Unilever Lists Ice Cream Biz, Ellsworth Joins DropOut 👀

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

• EU approves Kellanova deal 🥨

• L’Oreal doubles stake in Galderma 💉

• Tekla opens London store 🔥

• Unwell expands energy range ⚡️

• Be Amazing lands at Kroger 🥕

Deals 💰

Mergers & Acquisitions 

• Unilever’s newly spun-off ice cream division, The Magnum Ice Cream Company, officially listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange. Secondary listings in New York and London will soon follow. The company currently has a market cap around $9B and expects revenue to grow between 3-5%. It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds for Magnum (compared to other Big CPG spin offs). CNBC

• Mars finally received unconditional approval from the European Commission for its $36B acquisition of Kellanova. The pending acquisition is expected to close on December 11, 2025. The combined snack division will have 9 billion-dollar brands under one roof. Business Wire

• L’Oreal continues to make big moves. After acquiring Kering’s beauty division for over $4.5B towards the end of October, the French beauty giant just upped its stake in Galderma to 20%. The package of roughly 24 million shares has a value around $4.8B. Galderma, a leader in injectable aesthetics, also owns a number of consumer skincare brands like Cetaphil and ALASTIN. WSJ

Fundraising

• Yuv, a London-based startup that created a Keurig-like hair coloring system for professional hairstylists, closed a $12M Series A round led by Sweden’s Nineyards Equity. Other participants include VNV Global and a variety of strategic angel investors. In October, Yuv went on BBC’s Dragons’ Den and secured £500K at a £25M valuation. WWD

• Melt & Marble, a Swedish startup that uses precision fermentation to produce lipid and fat alternatives, secured €7.3M in a funding round led by Industrifonden. EIC, Beiersdorf, Chalmers Ventures, and Catalyze Capital also participated in the round. Melt & Marble will use the funding to scale its food & personal care solutions. Tech Funding News

• Anti Fund, a venture vehicle co-founded by Jake Paul and Geoffrey Woo, raised $30M for its next fund. Logan Paul also joined the firm as a General Partner. Anti Fund has made a number of prescient AI and Fintech investments but they also have a lot of consumer investments like Khloud, Happy Dad, W, Oats Overnight, and SipMargs. Twitter

The Art of Seeding & Gifting 🎁

One of the most underrated growth levers in influencer marketing is seeding and gifting.

Seeding and gifting simply involves sending free product to creators with no strings attached. It’s an art form when done well, and the best brands treat it like relationship building, not free marketing.

Seeding (when done the right way) becomes a top-of-funnel flywheel that fuels both organic reach and paid social content. It’s how you discover your next wave of brand fans and your next batch of paid creators.

Josh Durham and the team over at Aligned Growth Management just dropped a free guide breaking down everything you need to know about building and scaling a seeding program.

Aligned Growth Management has worked with brands like Ghost Energy, OWYN, Bachan’s, Electrolit, Divi, and countless others.

You can access the free guide here.

What’s New 🤩

Apparel, Cosmetics, and Wellness

• HexClad collaborated with Still G.I.N. on a pretty badass cocktail shaker. The shaker comes in two colors — chrome and gold — and it’s vacuum-insulated so your fingers won’t freeze off while mixing a cocktail. The launch campaign featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Gordon Ramsay is fun. Complex

• Gap joined forces with Summer Fridays to launch a 20-piece apparel collection. The collection includes soft knits, fleece sets, matching pajamas, and giftable accessories. Barbie Ferreira is the face of the collab. Instagram

• Danish home textiles company Tekla recently opened a beautiful store in Marylebone. It’s their first store in the UK and their first outside of Copenhagen. Wallpaper

• Crown Affair is launching a new product in early January. The popular haircare brand is currently seeding samples to influencers ahead of the launch. Instagram

Food, Beverage, and Alcohol

• DropOut Companies, the Nashville-based consumer brand incubator behind JAMS & BRONCO, just added Poppi co-founder Stephen Ellsworth as an Operating Partner. Conner Blakely and Josh Franko launched DropOut Companies in 2023 and the company launched its first brand, JAMS, at Walmart and Target earlier this year. Ellsworth will leverage his expertise in brand building, product innovation, and strategic scaling to support DropOut’s mission of reimagining childhood classics for today's families. LinkedIn

• Once Upon a Coconut just announced a partnership with beverage incubator L.A. Libations. Once Upon a Coconut already has solid distribution across the U.S. but L.A. Libations will take them to another level in terms of distribution and merchandising. Smart move. Instagram

• TANICA is a plum-based aperitif brand from Australia that recently relaunched with updated packaging and messaging. The new bottle and slightly asymmetrical label are nice touches. Tom Baker, the founder of Mr Black, is a mentor to founder Adriane McDermott. LinkedIn

• UNWELL is diving deeper into the energy drink category with a new flavor: Passion Fruit Orange Guava. UNWELL dipped its toe into the energy drink space in November with an LTO flavor and now they’re doubling down on it. Instagram

• Oatside, a fast-growing purveyor of oat milk across Southeast Asia, recently launched a line of oat cereal bars. Three flavors are available. Oatside is backed by Temasek and GGV Capital. Instagram

Data 🖥️

• Austin-based GoodPop retails at 10,000 stores across the U.S. and brought in more than $63M in gross sales in 2024. Daniel Goetz starting selling his clean popsicles at farmers markets in 2009. CNBC

• A2 dairy latte brand Laurel’s surpassed 7-figures in sales in its first full year of business. The brand recently launched nationwide at Whole Foods Market and will add Target and Kroger in 2026. A2 dairy has been on a roll. Instagram

Distribution News 🚚

• Rhinestone launched at Sprouts Farmers Market in Arizona.

• Be Amazing launched its canned greens drink at Kroger.

• Smearcase launched at Harmons in Utah.

• Smash Foods launched at Jewel-Osco and Shaw’s.

• RYSE Energy Drink hit shelves at Delta Sonic.