Gummies, Gut Checks and Gin Deals

0:04Monica Watrous:Welcome to the CPG Week podcast by BevNet and Nosh. I'm Monica Watrous, here with my co-host Brad Avery. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe on your listening platform of choice. Now here is the latest in food and beverage industry news. Less than three years after launching, supplement gummy brand Groons has agreed to be acquired by personal care and beauty multinational Unilever. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The gummy brand has raised$54.8 million during its short independent run. Investors in Groon's include Selva Ventures, Vanterra Capital, Plus Capital, Headline, Able Partners, Sugar Capital, and Platform Ventures, among others.

0:51Monica Watrous:Founded in 2023 by Chad Janus, Groon's seized an opportunity for a convenience-oriented format in the fast-growing powdered daily greens space. In less than three years, the brand reached a$500 million valuation and annual revenue of over$300 million. The brand ships 10 million gummies daily and is available in over 7 ,000 retail doors, according to Janice. Unilever is also in the midst of a deal to merge its food business, including Hellman's, Knorr, and Coralix, with McCormick & Company. The company already owns fellow gummy supplement brands Smarty Pants and Ollie, and it has invested through its venture arm in creatine gummy maker, Create.

1:37Brad Avery:Well, this just seems like a chance to start shoring up its portfolio once the food business is fully divested. And gummies in particular have been a massive space and a particularly ripe spot for innovation for many years now.

1:52Monica Watrous:Absolutely. We've seen a lot of gummy innovation that spans all kinds of functional benefits from energy to general wellness to performance and focus. And a lot of beverage makers are moving into that gummy supplement space. So there's a lot of interest there from the consumer as well as the investor and acquirer perspective. And this is a really big exit for Grooms. It's a quick one, but I eat them every day. So I see the appeal. It's a very fast turning item.

2:21Brad Avery:Well, it's a big week for exits. Suja Life Incorporated has filed for an IPO, revealing total 2025 revenue of$326.6 million in the process. Suja, the maker of the namesake Juice brand, as well as Vive Organic and most recently Slice Soda, first filed a draft registration statement last year with the SEC. Suja is now moving forward with the proper IPO and reported 26 % growth in the sales last year. It's a long-awaited move for the company, which was acquired by private equity firm Payne Schwartz in 2021. Suja, founded in 2012, initially looked to be gearing up towards an exit to the Coca-Cola company, which invested in the business in 2015, but later declined to make the full acquisition.

3:14Brad Avery:Underpaying shorts, Suja has led a turnaround in its business, returning to growth, and now can be found in over 37 ,000 stores nationwide.

3:24Monica Watrous:It's the year of the IPO for food and beverage. Maybe it's too soon to say, but we haven't seen a lot of IPOs in this space. And this comes right on the heels of Once Upon a Farm's big public market debut. So I wonder if this is a turning of the tides of how brands are looking to expand and scale and exit.

3:48Brad Avery:It's certainly an interesting choice for an IPO because the cold press juice category that Suja helped pioneer tapered off, plateaued. But they found growth in shots. They've embraced modern soda with Slice. and they are showing revenue growth, although their net losses are also up slightly year over year. However, they're now saying that they've reported between$7 to$8.8 million in profit in Q1 2026 thus far. So this could be something like a Vitacoco, a relatively smaller CPG company that is showing its ability to be financially stable, profitable, and a strong case for a public business.

4:35Monica Watrous:Well, we'll certainly be following the progress at BevNet.com. Moving on to the hummus aisle. 14 years in, Ithaca Hummus is rolling out its first major brand campaign, transitioning to olive oil formations and refreshing its packaging, all as part of a broader push towards sustained category leadership. The refrigerated dips brand, which is now the number two player in the set, is embracing a positioning that encourages shoppers to step outside of their comfort zones, whether that's trying a new flavor or trading up from a legacy brand. Since its founding in 2013, Ithaca has stood out in the hummus section with its distinctive square tubs and culinary-forward flavors such as jalapeno lime, French onion, and lemon beet, as well as co-branded partnerships with fellow insurgents such as Grillo's Pickles and Graza.

5:32Monica Watrous:That strategy has paid off at shelf, scaling the brand's footprint to thousands of retail doors while outselling competitors such as Fresh Cravings and Little Sesame. Ithaca is also expanding its olive oil hummus line, launching olive oil sea salt hummus this spring and transitioning additional varieties to olive oil formulations from sunflower oil later this year. That move follows strong in-market validation. Ithaca's co-branded offering with olive oil brand Graza became the top velocity item in the entire category, even at a higher price point. Despite its successful one-year run, the collaboration was discontinued.

6:12Monica Watrous:However, the product's performance unlocked a key learning for the Ithaca leadership team. The U.S. hummus market is valued at about$1.2 billion, and retail tracking data showed that Ithaca's sales grew 62 % year-over-year to$15.6 million during a 13-week period ending in February, while Sabra's sales during that period declined 5.5 % to$68.1 million. Ithaca Hummus founder Chris Kirby believes the brand can take the top spot within the next 18 to 24 months, behind its strategy of expanding usage occasions and drawing new consumers to the category.

6:52Brad Avery:And we've got one more M &A deal for you. Mark Anthony Brands announced that it has struck a deal to acquire the Finnish Long Drink, the popular gin-based RTD canned cocktail. The transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks, and the Long Drink will be joining brands such as White Claw and Mike's Hard Lemonade in the Marc Anthony portfolio. The finished long drink is a strong breakout brand within the RTD cocktail category using its gin base. This is a product that has really emerged just since it was founded in 2018 to become a dominant player in this set as an alternative to many of the malt drinks that Marc Anthony and other brands lead with.

7:40Monica Watrous:mark anthony isn't that that guy who was like married to j-lo and had that song

7:46Brad Avery:you would know better than i different mark anthony but i think it's a different mark anthony and credit to our brewbound editor jessica infante who published the article on bevnet about this acquisition you can also hear more about finished long drinks strategy on the brew podcast. They appeared early this year to talk about how they took a historic finished drink and really modernized it for the present day consumer via sampling and storytelling. Congrats to finish long drink and Mark Anthony.

8:21Monica Watrous:You know that song I'm talking about? No, I don't. Okay. What's the song? We'll get our producer to play it.

8:27Brad Avery:Oh, I see. Mark Anthony with a C. Oh, it's spelled differently? He spells it with a C. The company spells it with a K.

8:34Monica Watrous:Oh, that's an important distinction.

8:36Brad Avery:Well, you beat my pop culture knowledge on this episode.

8:39Monica Watrous:It's a rare victory for me. Here are some other notable bits of news from the week. Weeks after Brown Foreman and Pernod Ricard confirmed they are in merger talks, Sazerac has entered the chat, but analysts are skeptical that the two whiskey giants can make a deal. Dairy Farmers of America launched a new cottage cheese brand that packs a third more protein than the leading brand and features a proprietary two-layer formulation that combines slow-digesting casein with fast-acting whey. And finally, frozen stuffed pasta innovator Rippy has raised$2.4 million in a seed funding round. For these stories and more, become an insider at BevNet and Nosh.

9:25Monica Watrous:That wraps up this edition of CPG Week by Bevna and Nosh. Thank you to our audio engineer, Joshua Pratt. Our director is Mike Schneider and our designer is Aaron Willett. If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe on your listening platform of choice and we will see you next time.