Why every brand is leaning into nostalgia

0:00Welcome back to another episode of The Curious Consumer. I'm Nate. I'm Jenna. And we know it's been a while. We've had a crazy few weeks, but we're back. We're back to talk about all the fun CPG retail news and trends. Yeah, we're very excited to be back. The last episode we put out was an interview. And honestly, if you haven't listened to it, it's one of our favorite interviews we've done yet. Really good. It's with the Senior Vice President of Science and Innovation over at Ritual Supplements. learned a ton about supplements. And then last week we took a little holiday break and now we're back.

0:39And there's been a lot of news in the time we were gone. We're still going to focus on what was most recent, but if you want to get the whole lowdown of everything you missed, you should be subscribed to our newsletter and read our newsletter and also check out our Instagram. We're going to start the show with a little shout out. We have some awesome friends over at Everledger, which is a full service accounting and finance partner that specializes in high growth CPG. So if you are a CPG brand and you're looking for some finance help, you probably want to be listening to this. We are a startup ourselves.

1:15It is just the two of us and might come as a shock to everyone listening. But actually we're not numbers people at all, not the slightest, not even a little. So we really needed a finance team that could actually keep up and understand the nuances of being a startup media company. And Everledger is handling our books, tax, financial modeling all under one roof. So we're not stitching together all these like different vendors. And we're also not chasing down our own numbers, which we have been doing in the past. And it doesn't look cute. So they typically do work with CPG brands, as I mentioned, and they help them build investor ready financials, prep for fundraising, and even plan retail expansion.

1:55So if your books are messy, if you have a slow accountant, we won't tell. If you're gearing up for a raise or a retail expansion, you're going to want to check out Everledger. We'll leave a link in the notes below. Shout out Everledger, saving us from financial ruin. Well, let's start with our first story of the day. Shirley Temples. Nostalgia in a can. I don't know if you remember, Jenna, but a few years ago, So the Dirty Shirley was the drink of the summer, according to, I believe, the New York Times. I think this was 2024. And now we have ready-to-drink Dirty Shirley's. So fitness influencer and also DJ Summer Rae just launched her own version of a Dirty Shirley, a brand called Tempted, a 7 % ABV ready-to-drink Dirty Shirley in a can.

2:51It's currently available on GoPuff in select markets. But they're also not the only Dirty Shirley out there. Just the other week, Sazerac bought Dirty Shirley. A company called Dirty Shirley. A company called Dirty Shirley. Another Dirty Shirley in a can. So we're seeing a lot of Shirley temples as well. Not just dirty ones, but also non-dirty ones. It is popping off right now. Poppy has one, Olipop, Slice, 7-Up, Bloom, Stiller's Soda. They all got Shirley Temple flavors. It feels like every Better For You soda company has their version of a Shirley Temple. This makes sense for a few reasons. In general, we're seeing nostalgia everywhere.

3:38Olipop is built on nostalgia. All of its flavors are like OG soda flavors. This nostalgia piece is huge. And it's interesting to see it specifically in the dirty variety, in the ready to drink in a can, because it makes a lot of sense that nostalgia would enter the RTD side as well. The RTD category is exploding right now. There are so many innovations in canned cocktails and canned alcoholic beverages. But a lot of the tastes were pretty similar. It was seltzers, teas, hard lemonades, not a ton of innovation there. nostalgia really offers this like emotional anchor that it's like okay i may be trying a new brand which can be scary especially in alcohol because you're probably spending a lot of money to get a six pack of something you're not just buying one off off the shelf so you're asking a lot from a consumer when you're asking them to buy a ready to drink alcoholic beverage they need some kind kind of emotional anchor to trial a new brand.

4:41And flavor is a great anchor. You can't stop Shirley. She is all over. I'm sure that we talked about a hard soda brand that launched recently called Crooked Pop. I am sure they will have a Shirley Temple flavor. They must. Very soon. Owls Brew also has a hard soda. I'm sure they'll come out with the Shirley Temple flavor very soon as well. I wouldn't be surprised if other canned alcoholic beverages also have Shirley Temple flavors launching soon. Yeah. And that's a lot of nostalgia, as we said. But we have another story that is very related to this nostalgia element. We've talked a lot about how peanut butter and jelly as a flavor profile also is popping off this year.

5:24Everyone has a peanut butter and jelly flavored something. And one of them that we spoke about, one of the brands we spoke about is Jams, which is a new better for you Uncrustables. It's a high protein, crustless, frozen peanut butter and jelly brand. And they just announced a partnership with the NFL. Amazing that Uncrustables didn't do this because back in 2024, the New York Times reported that NFL teams across the board go through at least 80 ,000 Uncrustables a year. The Denver Broncos alone, they go through 700 a week. That is, we need to sit with that for a second. So many. What are they doing in Denver that they need 700?

6:07It must be like the Uncrustables are a great pre-workout when you think about it. It's like fast carbs. Well, also like even if you're just like in between things, like it's quick, it's easy, it's not super caloric, it has some protein, it's got some sugar in it, it's got carbs in it. it's a great like snack really at any time and jams is interesting because it has better ingredients it's higher in protein and the fact that they partnered with the nfl players association is genius it's genius and it's crazy that smuckers didn't get to this first especially when this report was two years ago two years ago yeah that is so there's there's something so smart about you're a startup.

6:51There's a lot you have to do to get people to be interested and excited about your product when there is such a legacy brand in your category. And to look at gaps and opportunities that the legacy brand isn't taking is so smart. Like to see that New York Times article and be like, wait a second, the NFL is eating this many Uncrustables? Like that's an opportunity for us is so smart for a startup to do. And they're doing a collaborative flavor with the NFLPA, the NFL Players Association. And I do believe that there are some NFL players on their board and on their investor, on their cap table. So I think that's one of the ways this happened.

7:37But it's genius. And Jams is currently in at least one of their SKUs in same store, same week store sales. They are outselling the same flavor of Uncrustables. So they're coming up in the ranks. People are looking for this. So congrats to Jams on this because this is a great win for them. I think we should talk about another nostalgic-leaning CPG thing, and that is Olipop. Now, there's nothing really new happening with Olipop, but they did just go through their first major brand refresh since they launched in 2018. I'm a really big fan of this new packaging. It feels a lot more bold. It feels a lot more unified, much more cohesive branding across the SKUs.

8:28But I think the most interesting thing that I saw when looking at this branding compared to the one from the past few years is how much they've removed around health claims on the front of pack. It used to say supports digestive health. And now it just says store anywhere, chill to enjoy. And then it obviously also says a new, better kind of soda, which was in the last iteration of the packaging. But it's slowly been pivoting away from this is a gut soda to this is just a better new soda. And I think it's really smart, especially right now. There's more people who want to consume something new, better, maybe a little bit healthier than there is somebody who wants a gut-friendly soda.

9:16And there's also just so many other soda brands out there that in order to compete, you can't pigeonhole yourself into this healthy soda category. or you have to be a little bit broader and focus on a little bit of a broader consumer base in order to compete with the countless, countless new and upgraded sodas that are out there. Yeah, I'm definitely most interested in that piece of it because I think it's easy when you just see the rebrand to focus on like, okay, it's a brighter color, like the aesthetics of it all. But I love your point of the messaging around it. If you look all the way back to when they first launched.

9:59It used to be called, and we'll put an image up, but it used to be called a sparkling digestive tonic. And just seeing that evolution slowly, then it became sparkling tonic. Then it became a new kind of soda. And now we're leaning more heavily into this new kind of soda messaging. Like they know they created the modern soda category. They know that it's not about helping with your digestion anymore. Like that's not what this is about. It's about being a slightly better soda than other options. It's very telling about where the soda category is right now. And then smaller detail, this is kind of silly, but one thing I noticed on the aesthetic side is it's, it's way more Gen Z and it's really, it's subtle.

10:44But one of the things that they did is for each flavor, they always have an icon for the flavor. So for the strawberry vanilla, it's a little graphic of a strawberry with a, I guess, vanilla flower. And for each of the icons, they put a little white border around it now and it looks like a sticker. And then other thing they did that's really subtle is everything's lowercase now. So the flavors like strawberry vanilla says it's like the S and the V are lowercase. They used to be uppercase. And it used to be, I'm so nerdy about this, but where it says a new kind of soda, which is their tagline was in title case, which means every first letter of every word is capitalized.

11:21And now it's in sentence case. It's all lowercase. And that emphasis towards lowercase writing is much more social media friendly. It's much more Gen Z. It just feels a little bit more like, I almost feel like they're trying to be poppy a little bit. Like they realized that they were attracting more of a millennial audience with their positioning. They're more muted colors. They're title casing, perhaps. And now they're like, ooh, how do we be a little younger? And they have this bolder color palette for sure, which makes them, yes, everyone's talking about how that makes them compete better with other original soda brands.

12:01Because when you look at the soda aisle, it's pretty bright colors. It's not these like Muta colors. Yes. But also these bright bold colors feel a little bit more young. So I think they're trying to not just refresh in terms of looking less like a health beverage, but also appeal to a younger consumer. Spot on. Let's move on to our next story about Oishi, the infamous$50, formerly$50 strawberries. They are no longer$50 anymore. Don't you worry. But Oishi, it's a Jersey-based indoor vertical farm, best known for their premium Japanese varietal strawberries. They just raised$150 million in Series C financing, bringing their total funding to nearing$400 million.

13:00And this funding they're using to expand distribution across more states and also its first international retailer up north in Canada. I saw that OEC raised$150 million and I was like, wait, that's strawberry brand? because as we said, they are known for their premium Japanese strawberries. And they come in these, this really fancy container where it's like each strawberry is placed one by one. And it's this beautiful packaging. And I've tried them a few times and I'm never like, wow, this is the best strawberry I've ever tasted. And I've always wondered how is this brand staying afloat? And the secret to it all, which isn't really a secret is it's not a strawberry company.

13:42It's a vertical farming company. And the strawberry was just how they introduced themselves to the world. So vertical farming, it's definitely had a hard time recently. There was a lot of faith in vertical farming and we're not going to get into this too much, but with climate change, obviously land usage is a huge issue. And so there were a lot of people that were betting a lot of money on vertical farming really taking off, but there have been other brands that didn't really do so well. So Bowery Farming is one of them, which was one of the most well-funded vertical farms in the country. You might know them for their greens products.

14:18They shut down entirely. A company called Plenty also shuttered its lettuce facilities to pivot to higher value crops. So it looked like vertical farming was struggling. But it turns out it was actually really that lettuce was the issue. Right. Lettuce is too low margin for all of the energy and infrastructure costs up front for indoor farming. Of course, over time, hopefully some of those costs go down, but you need to start with this higher margin product to get the investment needed, like Oishi, in order to build out that infrastructure. And Oishi might now pivot to lettuce. We have no idea.

14:57at starting with this premium, premium packaged product, premium feeling brand was so smart in getting its vertical farming mission off the ground. Yeah. And this is, you know, we've, we've talked about this before around plant-based meat, but this is what impossible did so well up until they kind of shot themselves in the foot, but they leaned into the premium nature of it. They leaned into selling to Michelin star restaurants and getting people to, to buy in and, and validate the product and, and the technology. And that's, yeah, it's exactly what a wish she did here. They, they validated it from being premium and also being able to fund it like $50 strawberries.

15:41You know, it's gone down now. It's like 11 bucks or something like that. I saw it at whole food. They're at whole foods. They're at a lot of major grocery stores, but all of this is to, to validate the technology and the product and show that it can be done. And I really hope that this succeeds because, you know, vertical farming and indoor farming, aquaponics, all of that is just such a benefit to society to be able to have in dense urban centers the ability to produce produce and not have it go more than 10 miles away from the indoor farm. reduce the amount of CO2 that's emitted, reduce the amount of pesticides that go into our land.

16:24This is an amazing technology that I pray, I pray is expanded more across the country because it also just allows us to like get fresh produce that might not be in season all year round. And I want a lot of different fruits and vegetables all year round, mostly fruits. Some of the vegetables are very seasonal and I don't want squash outside of autumn. God forbid. It doesn't work. It doesn't work for me. That's crazy. It's crazy. I know. You can't have squash in May. Just like you can't wear white after Labor Day. These rules don't apply to me. The other thing I think is interesting though, and is specific to Oishi is this idea of bringing international crops to the U.S.

17:14Obviously, we talk so much about how in CPG we're seeing global flavors expand. Just look at matcha, for instance. Just look at ube, for instance. And what if we could actually grow some of the crops that are the basis of these trends? Because all of these flavor trends come from something that was once in the ground. What if we could actually grow them and globalize them in a way that is sustainable? That would be so cool. We're not focusing enough on the actual origin story of these trends and the crops behind them. I'm very excited for Oishi to have a little bit more money in their pocket and see what other kinds of hopefully Japanese produce they can bring to the U.S.

17:52Speaking of things that come from the ground, do beans come from the ground? Yeah. Lupini. Lupini beans. Yes. Brahmi, which is a lupini bean fortified pasta. It's not all lupini beans. It's got wheat in it. They just raised a$33 million Series B led by VMG Partners. It's one of the best pasta brands on the market, I think. I think it's delicious. It's got a lot of protein in it. And they're growing like crazy, projecting 400 % year-over-year growth by the end of 2026. So a$33 million raise is not that surprising. No, it's not. And it's really exciting. As you said, it's lupini bean fortified. So to back up a little bit, lupini beans, if you're not familiar, are a bean variety.

18:46For some reason, they haven't been popularized the way that other beans have, but they are uniquely very high protein, very high protein beans. So there have been a few different CPG brands that have innovated with lupini beans in the past few years. Not all of them have taken off because this is a foreign bean to so many people. And so what Brahmi did that's really smart is it's pasta that is high protein. And then you turn it over and you're like, oh, because there's lupini beans in it. And that makes it so much more approachable. So they are made partly with lupini beans and then partly with durum semolina wheat.

19:27So that's really high quality pasta wheat. And when they blend some, and I am so passionate about blending products. It's so smart. I, you should read this newsletter because I did a deep dive that we're not really going into on the future of alternative proteins. But part of this story, spoiler, is that a lot of the alternative proteins are going to be blended with whey products in the future because people still want their whey products. They like the taste of it. They like the texture, but whey isn't sustainable. There's a shortage. And also there's so many health benefits that come from some of these plant proteins.

20:09So blending a whey product with a alternative protein product, like a plant based protein product is going to be the future of the protein aisle, I think. And this is an example of that in the pasta aisle. So it's not blending proteins, but it's blending beans, which for a while we saw this craze of Bonza introducing beans to the pasta aisle. People loved their bean pasta, whatever. Then it kind of phased out and people went back to normal pasta. They took both of those ideas and blended them together. You can still get high protein and you can get the original high quality pasta. So they're competing with both.

20:48They're competing with high quality pastas that are made with fancy wheat and they're competing with the bean products. And what was really interesting is in the last year, the only... subcategory within pasta that actually increased in sales is this specific category of grain plus legume. Legume in this case is lupini. Meanwhile, chickpea, whole wheat, and brown rice, all salt declines. All salt declines. The only alternative grain that saw an increase in year-over-year sales is this combo of grain plus legume. I think that is so interesting. And pasta is one of those categories that like the reason those categories are the reason those types of pasta products are not increasing in sales is because they have a texture and taste issue they they tend to fall apart they tend to taste a bit off and with pasta consumers want pasta like they want pasta they want it to taste good there's a reason people like pasta and with blending it they get their function and potential added health benefits, but then they still get the familiar format and texture and taste of pasta, of the pasta that they know.

22:12And I really just, I don't think that most consumers are willing to give up as much as brands think they are. This, I think is the reason why like we're, we're seeing a lot of protein brands come out that are not targeted towards the fitness community and that they're better formulated. They taste better. They have better texture. They have better sweeteners. They have better flavor. And those are working because consumers don't want to give up what they know. They just don't. They want added function. I do believe that consumers want more out of their food, but they're really not willing to give up that much.

22:55The fitness community is because they're focused on the macros of it all. They're not really focused on taste and consistency that much, but the general consumer is. The general consumer cares about what they're putting into their body. And blending of the lupini beans with wheat or with the flour enables it to taste and feel just like the normal product that they're used to with a little bit more. And that's the key here. That's the real learning from this product. The other thing I wanted to add quickly is it's interesting timing because Brahmi has been making this product for a while. They've seen, as we said, 400 % year-over-year growth.

23:37And now Bonza this year comes out with kind of a similar product, which is that they came out with a blended product. It's a high-protein wheat pasta, which was wild for this brand because they were very far away from wheat. They were always the alternative brand. now they have semolina pasta that still has chickpeas in it to make it a little higher protein so not saying that they copied brahmi but this era of the like blended alternative pasta is is happening it's not just brahmi we are also seeing it in bonza so it feels like we talk about this brand every week and yet there's they're always giving us something to talk about really actually is is the truth and this brand is david david protein they launched another product and i want to say product lightly because while they did it is another product it's also another marketing stunt david launched tinned cod so they had already launched these frozen packs of real cod like the fish and now they launched the tinned version of it selling for$39 for a four pack which is crazy they're like$10 for one tin of cod and it's it's the follow-up to the very viral frozen cod stunt and one of the things they did to market this was they basically filled like an iPhone style keynote announcement to launch this.

25:18They spent a lot on this launch. But again, like it gets people talking. It gets engagement up. I get it. And, you know, for them, their whole thing with the cod, if you don't get it, is David has amazing macros. They have some of the best protein to calorie ratios on the market of nearly any product, only second to something like cod. Where a filet of cod is like 23 grams of protein per 100 calories, David has 28 grams of protein for 150 calories. They've had this comparison on their site since they launched, so this is not a surprise at all that they are continuing with this stunt. also it's weird and people like to talk about weird things so this is not surprising at all that they're doing this i'm curious to see what they do for their ice cream launch and how they're gonna do that i mean bella hadid is eating their ice cream right now in san tropez on her freaking yacht and that is the launch nate we don't need to be curious about it you don't think they paid bella hadid to hold their ice cream on her yacht and have pictures of it i want to know how how did They get ice cream to San Tropez and it didn't melt.

26:34These are, I think, when you have the kind of money they must have, you'll do anything. But yeah, David is always doing like the most unhinged possible thing. We know this for them. The thing that is fun about the tinned cod, their packaging is insane. You need to look at the packaging. The packaging for this tinned cod is what looks like a Renaissance painting of a cod eating a man. And it's all part of this. It's all like conversation starters, things that just like get people talking because they're so weird and they are so good at that. This isn't them coming for Fish Wife. They're not going to become a tinned fish company by any means.

27:16It's a marketing stunt and it's a good one. It's a great one. And I do think that we're going to start to see a lot of brands try and echo this version of unhinged marketing. When we think of unhinged marketing, I think of liquid death in a lot of ways. We saw a lot of liquid death esque copycats in marketing of these like stream hardcore marketing stunts. Now we're going to see a lot more of these. Like, I don't even know how to describe this genre of marketing. It's like taking itself seriously in a way that we know, like, it's like, what's funny about it is how seriously it's taking itself.

27:51I think Liquid Death took it too far where it was like the only thing they did. And they're like, we're the funniest people on the planet. I'm like, yeah, you've done the same thing a thousand times. That's not, you got to change things up. Like you're, it's not going to work anymore. David almost feels like it's a different type of confidence than Liquid Death had. I don't know how to describe it, but it like, they're aware of what they're doing, but it doesn't diminish the quality or the efficacy of it where I feel like Liquid Death at a certain point knew what they were doing thought it was still good and still went for it anyways and it was just like okay you're doing the same thing like let's let's change it up like how they do loud marketing and quiet marketing like the Bella Hadid with the David thing like they didn't that was just Getty Images Vogue captured that like somebody just saw that they probably paid somebody to take the photo sure that that was paid for but from the the optics of it it looks like oh wait what is she holding in this random vogue shoot of from the paparazzi it's great and even even the speculation around did david pay for this is this a marketing stunt or is this natural is marketing in itself us talking about this and trying to figure out if it was a paid activation or if it happened naturally requires us looking back at the picture, trying to figure out if it looks staged or not.

29:20It's all so strategic, so smart. I would say I think more CPG brands can learn from it, but I also don't want too many CPG brands doing it. I think it's like it works if you're a certain kind of brand. This type of marketing for brands really only works if it feels like it's natural to you. And I don't think it comes naturally to everybody. And that's fine. That's a good point. Because everything's been done, you kind of have to do what feels right. You can't just do what feels like a good opportunity. Because that's not always what's right or what's going to work. Our next story is about bananas.

30:01Well, banana water. Which, not surprising that this is a thing. There's banana milk, for Pete's sake. There's corn milk. so it's not surprising that we're making water out of bananas. Banagua, which is a banana water company, they just raised$5.5 million to grow here in the U.S. They're an organic banana water brand. They're already in almost 4 ,000 doors across the country in Sprouts, Kroger, Albertsons, and of course, Erewhon. Recently, Bananas have been having a moment. Arabels came out with the banana flavor. road has banana eye patches and um you know banana bread has been popular with go nanas since wwd called it it's a banana girl summer i i don't i don't disagree actually the place that i think i'm seeing banana the most is in cafes coffee culture has really adopted banana as a flavor i'm seeing a lot of like banana cold foam i'm seeing a lot of banana bread lattes delicious It's a great combo.

31:06But yeah, bananas, bananas happening. And banana water, as you said, is really interesting because it might be like, well, the co-founder wants it to be the new coconut water. I don't know if it will be the new coconut water, but there is a lot of interest around this flavor profile right now. And I think people are looking for a new coconut water. They want, they want that, like there's electrolytes. It's a hydration beverage, and it's entering the hydration category at a time where there are so, so many hydration beverages. So many. But this one can safely say the ingredients are just organic bananas.

31:43And every time that there is this huge trend in a function, you always see something rise to the top that is the simplest ingredient version of that function. So I think there's a lot of potential, and I haven't tried it yet. I really want to try it. I need to go find it. But, I mean, will it become the next coconut water? I doubt it. Coconut water is, like, so dominant. Vitacoco has had its best year, at least from the stock market. It is back on the rise. It makes sense with the hydration boom. It makes sense. Exactly. Shall we move on to our last story of the week? Let's do it. Sleep strips.