Unilever's $1.2B War Chest Deploys, David's Lawsuit Dropped, and $1M in 5 Minutes

Two weeks ago I said every beauty and wellness founder should have their deal room ready. This week Unilever spent $1.2 billion on a supplement brand that didn't exist three years ago. Called it.

This week on Unpackaged Goods:

Unilever acquired Grüns for $1.2 billion — its first acquisition since merging food with McCormick and pocketing $15.7 billion in cash. Founded in 2023, Grüns scaled to $300M ARR in under three years, ships 10 million gummies daily, and has 95% repeat usage at 4-6x per week. Unilever didn't buy a supplement brand. They bought a daily habit. And they still have $14.5 billion left to spend.

In the same week, David Protein's class action lawsuit was dropped — the Mean Girls comparisons, the bomb calorimetry debate, Peter Rahal's "no one is getting Regina Georged" — it's all over. The science won. The social media outrage lost. David immediately launched at Costco across five states. But co-founder and former President Zach Ranen quietly left in February to start something new. The lawsuit is over. The Costco expansion is on. And the co-founder departure opens a chapter worth watching closely.

In this episode I break down:

→ Unilever's $1.2B Grüns acquisition — why the 95% repeat usage stat made Unilever write a billion-dollar check
→ The Unilever wellness portfolio map: OLLY, SmartyPants, Liquid I.V., Nutrafol, Grüns — each filling a specific daily habit slot
→ $14.5B still in the war chest — sleep, gut health, longevity, and women's health are the obvious next targets
→ The Puig x Estée Lauder $40B merger update — founding families meeting this week to finalize terms
→ David Protein's biggest week — lawsuit dropped, Costco launch across five states, co-founder exits. What Zach Ranen builds next might matter more than the Costco expansion
→ Reale Actives doing $1M in sales in under 5 minutes — the creator-to-brand pipeline produces launch velocity tradit

Transcript

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You're watching Unpackaged Goods. I'm your host, Jonathan Dieter. Welcome back. So there's been a ton of M ⁇ A news. Unilever's been on a haul. So two weeks ago I said every beauty and wellness brand needs to have their data room ready because Unilever has had$15 billion worth of fresh capital from the McCormick deal to deploy. And a week later, sure enough, they announced the deal with Grunz. So we're going to get into that. We're going to get into some celebrity brands that have had to restructure. Uh we're going to talk about some fundraises and some fun brands to try. So uh if you haven't yet, please subscribe to our newsletter. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at DeetsEatsNYC. And yeah, let's get it going. So welcome back to Unpackaged Goods. All right, so the headline of the week. Unilever, Unilever acquires grunts for$1.2 billion. So I don't want to say I called this two weeks ago, but I called it two weeks ago. Their first acquisition since merging with McCormick. And in that deal, they pocketed$15 billion in cash. Fresh capital to deploy to beauty and wellness. Two weeks ago in the Dieter Digest, our newsletter, I wrote, even if 10% of that goes to beauty and wellness, every category in those every founder in those categories should have their data room ready. I didn't expect the first check to be this soon, but I'm not surprised it went to a supplement company like Gruns. Gruns, Gruns, I've heard it pronounced a million different ways. So you're gonna hear it a couple different ways on this podcast because I flip-flop. Because I flip-flop. So uh right, let's put my mouse a little bit closer. Let's rip it, let's roll. So the Grunz story. Chad Janice started this back in his dorm room when he was an MBA student at Stanford. He started in 2023 because he realized that there was not only a white space in the green space, a need for a product that addressed a habit. So he created green supplements in gummy bear format. He scaled it to$300 million in revenue in under three years. They ship 10 million gummies a day, and they have over a million customers. They have 7,000 retail doors, including Costco, and they were valued at$500 million in their Series B in 2025. And according to them, 95% of their customers used it four to six times a week. Let me stop on that last stat. 95% usage at four to six times a week. That's the single most important number in the deal. That number is why Unilever paid$1.2 billion. So why that matters so much? Supplements have a notorious adherence problem. Most people buy a bottle, take it for two weeks, forget about it, and it collects dust. You've probably done that before. I know I have. Grin solved Grin solved the adherence problem by making it fun in a format that's enjoyable, which for a lot of people is gummy bears. It's nostalgic. It's cute. When 95% of your customers use your product almost every single day, you build a daily habit, not a supplement brand. Daily habits are predictable revenue, and predictable revenue commands premium prices, commands premium valuations. Unle even knows this because they already own the playbook. Let's check out who else they own. Their wellness portfolio includes Ollie, the gummy vitamins, SmartyPants, the premium vitamins, Liquid IV, Hydration Company, which now is over a billion dollars in revenue. They have Neutroph, which is a hair company, and now they add grunts, a greens and daily wellness company. Every acquisition fills a specific habit slot. Unilever is building the complete Unilever is building the complete wellness cabinet. Every morning ritual, every daily supplement, every functional need. One company. CEO Fernando Fernandez says two-thirds of sales coming from beauty and wellness. And every acquisition is going to build towards that target. Liquid IV took roughly seven years to reach a Unilever exit. Gruns did it in three. They were founded in 2023, hit a$500 million valuation in 2025, and they exited for$1.2 billion. The timeline keeps compressing. So what comes next? Unilever still has roughly$14.5 billion in their war chest. And the white spaces in their portfolio are pretty odd. Sleep supplements, they don't own sleep yet. Gut health, beyond what Gruns already covers. Longevity, category that IM8 and Novo's labs are building. Women's health. The roadmap is sitting right in front of you. The lesson for founders Unilever didn't pay$1.2 billion for just a supplement brand. They paid for a daily habit. Same reason they paid for liquid IV, a daily hydration habit. Same reason they paid for neutrophil, a daily hair health habit. Same reason they paid for Ollie, a daily vitamin habit. Pattern is unmistaked. The format matters as much as the formulation. Gummy bears solved the adherence problem. The pills couldn't. Enjoyability drives consistency. Consistency drives repeat purchases. And repeat purchases drive valuation numbers. Segment two, Puig and Estee Lauder. So we've talked about this. We're gonna talk about it some more because it's gonna be a big one. So the founding families of Puig and Estee Lauder met last week to discuss their potential$40 billion merger. According to Reuters, they hope to reach an agreement in the next couple of weeks. So we've been tracking this for a few weeks now. It started as exploratory, then serious conversations. Now the families are at the table. The trajectory is unmistakable. So why this deal makes so much sense? Let's read. Stie Lauder's stock is down nearly 75% over five years. At the top, this merger would have been unthinkable. At the bottom, it's the smartest move available. Puig owns Charlotte Tilbury, Barrido, Dr. Barbara Stern, Rabani. They have the best contemporary prestige portfolio in beauty. And SD Lauder owns Clinique, Mac, Tom Ford Beauty, La Mer, Bobby Brown, Legacy, the Legacy Prestige Portfolio plus Global Distribution. Together, they rival L'Oreal across prestige makeup, skincare, and fragrance. So what to watch for this week? The family governance structure is the make or break. The family governance structure is the make or break issue. Both families want control. Both families have decades tied to their brands. How they structure shared governance, board seats, voting rights, executive appointments determines whether this deal closes. If they can find a governance structure that both families except the deal happens. If either family feels like they're losing control of their legacy, it falls apart. So the mega merger context. This is happening alongside some other big headlines we've seen, like Unilever and McCormick and the Prenode and Brown Foreman. Spirits mega merger talk. Three categories food, beauty, spirits, all consolidating through mega mergers simultaneously. The era of independent, mid-sized company in any CPG categories, and you're either building to get acquired or you're building to acquire. There's less and less middle ground. Alrighty, this is a big one. Segment three. David has been in the headlines for multiple things the last couple of weeks. Now, some positive news, and they're on the end. So the David Protein saga just took its biggest turn yet. Three things happened simultaneously. First, the class action lawsuit was dropped. This was the lawsuit that consumed the internet. The mean girl comparison, the bomb calmormity, I will still never pronounce that right. The bomb calormidity debate, Peter Rahol's no one is getting Regina George tier. Response, it's over. Rahol maintained from the start the testing methodology was he argued that bomb calormidity isn't appropriate for products that contain ES, a fat substitute that the body doesn't digest. FDA permits different they permit different caloric calculations for ingredients like ESG. He argued that bomb calormidity isn't appropriate for products including EG, a fat substitute that the body doesn't digest. However, the FDA permits different caloric calculations for products including for ingredients like EPG. Dismissal vindicates her hool's position. The science won, the social media outrage lost. The second big thing that happened, they launched at Costco this week. Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas. Costco is arguably the most validation heavy retailer in America. Their buyers are notoriously rigorous. The fact that Costco moved forward even while the lawsuit was going on, and now after the dismissal, tells you the retail buyers never lost. If anything, the controversy drove massive awareness. Everyone knows who and what David Protein bars are. And third, co-founder Zach Rannon quietly left in February. So he was the former president and he left to do something new. The timing during the company's most turbulent period raises questions. Ronan was instrumental in building the brand from scratch. When a co-founder and former president leaves during a crisis and immediately starts building something different, there's a deeper story that'll come out. We'll be watching this one close. The broader lesson here David survived its first real crisis. Asu drop, Costco expanding, brand moves forward. But the co-founder departure is the real long-term signal. But the co-founder departure is the more important long-term signal. What Ronin builds next, what might tell us more about might tell us more about David's future than the con then the Costco launched us. Segment four, the velocity phenomenon. So we coined this term. We're gonna keep keep talking about it. So real actives and little spoon. These are two stories we gotta talk about. So if you're living under a rock, you don't know what real actives is. It's Alex Earl's skincare brand. She has been notorious for documenting her struggle with acne and her skin struggles through all of her get ready's with me. She's been very open about her struggle with her skincare. And so um, this makes a lot of sense to launch a skincare-focused brand. She's backed by Imaginary Ventures, and they did 1 million in sales in nearly five minutes. POV Beauty, another Imaginary Ventures-backed brand, did 1 million in 8 million, eight minutes. Imaginary Ventures is becoming the factory for creator-led brands. Bureau, POV Beauty, and now real active. The acne positioning is personal. She's been open about her skincare journey, and that authenticity can't be manufactured. But the question I always ask with creator launches and celebrity launches is what happens in month two, month three? Trials easy when you have the most the most influential Gen Z creator in America. Repeat purchases everything, as we've been talking about. The 1 million in five minutes tells you about the audience. The month six number tells you about the product. Little Spoon, they did, they're doing one million a week at Target in under six months. So they just surpassed the weekly one million a week target in under six months of launching at the retailer. And they did 150 million in D to C before getting into retail. And they expanded into Target with an assortment of six new SKUs. This is the more important velocity story because it proves something different. Real actives proves that creator audiences convert instantly. Little Spoon proves that strong DTC, strong D2C brands can accelerate in retail, not just Serva. Little Spoon didn't need Target to find customers. Target needed Little Spoon to attract. When your D2C product already proved the business, retail becomes a velocity multiple. The 2026 Velocity Scorecard. Gruns, 300 million ARR in under three years,$500 million valuation and$1.2 billion X. IM8,$100 million in 11 months. Marsman,$100 million in 18 months. Chomps, approaching$900 million. Kilgore MD,$40 million in one year. Little Spoon,$1 million a week at Target in six months. Real Actives,$1 million in five. And Shades,$15 million in under a year. Every single one solved a specific daily problem for a specific consumer. Not one tried to be everything to everyone. Segment five, the habit versus the hype divide. So I want to take two stories from this week. I want to juxtapose two stories from this week because the contrast is the entire thesis of this newsletter, podcast, whatever you want to call all of this, in one frame. So the Grun's exit to Unilever,$1.2 billion exit, 95% repeat usage, four to six times per week, 10 million gummies shipped daily, 1 million plus customers, daily habit built into consumer routines. Founded in 2023, exited in 2026. Under three years. And then you have Michael B. Jordan's brand, Moss. They're restructuring right now, and the operations are paused. So this is Michael B. Jordan's C MOS brand. Had huge celebrity awareness, culturally relevant, star power, and they're hitting pause to figure out what went wrong. Same week, same industry, same general wellness category, opposite outcomes. The difference is always the same. Grunz built a daily habit. Moss built awareness. Grunz has 95% repeat. Moss had a famous founder. Grun ships 10 million gummies a day because people need them and want them every morning. Moss shipped when people remember it exists. The$1.2 billion gap is the real difference between a product people use and a product people thought about buying. The celebrity CPG scorecard keeps getting more keeps getting more polarized. Polarized. Segment six, Target expanding THC into over 70 stores in Minneapolis. So I think this is a category signal worth spending some time on. Target is tripling their THC beverages to 70 plus stores, expanding from 10 stores in Minneapolis to over 70 across Minnesota. Brands include Can, Heiseltzer, Wink. When Target triples a test after six months, the Velocity data spoke very clearly. This is how categories go from niche to normal. One really one retailer commitment at a time. Expect more states as regulations allow. So Good Pop released fruit sours. So so sour and candy inspired frozen novelty items are up 130 per 137% year to since fruit riot launch. Good pop is launching fruit sours with a patent pending sour candy coating with a patent pending sour candy coating at Whole Foods, Target at Whole Foods, Wegmans, H E B, and Costco in the Bay Area. Frozen Isle is having a functional and experimental moment simultaneously. Oh, I really want to pop this pimple. Pop that pimple. Mm-mm. Should we pop the pimple in the pod? I wish I had a live stream, people in the chat being like, do it, do it, pop the pimple on the street. How do I start Dorchester Gun? Oh yeah. So this is big news in the spirits business. M MGP ingredients is pausing whiskey for a year. So two Kentucky distilleries are going quiet starting May 1st. The American whiskey categories oversupplied. When producers actively cut when producers actively cut supply, the category is in real correction mode. This is the opposite signal that we see from supplements, energy and protein. These categories are supply constrained from demand. Whiskey is demand constrained from oversupply. The newest cottage cheese brand is here and they launched at Walmart. So Mulu. They are the high, they are the highest protein cottage cheese brand, apparently, with 18 grams per serving. So the cottage cheese renaissance gets more functional with the new entrance. And they're backed and they're backed by Dairy Farmers of America. And they're backed by Dairy Farmers of America. The category standard is 12 to 14 grams. Mulu is 33% higher. That's a meaningful differentiation. Alrighty, rapid uh segment seven, rapid fire. Let's get it. Let's get it. Funding, launches, and distribution. Let's get into it. So the Botox Clinic Peachy, they scored an investment from Scribe. That's the firm that has backed Chomps, Tatra. So Peachy has 15 studios, the revenue is up 60%. It's the med spa meets the dry bar playbook for Botox. And Botox is having a moment. Kadutz raised$3 million in seed funding. Selvis co-founder. Selva's founder is co-founder of the brand. Sold out in two hours. Nationwide retailer in two months. Singing pastures is backed by Bullish, the Warby Parker and the Warby Parker investor. Warby Parker investor enters meat sticks made with bone broth and collagen. Fruit, F-R-O-O-T, pops, close$1.5 million pounds in seed funding. And Ju J-U-U-Z. Close to seven figure seed round. This German for this German protein soda. So some launches worth noting. Hot Ones, the Hot S brand has expanded into barbecue sauce at Walmart, Kroger, H E B, category extension with a brand with built-in cultural relevance. Sprinter, Kylie Jenner's vodka soda drink, has pivoted to a collagen ready-to-drink or not ready to drink, just powder. H2O hydration moon brew launched sleep process creatine. This is interesting. I actually take creatine before I go to sleep. And like some people on the internet say how I find it helps me wake up in the morning. Like I'm ready to fucking go at 6 a.m. Um, obviously really helps with the muscle stuff, but um I get great sleep. Fat with magnesium. Alrighty, let's finish this. For Sigmatic and the Boys, creatine coffee made with Lion's vein. Hyundai has a brand refresh and also got an investment from Trey Young. The No Sugar Company launched Protein Plus Creatine Bars. Dos Homebrews is expanding into tequila. Rhodan Justin Bieber had a special Coachella collection, and Dip Tech refreshed their candle brand for the first time since 1963. Couple distribution quick hits. So David is Costco, we already talked about. Espo is at Whole Foods. Mush launched at Starbucks in 7 Eleven. Leobon expanded to a bunch of target stores, 1500 to be exact. Bureau's rolling out at Kroger, Habiza is at Albertson's in the Southwest. Clean Logic launched at 6,000 CVS stores. Throne is nationwide at Sheets. Love Sheets. We have one of those close to my mom's house. Love Sheets. We'll do a separate segment on Sheets. And then GR GNGR Labs in CVT or store right at ShopRite. Alrighty, so that's it. It was a pretty busy week. Uh we'll chop this up. We'll get this out. Uh we might have an interview to add, someone that's announcing a fundraise. So stay tuned. Um, if you haven't yet, please follow uh us on Instagram and TikTok at Deets Eats NYC. You can head to our link in bio to find our Substack, which is our newsletter, our podcast. If you're listening here, rate us five stars, leave us a review, please. It helps us get discovered by other listeners. So I really, really appreciate it. If you've made it this far, thank you so much. It means the world to me. Um, I it really does. Uh the fact that anyone listens to this means the world to me. So uh so excited. It's Monday. We're kicking the week off strong. Yep.