with protein and fiber that's rethinking one of the most overlooked staples in the grocery aisle. We talk about how he came up with the concept, the challenges of reformulating a centuries-old product, and what it takes to build a better-for-you brand in a category nobody's innovating in.

This week in CPG news: 🔹 Hims & Hers drops $1.15B on Australian digital health platform Eucalyptus 🔹 Bain Capital shops a $3B dessert empire 🔹 Nestlé officially exits ice cream after decades of trying 🔹 Happy Dad dominates Dry January with 31% YoY growth 🔹 Patrick Mahomes' Throne Sport Coffee raises $10M 🔹 J.M. Smucker makes Uncrustables fridge-friendly

Get the full breakdown in The Deeter Digest 👉 linktr.ee/deetseatnyc

Follow along: @deetseatnyc | @unpackagedgoodspod | @pickleadvisors

This week the business world officially lost its mind. A TikTok creator became Chief Creative Officer of a German candy company, Kraft Heinz reversed a billion-dollar corporate split to invest $600M in growth, and someone created probiotics that flush forever chemicals from your body.

In this episode:

[0:00-2:00] Intro: Are We Living in a Simulation? When TikTok creators become C-suite executives and legacy giants reverse course on major restructuring, traditional business rules are officially dead.

[2:00-8:00] The Creator Economy Takeover Jake Shane's appointment as Katjes CCO signals a seismic shift toward cultural relevance over traditional credentials. Why LinkedIn is officially a graveyard and what this means for business leadership.

[8:00-15:00] Kraft Heinz's $600M Strategy Reversal Steve Cahillane perfected corporate splits at Kellogg, then decided NOT to split Kraft Heinz. Instead: $600M investment in growth. Why financial engineering is dead and brand building won.

[15:00-19:00] Reliance's Australian Platform Play India's biggest conglomerate bought a portfolio of Australian better-for-you beverage brands. Strategic international expansion through premium brand acquisition.

[19:00-23:00] Forever Chemical Probiotics & Environmental Health Danish startup Cambiotics raised €4M for probiotics targeting PFAS removal. When environmental contamination meets precision nutrition, new categories emerge.

[23:00-26:00] Happy Dad's Dry January Masterclass How they grew 31% during the month people stop drinking while White Claw struggled and Truly declined. Having a cult vs. having a product.

The Big Picture: Cultural relevance trumps corporate credentials. Growth investment beats financial engineering. Authentic problem-solving creates new categories. Community building outperforms traditional marketing.

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What shocked you most this week? Let us know in the comments.

This week the CPG world officially lost its mind. Willie Nelson built an $80 million cannabis beverage empire in under 12 months, someone paid $400 million for barbecue sauce, and a baby food company is now trading on the NYSE next to Apple and Tesla.

In this episode:

[0:00-6:00] The Week CPG Broke Reality

• Once Upon a Farm's $198M NYSE debut proves baby food is Wall Street material
• Willie Nelson's $80M cannabis run rate validates authentic celebrity brands
• Marzetti's $400M Bachan's acquisition signals ethnic condiments are institutional assets

[6:00-12:00] The Funding Frenzy Continues

• CAVU Consumer Partners raised $325M (exceeding target) for Fund V
• SEMCAP doubled down on Good Culture with $55M follow-on investment
• Proper Wild raised $10M after 550% energy shot growth

[12:00-17:00] When Sunscreen Meets Soda

• Vacation x Pepsi Wild Cherry lip balm collaboration chaos
• Lemme x Kylie Cosmetics gummy partnership strategy
• Why unexpected brand collaborations actually work

[17:00-23:00] The Creatine Explosion

• Koia launching creatine protein shakes exclusively at Publix
• Momentous expanding creatine chews with new flavors
• How strength training went mainstream and created category gold rush

[23:00-29:00] Distribution Wins & Strategic Exits

• Hain Celestial's $115M snack division divestment strategy
• Tony's Chocolonely defying chocolate industry trends with 20% growth
• Why premium brands continue conquering mass retail

The Big Picture: Authenticity and execution beat innovation every time. When country music legends build cannabis empires, barbecue sauce commands $400M valuations, and baby food trades publicly, we've entered an era where solving real problems for specific populations creates institutional investment opportunities.

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What shocked you most this week? Let us know in the comments.

This week I took over The Shelf NYC for a special edition of "The Humans Behind the Hustle" - diving deep into the stories of five incredible food founders who are building authentic brands through relentless execution and genuine passion.

In this episode:

[0:00-29:00] This Week's CPG Chaos

• Former poker player Brian Tate raises $45M for Oats Overnight after hitting $200M revenue
• Ben Stiller's distribution-first soda strategy proves celebrity brands can work
• Once Upon a Farm kicks off $200M+ IPO roadshow for premium kids' nutrition
• Amazon abandons all grocery stores except Whole Foods in massive retreat
• THC beverages officially hit Chicago Bulls games
• Good Bacteria raises $3.2M to "rewild" the American microbiome
• Why 2026 is the year every business rule got thrown out the window

[29:00-31:00] Bous Cous - Authentic Middle Eastern Heritage The founder's mission to bring real couscous to American tables, navigating cultural positioning, and building trust around heritage ingredients.

[31:00-33:00] Challah Hallah - Artisanal Bread at Scale From neighborhood bakery to retail distribution while maintaining traditional quality, building community around heritage bread, and the operational nightmares of scaling fresh products.

[33:00-34:30] Livis Dates - Premium Date Revolution Transforming dates from basic snacking to gourmet experiences, managing complex supply chains, and creating luxury in commodity categories.

[34:30-35:30] G's Cheese - Specialty Dairy Innovation Taking on established cottage cheese giants, perfecting the artisanal-to-mainstream transition, and why authentic cottage cheese innovation matters in an oversaturated market.

[35:30-37:30] Eza Chia Cups - Superfoods Made Simple Making nutrient-dense foods convenient for busy lives, cracking the grab-and-go healthy snack code, and the manufacturing challenges of chia-based products.

The Bigger Story: While CPG giants chase trends and venture-backed brands burn cash, these founders prove that authenticity, quality, and solving real problems still create lasting value. The Shelf represents the future of food discovery - where genuine innovation meets real consumers.

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What founder story resonated most? Let us know in the comments.

This week in CPG was absolute chaos. Tom Brady's selling protein powder, Beyond Meat launched beverages, and someone raised $10 million for alcoholic sports drinks that taste like Gatorade. Categories officially don't exist anymore.

In this episode:

[0:00-25:00] This Week's CPG Madness

• SpikedAde's brilliant $10M sports drink cocktail thesis
• Tom Brady and Mike Repole's NOBULL nutrition expansion
• Beyond Meat's desperate beverage pivot
• $110M+ in M&A deals including Kroger's strategic acquisitions
• AG1's Vitamin Shoppe conquest and Target's premium food acceleration
• Why category convergence is accelerating exponentially

[25:00-60:00] Michael Zabar Interview - Building Motif

• From Zabar family legacy to coffee innovation
• Why coffee shops are stuck with terrible syrup options
• The strategic four-flavor launch (Pistachio, Cinnamon Babka, Vanilla, Chocolate)
• Competing against International Delight and Torani giants
• Plans for retail expansion beyond the coffee shop channel
• Building naturally flavored products in an artificial world

Key Takeaway: Whether you're making coffee syrups or sports drink cocktails, follow customer behavior, not category definitions.

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