the Joshua Schall Audio Experience

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if it’s REALLY broke…follow what Glanbia always does and just send it off to the island of the misfit toys! Glanbia Performance Nutrition is one of two divisions of Glanbia plc (LON:GLB), a multibillion-dollar global nutrition company. The brands in the Glanbia Performance Nutrition portfolio include; Optimum Nutrition, BSN, think!, Isopure, Amazing Grass, and...

Did Mondelez International “swallow a grenade” 3.5 years ago…or has its most significant UK investment since the hostile takeover of Cadbury seen explosively positive results? Being a protein bar company in the summer of 2019 was arguably one of the most valuable things you could be in the growing functional food space…and Mondelez got the party started by announcing it was purchasing a majority s...

The other day I got called a CPG industry B2B influencer. I didn’t know that was even a thing, but more importantly…I’m just infinitely curious and someone that prefers to tell the story behind data with B2B actionable insights and/or thought starters. But I was shocked recently when I learned the largest beverage manufacturer and distributor in the world, The Coca-Cola Company, was my newest comp...

Is Bang Energy back baby…or is Monster Beverage CEO Rodney Sacks still dialing 1-900-Mix-A-Lot a year later looking for turnaround answers for the energy drink brand? Sticking with the recent theme from my previous Monster Beverage Corporation (NASDAQ: MNST) quarterly content, I’m going to focus a bulk of insights towards reconciling previous forward-looking statements that I’ve made about the Ban...

According to Celsius Holdings CEO John Fieldly, the company is looking at expanding into “adjacent categories." I don’t know about you…but doesn’t that sound like something I predicted in November 2023? Celsius Holdings (NASDAQ: CELH) had quarterly revenue of $402 million, which was up 23% YoY. During the trailing twelve months, Celsius Holdings smashed through the billion-dollar mark…with th...

Premier Protein remains the “gold standard” in convenient nutrition, but slowdowns in its brand portfolio counterpart (Dymatize Nutrition) should be concerning. Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested…so let them not "play Koia" and be idle for much longer. BellRing Brands (NYSE: BRBR) is a portfolio that owns a collection of convenient nutrition brands like Premier Protein...

I’ve been a part of hundreds of new product development and innovation sprints throughout my career. Whenever any CPG industry colleagues ask me about my personal flavor preference…I always say citrus. And that makes A LOT of sense when you realize that my favorite childhood pop growing up was Squirt or Sprite…and that I probably ate my weight in orange and lemon Starburst. Even as an adult kid…my...

Fashion collaborations remain a go-to way for CPG marketers to build lifestyle brands by merging culture and commerce. The same younger consumers that hate traditional advertising will have no problem wearing branded merchandise if it says something about who they are. So, maybe the ultimate test of CPG brand equity is not if they know you and ingest your products…but if they would wear you! Then,...

GLP-1 weight loss pharmaceuticals will cause equally pervasive second-order effects to functional CPG categories as AI will trigger regarding business productivity. Despite our collective ambiguity on the true extent, I believe the skyrocketing popularity of weight loss pharmaceuticals has already tangibly disrupted many aspects of the CPG industry. The problem (i.e. obesity epidemic) has reached...

Can we blame those “turn ahead the clock” Seattle Mariners uniforms from 1998 for minor league baseball creating a 121st team this year sponsored by Oatly? Because it was that fun (and successful) one-off promotion that led to MLB creating a league-wide version the following year…complete with a corporate advertiser, Century 21, which is why the futuristic uniforms were supposedly based on the yea...

Bloom Nutrition just launched a functional beverage that puts them in direct competition with their largest investor. So, why did Nutrabolt (owner of C4 Energy) not only encourage this Bloom product strategy, but help make their vision a reality? For those that missed the investment deal news from earlier this year in January, Nutrabolt made a significant minority investment into Bloom Nutrition f...

You’ve fooled me once, but I’m not letting that happen again…and y’all start calling me a BUM. So, maybe it’s time we talk about an early upstart energy drink brand. Previously, I've mentioned that about five years ago, I underestimated the eventual growth in mainstream appeal of Mr. Olympia winning bodybuilder Chris Bumstead. I correctly acknowledged that he was a beacon of vulnerability and...

Will Panera Bread’s decision to phase out its controversial Charged Lemonade derail my energy drink “on-premise 2.0” trend prediction from April 2019? With energy drink brands like Celsius paving their own path in the consumer’s mind, beyond the traditional categorical need states, there’s undoubtedly still a long runway of growth opportunities remaining within the foodservice channel. This will p...

Do you remember that “Most Interesting Man in the World” Dos Equis beer advertising campaign that ran most from 2006 to 2018? It seemed like each episode’s montage of experiences layered on more curiosity, which has some similarity to this episode’s guest Samyr Laine. While it wasn’t mentioned in our conversation, his time at Harvard also briefly included being Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate but it th...

It’s commonly said that there are three guarantees in this life…death, taxes, and Bodybuilding.com pretty much annually being involved in M&A activity. Since July 2019, Bodybuilding.com has been involved in four confirmed mergers and acquisitions transactions. The first was a related-party transaction that happened between Liberty Expedia Holdings and Expedia Group. About a year later, Expedia...

Have you ever noticed how many different shades of grey there are? While collaboration has become extremely popular within today’s global sports nutrition market, most efforts go totally unnoticed because they…well lack color! When conceptualized and deployed correctly, the strategic marketing move can help brands expand their customer base, increase sales, and even penetrate new markets. Alternat...

Consumers can’t seem to get enough protein. The focus on high protein diets started in those shadowy niches of sports nutrition and weight management, but now there’s increasingly diverse consumer cohorts that possess a heightened awareness around the value of this essential nutrient. And it’s that demographic diversity, being interested for different reasons, making protein a battleground categor...

Be yourself…because everybody else is taken. In low barriers-to-entry CPG categories like sports nutrition, following that advice too often gets overlooked but is paramount to reaching any level of meaningful success! In this content, I’m going to examine the importance of distinctiveness through a variety of popular marketing and branding strategic decisions. While I’ll be using sports nutrition...

One of the joys of the modern era is that, thanks to the internet, people we admire from afar are tantalizingly within reach. I’ve been on both sides of the equation. My community often reaches out about wanting to connect, and I’ve done my share of approaching people I admire. In my case of meeting Doug Miller, who is the founder (or co-owner) of supplement brands (e.g. Core Nutritionals, 'Me...

Morgan Wallen obviously had one too many drinks before he tossed that chair from the Nashville rooftop bar…but my inside sources are telling me those cups were filled Ryl Tea. It’s unlikely the upstart “tea plus” brand will use that fake information for its next advertising campaign, but it does seem the country singer turned functional beverage investor is all-in from being involved in buyer meet...

With great power comes great responsibility, right? But does the “Peter Parker principle” still apply when you are the undisputed king of the entire vitamins, minerals, and supplements (VMS) market? Even before the “Great Shutdown” period, “household, health, and baby care” was the largest consumable category on the Amazon marketplace…of which “vitamins, supplements, and sports nutrition” was the...

Have you heard something from a trusted source that was so wild it still required additional research before you’d believe it? Well…have you heard the story of how McDonald’s did an “extreme makeover” on a vegetable that would make not only Ty Pennington jealous, but also Willy Wonka. During a private event in November 2014, the CEO was asked a question regarding what the company was doing to get...

With OWYN in the mix, will Simply Good Foods need to make some tough decisions soon, as it now needs to spread resources and budget dollars across three portfolio brands? In this latest episode, I'll utilize the Q3 2024 Simply Good Foods Company (NASDAQ: SMPL) earnings report, earnings call, and supplemental presentations that were filed on 6/27/2024 as the backdrop to provide broad nutritiona...

Consumers have already begun re-evaluating their relationship with alcohol, which has me contemplating if another mainstream euphoric is next. Caffeine consumption has deeply integrated into our daily lives. Caffeine is cited as the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world…becoming such a socially accepted ingrained practice that we seldom question its long-term effects on our health. I don...

What historical significance does Ohio’s 55th-largest city hold within the CPG industry? The small town of Troy was the location where the first UPC was scanned at checkout. But the Final Jeopardy level question surrounds which product was the first to be scanned 50 years ago? Legend has it that Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum was selected because nobody had been sure that a bar code could be pr...