Paine Schwartz Buys Promix, The DoD Backs EVERY 🧪

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CPG WIRE
December 03, 2024

Welcome back to This Week in CPG, folks. Now that we’re beyond the Thanksgiving malaise things are beginning to pick up again. We have a lot of fun stuff to cover this morning so let’s dive in:

  • Supreme saves Typhoo Tea 🍵

  • DKG grabs £6.5M 🥃

  • Pyunkang Yul launches face towels 👀

  • Willa’s x French Squirrel collab ☕️

  • Jolie heads to Ulta Beauty 🚿

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Deals 💰

Mergers & Acquisitions 

  • Paine Schwartz Partners has acquired Promix, a fast-growing purveyor of vitamins and supplements, for an undisclosed sum. Founded by Albert Matheny and Devon Levesque, Promix is best known for its high-quality formulations and for eschewing ingredients like gums, fillers, gluten, soy, etc. Promix largely relies on DTC channels so there’s a considerable retail opportunity for the brand. PR Newswire

  • Supreme (LSE: SUP), a Manchester-based manufacturer of fast-moving consumer goods like batteries, vapes, and supplements, has saved Typhoo Tea from bankruptcy for the modest sum of £10M. Typhoo Tea is the oldest pre-packaged tea brand in the UK and is something of an icon. Analysts expect that Supreme will finish the fiscal year with £40M of EBITDA on £240M of revenue. Supreme is a small player in the RTD beverage space so I’m curious if we’ll see Typhoo in cans down the line. The Guardian

  • Canada’s Prime Drink Group has acquired Beach Day Every Day, a popular player in the spirits and RTD cocktail categories, for the aggregate amount of 22.5M CAD. With the acquisition of Beach Day Every Day, Prime Drink Group is closer to the $100M in annual revenue milestone. GlobeNewswire

  • TreeHouse Foods, a leading manufacturer of private label snacks and beverages, shelled out $205M to acquire Harris Tea, the largest private label tea packer in the United States. The acquisition includes two manufacturing facilities and 300 employees. Food Dive

Fundraising

  • The EVERY Company, a food tech startup that uses precision fermentation to produce various protein at industrial scale (or so it claims), raised $2M in funding from the Department of Defense. EVERY will use the $2M to explore US-based manufacturing. It’s becoming slightly more common for CPG startups to raise funding from government institutions. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded Little Sesame with a $2.2M grant to continue supporting organic chickpea farmers. Business Wire

  • Belfast-based spirits firm DKG raised £6.5M in a mix of debt & equity funding from Whiterock Capital. In addition to owning an e-commerce platform for wine & spirits along with a creative agency, DKG also owns a number of spirits brands like Kirker Irish Whiskey, Jawbox Gin, UKIYO Gin, and Born Irish Whiskey. Just Drinks

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What’s New 🤩

Apparel, Cosmetics, and Wellness

  • Korean beauty brand Pyunkang Yul just launched a range of single-use face towels. The towels are crafted with 100% pure cotton. They’re likely not too different from Clean Skin Club although their packaging is more premium. Instagram

  • Beauty brand ISAMAYA collaborated with Nike on a footwear collection inspired by ISAMAYA’s color palette. Two colorways, Nude and Deep Brown, are available. Hypebae

  • Luxury streetwear brand Off-White signed a fragrance and cosmetics licensing agreement with Interparfums. Earlier this year, LVMH sold Off-White to Bluestar Alliance, a brand management firm. WWD

Food, Beverage, and Alcohol

  • Willa’s Organic Oat Milk joined forces with French Squirrel to create a Peanut Butter Latte exclusively at Erewhon. Sounds incredible. The latte is available for the month of December. Instagram

  • There’s a new RTD soju brand from New Zealand called Jagiya Spirits. The packaging is fantastic. Very bullish on soju in RTD form. Instagram

  • Veso Aperitifs just released a beautiful new product — Miso Sweet Vermouth. The product was developed alongside Evie Negri-Albert, a popular recipe developer and content creator. Veso

  • Supplement brand Human Improvement reformulated their core protein powder range. Instead of using cricket protein as one of its key protein sources, Human Improvement now relies solely on pea protein from Ingredient Optimized. Stack3d

  • Burlap & Barrel released a range of wild single origin honeys in collaboration with the Jane Goodall Institute. The three raw, unfiltered honeys are sourced from Western Tanzania and a portion of the profits go to conserving critical habitats in the region. YouTube

  • Siete launched its first-ever baking mix with Concha Cooking Baking Mix. Siete does a lot of fun experimenting under their Small Batch banner. The festive packaging looks great too. Siete

Data 🖥️

  • J.M. Smucker’s stable of brands largely delivered in Q2. Uncrustables net sales grew 16%, Cafe Bustelo net sales jumped 20%, while Jif posted a more modest net sales bump of 5%. It’s wild that J.M. Smucker acquired Uncrustables for $1M in 1998 and the brand will surpass $900M in net sales at the end of the fiscal year. J.M. Smucker

Distribution News 🚚

  • Jolie launched their showerhead filters at Ulta Beauty.

  • Low-sugar ice cream brand Swee Creamery launched at Bristol Farms.

  • Happy Moose Juice launched at Nugget Markets in NorCal.

  • Swedish candy brand Goodis launched in the U.S.