Outlook Not Sow Good And Crunch Time For Khloud

0:04Monica Watrous:Welcome to the CPG Week podcast by BevNet and Nosh. I'm Monica Watrous, here with my co-host Lukas Southard. 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. Freeze-dried candy manufacturer So Good is in a period of transition. Last week, the company raised$3 million by issuing preferred stock in a private placement, with funds earmarked for general expenses and working capital. At the same time, CEO David Lazar and CFO Donna Guy resigned, Lazar after less than three months in the role. And four board members stepped down, replaced by four new appointees.

0:50Monica Watrous:Additionally, a number of SoGood's former assets, including freeze dryer chambers, automated pouch lines and ovens, will be sold at an online auction later this month. SoGood previously completed the sale of, quote, a significant portion of assets related to its freeze dried snacks and candy business to limited liability company Trey Grove for total consideration of$1.5 million. Trey Grove now serves as the exclusive distributor for SoGood. According to a press release, the deal with Treya Grove does not represent a liquidation or cessation of operations, and SoGood planned to continue selling and distributing its products.

1:31Monica Watrous:While the shop and store locator pages of the brand's website appear to be down, product is still available for purchase online at the retailer five below. This transition allows SoGood to remain active in the candy market while significantly reducing fixed operating costs, according to the company. Launched in 2021, So Good started by marketing freeze-dried snacks, soups, and smoothies that ultimately didn't sell. Two years later, the Texas-based company shifted to focus on freeze-dried candy, in part drawing inspiration from the novelty product's popularity on TikTok. But the company has been on a downward trajectory more recently, likely due in part to increased competition in the freeze-dried candy segment, especially from legacy confectionery players like the Hershey Company and Mars.

2:21Monica Watrous:Insiders can read the full story on Nosh.com. It's no secret that celebrity brands have the ability to tip the scales of the attention economy in their favor. Johnny Depp's new rum brand aside, we've seen a lot of star power move away from spirits and into the supplement space. Last week, BevNet managing editor Marty Caballero wrote about the breakout success of David Beckham's IM8 Health and Tom Brady's backing of No Bull. Owned by the founder of Vitamin Water and Body Armor, Mike Rapole, No Bull merged with Brady's former brand, TB12, in 2024. Now, highly successful professional athletes launching sports nutrition brands makes total sense.

3:06You want to play like us, you must eat and drink like us. Now, the same can be said for celebrities known for their good looks. While Gwyneth Paltrow might be one of the early examples of how a modern celebrity can enter the beauty and wellness industry in a genuine and trustworthy way, Paltrow's goop was not the first, nor will it be the last. This week, Kylie Jenner, a member of the Kardashian clan, announced she is adding a new ingestible beauty platform to her ready-to-drink vodka soda brand, Sprinter. The new line, K2O by Sprinter, is starting with an advanced skin hydration powdered drink mix that blends electrolytes, hyaluronic acid, and varisol bioactive collagen peptides.

3:53While the blending of canned cocktails and health and wellness supplements into one portfolio might seem like strange bedfellows. If anyone can do it, it's a celebrity with the cachet in both the party scene and beauty products. Lest we forget that Kylie is not just part of the Kardashian family empire, but she launched a cosmetics brand under her name in 2014 and went on to sell a majority stake of it just four years later for$600 million. You can catch up on the convergence of celebrities and the supplement space on BevNet.com.

4:27Monica Watrous:And keeping up with the Kardashians. After conquering popcorn, Khloe Kardashian's functional snack brand is taking on a bigger, crunchier prize, tortilla chips. Rolling out this month online and exclusively at Target stores, Todd protein chips are made with whole grain, non-GMO corn masa, pea protein, and avocado oil. Flavors include nacho, sweet heat, and buffalo, and a serving has 7 grams of protein. The launch marks a natural and ambitious next step for a brand that has scaled quickly since debuting last spring. Cloud has muscled into more than 29 ,000 retail doors nationwide, including chains like Target, Sprouts, Farmer's Market, Wegmans, and Raley's, as well as Starbucks cafes.

5:14Monica Watrous:It's growing product assortment of ready-to-eat popcorn seasoned with a proprietary protein blend and spanning dill pickle, cinnamon roll, truffle, and white cheddar has helped the brand carve out a lifestyle-forward niche in functional snacking, according to chief executive Jeff Rubenstein. Tortilla chips are the second largest category in salty snacks and a nearly$7 billion market, according to Rubenstein. Rather than chasing gym-centric, quote, dude food cues, Cloud is building a snack brand that shows up across culture, from its presence on retail shelves to partnerships and community-driven activations, plus a high-impact founder story.

5:59Monica Watrous:Rubenstein told me that chips are nearly four times the category size of popcorn, with an entirely distinct snacking occasion and consumer base. noting this expansion into chips allows cloud to execute the same demand-led playbook, but working with a much wider field.

6:18Speaking of protein innovation, I spoke with bar brand Prima recently about its retail growth amid the beef tallow trend. We've talked about the appearance of beef tallow as an alternative to avocado oil for cooking snacks like chips or popcorn. as better for you consumers move away from seed oils like sunflower and canola oil. Prima is using grass-fed beef tallow along with bovine collagen and whey protein as a selling point for the brand's ancestral protein positioning. Prima also uses raw honey and egg yolks as the natural sweeteners and binders for the line of bars. The brand launched in retail in January 2025 as part of Sprout's Forager program, When early sales skyrocketed, Sprouts moved the brand to its regular protein bar set in the summer.

7:08And now Prima reports it is the top-selling protein bar SKU at Sprouts nationwide. Prima currently is in about 2 ,000 doors, but expects to hit 3 ,000 sometime this year as it prepares to enter 500 Kroger stores. The brand is expecting traction in the conventional channel to be similar to what it is in the natural channel. because consumers across the spectrum are looking for better-for-you options. Prima recently did a small tweak to his formulation and branding in early March, upping the protein load from 16 grams to 21 and making the texture softer and a little less greasy. While the protein bar set is incredibly competitive with well-funded entrants like David and Bearbells pulling share from legacy brands, Prima is part of a subset that includes Lineage and Equip, which are integrating grass-fed beef protein and other ingredients that cater to consumers interested in this ancestral protein trend.

8:09Monica Watrous:At Expo West, we saw several examples of frozen fries and frozen tater tots and onion rings that are made with beef tallow instead of seed oils. but I don't know if this application is going to resonate with a lot of everyday consumers. The Kroger test will be an interesting one to watch. Yeah, they were very bullish on the move into conventional. I think the idea is that there is so many different choices in the protein set that people are looking for a clean label brand. Even if that clean label does have somewhat strange things like grass-fed beef tallow in it, I think they're betting on the fact that people want to look at a label and see recognizable words and recognizable additives and not have synthetic sugars and preservatives in it.

9:08Monica Watrous:Here are some other notable bits of news from the week. After more than 16 years in business, Honey Bunchy, the producer of gourmet honey nut bar Bon B Honey, is shutting down. Laoban is gearing up for a major retail inflection point as the Asian frozen foods brand expands from a limited target test to multiple items rolling out to more than 1 ,500 stores in May. And finally, Keurig Dr. Pepper has announced new leadership for its future coffee division after the company finalized its acquisition of J.D.E. Peets. For these stories and more, become an insider at BevNet and Nosh. That wraps up this edition of CPG Week by BevNet and Nosh.

9:51Monica Watrous: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.