Unpackaged Goods

Nature's Bounty is in more than one in five American households. It's the second-largest vitamin brand in the country. Nestlé just sold it, plus six sibling brands, for less than a year of their combined revenue.

Two days later, a company that didn't exist two years ago raised at seven and a half times revenue.

Plus: an interview with Ally Mamalider, the second-generation CEO of Organic Traditions.

THIS WEEK IN CPG

Nestlé sold seven mainstream vitamin brands to Yellow Wood Partners for $1 billion. They did $1.2 billion in 2025 sales, and Nestlé paid $5.75 bil...

Pre-alcohol supplements have existed for over a decade. Walk into any 7-Eleven in Tokyo or Seoul and you'll find racks of them. Nobody in Asia needs convincing.

So why does nobody at your fantasy football draft take one?

Kevin Mai's answer is that the category solved the problem and then packaged it wrong. Vials, shots, and jars of pills make you the buzzkill at the party. UNDO built a gummy in a foil pouch that looks like a condom, ran with "practice safe drinking," and turned the product itself into the conversation.

Kevin...

Five weeks ago I said the Van Leeuwen trade dress ruling was the most important thing that happened in CPG that month. Rebel Creamery filed for Chapter 11 on August 14, twenty-nine days after the judgment.

The filing lists $13.78 million in assets against $23.85 million in liabilities, and the judgment is essentially all of it. A packaging design decision made in 2018 ended a company in 2026.

This week:

Rebel Creamery files Chapter 11. Van Leeuwen never claimed the name or logo was copied. It claimed the pint. The court took Rebel's own sales figures and cut a third...

Two brands ended this week. Purely Elizabeth spent seventeen years building and was acquired by Ferrero. Alex Cooper's Unwell beverage line lasted less than two years and is reportedly shutting down after Halloween.

Cooper has one of the biggest audiences in podcasting. Elizabeth Stein has granola. Only one of those businesses is still standing.

THIS WEEK IN CPG

Ferrero agreed to acquire Purely Elizabeth, the wellness breakfast brand Stein founded in 2009. Terms weren't disclosed, and Ferrero says it will preserve the brand's identity with Stein staying on. This is a Nutella conglomerate buying...

Celsius posted record revenue last week and the stock fell 17%. The reason is in the breakdown.

Plus: an interview with Belle Robinson, the London nutritionist who invented the functional ice cube.

THIS WEEK IN CPG

P&G agreed to buy Thorne for $3.8 billion. L Catterton took it private for $680 million in 2023. And roughly a quarter of Thorne's revenue reportedly comes from creatine, an ingredient that was still being sold as gym powder two years ago.

Celsius set a record and lost 17%. Revenue hit $818 million. Alani Nu supplied $364 million of it. The...

The growth in alcohol has left alcohol, and this week the whole industry admitted it at once.

Two celebrity-linked spirits brands were sold in seven days. A whiskey family turned down $15 billion for the second time in three months. And beer companies are buying everything except beer.

Plus: an interview with Rachel Krupa, founder of The Goods Mart and Krupa Consulting.

THIS WEEK IN CPG

Brown-Forman says no to $15 billion. Twice. The Brown family, holding the majority of Class A voting shares, called Sazerac's $32-per-share offer "not actionable." A deal would...

I just spent three days at the Summer Fancy Food Show at the Javits Center. Then I sat down with Jess Haghani, founder of Lucille Health, the senior nutrition brand building for a consumer most CPG brands completely ignore. Then I break down Danone spending $2.55 billion on functional nutrition in a single quarter, and three companies bidding $4 billion for Thorne.

This week on Unpackaged Goods:

SUMMER FANCY FOOD SHOW RECAP

I walked the floor at Javits and came back with four patterns every founder and investor should be watching:

→ Protein is ev...

Second Nature Brands just acquired Tillamook Country Smoker — $175M+ in sales, two manufacturing facilities, and fifty years of heritage. Nobody covered it. Nobody tweeted about it. And that's exactly why they're winning.

Plus, we sit down with the co-founders of Milly Pepper, the brand revolutionizing a common spice into a premium experience through direct sourcing, freshness, and storytelling.

This week on Unpackaged Goods:

Since 2022: Voortman ($305M). Sahale ($34M). Brownie Brittle. Now Tillamook Country Smoker. Second Nature Brands is quietly building one of the largest independent snack platforms in America through disciplined M&A — and...

The three largest dairy companies in Europe are all acquiring functional nutrition brands in the same year. Over $2 billion in deals in two weeks. And David sold protein ice cream for $90 a six-pack and sold out in 28 minutes.

This week on Unpackaged Goods:

Nestlé is buying yfood at €450M — first acquisition under the new CEO. Lactalis acquired Protein Works at $75M in sales. Danone already bought Huel for $1.15B. Three dairy giants, three functional nutrition acquisitions, same year. Traditional dairy is flat. Functional nutrition is growing. They have the manufacturing and distribution. They don't have the b...

The $40 billion beauty mega merger is dead. Lionel Messi's hydration brand shuttered. And a PB&J brand with zero celebrity co-founders just became the official PB&J of the NFL.

This week on Unpackaged Goods:

Puig and Estée Lauder merger talks ended without a deal. We tracked this for over a month — exploratory talks to serious conversations to founding families at the table to nothing. Governance killed it. Both families wanted control. Neither would cede it. The biggest missed opportunity in beauty this decade.

Mas+ by Messi is shutting down after two yea...

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.

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 stil...

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...

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 h...

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...

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 D...

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...

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

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