Michael Fox

I just found this interview from ten years ago, and it is wild how I am still sharing this EXACT same message with brands on a daily basis. As Sircle Media has narrowed its focus to work exclusively in CPG and Beverage, these hold even more true: 1- Go as long as you possibly can without paying agencies = cash conservation is key in these money-strapped categories 2- Social media management isn't a job for 1 person; it takes the skills of many = dont under-invest in one hire and then hope and pray 3- Agencies are either overpriced based on assumed pricing, or they are (sometimes maliciously) selling what they think the market wants, vs what the market actually needs = brands end up hiring for sizzle (buzz) rather than steak (substance) In CPG, it is around a $3–$4 million run rate, where you have a real business with proof of concept, interested consumers with repeat orders, and it is time to level up and potentially raise a Series A round. At that point, your P&L should have a line item for a social media manager's salary and content support for communications, but putting that all on one person will fail 100% of the time. This will happen whether that person is amazing or not, because it is just never one human who can do it all. In 14 years, I have never met one 5th degree blackbelt social media manager who can do it all at an A+ level. As you build your stack, make sure you have the right foundation in place. One SMM tasked with everything will fail, and one agency without a real strategic approach will fail, too. Choose wisely. #socialmediaagency #socialmediastrategy #cpg

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There’s a stage in CPG growth that doesn’t get talked about enough. You’re no longer small, but you’re not big enough to have everything figured out. You have sales, customers, a growing catalog, maybe even a team. But every new decision still feels expensive, hire, launch another SKU, increase inventory, enter another marketplace, or spend more on ads. At this stage, the challenge isn’t a lack of ideas. It’s knowing which idea deserves your next dollar. Growth isn’t always about doing more. Sometimes it’s about making fewer expensive guesses. #CPG #CPGBrands #BrandGrowth #Ecommerce #MarketplaceGrowth #CPGFounders

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Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. + JDE Peet's: A Game-Changer in Global Coffee KDP has agreed to acquire JDE Peet’s in an all-cash deal ~$18bn, which will be followed by a planned spin-off into two U.S.-listed companies: one focused on refreshment beverages, and the other a “Global Coffee Co.” combining KDP’s single-serve strength with JDE’s extensive global coffee brand portfolio. Why this deal matters: - It creates a coffee powerhouse with ~$16bn in coffee revenue, making it the largest pure-play coffee company globally - KDP expects ~$400 million in cost synergies over three years, with accretion starting from first year -Post-deal, the beverage side (Dr Pepper, 7UP, etc.) will run as a scaled, focused challenger in North America (~$11bn sales) Yet, significant risks & challenges exists (execution complexity, leverage & credit risk creating elevated debt ratios Bottom line: This merger signals a strategic shift towards doubling down where you lead, and spin off where you need sharper focus. If executed right, both resulting entities (Global Coffee Co. and Beverage Co) could be better positioned to win in their respective domains, yet execution will determine #MA #Coffee #Beverages #Strategy

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Sold out online in eight hours. Now landing Target and Kroger in the same month. Protein Pints just demonstrated the only launch sequence that matters in frozen - proof of velocity before you ask for the door. The brand dropped Protein Pops in June as their first line extension beyond pints. Ten grams of protein per bar, quinoa-studded chocolate coating, four flavors. Initial online inventory moved in less than eight hours and beat projections by 10X. They spent the summer building momentum at Sprouts. Now they are rolling into Target this week and all Kroger divisions September 13. That puts them in 4,000 retail doors by mid-month. Most frozen brands pitch retailers with a deck full of category trend charts and Instagram engagement metrics. Protein Pints walked in with a sellout story and Sprouts velocity data. That is the difference between begging for a test and getting asked how many doors you can service. The format matters more than people realize. Pints require commitment - you are bringing home a 30g protein container and clearing freezer space for it. Bars are impulse. Grab one on the way out. Toss it in your gym bag. Eat it standing in the kitchen at 9pm without opening a drawer for a spoon. Protein Pints already proved the brand works at pint volume. Now they are proving it works as a snackable single-serve format that opens entirely new occasions - post-workout, between meetings, after dinner when you just want something cold and sweet without wrecking macros. The expansion is not about adding SKUs. It is about owning more moments in the freezer aisle where consumers are making the same decision - do I want the thing that tastes good or the thing that fits my goals. Protein Pops removes the tradeoff. David Protein ran the same play in July - sold out online in 30 minutes, then rolled into Target with proof that the demand was real before the brand existed on a shelf. The pattern is not a coincidence. Functional frozen is the only category where you can validate consumer pull at small scale, then convert that proof into national distribution in the same year. Retailers are not gambling on protein ice cream anymore. They are watching which brands move fastest and giving them more doors. Protein Pints just showed them the data. Paul Reiss Michael Meadows Chris McKellar Sandy Blumberg

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Most MSG removals were label decisions that got handed to product teams as flavor problems. The briefs came from retailer clean label programs, from marketing, from a consumer perception that hardened twenty years before the science settled. None of those origins are about taste. They are about what the pack says. And none of them were evidence based. Blinded studies never reproduced the symptoms attributed to MSG, and EFSA's own reassessment kept glutamates authorized. What the industry removed was not a safety risk. It was three letters on an ingredient list that tested badly with consumers. That distinction determines whether the project succeeds, and almost nobody states it at the start. If the objective is the label, then the yeast extract swap is rational. The entry changes, the umami mostly survives, and the brief is closed. If the objective is the product, the swap fails, because it replaces one glutamate source with another and inherits the same limitation. Glutamate delivers intensity. It does not deliver complexity. MSG worked in these formulations by flattening a lot of variables at once. Remove it and you do not lose one note. You lose the thing that was holding an underbuilt profile together. Yeast extract at higher dosage returns the intensity and adds a signature of its own, which is why so many reformulated products converge on the same character. The products that came through this well used yeast extract as one input rather than as the replacement, alongside vegetable concentrates contributing sulfur compounds and Maillard products the glutamate route cannot reach. More inputs, smaller doses, no single ingredient carrying the profile. The commercial lesson is not about umami. It is about what happens when a label objective is handed to a team and read as a flavor objective. Ask which one you are actually being asked to solve. The answer changes the budget, the timeline, and whether the product survives the relaunch.

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🔥 Another Billion-Dollar Signal: Kimberly-Clark to Acquire Kenvue ($48.7B) Kimberly-Clark’s $48.7B acquisition of Kenvue (the former Johnson & Johnson consumer arm) is more than a mega-deal, it’s a signal of where the CPG world is heading. A few reflections from our lens at Homegrown Ventures: 1️⃣ Scale still wins – Combining trusted consumer brands under one global engine redefines competitive moats. 2️⃣ Execution > Brand Alone – Kenvue’s struggles show that even iconic portfolios need operational excellence to unlock value. 3️⃣ Open runway for regional challengers – As multinationals consolidate, nimble #MENA brands that deeply understand local consumers will find new room to rise. The message is clear: build real brands, execute with precision, and own your niche before the giants arrive. #HomegrownVentures #CPG #FMCG #MENA #ConsumerBrands #Investing #ScaleWhatMatters https://lnkd.in/dzWQPHsc

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New Reality for CPG I have been having conversations with brand leaders lately, and it’s a tough time to be in large CPG. The headwinds just keep coming: - Economic pressure and cost of living crisis forcing shoppers to trade down. - Retailers doubling down on quality private label - Declining brand loyalty and barriers to switching disappearing. - Challenger brands premiumizing categories, chipping away at legacy share - Reduced food demand driven by GLP-1 Did I miss anything because this is getting dark! And this isn’t just a North America or Europe problem anymore. Talking to brand leaders in the Middle East, I am seeing early signs of the same pressures emerging, fueled by private label expansion and the rocket-fueled growth of discounters in Saudi and UAE So… now what? I keep going back to a comment Anton Vincent, President of Mars North America, made during his fireside chat at Groceryshop: “𝘍𝘪𝘹 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯, 𝘯𝘰 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨-𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘵𝘩.” Here’s where I believe the focus needs to shift: 1️⃣ 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Is Your Premium Justified? Take a brutally honest look at your offering. Is there truly a compelling reason for consumers to pay a premium vs. private label? Are you justifying price because of actual value, or because of the equity you believe your brand still has? If the answer isn’t clear, it’s time to defund, simplify, and redirect resources to where the brand can win. 2️⃣ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐄𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 Most marketing budgets are split between: Driving growth & Maintaining the baseline The second bucket has ballooned over the years. Maybe it’s time to ask what is truly baseline maintenance, and what activities are just legacy habits? Should we be going back to ZBB (Zero Based Budgeting) 3️⃣ 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Stop Fixing Structural Problems with Flavor Drops. Another flavor or line extension won’t fix a broken foundation. Too often, innovation becomes a short-term sell-in tactic rather than a long-term consumer solution. If it diverts scarce resources away from the core problem, time to reconsider. 4️⃣ 𝐑𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 You are competing with founder-led narratives and Build-In-Public storytelling on one side and brutally simple private-label messaging on the other. If your brand story isn’t authentic, distinctive, and consistent, your premium will erode. Fixing the baseline isn’t sexy, but it’s necessary. Because without a strong foundation, no amount of innovation, brand activity, or retail media spend will deliver long-term growth. What are your thoughts?

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Growth in #cpg feels harder today not because ambition is lacking, but because many of the old playbooks no longer travel well across markets. In "After the sugar rush: a new path to CPG #growth," we argue that the next surge of growth requires more than incremental tweaks - it calls for a clearer view of where growth really comes from, and how different market #archetypes demand different answers Global CPG priorities have stark implications in #AsiaPacific. Many APAC markets combine rapid #demand growth with fragmented channels, uneven data, and very local #execution realities. The opportunity isn't to import developed-market #RGM models wholesale, but rather to adapt them - pairing global discipline with local judgment, and #analytics with on-the-ground #commercial instincts. Grateful to have co-written this with my PwC US Consumer Markets colleagues Alison Furman, Carla DeSantis, Samrat Sharma, Shub Goswami and Sudhanshu Shekhar. Have a read: https://lnkd.in/gEbEmC5B 🙌 Curious to hear how others are seeing CPG growth #strategies evolve globally, and across Asia Pacific #pwc #consumermarkets #commercialexcellence #asiapacific

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