Brainiac Foods Partners With CVS To Step Into Supplements

Cognitive health brand Brainiac Foods is poised to launch a line of new brain-focused supplements for both children and adults in CVS next month as it continues to broaden its portfolio across age ranges.

The company, a division of San Francisco-based Ingenuity Brands, was launched in 2019 by Jonathan Wolfson and Mark Brooks as Brainiac Kids, with whole-milk yogurt squeeze pouches and drinks. In January 2020, Whole Foods and Target picked up the product, just as the COVID-19 pandemic made refrigerated products a supply chain nightmare for the startup, said co-founder Mark Brooks. Yet, the brand had also just released new Brain Squeezer applesauce pouches on Amazon. After seeing success with D2C in summer 2020, Brainiac subsequently discontinued its refrigerated yogurt lines to focus exclusively on shelf stable items.

While the COVID-19 pandemic complicated production, it did spur people to begin talking more openly about mental well-being and prioritizing cognitive health, said Tina White, Brainiac VP of Marketing.

“The next big nutrition trend is brain health,” she said. “We’re right there as a solution for people that are looking to eat for their brain.”

As a result of this growing interest, in early 2022 Brainiac removed ‘Kids’ from its name in place of ‘Foods’ and moved away from its astronaut character mascot, replacing it on pack with a more subdued lightning bolt. It also expanded the product portfolio to include bars and nut butters, all containing the brand’s ‘BrainPack’ – a combination of choline, lutein and Omega-3s rich in DHA, EPA and ALA.

Filling the void for a different type of child-specific product within its portfolio, this summer the company introduced Little Brainiacs puree pouches aimed at infants transitioning off formula or breast milk and into their first foods. The pouches include vegetables (Apple Carrot Banana, Apple Pumpkin Cinnamon, and Apple Spinach Pear) and have a slightly different BrainPack formula than the Brain Squeezer applesauce pouches.

Adults have shown a particular affinity to the nut spreads and bars, further opening the door to reach the whole family with grab-and-go nutrition, said Brooks.

“We can meet you at [a] one-year-old and then we can be with you and your family through each of the generations,” he said.

Brainiac’s initial goal to promote nutrition that benefits brain health felt like a “weird idea back in 2019” when the brand began its journey, Brooks said, “but we feel as if there’s real traction with the consumer. Consumers understand now how the foods they consume have a real real benefit on total body health and wellness.”

Brainiac is not alone in betting on consumer adoption of brain health foods over the long-term. Boston-based IQBAR launched its functional brain bars into Kroger in 2019 but admitted that its message of improving cognitive function was at times a hard sell to new consumers. Investor Patrick Schwarzenegger launched a similar protein bar line, MOSH, last September but also listed its platform functional products that prevent cognitive decline was a challenge because consumers do not see immediate results. Mindright has also been promoting the functional benefits in its snack and beverage products and released a new nootropic-infused puffed chip snack this summer.

For Brainiac, having already spent several years building consumer education and brand awareness, releasing a supplement felt like a logical addition to its snack products. The brand is launching two citrus-flavored gummy vitamins: BrainPack ($29.99 for a 90-piece bottle) and Kids’ BrainPack ($19.99) into just over 2,000 CVS stores next month. CVS already carries Brain Bars and applesauce Squeezers in some locations.

Ecommerce and DTC have been important to the brand’s growth thus far, White said, but retail was always a big part of its goal to be a “challenger brand in on-the-go and lunchbox snacks.”

To remain competitive among the many other squeeze pouches and bars, Brainiac needed to be both on-the-shelf and maintain a robust social media presence in order to capitalize on the rising click-and-collect shopping trend, Brooks said.

Currently, the brand boasts 20,000 points of distribution, he said, and retail remains a “foundational pillar” of the business. Brainiac products are sold in national retailers including Walmart, Whole Foods, Gelsons, Albertsons and HEB, as well as through online channels like Amazon, Thrive Market, Instacart, and Hungryroot among others.

The company was initially self-funded by co-founder Jonathon Wolfson who worked with Brooks at Wolfson’s algae ingredient company TerraVia (formerly Solazyme). Brainiac’s subsequent 2019 seed round yielded an undisclosed amount from Luxe Capital and Lerer Hippeau.

Currently, the brand said it has not taken on any new investment but expects to explore new growth funding soon as it prepares for line extensions to its squeeze pouches and snacking bars in 2023. The brand is also working on new products that reach even further into targeting adult consumers.