Odele Raises, Mars Buys Some Chocolat 🍫

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CPG WIRE
November 18, 2023

Welcome back to This Week in CPG, folks. Here’s what we’re covering this morning:

  • Brown-Forman divests (again) 🥃

  • Plant Press grabs $1.2M ⚡️

  • G FUEL secures 8-figures 💰

  • BeatBox partners with Flow 🍸

  • Something new from Luna Bay 🆕

Shout-out to our sponsor Numeral for making e-comm sales taxes an afterthought.

If you’re interested in sponsoring the newsletter, feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected] 🙂 

The Big Story 📰

Masstige hair care brand Odele landed a minority investment from Stride Consumer Partners, a Boston-based growth equity firm. 

Founded in 2020 by Lindsay Holden, Britta Chatterjee, and Shannon Kearney, Odele has built a formidable business by selling prestige hair care products at affordable prices. Two of their best-selling products — the Volumizing Shampoo and Leave-In Detangling Tonic — retail for $11.99 and $10.99, respectively. You’ll notice that the branding is terrific, especially for a brand that retails in that price range.

Odele now boasts a range of over 20 products and has begun pushing into new categories like body care. Their retail roster features a number of blue chippers like CVS, Target, and Ulta Beauty. For 2023, Odele’s revenue grew 55% year-to-year to a reported $30M. 

With fresh funding to invest into product innovation, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Odele accelerate its category expansion efforts. Odele has built trust among consumers with their clean hair care products, now it’s time to leverage that trust and catapult deeper into personal care and possibly even skin care. 

Harry’s has done a masterful job of category expansion, and I imagine Odele has the brand equity and momentum to follow suit.

Stride Consumer Partners will be an ideal partner for Odele during their next phase of growth. They’ve famously helped brands like Chomp, Skinfix, and Yasso go from scrappy upstarts to category leaders.

Sales tax isn’t everyone’s cup of tea 📠

Shark Tank brand The Woobles tried managing sales tax themselves. While it was fine early on, they grew faster than ever, and soon Adrian (co-founder) was wasting dozens of hours on spreadsheets, trying to figure out sales tax.

They tried using Avalara but it fell short as well. That’s when they switched to Numeral and haven’t looked back since.

Deals 💰

Mergers & Acquisitions 

  • Confectionery giant Mars has acquired Hotel Chocolat, the largest independent chocolate maker in the UK, for $662M. The current CEO of Hotel Chocolat, Angus Thirlwell, and its co-founder, Peter Harris, will each receive £144M. Earlier this year, Mars spent $800M to acquire Kevin’s Natural Foods, and late last year, they purchased Utah-based confectionery brand Tru Fru for an undisclosed sum. Reuters

  • Brown-Forman has divested yet another brand. The Kentucky-based spirits giant agreed to sell Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards to The Duckhorn Portfolio for $400M. Earlier this month, Brown-Forman sold Finlandia Vodka for $220M. The spirits firm is eager to focus on higher growth categories like tequila, rum, and whiskey. Business Wire

  • Dutch spirits brand Hermit Coastal Gin was acquired by two entrepreneurs — Noah Duijst and Siward de Groot — who hope to make it a global brand. The super-premium gin retails for $43 and is currently available in 12 countries. The Spirits Business

Fundraising

  • Plant Press, a better-for-you energy drink brand, raised $1.2M in seed funding. Investors include former Tory Burch CMO Miki Berardelli along with a number of musicians. Plant Press features 100% organic caffeine and various vitamins and electrolytes. BevNET

  • G FUEL, a gamer-focused energy drink brand, secured an 8-figure investment from Kingswood Capital Management and First Bev. In addition to the fundraise, G FUEL also announced that Bryan Crowley — the former CEO of ZenWTR and Soylent — was named CEO. First Bev has backed a number of category leading beverage brands including Essentia, Health-Ade, and Q Mixers. Business Wire

  • Star footballer Reece James has invested in Mighty Slice, a UK-based producer of high-protein desserts. Mighty Slice’s cheesecake products contain 16 grams of protein and only 6 grams of sugar. Good-looking packaging, too. Instagram

What’s New 🤩

Apparel, Beauty, Luxury, and Wellness

  • High-end camera manufacturer Leica is expanding into a new category — luxury watches. Some of the watches are quite good-looking, but I don’t know if they warrant the $15K+ price tag. Financial Times 

  • Creed, the heritage fragrance brand that Kering acquired for €3.5B earlier this year, opened a permanent boutique in London’s Covent Garden. Love the exterior but the interior seems pretty standard for a luxury fragrance brand. The Industry 

  • HOKA collaborated with luxury running label Satisfy to reimagine their popular Clifton sneaker which will retail for $225. Another stellar collab from Satisfy who has been on a roll lately. WWD

  • Rhode, the beauty brand founded by Hailey Bieber, launched its extremely popular Peptide Lip Tint in a jelly bean flavor. Instagram

Food, Beverage, and Alcohol

  • Fast-growing bev alc company BeatBox and Flow Beverage Corp have entered into a manufacturing agreement. Flow, which is known for its boxed water products, will manufacture BeatBox products for the next five years. The agreement with generate around $115M for Flow. Just Drinks

  • Top of the Mornin’ Coffee unveiled a festive flavor for the holidays — Frosted Cookie Coffee. Beautiful packaging 🔽 Instagram 

  • Luna Bay Booch Co., a Chicago-based seller of hard kombucha and hard teas, launched a new non-alcoholic line of Tea Mocktails. Three flavors are available: Blueberry Mint Mojito, Mango Mule, and Raspberry Rambler. Love the packaging. BevNET

Data 🖥️

  • More fascinating energy drink data…Celsius volume up 124% over the four week period ending on November 4th, while C4 jumped 55.1% and Alani Nu increased by 59.2%. BevInsights

Distribution News 🚚

  • Vegan cheese brand Palace Culture is now available at Waitrose.

  • Caffeinated breath spray brand Pzaz launched at 7-Eleven.

  • Non-alcoholic aperitif brand De Soi launched at Harmons Grocery.

  • Oatly launched two products at Insomnia Cookies.