the Joshua Schall Audio Experience

The fitness world has always been fast-changing, but did the life-altering last two plus years create additional opportunities for supplement (sports nutrition) brands to focus on endurance activity participants? Maybe we all want to wipe this from our memories, but it wasn’t too long ago that gyms across the country were closed, bikes (both traditional and stationary exercise ones) were sold out...

Amazon’s private-label business started in 2005 with bedding offerings under the Pinzon brand name. It then expanded into consumer electronics products and eventually other categories under Amazon Basics. It now encompasses everything from vitamins and coffee to clothing and furniture under the veil of more than 1000 brands at this point that could be over half a million SKUs. At just face value,...

Grubhub and Amazon recently announced they had entered into a strategic partnership. As a part of the deal, Amazon Prime members in the United States have the ability to get Grubhub Plus for an entire year free. That means somewhere around 150 million American households that reportedly have an Amazon Prime membership can use Grubhub without delivery fees in more than 4,000 U.S. cities. That’s fai...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! My guest on this episode has quickly become one of my favorite new connections on LinkedIn. But when Will Nitze isn’t pumping out consistent thought provoking content that spans all over the CPG entrepreneurship spectrum,...

This is a special edition esports strategy conversation that I had with my good buddy Dan Lourenco (Co-Founder and CEO of GHOST Lifestyle) on behalf of Natural Products Insider. Dan and I talked through some trending topics within esports, the broader gaming ecosystem, and how the supplement industry should be responding to it. We also discussed the launch of GHOST Gamer, how officially licensed f...

Is the weight management category of the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry dying or is it lowkey evolving into something more interesting now? Americans are still extremely interested in weight management. Yes, it has seen several cycles of ups and downs during the pandemic era, but I’d argue the extra unwanted pounds gained by the average American during these last two or so years has only e...

Did you know that the self-help guru Tai Lopez (aka “here in my garage” guy) is the son of a professional bodybuilder? Why exactly could that useless piece of trivia knowledge be important now? Let’s connect the dots between what Tai Lopez has been focusing on professionally for the last three years and bodybuilding. In 2019, Tai Lopez and his business partner Alex Mehr founded the private equity...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! My guest on this episode is an absolute Rockstar. Before becoming the Chief Digital Officer at one of my favorite digital-first CPG brands HighKey, he was the Co-Founder of the meal delivery company Factor_ that sold to H...

Will the protein bar competitive landscape continue to be envious of market leader Quest Nutrition as the economy falls into a recession? In this latest episode, I'll utilize the 2022 Q3 Simply Good Foods Company (NASDAQ: SMPL) earnings report, earnings call, and supplemental presentations that were filed on 6/30/2022 as the backdrop to provide broad health and fitness snacking market insights. In...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! My guest on today’s episode is an absolute gem of a person. We always have a blast when we talk shop, so I was excited when I finally persuaded him to join me on camera. Most recently, Nomit Shah was the CFO that quarterb...

It’s been about two years since a pair of PepsiCo major events caused the great energy drink DSD shake-up, so why is the beverage giant again at the heart of another shock to the growing beverage category? According to a Bang Energy press release on June 22, 2022, effective immediately, both parties will enthusiastically and strategically cooperate in a nationwide joint effort to transition from P...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! My guest on this episode is the "prebiotic dietician" and Founder/CEO of Uplift Food, Kara Landau. She was the absolute perfect guest to help me dive into the uber important functional CPG trend of gut health. Kara and I...

Gaming and esports can be described in many ways. It’s a vibrant and fast-growing sector of the economy. It’s a legitimate means of monetization in today’s attention economy. It’s an entertainment medium for billions of enthusiasts around the globe. With an increasing number of people playing, broadcasting, and watching esports, the already booming, multi-billion-dollar gaming ecosystem is without...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! My guest on this episode is Sal Frisella, President of 1st Phorm, which is one of the largest sports nutrition brands in the industry. This is not a conversation you are going to want to skip through…it was extremely fasc...

How many different licensed SKUs have been commercialized within the active nutrition CPG categories since late-2016? If you said more than 200 and counting, then you’d be correct. Did that number surprise you? Well…it surprised the heck out of me and that’s coming from a deep practitioner inside the industry. That being said, how many are too many licensed SKUs in the active nutrition CPG categor...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! My guest on this episode is a really great friend of mine Ronak Shah, who is the Co-Founder and CEO of the fast-growing nutricosmetics brands OBVI. Ronak and I talk a lot about the OBVI online community. How it was built....

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! It’s not often you get to talk to one of your childhood TV idols. Yet, I’ve been having a lot of those pinch me is this my real-life type moments lately. For any boy growing up in the early 90s, you were absolutely watchi...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! In this episode, I talk with a fellow Ohio native CPG professional, Matt Mullenax, who is the Co-Founder and CEO of the high-performance men’s personal care brand Huron. Matt also shares how his experience throughout the...

The Vitamin Shoppe is on pace to have it's highest topline revenue in the company's history. Yet, I would guess that most still haven’t fully grasped the results of massive multi-year turnaround plan at The Vitamin Shoppe. I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but it’s time to wake up people. Since The Vitamin Shoppe is shielded in the public markets by the Franchise Group ow...

So, normally I wouldn’t applaud a fourth-place ranking, but I think we should make an exception in the energy drinks category. In terms of market share during the last four weeks ending April 17, 2022, Celsius Holdings (NASDAQ: CELH) impressive performance has pushed the brand past Rockstar Energy for the number four position in the energy category. This really draws some comparisons to what happe...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! In this episode, I talk with my amazing friend…aka the greatest nickname giver on Planet Earth…aka The King of all Wipes…aka the Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of the fast growing personal hygiene brand goodwipes...

Dymatize continues to carry the bigger heavier Premier Protein on its back, but are things set to change in the back-half of BellRing Brands’ fiscal year? As I normally do with my performance update content of publicly-traded functional CPG brands, I will use the recently filled earnings report, earnings conference call, and any relevant publicly disclosed news, in this case it’s Bellring Brands (...

Glanbia had one of the best quarters of growth in recent history, so why isn’t everyone celebrating it? Glanbia Performance Nutrition had 2022 Q1 revenue growth of 15.7% YoY on a constant currency basis from strong pricing and volume increases. They also benefitted 1% from the mid-2021 acquisition of LevlUp, a gamer (esports) nutrition brand. Glanbia Performance Nutrition is one of two wholly-owne...

Pivotal is an interview-style segment that tackles topics in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) from the business leaders that live it EVERY DAY! In this episode, I talk with an amazing friend that just happens to also be the CEO of Vital Proteins Tracey Warner Halama. She shares early stories about what went into the shifted consumer focus towards women that led t...

Go to any grocery store, convenience store, or specialty supplement retailer and you’ll see shelves stacked with similar products from different brands. While presented a tad differently on the digital shelf, the same can essentially be said when searching for CPG products on an ecommerce marketplace like Amazon. Your CPG brand has on average a few seconds to make a good impression before the cust...