CPG Week: Whole Foods Forecasts Top Trends. Plus, Death vs. Death

[00:00:05] Monica Watrous: Welcome to the CPG Week podcast by Befnet and Nosh. I'm Monica Watrous, here with my co-host Brad Avery. Now here is the latest in food and beverage industry news. Whole Foods Market released its annual trends outlook for the year ahead. The forecast is curated by a council of dozens of team members, ranging from foragers to culinary experts, and influences what products will appear on its shelves. Topping the list is beef tallow, which the retailer says is being rediscovered by consumers who, quote, value ancestral ingredients and are seeking seed oil alternatives. Product examples include Jesse and Ben's tallow and sea salt house cut french fries and South Chicago packing Wagyu beef tallow cooking spray. Whole Foods is also predicting there will be a growing focus on fiber as shoppers continue to prioritize gut health, holistic digestive wellness, and satiety, especially amid the Ozempic era. And as home cooking rebounds to pandemic-level highs, convenient solutions including restaurant-quality frozen meals and reimagined instant food are gaining steam. Whole Foods is also taking note of the increase of women in agriculture, more mindful sweets, and vinegar's modern renaissance. Insiders can read more about Whole Foods trends forecast at Nosh.

[00:01:31] Brad Avery: DDC Enterprise Limited, which does business as Day Day Cook, has raised a whopping $124 million in equity financing, but it doesn't seem like much, if any, of that will be going towards the Hong Kong company's recent CPG acquisitions. Day Day Cook announced its new nine-figure funding round to support a Bitcoin treasury strategy, part of an ongoing shift towards cryptocurrency and blockchain opportunities. Now, if you'll remember, this company just in the past two years was on a CPG shopping spree in an attempt to, in the words of CEO Norma Chu, to become the general mills for Asian food. They bought Nona Lim, Yize Thai, and AumSum. And now it's looking as though all three brands are disappearing from the market to varying degrees. Websites for Nona Lim and Yai's Thai are completely offline. Omsom's online store has been taken off and there's plenty of social media reports that consumers cannot find the product anywhere, online or offline. And there's a question of just what happened to Day Day Cook's CPG strategy. It seems to this past spring suddenly shifted gears entirely to becoming a Bitcoin and blockchain business. So we have a lot of questions and I wrote about this last week on the news of the funding round, but we don't really know why or how they've gone about this shift. I will note that I reached out to the founders of these brands and did not receive many responses back. The only person who did respond made it sound as though they very much could not speak to the matter.

[00:03:07] Monica Watrous: I'm sure they've signed some pretty tight NDAs as part of those acquisitions. Of course, we will be continuing to follow this story. The startup formerly known as Tender Food is expanding beyond its plant-based meat alternative routes into additional categories following a new $6.5 million funding round. Under its new name, Lasso, the company will commercialize its patented food processing technology for applications in high-protein snacks and pet food. LASSO will use the capital to develop and launch new products to demonstrate proof of concept for its technology, which is described as, quote, an industrial cotton candy machine that spins plant fibers and protein to create clean label food products, eliminating the need for gums, binders, additives, excess sugars, and high heat methods that strip nutrients. The company's long-term goal is to partner with food manufacturers in the United States and globally to license its Lasso SpinTech technology, according to Chief Executive Officer Mike Messersmith. Lasso SpinTech was developed by a team of doctoral students at Harvard University's Weiss Institute and initially was used to create plant-based meat alternatives That led to the launch of Tender Food, which will remain a brand under Lasso's broader platform, continuing to serve its takes on pork, beef and chicken products in Boston-area restaurants. According to the company, Lasso Spintech consumes less energy than a toaster oven and operates at room temperature with the capacity to produce 1,000 pounds of finished product per hour or more than 2 million pounds per year. Lasso's team, which has demonstrated more than 1,000 ingredient combinations to date, claims its technology can shorten product development cycles from more than a year to several weeks. You talked with Mike Messersmith last year when he joined the team at Tender Food. Previously, he was president of Oatly North America and has had marketing and operations stints at Giovanni and PepsiCo.

[00:05:16] Brad Avery: Yes, and it definitely sounded like this is a big technology play, so it makes sense. Obviously, the brand has wanted to get into market, but given the challenges in plant-based foods, I'm not surprised that they're leaning more into the technology aspect of this. This very much was born out of that.

[00:05:34] Monica Watrous: As Mike Messersmith was telling me, the century-old food processing techniques that we rely on for most of our food production is more or less stifling innovation and stripping nutrients from the food supply.

[00:05:51] Brad Avery: And it's a case of death versus death. Death Wish Coffee is suing Liquid Death for alleged trademark infringement, claiming that the Mountain Water and Tea Company filed trademarks for coffee products, including a Liquid Death Deathachino. Now, Death Wish Coffee and Liquid Death have coexisted for a while without problem. But with alleged plans for Liquid Death to get into the coffee space, Death Wish now wants to protect its territory. They have a history of suing other coffee brands that use Death in the name. And according to the trademark attorneys I spoke with, they make a solid case that there's reason for confusion in the marketplace if Liquid Death were to go ahead with this product. Now, Liquid Death Wish not one to be cowed. They were quite defiant in their response, taking to Instagram to call out Death Wish by name and including an image of the lawsuit, the complaint on their post, encouraging their users and fans to go let Death Wish know how they feel about this.

[00:06:58] Monica Watrous: That sounds very on-brand for Liquid Death.

[00:07:00] Brad Avery: Well, it's combative in its way, but yes, it is very much on-brand. I think there is a question though of whether or not Death Wish has a solid case here. They do have a history and I think that If you just imagine your mom going, oh, I got you that death coffee you like so much, there may be reason for confusion. Now, Liquid Death Wish of course be defending this, and their argument is that you cannot own the loan word death. Death Wish is a brand, Liquid Death Wish a brand, but death itself should not be able to be anyone's property.

[00:07:36] Monica Watrous: On a lighter note, we now live in a world where high-protein Pop-Tarts exist. The brand is launching a trio of toaster pastries featuring 10 grams of protein per serving. Flavors include Slammin' Strawberry, Boostin' Brown Sugar Cinnamon, and Bumpin' Blueberry. Who asked for this?

[00:07:56] Brad Avery: Does the brand want to start pitching itself as better for you or do they still want to be Pop-Tarts? And I feel like you're just muddying waters here when you do a product like this. There's room if Pop-Tart wants to pivot and start being a healthier functional product. Sure. Otherwise, yeah, who's turning the Pop-Tarts for their protein? Anyone who watches Saturday Night Live might have seen them poke fun at the adult non-alcoholic beverage trend this past weekend with a fake ad for a non-non-alcoholic beer. The first non-alcoholic beverage that's over 96% alcohol with the same great taste as non-alcoholic beer, but with more alcohol than any beverage currently on the market. Double the negative, double the party.

[00:08:40] Monica Watrous: Oh boy.

[00:08:42] Brad Avery: But this could be one of those watershed moments for the trend. If SNL is making fun of it, you know, it's mainstream. So. I think we've known non-alcohol beer is mainstream for a while, but this just cements it if there was any doubt.

[00:08:55] Monica Watrous: Absolutely. Here are some other notable bits of news from the week. Kylie Jenner's vodka soda brand Sprinter Spirits reported it had secured over $4 million in new investment as part of a $12 million round it is currently raising. according to a securities and exchange filing. Walmart announced a new partnership with chat GPT parent company OpenAI that will soon allow consumers to make purchases directly within the chat bots platform via an instant checkout feature. And finally, activist investor Starboard Value has taken a sizable share in Keurig Dr. Pepper following its acquisition of J.D.E. Peet's. For these stories and more, become an insider at BevNET and Nosh. And if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe on your listening platform of choice. That wraps up this edition of CPG Week by BevNET and Nosh. Thank you to our audio engineer, Joshua Pratt, our director is Mike Schneider, and our designer is Aaron Willette. If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe on your listening platform of choice, and we will see you next time.